Tripods and Heads with Mark Denham

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This week we're joined by Mark Denham of Outdoorsmans. We're discussing their new generation 2 of heads, carbon fiber tripods and getting that optic balanced on your tripod. 

For all of Outdoorsman's products visit, https://www.outdoorsmans.com. 

Window mount - 2:30

Gen 2 heads and Plates - 4:30

Carbon Fiber vs Aluminum - 17:00

Inegra - 28:45

Alternative tripods - 39:00

Solid Recommendation - 42:45

Rifes on tripods - 46:30

Balance your Optic! - 57:00

Trade in Program - 1:01:00

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
We have Mark Denimon without doorsmans and we're
going to talk tripods and allkinds of stuff.
What's going on, man?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Absolutely not much.
Jordan, how are you?
It's been a while.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I know I'm actually headed your direction here
Saturday, I think.
We're going to head down for aweek and try to do the over the
counter mule deer situation.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
That's always interesting.
It's always fun.
My dad's leaving next Tuesdayand he's going to be doing.
They're probably going to endup chasing Coos deer, like they
always do but, otc, you alwayshave the option of saying, oh
yeah, I just didn't see any ofthese, I was hunting Coos deer.

(00:55):
I didn't see any Coos deer andyou're like, nah, you were
hunting mule deer and you justcouldn't get it done.
But no, it's a fun time inArizona, otc, it's.
Things get interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Everybody that I guess doesn't know or has been
living under a rock.
Can you just give like a little10,000 foot view on
outdoorsmans?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Absolutely so.
Outdoorsmans is a backpacks,optics and tripod company.
Those are our three mainstaples.
We always call ourselves theone stop shop for the gear for
the Western Hunter.
We have been in business since1982 and we have been producing
the products that everybody isfamiliar with our tripods and

(01:36):
backpacks for about 23, 24 yearsnow, starting in about 1999.
We have always been focused onhigh end, extremely niche
products for the Western Hunterand when you imagine Western
hunting big, big mountains andglass and really far and being

(02:01):
super light that's where we'retrying to be the masters of
those products.
So tripods are going to beprobably the one thing we're
most known for.
And then all of theiraccompanying components,
binocular adapters and any typeof adapters for cameras and
rifles and all those types ofthings.

(02:21):
So yeah, we are the gear forthe Western Hunter.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, you guys undoubtedly, in my opinion, make
the greatest window mountsystem known to man.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thank you.
Thank you, that's a pain pointfor a lot of people.
I like that you bring that upbecause it is.
It's an interesting systembecause it is one of the only
things that we make that isproprietary technically and has
to be used with our products.
We normally stray very far awayfrom that.
We normally try to stay asuniversal as possible because we

(02:52):
don't want to force people topurchase things If they already
got something that could work ornot.
We don't want to be like I knowyou got to buy this part if you
want to use that.
The window mount is that onepart, but we think it's for a
very good reason, because itminimizes the whole system by a
ton when you can just have thatone tiny little window mount and

(03:14):
then slide our pan head righton.
The pan head is the one that itworks the best with.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I know you're a fan of the pan head.
I've got mine right here.
We'll have video on this thingtoo.
But I like to set mine up withthe little quick adapter that's
on the tripod and you slide thepan head off, or whatever head
you're using, and you see thelittle dovetail deal.
Then the window mount portionwill have this side on it.

(03:42):
Then you slide off your headfrom the tripod, slide it onto
the window mount and you're likegolden.
How many times have you seenpeople with their spotting
scopes and their laps, withquarters in their hands, trying
to spin the old one off to putit onto their window mount and
then they lose their other oneand oh man.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's plates and things like that are.
They're tough because they canruin things.
Either losing one or not havinga plate on one thing can really
really ruin a hunt.
It may not be the one thingthat makes you unsuccessful, but
it's going to be the one thingthat really pisses you off.

(04:23):
You forgot a little plate.
That's $19 or $20 and you don'thave it.
That little dovetail system thatyou're seeing.
That is the proprietary.
We call it outdoorsman's styleadapter, outdoorsman's plates.
That is proprietary to us andwe're definitely going to talk
about it today.
But we are slowly moving awayfrom that proprietary attachment

(04:46):
in our products that should beused with tons of other products
.
The window mount has gone to aGen 2 of the dual system, which
is awesome.
I think we are going to seesome people use the ARCA
functionality of the windowmount, but mostly we're
expecting it to remain kind ofan outdoorsman's only type of

(05:10):
product, the window mountspecifically, everything else.
We are moving very, veryquickly in the direction of
whole universitality or whateveryou want to call it.
But if you want to mount it ona tripod, we can mount it on a
tripod.
We can help you do that, nomatter what type of product it

(05:34):
is, we want you to be able toput it on top of one of our
tripods.
I think that's a pretty simpleconcept that some other
companies stray away fromManfrotto is one that we have
kind of a pain point with.
Currently Everybody's moving toARCA.
We aren't the type of people tosit back and say like, oh no,

(05:57):
you have to use our system, oursis better.
For whatever reason, we see theindustry going this direction,
we would much rather be acontributing part of the
industry than sit back and tryto force people to use a product
that isn't going to becompatible with their buddies
stuff and with other stuff.

(06:18):
10 years down the road.
Arca is here to stay and it's agreat system.
It's really, really what we'regoing for right now.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
So, yeah, just the gen two of everything.
As a person that carries acamera all the time, as well as
optics and all that, being ableto put your camera with the ARCA
adapter that is always on likea peak designs clip on my
backpack strap and then go rightinto the head and then all of

(06:50):
the things that have my outdoorswas played on them still work
in the same head, or I likeJimmy Rigdon adapter, as many
people did, and I lost multipleones of those and now I don't
have to keep track of themanymore.
It's all in the same thing.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
It's a very, very simple change.
I always like to say simple,not easy, is a term I use
constantly because I usually Idownplay things like oh yeah,
that's simple.
It is simple.
The concept isn't crazy.
It was a little difficult toget everything right but, like
on the notes you sent over, youask him like who thought?

Speaker 1 (07:30):
that.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
And that was all.
That idea was all ourmanufacturing partner at Rim
Country Manufacturing.
We have an amazing partnershipwith those guys.
They do all of our aluminummanufacturing for our tripod
components and things like thatand they are very, very smart
guys.
So they approached us with theidea of that type of system we

(07:55):
had been talking about.
When do we ever make this switchto ARCA?
Should we do this?
And we've been talking about itfor a while and one day I can't
even remember how it gotbrought up, but he's like I
think we can just do both and Iwas like, well, why?
And he's like, well, I mean,we've got 20 years of customers

(08:16):
that have our current parts andwe're hoping to have way more
than 20 years of customers aheadof us that are going to use
ARCA.
They've already got ARCA, orthat's just the way the industry
is going.
And he's like we kind of haveto take care of both of those
customers.
And if we just say one day we'reswitching over everything to
ARCA and we never offer anotherproduct ever again, with the

(08:38):
outdoors and style, that causesjust a kind of a crappy pain
point for customers.
I've dealt with it withcompanies before where I won't
call them out, but I've dealtwith companies before that I
know the reason that theydiscontinued this certain
product, but I have otherproducts currently that need

