April 22, 2026 • 23 mins
Is your rifle kit missing something? Ryan Gresham is on the floor of the 2026 NRA Annual Meetings in Houston with EOTech veteran John Bailey, and they're covering everything from why NODs and IR lasers have gone mainstream to the wave of new products EOTech dropped at SHOT Show.
This Gun Talk Nation is brought to you by Archon Firearms, Range Ready Studios, Silencer Central, and FN Firearms.
About Gun Talk Nation
Gun Talk Media's Gun Talk Nation with Ryan Gresham is a weekly multi-platform podcast that offers a fresh look at all things firearms-related. Featuring notable guests and a lot of laughs. Gun Talk Nation is available as an audio podcast or in video format.
For more content from Gun Talk Media, visit guntalk.com or subscribe on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, and X. Catch First Person Defender on the new Official FPD YouTube channel. Watch Gun Talk Nation on its new YouTube channel. Catch Gun Talk Hunt on the new dedicated YouTube Channel. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.
Copyright ©2026 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Nation 04.22.26
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
This Gun Talk Nation is brought to you by Archon Firearms, Range Ready Studios, Silencer Central, and FN Firearms.
About Gun Talk Nation
Gun Talk Media's Gun Talk Nation with Ryan Gresham is a weekly multi-platform podcast that offers a fresh look at all things firearms-related. Featuring notable guests and a lot of laughs. Gun Talk Nation is available as an audio podcast or in video format.
For more content from Gun Talk Media, visit guntalk.com or subscribe on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, and X. Catch First Person Defender on the new Official FPD YouTube channel. Watch Gun Talk Nation on its new YouTube channel. Catch Gun Talk Hunt on the new dedicated YouTube Channel. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.
Copyright ©2026 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Nation 04.22.26
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My dad has always said there's no such thing as
a cheap hobby. So like it doesn't matter what your
hobby is. It's like, oh, I'm just fishing. Well, you
can fish with a zeb COO three, but then all
of a sudden you're having to buy a bass boat.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I think about watch guy.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I don't wear watches, but yeah, these, yeah, high end watches.
You know, you can't just have one. I don't want
to have just.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
You're not a watch guy. If you only have what
you just are a guy who owns a watch. I'm
Ryan Gresham and this this is Guntognation. Guntognation is brought
(00:43):
to you by Arcan Firearms, Range Ready, Silence are Central
and FN. Hey, welcome in a guntognation Today on Guntognation,
we are on location in Houston, Texas, yeehaw for the
the INTERRA Annual Meetings aka the Interra Show twenty twenty
(01:04):
six and I'm with my good buddy JB. John Bailey Eotech.
You've been in a lot of these.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah, you know, it was funny. We just talked about
that my first year. It was like twenty twenty two
or twenty o two oh two. Yeah, we were in
a ten foot booth. I manned it all by myself,
and yeah, it was so crazy because it was it
was a smaller event, but I just remember herds of
people like just blocking and they couldn't even get past,
(01:37):
so they were just like traffic jammed right in front
of you. And it was constant for Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Now it's a bigger event, people spread out a lot,
but it was ridiculous back then to be one person,
you know, showing those for three days is.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Just one person in any booth, even if it's a
small booth, like you know, like I can't go to
the bathroom, right, how does this gonna work?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it was funny too that that same first year,
there's a like a local knife guy that was next
to us. So he was sitting in a chair for
three days with a massive cooler of beer. Next show,
and I'm doing by saying in every like twenty minutes
out of here. You know, he's just time. He had
(02:19):
the best er Ra show ever.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You know, this is that's funny you bring that up
because there is a there's a bit of behind the
scenes of these types of shows where it's like, dude,
I've had it. You go to the booth where the
people are from Kentucky and they've got moonshine. Yeah, and
it's like known, like, let me stop in. What kind
of moonshine did you bring this time?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Here's a little.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Sip, right, you know there's a little bit of that
going on behind the scenes. Yeah, I mean pro tips
sometimes at the NRA show because it is open the public,
they they do there are certain booths that sell product.
I don't know if you guys sell product. We don't know, okay,
but like certainly like a pair of roll knives, holsters
or whatever, dependent if the company pro tip for everybody listening,
(03:06):
if the company is selling those types of items and
they're not like driving distance to the Terra Show Sunday afternoon, dude,
it's it's like seventy percent off.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Go pick up, So nobody wants to go home with
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You're like, dude, we are selling it all. I don't
want to pack us up and then you can pick
up some deals even.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Uh, you know this isn't for the consumer the attendee
that's walking around, but even from a manufacturer standpoint, like
the last year or even no, it is this past year,
wyley X was right next to us. Yeah, they're like,
we don't want to come home with any of these.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So you know, I saw it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
There's like sunglass, range glasses, sunglasses. It's like perfect, Yeah, yeah,
you never know.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I mean, I will encourage you guys to show up
to these types of things the NRA Show. So this
year it's in Houston twenty twenty seven. I believe it's
going to be in Atlanta again. So if you're listening
to this and you're thinking I have never been or
it's been a long time, plan it because it's it's fun.
