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PXP Podcast
Welcome to the PXP Podcast. Here at PXP, we’re passionate about long range precision shooting. Our podcast was launched to give shooting enthusiasts another way to learn the art of precision shooting. We are committed to providing our listeners with high quality information, lessons learned from expert marksman, and much much more. No matter your skill level, if your listening to this podcast or attending our courses, we’re confident that we can teach you the skills you need to be successful in this exciting and challenging sport.
PXP Podcast
From Railroad Conductor to Shooting Innovator: Will Walton's Vision for the Patriot Series
Ever wondered how a railroad conductor ends up spearheading a unique shooting competition? Join us as we sit down with Will Walton, the mastermind behind the Patriot Series. With a background as varied as owning an auto shop and teaching firearms, Will's journey into the world of competitive shooting is nothing short of fascinating. Together with his collaborator Shane, whose transformation from a novice to a top competitor is truly inspiring, Will is reshaping the shooting sports landscape. Throughout our conversation, he candidly shares the challenges and triumphs of launching the Pro Series and his vision for creating an inclusive environment where skills are honed and friendships are forged.
Forget about splurging on the latest high-tech gear; Will emphasizes the importance of mastering what you already have. In this episode, listeners will gain insights into how foundational skills, practice, and familiarity with their current equipment can significantly boost performance under pressure. Explore the unique rules of the Patriot Series, which prioritize safety and realism, and discover how these matches offer a welcoming space for both seasoned shooters and newcomers alike. From practical tips for newcomers to the joy of using historical firearms, this episode promises to enrich your understanding of shooting sports.
Finally, we delve into the broader vision for the Patriot Series, focusing on community building and skill development. Will shares his excitement for expanding this unique competition format across Montana and Wyoming, offering engaging shooting experiences that fit into busy lives. Whether you're looking to introduce a spouse to the sport or simply want to connect with like-minded enthusiasts, the Patriot Series has something for everyone. Tune in to learn more about upcoming events and how to become a part of this growing community.
Hey guys, welcome back to the PXP podcast. On this episode I interview Will Walton. Good friend of mine started the Patriot Series, which is kind of like a run and gun series. Pull whatever guns that you have in your safe and go to a match and shoot. It doesn't matter what it is, what caliber, we make it work. And no, this was a super exciting one. We cover the origins of the Patriot series, the growth of it, tips for new shooters, equipment recommendations, all sorts of stuff, guys. So this was a really good one. Hope you guys enjoy the show and I am out all right, will. How's it going, man?
Speaker 2:not too bad. How are you doing today, zach?
Speaker 1:doing all right, just uh, hanging out here at the house. I uh, um, I got some new uh, I got some new gun parts for the sequence. Um, you needed them, yeah. Yeah, I think I'm gonna order a hydraulic uh buffer for it as well. I threw a. I don't know if you've done any research on any of the brakes I'm sure, sure you have, but I well, one of the ones that stuck out to me was the Stoner Hollywood. Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I ordered one of those and then I needed a. I needed a good, not a good, but I needed to not break the bank laser. So I ordered a SMS laser and I threw it on there. It's actually pretty dang nice for you know, for like 250 bucks. I thought this thing was going to be a piece of shit, just to just to see how it goes. But uh, I gotta, I gotta show you this thing. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Heck, yeah. Well, next time, before you order stuff like that, uh, I get a deal through hollow sun, um, and we can get. We can get all their their cool new swag too. So, uh, I'll get you in on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah Dang, every time I go to order something I completely forget that you have connections with like pretty much like the president.
Speaker 2:I wish They'll let me shave a couple bucks off here and there, so I just try to do what I can to yeah keep on getting by. What is that balling on a budget? Yeah, balling on a budget, exactly that's awesome man heck, yeah what you been up to today uh, today I worked and then, uh, you know, the auto business, it's just one of those things, it's always, it's always present, it's always there, you're always, you're always doing something and trying to meet that next goal. Yeah, but I actually took off early today.
Speaker 2:I left it one o'clock um I went up and helped uh, john o'sullivan up at blue creek get ready for our match tomorrow. So that was kind of nice to get a little break. And I don't know how you feel about blue creek, but it's almost like when I go back up there, like our ranch, like our family's ranch, I should say, um is the holmes ranch and it's up outside a uh, that's a harloton in between judith cap and harloton there, and every time I go up to blue Creek I kind of feel like you know I'm going up there to the ranch a lot of the pressure from the day comes off of you.
Speaker 2:You know you just get to do farm kid shit, which is kind of fun. So we were out there running around with the tractors setting up barricades, doing dumb stuff, so that was kind of cool.
Speaker 1:I got to do that and then I went around got uh, Melissa's going to be shooting with us tomorrow, so I went and I got ammunition for her, and now I just got to go home and load it all for her, because she's kind of a princess. Oh, that's great man. She's got the best freaking gig in this whole thing, doesn't she?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, just show up and shoot, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, I wish that's a that's freaking awesome man, that's good stuff. And man, I wish that's freaking awesome man, that's good stuff. And yeah, buddy, well, let's dive into this. Why don't you tell the listeners who Will Walton is and what makes you tick man?
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, my primary job is that I own an auto shop. We fix European cars and expensive stuff. That's my nine to five gig. Before that I was in the automotive industry selling oil and things like that, and then before that I was actually a railroad conductor engineer for 11 years for BNSF.
Speaker 2:So I did I've done a bunch of different things and then when I left the railroad in 2017, I was already a firearms instructor, but I felt like I'd lived kind of a selfish life. So I started teaching hunter ed in 2017 and then started on my competitive shooting journey in earnest. I had done a little bit when I was a kid, but not a lot, uh, and then really got into it in earnest in about 2017 and and uh helped launch the pro series with shane. Uh, he really was the the grinding force behind that. You know, we just kind of came together with some ideas and got it off the ground and, uh, that has been super cool to see what he's done with that.