(09:00):
that thing that you justdiscontinued, and so now I have
to.
Now, instead of purchasinganother $70 part, I have to
replace every single part I'vegot already, and it's 450 bucks
instead of just like the 70 forthe one part, and I'm like

(09:20):
that's kind of crappy.
That's a crappy feeling,because you had already invested
that money into the company.
And then they said, oh sorry,we thought of something better.
You got to buy it all again.
And we're like God, that's kindof tough, and so we wanted to
avoid that as much as possible.
And as soon as he thought ofthis idea, we're like let's,

(09:41):
let's draw that thing up.
And it turned out.
It turned out great.
Yeah.
Very, very happy.
That is very, very close torevision.
One of that design I mean wedid not change it very much from
the original design and itturned out just great.
I mean, when we were using itfor during the prototype stages,

(10:03):
I was like I don't know how youcould make this.
I don't know why this feels somuch better than that little
wing nut.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
But it's just so much quicker, yeah, so it's a we're
very proud of that and it's asimple, not easy thing that you
know.
We're everybody's like ah, it'snot that big of a deal, and
we're like I just use it once.
Like, if you've used our olderproducts and use this one,
you'll see like you'll have alittle smile on your face for a
second and be like ah, it's kindof cool.
So they did an amazing job withthat.

(10:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, like you're saying the wing nut deal I mean
every head pretty much has thatwhere you screw it on to some
point.
But your guys is the new gentwo has a little lever and when
that lever is locked on, no,that's not falling out Like you
can walk with it over yourshoulder and not feel like it's

(10:54):
going to fall.
You know your optic is going tofall and break off or you know,
break or whatever.
And a lot of optic companiesnow with their new releases and
I think even revised old leatreleases, they all have ARCA
already on the plate.
It's not like you need to putanother adapter on the plate.
The plate is ARCA already.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yep, yeah, I mean that's, that's super convenient
and we, we loved when theystarted doing that.
And you know it's sometimes aproduct will come out and you're
like, dang, I wish they wouldhave.
I wish they would have put thaton there, because it does.
It makes things a lot easierand it's just.
Another great thing is youforget that plate and you're not

(11:36):
a hundred percent screwed.
You know if, if you can, just,you know, maybe it's like a, you
know a big ATX 95 or 115,that's definitely not the
balance point where that foot is, and so you're not going to
have the best glassingexperience, but it's better than
nothing.
You can at least attach it to atripod.
So you know it's, that'sdefinitely nice.
But the universal that's a.

(11:58):
It's an interesting system thatwe decided to go with.
And instead of going with likea adjustable quick release or an
adjustable quick detach system,we went with as universal as we
could possibly make it.
So those measurements on thatthing and that cam is not

(12:18):
adjustable.
You cannot change the distanceon those teeth like you could
with like a Picatinny quickrelease adapter is pretty common
.
You know where you push in,twist it tighter and close it.
We decided to go with their.
They're called Bellevillewashers and it's a constant
pressure across the entiretravel of the, of the of the

(12:40):
actual jaws.
So no matter how oversized orundersized that plate is, it
will provide the same amount ofclamping pressure, no matter
what If the part is superundersized or super oversized.
That's where things get alittle interesting and
unfortunately, with a lot of themass manufacturing happening,

(13:03):
we can run into that every oncein a while.
But 99% of things it's going toclamp on there and it ain't
going anywhere.
It is locked in there.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
So we really like that system.
Yeah, and head wise, you didthe gen two to all the heads.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yes.
So right now, the way, the waywe had it planned internally,
was the three.
We like to think of them as thethree flagship heads the pistol
grip, micro panhead and panhead.
Those were all going to bereleased right around the same
time.
We tried to cromp them up asclose as possible and it ended
up being a couple months betweenthe panhead release and the

(13:45):
micro panhead and pistol grip.
And then the fluid head is theonly tripod head that we produce
currently.
That has not got its gen twomakeover quite yet.
That is planned.
We're excited about it.
We're really excited about it.
It's an undertaking.

(14:05):
That is a big head and it tookus a while to design that the
first time.
And these revisions are goingto be larger than just the gen
two of the panhead and thepistol grip of micro.
We are going to hopefullyredesign that from almost the
ground up to improve upon whatit is currently, because I mean

(14:27):
we will be the first ones toadmit I hope we never make a
perfect product, because thatmeans we can't make any products
anymore.
And I know it's a.
It's such a cliche to say, oh,you'll never be perfect, or this
is an, it's never perfect,we'll keep improving on it.
But it's true and we know thatour products aren't the end all
be all of.
You know the glassing industry.

(14:48):
We constantly are workingtowards you know that point.
But there's always things tochange and our customers like us
and they're they're usuallyvery, very nice about their
criticisms and their, theiropinions.
Some aren't, but we still takeevery single thing that anybody

(15:09):
has to say about our products toheart and they all get thought
about and they all get talkedabout, no matter how mean you
are about it or nice you areabout it.
I might get a little frustratedif you're not really mean about
it, but there's going to be ameeting and we're going to talk
about that criticism.
We're going to, you know, we'regoing to say like a lot of the

(15:29):
times they've customers havekind of told me some stuff and
I'm like I never thought aboutit that way and we've absolutely
made revisions to productsbecause of customer input and we
get a lot of it and that's likethe one thing I think I could
say is like the best part of ourcustomer base is how

(15:52):
comfortable they seem giving usinput on our products and like
real, real input, because a lotof people, if they're spending
the type of money that theyspend on our stuff.
They're probably pretty serioususers, and we got some pretty
serious users out there.
I mean absolutely.

(16:12):
There's not a.
There's a lot of people outthere that are using these
products way more than any ofour staff is, and that's vital
to what we do.
So if anybody's out there withsome opinions on Outdoorsons
products infooutdoorsonscom fireaway.
We will answer you, I promise.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
The podcast is brought to you in part by First
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(16:58):
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Oh, there's just such a giveand take with everything gonna
make some people happy and youknow it's always like the.
I'm sure the price and materialbalance, which is a huge, like

(17:22):
a huge topic, especially withthe legs, is like carbon fiber
versus aluminum fire away.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
It's massive.
It's massive and we talkedabout this.
We talked about this a whileago Gosh, that was a while ago.
But it's the difference in theactual like.
If you just look at thematerial itself, they are

(17:49):
similar in a lot of ways.
Like, if you take, you know, ifyou do deflection tests and all
that type of stuff on how theyactually interact with you know,
weight and loads and thingslike that, they're quite similar
.
And then you look at the costand you're like where the heck
is that coming from?
And it is purely just theavailability and the quantity of

(18:14):
the raw materials.
Aluminum, pretty easy to get,you know, pretty easy to find.
It's mined all across theentire planet.
Carbon, not so much.
You know there's fewmanufacturers, few raw
manufacturers out there.
You're importing pretty mucheverything as far as raw
materials go and then you gottathen you gotta manufacture it

