Matter of Facts: The Tactitards Strike Again

Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mofpodcast.com. On Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Ravele. Andrew and Nick are on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast. We have to doggone co-host before we start anything else, even before the admin work. We do. It's very important. First and foremost, Stuart wants to know when you're going to update your picture. When my wife reminds me. I will not remember. I mean, I can't blame that on her. I'm going to have to hold you responsible for it. You're a grown adult. You can remember things. I will put a reminder in my phone to do that tomorrow. Will you remember the reminder? It will make my phone light up and do all kinds of crazy shit until I stop it. I suppose that sounds reasonable. And the second co-host fucking with it has to happen is there's only two of the three musketeers here, and I was promised a third musketeer. I was. But he's making excuses about having to do cocking or something crazy like that. Yes, a great deal of cocking in his bathroom. And I don't know if that's like a euphemism for something. I do believe it is. He said he had to fix some mistakes. And screw up while the cock was still wet. Too easy. You're welcome. This is a family show, Nick. Look, you can't set me up for things like that and not expect me to do the blue collar thing and make every single joke I can think of. Especially when it's about genitalia, right? Yes. Yes, exactly. Look, I am a giant child by, well, choice and genetics. So there you go. I mean, yeah, I'm not going to fight you on that. All right, we got a couple in the chat who are already raising hell and causing trouble. I see Rachel Emberickson, our resident masochist, Dr. Scary Guy, Raggle Fraggle. I see Stuart, and I think that might be it. I don't think I missed anybody. I think that's it. Okay, welcome to the Matter of Facts podcast. This episode's called the Taktatard Strike Again because I had a legitimate good topic for us to talk about. And I decided to inject some silliness into. It as well. Gotta have some fun with it. Gotta have some fun with it. First. Wait a second, Raggle's saying, YouTube didn't auto-start, instead it said 23 minutes to start. I mean, dude, YouTube, I don't know if anybody noticed, but YouTube friggin' punted We Like Shooting podcasts off the air a couple of days ago and then reinstated them. Did they not know it's a gun show? I mean, I'm pretty sure that might have had something to do with the reason they got punted off the air, bud. Yeah, but like, either allow it or don't. I mean, nut up or quit bitching. I don't understand YouTube's issue. That's what I've been saying for years. What made YouTube phenomenally successful was vaguely racist cartoons, really terrible repetitive songs, and GunTube. Like... That's what made YouTube successful in the beginning. I mean, hell, Red vs. Blue was a massive driver of YouTube's traffic for a while there. But you see, now they're not so much worried about traffic and content and all that. What they're really concerned about is ad revenue, and. That means keeping. The advertisers happy. But their ad revenue has. Never paid for the service. That's not the point. YouTube has never been profitable. Not once. Nick, you're trying to use common sense here. I am. And you're trying to apply it to a tech company. Yes. Run largely by woke millennials. Yes. And probably Google's AI. So put all that into a box. Common sense? Nope. Woke millennials? Nope. Can't do it. Okay. Can't do it. I can't turn it off, man. I, um, my brain works this way and if it worked differently, I'm not sure I would notice. I'm sure we would all notice. Dr. Scary guy say rumble is lowering standards all around. Honestly, like I continue to put our show on rumble just in case, just because I'm convinced that one day YouTube is going to like drop the ax on us completely. Probably. And at this point, if they did, Oh, well, I mean, Oh, well we will fight. I have contingency plans to keep us on the air. If not exactly the way I would like to do it, but you know. Yep. We'll figure it out one way or the other. But anyway, admin work while we kill time away for Andrew. And if he's not here in the next three minutes, we're going to go on without him and then give him shit about it. We definitely will give him shit about it either way. Oh, we're going to do that either way. But if you'd like to promote Bad Decisions by becoming a patron, that link is in the show description. You can promote our Bad Decisions and we might promote some of your Bad Decisions along the way. I am still trying to get Nick on board with putting a red dot on a shotgun and buying night vision. And his wife is on the other side reminding both of us. Yes. Both of us equally that there are renovations to be done first. And I did just drop night vision money equivalent on putting a mill and soon to be three phase power in my garage. Yeah, that is a thing. You know, I mean, the mill will help me put red dots and things on my shotgun because it increases my side hustle money. Also, I can then make them out for my shotgun because that just sounds like a fun project. It'll be a good excuse to use my rotary table. It could be. I see the third musketeer is about to join us. Good. Grand success. Should I add him before he's prepared? He appears to have frozen. Oh, man. Nope. He's unfrozen. Aha! There he is! He is moving! Can you hear us? You can hear us. You haven't said anything, so I can't tell if we can hear you. You're being an ass. I can see you friggin' lip-syncing. Terrible. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you just fine. I'm trying to figure out why... Hold on. Things aren't working out very well. Oh, no. Jesus Christ. I mean. It'll be fine. This reminds me of the olden days where we were constantly fighting with the electrons trying to get things to behave themselves. Let me finish the admin work, though. Yes. Real quick. If you'd like to buy merch from Southern Gals, that link's in the show description. And if you want to prevent war crimes. With disaster coffee, use code MOF. I am drinking Bunker Beans tonight because we finally got rid of all the s'mores and the Mammy's Pecan Pie. And I'm back to my usual daily driver, which is bunker beans that I'm roasting myself and grinding and drinking. You know, I got to have the pecan pie fresh the other day and not microwave to fresh hell. It's not bad. It's not bad. I will say. Every time you talk about microwaving coffee, I want to just rage quit the internet. I prefer the s'mores over the pecan pie. I actually like the s'mores over the pecan pie. The s'mores has a little bit more of a robust taste. It's got that little bit of vanilla to it that's just like, hmm, that was pleasant. You know, because I don't put any of the creamer or any of that in my coffee. Yeah. Largely because I'm always questioning whether or not creamer will try to cause me anaphylactic shock. Also, I just, I never bothered when I was growing up, so I just like my coffee black. But the s'mores... very excellent even microwaved to fresh hell after sitting out in a pot for a day cooking which is pretty good uncle randy's also handles that torture a lot better than the pecan pie in my opinion pecan pie fresh was. Very good though i think the difference is that the pecan pie has a very not a mild but like a it's a very understated flavor seems to be yeah And the s'mores does have a more robust taste. And so does Uncle Randy's front porch. It does. You definitely notice the chocolatey notes in the Uncle Randy's, which is nice because I can't eat chocolate anymore. That's just sadness. I can experience that through coffee while feeding my rampant caffeine addiction. Okay, Andrew is still playing with electrons. I seem to have upset Gillian. Good. Good? Can you hear me? Andrew? Oh, yes. Alright, success. Okay, and you are just in time, because we just finished the admin work. We're about to get to Tactical Misfires. Alright, so. And Andrew's already busting out the boos. So, here's the gist. I took it upon myself to play with Skynet a little bit, slash chat GPT. And tried to create the most ridiculous tactical gun-related nonsense I could think of. And in the process of doing that, I think I accidentally made some things that are kind of borderline cool, but I'll let you all be the judge. So here's the thing. Binary choice. It's either– oh, Jesus Christ. What criteria? Okay, it's either based or it's cursed. Cursed. Cursed. Is pretty self-explanatory. Based is like, I would actually unironically use that. Everybody good with the terms of engagement? Sure. Sure, Boomer. Oh, piss off. This'll be fun. Just let me have some fun, then we'll do a serious topic. You can. It's okay. Okay. All right. First and foremost, all the backwards EOTechs. All the backwards EOTechs. Would you. Would you be able to see anything? I mean. Probably not. But I thought the only thing more annoying than one