And welcome to the Concealed Carry Podcast, part of the ConcealedCarry.com network, brought to you by HK. Today is Friday, August 8th, 2025, as of the recording of this episode, and I'm your host, Riley Bowman. I'm joined today by special guest, Bill Dermody of HK, or HKUSA. He's on the U.S. side of the ocean here, which is, you know, well, it's America, man. But we do like those German guns, don't we?

We sure do. We also like the American ones, the American-made ones like that one right there, that CC9. Anyway, we're going to be talking about some guns today as well as general preparation and things that we need to consider or do, preparing ourselves for that day with Bill here. So looking forward to that. But first, let's talk a couple of sponsor messages. You probably guessed it. HK is one of those.

I could have Bill pitch his own stuff. How about that? but i'll tell you i. Want to hear your Pitch you know when we talk about that day preparation, you want the best quality gear you can that you can have because one thing you don't have to worry about is your gear your equipment it's enough to worry about yourself and your skill your ability to perform yourself but you don't want anything hindering you or holding you back so So that's why I choose HK Pistols.

I carry the CC9 every day. Before that, I was carrying the VP9 SK until the CC9 came out. And those are both great guns, by the way. I still kind of, every once in a while, go back to the SK for, you know, like, okay, let's go something a little bit more. Yeah, I carried the SK for quite a few years, yeah. Yeah, it's a great gun. It shoots way better than, that's maybe not the right way to say it, but it shoots better than its size.

You know what I mean? like it punches way above its weight class so uh i remember the first time i shot the vp9 sk it was like dang like that it just it didn't feel like a small gun and that impressed me kind of the same thing with cc9 though cc9 punches above its weight class too 12 plus one capacity super slim lightweight conceals really really easily and so that's what's in my waistband right now i think People ought to take a look.

Those guns are made in the U.S. You guys got a great team there putting those together. And the quality is top notch, just like the stuff that comes from overseas, from your German counterparts. So I've got a P30 on the wall here and some other VP9s and a couple of rifles up there. So check out HK-USA.com to learn more about everything that HK's got to offer.

Uh some great great content on there too you see some videos you want guys want to see the cc9 being tested and during its development there's some cool videos on there you want to check out that's pretty cool uh maybe we'll talk about that a little bit more later in the episode bill uh kind of just let you expound upon the cc9 project a little bit because i think that's pretty noteworthy stuff but uh hk-usa.com that's the place and of course you can check your local dealers, for uh for hk's coming in all the time i know you guys are working hard to ship them out just quick as you can get them in and build them and stuff so uh yep in fact i think that's what you recommend people want to get a cc9 in their hands they're like man i'm having a hard time finding one uh get on your dealer's wait list just go talk to your dealer make friends with them say hey i really want one of those cc9s can you give me a shout when you get one come in yeah.

We're we've been pretty successful especially recently and shipping them out the door at a really good pace but we haven't been successful in filling the pipeline i mean they just at the dealers they keep coming in the back door and going right out the front Yeah a lot of demand so that's good it's for a great little compact package of a pistol that performs really really well so there's a reason for it today's other episode sponsor is ksg armory holsters not only do you want good quality guns but you need something quality to put them in so you guys probably get tired of hearing me talk about obviously our holster brand here but we work really hard to make those, really well designed really awesome working holsters that are can perform exactly how you need them to both before and during and after that day meaning that you can carry comfortably you can carry concealed truly concealed because we put in a lot of thought and effort into the the design of the holsters so that they minimize printing as much as possible there's a variety of ways that happens but you're not going to go into all the details but the point is is they're intentionally designed with these things in mind comfort concealment but also the ability to grab and draw that gun in a instant when you need to so that again nothing's holding you back ksgarmory.com is a website we appreciate you guys business and all your support you give us to make it possible to do what we do, Let's move this conversation right along, Bill.

Get into it. Let's do it. First of all, how did you get started in this industry? Where did you start? Where did you come up? I'm curious about that real quick. I kind of stumbled into it. Every single job that I've worked in, it drives people nuts that pursue firearms and shooting as a love and as passionate as I always did.

Said, I never applied for a single job that I've had in the industry. I've just fallen into every single one of them. I was at a point in my life I was shooting and competing constantly, and I was spending every spare moment and every spare dollar on the range. And this is how old I am. It was back in 1996. Back in the 1900s.

And I was returning from the world shoot in Brazil. So I competed in the IPSC world shoot in Brazil. I did not know that. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. And I was living in Boise, Idaho at the time. And for some reason, I flew out of Salt Lake. It was just the way the flights worked out. And I was staying with a friend down in Salt Lake, my friend Steve.

And I found myself. I graduated from Brigham Young University. I found myself in the office of an old professor. I just kind of dropped in on her to say, Hey, and see what's going on. And, and she said, you know, who called me just yesterday and they're looking for somebody. She said, your, your buddy from when you were here, Shane, was looking for somebody to work in the advertising department at Browning.

And I went, you still got his number. And we called him right there from her office. And he was asking her if she knew anybody. And I came back and I was telling her, I just came back from Brazil, went on this trip. I did all the shooting. And she was just like, oh, I didn't know you were into all that because Shane just called me.