(18:38):
you know, and the manufacturingprocess is very different than
machining.
Machining, I'm not gonna pisspeople off, but machining seems
easy sometimes, you know,compared to carbon stuff.
And before we started thisproject, I mean I didn't know.
I didn't know left from rightwhen it came to the ins and outs

(19:00):
of carbon materials and it tooka long time to.
It took about two years toreally become comfortable with
saying like, okay, this is worththis price and it has benefits
over aluminum, and it's notbetter than aluminum, but it

(19:23):
does have benefits that aluminumdoes not have.
Because we will never say thatcarbon is better than aluminum.
Aluminum is better than carbon.
It can't be said.
You can argue either way all daylong and we will, robbie, we
will all day long can argueabout carbon and aluminum, but
one is great for one thing andone is great for another and it

(19:46):
really just boils down to weight.
And it's kind of unfortunatethat it is that simple.
But one is lighter than theother and that is the end at the
end of the day.
That's the big difference.
They do act slightly differentin wind, with vibration and
other things, but it is purelythe weight and we just pay for

(20:12):
that weight.
Because if you want somethingthat is just as strong but
lighter.
That's probably a material thatyou're going to end up paying
for.
I mean you look at anything likethat titanium, other types of
carbon materials they are thestronger, lighter version of
their counterpart.
They're always more expensive.

(20:32):
Right.
And whether it's fair or not iswe can argue that too, but the
increasing cost truly isreflected in our prices and
that's something we really tryto get across to people.
Is that aluminum tripod andthat carbon tripod?

(20:54):
They are priced pretty muchidentically as far as
manufacturing Costco and thatpeople sometimes don't believe
and it's kind of frustrating.
I promise we're not lying toyou.
It is just that much moreexpensive.
And then we do manufactureeverything in the United States

(21:16):
and that again is unfortunatethat it does come with a premium
, but it does.
And we do it for a lot ofreasons.
We obviously love creating andsustaining jobs within this
country, but we also do itbecause there's a lot of quality

(21:36):
control aspects that we haveour hands in.
That is either almostimpossible to do overseas or
very, very difficult.
And if we're going to produce aproduct, this niche, we kind of
have to have that muchoversight and that much
involvement in that process,because we're changing like tiny

(21:58):
, tiny little things and we'redoing things that the photo
industry is not really known forand they would think is weird
and they wouldn't really want todo, and that's photo is pretty
much the only mass manufacturersout there.
There's no hunting tripod massmanufacturers that you can order

(22:21):
a tripod from.
They're all just photo tripods,and so a lot of photo tripods
make great tripods.
We sell tons of them.
But there is a reason.
The cost is associated with ourcarbon products and our
aluminum.
But as far as difference goesand with our specific products

(22:46):
our carbon and agra and ouraluminum I talked earlier about
we wanted to make a product thatwe truly did think has had a
benefit over our aluminum, andnot just the weight, because we
knew we could make it lighter.
We hit our goals on weight withthe tall and the standard, the

(23:07):
compact.
We wanted just a tiny tiny bitlighter, but we got it under two
pounds and that was the goal.
There it is.
It was a.
There was a beat of sweatrunning down my head the day we
weighed the final prototype andit was one pound 15 and seven
eighths ounces.
I mean we missed two pounds byan eighth of an ounce and I

(23:27):
reweight it like five timesbecause I didn't believe that it
got that close.
I was like, oh God, all right,I'll take it Like we got it
under two pounds.
But the other thing is theenegra, and that's something no
one knows what it is.
I didn't know what it was untilwe stumbled upon it and it's a
very cool addition.

(23:48):
It's not something.
Honestly, hopefully none of ourcustomers ever see the benefits
of enegra, because what it doesis it increases the tensile
strength and just the overallstrength of the legs.
You're not gonna notice it whenyou, when you get the tripod in
your hands, when you feel it.

(24:09):
There's no difference in feel,there's no difference of
vibration, there's no differencein anything except for the
durability and the rigidity ofthe legs.
So normal carbon is just a bunchof pieces laid in random
directions, depending on thetype that you use, and then
those random pieces are allwoven together in a fabric with

(24:32):
nothing but carbon filament.
The enegra does the same thing,but with a 60, 40 blend, about
a 60, 40 blend of apolypropylene thread and carbon,
and so the carbon is gonna runin its unidirectional pattern

(24:54):
and then the polypropylene runsor sorry, omnidirectional
pattern.
And then the polypropylene runsin a unidirectional pattern
straight up and down the tube,the entire length of the tube.
So there is no break from thetop to the bottom.
And so when a tube takes acatastrophic impact or something
that squishes the tubecompletely both sides.

(25:15):
Touching normal carboncompletely splits.
It shatters.
Sure.
A lot of people out there haveexperienced that with tripods
and car parts Tracking poles,breaking them.
Tracking poles yeah exactly.
I mean carbon.
When it fails, it'scatastrophic.
There's no saving it.
It's not like aluminum, whereas, you know, if you take a dent,
yeah, the pole might not go inall the way, but it's still

(25:37):
holding a lot of its structuralintegrity.
That is something that Anegrawill do.
Those two sides can touch andbasically shatter all of the
carbon and then that Anegra isenough to hold that leg together
to at least limp you out of thefield and to at least you know,
last year the hunt.

(25:58):
Again, you might not be able tofold the leg up completely, it
may not be able to hold yourrifle at that point, but I can
almost guarantee you it's gonnastill, you're still gonna be
able to use it really well.
Glassing, I mean, we've done it.
We've shattered lots of brokentubes at the office and it still
holds a massive amount ofweight for a tube that's

(26:20):
completely shattered.
And that was something that wewere really excited to kind of
discover, because we felt likeit was something that we could
offer.
You know, we could bring to thetable and say like, hey, this
is something a little different.
And it actually didn't.
It's not a huge price increase,that addition didn't change the

(26:42):
price.
So we didn't feel like we wereforcing that upon the customer
saying like, hey, you have touse this brand new material, but
we're gonna charge you $400extra for it, or something like
that.
It ended up being within a very, very small percentage of just
using carbon and we're like man,we can price this thing at
about the same price.
We were going to and offer a inmy opinion, a very cooler

(27:08):
product than just pure carbon,cause just pure carbon it's just
reducing the weight, you know,and we were like that's cool.
We make a two pound, six ouncetripod that you can stand behind
.
But you know, if we can offersomething different, we will.
So we were really excited aboutthat.
That was a really fun projectand our partners in that project

(27:30):
were amazing.
Our manufacturing partner inCalifornia for all of our carbon
is awesome.
They were vital in this entireprocess.
Like I said, I knew nothing andI probably they probably hated
me at some point.
It's just asking all theselittle tiny questions about how
it's made.
You know how all this stuff'sdone and everything, and so it

(27:51):
was a.
It was a really fun project towork on and it continues to be a
fun project to work on, cause Imean, I can't tell you when,
but gen three's coming, gen fouris coming.
You know it's, it's going tohappen and we're we're always
going to try to do stuff likethat.
Bring a little bit morefunctionality into the field

(28:11):
with you, because we maketripods and they're pretty
simple instruments and soinnovating in that space is is
difficult.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
And we love to see when people try and and and
succeed and or not.
I mean, we've got, we've hadsome.
We've had some products thatnever even made it to market.
You know that type of stuff andwe're like, you know, you're
six months in, you're like thisis kind of dumb.
You know, this doesn't, thisdoesn't really work that well,
you know, and you have to, youhave to go back to the drawing
board.
But yeah, we love to seeinnovation in that, in this

(28:45):
industry, because it's far it'shard to innovate.
You know you got three legs.
That holds something.
You know, how do you, how doyou make it better every single
day?