backward EOTech would be four of them on top of one rifle. But here's the annoying part, and this is why I include this, because this is the funny part to me. Is one of them bridging from the forend to the receiver? Almost. The fact that there's no charging handle. Also the fact that there's no charging handle. Stupid AI. But here's the funny part. So, y'all know how many pictures on the internet are drifting around with somebody that put their EOTech on backwards, right? Like, it's a meme at this point. Usually cops. I had to prompt ChatGPT four times, five times, to get it to flip the EOTechs around backwards. Because it kept putting them on the right way, and after I kept telling it, put them on backwards. No, flip them around. No, make... I think I literally... Did you try telling it to put them on forwards to see if it would come out wrong? No, it did it right. It kept doing it right over and over and over. Finally, when I knew this thing was going off the rails, somehow I'd convinced it to. Oh, what was it? So you know how these EOTechs are, like the buttons are supposed to face back towards you, the battery's supposed to face towards the front of the rifle, right? Yeah. It actually put the battery compartment facing the front of the rifle and then put the buttons on the battery compartment. Right. All right. Chad GPT was just dead set on, I will not turn the EOTechs around backwards because that's not the way they're. Supposed to be. And yet human beings screw that up constantly. Especially when it's like in the directions on the box. It's not very complicated. But it took five tries to get AI to turn them around backwards. That to me was the hilarious part. So, you know, as much as. I appreciate having a backup to your backup, I'm not sure you could get a picture, like a viewable image, through that many EOTechs. Try it. Definitely cursed. Andrew, cursed. Oh, I mean, it's stupidly cursed. Excellent. Okay, that was an easy one. There's also no sling on that rifle. There's no sling. There's no charging handle. No sling. That's what broke it for you, is no sling. Not the fact that there's like, what, four EOTechs backwards? You're like, ah, no sling. Nah, I wouldn't do it. No sling. I mean, I could take the three EOTechs off, put them on three other rifles, and be a very happy guy. Yeah, I mean, the way Nick reacted to your rifle not having sights, Andrew, he ought to be jumping, doing backflips over the fact that this one has four. It's got some sights. It's got more sights than it needs. Four is none and one is one. Whatever the scene is. Something like that. On to the next one. I'd do it. I love this. I love everything about this. Actually, put the EOTech on that and that would be pretty baller. I don't remember how I arrived at this. I think I said something like drum-fed pump shotgun because I was just trying to make something ridiculous and it spat this out and I was like. It's ridiculous it's stupid but i would shoot but i would i would run. One it's gonna rimlock so bad. Oh yeah so okay for the audio listeners this is a this is like a a a severely this is like serbu super shorty size shotgun with a burt's head pistol grip and a drum in the bottom of it where like the loading port should be for the tube fed magazine. I mean, it's like those magazine fed eight 70 mods and Mossberg five 90 mods that you see people doing. Yeah. And then to top it off, it's got like what a 15 or a 20 power rifle scope on the top of it. Like some God awful, enormous. Silly thing with custom index currents. So it's probably at least a 16. You might have to, uh, head shoot somebody from, you know, 400 yards away with your slug. Oh perfect i just remembered something you see how it says coach gun on the side of it i was trying to get ai to make like a side-by-side coach gun that was. Drum fed that would be amazing it. I can never figure out like what the secret sauce was to get it to do that but it did this and this was pretty funny that's fantastic so i take it so i take this i tried to make cursed and i made another based. I'd say based i'd do it i love that i would absolutely shoot that that'd be fun and terrible. Terribly fun. Stuart's saying, I'm going to have to teach you how to prompt AI correctly. I mean, Stuart, you have to bear in mind that basically what I did was act like a complete juvenile, and this is the end result. So, I don't know that it's correct, but I definitely had fun with it. And that's always the most important part. Alright, on to the next one. The Remington 350, half of a Remington 700, also likely a felony. So this is an Obrez Remton 700. Yeah. Yeah. I can hear the gears binding up. I mean, it's funny when it's a Mosin. This is just sad. With a hollow sun on top. And I don't think I told it to put a red dot on. It just did. Except it's not clamped down properly. It's not. It's just sitting on top of the rail. Oh, that's the part we're the most upset about? Not the bolt action with the three-inch barrel? No. I think that's pretty practical, actually. I mean, if the entire purpose is making a giant fireball, sure. Oh, I just realized it has an AR pistol grip on it. It does. I didn't put that together initially. It also looks like it has a An attempt at a charging handle on the top of that bolt? Because that is not what the top of a 700 bolt looks like. I like it. Build it. Do it. Nick is... So I have a base for me. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that I guarantee you if you put this into production, you would sell. They would sell. Oh, you would definitely sell them. I mean, they sell those 45-70 Derringers. Yeah, I want one. Not for any serious use. They just do that so you can punish your friends. So I have a base from Andrew, and what do I get from Nick? Oh, that's cursed. The sight isn't even attached to the gun. That's not going to hang me up. I can adjust the sight. It's fine. You can fix the sight, yes. You can't... I'm not sure that you can actually attach that pistol grip to a Remington Action at that point. Apparently you can, because they added it. Go for it. Okay, so. Real quick, bonus points. What cartridge is this thing chambered for? Oh, 300 Win Mag. Because Raggle Fraggle says make it 300 Win Mag and it's based. That or 30-06. There's a two-port break on this thing, for God's sakes. Yeah. I mean, you would need it. You would need it. In.... Stewart saying, you have to talk to AI like it's an autistic idiot savant. So.... Not necessarily. I mean, the images and stuff like for the coffee, all the images. I mean, I basically those I prompted AI a certain way. Like I, you know, basically was like, Hey, this is what the feel is. This is what we're going for. This is what I want to look at. I mean, I didn't, I have a hard time actually when I'm doing a, doing stuff with AI. I have a hard time like not saying, Oh, thanks. Like you did great. You did great person. That's not really there. But maybe the problem is you talk to autistic people so often that it comes second nature to you. Maybe I am autistic. I mean, you have autistic friends at a minimum. I was going to say, the number of autistic friends we all have in common. Yeah, I sent Nick that meme recently where it was like, I don't understand why the test to see if someone's autistic is just to put them in a room with another autistic person and see. If they end up being friends or not. They will either end up completely indifferent Absolutely being the best friends or being the worst enemies if you get the wrong two kinds of autism. What's the wrong kind of autism? I've got a couple different friends that I can't put in the same room together because one of them is trains and tractors autistic and the other one is video games autistic. Their likes are so wildly different they won't have a conversation with each other without getting mad. It's weird. That is weird. It is really weird. What was I going to say? Never mind. Keep going. So I got a base and a Kirsch for the Remington. 350. Stuart is reminding me they did offer a 700 base pistol, but I don't think it was quite. This. It was like the Thompson Contender pistol, wasn't it? Similar? I don't recall, honestly. I remember it being like a long-ish barrel with a bipod. I think I've got one more. One more gun, and then I've got a couple pieces of tactical gear. By 2030, the only California-approved handgun available. This is what happens when you tell ChadGPT to put a lock around the trigger guard, and then you tell it twice to make it more complicated. 