So we called Shane and got hired at Browning. I was previously, I was working at the Idaho Department of Transportation, their PR office, writing news releases about road construction and highway deaths. And I felt like Browning was a better offer. Yeah. That sounds like a thrilling career. You know, and that's the business. And I worked for there for several years, I think six years.

And then I got kind of headhunted poached away from Springfield Armory by Speak for Armory and I spent a few years at Springfield Armory more on the tactical self-defense side of the business and then I got poached away from them by Savage Arms so back to the hunting side of the business again. I was at Savage for 10 years.

Um, and then, uh, one of my colleagues at Savage, um, got hired down at HK and, and he recruited me to, uh, to come work at HK and I've been at HK for, uh, in a few weeks, it'll be eight years. Yeah. That's awesome. So I bounced around a little bit, but, um, yeah, I always had great places to work and, uh, never had any product that I had to apologize for Yeah so yeah as would be expected i i think uh knowing the quality of stuff you guys put out so uh that's that's a that's a fun journey i i like i said i did not know you competed at the 96 world shoot that's.

I wasn't i wasn't good enough to qualify for the team but i talked my way into it um i had previously lived in brazil for two years as a missionary Yeah. And I called – I think Dave Sanford was running USPSA at the time and called the main office and said, geez, I'm only a B-class shooter, but I'll tell you what, I speak fluent Portuguese and know my way around the country and talked my way onto the team.

Not the team, but the group of folks that qualified. And it was great because it was like this kind of weird role reversal because obviously as a lower-class shooter, Rob Latham and Todd Jarrett and jerry barnhart and you know all these people back in the day i was no threat so um and we were on different shooting schedules that whole week so these guys were uh you know the craig brothers jamie and freddie craig i don't even know if they're still shooting um I don't think so.

I always had a super squad shooter with me you know it's like almost like they had a rotation that was coaching me up on how to shoot the stages i was shooting um and you know it's great having you know like rob latham as your personal kind of like your caddy telling you about the lay and on the on the green or whatever right coaching me up and and then at night i was helping them order drinks and pick up women it worked out great wow That's uh that's cool that's really cool so had you so you shot some competition before that then or.

Yeah i'd been shooting competition for several years and uh and had traveled around i'd um At that point, I'd shot a couple of national championships and area matches and things like that. But no, by no means was one of the top 20 shooters in the country or whatever the number was of people they were sending off to Brazil.

But I guess they didn't have people, you know, it's an expensive trip. And they didn't have a bunch of grandmasters beating down the door to make the trip at that time. And there was a slot. Yeah. And the squeaky wheel got the slot. And uh yeah it was cool and i got to know um you know a lot of i in fact um after the match was over i stayed an extra week down there and and floated down the amazon river in a dugout canoe with brian enos for a week are you serious no who can say they've done that Probably probably just you me.

That's it so then just for a shooter of my level i became much more connected and yeah and then when springfield armory came calling yeah i picked up the phone and called rob and asked him all about the place and yeah so i've always had people to turn to and talk to and yes so very early on in the industry i always had um access to the to the correct brains to pick yeah um people that always you know when you're sitting there working on new products and marketing and stuff like that the worst thing you can do is assume you know it all um it's it's it's kind of crowdsource your information you know you talk to one person and you and you might get some really weird wild ideas but i think you talk to enough people that are clueful you know certain truths start to rise to the surface and and you can really discover the truth so Yeah that's very cool a week with brian enos uh man i would.

Different cat let me tell you yeah yeah I'll bet But that was quite the exploration into another world. It was a very zen experience. Fun fact, Brian Enos is a bird watcher. He was out there with his binoculars identifying by Latin name all the species of birds that we were coming across. Wow. It's birding. That doesn't necessarily surprise me, I guess.

I don't know Brian terribly really at all. Super nice guy. Super chill. Really cool. and yeah and didn't mind me peppering him with uh crazy questions about you know touch with brian that kind of the mental side of the game yeah um and and yeah i had i had just read his book the year before so i read it again before i went with him and i can't remember exactly how we got i think i was going to make the trip with somebody else and at the last minute he said i can't do this but i gotta i know a guy who would brian is says i'll go with you because he's he's a he's a game guy you know and i guess he goes okay give him my number yeah i I consider him loosely like yeah he doesn't know this but a mentor in a way because i've his book was like game-changing for me in terms of transforming uh my shooting and my mental game in many respects Like I've read or listened to the audio book of his no fewer than a dozen times.

So like there, and there's been times I've probably, and I try to make sure I, you know, always give attribution, but there's been times I've said stuff in class and people, and someone's like, that sounds like that came right out of Brian's book. I'm like, it probably did because I've like, I have dang near memorized that thing.

I highly recommend his book, especially, uh, It might be a tough read if you hadn't been shooting very long. I think if you've been shooting a few years, because for me, reading it, it was just like, oh, that's what I've been seeing. And that's what I've been experiencing. And now I understand it. And maybe I can fine tune it now.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah, I agree. I call it like the Bible of shooting. And I say it's like the Bible, not because it's like, it's really not that big of a book. No. It's not like that at all, but it's because it's communicating on a different level. And as you keep reading and studying it, it just sort of like reveals new levels of, I should go the other direction.

