In This Hour: -- Pete Brownell, CEO of Brownells, talks about the early days of this supplier of tools, parts, and everything for guns, as the company turns 85. -- A mission to help special forces veterans heads to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. -- He looked for this rifle for 45 years, and then there it was at a gun show. A lesson about grabbing the gun you want when you see it. Tom Gresham's Gun Talk 06.09.24 Hour 2
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The Ruger LC carbine is the ultimaterange companion, chambered in five seven by
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collapsible sites to make a compact.Learn more at Ruger dot com. Welcome
back to gun Talk. A fewweeks ago, had a chance to interview
Pete Brownew. He's the CEO ofBrown Els. He came down to Range
(00:22):
Rady Studios in Louisiana and to celebratetheir eighty fifth birthday. We had a
long conversation with him, and thatwill appear in video form in a few
weeks. We'll have that out foryou, but I wanted to grab a
little bit of it so you couldhear a little bit about Pete and the
company and why I personally think it'san exceptional company and he is an exceptional
(00:45):
person. Here's a bit of thatinterview. So, Pete Brownew, CEO
of Brown Els, you guys beenaround for eighty five years now, that's
that's right. This is our oureighty fifth day anniversaries in June, so
it's coming right now, and it'salso my father's eighty fifth birthday, so
(01:07):
kind of correlated. Yeah, Yeah, are we do well your third generation,
I am third Yeah. So yeah, my grandfather started this whole thing
back in thirty nine. He wasa tinkerer. I mean he was like
doing home gunsmithing for himself, right. He was so back in the guysh
He was born early nineteen hundreds andbeen kind of a jack of all trades.
(01:30):
Actually wrote for the NRA for awhile. So he was just like,
you man did not know that.So he wrote for the NRA on
how to articles. Back in theearly early days nineteen twenties, those are
the days where a correspondence took aweek or so to get to you,
so conversations were over months versus nowit's what seconds. So when he was
(01:51):
writing for the NA, he gotthis great idea from his audience and from
people at the NA to start writingcorrespondence in to gun stores or those customers
out there and say what do youwant? What do you need out?
Okay? Right, So that kindof that was kind of the first sprinklings
of what brown El's is today isgetting feedback from the customers. And then
(02:15):
what the customers basically said were,Hey, we need parts, we need
tools, we need all kinds ofknowledge. It was just everybody coming back
right around. Well between World WarOne and World War Two, all those
guys were fixing those firearms and becausethat they had at home and they had
they needed parts. And so hewrote Bill Senior and said, hey,
(02:37):
I need some parts and started alittle business that way, just out of
the house. Just one more ofthese companies that starts like in the garage
or in the kitchen or whatever instance. What is tinker with this and see
what happened? Yes, yeah,it was a really neat po Acley.
His grandson showed up with the letterthat he had written. My grandfather and
(03:00):
po said, Hey, this gunthing you're, this gun tool thing,
and this gunsmithing thing you're you're starting, it's pretty good idea. You should
lean into it, like acts likethe ultimate gunsmith. Yeah, oh my
gosh, he was. Yeah.Total, he kind of changed the face
of accuracy around the oh, aroundthe world. He did. I mean,
I mean, if you're into guns, you got to have actles books.
(03:20):
Yeah, as simple as that.So all right, so your grandfather
starts this thing, how does itgo from like the kitchen table to starting
to become like a real business.There wasn't much information out there on firearms
back in the day, what fitwith what everything? When you had a
problem, you basically sent it backto the shop, to the to uh
ruger or smith or at the guncompanies at the colt would take it back
(03:45):
and fix or you just there wasn'treally a professionalization of the gunsmithing trade back
then. So one of the firstthings that my grandpa did was the Encyclopedia
of modern gun Parts, where hetook every firearm and product and at that
time broken down into its parts,took three of each and then measured them
all put them in in an encyclopedia. It was a long process and that
(04:09):
became the kind of the bible forgunsmith's and it really broadened it out to
be you don't have to have ashop anymore. You could do this at
home because you had all the dimensions, what spring, what screw, what
fits where. So he mapped modernfirearmers back in the twenties and thirties.
(04:29):
It's a really ambitious project. Ohmy goodness, Yeah, it's cool.
We've got We've got the drawers andthe diagrams and all that kind of stuff
at at our shop there in Grenell, Iowa, where he had stored all
that stuff and all his all thehistory he did around all that. So
I don't think it's going too farto say that your grandfather Bob changed what
(04:54):
being a gunsmith is, because Imean before it was kind of like you
had to find somebody who knew howto do this. Yeah, and people
who did it at home didn't thinkof themselves as gunsmith so we call them
kitchen table gunsmith's. Yeah. Butin a certain way, what he did
and through brown Els through all thesegenerations in these years, you kind of
(05:15):
legitimize the whole idea of working onor even building your own gun right,
right kind of the I never thoughtabout it that way. I kind of
grew up in the whole space andwe were always tinkering at home. So
I think that's pretty nice. That'sa nice that's a nice sentiment to have
about your grandfather, how you couldchange the arc of a career of a
(05:36):
profession. I never had a chanceto work with my grandfather. I worked
with my dad quite a bit.But there were battles on technology, on
change. This whole thing called theInternet was a big battle, and it
was along these lines. It wasif if people think that they're just a
(05:58):
number to us, will lose them. So that was the cultural thing because
I mean Grandpa had correspondence with allkinds of people, customers, factories,
people overseas, military leaders, andit was a personal relationship. And that's
how he started the business and howhe ran the business for thirty years.
(06:18):
That's how my dad ran the business. And I could a vivid argument was
if customers hear us clicking that keyboardwhen they're on the phone with us,
they will think we don't care aboutthem. Really yeah, yeah, So
it was it was a battle tosay, hey, this is if we're
going to serve more customers, havemore relationships. It's hard for a call
(06:42):
center agent or somebody that's working foryou and with you to pick up the
phone remember who you are. Wellyeah, And of course the other thing
is, I mean, how manyitems do you sell? Gosh, I
know it's more than fifty thousand.Oh yeah, we're we've always got a
just under one hundred thousand little slotswith from screws to pallets of ammo to
(07:08):
optics to barrels and everything that's inthe modern firearms. You can break it
down. You can buy the firearmfrom US where you can buy the components
to make it all up and thenall the accessories wrapped around. It's been
pretty fun. You might want totalk about that because it really started off
Brown Else was the supplier of gunsmithtools. Yeah, and then parts,
(07:29):
but you kept growing in adding differentthings. What was that transition? How
does that go about? So itwas really interesting how this is a really
interesting story about my grandpa. Grandpawas known as backwater Bob, and that
was modern customer service to take abackward because customers would, my gosh.
(07:49):
When I started back in ninety seven, we would get an envelope of money
from an older gunsmith and said,hey, I know you've got it,
hang on to this when you getit. Then then cash My you mean
like send you cash? They sendus cash. Yeah, and or they
would tape coins. I know,I underpage you. They tape coins to
(08:11):
a to a card. It wasreally honest industry, and Bob was one
of the first people to say,I'll if you promised to buy it,
I'll invest in the inventory and letyou know when I have it. And
then then the transactional happened. Thatwas called a back order. So I
(08:31):
don't want to say he invented theback order, right, but that concept
of trust is kind of a corething to one of the things that he's
really engendered in who we are asa company. So back order, Bob,
what you're really describing, at leastto me and with my history with
Brown Ellison's, it's always been acompany built on culture and the culture of
(08:54):
taking care of your customers, whichknow that they can call they can talk
to your gun text to talk aboutthe gun. Yeah, there's there's so
much innovation. So back to kindof the some of the things that were
invented, glass betting, right,so for accuracy, for accuracy, right,
yeah. So so Grandpa and mydad were always trying to figure out
(09:16):
what's the back in the day.It was going to make me a million
dollars, you know, that wasthe ambition. Let's create a tool or
a product that would make me amillion dollars. So so glass betting was
one of them, and he wouldnumber them. So so ocd at number
seven was the seventh idea that wasgoing to make him a million dollars.
