Matter of Facts: Make Time For Maintenance

Welcome back to the Matter of Facts podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping, guns, politics every week on iTunes, Ditcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mwefpodcast dot com. On Facebook or Instagram. You can support us be a Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Raveley Andrew Nicker on the airside of the mic, and here's your show. Welcome back to Matter of Facts podcast, Phil and Nicker. Here we've got I see two miscreants in the chat, So thanks to Raggle Fragglin doctor Scary Guy for joining us on time. I was told before we started, I'm not allowed to start early anymore because someone got mad at me. Well, actually someone got mad at her spouse, yes, but I'm the one that caused it. Look, I was told that she needs the time before the show to watch shorts from other content creat like I guess fun. I mean, wait the two minutes. You know, my wife gives me the reason that she hears me all the time and doesn't feel the need to listen to me for another hour and a half per week, which I mean, yeah, yeah, Raggle that I think he means that's fair she watches our content creators. But I think it's fair that like she doesn't feel the need to listen to me again. Ah, well, that happens anyway. Quick admin, work a listener question from Eric, and then we'll get to topics. So there are no patrons in the chat right now, but there probably should be because they promote bad behavior. They do, and I appreciate them. Encourage wildly in appropriate night vision spending. Oh yes, there. I think all of us have committed some act of financial malfeasance based on pure pressure from the patron group. Yeah, but it's usually. Good financial malfeasons. It's not like blowing your money on lotto tickets and strippers. It's buying night vision goggles and nice shotguns. And I mean, to be fair, I'm pretty sure I've given Airby the Ultimate Dad advice multiple times of if you have to finance it, you can't afford it, yet like leave it alone. So true, there is that. Although that makes home ownership a real struggle that you know, the exception doesn't disprove the rule. Though it makes the rule, Yeah, pretty much. But if you have, you know, a couple hundred g sitting in a bank. Don't you dare finance that shit? Just you know, well, what's the interest rate currently? Yeah? Damn high? Is it? Okay? I was gonna say there is there is an argument to be said. I realized it's not a financial episode, but there is an argument to be made that if you have money invested or in the bank and it's earning a higher percentage return than you would pay on financing the money, don't spend your money. Spend someone else's money, because spending your money kind of kills some possible benefit. But this is not the financial episode. If you have that amount of money sitting aside, you probably have a financial advisor who will tell you which one is the better option. Yes, someone you pay for financial advice, which is better than the free financial advice. I'll give you yes. Anyway, code mof disaster coffee because I'm really bad at capitalism and I keep trying to give you bastards to break on your products. So don't forget the code get good coffee. I have to say, it is really good coffee, and I quite liked Uncle Randy's front porch. I think I'm gonna have to. Order another, like four or five bags of that. So, in the name of full disclosure, Uncle Randy's Front Porch is one of my least favorite coffees we offer really so hear me out. It's not bad. It's really good actually, but I'm not a medium roast person. I like more like a medium dark okay, and then there's something there's something in then Mexican single origin that it just it's good, tastes amazing, it just doesn't quite tick on my palate. Like my like my go tos are always Bear Blend, which is a medium dark, and Uprising, which is the it's uprising is the medium roast. That is the coffee beans are aged in bourbon barrels. It is trying that it is exactly like it sounds. It's legitimately legit. Off to try it. Maybe I'll get some of that along with the Randy's Front Porch. I recommend it. And as of the last time, we had to unfortunately increase prices because you know, everything's gone uprom price coffee not being in any exception to that. I since I do a lot of the cost modeling for disaster coffee, like I always try to maintain a certain profit margin so that we can stay solvent. It's a business if the price on a specific product, If the cost on a specific product goes up, I have to raise prices. But if it doesn't, I don't say, oh, here's an opportunity to raise the price a little bit, spread the margin out. I say, no, let's keep the margin we have. It seems fair to the customers. You know, none of us. Are buying fifty cowsand humbies with the money we make off disaster coffee. None of us take paychecks out of the business, so I try to keep the prices reads well as possible. And what happened the last time I did the cost modeling was that the cost on Uprising did not increase, but everything else did, so I was able to cost it or price it out at almost what I do the rest of the coffee in the store, and Uprising used to be I think a buck to a buck fifty a bag more expensive. But because the has arisen on, everything else has now it costs what everything else does. Nice, which that's pretty sweet, which makes it an even better deal, because I mean, the Uprising is a really really good coffee. Uh, doctor, scary guy, you have a patron member in the chat are you. Oh god, I'm drawing a blank. We did just get a new patron super recently within the last week or two. Are they in the signal Chat. They are not. I'm waiting for them to download the app and then I can find them. But if don't get you all in the signal Chat, I will make Eddie harass you. And by make I mean I will vaguely encourage him in your direction. Okay, doctor scary guy. First month or two, I'm gonna have to reach out to me offline because I'm trying to connect faces with names. Yes, or at bare at least get you in the signal chat because that shit is fun. Yes, you'll probably mute it after a couple of days, because there are days when the signal Chat is dead, silent, and then there are days when you get off of work and there's one hundred and forty five messages waiting for you. I once woke up slightly later than usual on a Saturday morning, and there were ninety five messages that occurred from the time I went to bed to five point fifteen in the morning. Yes, they did not read them. That must have been a particularly energetic morning. I scanned for any tags that just blew through them all. Yeah, it's got to be that way sometimes. It's a good group to. Hang out with. Yeah, they're a lot of fun. One last hag merch of the Southern Gals the links in the show description. We have shirts, we have koozies, we have other things. And if I can smooth talk Nick into God, what was the thing I told you the other day like you should contact the brands and have make it into a shirt? Was it? Was it the the Imperium scroll? I think it was. I think it was a purity seal that was imploring a coffee machine to make a stronger brew, which I think would be fantastic on a shirt. That is phenomenal. I mean it appeals to both nerds, of which there are many of us, and coffee dorks, of which there are many of us. A Raggles asking in the chat is there any way to directly directly support us cash flow wise? That is not Patreon because he doesn't like Patreon. Hmmm. I don't think we have anything else set up. So I don't, and there Phil could. Set up a Beard related only fans. I doubt missus Rapley is gonna accept that as a viable option. Well, you know, she does get a vote. Actually have veto I think it'd be more of a veto hard, veto ragle. I'll I'll do some I'll do some. Head scratching on it. But I mean, quite frankly, there's always well, okay, so bear in mind if you don't if you don't like Patrion Patreon, and I don't blame you. That's fair enough. There's always the merch and there's also down in the show description there is an affiliate link for Amazon. Oh yeah, you could use you. I forget we have that, which is something I probably don't promote near often enough. But I've got a few people that I don't think I've heard you promote that since I've been on the show. Yeah, so, pat Phil, I will harass you to fix this. Do capitalism better again. Yes, we will have to do capitalism better. Ish I try. I mean truthfully, like we're really blessed with the patron supporting the show, so that like I don't have to chase ad revenue, I don't have to chase sponsors. I can just show up and goof off with my friends and have fun and do a show. Yep, and that sometimes that may I don't want to say it makes me lazy, but like it. It frees me up from the really annoying part of podcasting where you have to keep the thing solvent. Yeah, you know what I mean. And like I've consistently said for the. Eight nine, I started the show in twenty thirteen. Helped me. Mathw I wasn't twenty wasn't twenty thirteen? Damn it, Jim, I don't remember when you started about taking call ten years. I don't think it's been ten years, but it's been quite a long time. I mean we're four hundred and something episodes again neat, so you know, at roughly one a week, so do the math eight nine years worth the show's and we're at a point where, like I have not had to go chasing after people for money to keep the show running. Yeah, the patrons support it and as long as they do, if a quality company wanted to advertise and have us do a review on their gear, we would. It will be an extremely. Honest review of your gear. If I find a problem with it, I'm going to tell everyone. And when I do break rebel shit, which I'm going to attempt, I will tell you, guys, how I broke it and why I broke it in a stupid way. But he told you it was lifetime warrantied. He did, and you know, looking at it, I got ten years out of my last nylon plate carrier. This one's built sturdier and thicker nylon, so I don't have high hopes of destroying it anytime soon. Yeah. Actually we've I've turned down two potential sponsors in the last two years, neither which I'll name. There's no reason to do that out of courtesy, but let's just say that, like one very obviously had no earthly idea what our brand was. About, and the other one actually kind of did. But I didn't like their products. I don't like their marketing. I think it's a bit deceptive. Like I'll remind me later and