I could probably stand to go back and read it again. Yeah. Yeah. It's good stuff. Every time I, that's why I keep going back to it. Cause I'm like, okay, I'm going to get something new and different out of it this time than. I did the last time. Yeah. I imagine it's one of those things that, um, you know, depending on where you are in life and you're shooting and whatnot, you, you might feel like, um, little elves snuck in there and added things to it since the last time you read it Yeah by the way folks uh if you don't know what book that's it's called practical shooting beyond the fundamentals by brian enos it's available on amazon it's uh also an off aphonic or not aphonic uh audible um if you want to listen to it i've i've got the ebook the written paper copy and and and the audio book so there's times i pull up the ebook on my phone to reference or to search because the searching is great it's like oh there's that one section you know does.

He read it on the audiobook No he doesn't it's oh because. That would be an experience It would be i agree yeah when i first got the audiobook i was like oh man that'd be awesome and i was like no it's not him dang oh well but anyway, cool so man i don't know how this i did not expect to start kind of on this little tangent but i did just did not know this this aspect of your background i don't know how it never came up And I'm, I think that's really cool.

So thank you for sharing, uh, some of your early parts of your shooting journey as a competitive shooter, even. So that's super, super cool. Um, we should get you out back on a USPSA stage sometime, you know? Yeah, I've been kind of retired. I'm not 100% retired. Every once in a while I get out there and I shoot a match.

As I said before we started recording, I'm signed up for one of these run-and-gun matches. It's like you've got to run a 5K and stop and shoot rifle pistol along the way. That's fun. I don't know how that's going to go. I'm going to get through it is what's going to happen. That's fantastic. All right. So –, Again, I wasn't expecting that tangent, so now I've got to re...

Sorry. What did we really come here to talk about? We are here to talk about, the title of this episode, Preparing Ourselves for That Day. And I'm stealing a line from you guys. You came out with the CC9 pistol last year. And that was kind of one of your little, what do you call it, slogan or marketing pitch or whatever.

How does it go? something about gun for that day. Yeah every day carry isn't about every every day at all it's about that day there you go the idea is that you know a lot of times we make a lot of sacrifice a lot of compromises for convenience um and with the consideration of what what do i want to put up with every day so i i don't know i just i'm a little bit bought i get it but i'm a little bit bothered by this edc edc dc everyday carry everyday carry it's like why are we talking about every day it's that one day that you actually have to use that tool and go to work um that should drive your selection and your training and your practice and and not just how convenient and easy it's going to be to deal with it every day so yeah Yeah, right. So, you know, to expound upon that, I mean, so as you mentioned, a gun for that day and everyday carry is about that day.

It's not going to work out for you if you don't have a gun with you. So convenience and comfort and concealability are super important factors. It's something I'm a little bit blind to myself because I'm a larger mammal compared to most normal-sized folks, you know, 6'3". Well, I used to be a lot more than I am now, but, you know, a little over 200 pounds. I am shrinking. So that's all right. That's cool.

And actually part of that is compared to where I used to be weight wise I used to be able to hide anything you know with pretty much anything that I wore at the time on my body I have noticed a few minor changes that I've had to get a little bit more selective with whether what you know the shirt I'm wearing or whatever or the gun I'm carrying I could still get away with a full-size gun but I just have to be a little more careful than I used to but yeah so it's it's those those things are important and for i recognize for a lot of people size and weight and stuff is, is is an important consideration more so than probably what it's been for me, and so yeah you guys i mean let's talk just a little bit about the cc9 and kind of how that came to be uh somebody somewhere had to come up with that idea who gets credit for that one i'm curious i.

Think we just it was a it was a business decision that you know that that segment of the handgun market is the biggest piece of the handgun market. And we didn't have a gun in that category. Um, the challenge was, um, making it an HK, making it the HK of microcompacts. We have this great military tradition of these guns that are just absolutely 100% reliable in all conditions out in, you know, global war on terror and, you know, we've got a heritage to live up to and we can't, Just because it's for the consumer market doesn't mean we're going to hold it to a different standard than to our military firearms.

And there had been some well-publicized product launches that I won't get into that maybe some consumers felt like they'd been beta tested with smaller guns. And for the most part, you know, they're pretty good guns in that category. But there's quite a few small guns that just don't work that well. Um and um and so um an hk micro compact had to be 100 reliable um and we we decided early on it's like if we can't hold it to our same standard and we're gonna we're gonna subject it to all the nato ac 225 uh testing protocol um or we won't sell it um um and then the shootability piece really mattered to is we didn't want to sell a toy.

We wanted to sell a serious tool for that day. And so I think one of the things, and this goes all the way back to the MP5, we get a lot of very well-deserved credit as a brand at HK for our reliability and our durability and well-deserved. But I think one thing we don't get enough credit for is our shootability. You know, just the ease with which you can put rounds on target quickly with an HK product, whether it's an MP5 submachine gun or a VP9 handgun, or in this case, a CC9 microcompact.