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yeah, I uh, last year when that, when the carbon and
Niagara came out you're talkingto me about the Niagara and you
said you guys put it in a viceand clamped it and let the vice
go in it.
Then Niagara popped it back upto your tube.
So it's still a circle which islike I mean that's, it's hard
to measure.
Yeah, a carbon fiber one wouldhave broken in half.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, and they, they do, yeah, they, they just snap
and it's, it's just.
It's just what carbon does.
You can't, you can't fix that.
You have to use anothermaterial.
And luckily, the way carbon,you know, is manufactured, or
carbon tubes, or, you know,fiber tubes are manufactured,
they're just a bunch of layersslapped on top of each other.

(29:40):
So we were like well, can a anundisclosed amount of those
layers be this?
And they're like, yeah, why not?
You know, we're like, oh, let's, let's just do that, you know,
and we, we played with a bunchof different materials and there
was some cool stuff out there.
We ended up with some reallyfunny kind of prototype tubes

(30:02):
that had some really interestingqualities to them, but we
finally ended up on what we'reusing now the carbon and ennegra
, and we're very happy with it.
Its strength to weight ratio isextremely impressive.
Its ability, its deflection, isamazing.
I mean it can withstand someserious, serious weight before

(30:26):
it actually starts to fail.
And that was something we werepretty excited about, because we
want our products to be asdurable as possible.
I mean, honestly, it's kind ofa no-brainer.
We try to make our products asbomb-proof as possible and they

(30:47):
end up being a little simple intheir design sometimes, but that
lends itself, in our opinion,to strength, because moving
components are a detriment topretty much anything.
They will.
I mean, you can take cars.
I constantly am comparingeverything to cars, and if you

(31:11):
look at an engine bay from 1965and you look at an engine bay
from 2024, like rolling off theline, there's a few more wires
and there's a few more movingparts in this new stuff, and so
the things that can go wrongwith this new stuff is massive
compared to the stuff that couldgo wrong with the older stuff,

(31:32):
and it's simply because theyhave less moving parts.
And, in reality, what are thosenew moving parts actually
adding to your experience?
And so if it's not trulychanging the way that you use
the product and the way that youinteract with it and your user
experience, we're not just gonnaadd it for a sales pitch or for

(31:56):
a bullet point on a spec sheet,because that's just a failure
point.
And, at the end of the day, ourproducts need to be steady and
durable, and those are the twomain factors we really chase
when we're designing products.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, I wanna touch on the price one more time,
because I was literallyscreaming at my computer on the
forums when the carbon wasreleased, because you and I
talked.
It was like 2016, wasn't it, or2017 was the first.
Might have been it might havebeen 17.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
I don't think it was 16, but it might have been 17.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
It was back, yes it was back there and we talked
about it and I the question thatliterally always comes up is
carbon fiber versus aluminum.
At the time you guys only madealuminum tripods.
So I kicked the question to youand you basically at the time
weren't really sold on carbon.
You're like we can make acarbon fiber tripod.

(32:58):
I'm telling you right now it'sgonna be a lot, it's gonna be
quite a bit of extra money fornot that much weight savings.
And people were like, do it.
If they did it, I would buy one.
And then the thing was like, ohwell, with how much extra it
costs, and then there's onlythis many ounces of weight
savings, I'll just keep the oneI have.

(33:19):
And I was literally like hetold you.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
He literally told you and it's, you know, cause, like
it's hard sometimes we alwayswe have to detach ourselves
Cause I mean, let's be honest,I'm not.
I am not outdoorsman's consumer, I haven't bought an
outdoorsman's tripod.
You know, in a while I'll behonest.
And so like really taking astep back and looking at that

(33:48):
price, cause price is a hugedeal in retail.
I mean we commiserate over theprices of our products Cause we
know that is the.
That's like the main interactionyou have with a customer.
If you're not speaking to themface to face, like as soon as
they see that price, they aregoing to put a value on your
product and they're gonna lookat that price and say like a

(34:11):
higher, low, you know, or orjust right, no one ever seems to
think it's just right.
But you know they're gonna say,ah, that's a great deal, or
holy crap, why would anybody buythat?
And I think that goes back tothe point of just trying to not
make it just lighter.
You know, not just trying tomake it lighter, but trying to

(34:32):
add a little value.
And you know, we we are a littlebit more modular with this
design too.
It is a little bit easier towork with.
If a customer ever needs toreplace parts, or if parts ever
break or we need to repair them,it is a little bit easier to
work with.
And that was a big, that was abig deal for us too.

(34:54):
We wanted people, we wanted theservice aspect of these tripods
to be an enjoyable experience.
Our old tripods a lot of thetimes, pretty much every single
problem they would have, wouldneed to be repaired by us or
looked at by us, and we wantedto kind of reduce that as much
as we could.
And that's something that'sreally hard to show somebody on

(35:18):
a product page of a website.
You know the fact that, yes, weare more expensive than other
people's tripods, but youpurchase this, we promise it's
an amazing product, and then wepromise we are amazing too, or
we're gonna try to be as amazingas we can with every single
interaction you have with us,whether it be extremely positive

(35:40):
, or you know, we have negativeinteractions sometimes.
I mean, you know stuff canbreak, it happens, but we want
those.
When that happens, we wanna bethere for you.
We understand, we know exactlywhat it feels like for something
to break in the field.
Or you know, an accidenthappens, you know, and it's like

(36:02):
man, I gotta get this fixed now.
How long is that gonna take,you know?
Or how much is this gonna?
Cost me.
Like, oh God, we don't wantpeople to feel that way.
We want them to be like, ohcrap, I broke my tripod.
And then they get off the phonewith us and they're like, wow,
that was awesome.
You know like they'll have itdone in a couple weeks and you

(36:25):
know it's gonna be a very fairrepair price, or you know
something like that.
So that's, there's price there,there's value there and you
know it's a.
We had fun during the launch ofthat tripod.
We had a lot of fun during thelaunch of the tripod listening
to people and talking to people,and we launched it at a show.