Speaker 2:I mean, he took the thing international. I can't believe how much time, how much energy he's really dedicated to that. I don't know if you've talked with Shane or any of that kind of fun stuff, but his story alone is kind of interesting. A kid from California that had never touched a gun and now he's arguably probably one of the better shooters in the country, which is kind of interesting. A kid from california that had never touched a gun and now he's arguably probably one of the better shooters in the country which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely no. We uh, I just uh got off the phone with uh shane just a little bit ago, so, um, yeah, um, I think, yeah, podcast four um, you guys could listen in on on shane's story and how the pro series started, but yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:It's super cool. I can't believe he shot a deer this year, like he told me. Forever. I'm never shooting a deer. Are you doing it? You know I can't shoot bambi. And then he goes out and smokes bambi yeah, I didn't think so either, it was.
Speaker 1:It was pretty funny. He called me up right before the the hunting season and was like, hey, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go hunt, man, I'm gonna do this. And I tried to make it out with them but I just had so much going on while I was uh exiting my uh, you know, my law enforcement career and I just I had too much on my plate to go, but it would have been pretty cool to to be with them and see that for sure oh yeah, yeah, no, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 2:I was so stoked for him. It's just been, it's been really entertaining seeing, like, how his story has played out. It's, he's, he's a remarkable guy, he's pretty cool absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, uh, cool man. Well, let's, let's dive down. You're you're kind of on a little bit of this same path, a little bit with the uh, with the Patriots series, uh, um, that's kind of what I want to revolve this uh, this pot or this episode around, I want to. I want to get to this uh, this pot or this episode around, I want to. I want to get to know more about the series and more about how it started and all that good stuff. So, fill us in on, um, what kind of the origins of, uh, the Patriot series and um, how the series started, what inspired it and who you're in on it with.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, fill us okay, yeah, um, so you're, and I'll take some of your input from this too and I'll kind of ask your opinions. But, um, a long time ago I wanted to basically write a white paper and the the title of the white paper was going to be why can't hunters shoot? And what I came to the conclusion of, uh, when I was trying to cycle through how I was going to structure this paper, was that there really isn't very much attention that's paid to shooting instruction. So if you look at, say, hunter education, the international hunter education curriculum um, you know, I know, because I teach it every year what you end up with is about 20 minutes. Is all you really get to teach, uh, students, anything that has to do with marksmanship? And that you and I both know that 20 minutes to explain something like that is simply, you, you know, a teaspoon in an ocean, you know it's just there simply isn't enough. And what I started to see further along those lines is that whenever we had, say, a new competitor out for the Pro Series, we had to put a lot of work into that competitor to get them competitive, so to speak, because they simply didn't have the tools in their toolbox. And what I realized as we were moving along that same path is that most people that own guns do not have these tools in their toolboxes.
Speaker 2:What I wanted to do was to get more people out with the equipment that they already owned. So if you think about the guns that we all go out and buy, a lot of us are going out and we're buying carbines and we're buying pistols and we're doing stuff like that, but it's not a work rifle, you know, and for a Montanan or anybody that's up in our area, basically anybody out west, your work rifle is your hunting rifle. So you actually spend much more time on that particular gun than you do anything else, but you're also not getting instruction on, say, that gun. So what I wanted to come up with was a way to get people out. You know, be a fisher of men, so to speak, not to get too biblical, but bring people out that would normally not come out to a match, to do something that's more fun, engage with them with the tools that they have, and then be able to lay down some of the fundamentals of marksmanship as a group. You know, nothing in my experience has been more. How do I want to say this? Maybe informative maybe not informative, but inspiring.
Speaker 2:Then you see someone go out and do something and you're like I can do it just like he did, and if I do it like him, then that's probably the better way to do it. So you see a bunch of different people say build their own mousetraps. Pretty soon you get it figured out as to kind of what you need to do in order to be successful. And it was really fun for us to get people out with. You know, let's just call them what they are they're your safe queens. So you've got really nice, say 9mm sitting around, or you've got really nice, say 9mm, sitting around, or you've got really nice ARs. Or maybe you don't have really nice stuff, but you've got those things and they're sitting there.
Speaker 2:They're the most common rifle in the United States and most people don't know what they're really capable of. You know, when you, when you say show a person, hey, you can hit that 600 yard gong out there with your 16 inch gun that changes somebody's world. You know, I mean the other day you were out and I think you had my 14.5 and you were just banging away with it because you're an exceptional marksman, you know. But it's kind of illuminating when you're like, holy cow, these things are quite capable, absolutely. People don't. People don't treat them that way. They they look at these platforms as though they're not versatile, but they are extremely versatile and they're unbelievably fun. Unbelievably fun.
Speaker 2:You know, once you get into a couple of stages and you start laying down, doing your thing and getting rounds on target, it becomes very empowering to a person. You now know that you have a completely new set of skills that you didn't have before. That's really what we wanted to do. We wanted to bring people out with whatever they had in their safe, you know. So if you have a guy that isn't making a ton of money John O'Sullivan is a good example of a guy that just started a family, he's a fairly young man and that guy comes out and he kicks butt with just the stuff he has.
Speaker 2:It's not a high dollar carbine, it's a fairly entry-level carbine and that guy can wail on steel way, way out there and it doesn't take a lot of money to get to that point. You know it's really foundational as far as translating the knowledge, and then you realize you really can't buy yourself more impacts, which is super fun. That's kind of what I like about this series versus, say, some of the other ones that I'm involved with, where there's more of a gear race to certain series. On this series, it's really not a gear race, it's, it's really becoming proficient with the things that you have there. Of course, is that element and, trust me, it's going to cost you a lot of money. You're just going to take money and throw it down.