10 tumbler lock. 10 tumbler lock, plus a random dial and a switch just. Thrown in for reasons. But it's still a rotary scroll tumbler lock, so you can still pick it just by feel. I think it would take a little bit, but not that long. What do the numbers mean? You did that on purpose, didn't you? No, I didn't. I was thinking the same thing. Why aren't the numbers in order? It would make me feel better. What did you do? What does that mean? Is that a code that you put in there? Nope. ChadGPT just decided that's how it was going. To be made more complicated. I'm going to go with Raglan. It's cursed because gun laws are retarded. Yes. It's cursed because gun laws in California are cursed. I will agree with that. However, it's still a Glock, and while I personally can't stand shooting Glocks, solid gun. Is it because you're cursed? I probably am cursed. I just hate their grip angle. It just doesn't fit my hand. So, yeah. But that is the end of the guns. This is a terrible gun lock. This is a terrible lock in general. Anybody that's never played with attempting to pick a code on one of these rotary tumbler locks, get one. Try it out. In about five minutes, you'll be able to get through most of them. Because you can actually feel, if you start on the latch side, so like if this is the hasp side, you start with that number there. You can put tension on that, and you can feel. When each one of those numbers drops into the unlock sequence, even on the decent ones. So what I'm hearing is it's just as effective as every other California safe storage law. Correct. Outstanding. Not at all. So it's easier just to not have it on there. On to the rest. This is tactical stuff. I don't remember what order this is in, but I'm sure I'm going to get some WTFs. How many night vision cubes are you going to have on there? Zero. Oh. Oh, the flashbang, a.k.a. knock-knock motherfucker. Yeah. It's a flashbang, because it flashes and then you hit them with a crowbar. I love this. Yeah, but the thing is, though, is you're hanging on to it, and that's a short crowbar. That's fine. We're both here to suffer. You're not going to be able to hear or see. Hey, mutually assured destruction, bud. If somebody's losing this game, we can both lose. Yeah, the answer is nobody wins. It's like when you're playing a game and you get so pissed off, you like yank the court out of the wall and it's like, if I lose, we all lose. That's what this is. Congratulations. It's going to suck for everyone and I'm okay with it. I love it. Okay. All goofing around aside, now we gotta get to the tactical gear. Rebel Raiders, Nick's vicarian pattern, the Hello Kitty. I love it. Yeah, I thought for sure I'd get some reaction out of you, other than that's actually pretty cool. I probably wouldn't wear it. In the apocalypse, you would. Wait a second. Nick literally told me, he said, dude, can you imagine how pissed somebody would be if they got smoked by a dude wearing a Hello Kitty? Oh, they absolutely would. I... I look, I tend to buy one plate carrier at a time. If I didn't have a plate carrier, is this the one next up? I wouldn't, I wouldn't be mad. Like I wouldn't go out of my way to get it, but if it was there, like, all right. I mean, do you, do you not remember how mad people were getting when, uh, when, uh, I think it was Pew view had the, um, the waifu pattern plate carrier when he. Was going to all the matches, uh, Drawing a blank on this one. It was like five or six years ago. Somebody sent him a plate carrier made up in waifu fabric. So like the anime girlfriend. People were getting. Pissed at him because he was winning and he was being a silly ass while doing it. That's because some people live sad existences and they don't know how to have fun. It's like the guys at the skeet shoot when you show up with a red dot on a bullpup shotgun. Well, okay, but see, I put the Hello Kitty plate carrier in the same vein as, like, the guys that friggin' like to just make the most bonkers bullshit stupid friggin' guns and take them to the range just to see how big of a fireball they can make and how bad they can make the FUD range officer melt down because, you know, guns are serious and guns are for a purpose, but sometimes guns can just be fun. Oh, the purpose can be enjoyment. I can build this thing, and it can be, like... I go through this at least once a week on Instagram, where I'm scrolling through and I see gun stuff, and I say, that is the dumbest bullshit I've seen all week. I want one. Matter of fact, your wife sent me something on Instagram recently. And that's exactly what I told her. I'm like, that is freaking stupid, and I want it. Yes. I think she said, if I'm remembering the correct video, I believe I said the same thing. Okay, so can I assume I get two base for the Hello Kitty Vicarion? Yes. Sure. I don't think Rebel is going to indulge us with this, but, you know. It's probably not IR compliant. It is almost certainly not IR compliant. Although, remind me when we wrap the show, I'll send this to him just to friggin' screw around with him. He'll get a kick out of it, if nothing else. Oh, he'll get a laugh. All right. Is this Florida, Alabama, or Mississippi militia's official uniform? Now, for those of you who can't see the, can't see this, This is a boonie cap, a t-shirt, a plate carrier, and cargo shorts and Crocs. Crocs are not in four-wheel drive. I was just going to say that. Good man. Must not be Louisiana. Must not be Louisiana. It's not money enough. If this was the Louisiana militia, they'd be wearing Chalmette Reeboks, which is what we call shrimp boots. So, is this Florida, Alabama, or Mississippi? He looks like he marries his sister. It's Bama. I was thinking Alabama myself. Stewart says Crocs make it Florida. I don't know, man. And Gillian's saying she just knows this is a patron. It probably is. I have definitely worn exactly that, minus the Crocs. I've gotten rid of all my cargo shorts at this point. Now all my pants are either long pants or hoochie daddy shorts and nothing in the middle. That's fair. Okay. Oh, this was something I made that was intended to be silly, and then the more I thought about it, I thought to myself, somebody could actually market this and sell this. So this is Tactical Crocs. So this has a mini mag pouch on the side of it. It has. All-terrain treads. It has one of the little adjustable eyelets in the front of it. It actually has Picatinny rail mounted on it so that you can mount a light on it, as is done here. And it has Velcro panels on the tops for your obligatory flag patches. I did this to be a silly bastard and then was talking to Nick about it, and I was like, honestly, if somebody actually, like, produce this as like a tactile Crocs kit and you would purchase it and then put it on a pair of Crocs, I think you would sell a bunch of these. Oh, you probably could. As gag gifts, if nothing else. Oh yeah. I mean, okay. Raggle saying I would unironically wear those. Stuart saying they already have them. And I'm a little confused because I've never seen them before. Well, it's just like those little animal heads that they made for the kids Crocs all the time. I mean, I see that shit everywhere. Animal heads on kids' crocs. I'm drawing a point. Oh, yeah. It's like a little animal head with a plug on the back of it that pops into the hole in the top of the croc. Oh, yeah. I've seen the flashlights for the crocs, too. Yeah. Yeah. Raggle's saying they have headlights. I've seen ones that have, like, Corvette headlight, one for each side, one for each shoe. If they actually pop up, that would be based. No, they just sit there, and they're actually battery-powered. That. That's a waste. Okay, so is this AI slop or a must-have accessory? Tactical Crocs. AI slop. I've never owned a pair of Crocs in my life. You know, I have also never owned a pair of Crocs in my life. I have. It's been a very, very long time, probably 20 years. But I had a pair of Crocs, and I think I use those pretty much as, like, beach shoes. And that was it. You know, all the guys I know that have them, they have them in their pack for around-the-camp shoes after hiking. Because it doesn't matter how wet they get, they're made of rubber. It doesn't matter how muddy they get, they're made of rubber. And they weigh almost nothing. And they were featured on Idiocracy. So there's that. Yeah, I agree with my wife. Someone will buy tactical crocs. All right, I think this is the last thing. Nope. I might have one more after this. Okay, this is my idea for the new. Trend in hydration. It's spill-proof, leak-proof, BPA-free. It's the next trend in tactical hydration. It is a camouflaged sippy cup. Literally three minutes before that is filled full. Of bourbon okay but but you put a spike on it somewhere so they can bludgeon somebody with it. That's fair okay so it's missing a spike but or like a rail like some some uh 1919 rail or something but the question is is can we just put the rail so it'll mount on the helmet. I think I see where you're going. Like if you put a. Like a beer helmet situation. You get a sippy cup here and a sippy cup here. You're thinking like arc rail mounts? Yeah, like arc rail mounts. Andrew, I think we might have a marketable idea. I think you do. I mean, I still want the Daniel Boone setup, like the coon skin cap that goes on top of your helmet. Oh, I know a guy that does a little bit of like fur craft. Let me see if he can hook you up. My wife is going to hate you so much. Oh, probably. But Gavin will think it's funny