(36:48):
We launched it at Reno ShoeShow in in the shoot last year.
January.
Yeah, oh, it is last year now.
I got to catch myself.
I was like, oh, it is thefourth, but it was.
It was really fun to.
We launched it the first day ofthat show and I couldn't have
been happier with theconversations I was having with

(37:11):
people.
And then I'm completelydetached from the office.
I hadn't checked my email allday, I'm not even looking at
Slack and anything and I realizeI'm standing around a bunch of
very serious sheep hunters andWestern hunters and these are,
these are like they want thebest that they can buy because

(37:31):
they need to rely on it and theinternet was a completely
separate, you know, conversationhappening and I remember like I
got we, we started talkingabout it later in the day and I
started reading comments and Iwas like, wow, this is some.
There are some very, very upsetpeople and you know we, we can

(37:54):
laugh about it all day long, butat the end of the day, those
customers have points too, youknow they.
They have a point that is avery expensive tripod and we
never want to be, we never wantto be inaccessible to people.
We always want to be asaccessible as possible.
Obviously, we want our productsin people's hands, but there

(38:15):
are certain things that wearen't willing to skimp on to
make a product accessible andthat's a very, very hard thing
to balance and it's we've had alot, you know there's we will
continue to have theseconversations forever, you know
about that.
But it is prices are very,prices are very big thing we're

(38:38):
aware of and I promise we'relistening.
You know we, we absolutely takeinto account everything that
people say.
People say that's insane, I'llnever pay that, and we say, all
right, we, we promise we aregoing to try to make something
that you will pay for, so we, wewill get you.
You know cause?

(38:59):
We're going to make goodproducts and we promise we're
going to, we're going to get youon something one day.
We're going to, we're going to.
You're going to be like ohshoot, they got us.
You know, that's, that looksgood, that's priced right.
So it's a it's a fun one.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, so you guys have your, you have your tripods
and you have your own tripodheads that you guys build.
But on the website you alsocarry some other stuff, some
other brands of tripod legs andthings.
Why do you guys do that?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Again that exact point.
I just talked aboutaccessibility.
We, I like it, feel it wouldfeel horrible if a brand new
hunter walked into our office orcalled us up on the phone and
said like, hey, I want to spend,I don't.
I know I need a tripod, I knowI need a tripod head, but you
know, like your products are,your products are out of my

(39:47):
reach.
That's completelyunderstandable.
We aren't.
We aren't the beginner, wearen't the beginner product, we
don't make that currently, andso these are our offerings.
You know, a SURE is an amazingproduct.
We absolutely love thosetripods.
They are a great deal for theirpricing.
Their pricing is insanesometimes and we acknowledge

(40:11):
that it's.
It's mind blowing what they canproduce for that amount of
money.
It's inaccessible or it'simpossible for us to do that,
and so why not?
You know, like they're a,they're a great company, they
work really well with us andthey make a really good product.
So you'll notice, we carry veryspecific third party tripods

(40:35):
and tripod accessories, like theVH 10 and the VA five are the
only two SURE heads that wecarry for a very specific reason
.
They're the only ones we reallyrecommend, for you know our
style of hunting.
And then same goes withManfrotto.
Like right now, really, theonly Manfrotto head we're
carrying is the X-Pro Fluid head, because it's pretty much the
only one from Manfrotto that wewould say, yeah, you should

(40:57):
throw it.
You know, if you're using a big95 or some Coas or you know
even some larger binoculars,maybe that'd be a great head for
you.
And then Slick, Slick is theanswer to I got 120 bucks.
You know I need a tripod, LikeI got the one for you.

(41:18):
And they make it.
They do, they make a very goodproduct.
It's extremely simple.
They're they're quitefeatureless in their design, but
again, the price absolutelyreflects that and it's a very,
very attractive price.
So that's basically the answer.

(41:39):
I mean we carry products thatwe truly can recommend.
We've all used them in thefield.
I would be perfectly happy ifyou were like ah, you got to
take a Slick 634 on this hunt.
I'd be like, all right, youknow it's not a huge deal.
That's a very capable tripod and, yes, I'm not going to have

(42:00):
some of the creature comforts orsome of the things that I would
have on a more expensive tripodand it may not be as stable,
but it's going to hold mybinoculars and, at the end of
the day, a tripod is better thanno tripod.
And if we need to bring inthird party companies to provide

(42:22):
an option for everybody on thespectrum of price and quality,
then that's what we do.
If one day we offer somethingfor everybody maybe we don't,
but I can promise you weprobably never will because they
don't offer something foreverybody.
There's no single company thatdoes, and that's the beauty of

(42:45):
it.
I mean, there's a lot of greatproducts that those companies
make.
So, yeah, we're.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
I recommend that that Slick 634 a lot to people.
I'm like I am really stern onmy pan head, like I will
recommend that thing 1,000 timesover.
But, especially if you're justtrying to get into a system,
like I think, spend your moneyon the head, go with a little
cheaper set of legs at least tostart with, and that's going to

(43:13):
be like that's going to be areally good system to get you
started.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Absolutely the top down is what I always say.
Like, hey, what should I startwith?
Start from the top down.
Whatever you're about toconnect to the top of that
tripod, that's what you startwith.
We aren't even the first stop.
Well, we sell the products thatyou're going to attach to the
top, but our company,outdoorsmills, isn't the first
thing that you should purchase.
It should absolutely be yourglass.

(43:39):
That should be where your moneylies.
I will die on that pedestal.
It will pay for itself in thelong run, more than any other
product out there is.
If you take a little bit and youtake a little bit out of your
other budget and throw it intoyour optics, you will absolutely

(44:00):
see a better return on yourinvestment than spending.
I mean, shoot, I'll even giveour products.
Like, if you're going to sayI'm going to buy a carbon tripod
, an Outdoorsmills carbon tripod, but I'm going to take $800 off
my optics budget and we're like, no, no, no, no, no, don't do
that, don't do that.
Like, get the base startedfirst with good optics.

(44:25):
So good optics, a good binocularadapter, good tripod heads and
then a good set of legs, it'svery simple Top down.
If you're looking at a tripod,those are what you buy in that
order and you will be happier,you will spend less money in the
long run and you will have asystem at the end of it that is

(44:47):
very, very thought through andit kind of gives you time to
find out what you like and whatyou don't like about the other
products too.
If you purchase some great pairof binoculars and then you
shouldn't buy any otherbinocular adapter besides ours,
there's no question about that.
But and then if you buy, let'ssay, like a Manfrotto pistol

(45:10):
grip, that big old pistol gripthat they think they still
actually make it we haven'tordered one in a very long time
because it's not a great tripodhead but let's say you get that
and some Manfrotto like 290 legs, 290 aluminum legs.
Go hunt with that and you'reprobably not going to like the
head very much.
But you're going to learn whatyou don't like about the head

(45:31):
and what you're looking for inone, because, especially if it's
your first one ever, you don'treally know what you like yet.
I don't like pistol grips verymuch.
We make an amazing one, but Ihave never used it.
I used it when I was a kid, butthat's about it.
I love panheads and that's justwhat I like to use, but if I've

(45:53):
never used one before, I don'tknow that.
I don't know what I like andwhat I don't.
So instead of buying our fluidhead at $780, and then realizing
I really don't like panheads,and then all of a sudden you're
like shoot, that sucks.
This is a great product, butit's not really what I was

(46:16):
looking for.
If you take your time and investin those things separately, I
think you'll have a betterunderstanding.
I think people would have abetter understanding of what
they like out of a product or ina product, or what they want to
get out of a product, and theywould end up making less
purchases.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah, well, I really like mine.
I have a standard height and Ijust run the regular panhead on
it.
And I had my rifle on it theother day and posted a picture
and there was a bunch of peoplewho were like what is that thing
Do you?