I'll tell you and it'll make a total complete sense who I'm talking about and why I just waved them off. Ah Okay, but I remember who this was. Yeah, Like I said, I gave it some serious thought. But the more I looked into their products, I was just like, Phil. If there was no money involved, would you put your name on this? And the answer was no, and that at that moment, the answer was just no, yeah, that's fair, but that being said, or listener question, listener question, doctor, scary guy, I see your comment. I'm not dignifying with a response, and you can interpret that. As you will. Yeah, listener question. So Eric reached out to us through Instagram and threw this really interesting question in my lap yesterday, which I thought you and I could have a. Good spirited debate over sure. And I can't fit it into one of these little banners of the bottom screen, So like, bear with me here. Yeah, So, what's your opinion on the idea that we should discard Jefferson's enhancement of Blackstone's formula and going back to the original ten to one risk ratio. We've seen house driving for one hundred to one ideal leads to too many murderers and dirty politicians walking free, making the rest of us question the value of. The legal system as a whole. So Blackstone's formula, as best I recall and feel free to correct me, was basically like, you want the burden of proof in your system to be such that like you would let you would let ten guilty people go for every one you would falsely imprison like that, and it's I don't think that's like a hard ratio, but it was more of a principle to fill. It's a principle based on biblical, biblical allegory. You know the tale of Sodoman, Goamora. If you find one good man in the city, God won't destroy it. And he couldn't find a good man. You're right, it is it is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be in prisoned or be wrongfully convicted. And I get the sentiment behind that. I also get the sentiment behind it's better that one hundred guilty men go free than one innocent person be in prison. I get that. The problem with my problem with going away from that model is that I do not trust the government to do it correctly in either way. I don't Kamala Harris is a perfect example of it. She kept excalpatory evidence from defense attorneys that would have freed their clients to keep them in prison to work as slave labor for the state. I mean, that was our vice president. How long has it been since I brought up Ruby Ridge. I promised himself I wouldn't do it more than more than every six months. It has been a while. Okay, So what if I say the name lawn Horyuci. Does that ring a bell? Yeah. The same legal system that we're discussing not trusting to take a personal task that very obviously broke the law in front of witnesses is the same one that investigated the government and determined that the government did no wrong when this man shot an unarmed woman holding a. Child and then later took pictures smiling in front of smoking corpses. Yes, that too, I do. I do think I'm filing some kind of terms to mention Ruby Ridge and Waco in the same episode. But no, no, no, new Year, new chalkboard. I'm you know, new Year, Phil, Yeah, exactly, got me. Yeah. The Hey, look, the government will always investigate itself and find that it did nothing wrong unless the section of the government that's being investigated isn't the current political party in power, which is what we're seeing going on with the Somali fraud case. That would never be investigated were a Democrat in office, because it's happening in a lot of Democrat jurisdictions. Yes that we know of, probably a lot more than we don't. Oh, I'm sure it's happening in a lot of conservative districts too, but those are probably gonna be the last ones to be investigated. Yeah, and I so here's here's me being Solomon and cutting the baby in half. My issue is not whether the standard is ten to one or one hundred to one. My issue is that kind of going back to what you said to start with, like, I don't know at this stage of my adulthood that I am not no longer jaded, that I'm now too far too jaded to believe that the government will in good faith attempt to discharge the law according to either of those standards. Yeah, so. You know, to take the most weasily not answer the not answer the court, answer the question with a question. Back to Eric, I just I guess my first my first thought is is like, I don't know that it matters anymore. I understand his point of view, like if we if we decrease the burden of proof, we would have fewer innocent people walk, fewer guilty people walk free. Justice by that meta would be served more consistently. But might also have more innocent people in prison. Well that's one problem, But the other problem is is that I still don't believe that the government will hold itself accountable, so especially not politicians. Yeah, so I mean to Eric's point, Yeah, we want to see the murderers and the rapists and everybody else in prison, But we also want to see the dirty politicians and the dirty cops in prison. And I have no faith that they will. Even we revise Blackstone down to one to one, it doesn't matter. The state will hold you and I accountable for minor infractions and will exempt themselves from everything. So I don't believe that changing the standard matters much. I wish we pretty. Much have undeniable proof that at the very least, not the majority, a plurality of our politicians are implicated in child sexual abuse. I'll go with that at a high enough level. And it's a national security threat that we release that information. So for this administration, so and for the last. The last said the same damn thing, and. Which is alarming, Which is alarming, Which tells you it's it's every one of them, or at least enough of them are implicated or should be, or should be I would say, shunned for their ignoring of these crimes. Yes, So, was that the best non answer we could come up with it, does it doesn't matter? I think that No, but that's that I think that is the answer. Though the answer is it does not matter what the formulation is so long as the system is rigged in favor of the politically connected and wealthy, which it is. It heavily is, and it has been for. A very long time. Yeah. So slight sidebar before we get to the real topic. So y'all know that in the patron chat, like, I have joked many times over the years about the fact that like I am unintentionally raising an angry little little. Libertarian, right, uh huh. Like any anybody that has children, any of you, even if you yourself are not a parent, you have children in your life some kind of way, nieces, nephew's, cousin something. And everyone's had that experience where you talk and you are two hundred percent convinced they are not listening to what you're saying, right, Oh, they heard it all, but then they come back with something later on. You're like, oh, damn, you were filing everything I was saying away for later. So my daughter and I got into a discussion about the justice system recently, and she kind of like floated the idea out there because she she can see, she's got eyes, she's a smart kids. She can see that there's obviously some malfeasans and some some weighing of the scale one way or the other. And she asked me if I thought it was racially based, and I said, it's actually not racially based. It's class based. Oh, it's one hundred percent class based. It just so happens that certain racial demographics do less well in this system. Yeah, But I basically explained to her, I'm like, you know, if you take if you take whatever statistic you're looking at, and you stratify by income level, you'll see some very strong trends. Yeah, the racial bias almost entirely disappears. Yeah, Or you take those outliers that kind of like they so within statistics, if you have a trend line that is like all the dots are a perfect line, that's a really clear model. And if it's kind of like a cloud, but the meat of the cloud goes in a certain direction, like that's not as clear of a model. Like you can kind of see this visually if you if you visualize an xy plot and a scattergraph, you know what I'm saying, yep. Well, what I explained to her was, I'm like, if you stratify what you're looking at by race, you get outliers on both sides. It kind of make it look like a cloud that the middle part of it. Does this, but there's a cloud. But if you stratify by income level, it's damn there a perfect line. All the outliers disappear. They do. Yeah. Unfortunately, the worst, the worst you are doing, the less likely you are to get justice. Sorry. Yeah, well, and the really system has been slanted against you. And and see here and here's here's one of the conversations I've had with other appeople before. It's it's like a it's one of those like my mind goes to, like, Okay, how can we level the playing field out? And at the end of the day, I just don't know there's a way. I mean, you could. You could take the point of view of like there are no more private lawyers. Everything's public defenders. Everybody gets the same pool to pick from. Yeah, get the best public defender. Yeah, but at least then you're removing the really wealthy person's ability to hire the top flight team of lawyers to to OJ Simpson, you out of the courtroom, but. Then you instead, they're going to give a gift to their buddy that assigns the defense team and the prosecutor, and they're going to put the bad prosecutor on your case and the good defense on your case. Yeah, it's going to be a way to scam the system no matter what you do. What is required to fix it is the people that have power currently being willing to have the system fixed. You do understand that historically no one with power has ever willingly given it up, with very very few exceptions. Yeah, No, I fully understand that, which why I don't think it will be fixed in our lifetime without see it, because the only thing I see potential for is a violent Balkanization of the United States. I mean, I think that's far more likely than things settling down and getting better sooner or later. Yeah, but like I said, that was little little sidebar. That was one of those moments to talk where my daughter drops something into my lap and I'm like, oh, you adorable, little porcupine. You. Yeah. The interesting thing about it is if you. Take crime statistics and you break them down by what people, what the victims say, occurred. So, like say the demographic of the person that