as shit. Oh, I would. I would. I'm trying. I'm saying I'm thinking I would wear it, but Christ knows how I get away with it. Oh, you're already going to be wearing a helmet nod. So how is that any worse? Yeah, you have a point. Okay, so based or cursed for the tactical sippy cup? Based with an arc rail. I mean, I'd say based. Make it out of a good, sturdy material so you can use it for a weapon. I'd say based. It doesn't even need an arc rail. Maybe a hook for a lanyard or something so you can dangle it on your play carrier. That would be good. You know, it's about the right size that you can make it out of a section from like a 20 millimeter shell. Ooh. It'd have some girth to it then. It would. It has some heft too, because the base of those 20 mils is pretty thick. With three Cs. I'm digging that. Less chance of tipping it over then. True, true. Better chance of using it to bludgeon someone. Also true. I like it. I think I've got one more in the hopper. Ooh. Nope. Nope, that was the last one. You've got text in the hopper. Okay, so thanks for indulging me on tactical misfires. I wanted to have some fun, and I tried to indulge and get my co-hosts to also do chat GPT nonsense, and when they didn't, I just kind of took it over and ran with it. You did. Okay, so that was the fun. Now for the serious. The most overlooked tactical gear. Now, again, in the interest of making nice with our AI overlords, I asked AI what was the most overlooked tactical gear, and it spat out a list that I thought actually merited discussion because it kind of makes sense. Like, it's a bunch of things that really are useful and helpful, and a lot of people don't think about them. Except for people that are really in-depth in this hobby and have spent time doing it, but like, For the layperson, they will probably gloss over a lot of these things. Perhaps. All right, so starting from the top, merino wool socks. Is there anyone among us that is still using cotton boot socks? I mean, I do on a day-to-day basis unless I'm hunting and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, merino wool, it gets my feet. My feet sweat way too bad. It's terrible. So like I'll do the ultralight one. Yeah, no, it, it doesn't work. I have like three different, I have, yeah, I have a couple of different pairs of like different like thickness and like the wool and all that stuff. And no, it, uh, it with, uh, with my work and stuff, um, being on my feet quite a bit and stuff, I, it sweats so bad. I, I sweat bad. And so I'm just like, nope. So I, I'll wear them during the winter, uh, and, and winter. Um, sometimes I'll wear them during, uh, especially when it gets super cold here. I'll wear them because then I also have a base layer of merino wool that I put on my pants. And doing that actually helps a lot, but not in the summer. I know wool has the wicking and all that stuff. It's really good, and it pulls the moisture away. Now, if I was in a certain situation where I had to go probably a long distance, maybe walking and stuff, then maybe I would probably pack them, thinking about that, but day to day. Nah, just cotton. It just breathes better. I've had the exact opposite experience. Same. Oddly enough, and my feet sweat like crazy. I've literally got desert boots that I wore in Iraq that are upstairs that the whole top in front of them is almost white from just repeated dosing of salt and everything from the sweat. But I actually find that my feet sweat less, stink less, stay drier and i find it's a lot more comfortable to wear merino wool and like that's summer winter all the time down here i don't do it like you don't have a driver he's not wrong though you don't have summer so. We're even actually it was like 110 humidity. Today for how many days nick and i were having this conversation. Enough to where i talk while you enough enough to where like i'm ready for snow Nick. And I were having this conversation while you were cocking around before you came on the show. Like, it's not the fact that it doesn't get hot in the rest of the country. It just doesn't stay hot for, like, eight son-of-a-bitch-in-months like it does down here. So, I mean, like, I found the merino wool was much more comfortable year-round than cotton boot socks, personally. Oh, definitely. And I'll be the first to admit, Andrew, for years and years ago, you remember... What was his last name? His first name was Joe. He ran survival school over on the East Coast. Oh, yeah, I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I'd have to dig back through my phone and dredge up that last name because. I haven't talked to him in years. Yeah, I was just wearing his shirt that he gave us the other day. But anyway, he's the one that turned me on to Merino Wool Boot Socks, and he told me, he said, look, buy, like, three pairs of smart wool socks as stupid expensive as they are. Mm-hmm. And he said, if you don't want them, I will pay you what you paid for those socks. Take them off your hands. And I bought, I think I bought three or four pairs, and I never took them up on the invite. Like, those are my go-to snatch a pair when it's time to put the boots on. They are so freaking comfortable. I replaced 100% of my socks with the two different weights of the darn tough wool socks. Yeah. I can't stand cotton socks anymore. So, since Andrew's going to be the naysayer on the Merino wool socks, I will just say that don't cheap out on your boot socks. Yeah, definitely don't. It will make your life suck worse if you have to spend all day on your feet. Absolutely. And I feel like even for the people that, like, they'll spend money on really expensive boots, they would probably go out and get the cheapest damn boot socks they could and not even think twice about it. You know, another thing that fits into the same category, uh, nail clippers. Um, not because of like your fingernails, toenails. If your toenails are a little bit too long and they start putting pressure on your toes and your feet, when you're, when you're in your boots, when you're say on a long distance hike or something like that, rocking in a plate, whatever. Anytime you're doing more on your feet than usual, man, that gets uncomfortable fast. Yeah, I'm going to reorder these real quick because I want to bring something up and it kind of fits with this next thing better than anything. So on the. Heels of the Merino wool socks, chapstick, baby powder, moleskin, and I'm going to throw something in here for the boys, compression underwear. Yeah. I'm going to be the first to admit. Something I didn't think about a lot until I started doing a lot more hiking and everything. But loose-fitting, comfortable underwear that doesn't keep things compressed and where they're supposed to be and not getting smacked around from one thigh to the other. It makes a difference if you're going to spend all day walking. And as far as chapstick, baby powder, moleskin, I'm going to tell you that the 10 out of 10 worst experiences I had when I was in uniform was when your skin gets wet. Things start to chafe. Oh, yeah. And then misery follows. Immediately behind that. The ability to keep your skin dry and keep things... gliding instead of sticking is a 10 out of 10 game changer to make a shitty situation suck a whole lot less. It was a very common issue we would have in Boy Scouts where we'd go on a day hike. Halfway out, we'd stop by a creek, a river, a lake, or whatever. A couple people inevitably decided to go swimming in their hiking gear. Five mile walk back in wet cotton boxers is like a cheese grater on your thighs. It is absolutely horrible. Yep. You're going to regret that life decision by the time you get home. You make that mistake one time. But there's always a new person that has to learn that lesson. Ouch. Ouch. So raggle fraggles asking about mole skin. Are y'all familiar with mole skin or is that just a, okay. Yeah. So for raggle and for anybody not familiar, mole skin is, I, there might be a less colloquial term for it, but that's what I've always called it. It's the stuff that you cut out and use to pad blisters. It's like an adhesive piece of felt. Yeah. It's like a eighth to three 16 stick with like a three M double stick adhesive on the backside of it. Almost. That does a really good job of sticking to your skin. And it's also meant to make sure that like if you have a hotspot or a blister developing, it makes the skin or the, it makes, it makes things slide instead of grinding. Yeah. Ideally what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to make a certain cut out and opening. In the middle and then have an amount of it out around side of that. So whatever surface was rubbing against your skin is now rubbing on that felt instead of on your skin. Yeah. Helps a lot. I wouldn't say it takes the pain or the discomfort away completely, but it will get you through a hike. It will prevent the blister from getting worse or popping. That's really what you need. Because ruptured blisters on sweaty feet for long hikes