Obviously, there's a combination of the shooter and the tool, but the tool can either help or hurt you in that effort. It's still up to you, but it had to be a more shootable product. HK is an interesting company because we're headquartered in Germany, and then we've got this pretty large operation in Columbus, Georgia.

And we look at over in Germany, they have something we will never be able to offer here in the U.S. is they have a multi-generational workforce where I've worked here my whole life. My father worked here his whole life. My two uncles have worked here. And just in America, in our culture, we have turnover. We're just not going to have that many long-term employees. The institutional knowledge isn't as strong for us in the U.S. as it is in Germany.

So that's the thing they offer on that side of the ocean of the company that we don't offer here in the U.S. But one thing we offer here in the U.S. is when the CC9 project kicked off, we have a multifunctional team. So you have engineers and marketing people. You have design engineers. You have manufacturing engineers.

You have finance people. How are you going to pay for it? HR is in the room. How many people do we need to hire if we're going to do this? And so people from every part of the company sitting on this table and I ask the question, I go, who here has a concealed weapons license? And every single person sitting around that table had their concealed weapons license.

And most of the people around that table actually are frequent carriers. Not everybody who has a license carriers. We know that. But that's one thing they'll never be able to offer at HK Germany, right? They don't have that right in that country. So, I mean, we've got different strengths on different sides of the ocean, which makes for an interesting profile for a company.

So it really much was a passion project. we set out to make a micro compact that we didn't hate because all of us hated everything that was out at the time Yeah i mean i appreciate that backstory a little bit those are some really great points i mean just like you said talking about the strengths of hk germany uh that that i mean yeah i could totally see that being a thing that you know you have a generational workforce like you said that uh that's that's valuable to have i mean there are certain things, we've seen in my lifetime that have gone away and are probably never coming back here in the u.s because you know the the dude that had all that knowledge in his head is is gone and that's gone with him and that's honestly that's something to talk about where we started the the episode here today so.

They clearly understand the mechanics and the engineering right better than we do but we clearly understand the need much better than they do right and use right so it's a good team I think that's really cool i mean the way you put it as far as you have all these stakeholders in the room you know in the company and you're like hey who here's got a permit and you know who's carrying you know kind of thing like like that's, So you've worked for a lot of different companies over the years in the industry, and I'm going to guess you've worked at some other companies where that would have been answered differently in some company cultures.

That's one of the interesting things for me. I mean, even working at gun companies, I've always been one of the more gunny people at the companies I've worked for. I met my match when I came here. I'm just like so many times I'm just deferring to people who know way more about the guns and the ins and outs and the mechanics and the history and the historical guns.

And I mean, there are people in this company that know way more about guns than I do. That's cool. Especially our guns. Yeah. It's a unique position for me at this point in my career. You think later in your career, you'd know more and more. No, I seem to know less. Yeah. And, you know, even like you are a little bit of an enigma to some extent, just to give you some props, if you will, because I've met marketing people in this industry that are not gun people. No, there are.

There are definitely marketing people that are gun people. There's plenty of marketing people. You're just like, you, yeah, you just are a marketing person that happens to. And those of us who are gun people, we know each other in the marketing. I can name names and tell you who the gun people are at the other gun companies right yeah So uh you know i think that's pretty cool you know that uh.

Yeah i mean i i for sure live the lifestyle i carry a gun every single day i got a i got an interesting uh saying that i got from my friend rob garrett when people say are you are you carrying a gun have i got my pants on i mean Yeah, That's a great comeback. I like that because I'm much the same way. I mean, like, it's just a part of the routine. You get up in the morning and the pants go on, the gun goes on.

Yeah, so I live the lifestyle, you know, and I'm not a young guy. I'll be retiring one of these days. I'll still be a shooter. I'll still be a carrier long after I'm no longer working in the industry. It's cool. And not just the gun piece. I mean, I just, I'm really passionate about, you know, the whole training piece, less lethal training to learn, you know, avoidance, de-escalation, just that personal safety.

I had a very touching moment this morning where I had a loved one leave the house. And when she walked out, I heard her lock me in the house. And I went, yes, grasshopper, you're learning. You know, it's just like that was a proud moment for me. It's like, okay, you're, you know, protect what you love. That's right. Good, good. Before moving on from talking about the CC9, I said, you know, let's talk about, you alluded to it, but could you give us a few more specifics about the testing that has gone into the CC9?

Yeah, holy cow. Well, so we subjected the CC9 to the testing that the VP9 full-size gun was subjected to. And actually, we made it even worse. The VP9 was made for... I'll probably get this wrong, but my guess, as I recollect, is that it was a Bojan police contract. The gun was made for that. And then after the contract was fulfilled, we went public with it and, you know, hey, see if you can sell any of these in America, right?

So it was tested because it was a European gun with not a very wide ammo selection originally. You know, 124 grain NATO was kind of what they ran through the thing. So we took that that VP9 test and augmented it. Oh, we got to add 115s. We had to have a much wider window to be useful in America. 147 is 147 plus P. Um and uh and you know we had we were told um by our uh our parent company in germany okay you need to subject this much rounds of reliability you need um and and all the the dust and the sand and the mud there's six different viscosities of mud that you subject these things to and just like crazy testing um and then just an endurance test that um it was a 10,000 round endurance test.