Knox number seven is the bluing agentthat makes most of the guns in today's
(09:41):
world blue right, so it's hot, it's hot, it's messy. But
that's how it was done back inthe day. And from that that started
the a bunch of people saying,you know what, we can do this
better with modern chemistry. So wegot cold bluing. So he and the
guys at Birchwood Birchwood Casey down onthe basements mixing things together so they could
(10:03):
they could figure out cold blowing.So that was another numbered item that they
came up, so hot blowing,cold blowing, and then all the tools,
glass, bedding, acroglass is allpart of that type of development.
Yeah, and for people today whodon't even know what we're talking about.
When you have woodstock on a rifle, wood absorbs moisture, it swells,
it shrinks, it shifts around,it changes your point of impact on your
(10:26):
rifle, and then you put alayer of fiberglass between the metal and the
wood to stabilize it. That's right, and right, I mean back then,
that's what you did to accurize ormake your rifle more Accurate's right.
That's right because when you're out hunting, you have basically one shot to get
that elk or that that mule deer, or that sheep or whatever you're hunting,
(10:50):
and you don't want to implement weatherto take your practice around your cold
shot and put it someplace it shouldn'tbe, which kind of leads us to
I mean Brown was making parts,are selling parts of wherese You've got the
famous screwdriver kits, yeah, allof that. Yeah, but now you're
selling rifles and guns. Right,so yeah, we've we've moved into it's
(11:15):
because the br In line, right, and it's kind of a retro model
to go back and pay homage tothe that that original AR fifteen with modern
technology a little tighter tolerances, butit helps people do building. We have
a building firearms customizing those farms justit's uh, the BRN line. We
(11:35):
did make a run of special fullfeatured firearms, but it's mostly actions and
uppers so people can customize the firearmthat they have. We'll have a bit
more with Pete Brown l on thebackside. Don't go far full metal.
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(12:20):
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(13:01):
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right, back with the congression here. I want to continue with my conversation
I had with Pete Brown. Now, he's the head of Brown Els in
(14:41):
the big outfit in Iowa, suppliersof practically everything has to do with guns,
parts, hambo whatever. The thingI wanted people to understand about Pete
is that he feels passionately about hiscompany, his employees, his customers,
and goes further than that. Let'sjust pick this up. This is from
(15:05):
when Pete came down to range ReadyStudios. He spent some time with us.
The full interview will be aired soonas a celebration in brown El's eighty
fifth birthday, but here's a fewpieces of that starting thirty nine. But
actually it's kind of a post WorldWar Two store for Browns, and you
(15:26):
had all the gis coming back,had no money. They wanted to have
a cool gun, and they wouldget surplus guns and tinker with them and
play with them and build their ownguns. Fast forward to today, you
got all these veterans coming back fromthe wars. They want to build their
own guns, different guns, differentrifles, but still basically coming out of
(15:48):
the military. And the story isthe same now as it was back then.
It is it is the farm ofchoice in America right now is ear
fifteen and there's a lot and itsmodern technology. It's easy to interchange.
It makes home gunsmithing, repair,fixing, and customizing it to who you
are and what adventure you're going on, what competition you're in, or what
(16:12):
you want to be using that fireroom for it makes it super easy to
do it yourself. Tell me aboutyour gun techs. Yeah, we have
a gosh, I don't know howmany we have right now. If you
have a problem, you can guysback in the day my grandpa started this,
call us up and ask any gunsmithingquestion and we'll help solve that problem
(16:36):
over the phone back in the day. Now it's done online. So our
gun techs are professionals that come outof the trade or come up through the
schools and are kind of junior gunsmithhelping out and learning along the way to
answer all kinds of questions about doesit fit, what's my problem? This
process doesn't quite work for me?What am I missing? And we've got
(17:00):
some really good talented individuals that havebeen doing gunspan thing for us a long
time. We put them on ourown YouTube channels on how tos so Caleb
known out there across the internet,and so Steve Ostrom known on how to.
They've got a little you know,almost a click and clack relationship for
(17:21):
firearms. They're just talented individuals.A lot of them have come through the
organization and landed really good jobs aswell. So we really want. I
think America needs more gunsmiths. Well, that was gonna be my NXT question.
Do we have enough gunsmiths in America? I don't think so. I
think that my grandpa started this too, and it was he wanted to professionalize
(17:44):
the gunsmithing trade. That was hiswhole mantra. And I think he's done
a good job for your point earlier, done a good job making it easy
for people to be have the toolsand knowledge to be a gunsmith. There
is a rough estimate of roughly fivethousand hardcore gunsmiths in America right now.
I think we could have four timesthat and still absorb the need for fixing
(18:08):
and diagnosing and repairing and customizing firearmsout there, or the use that they
need to have in each community.And he would often say, and we
still believe it. Show me atown without a gunsmith or gun shop,
and I'll show you a town thatdoesn't have a healthy relationship with firearms because
that local person is that gunsmith orthat gun shop. That's your that's your
(18:33):
advocate, that's your person who doesthe training. That's the person you go
to, the law enforcement goes to. That's where everybody kind of goes and
says, what do I need?How do I do it? If I'm
out hunting, if I'm out doingcompetitions, or if I need this for
my job, what do I do? And that's your local advocate, and
there's a big need for this.But when I asked Pete about is climbing,
(18:57):
he's been a mountain climber for manyyears. He opened up and we
got a look into what drives himand what's important to him. And frankly,
one of the reasons I have alwaysthought he was an exceptional person.
All right, So but you gotan interesting climb ahead of you. Where
(19:19):
are you going? And what's thisall about? So we are we're heading
over to kill him a jarl,and I've pivot a bit, so I'm
taking a bunch of soldiers over there, and we're sponsoring this. These are
soldiers that are special operators, aswe all have. If you have friends
(19:41):
in the space or families in thespace. The suicide rate is incredible for
operators. And these are individuals whohave been over and done that type of
work and have been injured and havebeen dropped out of the teams, and
they have almost a redemption and typeof mission where they've they've fallen down,
(20:03):
they've hit rock bottom, and theseare the people are going to tell their
story about how they have come backfrom some dark times to inspire other people
that are facing these types of situationswhere they're not they're questioning themselves. We
want to give them examples of justwhat life could be by summoning this mountain
(20:25):
from people that have been in theirspot. These individuals are I mean,
the fantastic stories of what they've donefor America and their teams and the people
that they worked with, how they'vecome back from hips and knees and dark
times, and how they've kind ofredeemed themselves and worked through all their issues
(20:48):
and summoning a mountain like that iskind of an inspirational story as their stories
start to unfold for others. Iask you earlier, can all these guys
make it to the top? Youranswer was, if they can't, I'll
carry you. You met that literally, what's that mean to you? So
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these guys have been they really whenthey're in the military, they've been there
since high school, and they knowgood good leaders. They make a commitment
to our country and when they havetheir friends around them and they know a
(21:37):
good team is about, they knowwhat good leadership is. We have a
lot to learn from them as civilians. How do we help do our part
for those people that have helped ourcountry no matter where they are sent without
question. And this is part ofwhat I'm trying to deliver back to them,
is we care about you. Wecare about and respect the mission that
(22:00):
you're on. It's a tough oneand we want to lean in and help
any way we can. And thisis a This is helpfing inspire some of
these people that are still coming throughour military and struggling because it's tough,
and so if we have to carryand we'll carry them. Hey, thanks
(22:26):
for being here. I'm Tom Greshamand this is Gun Talk. I really
enjoyed that conversation with Pete Brown.L Holy cow, Oh, I thought
that was powerful stuff. Oh.If you want to join us, it's
simple. Give me a call TomTalk Gun. That's the number. It's
pretty easy to remember, Tom.That's me, Tom Talk Gun. Give
me a call pretty much open lines. If there's something on your mind,
(22:47):
a gun you want to tell meabout or ask me about, or you're
thinking about maybe getting a gun forself defense or you're considering finally, maybe
possibly getting your carry permit or carryingor maybe you're in a state doesn't require
you to have a permit. Yeah, we'll talk about that. I can
kind of talk you through the initialstages are kind of awkward and uncomfortable when
(23:10):
you start carrying. I can helpyou with that. So give me a
call and we can talk about thatagain. Tom Talk Gun a big welcome
and a shout out to the folksat kid O Radio in Boise, Idaho.