Speaker 2:You know shoot, so to speak, just like everybody else yep exactly but we but we opened it up with just the two gun philosophy, which was just rifle carbine, and then just recently, within the last six months, uh, we've been playing around with other platforms, specifically the PCC or pistol caliber carbine. Some people refer to it as a PDW, some guys call them submachine guns, whatever you want to think of them, as that's kind of another category that we've been playing with. And that's been really, really fun too, because there's a lot of those really neat guns that are out there. Pete Kniep, there's a lot of those really neat guns that are out there. Pete Kniep, he came out. He's one of the founders of the WPR.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you probably talked about it in previous podcasts, but that's an amazing rifle series. It's kind of the big brother to the Pro Series, certainly the centerfire brother, and he was able to bring out his Vector, which Vector is a .45 semi-autautomatic pcc pistol caliber carbine, and he was able to bring that out and run that during the match and the most interesting comment that I got from him was that he goes. I had no idea how much fun that gun was, because it's been sitting in my safe for the last 10 years.
Speaker 1:You succeeded right there, man right, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:So that's that's kind of the the thing that we're kind of focusing on, and we want guys to understand the equipment that they have and to focus on learning how to use their equipment, because I think that that's that's more substantive or uh, I think that's the correct word More substantial than, say, trying to fit yourself into exotic gear. We all have that fetish where we want to buy stuff, but really learning how to become comfortable with the equipment that you already own, I think, is way more important.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Especially when you put somebody on the clock. You know the the clock is, the, to me, is the equalizer of of all people. Once you put yourself under stress, under time, you become a different shooter, and that shooter is not as good as the shooter you have in your head. Absolutely that shooter is not as good as the shooter you have in your head, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know and and I think you can speak to some of that too, as far as seeing that in real time and all the different aspects that you've been involved, been involved with with your career and what you do for a living, basically, you know teaching people rifle skills and you know teaching people rifle skills and you know, really dialing in on those fundamentals with people is that they, they don't rise to the occasion, you just kind of fall back on your train. Yep, and that's what I like about the clock exactly.
Speaker 1:It equalizes it to the point where you know the the best shooter is going to shine and that best shooter has been training and training and training under pressure exactly, yeah, and and it's a good way to instill artificial pressure.
Speaker 2:Um, the the artificial pressure aspect of it can't be denied. I know that for a good example would be my wife. When she has a few matches under her belt from doing pro series type stuff, that kind of thing when we go hunting because she's trained under a clock, she's just as stressed as anybody else would be. When you're about to take that kind of a shot, however, it's not the same kind of stress. It's more like just engagement pressure. Like you've practiced, you know how to build a position. You you know how to get set on your target. You know those types of things aren't in your head. What you're really focusing on is the shot that you're about to take, because you have a lot of those foundational skills, and that's kind of where we want to go with the patriot series is to build some foundational skills and build some stuff in. That, you know, doesn't require thinking and become second nature how many, how many rounds do you shoot a match?
Speaker 2:not a ton. Uh, that's the shocking thing you know. Typically, uh, between the rifle and the pistol, you're usually under 140 rounds holy it doesn't break the bank to come out and you also built the series so that you can use things that you normally wouldn't.
Speaker 2:Uh, you can usually shoot our courses of fire with, say, a 22. We have a lot of competitors that will come out and run their .22 pistol and then maybe spend a little bit more money on the carbine ammunition for some .223 or 7.62x39 or whatever it is that you're going to run that day.
Speaker 1:So I thought yeah, you can, yeah, go ahead Sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can mix it up between the rifle and the pistol and whatever. We just want you to bring what you got, man that's bring what you got man. Bring whatever you own.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there's. So there's no real limitations on doing the match.
Speaker 2:Um, as far as what you're going to bring for guns and calibers. No, uh, one of the very first matches that we had, um, we had a gentleman out there with a two 43 bolt action with five round uh, internal box snack. He was not competitive but he had a great time. He was shooting a two 43, um, you know, and he's just loading and going and doing the thing and and we love seeing stuff come out. That's. That's different too, man, like anybody that brings out anything historical, like they get followed around, like you know, paparazzi style. We had a guy bring out, yeah, no, no bs. There was a guy that brought out a swalmy to our last match, which is, uh, the russians used it and I think the fins used it. It's like a 14 pound submachine gun and I think it shoots something like seven, six, two by eight. It's something ridiculous 19 or something like that. It's some really old, weird caliber, uh, but it takes 72 round drum magazines and he was running around using that same guy. He last time he brought a foul. That was super cool watching him compete with that. He's always bringing weird pistols and you know.
Speaker 2:So anybody that brings any historical stuff, we, we absolutely love that. Like, the idea is to get out and have fun. Yeah, get out, have fun, bring the stuff that you actually own, you know it's. It's actually kind of hilarious when you see somebody show up with something like a 243. I mean, when that guy hit steel, there was no doubt. Yeah. When a guy shoots it with a 22, sometimes you're like, yeah, we'll call that an impact. When you hit it with a 243, there's no doubt, yeah, that was an impact, that was clearly an impact, you know, and so that was kind of fun just in and of itself. You know, every time that guy connected to steel, there was a, there was a smile on his face about eight miles wide oh man, this is.
Speaker 1:This is great, this is great. So, um, that kind of segues into one other topic I wanted to talk to you about, which was um equipment recommendations. So there really is no like specific equipment recommendations, just bring what you got or what's, what's your input there I would say one of two things.