assaulted them or did whatever crime, and then you take conviction rates and you break that down by racial groups. It's one to one. The people that are claimed to have done the crime are later found to have done the crime, and the descriptions fit most of the time. Yes, sometimes sometimes witnesses testimony is bad. Great, we have security footage and the security footage confirms a lot of things like that. But yes, it's largely income based. And it's not because being poor causes people to commit crimes. It is that people that are in chronic situations of poverty are not raised in a way that discourages them from committing crimes and encourages other behavior. Yeah, Like when I was growing up there, there was rampant discouragement to do anything to jeopardize the good fortune that me and my family had m hmm, And there was nothing but encouragement to further that. Where you see the opposite in a lot of impoveris communities. You see them dragging each other down constantly, time and time again. The smart kid in the ghetto gets beaten on and picked on constantly. You know, you and I were talking to a friend of ours and the patron group who shall remain nameless unless he wants to out himself not too long ago about the fact that, like you know, he grew up in a very challenging home situation, let's call it that. And he's very upfront about the fact that, like he had cut ties with basically everybody he knew back then, family and friends included, because they all kind of wanted to drag him right back down to where they were. And he got out and did better and did well for himself and has a beautiful family and a successful career and he works hard and he teased handling business. But the people who were with him when he was in the gutter don't want him to do better. They want him to be just like them. So he's had to make a very hard decision, I'm sure and say, y'all are not helping me be better. So crabs in the bucket man. Yep, comments comments got the comments might have the ultimate solution, just wood Chipper, Some people just need some people just need to get fed into mister chippy face. First, I have said for a very long time and I will continue to say it. There are people that do not create any good for society that exists. Yes. My only question is do we put them in face first so they have to see it coming, or feet first so the head's the last thing to go. Y'all can debate that. Just style points if they jump into a twist. Excellent Blackstones formula assumes a fair judicial system. It does our founding fathers to be fat. Yeah, they did well. And our founding fathers also assumed a Christian nation and also assume the founding moral structure that was going to stay the same, which didn't, and also assumed that we would tar and feather public officials that did stupid stuff. Ah, they encourage rebellion on multiple occasions. Yeah, Ragle Fraggle, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, and George Washington talking. About very few people have ever given up power. It's funny that the list is so short. It's memorizable. Now here's the here's the here's the noggin. Scratcher before we get to the topic. M hmm. Do you believe that the reason the list is so short is because people, just as a function of their being, do not want to give up power when they have it, or is that is that indicative of the type of person that goes to public service. Like the people who want to get into public service and have that power don't want to give it up, and then people like me who were like, I'm quite happy, like living here, having a job, having hobbies and friends, and like raising my family. I'm not concerned about being in the seat of power and a boarding over other people. A person like me who would give up power doesn't want anything to do with it. I don't want the power. I think the first difference we have to point out, phil is that. Going into public service is not going into power. There's a lot of public service jobs. Wait, wait, wait, wait, it's not supposed to be no public power. No, it's not, to use the words supposed to be right. But there there is a big difference between the ideological eighteen year old or seventeen year old that signs up to the military to protect their country, to do good for their people. There's a very big difference between the high school kid that grows up, goes off, gets a lot, gets a lot of ivy, and becomes a public defender. No, no, I'm just saying any law degree and becomes a public defender because he wants to make sure that you know, the public does get a good legal defense. There's a big difference between that. And fucking JB. Pritzkert or all these other fat cat bullshit politicians that do nothing but enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else. There's a big difference the kind of people that I think really go after power. There is an amount of narcissism required to seek public elected office. Even think there's a bare minimum narcissism level there. Yeah, even the politicians that you and the comments are you listening, might have voted for are still. Still absolutely you're gonna tell me Trump isn't a narcissist. I voted for him three times. These are one of the biggest ones I have ever met, I have ever not met, I've ever I've ever listened to. But yeah, my god, so is Biden. Yeah, so is your local city council member. Probably a narcissist. Definitely a Karen if they're on the city council, whether it's a dude or a chick, you know exactly the person I'm talking about too. Yeah, if you know your city councilman, If you don't, you should. If you don't, shame on you. They have a lot of effect on your life. Uh Ragle. I love Senator Kennedy too, but trust me, if the man, if the man is in politics, he's got. A little tinge of narcissism at a minimum. They have to they have to as you would. There's a putting yourself out there and claiming what you have to claim in order to get elected. There's definitely some narcissism there. I mean, you know, one of the commentarys brought up Bernie Sanders. Yeah, he I think he started off as a true believer. I do. I think he started off as a true believer communist. Yeah, but he got that book deal, but even sold really well. But even a true believer communist is in themselves a narcissist because they believe that they are better qualified to lord over the rules the lives of the many, because they are anointed and they are smarter than everyone else. Anyone who has ever rosen to a seat of power in any communist or socialist society is an eye bleeding narcissist because they believe that they know all. However, many one hundred million people live in that country better than that person knows themselves, and that's what that's what's required to make decisions on the broad scale for that many people like. My ultimate argument against statism is always Donald J. Trump doesn't know who the hell I am. He has no idea who I am. He knows nothing about me. He doesn't know my likes, my dislikes. He doesn't know my priorities. He doesn't know my internal philosophy. He does not know who I am. Therefore, the decisions he should be allowed that have a direct input input into my life should be extraordinarily limited, because I myself know me better than anybody else does. And I should be able to make my own decisions. You should, but Lord knows that the whole there's. A level of narcissism that you have to have to be on a podcast. Yeah, except I'm still shocked that anybody actually wants to listen to me for any amount of time. So there's noay you're entertaining. I mean, that's the nicest thing I've ever been called. Thanks Nick, all right. The name of the episode half an hour in is make Time for Maintenance or else? What happens if you don't make time for maintenance. Nick, It makes time for itself. It makes time for itself. So we've talked before about like home maintenance and auto maintenance cars. I thought, though, since I don't know how we got on the subject last episode, but we got on the subject of like firearms maintenance. I know what it was. It's when I was having a screaming rant about cosmoline. Yeah, you're right, it was. That's what brought it out. I was screaming bloody murder about cosmolin. In the fact that it is like firearm cancer rust, It's is not as annoying as cosmoline. It's easier to get rid of rust than cosmoline. Yes, it's very hard to chemically remove cosmoline. You can chemically remove rust very easily. I mean you could always take the whole thing and just soak it in a tub gasoline. You can. My wife is very anti tubs of open gasoline in the basement, though I didn't say in the basement. I'm not a sadist. What's cold outside. I'm not doing it outside. Why not the freaking rifle a gotta get cold. Yeah, but I will. Then throw it out there and then come back in by the fire and make sure that you don't have any gasoline on you when you get don't. Cross contaminate fire, got it? Yeah? Yeah, yeah anyway, so yeah, make time for maintenance or else. So I thought we'd have a discussion about like our thoughts on firearms maintenance, cleaning and care, and then we'll progress into field gear and other things if time and energy allows. Absolutely, so starting with cleaning and care. So Phil, pre range or post range cleaning? Uh? Always post, always, always, always post. I do both, not necessarily cleaning. But in inspection. Yeah that's fair. If I'm making a dedicated range trip, not talking bumping the night pulled the gun out, I'm not going to pull the bolt and check it. But before I go to the range, before I go to a training class, I will do as much of a disassembly as I can on the weapon, like basic field trip, if not total disassembly, depending on what it is and how recently it's been used. And I'll just go through and inspect all the parts before I go, and then I do the same thing when I get back, plus cleaning, because then I have refreshed my memory of number one, how it comes apart and goes together. I have relubricated everything, which is always a good decision. I have inspected the existing where on components, and I have checked all of the tension on the screws, check the batteries, check the springs. And then when I come back, I have it in my head a fresh image of what it did look like, so I know what is now different if I see any differences. No, that's fair. I don't do pre range. I don't strip a fire in pre range. Pre range about the most I will do is like so bear in mind that, like my my pre range checks is also