One A seven point five FM,five eighty AM. K IDEO has
been carrying gun Talk for many years, but it's always been on a recorded,
(23:33):
delayed basis, and now, asof today, if you're in Boise
area the Treasure Valley, you canhear gun Talk live, which means you
can call in because you're hearing whatwe're talking about. And just another update,
I'm just up the road from you, up in central Idaho, so
we're broadcasting live from Idaho. Sowelcome to k id O listeners. Give
(23:55):
me a call eight six six TalkGun or Tom Talk Gun. All right,
let's grab Terry. I appreciate thepacis. Terry in Portland, Oregon
got news coming out of Oregon giveus the update if you would please.
Well, I got this update fromI don't know if you're familiar with the
arms scholar on the internet YouTube,so I got it from him. That's
(24:18):
all I can say. Anyway,this could be big news for Oregon gun
owners. As everybody knows, ormaybe some people don't know, Oregon passed
the ballot Measure one fourteen back inNovember of twenty twenty two, which just
a diuscerated our Second Amendment rights.Fortunately, it went to a district judge,
(24:44):
Judge Raschio in Harney County, andhe ruled it totally unconstitutional. So
the Attorney General's office was given anuntil May thirty first to file an appeal
(25:04):
with the appellate court. Okay,and it's according to the Arms Dollar they
have failed or they let the theydidn't file in time, so I don't
know. This could put the wholeballot measure completely moot. Now, well,
(25:27):
that would be huge because that wasa particularly terrible measure that they passed,
you know, on the ballot initiative, tell you what, and I
appreciate the heads up. I didnot catch that over the last week.
So I'm going to go find thefolks in Oregon who can fill me in
on that and we will verify thatand get that information out. But I
really appreciate the heads up on that, sir. Thank you. That scraps
(25:49):
Jeff out of reading ont of thatonline. Five. Hey Jeff, you're
on gun Talk, Which are yourmind? Sir? Oh? I thought
it was just off air. Iwas talking to your screener about getting hold
of your last guest from Brownel becausehe's taking those injured operators up Mount Kilmanjaro
(26:11):
and I wanted to send him somethingfor the trip. Well, you know
what, you can just contact BrownelsBrownels dot com and you can just shoot
them a note and I'm sure theywill get it to Pete. All right,
I guess I'll go that way.I did give her my contact and
asked her if she could forward itto him. I wanted to well send
(26:32):
something that the guys could share onenight and know that they have the thanks
of a grateful nation. What doesyou think of that interview with Pete Monumental?
It's great to get history you.Let's say you got the best geeky
young You know everything you want tohear and talk about show there is and
you know, and I had aguy who's a competitive shooter offered to take
(26:56):
me to the range. And it'sgood that I listened to your show because
I remember that. You know,Okay, I was growing up with guns
since I was a kid out tobe begun shot twenty two. You know,
I could have thought I know itall, but I've listened you enough
to know you go in there knowinghow stupid I am, and listen to
this guy and pay attention right rightbecause you I mean, there's always something
(27:18):
to learn, helpful toy, there'salways something to learn. I mean,
I take shooting classes all the time. And even if you think, okay,
I know all this stuff, I'vebeen to this kind of class before.
I've even taken the same class severaltimes, and every single time I
learned something. Yes, yep,it's like you know, it's like church.
(27:40):
Oh I know that Bible reading.Well, listen up. Anyway,
maybe you'll get something more out ofit this time. There's something else there.
You just need to open yourself upto it. Well, thank you
for the calling. If you wouldcontact brown Els, probably that's the best
ways to go to Brownells dot com. We also have your contact info and
I'll we'll see if we can.We're going to root that over to Pete.
We can, we can backdoor thatto him for you, So don't
worry. We got you back onthat one. I hope you were able
(28:07):
to hear the interview we just didwith Pete Brown now where we talked about
taking the special operators. It's takinga bunch of them, and I don't
think we had it in the interview, but that they're actually going to do
it. A National Geographic TV specialon the climb. They're going to climb
Mount Kalmanjaro in Tanzania. It's nineteenthousand plus feet and that's a serious mountain
(28:29):
and they're taking these injured, woundedvets. And I asked him, I
said, well, what if theycan't make it, And without missing the
beat, he says, if theycan't make it to the top, we'll
carry them. We'll carry them upthere ourselves. That was moving for me.
(28:52):
I don't know how it hits you, but it was a verification of
what I've known for many, manyyears. I've known Peter law time on
the family a long time and it'sone of those leaders I thought I couldn't
be surprised, but I guess Iwas surprised and impressed. So there you
go. So Brownels dot com.If you want to say thanks to them,
(29:15):
by all means, send them anote. Let's take a quick break
here and now we're going to openit up for your calls. Our number
is eight six six Talk Gun orTom Talkgun. We'll be right back.
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Silence delivered all right. About gradthe eighty six six talked gun get you
(31:08):
in here. I was mentioning Iwas working up some loads for this rifle,
and we're we talking about Melvin Forbes. He passed away and this few
minutes we'll talk with Ron Spoemer aboutthat, because Ron has been using Melvin's
rifles for a long time and I'vebeen a fan of them and started buying
because fortunately Melvin made left handed versionsof his Ultra Light Arms rifles. It's
(31:33):
an interesting history. He had theUltra Light Arms sold, it ended up
getting back and called it New UltraLight Arms. So they're the Ula and
the n Ula rifles. All prettymuch the same. And then a couple
of years ago, when he wasin failing health, he sold the company
to Bill Wilson at Wilson Combat andthey're making ultra light arms, which is
great. I'm glad they're doing that. But I'm working up loads, whether
(31:55):
it's two eighty four Winchester, andjust real quickly. What I'm doing is
take a powder and you start withthe starting load, and then I'll make
three rounds and then increase the powdercharge by a grain, and make three
rounds and increase the powder charge bya grain up to the max load,
and then take them out to therange. And I did that with three
different powders, and then shoot groupsand see what happens. And typically what
(32:20):
happens is that first at the lowestsetting or lowest power rate, the groups
are kind of big, and thenas the powder charge increases, the groups
get smaller and smaller, and thenget to a certain point. Often what
will happens They start getting bigger againas they increase powder charges. So you
find out, okay, there's thatone point there where the groups are the
smallest. What's going on? Well, this is kind of fun and interesting.
(32:44):
A barrel. A rifle barrel moveswhen you shoot. It kind of
whips around, whether it's up ordown, left, right, whatever,
but it's basically swing. Imagine it'sgoing left and right. And what you
don't want is for the bullets tobe coming out as it's crossing the midpoint
from left to right or right toleft, because that is where you get
the most speed. The barrel isactually vibrating with the most speed. But
(33:07):
if you need the bullets to comeout at one end or the other of
this oscillation, that's where it's movingthe slowest. As it slows down,
stops and reverses, and so byincreasing the powder charges and changing the harmonic
vibrations of the barrel, you endup with a smaller group. That smaller
group is showing you that you're actuallyworking at the node out there where the
(33:30):
barrel is moved to the end ofits movement and it's starting to turn around.
I know. That's like as geekyas it gets. All I'm really
saying is I'm trying to find whatpowder charge and what powder gives me the
best accuracy and out of this littleit's a five pound rifle. Before you
put a scope on it, shootingone hundred and fifty grain bullet at twenty
(33:52):
nine twenty nine fifty feet per second, which is not shabby at all.
Out of the super lightweight rifle.I'm getting three quarter of an inch groups,
three quarter of an inch groups.Now, of course you're never satisfied,
right, So now I'm going togo start tweaking. Instead of changing
the powder charges by a full grain, I'm going to start changing them by
(34:13):
like two tenths of a grain andstart working my way around that center where
I got the best group, andstart a little bit below it, go
to a little bit above it.And is it necessary? Of course not?