is a recipe for infection. Definitely that. Anything else to throw in that category? Chapstick, baby powder, moleskin? I'm thinking like skincare things, but not skincare. Like it puts the lotion on its skin, but like keep your skin healthy while you're doing things outside. Oh, like bag bomb. Yeah. Like what? Bag bomb. Uh, or not lip balm. Was it, uh, Oh shoot. Nick, I think, hold on. Let me find it. Is this a Northern Midwestern term that I'm. Just too Southern to be familiar with? Um, Hold on one second. Keep going. Are you talking about the anti-chafed stuff like you put on your shoulders and your chest where your backpack straps go? Negative. Alright, I'm thinking of the wrong thing then. So, Stewart said silk sockets. I'm pretty sure he meant stockings and autocorrect. Kicked his ass. Yeah, it could be silk socks. Yeah, silk stockings. That's not just a country farm thing. That's like I mean, there have been Vietnam vets that brought that little trick home, and it's been shared around a fair bit. Yeah, because the silk is so smooth, it doesn't abrade your skin as much. It just adds another barrier there. Yeah. So while Andrew tries to remember what. Yeah, it's called bag balm. What is it? I've never heard of it. Not by that name, at least. Okay, let me... Hold on. It just disappeared off my screen. One second. Let me refresh and then let me share. Hold on one second. Technology. Running late because he's cocking around the house. Now he's got us sitting here waiting on him while he figures out the electrons. Technology. Let's see. I just realized your tag handle, late like your dad getting back with the milk. I thought it was great. Well, but for the first half of the show, both y'all's little windows were too small for me to read that. All right. Let me see if I can... There we go. Share. Why can't we share? Bag bomb. Hmm. Stuart's chiming in right there. I don't think if, Oh yeah, it, it's, it's fairly similar to like those anti chafing rubs. Yeah. But it, um, it, so, I mean, it's, it's, it's like Vaseline basically, but, uh, what's nice about it is, um, it, I mean, it, it's flammable. So you can, I mean, just like Vaseline, uh, it's an alternative Vaseline, but it, I think it works, um, a little bit better. uh, the Vaseline, um, for helping with like chap lips and then starting fires and all that stuff. Sure. Okay. I've just never heard of bag bomb before. Yeah. It's yeah. It's a, yeah, it's a Northern thing. I've definitely seen it in the hardware stores. It's usually sitting on the counter next. To the register. Makes sense. All right. Um, a stiff duty belt. Now, I feel like this bears pointing out, but, like, for those of us who make a regular habit of carrying guns around either outside the waistband or inside the waistband, a stiff duty belt really helps keep that gun where it's supposed to be. Oh, yeah. And I don't mean, like, the little woven leather dress belt or whatever cheap $ 15 thing you got off of Amazon, but, like, a legitimate good duty belt. If you can't hold it, parallel to the ground and it hold its shape, it's probably not stiff enough. Yeah, you're looking at either a double saddle leather belt or a nylon reinforced with either a plastic stiffener or a steel stiffener. Something in there to give it more body. My leather belt, I don't have it down here. It's quite substantially thick. It's probably over three-eighths of an inch thick. Yeah, and I've seen these things, like, reinforced with spring steel on the inside, carbon fiber on the inside, kydex. I've seen where it's just multiple layers of leather. But, like, at the end of the day, to me, the proof's in the pudding that it's just– it's got to be stiff enough because you have to understand that, like, even if you're carrying the lightest weight firearm, you can comfortably do so. The weight of that thing is hanging on your belt. Mm-hmm. You don't want it to be distorting your belt or dragging your pants down. You want it to kind of be holding the. Gun in place. I highly recommend the ratcheting belts. Is that Core? Core has one. I think it's called Next Belt. It's another company. Tier 1 concealment. I have a Tier 1 concealment one that I've had ever since when they first came out with it. I've had that one and it's actually framed where I actually had to, I had to like cut some of the nylon off because it was framed. And I use that one for work and stuff for years, but I just bought a core. Yeah. Core essentials or whatever it's called. I just, I just bought one of their belts and for work now and I'm moving it. Cause, and mostly it's just because like, I got, I'm sick. I finally, after so many years of running it, Um, I get, basically I got sick of any time when I'm not working, I will wear that belt, but I pull it out of my pants at work, you know, to, to thread through or to loop through my shorts and, or, you know, my pants, you know, when I wear something else and I just got sick of finally doing that. So it only took like nine years. Uh, but, uh, I finally just bought another belt. So now I don't have to, uh, on loop it and, you know, so, but yeah, no, highly recommend the ratcheting belts and, uh, I've never had issues carrying with them, and they're pretty good. They hold up pretty well. I really like the Wilderness Outfitter Instructor Belt. They're like $ 70. They're not terribly cheap. You can get them reinforced polymer or not. It's a double-thick nylon belt. It's tech. Supposedly, according to them, it is strong enough to hang a grown man's body weight from the belt buckle. I've not tested that. It's a steel belt buckle. I've had mine for, shoot, 15 years. And I did have to finally replace the Velcro on the tag end of it. The Velcro just disintegrated after a while. But the nylon of the belt itself and then the steel buckle on it, it's never gone anywhere. And I've also got a saddle leather belt I had made by a local guy that makes saddles. And that thing's lasted 15 years, too. I don't honestly remember what brand I have. It's just, it's just a straight leather gun belt, steel buckle, nothing really fancy. But you have to bear in mind, like I wear these things. I mean, Andrew wears his every day too. And a lot of people do, but like I wear mine as my daily hold my pants up belt. I want to say I got. Six or seven years out of it before it was starting to lose some of its rigidity, and I just retired it for another one. Prior to that, I had an Alien gear back when they were making a belt, which was spring steel reinforced. I only got a couple years out of that one, and it really fell off fast, which I was kind of disappointed in. That's surprising. I mean, nylon belts, assuming they're made of quality nylon. These are all leather. Oh, okay. It probably wasn't made with great leather. Yeah. And the Alien gear, despite having a steel reinforcement, it was thinner than the other two that are pure leather. Well, you can get away with thinner leather if you do a reinforcement core than just going on the strength of the leather alone. Next time we get together, I'll try to remember to bring my leather belt with. I'll show you how hefty that thing is. I mean, you could tow a reasonably sized vehicle with that leather belt. I mean, I could show y'all mine because I wear it every day, but that's... Mine's upstairs. I have a thing in here, and I'm trying to remember what on earth I was thinking when I. Put that in there. I put that in there. Oh, that's why I don't recognize it. Gear retention. All right. Preach, Brother Emmerickson. Tie your shit to your plate carrier, your belt, save... If it's on your helmet, tie it to your helmet. A lot of times when we would have guys out and we would do like movement and shooting drills and stuff like that, they're yard sailing stuff out of their carrier all the time. Their Leatherman's on the ground, their, their knives on the ground, their flashlights on the ground, their med kit fell off. Stuff's just not actually affixed to your gear. Well, the stuff that you're not using all the time. Well, and, and by, I guess, gear retention, um, threaded through the Molly correctly. Exactly. I don't know how many times I've seen people at training events and stuff like that where they just have it. Basically, they just kind of loop the molly through and then they put the strap through the three panels of molly and then button it. And they're like, all right, good, yeah. And then it falls off and they're like, I don't know what happened. Like, well, if you look at the way the molly works, it's made to where it's made to thread. Pro tip. If it is not a gigantic pain in the ass to get a MOLLE accessory off of MOLLE paneling, you did not put it on correctly. I repeat, if it is not a gigantic pain in the ass to get it off, it's not done right. If you do not need a butter knife to help install it, you are probably doing it wrong. Funny you mention that. I was swapping out some MOLLE shit recently, and Bic pens turn into your best freaking friend, because... That, although I do find that