Speaker 2:So your very first match that you come out, bring whatever you have. You know, if you, if your idea is that you want to just come get your feet wet, do not worry about what gear you own, just grab whatever's handy and come on out. I don't care if it's a 30 30 lever action, bring it, that'd be sweet, you know. Just come out, you know, get your eyes on what people are doing and and and how they're operating, you know, and how the movement is structured and Kind of kind of learn how that stuff goes and kind of how the match flows, you know. And then maybe next time, if you want to be competitive uh, to be truly competitive, you need a decent handgun. Uh, it doesn't have to be anything expensive, it just needs to be able to hit the target that you are aiming at and you need to have a carbine with probably a 30 round capacity to it. So if you can swing those things, you have all the ability in the world to be competitive.
Speaker 2:As far as optics are concerned, optics on everything is best. So if you have the budget to swing a red dot for your pistol, I recommend it. If you have the budget to swing something like a red dot or an LPVO for your carbine. I would highly recommend it. We try to mix up the distances so that you're shooting, say close, and then you're also say having engagements out, to say 350, or it is pretty much the outside range that you're going to run. It's very helpful in that case to have some magnification. So an LPVO is is quite helpful. But the fun thing about a lot of this stuff is that it's nowhere near as expensive as it was seven or eight years ago. A good lpdo can be had for, you know, a couple hundred bucks, 300 bucks they're. They're very affordable yeah, the one.
Speaker 1:Companies have made leaps and bounds it's.
Speaker 2:We are living in a gilded age right now. Like it is. It's. We are living in a gilded age right now. Like it is. It is amazing, like if you go back 10 years ago, you know quality was always going to be, a question mark. Yep, you know now whether it's a rifle, pistol, optic, any kind of piece of kit. The demanding nature of the people that are buying it have made that stuff very, very good right out of the box, mm-hmm what sort of uh do you do?
Speaker 1:um like uh. I guess what am I trying to say here? Is there some stages that require, like um reloads and stuff like that. You're like you're required to do a reload at this specific point in the stage. Like you'll put a a 10 round, 10 rounds in a mag, you're required to do a reload and then continue the stage. Do in a mag, you're required to do a reload and then continue the stage. Do you guys have any rules like that, or how does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for the person that has gone to say a typical 3-gun event or they've gone to say an IDPA or a USPSA or any of those styles of matches, the stages are written in a similar manner. However, the people that are running it are nowhere near as militant as when you go to say, like a USPSA match. So, yes, we will have stage directions where you're required to do a reload between here and there. Not every stage, that's always up to the match director as to how he writes the stage, but yes, that is very much in play. There can be certain times when you have to say alternate between your pistol and your rifle in different locations, so you may start with your rifle and then have to go to your pistol and then say finish with your rifle.
Speaker 2:When we're making our transitions, we do a couple things that are a little bit different. We encourage the use of holsters and slings, which in USPSA, idpa, those types of matches, those are all not usually encouraged. They're usually strongly discouraged and we don't feel like that's realistic. So we don't do that. We set up our safety rules a little bit differently to accommodate for that kind of thing. But yeah, you're, you're absolutely going to be, uh required to do things that are going to be a little bit stressful that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's really good stuff. Um, great. Uh, okay, you kind of already covered it, but do you have any more like tips and tips or tricks or anything like that for any new guy showing up to a match, anything like what to expect and anything like that?
Speaker 2:Expect to have your ego shattered. You know there's going to be a lot of smack talk going on. You know that's like we may not be able to shoot that well, but we can talk smack better than anybody on the planet, so that that'll definitely be a thing. So make sure you show up with a thick skin um, really to to get yourself set up. Uh, if you want to be competitive right out of the gate, be familiar with your gear. So, if you can take a little bit of time to kind of go through the kit that you have, one of the really weird rules that the Patriot Series has is that you're not allowed to drop magazines. So what I mean by that is that you can drop your magazine, but your time does not finish until you have all your gear in hand that you started the stage with. So if you're in the habit of yard sale and equipment all around, kind of like the IDPA guys do, you're going to be upset when you have to run back and pick up your magazines and then get them back on your person before the clock stops. So you know a dump pouch is very, very handy for people that are going to be doing this. Uh, just have a place to put that magazine so that you can continue on.
Speaker 2:Uh, we do that for two different reasons. The first reason is is that you know we feel it's more realistic that you need to keep track of things like your magazines. Uh. And second, we also do it from a match flow. We don't shoot a lot of paper targets in the Patriot Series. We try to avoid paper targets at all costs. That's because it takes time to tape and paint and do all that fun stuff. We're really about a fast paced match flow. So as soon as a guy's getting done, the next guy's stepping up and he's ready to go. You're not having to clean anything up. So if you have a dump pouch, get familiar with maybe dropping your magazine and then going to your dump pouch before you do anything else. You know, and then kind of get familiar just with where you're putting kit on your person so that you know how you're going to run your gear. That'll be extremely helpful to you going into your first match got it, got it, I like it, I like it.
Speaker 1:Um, awesome, that's really good stuff. Uh, what about? Uh, touch a little bit on? Um how the the match format and rules. You touched on one of the rules you can't drop mags. Um, yeah, what, what other? What other rules do um the listeners need to be aware about before they show up to a match okay.