Of course this is not necessary.I'm gonna be hutting deer at Elk
with this thing, and we've gotthree quarter of an inch groups less than
an inch. I mean at Elkis a great big animal. A deer's
(34:35):
not a small animal. And Ido limit my shooting at critters. I'm
four one hundred four fifty maybe somethinglike that. So anyway, Uh,
it's just you know, that's whatI'm thinking. Here, Hey, let's
go grab let me stay where wereOh there is Paul Paul's and Palmer line
four. Hey, Paul, you'reup. What's up? Doing great?
(34:58):
I listened to I listen to youevery week. But you've said several times,
you said, if you see agun at a gun show, or
you hear one somewhere that you kindof always wanted, and you pass it
up, you'll always regret it.And so I bought a Browning B seventy
eight and seven millimeter with a heavybarrel in Japan in nineteen seventy seven.
(35:21):
I've been looking for the six millimetertwin with a heavy barrel for the last
forty five years. Wow, nevercould find one. And I saw a
B seventy eight and six at agun show last year. So I went
home, got online, looked insome of the places selling. I found
a twenty five ought six in Idahoand bit on it and got it,
(35:45):
and I thought, that's the closestI'll ever get, But it had the
taper octagon barrel, so it wasn'tquite the gun. A month later,
I happened to be in a gunshow here in Palmer, and I'm going
around the and I look and there'sa B seventy eight with a heavy barrel
setting over there. This is lessless than a month after. I just
(36:07):
bought the twenty five OT six andI walked up and I said, tell
me, that's not a six milimeterand he said it is. And anyway,
I got it. And it's justthe dream gun I've been looking for.
It's my holy grail for the lastforty five years. And have got
up some reloads. I shoot fiverounds instead of your three like you were
(36:29):
talking about, to bring my loaddown. This thing is just a dream
to shoot. And oddly enough thetwenty five ought six is just as nice.
So now I'm torn by that heavybarrel on the six millimeters. It's
the gun I've been looking for,and because of you, I walked past
(36:50):
it. I gave myself about twoand a half minutes and I was back
and made him a deal and gotit. And I'm so glad. I
think I was geeky for a week. Well, you know what, You're
always going to be happy. Imean, heaven's the best of forty five
years you've been waiting to find thatgun. You couldn't possibly be passed up.
(37:10):
You can't just say, oh gee, I'm not going to go buy
that. I already bought a twentyfive our six. No this is the
one you want. Now, youcan keep the twenty five ours six,
but you can also am. Yeah, you're going to keep it, arn't
you. Absolutely? Yeah, they'reboth. In fact, if you look
at the trajectory and everything on them, the twenty five oughts six shoots a
fifteen grain bullet heavier than the sixmillimeter, but the ballistics are identical,
(37:37):
the speed's identical. So I'm shootingan eighty five grain in the six and
a one hundred grain in the twentyfive oughts six, and so'm I bought
it for sheep up here. Didn'tget my drawing permit this year, but
at I'll be sixty eight in November, and I figure I only got about
five more years left of good sheephunting in my body. But uh,
(38:00):
this is the gun for it.So yeah, I don't know. You
know what they say, don't letthe old man in you just keep charging
the head. Don't let that guyget in there. You just keep doing
those things. Okay, thanks,I'll still try to keep getting through puberty.
Then yeah, there you go.I like it. Well, I
don't plan to grow up, that'sfor sure. As anybody who's listening to
the show knows that's not a chancein the world. That is such a
(38:23):
great story, always looking for thisgun. And then when I'm telling you,
when you find that gun, evenif you just bought something else,
even if you're saying, oh,I don't know, that's a little expensive,
if it's the one you have beenlooking for, how likely is it
you're going to find another one?It's there. Don't talk yourself out of
(38:45):
it. Just listen. Have myvoice in your head, Tom saying,
just do it. Buy the gun. If you have to, you can
sell something else. But if it'sthe one you've been looking for, if
it's that dream gun, you oweit to yourself. You will kick yourself
for up for if you don't dothat. At least that's my take.
(39:13):
Hey, welcome back. Next week. By the way, we're going to
be having Jack Carr, the novelist, author, former seal talking about his
newest book, Red Sky Morning.I'm reading it right now. It is
good. He just gets better withevery book. We'll have that for you
next week. I get a sixto six talk Gun If you want to
talk to us here, Bill calledin out of North Carolina. Hey,
Bill, you're on Gun Talk.What's up? Hey? Tom, how
(39:36):
are you? I am fabulous.My wife and I listen to you every
week on Sunday for two hours andwe really really enjoy your show. Well,
thank you. I was telling them. Lady that answered the phone to
she was asking me what I wascalling about. I wanted to tell you
I had a friend of mine inthe hunting club that broken ejector on some
(39:59):
kind of ant gun and they couldn'tfind a part. They searched everywhere,
had a gunsmith there and he wasquite notable that couldn't find it. That
it came to me and they says, Bill, do you think you can
make this part? And I'm adental technician by trade. I'm big false
(40:20):
teeth. Oh okay, all right, So I got the materials accurate,
really cool, and so I says, I don't know, I can try,
you know what the heck? Itate that much and I can make
it out of chrome and yeah,eighteen percent chrome. It's it's really got
dental materials there. And so Isaid, no problem. I says,
(40:44):
let me have the part. Andwell, this particular antique gun had two
ejectors on it, and I waslike, holy cow, I've never seen
this before. But it's okay.So I had the gunsmith take it apart,
give me both ejectors. I wantto see the difference in them.
(41:05):
So I made two ejectors, andthen the broken one I couldn't, I
super glued back together just so Icould duplicate it. And then but I
cast him in chrome and put thosein there, and I said, you
got to keep these greased up.Now use wheelbaring grease or something. It
(41:25):
won't hurt the gun a bit.So you know, I mean, it
works on your tires, your wheels, don't it sure? You know,
so why not packed the bearings andlet it go work. So I made
two of them, gave them tohim, and he was so elated.
(41:45):
He couldn't believe it. He says, well, I owe yeah, I
says, I got to thank you. He said. So, I says,
now you can let me shoot thegun. And that was it.
That's it. That was it.He was a fellow club member. And
so you know, you do thingsfor people that you really enjoy. Yeah,
I enjoy making things. I loveit. You got you got a
(42:07):
part made out of dental material.So here here's the deal. I'm imagining
this and when it comes time toclean the gun. He's got his water
pick and it's filled hoppies number nineand he's cleaning his gun out. I
would hope yes, and made justa slight bit of grip to it.
(42:28):
That's great part. Keep fitting inthere and then make it smooth. So
that's what makes it good. That'slie, but make it. We're in
there, we'll look. I appreciatethe call or appreciate the story. That's
I mean, that is the ultimatein home gun smith Basically, it's what
we were talking with Pete Brown alabout earlier in the show about home gunsmithing
(42:49):
and tinkering and making parts and doingstuff. There's this long tradition of it.
And really the early gunsmith you talkabout the phrase lock stock and barrel.