Speaker 2 (46:49):
what kind of a rifle attachment are you using that
for?
That setup yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, it's just.
It's an ARCA.
I don't even know who.
I don't remember who makes it.
It's one of those that just.
It tapers, it goes from aregular pick rail and then it
goes out to an ARCA rail.
So it's all one piece.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Oh, ok, is it Sam and River Solutions by any chance.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
I don't think so.
I mean, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Those are the ones that manufactured those parts.
They're another great partnerof ours that manufactured some
really cool all of our rifleaccessories and things like that
and they make some parts likethat.
But that's another great pointis shooting off these tripods.
Yeah.
It's.
I mean you're shooting offtripods, obviously right now.
When did you, when did youstart kind of hunting off of a

(47:35):
tripod?

Speaker 1 (47:36):
I feel like man, it wasn't that long ago and I still
kind of have to make myself doit.
And here's something too it'skind of funny there's.
I've been especially likefilming and stuff and I've
hunted with a lot of people thatthey have like their glassing
tripod and then they haveanother big tripod that they

(47:57):
shoot off of and they carry bothof them and that's just like
ridiculous to me.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's a little ridiculous.
Yeah, I have fun with peoplelike that and it's it's a lot.
I get it, yeah, because thereare definitely situations where
it would be really nice, butit's a lot.
You know that's because ifyou're shooting tripod is
heavier than your glassingtripod.
It's probably around five orsix pounds.
That's a lot of weight, atleast In bulk and bulk wise.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
I mean, they're usually pretty big, like they
like those with pretty bigdiameters, so they seem to be
more stable with a rifle, Iguess.
So at first I was always kindof like I'm just not going to
carry both, but honestly, justbeing able to have an ARCA with
me all the time and with thathead Now I use it more than I

(48:48):
ever really would.
So, like now for coyote huntingand stuff like that, and I've
gotten into a couple situationswhere it would be it was really
nice to have hunting, but I'mstill I'm still pretty new to it
for actual hunting scenarios.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
It definitely.
I don't know why it kind oftook me a while to get into it.
I mean, like you know, productslike the, the triclops and the
hog saddle and things like thathave been around for a decent
amount of time and I just, Idon't know, I never, I never
really got into it.
I was very, I was very intoprone shooting and backpack

(49:27):
supported and things like that,and I ended up it was was 20, 22
.
I think I think it was a coupleyears ago, a couple seasons ago,
that I ended up in a situationwhere I was basically forced to.
It was I had, we had juststarted manufacturing those,

(49:49):
those plates for our rifles, andI had, right before we left for
the hunt, I slapped one on therifle and I was like, if I'm in
a situation where this is, youknow, it feels good because I
never done it before, I don'twant to be messing around with
things on a hunt, and I was like, if I get into a situation that
this is work, so I'm going totry it.
And I actually ended up almostbeing forced to do it and I

(50:12):
remember, like, standing upafter I, after I made the shot,
I was like what, where has thisbeen all my life Like?
This was holy crap.
I mean, it was the most stableI've ever felt taking a shot at
an animal and you know it wasn'ta crazy long shot.
I don't like to.
I don't like to shoot very far,but holy crap, I mean with and

(50:34):
that was on an old gen onesystem where you still had to
slide it in and lock it downwith the wing nut with gen two
now, with that flip lever andbeing able to rock it in the
side on an Arkham out.
Holy crap.
I mean I shot a deer.
I shot Nate's going to get madat me.
I'm going to spoil it.
I'm going to spoil an episodehere really quick.

(50:55):
If Nate watches this, I'm sorry, but still watch the episode.
We were in Kodiak, alaska, acouple of weeks ago and I mean
from the time that we saw thedeer that I shot and shooting
the deer was less than a minuteand I had time to.
My tripod was in my pack packon back rifle over shoulder.

(51:17):
For the time I saw that deerand had my tripod out of my pack
and rifle attached and I wassitting down on the deer was
less than a minute and that'slike that, that's quick.
That's quick.
To be able to be in a sittingposition completely locked into
a tripod that is 24 inches offthe ground is pretty crazy.

(51:40):
And again it just felt like sosolid to actually do and I was
like I am never not doing thisever again.
I mean this was a.
It's just.
It makes the experience better,I think.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Or at least having the option.
That's one of the big thingsthat I like the most about it.
That I wish I just would havedone sooner is even when I was
putting together my own adaptersfor ARCA, like I just wish I
would have at least had theplate on my rifle that I would
at least have the option,because when you need it you

(52:17):
really need it.
Otherwise for me, I feel like Ican find prone for the most
part like Idaho in the highcountry, you can just find prone
easier, but like Kodiak, likeyou were saying, that's prime
country for tripods.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Yeah, it's almost impossible.
I mean, when we first touchedland in that place I was like
how do you kill anything aroundhere, like the ground is?
The ground moves this muchevery time you take a step.
There's no way I can get pronehere.
All the reeds are way too highto even sit behind.
I was like, unless I'm on oneof these two hills that we're

(52:51):
looking at, how do you killsomething?
And without, how do you killsomething without a tripod?
I mean, luckily I had thatoption and now it's like I will
not leave for on without thatoption.
Yeah, I mean, like you said, atleast having the option to do
that and that goes for I meanevery piece of equipment I have

(53:12):
that can possibly be attached toa tripod.
I mean my 832s have a tripodstud on or have a binocular stud
on them.
Have I ever used it?
Probably not.
I've probably never put thoseon a tripod before, but I've got
the option to do it and it's a$20 stud or it's a little
install.
That's the cheap part.

(53:33):
Just the option to havesomething attached to a tripod
is actually the cheap part ofthis whole operation.
So you might as well just makesure that everything you've got
has got a stud in it or got aplate on it or is available to
attach to a tripod.
So that's another huge piece ofadvice I try to get people to

(53:54):
do.
They're like yeah, I got acouple pairs of binoculars, I
only need a stud for one, though.
And I'm like why you got a pairof 10s and 15s and they're like
I never use the 10s on a tripod.
Like, well, I don't know, youdrop your 15s off a cliff and
you're on a once in a lifetimemoose hunt.
Wouldn't you like to have theability to put those on for an
extra $21.99 type of thing.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
And they're like OK, yeah, but some people are like,
nah, I'm like god, no, that'swrong, don't do that yeah, just,
I mean, I get it trying to savesome cash, but, being somebody
that has had the whateverhappened, then I'm just like, oh
my god, I didn't do that, likeI didn't put this on here

(54:39):
because I wanted to save alittle bit, and I'm just like I
would pay triple for that atthis moment, and I don't even.
I can't get it.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Yeah, and those are like the studs in the adapters,
huge, huge product for us,obviously.
I mean you could consider itour flagship, besides the
tripods and we will alwaysattempt to make that one of our
most accessible products as faras price goes.
Obviously, prices are going toincrease as time goes on.

(55:09):
We can't avoid it.
I wish we could, but we willalways.
We have lots of conversationsabout this one when does that
get priced?
And we always look at ourcompetitors, but we're always
looking at just our customerfeedback and how they feel about
the price of that product,because we want people to have
that product, no matter what.