I mean, we work it and we have fun doing it.
(04:08):
I would come here even not working it. I'd be like,
this is fun, like just walk around stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And this year in particular, I believe, especially you know,
a little biased because we have a lot of new products.
But I think shot show for all the dealers, there's
a lot of new stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Out, really cool things to see, which.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Normally in the last couple of years, I don't think
there's a lot of new like innovative stuff, but there's
really some cool stuff out. So now you can see
your brands that you like, but also really see some
cool new stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Well, the fact matter is your local gun shop can't
carry all the stuff, right with all the pistols, all
the optics, all the rifles whatever. They can't carry it.
They can't stock it all right, And so like you're
gonna you know, you're hey, guys secret. Your gun dealer
may have some favorite brands and he's like, you know, oh,
(04:57):
I hate, I don't know, pick somebody because this one
time in nineteen ninety eight something happened. So you're not
seeing all the different brands. So this is a place
where you can touch them, hold them, you know, use them. Yeah,
they go oh wow.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, and that dealer of theirs typically will buy direct
from the brands that they really like and support, and
then they also have access to that wholesale group. So
you might walk this and find a you know, a
Henry rifle you love, Yeah, and they could buy it
through wholesale. And so now you're exposed. You get to
kind of feel and check it all out here and
(05:31):
then go back to your dealer and they can if
they don't have it in stock, they can just order
it for you.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So yeah, so really well, and you can also ask
all these questions of like you know, okay, John Bailey,
this guy works at eotech. He knows everything about it, right, Like,
tell me about holographic sites versus you know the regular
you know, led red dot site stuff and you can go, yeah,
pros and cons.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
You'll never get information like that from a dealer. They
know about the product that they don't know it in
side and out like like I do or our both
people do. So it's really good to get the real
deal on product specs and what's better and hey.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I shoot this for this.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What's the best thing, you know, the best optic for
you or best rifle, whatever it is. So you really
get good information from unbiased. They're biased because of their brand,
but you know unbiased where dealers might be a little
bit different.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, he's trying to sell what he's gutten stock, that's right, right, right. Hey,
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got a question for you, because you're the guy to
(07:27):
ask about this, because you know this this optics world,
and you've been in the world of night vision and
thermal also, I know you've got some experience there. Dude,
is this am I crazy?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Like everybody's buying bump helmets and nods now? Like this
used to be military and then it was Okay, there's
a handful of like hog hunter type folks. I feel
like lately I'm seeing it across the spectrum of gun owners.
Are you seeing this? Oh yeah, yeah, what's going on there?
(08:00):
What's your theory?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think, for one, I think people are just got
comfortable with the idea of it. You know, a couple
of years ago, it's like eight thousand dollars buy nose,
don't I can't do that. But then you start seeing
more people and there are brands that have lower cost.
There are still the green tubes that are out there
that you could buy for less so than the white
phosphor tubes. So I think the pricing the range of pricing,
(08:27):
so somebody that's not really into it can still have
a set kind of have that look and you know,
they work or and we're selling a lot of our
buyos and our even our monocular that hooks up to it,
and that's all high end military stuff and consumers are
buying that. So I think it's just more accepted. I
don't know if there's more use than there was before.
(08:48):
It's still kind of a hog hunting, you know, maybe
a crazy home defense thing, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And we always kind of skip to like what's the application,
what's the purpose of this? And I think some of
it is maybe perhaps that's the wrong question. It's kind
of like it's just for fun, and they really are
maybe just putting them on, putting some ir lasers on
it and going out to the range at night kind
or you know, I guess perhaps BLM Land or something
(09:16):
like that where they can do things at night like that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Well, that's a good point. You know, there are more
we came out with our OGLC or commercial laser. There
are a lot of guys tricking their guns out with those,
whether it's a low end or a high end. And
if you have that and you have ir capability, what's
the next thing you're going to get?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Right, So it's natural progression. And my dad has always
said there's no such thing as a cheap hobby. So like,
it doesn't matter what your hobby is. It's like, oh,
I'm just fishing. Well, you can fish with a zeb
Co three. But then also all of a sudden you're
having to buy a bass boat and you're buying all
these other things. You're buying the forward looking rate sonar
or whatever. You can go crazy with whatever your hobby is.