the same checks I go through when I pull the fire them out for dry fire training or occasionally if I just have a half a day with nothing to do with nobody home and I just want to kill time, I'll just start pulling guns out of the safe and like get them on the bench, make sure there's no russ, make sure there's no crap, you know, just like give them a good once over. If I've touched him in a while, yeah. Check for RUSS, check for degradation, check for creditor damage. I've had slings chewed on by mice on occasion. I'm fortunate I haven't had to deal with that. But that's why I went to a safe from a gun locker. Ah. But what I'm thinking is is like when I pull the fire them out and I'm I'm about to take it the range, I don't strip it. I do as soon as I pull a firem out, I immediately confirm condition of it, because like I store all firearms and condition three, which for those unannointed, that's like full mag safety off. Empty chambers. All you gotta do. It's like cruiser ready for a shotgun. It's literally pulled about the rack, run the action one time, and you're hot. You're ready to go. Every firearm stays stored like that in the house. And the idea is that the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to unload the firearm, confirm it's unloaded, and then if I'm going to take it to the range, I will usually go so far as to like you know, eyeball through the barrel to make sure that I don't have anything weird going on there and I shouldn't. I'll put a sprints of gun oil into the action. Yeah, maybe a couple of times. Yeah, cycle it a few times, make sure that the safeties work, make sure that it's dropping the hammer reliably. Make sure that disconnector is working like, I give it a quick pre flight check, make sure everything's behaving it like it should, and then I stick in the bag and I go. When I get back, I strip it, take it all apart, clean it out really good, put it all back together, check all the fasteners, check batteries. I do all that so that when the then I reloaded in condition three and put it back in the safe, so that when the gun goes back into the safe, I have verified that it is ready to come out of the safe and go weapons hot to you know, take care of business at any moment. So I don't feel, I guess like from that perspective, like I don't feel the need to do a full dissembly and everything on the firearm when I take it out to go to the range because I've done all that on the way back into the rack and it comes out of the rack ready to go. That makes sense. And the only time I've ever had an issue with a firearm that I could have saved myself by doing a prefly check, it was because I got a little bit lax. I had an issue years ago where my one of my stream lights, the tape switch stopped working reliably and I thought I had like a pinch wire or something. Well, it turned out that the tailcap had actually backed off like a quarter turn. Sure, and it totally my fault. I got lazy and lax. I hadn't been checking yet, and like I just I got lazy. I stopped paying attention. I didn't think it was backing off. And once I realized that, now, part of my before it goes back into the safe checks for every single firearm is to just just gently just like give. It'll give everyone whose tail caps a little much every single time, even the streamline to carry in my back pocket, like I make it a point every so often of like you know, just taking the tail cap and back it off and ate the turn and torque back on. Just make sure it's tight. No, that makes a lot of sense. I mean I've I've never had a time where I've gotten to the range and my weapon has not functioned appropriately. I've never had that happen. I think the reason why I do the checks I do before I go comes down to kind of what I do for a job. Toolan die is all about doing it but being extremely detail oriented and being extreme thorough with your stuff because we don't get spare parts most of the time, so your first. Shots usually your only shot. So I go through and do those very similar pre flight checks with all of my metrology tools at work, with the setup in my mill every day at work, with the setup in my wire ETM, in the grinder, whatever I'm doing. It's I think, it's just how I look at things. Now. Yeah, right, well, I have a good question. I was gonna hit Jeff's first, But that's a show with that one, just because that's probably the quicker one answer. Forest maintenance is several times more expensive and time consuming than optional maintenance. Yes. Two, Now back to raggle. Do you believe a certain level of carbon folin makes the rifle more accurate? I've heard prairie dog hunters that will clean rifles every two to five hundred rounds and shoot five shots after. So that's not carbon falling, that's copper following in the rifle lands and groups. Yes, But that being that being said, I am I am not the world's greatest shot. I'm big enough, I'm a mature enough man to admit that. Sure. In my day I used to be in pretty regular contact with a nationally ranked f class shooter years and years and years ago. Lost touch with him over the years. Probably should try to look him up again. He was a cool guy, another Army vet. But you know, f class, for those of you who aren't aware, is like you take a three away Winchester, you shoot it out to one thousand yards at like I think twelve in circles. It's it's a crazy frickin thing to compete in. But his supposition was always that the barrel will tell you what it wants. And even within the same manufacture of barrels, you could buy two barrels, one right off the line behind the other. One of them is going to shoot its absolute best right out of the box, bear clean, and after you shoot a match, thou shout strip all the copper found back out of it, or it will shoot like crap yep, and they will even clean it mid match if that, if that group starts opening up, the barrel will tell you what it wants. I, on the other hand, have a Ruger M seventy seven that is a perfectly acceptable rifle. It does not shoot worth a shit when it's completely clean. I have that same problem with my Remington seven hundred and thirty odd six. Yeah, I can put Look, I can two box minimum before the grouping closes up. So mine's not that bad. I mean now, for the sake of comparison, like I've gotten that rifled where it put it had four rounds touching each other at one hundred yards, so it can it can spit out a really really accurate group. We like to play darts with ours at three hundred yards at the range I used to go to a lot. But it will not, it will not repeat that performance with a totally clean barrel. I'm gonna put about five or six rounds through it, and you can you can watch your rush fire browns are like you know, about two two and a half m away, and your next five are like this. Again, I am not smart enough to understand why that is, but I do know that the barrel made it very apparent to me. You don't you don't like to be shot when you're freshly cleaned. It has to do with the tolerance on the rifling lands and grooves in comparison to the roughed out hole that was in the rifle barrel before it was it had the rifling cut, and how well how sharp the rifling button or however they rifled it, how well it cut those lands and groups. I can tell you that, But that is that is still a function of like the barrel, and I guess to a lesser degree the rest of the firearm. It will if your if your accuracy is your ultimate goal, and you pay a little bit of attention, it will tell you what it wants. And if you want peak accuracy, you're gonna give the weapon what is after. So I have noticed with my Remington seven hundred, it shoots the best after. About twenty to thirty rounds from there to about six hundred rounds. At six hundred, that group starts opening up like crazy again. Now, six hundred rounds is a lot of thirty odd six. It's a lot for a bolt gun. Well, it is a lot for a bolt gun. But you know when I was going up twice a month to a range with a three hundred yard range. And I was playing, you know I would shoot one hundred rounds. You go through that in a reasonable time period. But it's like Phil said, your barrel will tell you what it wants, what it needs. If you notice your load that performed perfectly well this range time now is not try cleaning your barrel, refoul it and see what happens. Yeah. Now, other than that, I will say there is something to be said, and Phil, get your opinion on this. Running your gun until it's. Dirty enough to fail. I see a benefit in that. I won't debate that, but I won't do it. I do it usually if I buy a new semi auto, because I want to know for my own sake, I'm gonna take it out of the box. I'm gonna clean the but Jesus out of it, get it real clean, get it oiled up to my preference with my preferred lubricants, and then I'm gonna list yeah, and then I'm nice. I'm gonna shoot the absolute shit out of that thing until it starts to give me problems to know where the line is, to know where the line is. So so for whatever reason, say say I've got a class or it's gonna be a five hundred round class and we've got a break for lunch. Do I need to clean it at two hundred and fifty rounds at lunch break? Do I need to feel strip it and chrack some things out? What do I need to do to it? When if I'm in a situation with extended amounts of fire, and I guess from my perspective, like. I have a hard rule that I tear down and inspect a firearm every single time goes the range. And like I will tear down, I will wipe it down. I'll usually take a little bit of my prefer fring gun ale cleaning agent and like you know, spiritts parts down, put it back together. I don't detail strip gun super often. I don't clean the barrels super often. I kind of pay attention to what the weapons doing and let that be my let that be my sign post. But like do you track round count in your weapons? Not super closely, not super closely, like just being perfectly honest, Like I track round count on like I track round count only on my bolt gun, and even that's fairly loose. Like I basically track because I know how many rounds I put through it out of the two boxes I have loaded up that are like all handloaded. But like, sure, the truth of matter. Is is that my personal preferences tear the weapon down and let it tell me what it needs. If it looks really filthy in there, I'll go through with brass brushes and you know, clean every last little bit of carbon out, scrape it off, do what I gotta do. But for the most part, like. I don't don't. I don't