if you take the MOLLE and you bend it backwards, like the opposite direction it's supposed to go, it does help to kind of pop the MOLLE panel up off there. But if MOLLE is cut correctly, it is a challenge to get that shit woven in. Like, you're going to fight it. Yeah, well, the whole purpose behind weaving it like that is even if the snap fails or your physical retention fails, you still have a shitload of friction to overcome. So funny you mention that. I actually have a Mali, it's a pistol pouch, and I swapped it out because it was just an open top, like a speed pouch, but I was using it on my belt, and I really wasn't happy with the fact that I didn't have positive retention. It was just depending on mechanical friction. So I switched out with another, a little bit more secure mag pouch because it was going to be on my belt line. But it did not include snaps. For the bottom. You literally just, you wove the straps down through the whole thing, and then they tucked in on the back side. And the way this thing was built, it depended on nothing but the pure mechanical friction of the MOLLE being woven together. And when I decided to take that thing. Off, it was a fight. It was a fight. My fingertips were raw when I got through ripping that bastard out. It was in there. I gotta remember which manufacturer has this, but they've got a tag end on their MOLLE instead of having a snap. And it's It's almost like a pair of V's that come up off the bottom of the molly straps. No matter which way it's woven, you end up with one having to really hard pull that down to get that tag in underneath that last molly band. Then it locks in with that piece of fabric there. I've not tried to take them off, and I foresee having to cut them off. That's a possibility. The one other thing I will say is that And this is something I picked up when I got into Night Vision. I don't remember who I got the idea from. I have stuck to it religiously. But the lanyard that I built from my Night Vision to stick on a Velcro on top of the helmet. Someone pointed out to me that if you make that long enough, you can actually work that up through the top of the bag. And then weave it down through the molly on the outside of the carrier that I got from Andrew. So that the idea was that when you go to open up the bag that the knot is sitting in. If it does burp the frigging night vision device out the front of the bag, it gets caught by the lanyard because it's woven through the molly on the front of the bag. Nice. Don't remember whose brilliant idea that was. I have stuck to that and pointed out to people ever since. And at least once I was in a hurry and I did pop it open and that night vision device did start to jump out. So the lanyard might have saved me on that. I mean, I even do this with my compasses when I'm on a hiking trip. I will lanyard it to my backpack in such a way that as long as I have the physical hold on the backpack, the compass cannot. Be lost or left behind. Because I have seen a number of people open up their compass, look at their map, set their compass to the side, fold up their map, and then walk away. Leave the compass sitting on a rock. Speaking of lanyarding things so you can't forget them, one of my favorite tricks when I was enlisted was whenever you had a private who would leave shit lying around, you would go get some 550 cord, and you would lanyard whatever that was to him. Yep. Tie it to the private. I'm going to tell you that there were a couple of privates while I was enlisted that wound up with, like, wrenches and hammers and shit lanyarded to them because they left it lying around on an aircraft, and they weren't properly, like, you know, doing their toolbox inventory and everything else, and I find the shit, and I would just, like, you know, tuck it away someplace where they couldn't find it, and then at the end of the day, it would be like. Oh, I'm missing my wrench. Be like, this wrench? Go get the 550 cord, and I'd land it, and I'd make it wear him around their neck. For the rest of the day. They'll remember it next time. I tell you what, and I had a standing order with all the guys I served with. If you see one of my privates with a friggin' tool landed around his neck, ask him why. Hey, man. Somehow you gotta motivate them to remember their shit, because if you left that in an aircraft somewhere, that could down a plane in the wrong place. I mean, there are reasons we did toolbox inventories every single shift, every single job, all the time. That, and it was a good source of entertainment, but that's another discussion. AI said IFACs are really commonly overlooked, and I kind of wonder, I feel like five years ago, maybe, but I feel like I feel like tactical medicine's kind of gotten more into the forefront of people's consciousness in. The last several years. I would say maybe 10 years ago, but even when I started getting into the shooting sports, it would have been about 15, 16 years ago, IFACs were the thing everybody was talking about. IFACs and ceramic body armor being available for purchase wasn't affordable, but it was available to purchase. Yeah. I mean, what do you think, Andrew? Because you have, I know you were, forgive me, I got a frog in my throat and it will not come out. What were you about to say, bud? I was waiting for you to finish. No, I was just going to say, I think the meaning behind IFACs has gotten lost. I mean, IFAC is Individual First Aid Kit, meaning it's my IFAC. Uh, it's me. So I have mine where I can't necessarily reach it. Uh, I mean, I have tourniquets and stuff, uh, in, in that I can grab. Uh, but the one thing that I go back and forth with some people every once in a while is the, the meaning for the IFAC. Like it's, I, some guys I know that I talked to, or they're like, well, if I have an IFAC, I can use it on this guy here. Well, no. You use his on him. Yes. Or if he doesn't have one, then you apply pressure or a tourniquet that you can grab that's available. Do what you can. But my IFAC is for me. It's to be used on me. Now, and people are like, well, you know, if you get shot, how are you supposed to grab it? But, like, And my whole, my whole thing with that is, is like, well, if I get shot for one, if I get shot in the arm or the leg, I'm applying a tourniquet to myself and that's it. I'm not stuffing a wound on myself. I am not applying a chest seal on myself. I am not, you know, I'm not doing that much stuff on my, on me. I'm not doing that on myself. That's why the IPAC is for me. And you know, it's, and so I have extra medical that I will use on somebody else. But that IFAC is that blowout kit. In other words, you know, term for it is I use that is that's reserved for me. So I'm not going to use my kit on somebody else because. then if I get shot, hopefully never, then it's used. Then I don't have one. Or that next person is going to have to use theirs. So two things. First of all, if you're enough of a hard-ass mother effer that you're going to wound pack yourself, you're a better man than I am. You have fun with that. I've seen that done to people. It doesn't look like fun. I definitely don't want to do it to myself. And second of all. You're more likely to pass out from shock and the pain than before you even start. You'd be lucky if you'd be able to apply a tourniquet to yourself without having that sort of issue. But from a military perspective, the reason why an IFAC gets individual first aid kit, the reason why your kit is for you, not for your buddy, is because once a person gets hurt bad enough that you're using a blowout kit on them, they are about to get evacuated to the rear. That means you use all, if you have to use 100% of their gear to keep them alive until they get evacuated to the rear, they're about to go back to the rear. You need your stuff because you're not going back to the rear yet. So that is like the most clear-cut reasoning why I tell everybody, your first aid stuff is for you. It's not for your buddy. Your buddy's supposed to use your stuff for you. And then exfil you back to the rear there. And if they have to use their stuff on you, then they have no stuff. Like that's probably seems like common sense, but like, let's, let's bear in mind, like that is the way it's supposed to work. Unless you're doc, then you're carrying party favors for like the whole frigging unit. And that's his little job is to use his stuff to keep everybody else alive. But he has a lot more stuff than you do. So much more stuff. All right. Maintenance items. Duct tape, super glue, needle, and thread. I've made a point in the past of talking about these little single-use super glue capsules that I keep around in a lot of my kits. They come in super handy if you rip a hole or if you get a little hole in a piece of clothing or if you get a little hole in a tarp or in a piece of rain gear and you just need to quickly squirt it in there, pitch gear, seal it up, and then move on. Good duct tape can save a lot of camping trips. And needle and thread is