(55:29):
We want you to have ourbinocular adapter system Because
we truly do believe it's thebest out there, and it was the
best out there.
It was the only one out therefor quite a while and there's
been some familiar lookingthings popping up Very, very
much the same.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Huh, very much the same.
That's another podcast.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
I think.
But yeah, we always try to makethat our most accessible
product and, uh, because of thatfact right there, we always
want people to have those withthem, have extras, have two
different colors now, because ifyou drop one in the field, you

(56:10):
can find it when we firststarted making the colors.
Yes, it's there.
It was a very small change thatwe made or a small thing that
we offered, but so many peopleevery single person that's ever
lost a binocular adapter in thedark called us and was like I
will take one, that's a simplefix to a problem that I've got.

(56:34):
At first it was kind of justfun and then we were like, oh no
, this does add a ton offunctionality to these things,
but you lose them, you give themto a buddy, that type of stuff.
So you should always have thosecore products, I think, with
you.
If you purchase one thing fromus from this podcast, please

(56:56):
make it the binocular adapter100%.
We know that those customers areprobably going to come back.
We love that product.
We have 100% faith in theproduct.
We know you're going to love itand we hope when you do, you
come back and purchase someother stuff.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah, yeah and a couple other things you guys
have that I think maybe folksdon't know about are overlooked.
I guess one big thing is youradapter plate that you can slide
so you can change the balancepoint of big optics like a 95,
or if you have a BTX orsomething like that, you can

(57:33):
actually change that.
So if anybody has like maybethey don't have a great tripod
head and even their 80mm spotteris like too much on the front
you can get a plate from youguys that you can slide that
center back.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yes, definitely.
Yeah, balancing optics is athing that does not get talked
about enough.
We try to talk about it as muchas possible with customers.
It's extremely important and itwill make you enjoy glassing
more and it will increase theefficiency of your products that
you're using and your glassingOops, I mean it is.

(58:14):
It's easy science.
You know you've got leveragethat if your head is here and
your center of gravity is outhere, it's constantly going to
be pulling down on your head.
That means you need to increasetension on the tilt function of
the head.
Just to keep it, just to keepit straight, that increased

(58:35):
tension is going to make itharder to tilt and move and
enjoy the product.
If you slide that center ofgravity to the top of our pan
head is, you know, pretty muchthe only, not the only, but the
best example If you slide thatcenter of gravity to right in
the middle of that, it feelslike a different product.
It absolutely does.
We've had, we've had a couplepeople with more than a couple,

(58:57):
but we've had, we've had peoplewith big optics using it on our
on our pan head, which notreally designed to be handling,
you know, six pounds, sevenpounds, spotting scopes,
especially when they'reimbalanced or they're not
balanced and you know they'relike man.
I just it's great product, youknow it's really well made, but

(59:21):
the feel just isn't there.
And all of a sudden you throw ayou know $20 plate on there and
scoot it forward three inchesand they're like, holy crap,
like this changes everything.
You're like, yeah, oh, it can,it changes it a ton.
So that is a that's a great,great point.
That's something that everybodyshould be doing.

(59:42):
There's very, very few spottingscopes.
Spotting scopes really is theonly thing that really matters.
Binoculars, slightly, but notreally.
15s are like the only thing Iwould suggest may be balancing
if you're super picky, in myopinion, but spotting scopes
super important, and very rarelydo you have a manufacturer that

(01:00:04):
says, oh, let's put the, let'sput the mounting plate right in
the center of gravity.
I don't know why they it's.
It's probably some technicalthing that one of our reps is
gonna is gonna text me aboutwhen they watch this and say
like it's because of this, but Idon't know what it is right now
.
But I really wish they would dothat on everything, modular

(01:00:25):
systems aside and all that stuff.
But that is important.
And again, very rarely is thathappening just by accident.
If you just attach a smallplate to the bottom of the
spotting scope and throw it on atripod head, very rarely is it
going to be balanced.
And even with high fluidtension heads like like video
heads from from like SURE andthe VA5 and the VH10 and the

(01:00:48):
Manfrotto heads even those itwill make, it will make those
feel better.
You will be able to decreasethe tension on the tilt and you
will have a more enjoyableexperience, cause the lighter
that feel is while you're movingthe head, the better the
experience.
You don't want to be hirkingand jerking, you know, around,
and that's how fluid heads kindof get.

(01:01:09):
That's how they kind of cheatjust a little bit is they use
massive amounts of fluid tensionto to create that, instead of
like mechanical breaking systemslike our, our pan head does.
And so it's a little lessimportant, but it's still there.
The importance is definitelystill there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a great product and then aprogram I didn't know you guys
had until recently.
It was your trade in.
It's kind of like a trade upprogram.
If you have something like apan head and you want to get a
gen two, you can get online andfill out a form and basically
say, hey, I have a gen one andwhat would you give me for it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Basically, Absolutely , and so we take in all any
outdoors in this tripod headthat's ever been produced and
any outdoors in this tripodthat's ever been produced.
We don't purchase accessoriesand things like that, mainly
because they're still usablewith the new generation of
products.
So you're probably still goingto need those anyways if you are

(01:02:07):
upgrading to a, to a gen two oranything.
But all of our outdoors asproducts is fixed price, fixed
purchase price from the customerbased on their cosmetic grade.
Basically, it's basically twoprices, a and B.
We don't really take anythingin that we would consider less
than a B grade because we'rereselling it and we don't really

(01:02:29):
want our customers to havethose.
We'll take them off people'shands every once in a while, but
really we try to stick with thestuff that is fairly in good
condition and then we send themout, get them, get them all
looked at, get them all, get agood once over on them and then
sell them back to people.
And you know, yes, the thetrading program we were laughing

(01:02:50):
about it this morning causeit's a lot of fun, it's a lot of
work, but it's it's.
We have some very interestinginteractions with people and at
the end of the day, yes, we arereselling these products.
It's not a.
We're not hiding anything fromanybody.
Yes, we are purchasing them fora lower price and we are
reselling them for a higherprice.

(01:03:11):
That is just the nature of abuying and selling.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
It's kinda how it works.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
It's kinda how it works, and so we do get some
people every once in a while,especially in the optics
category, cause we do purchasetons of used optics and we
highly encourage people to takeadvantage of this program.
It's extremely simple.
I can't I cannot stress howeasy it is to sell something to

(01:03:39):
us and how fast we can get youjust completely upgraded.
If you've got an old pair ofbinoculars and you want some,
you want a new pair.
If you're quick with respondingto emails, I mean, we can have
you a brand new pair ofbinoculars at a trading credit
price in like a week.
So it's a very simple processand it's awesome because I think

(01:04:03):
we're offering a lot of peoplejust a really quick way to
upgrade instead of having tosell on forums or eBay and now
eBay's taking all your money andthey're gonna 1099 everybody
now.
Don't do that.
We're not paying you.
We do offer cash, but most ofthe time it's just trading

(01:04:23):
credit and it's simple and it'seasy and you get a discount on
the new product that you'retrying to purchase and we call
it a day.
I do wanna warn people thatcould possibly be using this
program is you do have toremember that we are reselling
these products.
This is a trade-in.
If you go and look up the KellyBlue Book value of your car

(01:04:45):
right now for a trade-in, it isnowhere near the fair market
value.
It's not great because they'refactoring in resell and it's a
market we have a pretty strictpricing structure that we
purchase things at.
But we are dealing with aespecially right now.