subscribe to the basic training. Clean it, make it shine before you turn it in, you know school thought. I've seen too many firearms screwed up by overly enthusiastic cleaning. You can do that, yeah, when in my experience, the goal is get the dirt out, get the worst of the carbon out, loub it up, put it back together, and if the gun's still running, well, I don't see a need to go get crazy about it now. I will say that while I am slightly lackadaisy about a level of cleaning I'm willing to go through, I am not lackaday's about inspecting it because if there's wear patterns, if there's metal moving, if there's things peening, I want to know about it immediately because that is a parts breakage at some point down the road. Absolutely now. So that's like that to me, like cleaning and care really comes down to, like instead of like hard fast rules about do this to make the weapon you know clean enough you can put it away. I'm very much like that when it comes to what condition I put the fire them away only because when it comes out, I'm ex I store every firearm as if the next time it comes out of the safe it's going. To be to protect my wife and daughter. Sure they all they all go away in the same condition, so that they all come out in the same condition. I don't have to start thinking about how did I store this one, how did I put this one away? They're all they all baseline the same way, right, with a couple exceptions. Obviously my carry gun, my carry guns condition. One as it should be. Yeah, I mean ham down on the half cock, notge because it's a double action, single action. But like the carry guns, condition one. Revolvers are obviously condition one because you you got a full cylinder. It's all the way loaded. There's no sense in having an empty celler. But it's not a modern revolver. Yeah, but everything in the house that's a semi auto, the bolt action, they're all they're all conditioned three. They got full magazines and empty chambers. There's a comment. I want to see my reflection on my gun or else I'm carrying it. I mean, that's fair, not my thing. I don't I don't own if you are cleaning it appropriately, that's not a problem. Yeah, I will say I did spend an afternoon in the garage smoking a cigar and hand polishing up my my Ruger. GP one hundred. It's not like polished to a high shine and everything like chrome or like nickel plated. But you've seen a GP. You've seen like a stainless GP one hundred, right, Like, yeah, they're not really. One of my coworkers, one of my coworkers daily carries one. That's a choice. I polish it up enough that like you could legitimately shaven parts of it, like it's it's prettier than it has any right to be, which also makes it hell on earth to clean after I've taken it home from the range, it would be yeah, but it but it sure is pretty go to cleaning kit. So let let let's start with the age old debate. How do you feel about bor snakes? I love them? Why do you think some people are so like about bor snakes? Because they are not using them for their intended purpose when they try them. That is what I think explain. I think the the appropriate use case for bor snakes is all right in the class getting a little bit of following quick rip it through the bore a couple of times, field cleaning kits sort of things. Yeah, I think that quicker. There are a lot of people that make too much to do about the steel cable at the core of bor snakes. Scouring your barrel. Your barrel is taking far more wear and I shouldn't say that your barrel should be taking far more wear and tear from the bullets being fired down it than a steel cable brushing against it occasionally. Yeah, the one thing I've always heard is that, like, well, what if it leaves a chunk of the boar snake in the barrel and the next time you fire around it bulges your barrel. Like, I've yet to see a confirmed case where any of these horror stories of bor snakes actually took place. I have had a bor snake break off halfway through my barrel and been a real bitch to get it out. Yes, but that wasn't like, oh, it deposited a. It's not like it was a Romulan ship and it cloaked itself in your barrel and you and see it. It was pretty obvioust. It was really obvious that that bor snake was going out. It was gonna be the last range strip with that bor snake when it finally broke. But I have had the brass bristles in the cleaning brushes be left behind in the bore of my rifle. And that's going to do a hell of a lot more than a small piece of nylon cordage. Yeah. Now, but you visually inspect your barrel after you clean it, or you should should. And hey, you see something in there, air gun out of your compressor blaster throat. Is it gone? Yes? Is there damage? No good to go? You're fine, Jeff jag. Because you can't use a bor snake to force a squib out as the one I was told. I mean, that's that's fair. I don't. That's not a knock against the bor snake. That's just using them. That's like trying to ice skate uphill. It's the wrong tool for the wrong job. It is. And and you know, I've I have had squib rounds in my pistols that have been no issue to get out. I've had squid browns in a rifle that took buying a brass, solid brass rod. And beaten the bejesus out of it to get out. Look, yeah, there are some tools that will not do all jobs more. Rag will hold that thought for just just a minute. I have a personal favorite cleaner that should sponsor me and they. If your answer is not Hoppies number nine, you have a terrible sense of smell. It's it's not hobbies number nine. But anyway, I'm disappointed in you. That's okay. I've been a disappointment before. Guy that comment said squibs kind of spooky. So we were talking about this in the patron group just today. Squibs are not what's the beeping noise? I know it's not a fire. The humidifier filter needs to be cleaned. Oh it happens once a month. That happened to occur this time out. I know that was gonna do it. So yeah, ye, squibs are not the worst thing. It's hang fires that are the scariest damn failure on earth. Yes, And anyone that has never experienced that, like. So, anybody that's. Ever played with, like, you know, an old black powder gun knows it like there's a there's there's enough time between hammer dropping and boom. For you to like be conscious of it. Right. Oh yeah, especially at flint lock. But that's not a thing usually with smokeless powder. Well it is. I had a hangfire that hung so long I had time to start to say the words what the hell? I got about to the word the and then. It popped, and it, like I to this day as the single scariest experience I've ever had shooting firearms. Yeah, it's not something that happens often with modern ammunition, thankfully. It is when you it is when you first start reloading and you do dumb things. Oh well, yeah, wait, what'd you do? So at the time, I had a hard line about like, after I would wet tumble brass, I would let it. I had a process for make sure it was totally dry inside it out, and I would always let it sit out for twenty four hours before i'd reload it. Let sure, let all the moisture evaporate out of it. Right. Well, this one time I got in a hurry and said, I mean, it's been four or five hours, I'm not sure, not long enough. No, it wasn't fine, But you know what happened. Some brass stay wet for like seventy two hours. Well, in the summer in Louisiana, when it's like ninety degrees in your garage, that. Would dry it quick. Yes, Unfortunately, four hours was definitely not enough time. And I loaded that. Stuff up, and I learned that wet, clumpy powder does really weird things. Yeah, burns super weird. Yeah. Also, and not only did I have a hangfire, but something weird happened with that gun and I actually had powder splatter back like pepper my face around my EyePro. Huh. Best I can figure is like, you know. Because the powder didn't burn well, but we're talking about a revolver, so you got a silver gap. The only thing I can figure is I had some some kind of way something splattered back into my face because I felt like peppering all over my face when I rap it off. Anyway, weird experience. I don't recommend it. Yeah, don't get your gun powder what Yeah, keep your powder dry, YadA YadA yea. Anyway, Ragla asked about foaming boar cleaner. So I'm gonna say I am a ballast all faithful. I like copies nine. I mean, not hating on you. Now you've disappointed. It is what is for sale at the local farm and hardware store from the time I can remember until today, I can get it whenever I walk in. It's been my go to and it's never done me wrong. I have five cans of aerosol ballast All under my gun cleaning shelf. I buy that stuff at least a couple of cans a year, and I stay stocked at all times. It is like the makers of ballast All. If you would like to support the podcast, I will happily accept a sponsorship from a bunch. Of asters a ton. I've spent a ton of money on y'all's products over the year. You should at least throw me, like, you know, cleaning matter or something for my trouble. But there you go. I like it because it's a cleaner, it's a lubricant, it's a leather and a wood conditioner. Like you can literally take a gun made any time in the last two hundred years and just hose the thing down from one end to the other. It will hurt literally nothing, and not the aerosol. You can also buy ballistall on these sixteen ounce like cans of unpressurized I'm told that if you take that and you water it down, I forget exactly the ratio. But it's what ballast All recommends for clean meaning black powder fouling. Interesting, so like it do much black powder at all? My brother does that. I don't do any. I don't do any. But that's what they recommend. Like if you have, like you know, a bunch of powder fowl and everything in your following, Yeah, that's what they recommend for black for neutralizing black powder. Because you know that if you leave my past. Yeah, yeah, so it's good for neutralizing that. Huh, Well, that's good to know. I'm told that in mind if I ever buy, if I well, when I finish the air eighteen seventy eighteen fifty. Whatever we call it, whatever it is, it has a project name, I need to get some different three D printer filament. I think we talked about that last time too. We did. I will eventually finish that. But yeah, Ballistall is my go to. I'm I have my preference. I'm not really hung up on what kind of cleaner you use. I might even really hung up on what kind of cleaning kit. I will say that, like I believe when it comes to cleaning kit for fire