Speaker 2:So we operate on an unload, show clear basis. So you'll have somebody over your shoulder with a shot timer, kind of chasing you around as you're, as you're running around doing your thing. Uh, they're not stalkers, they're just trying to make sure that the shot timer picks up each shot as it goes off. However, when we're making transitions between rifle and pistol, one of the unique rules that we have is that once a gun has been shown to be clear meaning there's no magazine in the gun, there's no round in the chamber, there's no ammunition anywhere near that gun the 180 no longer applies. So that object is then a stick for the purposes of the match. So let's say that you had to begin a stage with your rifle and you had to make a plate engagement, and then the next thing that you had to do was move to a different location and then switch to your pistol. In between you moving from to do was move to a different location and then switch to your pistol. In between you moving from, say, the first location to the second location, you're going to go ahead and unload and show clear on that rifle and once you've unloaded and shown clear, that weapon no longer has the 180 applied to it. So let's say that you swim your rifle around your back. Swim your rifle around your back For any of you that have never done that, it's basically just stowing your rifle on your back using your sling and then taking up the tension so that it's not flopping around on you. And then let's say that you had to lay down in the prone. If you've swung that rifle to your back and you lay down and you've got the muzzle pointed down towards your butt, well, now that rifle's pointed back the other direction of the firing line. But it's okay because we've already unloaded and shown clear on that. That way, when you get back up and say have to transition to your pistol, you know when you unload and show clear on that, that one also doesn't have the 180 applied to it. And that's so that, like, let's say that you move to your third position where you're going to take your final shots with the rifle, you're going to need to load that rifle and let's say that the position requires you to be in the prone. Well, once you lay down in the prone with a handgun and a holster, it's pointed back the opposite direction. So we're very cognizant of making sure that we unload and show clear, cognizant of making sure that we unload and show clear. But we had to allow that room Because if you're trying to use things like abandoned barrels and stuff like that, it really limits the amount of stage direction that you can have where you can just structure really good safety on top of a system like this and you're allowed to do a lot more with, say, stage direction, which works really really well for us. But yeah, that's, that's mainly the only weird rule that you're gonna see.
Speaker 2:The patriot series rules are really rather light. It's a time plus format, so you're only going to be given penalties if that makes sense. So whatever your time is, that's your flat time. Whatever your misses are, it's typically an add five second per miss, so missing is going to hurt you quite badly. So you're gonna have to blend your speed with your accuracy, but it's just time plus format. It's really really simple. You know, if it takes you 20 seconds to run the stage and you had two misses, your total time's 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:I see, okay, easy easy, easy, easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's. It's really stupid, simple. It's really stupid fast. We start usually at about noon. Uh, we'll have sight in from 11 to noon, and then we go stage direct at about 12, about noon. We'll have sighting from 11 to noon and then we go stage direct at about 12, about 12, 15, we start shooting and if we don't have beers in our hand by like three o'clock in the afternoon, we fucked up. I'm sorry, I can't. I don't know if I can swear.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you can, you're good.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. If we, if we don't have beers in hand by three, we, we, we screwed the pooch, you know? So, like that's. That's the nice part about how we run our rule set and why we run a rule set the way that we do is. Is they for us? You know, speed in all things is king. You want to. You want to get people there, get them through the day and then get them onto the next thing that they got to do, because they're probably married with kids and they got other commitments that day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome man. Super good flow, good safety rules, easy flow with the stage as far as if you miss it's five seconds. I mean that's super easy. I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's super, super fun and we've been incorporating more and more stuff. As far as um how the stages are being set up, john is getting like crazy. Like tomorrow, you coming tomorrow I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1:I uh, yeah, I mean I got my red dot, my trigicon mro, on there um one of the. I uh, um. Uh. One of my lpvos uh got left behind on swat and one of the guys is running it right now on the team so he has my lpvo. So I uh, I might run a red dot, um you will.
Speaker 2:That will be all you need tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Trust me, you'll be okay okay, all right, that's easy enough tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, dude like john lost his ever loving mind really. He built like half a freaking house out there as a shoot house. I I kid you not dude.
Speaker 1:That's so funny because I was literally thinking about the series the other day and I'm like, yeah, I wonder, I wonder if we could do like a shoot house, you know type of thing. That'd be sweet because we've been building one that uh, for swat for months and it has. It's a giant one though. It has like six or seven rooms and doors to blow up and all that shit, but yeah, yeah, john is a little bit touched.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Yeah, you know he's got a little bit of the tism and like he went off dude, like this thing I don't know how much woody bought like it was nuts. We were helping him get it all set up yeah it's just crazy, just absolutely nuts.
Speaker 2:But yeah, he's been. He's been really, really dialing in stuff like that. It's gotten elaborate, more elaborate every time that we go out, and then the pcc matches are now going to be able to feature shotgun as well. So if you're the guy that likes to run a shotgun a little bit, the cool thing about a shotgun, with the way we run it, is that let's say you're running a pcc and in order to neutralize the target that you're that you're up against, let's say you got three targets in front of you and neutralization means that you have to hit it three times With a shotgun. That number's down to one. So you only have to blast that thing one time, which just really makes the shotgun super competitive, which is kind of a weird thing to see a shotgun going up against something like a PCC or going up against a pistol or something like that. So super, super fun. I think everybody's going to like that. It's going to be really, really fun.
Speaker 2:We proved it last match out of the back of the truck we were driving along. So one of the stages was set up and you had to drive along this berm and John was driving the truck and there was probably a total of 12 targets that you had to shoot out of the back of the moving truck and we did it with the shotgun and it worked out awesome. It was super, super cool. You really, really had to like shuffle your butt off to get three more rounds into the gun to get it finished off. It was totally doable.
Speaker 1:So on a typical stage, or like your highest round count stage, are you going to need more than two AR mags on your body?
Speaker 2:Typically not, but the idea here is to get people used to say, using the things that you would use when you really don't want to. So what we like to strongly encourage is to set yourself up for success in all things right. So, typically on my body, in an accessible manner, I should say, I will have about three magazines on my chest and then I'll have two additional magazines on my belt. Um, but yeah, you, you really aren't going to need more than two. However, we, we try to make it so that it's as real as possible, so that the on the clock practice, so to speak, that you're getting, uh is going to be as useful as possible. But yeah, no two is is more than enough, usually for each stage awesome.