(09:57):
And if your hobby is guns, and I was just
this conversation with somebody else is like, well, if you've
bought a bunch of different guns, and you're like, well,
I don't really, I don't. I mean, I feel like
I'm good on ars or pistols, but like what else
could I get?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Okay, well, maybe it's a silencer or a silencer for
every gun, or maybe it's nods. And also okay, if
you're you're a motorcycle guy, well, how much do you
spend it on a Harley?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I mean what is it? I don't know, I used one.
Maybe you're spending twenty or thirty or maybe you spend
forty grand if that's your hobby. And you go, okay,
well like bump helmet, dual, you know, PBS fourteen's or whatever,
Like yeah, okay, you're you're in it for twelve or
whatever it is. Yeah, you could say it's expensive, but
(10:42):
it's like, I don't know, it's cheaper than a bass boat.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, sure, So I think about watch guy. I don't
wear watches, but yeah, these high end watches. You know,
you can't just have one. You don't want to have just.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You're not a watch guy. If you only have watch,
you just are a guy who owns a watch.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
That's shit. Yeah, my watch is on my phone, so
I don't get into it.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
But I know they're ridiculously expensive, and typically you don't
sell one to buy one. You're collecting them, and yeah, man,
that gets way more expensive than what they could be
doing here with lasers and nods and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So well along those lines, so Eotech people know Eotech
going way back and like, okay, holographic sites used by
elite military folks, But you're doing kind of all these
things we're talking about kind of fell people in on
the things. They might not realize that your company is
making an offree.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
So it hasn't been like a slogan. But my slogan
that I've had in my head for the twenty two
years i've been with Eotech is eventually own the gun,
not the actual gun. I don't think we're ever going
to have a firearm under our name, but you know,
you never know, but I think we would be the
(11:56):
major components of that gun. So we've always been the
optic and we did the magnified stuff to kind of diversify.
Now we have a laser that goes on there. We
now have suppressors that go on there. So our whole
theory was kind of just be the go to for
all of the components or accessories that go on a rifle.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Talk about the laser, I mean, tell people more about
this is this kind of this is like a high
power I R.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yes, yeah, we offer twenty twenty three, we launched the
OGL and it was the high power restricted stuff. You know,
the FDA controls all of that, which is ridiculous but whatever. Yeah, yeah,
of all places and help people. So yeah, we did
that and immediately got kind of like military, some law
(12:44):
law enforcement, international deals. So it kind of put it
on the map right away, and we were trying to
do the commercial faster, but we just did the commercial.
It's really to me, it's a better app you'll see,
you know, the appeal was kind of the go to
for a long long time. We went after that to
have better performance in close pricing, but even be better
(13:07):
than that. There's an end gal out that L three
makes that is really really good, but it's like four
or five thousand dollars, so we were kind of targeting
that from a performance standpoint, but hopefully be around the
same price point as an APPPOC so consumers can can
purchase it.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And I think we nailed it. It's a great great
optic offers.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Visible NIR offers a really good adjustable ir illuminator, really
small system, so it's great, and like I say, I
think a lot of people are really kind of making
their rifle kit even more sophisticated with high tech stuff
like clip on night vision and laser systems like that.
So we wanted to be involved in all of that.
(13:48):
What's that run We just changed our pricing. We kind
of launched it inaccurately, so we just dropped it to
nineteen ninety nine as MSRP. I think an app p'oc
at the time was like sixteen seventeen hundred bucks, so
we're right in the sweet spot. I think, Okay, what
kind of batteries one single, CR one two three?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Wow, yep, that's not I would think to take more
battery power or something like that.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Well, you know, it's off most of the time, so
you have a pressure button on the top and then
you also have the pressure switch. But if you're not
running it, it's not running battery battery power. So yeah,
and it's the Liftian battery. So there's a good run
time on that.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah. Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
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you guys introduced new things at shots Show and we
should probably up eight people and just kind of remind them, yeah,
what are what are kind of the highlights for you?
What are you some of your favorites?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
So what was cool was we had and this has
never really happened, we had a product in really every
category new so.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I know I was like, wait, you know tech Us silencers,
You know tech does this.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, it never works that way.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
You either have like virtually nothing to talk about, or
you have this wave of all these products to talk about.
So we have our four to twelve, our Voodoo four
to twelve that's super short. So it's the second gen.
We did the three to nine last year in the
second focal and everybody loved it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
We sold a ton of them.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
But the first question by a lot was that's really cool,
but do you have in a first focal plane? So
we did the four to twelve and first focal Those
are shipping now. So what's the radical in that we
have two? So we have two simple there. One is
basically a crosshair with wind holds all the way out,
(16:56):
and then the other is a dot with kind of
a circle for closer range but the same wind holds.