They were watchmakers that could make thelocks in guns, the locks being
the action. But pretty much allguns were handmade back then. That's why
it's always been legal to make yourown guns in the US. It's why
(43:14):
these so called guns ghost gun bandsare unconstitutional, and I think they will
eventually be ruled to be unconstitutional.It's perfectly legal in the US to make
your own fire. So there yougo, and when we come back,
I want to talk about the ultralight guns and what has happened with lightweight
(43:35):
hunting rifles. Will also be takingyour calls eight six' six Talk Gun
or Tom Talk Gun. I'll getyou in here. I'm Tom Gresham will
be right back with more gun talk
The Ruger LC carbine is the ultimaterange companion, chambered in five seven by
twenty eight. It's fun to shootand low recoiling, a folding stock and
collapsible sites to make a compact.Learn more at Ruger dot com. Welcome
back to gun Talk. A fewweeks ago, had a chance to interview
Pete Brownew. He's the CEO ofBrown Els. He came down to Range
(00:22):
Rady Studios in Louisiana and to celebratetheir eighty fifth birthday. We had a
long conversation with him, and thatwill appear in video form in a few
weeks. We'll have that out foryou, but I wanted to grab a
little bit of it so you couldhear a little bit about Pete and the
company and why I personally think it'san exceptional company and he is an exceptional
(00:45):
person. Here's a bit of thatinterview. So, Pete Brownew, CEO
of Brown Els, you guys beenaround for eighty five years now, that's
that's right. This is our oureighty fifth day anniversaries in June, so
it's coming right now, and it'salso my father's eighty fifth birthday, so
(01:07):
kind of correlated. Yeah, Yeah, are we do well your third generation,
I am third Yeah. So yeah, my grandfather started this whole thing
back in thirty nine. He wasa tinkerer. I mean he was like
doing home gunsmithing for himself, right. He was so back in the guysh
He was born early nineteen hundreds andbeen kind of a jack of all trades.
(01:30):
Actually wrote for the NRA for awhile. So he was just like,
you man did not know that.So he wrote for the NRA on
how to articles. Back in theearly early days nineteen twenties, those are
the days where a correspondence took aweek or so to get to you,
so conversations were over months versus nowit's what seconds. So when he was
(01:51):
writing for the NA, he gotthis great idea from his audience and from
people at the NA to start writingcorrespondence in to gun stores or those customers
out there and say what do youwant? What do you need out?
Okay? Right, So that kindof that was kind of the first sprinklings
of what brown El's is today isgetting feedback from the customers. And then
(02:15):
what the customers basically said were,Hey, we need parts, we need
tools, we need all kinds ofknowledge. It was just everybody coming back
right around. Well between World WarOne and World War Two, all those
guys were fixing those firearms and becausethat they had at home and they had
they needed parts. And so hewrote Bill Senior and said, hey,
(02:37):
I need some parts and started alittle business that way, just out of
the house. Just one more ofthese companies that starts like in the garage
or in the kitchen or whatever instance. What is tinker with this and see
what happened? Yes, yeah,it was a really neat po Acley.
His grandson showed up with the letterthat he had written. My grandfather and
(03:00):
po said, Hey, this gunthing you're, this gun tool thing,
and this gunsmithing thing you're you're starting, it's pretty good idea. You should
lean into it, like acts likethe ultimate gunsmith. Yeah, oh my
gosh, he was. Yeah.Total, he kind of changed the face
of accuracy around the oh, aroundthe world. He did. I mean,
I mean, if you're into guns, you got to have actles books.
(03:20):
Yeah, as simple as that.So all right, so your grandfather
starts this thing, how does itgo from like the kitchen table to starting
to become like a real business.There wasn't much information out there on firearms
back in the day, what fitwith what everything? When you had a
problem, you basically sent it backto the shop, to the to uh
ruger or smith or at the guncompanies at the colt would take it back
(03:45):
and fix or you just there wasn'treally a professionalization of the gunsmithing trade back
then. So one of the firstthings that my grandpa did was the Encyclopedia
of modern gun Parts, where hetook every firearm and product and at that
time broken down into its parts,took three of each and then measured them
all put them in in an encyclopedia. It was a long process and that
(04:09):
became the kind of the bible forgunsmith's and it really broadened it out to
be you don't have to have ashop anymore. You could do this at
home because you had all the dimensions, what spring, what screw, what
fits where. So he mapped modernfirearmers back in the twenties and thirties.
(04:29):
It's a really ambitious project. Ohmy goodness, Yeah, it's cool.
We've got We've got the drawers andthe diagrams and all that kind of stuff
at at our shop there in Grenell, Iowa, where he had stored all
that stuff and all his all thehistory he did around all that. So
I don't think it's going too farto say that your grandfather Bob changed what
(04:54):
being a gunsmith is, because Imean before it was kind of like you
had to find somebody who knew howto do this. Yeah, and people
who did it at home didn't thinkof themselves as gunsmith so we call them
kitchen table gunsmith's. Yeah. Butin a certain way, what he did
and through brown Els through all thesegenerations in these years, you kind of
(05:15):
legitimize the whole idea of working onor even building your own gun right,
right kind of the I never thoughtabout it that way. I kind of
grew up in the whole space andwe were always tinkering at home. So
I think that's pretty nice. That'sa nice that's a nice sentiment to have
about your grandfather, how you couldchange the arc of a career of a
(05:36):
profession. I never had a chanceto work with my grandfather. I worked
with my dad quite a bit.But there were battles on technology, on
change. This whole thing called theInternet was a big battle, and it
was along these lines. It wasif if people think that they're just a
(05:58):
number to us, will lose them. So that was the cultural thing because
I mean Grandpa had correspondence with allkinds of people, customers, factories,
people overseas, military leaders, andit was a personal relationship. And that's
how he started the business and howhe ran the business for thirty years.
(06:18):
That's how my dad ran the business. And I could a vivid argument was
if customers hear us clicking that keyboardwhen they're on the phone with us,
they will think we don't care aboutthem. Really yeah, yeah, So
it was it was a battle tosay, hey, this is if we're
going to serve more customers, havemore relationships. It's hard for a call
(06:42):
center agent or somebody that's working foryou and with you to pick up the
phone remember who you are. Wellyeah, And of course the other thing
is, I mean, how manyitems do you sell? Gosh, I
know it's more than fifty thousand.Oh yeah, we're we've always got a
just under one hundred thousand little slotswith from screws to pallets of ammo to
(07:08):
optics to barrels and everything that's inthe modern firearms. You can break it
down. You can buy the firearmfrom US where you can buy the components
to make it all up and thenall the accessories wrapped around. It's been
pretty fun. You might want totalk about that because it really started off
Brown Else was the supplier of gunsmithtools. Yeah, and then parts,
(07:29):
but you kept growing in adding differentthings. What was that transition? How
does that go about? So itwas really interesting how this is a really
interesting story about my grandpa. Grandpawas known as backwater Bob, and that
was modern customer service to take abackward because customers would, my gosh.
(07:49):
When I started back in ninety seven, we would get an envelope of money
from an older gunsmith and said,hey, I know you've got it,
hang on to this when you getit. Then then cash My you mean
like send you cash? They sendus cash. Yeah, and or they
would tape coins. I know,I underpage you. They tape coins to
(08:11):
a to a card. It wasreally honest industry, and Bob was one
of the first people to say,I'll if you promised to buy it,
I'll invest in the inventory and letyou know when I have it. And
then then the transactional happened. Thatwas called a back order. So I
(08:31):
don't want to say he invented theback order, right, but that concept
of trust is kind of a corething to one of the things that he's
really engendered in who we are asa company. So back order, Bob,
what you're really describing, at leastto me and with my history with
Brown Ellison's, it's always been acompany built on culture and the culture of
(08:54):
taking care of your customers, whichknow that they can call they can talk
to your gun text to talk aboutthe gun. Yeah, there's there's so
much innovation. So back to kindof the some of the things that were
invented, glass betting, right,so for accuracy, for accuracy, right,
yeah. So so Grandpa and mydad were always trying to figure out
(09:16):
what's the back in the day.It was going to make me a million
dollars, you know, that wasthe ambition. Let's create a tool or
a product that would make me amillion dollars. So so glass betting was
one of them, and he wouldnumber them. So so ocd at number
seven was the seventh idea that wasgoing to make him a million dollars.
Knox number seven is the bluing agentthat makes most of the guns in today's
(09:41):
world blue right, so it's hot, it's hot, it's messy. But
that's how it was done back inthe day. And from that that started
the a bunch of people saying,you know what, we can do this
better with modern chemistry. So wegot cold bluing. So he and the
guys at Birchwood Birchwood Casey down onthe basements mixing things together so they could
(10:03):
they could figure out cold blowing.So that was another numbered item that they
came up, so hot blowing,cold blowing, and then all the tools,
glass, bedding, acroglass is allpart of that type of development.