Speaker 1:And then do you guys have like a um, do you do like a championship with uh, with um, like awards at the end, or how does the whole series look like as far as the competition side, do you have like little trophies or anything like the pro series does for each match, or how does that work?
Speaker 2:um, my favorite part about the patriot series and we we just got done john and I just spoke about this a little bit about maybe doing some trophies for a series finale we we had our first pseudo series finale in, uh, november. Um, however, one of my favorite things about the patriot series is that we're not handing out trophies. I know that sounds really really strange, but the idea here is self-improvement and the idea here is fellowship, you know, getting like-minded people together to shoot, and I think that one of the things that can sort of draw focus off of some of those aspects is giving out a lot of awards. What we'd rather do is concentrate on putting in for sponsorships, for things like gear. We gave away some nice scopes and some other pretty useful equipment at the finale, and I think that that's really what we're going to be more focused on than anything else. We want to make sure that people are, you know, kind of filling those gaps in their equipment list, so to speak, and we feel it's more important to get guys out and shoot and just to see your number.
Speaker 2:You know, it's pretty like to me, like I don't need a trophy, like they're certainly nice, but I don't really need a trophy at the end of a match, like a club match, to go. All right, I won november's club match, you know, I'll, I'll know. I won november's club match, you know, and I can like kind of run on that high for a little while. You know, doesn't? It doesn't happen very often for me, so it's, it's kind of a big deal, like maybe I should give myself an award oh, that's great.
Speaker 1:Just just tell your wife be like I won.
Speaker 2:We're going to shields we're going to shields of buying a gun yeah, exactly she's gonna be like yeah, no, you're not, but that to us that's that's kind of the flow on this thing. Is they? We want the focus to be on improving and individual improvement, but it's also kind of a group of us that's out there. Yeah, you know, we all want to be getting better as a group, you know, and I think that that can be. I think that awards and things like that they have their place and they have their time and I think that that'll come, but for right now, I I really like that the focus isn't on those things.
Speaker 1:If that makes any sense, absolutely no, I 100 agree for sure, because, yeah, it just trophies. I mean they're great, I mean it's nice to be recognized for you know, you doing good and being out there and being competitive and all that good stuff and um, but at the same time, you're right, right, it does take away for the core value of um, just getting out there and just bettering yourself. You know, because it's that's what it's about, you know, it's about getting out there, hanging out with the good people shooting guns and getting better with the equipment that you have. No, I, I love that. That's great man For great man for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It's been a super fun journey over the last really it's about 14 months now of getting this thing up and going. Um shane did so much work on the patriot series to get it to where it is. Uh, at a certain point we're going to start putting in that level of work on the Patriot Series versus excuse me, he put that level of work in on the Pro Series and we're going to get there with the Patriot Series as well. But I want this one to be more of a slow burn, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I want this thing to be really dialed in and not feel nearly as frantic as it was when we were putting together the Pro Series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just exploding and then trying to keep up with it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, and the nice thing about this particular format is that this is very exportable. So if you get people that are coming in from out of town, this is something that it can take back to their hometown, to their people, and then they can kind of see how a system like this runs and see how it operates and that it's not very cost heavy on the front end. You could really run four to five stages with the same set of targets. I mean, you go by five targets and just set them up different. Yeah, you know, and you, you could run it that way and still get what you need in as far as training goes, and then really just build things slowly. And that's that's going to be. The good part about this is that we're going to be able to share this with people and not have it break the bank, so to speak.
Speaker 2:That's that's going to be.
Speaker 1:The good part about this is that we're going to be able to share this with people and not have it break the bank, so to speak. That's, that's freaking awesome man. No, this is super good stuff, for sure, because you and I really haven't sat down and talked about the, the patriot series, so I'm learning just as much as as the listener. So, um, yeah, this is, this is really good man. Um, so one of the last topics I want to talk about is what's your? I mean, you kind of already hit on it just a little bit here. Go a little bit more into detail on the future plans for the series. What, I guess what incrementally? What do you want that to look like?
Speaker 2:Okay. What I would like to see as far as a growth pattern goes is that right now we are a club of one which is Blue Creek. I would like to expand that to at least a couple more clubs in Montana and maybe one or two in Wyoming, become a similar product to what, say, ian McCollum runs over on his channel, which is forgotten weapons. They do a lot of what are called brutality matches. He's one of the founders of that particular series, the. I would never want to build anything into a brutality match. Where I want this series to go is to be a three to four hour experience on a one day event. You know it's so hard for people with families and people with kids and you know just anybody to come up with, say like a two day match experience. That's that's a lot of commitment, it's a lot of time. That's that's a hotel room. If you're traveling significant travel, if you're doing that, you and I think that you're going to run into um, let's just call it match fatigue. How about that?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I've experienced that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we all have. We've. We've done our fair share, held the three-dayers and the four-dayers and all that kind of fun stuff, and where I want this to be is a fun space where this can be something that doesn't take up a lot of range time. Shane and I had a lot of experience dealing with a range that had a board, so this is one that would be. I'm not going to mention names on it because a lot of the people that were on that board were horrible people. Some of them were the best people, but a lot of them were horrible.