Um, and we augmented that test. It wasn't just 10,000 rounds of one 24. It was included one 47s, which are harder on the guns, one 47 plus P's. Um, and, um, and then once we subjected the guns, the 10,000 round test, then we submitted samples to Germany that they were going to repeat the whole test on. And they got a little carried away and shot 15,000 rounds, through their samples, and these guns had to hold up to what you wouldn't expect a microcompact to hold up to.

I mean, in the use case, a lot of these guns just aren't getting shot that much by their end users. But if they are, then they're ready for that. Yeah, that's a good point. You mentioned all the different viscosities of mud that has been used in the testing. I know, and also temperature, like you froze the guns, shoot the guns, all that, right? Like, that's cool.

But one thing I remember talking with you, you know, around the time the CC9 was released, was uh you guys came up with a test that i don't think the germans would have come up with because again they're not. Thinking yeah So what was that. The lint test the lint test yes so we actually and i'll i don't hope i'm not revealing any trade secrets we took a cement mixer and just kind of put some padding on the inside of it and everybody brought in their dryer lint one morning and we the dryer lint and the cement mixer through the gun and the cement mixer.

And it was very educational, actually. What we learned is that the lint per se doesn't cause malfunctions because it can't work its way into the gun like mud can. Interestingly, on mud, that big, gloppy, heavy mud that you think of has almost no effect on the gun. The runnier it is, that water acts as a carrier to bring the grit inside the gun, and that's what causes problems.

And so you look at how the way mud can flow more if it's a runnier mud, well, lint can't flow at all. So you want to knock the lint off a gun, shoot one round through it, it all flies off. But what the lint does is create a capillary action that will dry out your gun. And it will remove all the lubricant from your gun over time.

So I think our guns run great dirty. They don't run great dry. So I lube my gun once a month because all that belly button lint and everything that gets all over that gun, it's like the lint that's touching the oil sucks it up like a wick. And then the lint that's touching it sucks, you know, and it just keeps sucking all the.

So it can't dry out your gun. So your carry gun, it's at least once a month. If you're not taking out and shooting it, then it's a good time to dust off the lens of your red dot sight and re-lube. I don't even take it apart. I just locked the slide back, put some lube on the rails, put some lube on the locking surfaces of the barrel, and you're good to go.

Yeah. if i might add just a a little tip i guess for listeners or viewers uh if you have some compressed air so like in the shop we have a compressor so i did this almost daily or every other day probably uh or if you have a little air you know compressed air can um so talking about lint because i'm very well acquainted i'm i'm a large hairy mammal so, um yeah i don't read into that too much but you know like my guns can get pretty dirty and so uh you know every couple of days i'll just blast them with compressed air blow all that crap that lint out and then top off a little bit of lube keeps it running like a top i i don't clean guns you know i love getting into conversations people online they're like what's wrong with you you heathen like you gotta clean after every range trip and.

I'm like I don't clean I just keep adding more loot and I don't have problems I can attest to that. I've got. At some point it starts getting your clothes dirty. Yeah. And then you have to clean it. I'm almost a little embarrassed to admit just because I know some judgmental people out there. I don't really care from my standpoint, but that there's been more than a handful of times where my competition guns basically got cleaned each year the night before nationals.

Well okay maybe before i left for nationals not not like i'd clean it the night before not like have. You ever gotten just a splatter of black across your shooting Glasses oh sure okay. It's time to clean this guy Yes yeah i. Guess that's a lot i don't say i don't clean them i don't clean them until i Absolutely have to yeah yeah yeah and.

Then i really i don't go after them with a solvent or whatever i just kind of wipe the crud off them and I mostly clean with lube now like not like i get heavy with it but like i'll put a little bit on a on a on a rag or a cloth or a q tip in some cases and. Yeah i mean rifle different story i think with a handgun you don't caring for the bore or whatever i mean i'm just not Yeah i'm.

Not worried about copper fouling And right, yep yeah so i'd rather. Spend that time shooting For sure that's that's the thing too i mean i'm not shooting as much as what I was a couple years ago for a variety of reasons but I you know I'm starting to ramp up a little bit this year as of right now actually but but when you're shooting multiple times a week sometimes or you're shooting even just like 2,000 rounds a month I mean to some people it sounds like a lot to some others I know in the industry that like oh 2,000 rounds whatever but like it's expensive you know four range trips like say once a week 500 rounds each time like, i know it sounds silly but i i'm yes i got time to shoot i don't got a lot of time to just constantly cleaning guns but anyway so you guys clearly you know thoroughly tested the cc9 uh i think well a question for you um if you were to throw i don't know if you know like a number or anything like that or maybe there's some some iterations where it's a little bit more gray zone if you will like not but how many iterations did you say you went through uh with cc9s just.