So it's we we wanted to accommodate the guy that
likes the crossair or the guy that wants a ring
first from some speed. Ye, so they're very similar but
different in terms of your actual aiming area. Does it
eliminate okay, yep, it's got ten brightness setting, it's got
(17:16):
an off position between each one, so if you have
a favorite setting, you just dial one one.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Twelve and it's kind of about the same size. Is
that three or nine?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So yeah? Seven point one inches? Yeah, so really short.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Guys. It's amazing when you showed me that, we're going,
what is happening right now? What kind of what kind
of voodoo pun not intended like, has been done to this?
Because I mean it's really impressive.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It is.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I didn't think we could do it, you know, and
you're always were optics are like squeezing a balloon. If
you want better eye relief, you know, you really going
to sacrifice something, yep. But we I think we sacrifice
just a little bit in all of the areas so
that you don't really suffer anywhere.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
High relief is still good. The eyebox is really good.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But if you're going to compare it to a you
know three and a half eighteen or something like that
that's longer and has you know, all the room to
kind of make it optimize it's not going to be
as good, but ye, really really good optic. We talked
about night visioning clip ons. It's perfect for a clip
on because it's so short. You're able to put the
clip on close and have a balanced rifle rather than
have that thing way out at the end. So a
(18:24):
lot of benefit.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Probably a lot of people maybe don't think of that
because they're like, okay, whatever, I have a three to
nine scope. We're like, well, but this is this has
a particular purpose in mind, like when you DEVI, you know, like, okay,
this is to keep things lightweight and compact and give
us still room for that thermal yeah, to convert it.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I think it took everything in mind because I think you're,
you know, a really good magnification range four power to twelve.
But people are going to say, well, I want a
one power. What happens if something's close. Well, we have
a ring that's proprietary to us that mounts to it
and offers our E flex or we have an RMR footprint.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Sture red dot on there.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yes, so now you have a one X solution. You
have four to twelve, which I think can get you
anything you want, except for maybe some really big game
long range stuff. You have the ability to put a
clip on there. If you're really sophisticated, you could have
your laser in front of it because you still have
all that rail space.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So it just makes four. I mean, you can go
as crazy as you want.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
What else are is Eotech doing that that was released
at shots so that people may not.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Have heard about. So we have our closed emitter pistol site.
So we have the e flex which is kind of
that open open emitter. The closed emitter is becoming really popular.
I think it's driven more for law enforcement that can't
have that blockage or any damage or anything like that
to the LED. So you know, it's got two pieces
(19:50):
of glass, switchable radicals, shake awake technology, sleep modes. We
even have a mode that deactivates it so if enforcement
want to keep that on all the time, they can
do it. So it's a pretty smart system. So we're
close to we're actually building that as we speak, so
we should be shipping that in the next two or
(20:11):
three weeks. Our HD holographic site is really cool. It
kind of looks the same as everything, but it's an
all aluminum housing with a rotary dial instead of the buttons,
and what that allows us to do is put shake
awake and prog sleep modes.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
In there, So do that with the butts.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Now the buttons, the buttons are basically always waiting for
somebody to push them. They're always asking, so there's just
a small little trickle that you can't do the shake awake,
So the.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Dial allows us to do that.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And we have an auto bright feature, so we have
a light pipe in the front, so you could set
it to that and it'll just change depending on what
lighting environment you have. If you don't like where that's set,
you have seven manual settings that you can kind of
go to, so really adapts to everything you want to
do and has all those bellsse people have been asking for.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It feels like this we've kind of come to a
point with like certain features of like auto shut off
and shake awake where they're really good, right. I Mean
when that first came out, all of us were doing
the let's see how quickly we can pick up the
optic and come on.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I bet I could beat it.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
But it feels like it's almost like, yeah, it's just done,
it's settled. You know, we're going to trust the science
on this one at this point or something like, I.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Think you're right, yeah, because you know, we were asked
for years and I think it was fifty to fifty
someone said I don't want any of that, you know,
because you have more of that, it could fail and
all that stuff. And then I think it got better
and it got more accepted. So now I think it's
kind of a standard.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
What's coming up for you guys? What's what's kind of
what does what do the tea leaves say for eotech?
And what's possible? What are people asking for?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You know, we we have we have sister companies that
are are managing company kind of bought. So I think
like longer range is digital solutions. Everybody wants a you know,
information in their system. You know, if you have an
analog like a holographic scope or even just a tube
(22:18):
rifle scope, there's nothing other than a radical that is
going to give you information. But if you go digital
and you have like LED or an OLED display or
something like that, and you can get into We own
a company that really specializes in the atax the situational
awareness that the military.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Use a display kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Well, yeah, that's what they use it on almost like
an iPad of some sort, but with Bluetooth and all that,
you can have that go into your optics. So as
you're looking through, you could see where your you know,
your teammates are, or you can identify where bad guys
are and all that. So yeah, and then it tells
you all the other you know, ballistic stuff and all
(22:59):
that stuff. So I think eventually everything's going to be digital,
whether it's night vision, Bino's and all that stuff. That's
kind of the way, and we're prop to be with
our sister companies kind of be in that leading position
for it. So it's exciting.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
That is exciting. Oh my gosh, that gets me like pumped.