Yeah, and for people today whodon't even know what we're talking about.
When you have woodstock on a rifle, wood absorbs moisture, it swells,
it shrinks, it shifts around,it changes your point of impact on your
(10:26):
rifle, and then you put alayer of fiberglass between the metal and the
wood to stabilize it. That's right, and right, I mean back then,
that's what you did to accurize ormake your rifle more Accurate's right.
That's right because when you're out hunting, you have basically one shot to get
that elk or that that mule deer, or that sheep or whatever you're hunting,
(10:50):
and you don't want to implement weatherto take your practice around your cold
shot and put it someplace it shouldn'tbe, which kind of leads us to
I mean Brown was making parts,are selling parts of wherese You've got the
famous screwdriver kits, yeah, allof that. Yeah, but now you're
selling rifles and guns. Right,so yeah, we've we've moved into it's
(11:15):
because the br In line, right, and it's kind of a retro model
to go back and pay homage tothe that that original AR fifteen with modern
technology a little tighter tolerances, butit helps people do building. We have
a building firearms customizing those farms justit's uh, the BRN line. We
(11:35):
did make a run of special fullfeatured firearms, but it's mostly actions and
uppers so people can customize the firearmthat they have. We'll have a bit
more with Pete Brown l on thebackside. Don't go far full metal.
Take the awesome Smith and Wesson Mand P pistol and make it out of
(11:58):
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fits M and P holsters, hasa softer metal or feel and recoil all
metal All Smith and Wesson, It'stime to go full metal Smithdashwesson dot com.
(12:20):
Now your gun rights are under attackas never before. Joe Biden's administration
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get in the fight. The SecondAmendment Foundation's actions and dozens of landmark lawsuits
(12:41):
have pushed back these gun grabs,but we need your help. Join and
support the Second Amendment Foundation. Goto SAF dot org. That's saf dot
org. There's more to this worldof guns than you realize. Your entry
to our world is a click away. At gun talk dot com, stay
(13:01):
informed and entertained on the latest firearmrelated topics. Whether it's new guns,
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(14:18):
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right, back with the congression here. I want to continue with my conversation
I had with Pete Brown. Now, he's the head of Brown Els in
(14:41):
the big outfit in Iowa, suppliersof practically everything has to do with guns,
parts, hambo whatever. The thingI wanted people to understand about Pete
is that he feels passionately about hiscompany, his employees, his customers,
and goes further than that. Let'sjust pick this up. This is from
(15:05):
when Pete came down to range ReadyStudios. He spent some time with us.
The full interview will be aired soonas a celebration in brown El's eighty
fifth birthday, but here's a fewpieces of that starting thirty nine. But
actually it's kind of a post WorldWar Two store for Browns, and you
(15:26):
had all the gis coming back,had no money. They wanted to have
a cool gun, and they wouldget surplus guns and tinker with them and
play with them and build their ownguns. Fast forward to today, you
got all these veterans coming back fromthe wars. They want to build their
own guns, different guns, differentrifles, but still basically coming out of
(15:48):
the military. And the story isthe same now as it was back then.
It is it is the farm ofchoice in America right now is ear
fifteen and there's a lot and itsmodern technology. It's easy to interchange.
It makes home gunsmithing, repair,fixing, and customizing it to who you
are and what adventure you're going on, what competition you're in, or what
(16:12):
you want to be using that fireroom for it makes it super easy to
do it yourself. Tell me aboutyour gun techs. Yeah, we have
a gosh, I don't know howmany we have right now. If you
have a problem, you can guysback in the day my grandpa started this,
call us up and ask any gunsmithingquestion and we'll help solve that problem
(16:36):
over the phone back in the day. Now it's done online. So our
gun techs are professionals that come outof the trade or come up through the
schools and are kind of junior gunsmithhelping out and learning along the way to
answer all kinds of questions about doesit fit, what's my problem? This
process doesn't quite work for me?What am I missing? And we've got
(17:00):
some really good talented individuals that havebeen doing gunspan thing for us a long
time. We put them on ourown YouTube channels on how tos so Caleb
known out there across the internet,and so Steve Ostrom known on how to.
They've got a little you know,almost a click and clack relationship for
(17:21):
firearms. They're just talented individuals.A lot of them have come through the
organization and landed really good jobs aswell. So we really want. I
think America needs more gunsmiths. Well, that was gonna be my NXT question.
Do we have enough gunsmiths in America? I don't think so. I
think that my grandpa started this too, and it was he wanted to professionalize
(17:44):
the gunsmithing trade. That was hiswhole mantra. And I think he's done
a good job for your point earlier, done a good job making it easy
for people to be have the toolsand knowledge to be a gunsmith. There
is a rough estimate of roughly fivethousand hardcore gunsmiths in America right now.
I think we could have four timesthat and still absorb the need for fixing
(18:08):
and diagnosing and repairing and customizing firearmsout there, or the use that they
need to have in each community.And he would often say, and we
still believe it. Show me atown without a gunsmith or gun shop,
and I'll show you a town thatdoesn't have a healthy relationship with firearms because
that local person is that gunsmith orthat gun shop. That's your that's your
(18:33):
advocate, that's your person who doesthe training. That's the person you go
to, the law enforcement goes to. That's where everybody kind of goes and
says, what do I need?How do I do it? If I'm
out hunting, if I'm out doingcompetitions, or if I need this for
my job, what do I do? And that's your local advocate, and
there's a big need for this.But when I asked Pete about is climbing,
(18:57):
he's been a mountain climber for manyyears. He opened up and we
got a look into what drives himand what's important to him. And frankly,
one of the reasons I have alwaysthought he was an exceptional person.
All right, So but you gotan interesting climb ahead of you. Where
(19:19):
are you going? And what's thisall about? So we are we're heading
over to kill him a jarl,and I've pivot a bit, so I'm
taking a bunch of soldiers over there, and we're sponsoring this. These are
soldiers that are special operators, aswe all have. If you have friends
(19:41):
in the space or families in thespace. The suicide rate is incredible for
operators. And these are individuals whohave been over and done that type of
work and have been injured and havebeen dropped out of the teams, and
they have almost a redemption and typeof mission where they've they've fallen down,
(20:03):
they've hit rock bottom, and theseare the people are going to tell their
story about how they have come backfrom some dark times to inspire other people
that are facing these types of situationswhere they're not they're questioning themselves. We
want to give them examples of justwhat life could be by summoning this mountain
(20:25):
from people that have been in theirspot. These individuals are I mean,
the fantastic stories of what they've donefor America and their teams and the people
that they worked with, how they'vecome back from hips and knees and dark
times, and how they've kind ofredeemed themselves and worked through all their issues
(20:48):
and summoning a mountain like that iskind of an inspirational story as their stories
start to unfold for others. Iask you earlier, can all these guys
make it to the top? Youranswer was, if they can't, I'll
carry you. You met that literally, what's that mean to you? So
(21:15):
these guys have been they really whenthey're in the military, they've been there
since high school, and they knowgood good leaders. They make a commitment
to our country and when they havetheir friends around them and they know a
(21:37):
good team is about, they knowwhat good leadership is. We have a
lot to learn from them as civilians. How do we help do our part
for those people that have helped ourcountry no matter where they are sent without
question. And this is part ofwhat I'm trying to deliver back to them,
is we care about you. Wecare about and respect the mission that
(22:00):
you're on. It's a tough oneand we want to lean in and help
any way we can. And thisis a This is helpfing inspire some of
these people that are still coming throughour military and struggling because it's tough,
and so if we have to carryand we'll carry them. Hey, thanks
(22:26):
for being here. I'm Tom Greshamand this is Gun Talk. I really
enjoyed that conversation with Pete Brown.L Holy cow, Oh, I thought
that was powerful stuff. Oh.If you want to join us, it's
simple. Give me a call TomTalk Gun. That's the number. It's
pretty easy to remember, Tom.That's me, Tom Talk Gun. Give
me a call pretty much open lines. If there's something on your mind,
(22:47):
a gun you want to tell meabout or ask me about, or you're
thinking about maybe getting a gun forself defense or you're considering finally, maybe
possibly getting your carry permit or carryingor maybe you're in a state doesn't require
you to have a permit. Yeah, we'll talk about that. I can
kind of talk you through the initialstages are kind of awkward and uncomfortable when
(23:10):
you start carrying. I can helpyou with that. So give me a
call and we can talk about thatagain. Tom Talk Gun a big welcome
and a shout out to the folksat kid O Radio in Boise, Idaho.