Curious i don't know but every time we changed something it was another 10 000 rounds i can tell you that So what i hear is you don't know so it wasn't like yeah we came up with a design uh no it wasn't revised it twice and then we tested it on the consumer no you like you you guys went through it again and again and again and again and again to get it right is what i we sure did yeah, that's what i'm hearing and i i remember you explaining that to me before about you know you changed one thing it's like okay back to the drawing board let's go test this thing 10 000 rounds got to work because as you know i mean i'm not even talking about gun industry stuff because i'm not i've not ever built a gun necessarily but i've come from you know stuff, I've worked in construction and stuff for a lot of years.

Even in the construction, you change one thing. The construction of a home, you change one thing. You're like, this is a great idea. This is a great change. And then later on, you're like, oh, crap. That changed this over here. Oh, and that changed that over there. Oh, now, the next thing you know, you're like, it's just all these.

It's a life-saving device. It's a motorcycle helmet. It's a fire extinguisher. It's, you know, you just can't assume that everything's going to be fine. So I appreciate the care, the effort, and the thoroughness that you guys have put into. And we're just talking CC9 right now, but I know that this is the level of testing and care that goes into every HK product.

For sure. Right. If we're selling it, we did bad things to it over an extended period of time. Yeah. Good, good. And it didn't get sold until it was ready. Yeah. Which, you know, in today's world, it's such a rapid-paced world of, I want that and I want that now. And even companies are like, we have this great idea. We need to sell that now.

Well, we pay the price for it because we're rarely early to market. A lot of people beat us to the punch. And other companies pay the price when they're maybe too quick to get in the market. Maybe so. Right? So, that's a tough balance sometimes. But what is apparent to me is that there's, well, as your company slogan would suggest, there's no compromise on making sure that things are right and ready before it goes to your hands, the customers.

For sure. Okay. Good. Let's talk about training. Let's. that's way more important yeah i'm gonna lose my job for saying this that's way more important than guns So here's the other thing i appreciate about you and about uh folks you work with and your company culture especially here in the u.s is i know the training is important to you guys i know that you guys got people on staff that uh you're not just you know you you know this i know we just talked a moment ago about marketing people that aren't really gun people but there's also gun people that aren't really shooters in the industry, uh, that know the ins and outs of how everything works and how it goes together and how, you know, the engineering and all that. And they kind of.

You can be a gun collector and not really be a shooter or a self-defender or however, whatever we want to call it. Right. Um, But I know you've got folks you work with, and obviously we know even more about you today, about your background shooting. I mean, going to World Shoots, no small deal, just in case folks don't realize that.

But you've got folks that they're shooters, too, and they like taking classes. Well, they're required to be. I mean, that's part of the job. Um just like in any job that you work in any company of any size you get you know people's uh their goals they set for the year and it shows up and you set goals for the year and then it's part of your performance evaluation the following year and and some of those personal development goals like i have um angela who you know um she does a lot of our graphic design and stuff like that and she's like oh i want to i want to take a refresher course in uh photoshop or whatever And that's one of her goals for the year.

But she also has a goal. She needs to take a pistol class or a rifle class or. So that type of training is also required of her beyond, you know, the account having to take the accounting test. And, you know, so not in every part of the company, but in our engineering side of things and product management and sales and marketing, um these people have all have if they don't complete their firearms training they get dinged on it at the end of the year and they don't get the raise they could get um yeah that's just the culture that's Awesome that's awesome is that is it always been that way or is that more of a recent development culturally or like was that before your time even or i mean i'm just curious because i think that's unique.

Part of the culture you know i said that i i was preceded here by a former colleague at savage and that's you know mike holly who you've met and interviewed on the podcast he's instilled i mean if you've met mike holly you've met a lot of people at hk because um he drives the culture and um and certainly this is something from his era um so you know he you know i'm passionate about that and i'm the kind of guy mike holly would hire and and nathan our sales manager is passionate about something like that or our sales director, and Nathan's the kind of guy Mike would hire, you know, and all these people in.

So I think that that culture of training has been instilled locally in the last 10 years or so. It used to be a big part of the culture back in the 80s and 90s with the International Training Division that actually we trained people as a company that we no longer do that because we were spending more money on the training division than we were earning.

We couldn't sell enough guns to support the training division. But that was for law enforcement, military only. So now working with various brand ambassadors like yourself or in the training business, the emphasis is is more heavily on the civilian side of things than it is on the military law enforcement side of things.

So it's not just, you know, the training culture isn't just requiring, you know, a culture is many points, right? So we require our employees to participate in training. And then as a big part of our marketing, we're investing in outside. I'm not just sponsoring a TV show or sponsoring somebody who's, if you weren't a competition shooter and a trainer, We wouldn't have been as interested in working with you because but because you're a trainer, that's where the attraction is. Right.

So so we work with yourselves at concealed carry dot com. We work with active self protection. We work with Adam Winches outfit Defenders USA. We work with Brian Hill at the complete combatant. Um um we want to encourage our customers to be what john korea calls safe sane sober moral gun owners and not just somebody who owns a gun and thinks it's going to ward off evil all by itself yeah yeah so yeah it's something we're all i mean you asked me oh is that you i was like i'm part of it yeah um i'm i'm passionate about the training piece of it but there's no way one guy being passionate about it would drive it in the whole company. There's a bunch of us who are passionate about it.