Do you imagine what you could be doing with this?
All right, so maybe you know, guys, sell your bass boat,
sell your Harley, all your watches, all your watches, and
let's quit screwing around here. Let's let's really get out
a ridiculously expensive and amazing fun tricked out gun nod
(23:35):
helmet a.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And the virtual reality stuff and all that that could
be crazy awesome.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
All right, guys, that's it for us, Thanks for listening,
thanks for watching, and we will see you Next time
on gun techniques.
My dad has always said there's no such thing as
a cheap hobby. So like it doesn't matter what your
hobby is. It's like, oh, I'm just fishing. Well, you
can fish with a zeb COO three, but then all
of a sudden you're having to buy a bass boat.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I think about watch guy.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I don't wear watches, but yeah, these, yeah, high end watches.
You know, you can't just have one. I don't want
to have just.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
You're not a watch guy. If you only have what
you just are a guy who owns a watch. I'm
Ryan Gresham and this this is Guntognation. Guntognation is brought
(00:43):
to you by Arcan Firearms, Range Ready, Silence are Central
and FN. Hey, welcome in a guntognation Today on Guntognation,
we are on location in Houston, Texas, yeehaw for the
the INTERRA Annual Meetings aka the Interra Show twenty twenty
(01:04):
six and I'm with my good buddy JB. John Bailey Eotech.
You've been in a lot of these.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah, you know, it was funny. We just talked about
that my first year. It was like twenty twenty two
or twenty o two oh two. Yeah, we were in
a ten foot booth. I manned it all by myself,
and yeah, it was so crazy because it was it
was a smaller event, but I just remember herds of
people like just blocking and they couldn't even get past,
(01:37):
so they were just like traffic jammed right in front
of you. And it was constant for Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Now it's a bigger event, people spread out a lot,
but it was ridiculous back then to be one person,
you know, showing those for three days is.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Just one person in any booth, even if it's a
small booth, like you know, like I can't go to
the bathroom, right, how does this gonna work?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it was funny too that that same first year,
there's a like a local knife guy that was next
to us. So he was sitting in a chair for
three days with a massive cooler of beer. Next show,
and I'm doing by saying in every like twenty minutes
out of here. You know, he's just time. He had
(02:19):
the best er Ra show ever.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You know, this is that's funny you bring that up
because there is a there's a bit of behind the
scenes of these types of shows where it's like, dude,
I've had it. You go to the booth where the
people are from Kentucky and they've got moonshine. Yeah, and
it's like known, like, let me stop in. What kind
of moonshine did you bring this time?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Here's a little.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Sip, right, you know there's a little bit of that
going on behind the scenes. Yeah, I mean pro tips
sometimes at the NRA show because it is open the public,
they they do there are certain booths that sell product.
I don't know if you guys sell product. We don't know, okay,
but like certainly like a pair of roll knives, holsters
or whatever, dependent if the company pro tip for everybody listening,
(03:06):
if the company is selling those types of items and
they're not like driving distance to the Terra Show Sunday afternoon, dude,
it's it's like seventy percent off.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Go pick up, So nobody wants to go home with
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You're like, dude, we are selling it all. I don't
want to pack us up and then you can pick
up some deals even.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Uh, you know this isn't for the consumer the attendee
that's walking around, but even from a manufacturer standpoint, like
the last year or even no, it is this past year,
wyley X was right next to us. Yeah, they're like,
we don't want to come home with any of these.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So you know, I saw it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
There's like sunglass, range glasses, sunglasses. It's like perfect, Yeah, yeah,
you never know.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I mean, I will encourage you guys to show up
to these types of things the NRA Show. So this
year it's in Houston twenty twenty seven. I believe it's
going to be in Atlanta again. So if you're listening
to this and you're thinking I have never been or
it's been a long time, plan it because it's it's fun.
I mean, we work it and we have fun doing it.
(04:08):
I would come here even not working it. I'd be like,
this is fun, like just walk around stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And this year in particular, I believe, especially you know,
a little biased because we have a lot of new products.
But I think shot show for all the dealers, there's
a lot of new stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Out, really cool things to see, which.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Normally in the last couple of years, I don't think
there's a lot of new like innovative stuff, but there's
really some cool stuff out. So now you can see
your brands that you like, but also really see some
cool new stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Well, the fact matter is your local gun shop can't
carry all the stuff, right with all the pistols, all
the optics, all the rifles whatever. They can't carry it.