really handy for repairing clothing when you have the time to effect a proper repair. But I feel like maintenance items is one of those things. That a lot of people don't think about because the perception is I bought the thing, I have the thing, I move on to the next thing I need to buy. Not I need to maintain the. Thing because I'm going to use it and beat the crap out of it and it's going to break and it's going to get holes in it and that's just what happens over time. Yeah, the only downside to superglue on fabric items is it tends to stiffen it to the point where you lose all flexibility, and that can cause a repair to need to go farther. There are, and they suck, but they'll get the job done. There are these adhesive patches that you can do inside, outside. Get that off with denatured alcohol before you run it through a dryer. Otherwise, it will probably ruin whatever you're putting it on. and spread that adhesive through everything in the dryer. Personal experience, Nick? No, fortunately not. I learned that lesson vicariously in Boy Scouts. One of my patrol members had an issue with some of his, I want to say rain pants. Or hiking pants. One of the two, we put one of those contact patches on there and we mentioned to him, Hey, you're going to want to pull that off, stitch it up before you run it through the wash. He either didn't get that message or they ran it through the dryer and it glued like. Four things together to those pants. Andrew just stepped out to go get the milk. Mm-hmm. He'll be back with more milk. Hopefully. Hopefully he gets back before we have to sign out without him. That's true. It won't take long. All right. Dump pouch, Edmund pouch, Skittle carrier. Mm-hmm. I'm going to be the first to admit, I didn't have a dump pouch on my kit for a long time and only recently put one on. If you're going to play with shotguns at all, dump pouches are phenomenal. You can put an awful lot of shotgun. Rounds in a dump pouch, and it's really not hard to reach into a dump pouch, grab a shell, tell which side the rim is on, and chuck it in your shotgun without ever looking at it. I think the biggest thing for me, or the impetus behind putting a dump pouch on my kit finally, was more the idea that, first of all, this new generation of really compact, fold-up dump pouches that barely take up any room on your belt, and then they unfurl when you need them. Yeah, mine's like that big. Yeah, that made it a really easy sell for me. But I don't ever think about, like, now this might be a perception problem, but, like, friends of mine that always ran dump pouches basically always sold them as, well, that's where you put your empty mags once you've used them. That never really kind of, that kind of fell flat with me for a long time because my perspective is always if I'm doing home defense, the mags can stay on the floor because I'm going to pick them up when this is over. But the biggest reason I finally started playing with dump pouches was more just as an admin pouch. It's like, I don't know what I'm going to need this pouch for But I know that sooner or later I'm going to need a place to put things. And since I don't have like huge cargo pockets on my pant legs anymore. It comes in handy. I mean, think about, so, so say, I don't know, say you're, you're, you have, I don't know how fast you can put your belt on in the middle of the night, you know, or if that's something that you would do in the middle of the night, you know, or anything like that. But for some reason, say you're in a situation you were wearing it, uh, active assailant, say, uh, for example, Uh, a dump pouch, you could definitely use it to, I mean, if you, you know, Hey, put down your gun and they dropped their gun, uh, and you, or you shoot them and then you, and you disarm them, uh, to stow their firearm. Uh, you can use that to, you know, you, you could use that to now, if you, I would say unload it and, you know, drop the mag and, uh, rack the round out if you can. or toss it somewhere that's far away from the person that didn't get it. But you can always use the dump pouch to stow that firearm. I always heard it used for partially empty but not empty magazines. So when you have a moment to reload, because maybe you don't know how many rounds are in the bag, take your partial empty out, put it in your dump pouch, grab a fresh one, load it in. That way you know you're fully loaded and ready to go. But you also have bullets that you didn't want to discard because you never know that partial mag might be the only thing you've got left. That's a lot of what I heard it used for. When I was shooting competitions, you were not allowed to let your mags hit the ground if it had a bullet in it. And occasionally you would get a malfunction and didn't really take the time to address whether or not the mag was empty or not to be worth throwing it on the ground. You're not allowed to let magazines with live rounds hit the ground. So my thing that I would do to not get penalized is anytime I pulled a mag out, went into the dump pouch, new mag into the gun. Makes sense. Tactical reload or something. Yeah, like an administrative or tactical reload. It was just silly competition rules and. That's mostly what mine got used for. That and now for shotgun training. Makes sense. Alright, last thing on this list. small cleaning kit. I threw this weapons. Yeah. I threw this on there just really quick. Yeah. Uh, yeah, just a small cleaning kit. I think people overlook, uh, having something just for a quick, like a snake, uh, what is a boar snake, uh, for their brush, uh, a toothbrush, something just as, even if it's a small bottle of like hops, number nine, uh, or if you just want to sniff it, cause that smells amazing. Uh, but, uh, but, uh, basically, yeah, it's, uh, a small cleaning kit I think is just overlooked, uh, uh, especially when you go to the range, uh, having a cleaning kit, uh, having something, obviously, hopefully we know somebody never gets like a squib load or anything like that. Or, but even if you have like a stuck, a stuck, uh, a casing, uh, some way to get that out without, okay, I got basically stopped my whole entire range trip. And especially if you live like over an hour away from the range, you know, you want to make sure you have some stuff. So, um, a small cleaning kit, I guess small maintenance kit would be better terminology, uh, for that. So I would definitely, you know, consider a small, uh, small, uh, maintenance kit for your firearms, uh, whether it's a small one for both rifle and pistol or whatever, if you're taking just rifle or whatever, it's just, just having that. I mean, it kind of begs the question though, if you have a kit that works for rifles, what precluded from working for pistols other than potentially the wrong size Jags? Uh, like you would need, you would need a jag for like a nine mil and a 22. If you're going to do like a nine mil and. An AR, but earn that, like the cleaning rods should work equally well for either. Yeah. The cleaning rod. I mean, it's the, uh, a full size cleaning rod for like an AR is kind of overkill for a nine millimeter. But, uh, the thing is though now is I despise the ones that break apart. Uh, they're, they come in like two or three pieces and then you can, you basically screw them together. They break in half all the time. However, they are not bad for if you want something for a quick range, like a small kit for a quick range because the idea of the one end I can use and I can thread more on to be a little bit longer so that I can use it on a rifle or I can keep the short end and if I want to thread on something that can be used for a pistol. Yes, that's okay. I I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, I would stay away from it. I would just get a solid cleaning rod. And then it might be overkill for the pistol, but whatever. Who cares? I mean, if you have a stuck round of some kind in the barrel of your pistol, you're going to need that solid rod to dislodge that. You know, for range kits, I really like boar snakes. Yeah, boar snakes are great. Because most of the time. Most of the time you're not knocking squibs out. Most of the time you don't need a full rod and brush kit. If you're having some reliability issues, if you've got a decent nylon or brass brush, either one, ideally both, a boar snake appropriate to your caliber, and then the thread-on brass brush for the end of that boar snake, you rip that through there a couple of times, take your toothbrush or your brass brush to your breech face and a few other places. You can knock enough of the carbon out of there, a couple drops of oil, and you're. Back up and running if you go down in the middle of a class. I mean, yeah, if you've got a squib stuck in your barrel, maybe you can't fix that, but it'll handle most range days. So I'll be the first to admit that for a lot of years, I only ever brought tools... And oil, for that matter, because I usually make a habit of checking my guns the day before I