that you have a variety of options. Like I have nylon brushes, I have bra I have brass brushes. The brass brushes are a little aggressive, but sometimes you gotta get a little aggressive. I have balistall, I have the silicon impregnated you. Know, towels. I've got a whole stack of just old t shirts I use for all kinds of stuff. I've got boar snakes, and I've got cleaning rods. I've got all this stuff, and nine times out of ten I go and look at the firearm tear apart and say, what do I need to make this clean enough? I have a basic cleaning kit that I that lives in my range bag. It is a couple of bore snakes in my three most common calibers. It is a number of brushes, just a couple of nylon brushes, because usually at the range you don't need something as abrasive as a brass brush. You could give it a light scrub. I got a little dropper or sealed bottle of hoppies. Nine, I got a little drop or bottle of whatever whatever oil has been in that thing for the last ten years, because I do most of my gun cleaning at home, and most of that either is rem oil or honestly, ten thirty. There ain't nothing wrong with using you know, light grade mot motor oil. I used to talk to people that thirty because that's what's in the garage. I used to talk to guys that were emphatic about like literally they just take keep a quart of mobile I full synthetic ten W thirty. That's what they used for Gunnwill you know one of my coworkers, I've talked about him before. He does a lot of cowboy action sports shooting. He does a lot of thousand yard matches with black powders. Him and Eddie would probably get along real well. He might know each other, Honestly, it would not surprise me if they've shot against each other. In fact, I should send his picture to Eddie and see if he knows him. That would be hilarious if they do know each other. I mean, he swears by automatic transmission fluid cut fifty fifty with ten W thirty. I've heard that before. That mean all he uses. I mean, at the end of the day, like lubricant is lubricant within certain boundaries. I'm sure there's some stuff that's like ten percent better than other stuff, but like having having an appropriate amount of the wrong kind of oil is still ten times better than having. No oil on a firearm, agreed. All that being said, I had a thought, Oh, I know what I was thinking beyond just the cleaning. What are kinds of tools do you keep, like in your range bag or on your bench or they're not. Maybe they're maintenance tools, they're not strictly cleaning. I got a couple in my range bag lives a inch pound screwdriver, multi bag driver? Is it the wheeler one? I got one that I picked up as a competition prize. It's a Vortex kit. Okay, I mean ostensibly they're probably pretty similar. It's probably the exact same one, just with the Vortex label on it. And I didn't have to pay for it, so go me. Yeah, that lives in my range bag. I usually keep If if I have a firearm that has anything Allen Key on it, I keep the appropriate Alan keys, usually in the range bag that goes with that firearm. I also keep a foot pound torque wrench nearby, not at the range because usually that's muzzle devices or barrel. Tensioning or something like that. Yeah, but inch pound Yeah, tork wreunch is the. Way to go. Yeah, ig you should have bought it. Inch pound tork wrenches are the best for for mounting optics. Yeah, especially scopes. You wouldn't believe how fast you can jack a scope up by torquing those screws a little bit too hard, or even just unintentionally stripping screws having the correct bit for the screw you're using. Like, yes, there is a difference in size of laighthead screwbits. So I was gonna say, like, in addition to an inch pound torque ranch, I also have a Winchester branded like set of it's the single driver and all the bits, but it's a gun specific screwdriver set. And there are no bull hollow ground screwdrivers, and there are no bowl crap like ten different flathead sizes, and they're all a little bit different. And if you're a revolver owner, I am not fill in. Those are phenomenally important. Let me tell you something. If you ever ever hope to have the side plate off of a jframe or a Smith and wesson without breaking something or tearing up the finish on that gun, foul shout. Invest in ten screwdrivers of varying size differences, because you will use every last one of them for one of those screws, and they must be hollow ground, yes, and hollow ground for those not aware, it just means that like normally a cheap screwdriver in profile is kind of shaped like a broadhead, and a hollow ground one, it will actually fit all the way down into the bottom of the screw so you have a better chance of breaking it lose without breaking the head off. You can tell if it's a hollow ground screwdriver blade because you'll see a little arc instead of just a straight line coming down on the side of the screwdriver. But yeah, that Winchester brand screwdriver set, I've actually over the years, I've actually boogered up a couple of those those heads just because like some of these, especially revolvers, they're the worst ones. But some of these things, like they're tiny little flathead screws and they are torqued in there by gorillas, and like even with a lot of them. Have lock tight applied to at the factory. Yeah, and even with the perfect size screwdriver head, you're still gonna twist that master ten degrees just breaking it loose. Like I hate to say, tools become expendable at a certain point, but they almost do. Well, especially at small flathead screwdrivers. There's a very. Fine line between ductyl enough to withstand the snap of loosening a screw and the flex of tightening a screw and hard enough to not deform but not snap. It's a very fine line to hit, and they would rather err on the side of it deforming slightly because it's still a usable. Tool then it breaking off and boogering up your gun, because then you're gonna bitch. Yeah. And the only other thing I can think of that as like a staple on my bench, I mean other then like like an air Well air fifteen armorers tool. That's a that's kind of a no brainer if you're an ar guy, especially if you build them. Bench block is really helpful for like pounding pins and everything out, having something to support your part while you beat something out of it or into it. But the owner thing is a really good punch set with stea and brass punches. Always a good decision. And the brast thing I will add is a is a sight tool. If you shoot a lot of pistols. Sidevice site tool is actually the one thing I don't own. Oh dude, I bought a really nice one, and it has it has been so nice. To be fair, I don't spend a lot of time footing around with sights on hand, especially on handguns. I will go so far as to take like those brass punches I was just talking about, and like, if I can convince myself that the gun is consistently shooting like left or right, and it's not just me being a moron, because everyone's had that experience where okay, some of y'all out there have had this experience and still insists it's the gun and not you. But there's there's a moment where the gun is shooting consistently right or left, and it has nothing to do with the sites, has everything to do with the loosen up behind the trigger, but usually it does. If I can convince myself, I am ten out of ten not the problem. This time, I'll take a brass punch, chalk up the slide in pad advice, and I'll just give it like a little little tap one direction to the other, notate that in like you know, a little range car, and I keep it the gun and the next time I take it out, I'll go in and say, okay, I moved the sites did did? Did the point of impact change? But once I get once I get a handgun pretty close, I'm not going to keep fooling with it like I'm gonna I'm gonna say that that's not what I have it for. Mm hm, you're talking about for installing sites some of some pistols. In order to do a full complete disassembly, you must remove the rear site because there's a plunger that's held in by the rear site. What what? What? What? Manufacturer thought that was great Springfield yep mm hmmmm. But I also like removing. I have a site that I like. I have a site that I like that my eyes pick up extremely well. I shoot much better with that site. I put that site on all of my guns. Raggles ask in which model I'm assuming MMP two point zero C I know for sure. Does xd M also required the rear site to be removed to change some parts. Yeah, that's just freaking annoying. It is. It's not as much of a problem because they don't have a they don't have a pressed in sight. They have a set screw and dovetail site, so it's very easy to get them in and out. But it's also so much easier to not mar up your gun or mar up your sights or break your sites when you have a really nice tool that you just crank the handle in it walks right out. Yeah that's fair. I mean, it's one of those things that's on my list, but I just I'm not going to use it super often. I have had to replace every single part in my XDM except for the plastic receiver, the plastic frame of the gun, because that's I have shot it apart on numerous occasions. I shot it so much. I broke the slide. I shot two barrels out, I shot out every spring in it, including the trigger springs, and I. Broke a trigger overachiever, and I cracked a firing pin overachiever. It was well, that was my competition gun. I was shooting like seven to ten thousand rounds of nine MILLI a year, and that was the only gun. I was shooting the bottom. I will say this much not like a site pusher, but like I literally just did buy a Magmatic the AKSKS site tool, because you are one hundred and ten percent not adjusting the windage on an SKS or an AK without that tool. One similar to it, Jeff, Yes, impressive, But I was also a single man with an income and no. Mortgage, income, no mortgage, and no wife to question and the volume of lead I was ingesting and no spouse who you wanted to spend time with more than you want to shoot. Yeah, And I had a range that I could go to for free, and a multi stage reloading press that I got for almost nothing. Oh, you just had the whole deck stacked against you. Then, bro, I would throw on an episode of SG one on a Saturday morning, crank out a thousand rounds, and then go shoot them on Sunday. It was wild. You would have been a very dangerous friend to have at that point. Oh yeah, I was. I got so many friends into shooting, so much money made. You'd got me into a lot of trouble with my