One A seven point five FM,five eighty AM. K IDEO has
been carrying gun Talk for many years, but it's always been on a recorded,
(23:33):
delayed basis, and now, asof today, if you're in Boise
area the Treasure Valley, you canhear gun Talk live, which means you
can call in because you're hearing whatwe're talking about. And just another update,
I'm just up the road from you, up in central Idaho, so
we're broadcasting live from Idaho. Sowelcome to k id O listeners. Give
(23:55):
me a call eight six six TalkGun or Tom Talk Gun. All right,
let's grab Terry. I appreciate thepacis. Terry in Portland, Oregon
got news coming out of Oregon giveus the update if you would please.
Well, I got this update fromI don't know if you're familiar with the
arms scholar on the internet YouTube,so I got it from him. That's
(24:18):
all I can say. Anyway,this could be big news for Oregon gun
owners. As everybody knows, ormaybe some people don't know, Oregon passed
the ballot Measure one fourteen back inNovember of twenty twenty two, which just
a diuscerated our Second Amendment rights.Fortunately, it went to a district judge,
(24:44):
Judge Raschio in Harney County, andhe ruled it totally unconstitutional. So
the Attorney General's office was given anuntil May thirty first to file an appeal
(25:04):
with the appellate court. Okay,and it's according to the Arms Dollar they
have failed or they let the theydidn't file in time, so I don't
know. This could put the wholeballot measure completely moot. Now, well,
(25:27):
that would be huge because that wasa particularly terrible measure that they passed,
you know, on the ballot initiative, tell you what, and I
appreciate the heads up. I didnot catch that over the last week.
So I'm going to go find thefolks in Oregon who can fill me in
on that and we will verify thatand get that information out. But I
really appreciate the heads up on that, sir. Thank you. That scraps
(25:49):
Jeff out of reading ont of thatonline. Five. Hey Jeff, you're
on gun Talk, Which are yourmind? Sir? Oh? I thought
it was just off air. Iwas talking to your screener about getting hold
of your last guest from Brownel becausehe's taking those injured operators up Mount Kilmanjaro
(26:11):
and I wanted to send him somethingfor the trip. Well, you know
what, you can just contact BrownelsBrownels dot com and you can just shoot
them a note and I'm sure theywill get it to Pete. All right,
I guess I'll go that way.I did give her my contact and
asked her if she could forward itto him. I wanted to well send
(26:32):
something that the guys could share onenight and know that they have the thanks
of a grateful nation. What doesyou think of that interview with Pete Monumental?
It's great to get history you.Let's say you got the best geeky
young You know everything you want tohear and talk about show there is and
you know, and I had aguy who's a competitive shooter offered to take
(26:56):
me to the range. And it'sgood that I listened to your show because
I remember that. You know,Okay, I was growing up with guns
since I was a kid out tobe begun shot twenty two. You know,
I could have thought I know itall, but I've listened you enough
to know you go in there knowinghow stupid I am, and listen to
this guy and pay attention right rightbecause you I mean, there's always something
(27:18):
to learn, helpful toy, there'salways something to learn. I mean,
I take shooting classes all the time. And even if you think, okay,
I know all this stuff, I'vebeen to this kind of class before.
I've even taken the same class severaltimes, and every single time I
learned something. Yes, yep,it's like you know, it's like church.
(27:40):
Oh I know that Bible reading.Well, listen up. Anyway,
maybe you'll get something more out ofit this time. There's something else there.
You just need to open yourself upto it. Well, thank you
for the calling. If you wouldcontact brown Els, probably that's the best
ways to go to Brownells dot com. We also have your contact info and
I'll we'll see if we can.We're going to root that over to Pete.
We can, we can backdoor thatto him for you, So don't
worry. We got you back onthat one. I hope you were able
(28:07):
to hear the interview we just didwith Pete Brown now where we talked about
taking the special operators. It's takinga bunch of them, and I don't
think we had it in the interview, but that they're actually going to do
it. A National Geographic TV specialon the climb. They're going to climb
Mount Kalmanjaro in Tanzania. It's nineteenthousand plus feet and that's a serious mountain
(28:29):
and they're taking these injured, woundedvets. And I asked him, I
said, well, what if theycan't make it, And without missing the
beat, he says, if theycan't make it to the top, we'll
carry them. We'll carry them upthere ourselves. That was moving for me.
(28:52):
I don't know how it hits you, but it was a verification of
what I've known for many, manyyears. I've known Peter law time on
the family a long time and it'sone of those leaders I thought I couldn't
be surprised, but I guess Iwas surprised and impressed. So there you
go. So Brownels dot com.If you want to say thanks to them,
(29:15):
by all means, send them anote. Let's take a quick break
here and now we're going to openit up for your calls. Our number
is eight six six Talk Gun orTom Talkgun. We'll be right back.
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Silence delivered all right. About gradthe eighty six six talked gun get you
(31:08):
in here. I was mentioning Iwas working up some loads for this rifle,
and we're we talking about Melvin Forbes. He passed away and this few
minutes we'll talk with Ron Spoemer aboutthat, because Ron has been using Melvin's
rifles for a long time and I'vebeen a fan of them and started buying
because fortunately Melvin made left handed versionsof his Ultra Light Arms rifles. It's
(31:33):
an interesting history. He had theUltra Light Arms sold, it ended up
getting back and called it New UltraLight Arms. So they're the Ula and
the n Ula rifles. All prettymuch the same. And then a couple
of years ago, when he wasin failing health, he sold the company
to Bill Wilson at Wilson Combat andthey're making ultra light arms, which is
great. I'm glad they're doing that. But I'm working up loads, whether
(31:55):
it's two eighty four Winchester, andjust real quickly. What I'm doing is
take a powder and you start withthe starting load, and then I'll make
three rounds and then increase the powdercharge by a grain, and make three
rounds and increase the powder charge bya grain up to the max load,
and then take them out to therange. And I did that with three
different powders, and then shoot groupsand see what happens. And typically what
(32:20):
happens is that first at the lowestsetting or lowest power rate, the groups
are kind of big, and thenas the powder charge increases, the groups
get smaller and smaller, and thenget to a certain point. Often what
will happens They start getting bigger againas they increase powder charges. So you
find out, okay, there's thatone point there where the groups are the
smallest. What's going on? Well, this is kind of fun and interesting.
(32:44):
A barrel. A rifle barrel moveswhen you shoot. It kind of
whips around, whether it's up ordown, left, right, whatever,
but it's basically swing. Imagine it'sgoing left and right. And what you
don't want is for the bullets tobe coming out as it's crossing the midpoint
from left to right or right toleft, because that is where you get
the most speed. The barrel isactually vibrating with the most speed. But
(33:07):
if you need the bullets to comeout at one end or the other of
this oscillation, that's where it's movingthe slowest. As it slows down,
stops and reverses, and so byincreasing the powder charges and changing the harmonic
vibrations of the barrel, you endup with a smaller group. That smaller
group is showing you that you're actuallyworking at the node out there where the
(33:30):
barrel is moved to the end ofits movement and it's starting to turn around.
I know. That's like as geekyas it gets. All I'm really
saying is I'm trying to find whatpowder charge and what powder gives me the
best accuracy and out of this littleit's a five pound rifle. Before you
put a scope on it, shootingone hundred and fifty grain bullet at twenty
(33:52):
nine twenty nine fifty feet per second, which is not shabby at all.