go to the range. If anything needs to drop oil, I drop it in there then. I clean my guns when I get back from the range so they go back in the safe, ready to go. But I didn't bring tools out to the range with me unless I was zeroing a firearm for the first time or if it was a really fresh build or something fairly new. I'd bring tools in case it misbehaved. I have completely done away with that habit. And now I carry a whole ass can of Ballistol plus an entire USGI cleaning kit to the range every single time. Because the number of times either I or somebody else has been out there and ends up with a freaking gun misbehaving or goes down hard on the range or something silly that I think to myself, if I only had a cleaning kit or a couple of rod ends to punch this round out, we could get this gun back in action. I finally just said to hell with it. I've got plenty of extra cleaning kits. Throw one in the range bag and quit screwing around with it and be done. Although I will say, my range recently put, I think for every other firing point on the rifle and the pistol line, they now have a squib rod on every other firing point up and down the whole line. They must be having a lot of problems there with those. I don't think it's as much that. I think it's more the fact that, like, it's an effort to keep people like if you have a gun and you're having a problem with it, you keep it at your firing point. Well, they don't want people like having to go up and down the line looking for a squib rod. You know what I'm saying? So they're trying to put them as commonly as possible so that you have one like right there if you need it or over there. Sure. Which makes total sense to me. It's a public range, but it's more just the fact that like, I think they had that many experiences where people were like, okay, like let's walk up and down the line and see if anybody has cleaning rods. So they finally said, Screw it. It's not that hard. I mean, I want to say they made these things out. Of friggin' like. It's a dowel rod. Yeah, well, not a dowel rod. It's metal, whatever they are. It's probably brass or aluminum. I think it's probably aluminum rod, but somebody literally just got a piece, cut a bunch of them, bit a friggin' like a J-hook into the end of each one for a little handle, and that's it. They're stupid simple, but I agree with you, Andrew. I've been guilty of this. I've fixed myself i think everybody's because but. Bro i'm gonna tell you i've i've i've gone i've come home from the range more times i would care to admit with a gun that was just dead and then knew that five minutes after i got home i was gonna have it back up and running yeah but it's still it's still scragged my entire day. Well i mean oh. You know i didn't have it happen one time i had the um So, you know the buffer detent on AR? Uh-huh. I had the detent cup break and get down inside the trigger group somehow. Somehow. No idea. No idea how that happened. It did it while firing in the middle of a magazine. You know that. There are a lot of proponents out there that actually don't even install those freaking detents for that reason. Yeah. I mean, it makes reassembly a little trickier, but it's certainly possible. It doesn't make it any more difficult, in my opinion. You just.... I don't know. I don't know, but I haven't experienced one of those myself, but I've seen enough of them that every now and then I see those captured AR buffer springs and assemblies, and I think to myself. I'm like, I really like the JP silent capture buffer tube or silent capture buffer. It's, it's really nice. The weird part about it is assembly requires quarters, depending on the length of your, of your buffer tube. They're a recommended solution for if your buffer is not flush is to drop a quarter or two down into your buffer tube and then put the silent capture buffer in behind it. Cause apparently there's, the right diameter. I mean, they act like shims. Yeah. It's exactly what it is. It's because apparently the lengths of buffer tubes are quite variable in spec. Yeah. Between military spec and non-military spec. Well, they have different, uh, different color, um, buffer springs. Is that as well? You know, so I guess that never occurred to me, but you're not wrong. Yeah. There's, there's different tube lengths. I had to put, I think when I first built that AR, I had to put a quarter down in the bottom of that to get it to the correct height. Per their instructions, they were very specific. Do not use a Euro piece of whatever number it was because it's too big. It'll get stuck. But a quarter fits perfectly. Those are instructions born from some redneckery. Oh, yeah. But, man, it was perfect. It ran great for a very long time. I'm sure. And if you ever– well, I was going to say if you're ever dying for something from a vending machine, you. Could always rob Peter to pay Paul. But that was back when $ 0. 25 or $ 0. 50 would actually get you something. I think we're still at $ 0. 50 on the vending machine at work. Oh, that's awesome. The vending machine in my work is like $ 1. 50. Work doesn't have a guy that comes and services it. We just service it. And so the company operates the vending machine at a loss to keep us happy. Also because they don't know how to change the price of the vending machine. I mean, I'm not hearing downsides. No, it's all upsides. Okay. So before we walk this one out the door, does anybody have anything to add to overlooked tactical gear? I'm sure there's more out there, but. Yeah, but overlooked. Stuff that you don't... Yeah, that's what I'm struggling with, because, I mean, I think batteries, but if I have to tell you you need batteries for your battery-powered crap, like, you just need to go throw yourself down a flight of stairs at this point. Yeah, no, I think that's good. I'm sure we'll think of something later, and we should write those things down. I mean, I have the MOF list that I'm constantly updating for reasons, because I remember things, and if I don't write them down in the moment, they're gone like a fart in the wind before we get around to the next show. They are gone forever. Okay. Well, then we'll go ahead and start wheeling this one out the door. Raising Values is going to be going down on Sunday. Ooh. So it was supposed to be Saturday two weeks ago. And then one of Gillian's little crotch gremlins from school gave her a god-awful cold, which took her out of commission for the weekend. Terrible. I don't know if y'all can hear how congested I am. I caught something yesterday. And I'm kind of on the mend, so I'm thinking by Sunday I should be able to speak without, like, you know, muting myself 14 times and coughing. But, um. Yeah, Raising Values is coming back behind the mic Sunday, and the first episode is literally just going to be where the hell has Gillian been for. Well over a year. Busy. 18, 19 months. Busy. December 2024 was our last show together with Raising Values, so that's like 20 months and change. Yeah. Yeah, but I am really excited to see that show come back. I think it's going to be very cathartic for her. I think she has. A lot to share with that audience. And, um you know there there'll be some trauma bonding. Possibly some tears lots and lots of decompressing and talking about all the crap that has been going on and um you know like i've always said in the past my my honest hope is that My honest hope is that between that podcast and this podcast, that someone takes something away that they can use to make their life a little bit easier. Yep. And yes, Rachel's excited about raising values. We've been getting, I want to say the word pestered in the best possible way, but we've been pestered multiple times from multiple people about bringing, bringing raising values back. And Gillian's finally in the headspace to do it. Kindly reminded the fans are waiting. kindly reminded. Okay, now. All right. Matter of fact, it's going to go out the door. Stick around for the outro because it's worth listening to. Thank you again to Stuart and talk to you all another week. Bye, everybody. clouds are heavy on the county line signs are flashing reading into time protecting the home locking down the block music Raising values while we watch the clock. Turn the dial, cut through the tricks. Welcome to Matter of Fact. Well, we talk prepping for the storm ahead. The iron in the hand, the words they said. Guns, politics, and the lines they drew. We uncover what they hide from you. Yeah, lay it down. No spin, no tricks. This is matter of fact. Static screams through the midnight air. A lot of folks talking, but nobody cares. For the M.O.F. standing on the track. We look at the truth and we don't look back. Well, we talk prepping for the storm ahead. The iron in the hand, the words they said. Guns, politics, and the lines they drew. We uncover what they hide from you. Yeah, lay it down. No spin, no tricks. This is a matter of facts. Yeah, lay it down. No spin, no tricks. Shout out to the MOFers. This is a matter of facts.