Speaker 2:But when you have to deal with a structure like a board which is how most rifle ranges are set up typically, there there's some sort of a nonprofit organization. One of the main footprints that you really have to be careful about is not shutting down infrastructure. So if you take X amount of that range and you put it out of commission for a full day, you start creating drama on the board. So the idea here would be to use portions of these organizations properties that are not currently utilized, to take advantage of things that really aren't going to get into anyone's way and then set it up in a timeframe so that the match can be basically had and over before anybody can even have heartburn about it, you know. So what we want to do is grow it organically in that fashion, kind of city to city, town to town, in the places that have a population base that can support it, you know, and support outliers for people that you know can come. You can come 20 or 30 minutes away and then be able to have this kind of experience on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:That is the goal is to make this a normal, everyday thing to see. If you go to a place like, say, switzerland, this style of competition is not what they do there. There, however, target shooting is a part of the culture. It's a huge part of their culture. Over there, they have shooting ranges that actually extend over highways. It's hilarious. They shoot from one lane to another lane and they're it's like going across the island yeah, I've seen that before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're trying to like, chip a firing range in wherever they can get it in there. You know, and and that's very much what you know our culture is out here is is that it's it's largely about shooting, but there's no structure to it. So to provide the minimal amount of structure possible so that you know from the match director standpoint you can be successful and it doesn't require huge amount of investment of time and energy, you know, and then to really grow this thing into something that is quite commonplace, is where I would like to see this in. You know, kind of like what we saw with growth with the pro series that's it's a more specialized niche. Growth with the pro series, that's it's a more specialized niche.
Speaker 2:Wpr very similar, um, nrl, prs still very similar, along those lines of you know kind of what the niche is. But if you look at who's into those types of things, that's a smaller subsection of the gun culture in general. The larger population of gun culture really is set up to do more of what this is going to be set up for. Most people have gone out and purchased, say, an AR-15. It's just a fact. I think that of the gun owners in the United States. I bet you 70% of them own one.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:If not more, but now this is going to give you a place where you can utilize those, those skills that you know. People honestly don't know the capability of the equipment that they already have exactly, and to structure it that way, you know, because I, you, you honestly see a lot of people say things like, well, I would never shoot anything over 300 yards in an ar-15, like, okay, all right, ideally you're correct. However, can it do it absolutely, absolutely it's. It's a very versatile tool, you know, and learning that that versatility and kind of how to do that stuff is where I want this series to go is. I want this to be a common thing, you know, throughout the United States. That would be my goal.
Speaker 1:That is. That's awesome, man. No, I'm loving the format. I'm loving everything about it.
Speaker 2:It's awesome how many rounds of .223 do I need to bring, honestly, between your handgun and your rifle? You're probably going to be looking at maybe 60 apiece on each. Oh, okay, so not a ton.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not a ton at all. Okay, and I still need to go purchase my work gun with the red dot on it. They have it held there at the PD and I just need to go fork out $450 and go buy it back. I definitely want it because I got that.
Speaker 2:Hollison EPS on there oh yeah, yeah. Totally forgot about that. But you don't need to buy anything like. I can bring you a gun tomorrow if you want oh no, I have plenty of handguns.
Speaker 1:It'll probably just be my, uh, my glock 17. I'll bring. I got three or four other handguns, so I'll probably just run that one, just run it with iron sights and, uh, just go have some fun. And yeah, shoot the shit and shoot some steel. And it's been since.
Speaker 2:I've actually kind of kind of glad that you're going to run iron sights tomorrow. That means that I might have a pseudo chance of competing with you.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, whatever, yeah, I'm going to give, I'm going to get my butt spanked for sure. Man, it's been about two and a half, three months since I've done anything AR-15 training, wise, you know, usually I mean, it was every other, every other fricking Monday, um, when I was on the team and it's it's been a minute for sure, and um, I'm missing it. You know, the? The other thing is, too, is that I didn't really dabble in the, or I wasn't too interested in the, or I wasn't too interested in the, the patriot series at the beginning, because, first off, I didn't fully understand how it was ran and what, what you were doing with it, and that's my fault for not asking enough questions, first off, and second off, I just I shot a lot of, you know, 223 and mag change reloads, like all all that sort of high-speed stuff with pistol, and it just felt like work to me.
Speaker 1:You know, like I just, you know, I just was like God damn, I just did this for work the other day. I really don't. I want to shoot my bolt gun because I don't get to shoot my bolt gun all the time.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, and what was funny too about your experiences is that you probably had maybe the worst experience with a Patriot series match. The very first one that we had was not I'm not going to talk a whole bunch of smack, but it was not the way we. We were trying to take some direction from a well-meaning individual. However, that turned into like a 10 or 12 hour slog. Yeah, I remember that day. It was completely the direction that we didn't want to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. And in the, the way that the target engagements were set up was to us, not in our wheelhouse.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was, let's just say, we were doing a lot of painting and we were doing a lot of taping and we were doing a lot of talking but we weren't doing a lot of shooting I remember that I was, uh, I was counting holes in paper for a lot of hours that day, yeah yeah, the cool thing about steel is is that you either hit it or you didn't know.
Speaker 2:Everybody knows, yeah, yeah, very few questionable rounds on target, you know, and that was kind of illuminating the other day. You know just what I had learned about shooting steel with you. That was, that was pretty cool. Uh, that was on. What was that? Last saturday, when my wife and I were out there?
Speaker 1:yeah, yep, you'll say that was last saturday and I shot the wrong steel with two, two, three I wasn't gonna say anything.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm gonna throw myself under the bus. I I did not know that that was not an AR 500 piece of steel that you're like, hey, I don't think you could shoot that target. I'm like what the fuck is he talking about? I'm like it's a piece of steel, isn't that AR 500? And we walk up to it and it's like a quarter inch thick and I'm like, oh shit, that's definitely not AR 500. Oh shit, I fucked up not ar500.
Speaker 2:Oh shit, I fucked up. Yeah, I'm just kind of giggling about that. Yeah, the very first one that you came to man that was. That was not cool and I could see why you would have stayed wide away from it at that point because, like you know, we went 180 degrees different, like immediately following that match, which was which was super funny. Um, I have a whole story along those lines and I'll share it with you in private at some point. Uh, just because the individual was well intentioned, however, it did not play well in the space that we were looking to play in. Um, but, yeah, you mean, you know I I'm not going to talk about your background, but you know, given what you did on a daily basis and things like that, I wouldn't have wanted to do it either.