They can't stock it all right, And so like you're
gonna you know, you're hey, guys secret. Your gun dealer
may have some favorite brands and he's like, you know, oh,
(04:57):
I hate, I don't know, pick somebody because this one
time in nineteen ninety eight something happened. So you're not
seeing all the different brands. So this is a place
where you can touch them, hold them, you know, use them. Yeah,
they go oh wow.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, and that dealer of theirs typically will buy direct
from the brands that they really like and support, and
then they also have access to that wholesale group. So
you might walk this and find a you know, a
Henry rifle you love, Yeah, and they could buy it
through wholesale. And so now you're exposed. You get to
kind of feel and check it all out here and
(05:31):
then go back to your dealer and they can if
they don't have it in stock, they can just order
it for you.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So yeah, so really well, and you can also ask
all these questions of like you know, okay, John Bailey,
this guy works at eotech. He knows everything about it, right, Like,
tell me about holographic sites versus you know the regular
you know, led red dot site stuff and you can go, yeah,
pros and cons.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
You'll never get information like that from a dealer. They
know about the product that they don't know it in
side and out like like I do or our both
people do. So it's really good to get the real
deal on product specs and what's better and hey.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I shoot this for this.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What's the best thing, you know, the best optic for
you or best rifle, whatever it is. So you really
get good information from unbiased. They're biased because of their brand,
but you know unbiased where dealers might be a little
bit different.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, he's trying to sell what he's gutten stock, that's right, right, right. Hey,
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got a question for you, because you're the guy to
(07:27):
ask about this, because you know this this optics world,
and you've been in the world of night vision and
thermal also, I know you've got some experience there. Dude,
is this am I crazy?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Like everybody's buying bump helmets and nods now? Like this
used to be military and then it was Okay, there's
a handful of like hog hunter type folks. I feel
like lately I'm seeing it across the spectrum of gun owners.
Are you seeing this? Oh yeah, yeah, what's going on there?
(08:00):
What's your theory?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think, for one, I think people are just got
comfortable with the idea of it. You know, a couple
of years ago, it's like eight thousand dollars buy nose,
don't I can't do that. But then you start seeing
more people and there are brands that have lower cost.
There are still the green tubes that are out there
that you could buy for less so than the white
phosphor tubes. So I think the pricing the range of pricing,
(08:27):
so somebody that's not really into it can still have
a set kind of have that look and you know,
they work or and we're selling a lot of our
buyos and our even our monocular that hooks up to it,
and that's all high end military stuff and consumers are
buying that. So I think it's just more accepted. I
don't know if there's more use than there was before.
(08:48):
It's still kind of a hog hunting, you know, maybe
a crazy home defense thing, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And we always kind of skip to like what's the application,
what's the purpose of this? And I think some of
it is maybe perhaps that's the wrong question. It's kind
of like it's just for fun, and they really are
maybe just putting them on, putting some ir lasers on
it and going out to the range at night kind
or you know, I guess perhaps BLM Land or something
(09:16):
like that where they can do things at night like that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Well, that's a good point. You know, there are more
we came out with our OGLC or commercial laser. There
are a lot of guys tricking their guns out with those,
whether it's a low end or a high end. And
if you have that and you have ir capability, what's
the next thing you're going to get?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Right, So it's natural progression. And my dad has always
said there's no such thing as a cheap hobby. So like,
it doesn't matter what your hobby is. It's like, oh,
I'm just fishing. Well, you can fish with a zeb
Co three. But then also all of a sudden you're
having to buy a bass boat and you're buying all
these other things. You're buying the forward looking rate sonar
or whatever. You can go crazy with whatever your hobby is.
(09:57):
And if your hobby is guns, and I was just
this conversation with somebody else is like, well, if you've
bought a bunch of different guns, and you're like, well,
I don't really, I don't. I mean, I feel like
I'm good on ars or pistols, but like what else
could I get?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Okay, well, maybe it's a silencer or a silencer for
every gun, or maybe it's nods. And also okay, if
you're you're a motorcycle guy, well, how much do you
spend it on a Harley?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I mean what is it? I don't know, I used one.