Out of the super lightweight rifle.I'm getting three quarter of an inch groups,
three quarter of an inch groups.Now, of course you're never satisfied,
right, So now I'm going togo start tweaking. Instead of changing
the powder charges by a full grain, I'm going to start changing them by
(34:13):
like two tenths of a grain andstart working my way around that center where
I got the best group, andstart a little bit below it, go
to a little bit above it.And is it necessary? Of course not?
Of course this is not necessary.I'm gonna be hutting deer at Elk
with this thing, and we've gotthree quarter of an inch groups less than
an inch. I mean at Elkis a great big animal. A deer's
(34:35):
not a small animal. And Ido limit my shooting at critters. I'm
four one hundred four fifty maybe somethinglike that. So anyway, Uh,
it's just you know, that's whatI'm thinking. Here, Hey, let's
go grab let me stay where wereOh there is Paul Paul's and Palmer line
four. Hey, Paul, you'reup. What's up? Doing great?
(34:58):
I listened to I listen to youevery week. But you've said several times,
you said, if you see agun at a gun show, or
you hear one somewhere that you kindof always wanted, and you pass it
up, you'll always regret it.And so I bought a Browning B seventy
eight and seven millimeter with a heavybarrel in Japan in nineteen seventy seven.
(35:21):
I've been looking for the six millimetertwin with a heavy barrel for the last
forty five years. Wow, nevercould find one. And I saw a
B seventy eight and six at agun show last year. So I went
home, got online, looked insome of the places selling. I found
a twenty five ought six in Idahoand bit on it and got it,
(35:45):
and I thought, that's the closestI'll ever get, But it had the
taper octagon barrel, so it wasn'tquite the gun. A month later,
I happened to be in a gunshow here in Palmer, and I'm going
around the and I look and there'sa B seventy eight with a heavy barrel
setting over there. This is lessless than a month after. I just
(36:07):
bought the twenty five OT six andI walked up and I said, tell
me, that's not a six milimeterand he said it is. And anyway,
I got it. And it's justthe dream gun I've been looking for.
It's my holy grail for the lastforty five years. And have got
up some reloads. I shoot fiverounds instead of your three like you were
(36:29):
talking about, to bring my loaddown. This thing is just a dream
to shoot. And oddly enough thetwenty five ought six is just as nice.
So now I'm torn by that heavybarrel on the six millimeters. It's
the gun I've been looking for,and because of you, I walked past
(36:50):
it. I gave myself about twoand a half minutes and I was back
and made him a deal and gotit. And I'm so glad. I
think I was geeky for a week. Well, you know what, You're
always going to be happy. Imean, heaven's the best of forty five
years you've been waiting to find thatgun. You couldn't possibly be passed up.
(37:10):
You can't just say, oh gee, I'm not going to go buy
that. I already bought a twentyfive our six. No this is the
one you want. Now, youcan keep the twenty five ours six,
but you can also am. Yeah, you're going to keep it, arn't
you. Absolutely? Yeah, they'reboth. In fact, if you look
at the trajectory and everything on them, the twenty five oughts six shoots a
fifteen grain bullet heavier than the sixmillimeter, but the ballistics are identical,
(37:37):
the speed's identical. So I'm shootingan eighty five grain in the six and
a one hundred grain in the twentyfive oughts six, and so'm I bought
it for sheep up here. Didn'tget my drawing permit this year, but
at I'll be sixty eight in November, and I figure I only got about
five more years left of good sheephunting in my body. But uh,
(38:00):
this is the gun for it.So yeah, I don't know. You
know what they say, don't letthe old man in you just keep charging
the head. Don't let that guyget in there. You just keep doing
those things. Okay, thanks,I'll still try to keep getting through puberty.
Then yeah, there you go.I like it. Well, I
don't plan to grow up, that'sfor sure. As anybody who's listening to
the show knows that's not a chancein the world. That is such a
(38:23):
great story, always looking for thisgun. And then when I'm telling you,
when you find that gun, evenif you just bought something else,
even if you're saying, oh,I don't know, that's a little expensive,
if it's the one you have beenlooking for, how likely is it
you're going to find another one?It's there. Don't talk yourself out of
(38:45):
it. Just listen. Have myvoice in your head, Tom saying,
just do it. Buy the gun. If you have to, you can
sell something else. But if it'sthe one you've been looking for, if
it's that dream gun, you oweit to yourself. You will kick yourself
for up for if you don't dothat. At least that's my take.
(39:13):
Hey, welcome back. Next week. By the way, we're going to
be having Jack Carr, the novelist, author, former seal talking about his
newest book, Red Sky Morning.I'm reading it right now. It is
good. He just gets better withevery book. We'll have that for you
next week. I get a sixto six talk Gun If you want to
talk to us here, Bill calledin out of North Carolina. Hey,
Bill, you're on Gun Talk.What's up? Hey? Tom, how
(39:36):
are you? I am fabulous.My wife and I listen to you every
week on Sunday for two hours andwe really really enjoy your show. Well,
thank you. I was telling them. Lady that answered the phone to
she was asking me what I wascalling about. I wanted to tell you
I had a friend of mine inthe hunting club that broken ejector on some
(39:59):
kind of ant gun and they couldn'tfind a part. They searched everywhere,
had a gunsmith there and he wasquite notable that couldn't find it. That
it came to me and they says, Bill, do you think you can
make this part? And I'm adental technician by trade. I'm big false
(40:20):
teeth. Oh okay, all right, So I got the materials accurate,
really cool, and so I says, I don't know, I can try,
you know what the heck? Itate that much and I can make
it out of chrome and yeah,eighteen percent chrome. It's it's really got
dental materials there. And so Isaid, no problem. I says,
(40:44):
let me have the part. Andwell, this particular antique gun had two
ejectors on it, and I waslike, holy cow, I've never seen
this before. But it's okay.So I had the gunsmith take it apart,
give me both ejectors. I wantto see the difference in them.
(41:05):
So I made two ejectors, andthen the broken one I couldn't, I
super glued back together just so Icould duplicate it. And then but I
cast him in chrome and put thosein there, and I said, you
got to keep these greased up.Now use wheelbaring grease or something. It
(41:25):
won't hurt the gun a bit.So you know, I mean, it
works on your tires, your wheels, don't it sure? You know,
so why not packed the bearings andlet it go work. So I made
two of them, gave them tohim, and he was so elated.
(41:45):
He couldn't believe it. He says, well, I owe yeah, I
says, I got to thank you. He said. So, I says,
now you can let me shoot thegun. And that was it.
That's it. That was it.He was a fellow club member. And
so you know, you do thingsfor people that you really enjoy. Yeah,
I enjoy making things. I loveit. You got you got a
(42:07):
part made out of dental material.So here here's the deal. I'm imagining
this and when it comes time toclean the gun. He's got his water
pick and it's filled hoppies number nineand he's cleaning his gun out. I
would hope yes, and made justa slight bit of grip to it.
(42:28):
That's great part. Keep fitting inthere and then make it smooth. So
that's what makes it good. That'slie, but make it. We're in
there, we'll look. I appreciatethe call or appreciate the story. That's
I mean, that is the ultimatein home gun smith Basically, it's what
we were talking with Pete Brown alabout earlier in the show about home gunsmithing
(42:49):
and tinkering and making parts and doingstuff. There's this long tradition of it.
And really the early gunsmith you talkabout the phrase lock stock and barrel.
They were watchmakers that could make thelocks in guns, the locks being
the action. But pretty much allguns were handmade back then. That's why
it's always been legal to make yourown guns in the US. It's why
(43:14):
these so called guns ghost gun bandsare unconstitutional, and I think they will
eventually be ruled to be unconstitutional.It's perfectly legal in the US to make
your own fire. So there yougo, and when we come back,
I want to talk about the ultralight guns and what has happened with lightweight
(43:35):
hunting rifles. Will also be takingyour calls eight six' six Talk Gun
or Tom Talk Gun. I'll getyou in here. I'm Tom Gresham will
be right back with more gun talk
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