I love that. Again, I think that's probably... There's probably other companies that probably do that in the industry. There's probably many that don't. Right? Yeah. So I think that's. At the very least. We all get to go on free training at work. You know, you can't require me to take a class that you're not going to pay for. Right. So we all get to.

It's a perk. I love that. I signed up for two classes just this morning. I love it. Just on a personal level, I want to do it. so i get the company pays for it it's great yeah That's uh and it shows i mean in the interactions i've had with folks from your team i mean again these are people that understand the lifestyle that understand the culture and understand the firearms community understand where people are at uh as far as like you know what are what are those what are people's needs in the you know that are carrying guns to whether it's on duty to save lives or on not duty as civilians to save lives.

Well and you know sometimes we get people get nervous like oh you're gonna make me go to this event and go to this demo whatever and like that all and you know the more you shoot what's the um dunning-kruger curve depending on where you are on dunning-kruger it's like uh you know i've got a little bit of imposter syndrome it's like you know i tell the people that work for me and marketing it's like nobody needs to be blown away by your shooting ability um that's what riley bowman's here for he's part of the team that's what you know that's neil widener's job to blow people away and brian hill you know um but i do want people looking at at tommy and angela and all these people on my team and when they see them shoot go That's all we need.

Yeah. You know, just a little bit of credibility. Oh, Tommy can shoot. Look at that. You know, Tommy doesn't melt in a, in a scenario training thing or, you know, that's important to the brand. That's important to our credibility. Yep. So I remember, so I'll, I'll share with you two things. First is my memory of my first media event I ever attended in this industry, and the takeaway from that for me was sort of a, oh, wow, like, oh, there's so many people on the media side in the industry that don't know how to shoot.

It used to be pretty bad. Right? It's getting better. Yeah, it is getting better. But I remember that was like, you know, eight, nine years ago, something like that. It used to be pretty bad. yeah so i remember kind of like coming away from that first ever event and just being like oh no like this is really sad and then and i i'm sorry i'm not trying to talk down on anybody and of course i'm not going to mention any kind of names in fact i don't know that i even remember half you know or any of those people really necessarily but but then i'm going to contrast that with uh the first time it was at an act of self-protection national conference that i saw you there taking a course or one you know one of the course blocks and i was like, well look at that bill dermany he knows how to shoot and.

You probably just went you know that's all we need It might have been a little more. Than that we're not shooters we're business people right we need you Were burning it down in that class my friend so uh. Was that was that the year that i won the church shooting contest I think so i don't know that was i'm. Trying to remember what was that neil widener's thing Yeah yeah uh actually i might not have uh i don't remember on that for sure there was one year i wasn't there that uh that my business partner was but anyway so yeah i just remember like my.

Church shooting contest is not shoot up the church it's defend the church Good clarification good clarification, um but yeah i just remember like okay bill bill knows how to shoot that's cool that's cool and if. It had been anybody else on our team you would have had the same reaction yeah I believe that everybody's. Pretty good shooter Yeah you know and then i've seen you guys interact at some other events uh where you know hk's got some demo guns or something and you got some of your staff there uh guiding people through that demoing guns and i mean folks are tuned in and dialed in and And, you know, I haven't seen anything from anybody at HKUSA that was like, even like everybody's top notch.

Knowledgeable, knows what they're doing, knows how to, you know, knows how to run a gun, knows how to guide people with shooting a gun. Because sometimes you see at some of those events, people that are fresh and don't have hardly any experience. And, you know, they do, your folks do a great job. So that's one of the classes I signed up for is what I'm trying to weasel my way into because it might be full is Brian Hill's deliberate coaching class.

Fantastic. Because for me and my personal development, I'm thinking you can put on a demo and you line up these people and they can come through and shoot the gun. What if as they were shooting our guns i could say hey you mind if i show you a couple things you mind if i give you a few points and and use coaching skills to help them shoot better don't they come away with a much better impression of the brand product after that experience than if i just went oh here's the gun shoot it there's the target you know and i just make sure the muzzles are pointed in the right direction which we do but um you know i think well well yeah wouldn't that help our company's credibility a little bit better if I could offer that when I'm out doing demos?

Awesome. What would you, okay, so let's stay within this training realm just a little bit and talking about preparing for that day. Let's just suppose someone's listening to this right now and they're, you know, and I'll tell you, because I've seen the emails over the years. We've gotten many, many emails like this. riley jacob uh just found your podcast two months ago listen to every episode uh thank you so much you've been helping me get started as i you know i just bought my first gun three months ago took my concealed carry class you know eight weeks ago uh just starting to figure this out so let's say someone's just finding us just finding this podcast just finding this episode with you, what would you you've seen a lot over the years so what would be your advice to somebody like okay they've got their gun and maybe it's not an HK but that's okay we don't judge here right that is okay they have a.

Starter gun is what we like to call It yeah right it'll be an HK in the future we know that right, but they've got their gun they've taken a concealed handgun or permit class or whatever right okay so they got their permit and they're kind of that now what like i can carry what would you where would you point them what would you recommend is a kind of a good next place to look you.