(01:05:06):
We're dealing with a fairlyvolatile optics market because
there are a lot of changeshappening in pricing.
When something goes on salethat will affect the used market
pricing and it's very fast.
It's a small community ofpeople reselling and purchasing

(01:05:32):
high-end optics and so ithappens very quickly.
A great example would be likethe EL 1042 from Serovsky.
They were I can't even remember.
They dropped them by asubstantial amount.
They are now $19.99 for a pairof ELs.
Prior to that price drop theywere reselling on the used
market for about $1800.

(01:05:53):
That's not happening anymore.
No one's purchasing used EL1042s they're five years old for
$200 below retail.
That's just not gonna happen.
And so basically, over one daythat market just all of a sudden
just goes boom and that pricedrops like crazy and we start

(01:06:15):
seeing sale prices drop likecrazy.
So we do get people every oncein a while that are upset with
that.
But I promise anybody we are nottrying to rip anybody off.
We really wanna do businesswith everybody and we really
wanna offer a fair value toeverything, but there is a
trade-in involved, there is aresale involved, but again, the

(01:06:41):
selling side of those usedoptics is also something that we
really think we're offering agreat service to people.
That is a one-stop shop forvery high quality, very well
taken care of, high-end usedoptics, and it is constantly
flowing in.
There is new stuff every singleweek.

(01:07:02):
There is piles of stuff that wehaven't even gotten to process
at any given time.
So if you're looking forsomething and new retail prices
are just not looking attractiveto you, that is a great program
to take a look at.

(01:07:23):
I mean, shoot, even if you don'tpurchase used from us.
Purchasing used is a great ideaFor sure.
A lot of this high-end stuffreally holds its value, and so I
mean it's a give and take.
Yes, you are not going to getas much from us as you would
just selling it yourself, butalso we will buy it from you,

(01:07:43):
basically, no questions asked.
There are certain brands thatwe will buy it's if you send it
in.
We will give you an offer forit and you can send it in the
mail and we will either send youa check or give you store
credit immediately.
No questions asked.
No haggling, no meeting peoplein parking lots no talking to
people on forums none of thatstuff and I think there is a

(01:08:07):
service there, but it does.
It gets a little interesting.
It's fun sometimes havingconversations with people about
we're like we're not trying topiss anybody off, I promise, but
yes, if you're looking for somegood used optics or you're
looking to sell some stuff,please contact us.
We would love to do businesswith you.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great.
I think it's a great lookingprogram man.
Anything else coming down thepipe we should look at or be
looking for.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
Definitely definitely .
I don't think, let me see, canI spill the beans on anything
yet?

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
I mean I say you can spill it on all of it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
but I know I gotta.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
Chris might go.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
I'll really pick my words, I gotta really pick my
words, especially with some ofthem.
I gotta be really careful.
But, um, we are working on.
We are working on a lot of, Ithink, really cool small things
right now that I'll absolutelygive you a look into, and it's

(01:09:11):
coming from a focus on addingsome accessory value to our
product line and adding somethings that can be used with our
current products Notnecessarily a brand new product
in whole, but something to getenhanced current products.
And my favorite right now is anew Panhand handle that we're

(01:09:33):
that we're working on and it'sactually a an unlocking hinge
design.
So normal Panhand handle,straight coming out, doesn't
move.
This one comes out and itactually has a locking collar in
the middle that if you unlock,it hinges at a point and it has
two we're we're trying to decideon final design right now but

(01:09:53):
it has a loop at the end of itor two finger loops that then
the handle can hinge backtowards the center post or
towards the trunnion of thetripod and instead of having to
hold your hand out or even kindof extend those two fingers and
kind of try to do it like that,you can hold your hand really
close to the trunnion and justfrom the camming mechanism of
that hinge.

(01:10:13):
Just by moving your hand up anddown, it'll actually move the
binocular up and down and thenall you have to do to turn it is
just turn your hand and yeah,it's a.
It's a.
It's a really cool.
I just used the first.
I used the first prototype on ahunt a couple of weeks ago and
I remember it like thinking tomyself, wow, this is a very

(01:10:36):
small thing.
That actually has enhanced, youknow, my experience using this,
and I mean from from justgetting uncomfortable, kind of
holding my hand up and usingthat handle, to just being able
to rest it on the trunnion.
I mean cold, it was cold ashell, and you know I don't like
to have my hands.

(01:10:57):
You know I like to kind ofbundle up, and so it's a, it's a
cool little product.
That is something that we're.
We're about 99% on the releaseof that one.
But there's there's big stuff,there's bigger stuff coming.
For sure that nice Can't quitecan't quite talk about just yet,
Especially because I'm notconfident enough to talk about

(01:11:19):
it yet.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
But that's all right.
Uh, show wise the basics.
You're going to be at SheepshowWestern Honnexpo yes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
And then a, a new one .
Uh, the.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
Oh, is it the one in Denver Mile.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
High.
Yes, the Mile High event.
Um let me.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
It's later.
I'm going to it's much later,it is.
It's in April.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Yeah, yeah, and I think a lot of other people are
too, because we are coming fromit.
Let me there.
It is right there.
That is going to be April 5thto the 7th, just outside of
Denver, and I will highlyencourage people to check this

(01:12:02):
one out.
The exhibitor list is stacked.
The people that we know arecoming like just actual
individuals is stacked.
It is going to be if it's notpacked which it's their first
year.
It could go either way.
I think it's going to go reallywell.
What I do know is it's going tobe an amazing show and you

(01:12:25):
could have some of the bestopportunity you've ever had to
speak to some of these companies, because it's not.
It's not going to be as big asReno Sheep, you know, and and
some of the other shows.
It's going to be a little moreintimate and it's going to be an
amazing opportunity to reallyget some time with some vendors
and manufacturers that you maybeweren't able to have

(01:12:48):
conversations with in the past.
And it's April in Denver.
I mean, how amazing is that?
We're going to be in three feetof snow in Reno and then I get
to go to.
I get to go have a vacation inDenver in April.
So we're very excited aboutthat one.
But then our other ones will beReno Sheep show, we will be at

(01:13:10):
SCI in Nashville and we will beat Western Hunter Conservation
Expo in Salt Lake City.
So just the, the three normalones, and then that addition of
the, the mile high event, whichwe're we're super excited about.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Awesome.
Well, people can go check thatout and go see your projects,
your products, products manrunning light in the day, it is,
oh man.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
All right, mark.
Well, thanks a ton Absolutely.
I super appreciate it.
Yeah, it was always, always apleasure.

Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
Yeah, Thanks for listening to this episode of
Jordan's toolkit.
If you have any questions orsuggestions for future episodes,
please visit the website Jordandash budcom and follow the
links to submit an email orvoicemail to be played on air.
If you're listening on an audioplatform, you can also watch
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