Maybe you're spending twenty or thirty or maybe you spend
forty grand if that's your hobby. And you go, okay,
well like bump helmet, dual, you know, PBS fourteen's or whatever,
Like yeah, okay, you're you're in it for twelve or
whatever it is. Yeah, you could say it's expensive, but
(10:42):
it's like, I don't know, it's cheaper than a bass boat.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, sure, So I think about watch guy. I don't
wear watches, but yeah, these high end watches. You know,
you can't just have one. You don't want to have just.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You're not a watch guy. If you only have watch,
you just are a guy who owns a watch.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
That's shit. Yeah, my watch is on my phone, so
I don't get into it.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
But I know they're ridiculously expensive, and typically you don't
sell one to buy one. You're collecting them, and yeah, man,
that gets way more expensive than what they could be
doing here with lasers and nods and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So well along those lines, so Eotech people know Eotech
going way back and like, okay, holographic sites used by
elite military folks, But you're doing kind of all these
things we're talking about kind of fell people in on
the things. They might not realize that your company is
making an offree.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
So it hasn't been like a slogan. But my slogan
that I've had in my head for the twenty two
years i've been with Eotech is eventually own the gun,
not the actual gun. I don't think we're ever going
to have a firearm under our name, but you know,
you never know, but I think we would be the
(11:56):
major components of that gun. So we've always been the
optic and we did the magnified stuff to kind of diversify.
Now we have a laser that goes on there. We
now have suppressors that go on there. So our whole
theory was kind of just be the go to for
all of the components or accessories that go on a rifle.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Talk about the laser, I mean, tell people more about
this is this kind of this is like a high
power I R.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yes, yeah, we offer twenty twenty three, we launched the
OGL and it was the high power restricted stuff. You know,
the FDA controls all of that, which is ridiculous but whatever. Yeah, yeah,
of all places and help people. So yeah, we did
that and immediately got kind of like military, some law
(12:44):
law enforcement, international deals. So it kind of put it
on the map right away, and we were trying to
do the commercial faster, but we just did the commercial.
It's really to me, it's a better app you'll see,
you know, the appeal was kind of the go to
for a long long time. We went after that to
have better performance in close pricing, but even be better
(13:07):
than that. There's an end gal out that L three
makes that is really really good, but it's like four
or five thousand dollars, so we were kind of targeting
that from a performance standpoint, but hopefully be around the
same price point as an APPPOC so consumers can can
purchase it.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And I think we nailed it. It's a great great
optic offers.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Visible NIR offers a really good adjustable ir illuminator, really
small system, so it's great, and like I say, I
think a lot of people are really kind of making
their rifle kit even more sophisticated with high tech stuff
like clip on night vision and laser systems like that.
So we wanted to be involved in all of that.
(13:48):
What's that run We just changed our pricing. We kind
of launched it inaccurately, so we just dropped it to
nineteen ninety nine as MSRP. I think an app p'oc
at the time was like sixteen seventeen hundred bucks, so
we're right in the sweet spot. I think, Okay, what
kind of batteries one single, CR one two three?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Wow, yep, that's not I would think to take more
battery power or something like that.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Well, you know, it's off most of the time, so
you have a pressure button on the top and then
you also have the pressure switch. But if you're not
running it, it's not running battery battery power. So yeah,
and it's the Liftian battery. So there's a good run
time on that.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah. Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
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six two and the FNQD five five six. Visit fnamerica
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you guys introduced new things at shots Show and we
should probably up eight people and just kind of remind them, yeah,
what are what are kind of the highlights for you?
What are you some of your favorites?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
So what was cool was we had and this has
never really happened, we had a product in really every
category new so.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I know I was like, wait, you know tech Us silencers,
You know tech does this.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, it never works that way.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
You either have like virtually nothing to talk about, or
you have this wave of all these products to talk about.
So we have our four to twelve, our Voodoo four
to twelve that's super short. So it's the second gen.
We did the three to nine last year in the
second focal and everybody loved it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
We sold a ton of them.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
But the first question by a lot was that's really cool,
but do you have in a first focal plane? So
we did the four to twelve and first focal Those
are shipping now. So what's the radical in that we
have two? So we have two simple there. One is
basically a crosshair with wind holds all the way out,
(16:56):
and then the other is a dot with kind of
a circle for closer range but the same wind holds.
So it's we we wanted to accommodate the guy that
likes the crossair or the guy that wants a ring
first from some speed. Ye, so they're very similar but
different in terms of your actual aiming area. Does it
eliminate okay, yep, it's got ten brightness setting, it's got
(17:16):
an off position between each one, so if you have
a favorite setting, you just dial one one.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Twelve and it's kind of about the same size. Is
that three or nine?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So yeah? Seven point one inches? Yeah, so really short.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Guys. It's amazing when you showed me that, we're going,
what is happening right now? What kind of what kind
of voodoo pun not intended like, has been done to this?