wife. Oh yes, uh but yeah, that's about all can. Think of as far as like cleaning stuff tools, oh. I said earlier, A bent of vice, yeah, or just a big old cast iron bastard and some soft brass or nylon jaws to put on it. I mean, look, dude, I've got like an old school, like a craftsman, like the old school craftsman. You know vice, it's nothing special, sitting that's bolted to my bench. And I just made a pair of I took and cut a pair of blocks out of MDF and then like glued shim stock into the back of them to where they'd fit the jaws and stay perfectly level, and rubber bands secure them to the jaws. That's why those are my pads. I see some nylon y. You're a fancy ass, and I'm a woodworker, so I had wood lying around. But I mean something as simple as that, just anything to keep those those jaws from marring your firearm. But like a good bench vice is not okay. In addition to a bench vice, a rifle rest. Rifle rest is nice if you're an AR shooter and not a bolt action shooter. Uh, there are little blocks, yep. I was gonna say, the blocks that pin into your upper and lower receiver, for holding on them, for working on them, fantastic, worth every penny. And they're cheap. I will say that if you're an AR builder that that magazine block is. They're not expensive, and god. Do they make things so much nicer. Just be able to chalk that up, chalk that up. And avice. You build your lower, you stab it down, you you know, pin your upper onto it, and then you just go to town to the only the only thing I don't do with that is that when it comes time to torque in the barrel nut and torque in the the muzzle the muzzle device, because I don't like the idea of putting all that torque into the quick takedown pins. It's I'll separate the upper and lower and I'll chuck the upper directly into that pad. Advice. Have I got something for you? Phil? All right, so you do a lot of your ars are pretty much all flattops, right, Uh, yes, they are both flat tops. I took a piece of inch and a quarter delarin, and I just mill the slot into the top of that that fits that picatinny rail, and then. You put that pinned in lower on there. You clamp it between those two pieces of delarine. Now you don't have rotational pressure on your locating lugs and your takedown pins. Now you just have lateral pressure compressing the aluminum, so you don't have to worry about deflecting those at all. It's fantastic overachiever. Let me know if you want and I'll send you one. Um, we would have to have a conversation because I like arrow precisions enhanced uppers, and they are not Have you ever played with one? Yeah? I have one, okay, but you know that they're they're not exactly the same as a mill speck. They're not, but they're close enough enough that like if I throw a twenty thousand Sextra clearance in there, it's not gonna matter. Yeah, But I'm just saying, like for anybody hasn't played with them, Like when you get to the where the barrel nut would be, things get really different really quickly, they do. Ragle's got a good one cuttle one by four to fit in the maguale and has used that for years. Great idea. Yeah, also you frankly, I mean mine lives in my cleaning bench because sometimes it's just really useful to just stab that thing down in there and then now it's all hands free. But the rifle rest comes in really handy for like, you know, like it's coming really handy. While I was building this SKS, it's. Coming really handy from my bolt guts, coming really handy for messing with my my Bretta shotgun. Quite frankly, I mean anything that means you don't have to have a third hand. Yeah, and also just the ability to, like it'd be one thing to say, like put a towel out or a clean mat, just lay the firem down outside, but it's something totally different to be able to position it this way upside down on its side wherever, and like have the ability to lock it in. That just it makes things a lot simpler, especially when you're not cleaning but you're actually like applying torque and force. I actually went as far as and I haven't used it in years, haven't had to, but I actually I drilled out two holes in my rifle rest, and I have threaded inserts that are attached into the top of my workbench so that I can literally take two quarter inch Allen head bolts and bolt that rifle rest down. To the benchtop. That's a great idea, I like, I might still have an idea. I also have the ill if I think about it, I'll take pictures for you. I actually did the same thing with let's see here my case trimmor and several other tools, where like normally you'd have to have a hand on it to make sure it doesn't walk around. And I just screwed the wood screw them down to larger wooden bases and then put in threaded inserts throughout the bench. So I can literally screw any of these things down to my reloading bench and they stay put while I'm using them. So I actually went to using a drill press drill press for my case trimmer, and I just made up a micrometer stop on the top of my case trimmer so. That I can just go bump done. So I actually it gets some within like two thous of each other. It's fantastic. I actually use a world's finest trimmer chucked up in an old Craftsman corded drill, and it works fine for that. But I only use that for my five five six When it comes to like my three away Winchester. When it comes to any of my revolver brass, I still trim all that by hand, like with the school, the old school, like the Lineman hand trimmer. It takes longer, but I mean the three away Winchester, I'm not really shooting in volume. Well, that's exactly it. And the revolver brass, I'm gonna trim it one time. Just to like level set it, make it all the same length. And after that, I'm gonna split the I'm gonna split the next on it before I it ever becomes a problem. Again. I never actually. Run into a nine mil case stretching long enough that I needed to trim it nine mil. No, but I do. And this is this is something I've disagree with a bunch of reloaders about for years, and I will stand on business to the day I die. You need to trim your revolver, brass. I believe that one time, because here's the thing of it. You know how you have your reloaded for revolvers. I know I had a Smith and Wesson six eighty six stainless. Okay, so you're you're aware that you're not taper. You're not. Oh God in heaven, why am I drawing a blank on this? The carbon following ring that you get the cylinder. No, no, no crimping. It's not a it's not a taper crimp use on revolver. It's a roll crimp. It's a roll cramp. So that roll bullet set back, yeah, or creep out forward. Now, in my experience, that roll crimp is a lot less forgiving in terms of like if you undercrimp it, it does nothing, and if you overcrimp it, it really does mess with the you know, with the bullet leaving the case, absolutely does. And the roll crimp. The degree to which you roll crimp around is dictated by how tall the brass is and where you set to die. So if all of your volver brass is the exact same height, you'll get a very consistent roll crimp. And if your brass is a little long, a little short, and all kinds of shit, then you're gonna get a really inconsistent crimp. Now, that's not a big problem with a taper crimp on nine to mil because close enough is close enough. When it comes to a taper crimp, you're really just trying to take the bell mouth out. It's more, it's more, it's more particular, it's at the tolerance is a little closer when your roll crimping in my experience, So what I tell everybody is is that And also most people don't realize this, but are you aware that there even though there is a set factory spect there's the same respect for like overall length of the case, there's actually two different length cases. You'll encounter for three seven and for forty four magnum, and they are wildly different. No, I you know, I had a three fifty seven and I mostly shot three fifty seven and thirty eights out of it. I had an opportunity at a forty four, and I. Might take a stab at that in a little while. Again, so this applies to both. Have you ever seen or heard of the Hornity FTX line of bullets? Heard of not having experience any experience with? Okay? So that the Horny FTX was specifically loaded for us in like a lever action right or a two magazine, and it has I can recall it being more like a cowboy action. Bullet, wasn't it? Yes? But it has a polymer tip so that when you go like tipped primer, they. Don't you know, they don't. They don't do splody things. But here's the thing most people aren't aware of. And you only deal with this if you reload once fired brass, which I do, and that's how I learned this the hard way. The brass for three. Seven and forty four magnum used for the Hornity FTX bullets. Hornity specifically cuts it about thirty thousand shorter than Sammy Speck because it has to be shorter to interface with the the the candler on that bullet. Really, yes, Now here's the thing. If you get some of that brass, and it's not hard to figure out, it will say Hornity on the headstamp, and when you go to measure it, it's going to be noticeably shorter than the same respect for your case length. But if you get any of it and you want to reload Hornity's FTX bullets, it's fine, it's perfect. It's already the right length. But if you look at a Hornity manual and you look at those FTX bullets, it will specifically have a note in there that says you must trim the brass to this spec to load these bullets in this case. And that's how I learned about it, because I when I started getting once far brass, I didn't realize that, and I started loading through seven mag and bullets, and then I noticed, when I had a bunch of these things lined up, I'm like, why are some of. These cases shorter than others? Because there were some. Where I could see the candler, Yeah, you could see it. I was standing proud of the case. The case was that much noticeably shorter, and I was like, why, what's going on here? Like, there's no way on earth I did that because I wasn't trim in the brass at the time. Everybody had always told me you don't trim pistol brass. So then I started researching and figured that out, and from that moment forward, I measure all my revolver brass when I first take it in from the range. Anything that is too short goes in the trash can. Everything gets trimmed to a consistent length. If it's more I don't remember what the speck is I've got written down on one of my reloading journals. I think it's like five thousands too short. If it's more than