Speaker 2:You have to have time and space for different things. Like I said, I'm in the automotive industry. When I get off of work, do you think I go home and fix the wife's car? No, not a chance. I don't want to see another vehicle that day. I'm done talking about cars, I'm done working on cars and I completely understand that. You know, you have to have time, you have to have space. You know, and there has to be a lane for it. You know you you got to have that room and that you know kind of that desire to do it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and the fun factor has to be there. If you don't have a fun factor, you might as well, just not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might as well, just not exactly, you know. And now that, uh, you know, the tactical portion, the SWAT stuff, is gone, I think, uh, I think I'm gonna find a, um, you know, a new discipline, but not not really new discipline, um, a new outlet for the tactical stuff and using the equipment that I have, and getting out there and and the you know, the camaraderie and meeting new people and, and, no, I'm, I'm super excited about it. Man, this is going to be the first one that I'm going to shoot here tomorrow. And, yeah, so, 60 rounds and nine mil, I'll bring in 60 rounds of 223. That's, that's pretty, uh, pretty easy oh, yeah, yeah, no, there's.
Speaker 2:There's nothing to it. You know, and one of my favorite parts about going to these matches is is that you know, if you come with a piece of kit or a piece of equipment that someone is just kind of enamored with, or I see something that I'm enamored with, I'm always shocked at what people do. Usually what they do is is that they hand me their gun and they hand me a stick of their own ammo and they're like go go shoot it, you gotta try it, like you gotta go play with it. That's what you did to me last saturday.
Speaker 1:Let me go blast I don't, I don't know that if I've ever seen you on the range where you're not handing me a gun and ammo and saying shoot, I don't think there is a day on the range where I've seen you that you have not done that.
Speaker 2:I'm like holy fuck, I mean you cannot do the devil's deed unless you're selling the devil's product. Yeah, you really got to dial in on it. So you know that's the way to do it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great man yeah, no, but the people that you're going to meet out there are just salt of the earth type people and the the atmosphere honestly, around these style of matches because it's competitive. However, it's not the same kind of competitive that you get at a pro series match. It's not the same kind of competitive that you get at a pro series match. It's not the same kind of competitive as you get at a WPR match. It's a different kind of competitiveness. It's almost like more of an athletic style competitiveness where when you look at something like a WPR match or you look at something like a pro series match, they're very heavy on the mental side. You really got to dial into, to dial into what you're doing, your discipline, and it's almost like a competitiveness of stillness. If that makes sense, he who can become the most still, the fastest is going to be a good competitor in those two disciplines.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And in this discipline it's a lot more rip and run. It's a lot more rip and run. You know it's a lot more rip and run, so that that part is it's a totally different feel that way and I think that you'll like that part of it quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I think so too. There's always a I'm add as hell. I love running and gunning and stuff and yeah, that was my. My two things on the on the team was entry guy and sniper, and you know I still have the opportunity to train those things. So that's. That's pretty sweet man. No, I'm liking this. This is great. I'm pumped for it. Yeah, sweet man. Well, uh, no, do you have anything else to add to the podcast at all? Any, anything else that the listener should know?
Speaker 2:no, not that I can think of, just thanks for having me on. It's always a blast to talk with you and get to hang out with you and you know, thank you for you know, helping my wife the other day. It's, there's something totally different about when someone suggests something.
Speaker 1:that's already been said, that's yes. Oh man, this is so funny that you mentioned this because, um, I was thinking if, if I were to start bringing my wife out here and start, you know, shooting and getting her into that sort of thing, I would 100 be will. Can you, can you tell her to do like?
Speaker 2:just she ain't listening to me you know, I always laugh about that kind of stuff because when it comes from a third party, there's no, there's no agenda. No, you know what I mean. Yeah, you know, like wives become very good at picking up on your agenda. Oh yeah, you know. So I think that they're always looking at like, all right, what's he trying to do here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:As like a regular rando, like regular random person. They're just like, okay, they don't have an agenda, they're just going to help me. Yep, you know. So they take it and it's completely different way. Kids are the same way. Oh, I was just no, I just wanted to say thanks for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, absolutely shooting with you guys the other day. Um, why don't you tell the uh? Tell the listeners where they can get in?
Speaker 2:touch with uh with you as far as um, the patriot series and everything. If you want to throw any uh any of your contact info out there, yeah, right now, the the best place to get a hold of us is on facebook. Just go to the patriot series. Um, we've got a couple of nice pages that are up on there. That'll keep you up to date with all the current matches that are coming up. It'll also give you links to practice score so that you can get signed up, so that you can show up and you can shoot.
Speaker 2:You can always reach out to my personal email address, which is will at diamond406.com. You can get any information that you need from me there, always happy to help. You know, I'll probably just end up reaching out to you and talking to you on the phone if we need to get a lot of information exchanged, but to make initial contact with me, those are two of the best places to go. And John O'Sullivan I do not want you to think that this is me. I'm here to share information about the Pro Series, but John O'Sullivan is absolutely 100% the partner for this series. Brandon Seamers is also another one of the partners for this series and has been instrumental in its creation and I I can't uh, I can't stress just how foundational those two individuals have been to getting this off the ground that is awesome.
Speaker 1:Good stuff for sure. Well, uh, thanks everyone for thanks everyone for uh listening in. Uh very much appreciate it and uh, get out there, get ahold of uh, get ahold of Will and start shooting your guns. Just grab whatever you got in the safe and uh, let's go do it. You guys have a good one and we'll see you on the next one Later.
Speaker 2:All right, Take care bud.