Because I mean it's really impressive.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It is.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I didn't think we could do it, you know, and
you're always were optics are like squeezing a balloon. If
you want better eye relief, you know, you really going
to sacrifice something, yep. But we I think we sacrifice
just a little bit in all of the areas so
that you don't really suffer anywhere.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
High relief is still good. The eyebox is really good.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But if you're going to compare it to a you
know three and a half eighteen or something like that
that's longer and has you know, all the room to
kind of make it optimize it's not going to be
as good, but ye, really really good optic. We talked
about night visioning clip ons. It's perfect for a clip
on because it's so short. You're able to put the
clip on close and have a balanced rifle rather than
have that thing way out at the end. So a
(18:24):
lot of benefit.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Probably a lot of people maybe don't think of that
because they're like, okay, whatever, I have a three to
nine scope. We're like, well, but this is this has
a particular purpose in mind, like when you DEVI, you know, like, okay,
this is to keep things lightweight and compact and give
us still room for that thermal yeah, to convert it.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I think it took everything in mind because I think you're,
you know, a really good magnification range four power to twelve.
But people are going to say, well, I want a
one power. What happens if something's close. Well, we have
a ring that's proprietary to us that mounts to it
and offers our E flex or we have an RMR footprint.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Sture red dot on there.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yes, so now you have a one X solution. You
have four to twelve, which I think can get you
anything you want, except for maybe some really big game
long range stuff. You have the ability to put a
clip on there. If you're really sophisticated, you could have
your laser in front of it because you still have
all that rail space.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So it just makes four. I mean, you can go
as crazy as you want.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
What else are is Eotech doing that that was released
at shots so that people may not.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Have heard about. So we have our closed emitter pistol site.
So we have the e flex which is kind of
that open open emitter. The closed emitter is becoming really popular.
I think it's driven more for law enforcement that can't
have that blockage or any damage or anything like that
to the LED. So you know, it's got two pieces
(19:50):
of glass, switchable radicals, shake awake technology, sleep modes. We
even have a mode that deactivates it so if enforcement
want to keep that on all the time, they can
do it. So it's a pretty smart system. So we're
close to we're actually building that as we speak, so
we should be shipping that in the next two or
(20:11):
three weeks. Our HD holographic site is really cool. It
kind of looks the same as everything, but it's an
all aluminum housing with a rotary dial instead of the buttons,
and what that allows us to do is put shake
awake and prog sleep modes.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
In there, So do that with the butts.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Now the buttons, the buttons are basically always waiting for
somebody to push them. They're always asking, so there's just
a small little trickle that you can't do the shake awake,
So the.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Dial allows us to do that.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And we have an auto bright feature, so we have
a light pipe in the front, so you could set
it to that and it'll just change depending on what
lighting environment you have. If you don't like where that's set,
you have seven manual settings that you can kind of
go to, so really adapts to everything you want to
do and has all those bellsse people have been asking for.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It feels like this we've kind of come to a
point with like certain features of like auto shut off
and shake awake where they're really good, right. I Mean
when that first came out, all of us were doing
the let's see how quickly we can pick up the
optic and come on.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I bet I could beat it.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
But it feels like it's almost like, yeah, it's just done,
it's settled. You know, we're going to trust the science
on this one at this point or something like, I.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Think you're right, yeah, because you know, we were asked
for years and I think it was fifty to fifty
someone said I don't want any of that, you know,
because you have more of that, it could fail and
all that stuff. And then I think it got better
and it got more accepted. So now I think it's
kind of a standard.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
What's coming up for you guys? What's what's kind of
what does what do the tea leaves say for eotech?
And what's possible? What are people asking for?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You know, we we have we have sister companies that
are are managing company kind of bought. So I think
like longer range is digital solutions. Everybody wants a you know,
information in their system. You know, if you have an
analog like a holographic scope or even just a tube
(22:18):
rifle scope, there's nothing other than a radical that is
going to give you information. But if you go digital
and you have like LED or an OLED display or
something like that, and you can get into We own
a company that really specializes in the atax the situational
awareness that the military.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Use a display kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Well, yeah, that's what they use it on almost like
an iPad of some sort, but with Bluetooth and all that,
you can have that go into your optics. So as
you're looking through, you could see where your you know,
your teammates are, or you can identify where bad guys
are and all that. So yeah, and then it tells
you all the other you know, ballistic stuff and all
(22:59):
that stuff. So I think eventually everything's going to be digital,
whether it's night vision, Bino's and all that stuff. That's
kind of the way, and we're prop to be with
our sister companies kind of be in that leading position
for it. So it's exciting.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
That is exciting. Oh my gosh, that gets me like pumped.
Do you imagine what you could be doing with this?
All right, so maybe you know, guys, sell your bass boat,
sell your Harley, all your watches, all your watches, and
let's quit screwing around here. Let's let's really get out
a ridiculously expensive and amazing fun tricked out gun nod
(23:35):
helmet a.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And the virtual reality stuff and all that that could
be crazy awesome.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
All right, guys, that's it for us, Thanks for listening,
thanks for watching, and we will see you Next time
on gun techniques.
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