if it's shorter than that, below what my what length I'm looking for? I can it's fair, But that. Now means all the brass that I've shot. Once I verified it's right length I've trimmed at one time, I've cleaned it. It's read to lock and LOLd. I never have to play. I never have to worry about it again. And this cool thing about revolvers is that it's really easy to reclaim the brass. So it is semi autos. It can be a mess sometimes. Yeah, that's a really long winded story, but you know, for the for anybody, it's a good piece in for anybody out there that's not in the know. Let's say I was very surprised, so I try to pass out along to other people who might be in the same boat. Anyway. I know, I know an elderly lady that has a Smith and Wesson sixty six forty four magnum six inch blue original in the box. Does she want to adopt an adult? No? No, but she might be willing to sell it to me if I can convince myself it's a reasonable price to try liking revolvers. Again, I've failed every time. So blued model sixty six and forty four magnum about what six inch? About what vintage? Well, given her husband's age and when he was buying all of his guns, I'm guessing seventies, sixties to seventies. But man, he's got a pair of matchicult peacemakers that have never been fired either. In his collection. I'm just debating if that gun is worth drive ne Illinois four. I mean she if I don't buy it, and she hasn't sold it yet. She would probably be willing to mail it to an FFL to sell it to you. Hmm, well we might talk turkey later. She also has a four to sixty weatherby Magnum she's been trying to sell and I just cannot. I cannot by that. Why not? I've shot it and it is up your big boy. Shoot. You're a big boy. You like recoil. I like recoiling rifle. Yeah, I do. It's a Safari weight Ultra light four sixty Weather. Be Yes, have you shot one? No? It's like shooting an unbraked fifty cow man. Sounds fun, it's it's fun the first time. It is not fun the third, and neither is buying the rounds or the reloading dies because you have to custom order them. Yes, it's not a standard stock die. Uh No, but now I know what to encourage you to buy to really piss Rachel off the four sixty. Now, there's other things I would get Before I got that. I'd probably pick up a forty five to seventy elever Action because. That's almost pedestrian bies by comparison. It is, it is, but it's one of those like my brother already shoots forty five seventy. He's got all the reloading dies. Oh man, hm hmm, raggle if you run across a forty four auto mag the pistol let us know, Phil, Have you ever? Have you ever shot a forty four automag? No? It is fantastically terrible. I cannot even intone to you, how disinterested I am. Oh dude, it's it's a semi auto forty four magnum. I know what it is. I've known it ULTI made it in thirty Carbing. I don't like awful guns. They annoy me, but dude, it's it is. It is like a beautiful disaster, peak eighties TV cop drama, peak gun. I will admit when I saw it on the Dirty Harry movie I think it was the fourth or the fourteenth one, I don't remember, which is momentarily very intrigued. And then I learned about it and I was like, oh, that sounds awful. It is it's got awful. One of a guy I used to go shooting with occasionally. He had it in thirty carbing and forty four magnum. The thirty Carbing one is a riot of a good time. What are you redefining as a riot of a good time? So we were doing a lot of steel plate popping at the time, and it would sometimes make the steel plates bounce right back up and you could do double taps on a pop down target. That doesn't seem like as much of an accomplishment because I've done that with my three seven. Yeah, but this was at like seventy yards. Okay, I haven't done that at seventy yards. It's a slapping little round out of a pistol. I was about to say at twenty five yards, I could do that my local range. Yeah, you can do the other three fifty seven if you got a lot of fload and it's well one hundred and fifty four grain, like twelve underd fifty thirteen hundred feet per second. It's it's got a little bit of zap to it. Yeah, I missed. I missed out on a on a what was it one of the one of the conversion dragon ovs. I have one in thirty odd six that was originally made in thirty odd six, not a conversion. Fine, there was. That was a lot of money and guns sitting there. Oh yeah, Now, actually I was just thinking to myself. I actually have a I have load data for a one hundred and twenty five grain bullet in three seven magnum, and the load data says it's supposed to do like nineteen hundred. I would try it. I haven't tried it yet, but I kind of want to load a few just to ride the lightning with that. With that thirty that uh three fifty seven that I bought, I got the all of the guy's pissing hot hand loads. Oh my god, some of those hand loads you'd be going through and be like, you know, and some of them were just were wadcutters that he loaded to max for no reason at all. You and I've had this conversation. My experience loading through seven magnum is that I actually managed to load. That is the only load I have ever like run out of nerve before I got to max charge. Three hundred wind mag. No, you can scare them, but Jesus side of yourself loading three hundred wind mag. It wasn't scared myself. That was the problem. It was the ringing noise I was hearing through my ear pro when coming from the frame. Yeah, that's a problem because. You see, I had load data from Hornity, and that's what I started loading from. And I kept going hotter and hotter and hotter and got to max and I was like, oh, this is a hell of a lot of fun. You know, fireball, this freaking big with a with a whole with a you know, the flaming don't, the traditional flaming don't coming out of the front of this four inch magnum was beautiful. The fire coming out of the cylinder gap. I have a picture someplace that is like peak gun photography nice, and it was beautiful. And then I found other low data that was like, oh, according to this, I could go another six tenths of a grain hotter. So I started pushing the limit and I got four tenths of a grain hotter than what I was previously. And then the frames started making this weird ringing noise when I would shoot it, so I backed it back down to where I was before. That's probably smart, I mean, you got to remember with revolvers, there are a variety of strength of frames in the same caliber of revolver. Yeah, it was Hodgton's data though, that made me made me start questioning myself. Hornety's data. In my experience is actually pretty much like on the money, maybe even a little bit conservative. But here's the frightening part before we walk this one out. That that low data that I haven't tried het for through seven, the one hundred and twenty five grand bullet at nineteen her freet per second, that's hodgeden data. I don't have data for that powder for that bullet weight in the Hornity manual. No you won't. So there's this part of it, like I kind of really want to try it because it's start low and work your way up. Well, I mean, let's do the other rule. My go to round for a thirty eight special is like one hundred and twenty five at like eight hundred and some fet per second. Like, it's not it's not a burn in the house down round. It's not a defensive around training round. It's training round. Like I can shoot it in my little, my little fifteen hours jayframe sixty seventy rounds before my hand starts to make me question my life decision. But more than twice that speed. It should be fun. Sounds terrifying, but I might try it anyway. We might have to save the rest of this topic for another night. We're an hour and a half in now, I don't know what we're gonna talk about next week. We did float the idea of talking of like doing kind of a show and tell on our plate carrier, showing like how we've set them up to this point. And this and the other. But I'm gonna have to I'm gonna put a pin in it if I get to do some dry fire over the weekend to confirm the way I currently have it set up and if that works, and if it does, I'll let you know by the beginning of next week, like if that might be the direction we go. I am still tweaking things on mine and I need to acquire a new hydration pouch for mine yet. Okay, so you want to punt it a little further out, we'll do something else. Yeah, I'm still playing around with a few things. I mean, I can talk through what I intend to do with it and what I intend to do with that age harness, because I'm thinking that age harness actually might replace my alie a chartis that I use for my belt due to my lack of ass Yes, you do have a geneg predisposition. We've talked about I do. It's a terrible curse belt. Oh no, require suspenders. We'll bat it around and figure out something. I mean, at some point I think that I think a discussion about how we set up those vicarians would be useful for everybody else, just to kind of like understand the process and the thought process and like how to actually put all that together, because like, while Rebel has done a phenomenal job putting everything in a bag, they're still integrating all the stuff together and making it work with you and your body and your lack of ass and making it work with your belt and all the rest of your field gear and making. It work with you. Yeah, making it work with you is the hardest part. Yeah, uh ragle fraggle talking about maintaining kid and envy. You know, we might actually do that next week, because we can do that next week. We only got through about half a topic because we subment too much time goobering around talking about libertarianism and cricket politicians. Now now crooked politicians. It's like they're all crooked. Yeah, I know. Anyway, so we'll go ahead and pump some out of the door. I guess we'll pick up the rest of this topic in a week and talk through like maintaining our field gear, maintaining clothing, boots, night vision, and pretty much anything else Nick and I can figure out in the next six and a half days. Boots, nile on night vision and body armor. There is maintenance to your body armor. Yep, all right, matter of facts, going out of the door and eid our body. Take care of yourselves, be good and doctor scary guy. I'm going to reach out to you and try to figure out who you are because I saw a notification on my phone just a second ago while we were in the show, and I just need to connect the dots on like who you are. But in any case, get eight by, talk to y'all in a week. Bye night, Deader