Know depending on what state they're in they may have already had to get some level of training just to get a concealed weapons permit or something like that you know and in the constitutional carry state maybe not but um The level of training required to get a permit is not sufficient, so for starters. And I think you need to decide. I would rather have – rather than you upgrading from your lesser gun to an HK, I'd rather you spend your money on training or even spend your money on travel to the right training.

I'd hate to see you throw away your money with a mediocre trainer and not just save your money a little bit longer and rat hole it a little bit and hop in your car and drive a few hours or overnight to somebody who's going to really train you up right. You know, I can't afford to do that. No, you can't afford not to do that.

And I'm not trying to be a training snob or whatever. I'm sure there's plenty of people that I don't know or know of that offer great training, but really look into who the training is and look beyond. Don't just go to the guy who's teaching that you're you might be lucky. And the guy that's teaching that your local club is actually pretty put together, but maybe not.

But, you know, not everybody is able to hop on a plane and go fly somewhere. That gets very expensive. But if you got to hop in your car and drive and you got to get a hotel room. It's probably worth it if you get the right instructor. If you get the wrong instructor, it's not. But I would say the first order of business is you need to find somebody who's going to be able to coach you up on a draw to first shot from concealment.

It doesn't matter what other skills you have. You know, you see people taking these rifle classes and transitions from rifle to pistol. It's like, well, when are you out there in the streets with your rifle and your pistol? And when are you out there with your pistol with that drop leg holster? You know find somebody that can teach you draw the first shot and if that's the only skill you have um that would cover you in 90 of the scenarios i could foresee you ever needing a gun in right and and part of learning how to shoot is understanding um what you're capable of because then that drives your decision making process right if a guy's got a gun out um you know how quickly you can get your gun out and shoot me you know you can't beat that guy that's pointing a gun at you until you've tried to pull a gun out and in the simulation go oh yeah i need more time to do that you need you oh and then you learn why a surreptitious draw might be very important for you in a self-defense scenario you or or just waiting your turn until somebody's distracted and oh if the guy shows me his ear and i've got a one two five draw You don't know what your draw is so you gotta learn how to draw and in the process of learning how to draw you're gonna know what your draw is and what scenario it's gonna be useful to you um but we'll draw the first shot um before i would took some crazy five day long shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot up type of class i i'd take a i'd find somebody that could teach me how to draw the first shot i think also early on but you probably do want see there's shooting and marksmanship that happens on a square range that is your foundation but some people stay there forever yeah um and if you got the money because not everybody does this and now you're talking and travel.

If you can find somebody who really does scenario training, whether they do it with paintball or simunition or, and train your ability to make decisions under stress. I, I, I couldn't have a stronger belief in any kind of training than scenario training. And by, by scenario training, what I mean is they, they put you in scenarios where there's actors in there and there's good guys and there's bad guys and there's victims.

And, and, and they, and you know, it's, it's not like this good scenario training. There's no clear outcome, right? You might be able to talk your way out of it. You might be able to escape. You might be able to deescalate. You might have to shoot your way. It's not guaranteed. You're gonna have to shoot your way out of it.

And, and make your mistakes there, kill the wrong people, get killed, you know make bad decisions and learn from them um it's unfortunately it's expensive unfortunately it's not common so it involves travel which adds to the expense um yeah but if you can um i i can't endorse it more highly enough yeah um one Thing that we um, We've seen a really quite a growth in the firearms training community and industry.

I mean, much beyond what it used to be. Because like training opportunities like what you're talking about. I mean, I remember when I was a kid and I knew nothing then. I was like, I'd read all like the guns and ammo and handgun magazine and whatever magazines that my grandpa subscribed to and think I knew stuff. Right.

And from some of those magazines, I remember learning about places like Gunsight, you know, like, oh. Right, right. And that, you know, a few decades ago, it was sort of like if you wanted to go somewhere and get good training, you kind of had to go to like one of these training schools. There wasn't this plethora of traveling instructors that are basically bringing the training to you.

And so my point is, is there's a bunch of really amazing instructors that are teaching classes all over the U.S. And it's worth, you might have to travel as far as what you think. And then there's times that maybe, I mean, I've gone all the way across the country to take a class from somebody. And it was worth it. But there's other times too where it's like, I'm going to keep an eye on this person.

And just cause you just kind of know like, Oh, you know, I already have my, my schedule scoped out this year, but if this person's in my neck of the woods, you know, I'll go four hours North or whatever to go to do a class. Right. Yeah. I'm fortunate. I live in Columbus, Georgia, which is within striking distance of Atlanta and not too far from, um, a lot of good traders, um, in the Atlanta area or in the communities North of Atlanta, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, Um, so, but, you know, I don't get the best training in Georgia, in Columbus, Georgia, where I live.

So it is, it is a drive and an overnight stay in a hotel. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I would probably just mention that it's worth, I think if someone's pretty early on in their journey, and this is worth for anybody, but, but if you're just looking to get started, uh, learn about and find out about some good instructors and make a goal for, this year like go and take a quality class from a quality instructor this year just just do one this year budget for it save up for it do what you got to do sell some stuff if if you up to this point have been more of a collector of guns and not necessarily training with guns maybe sell a gun or two you know that's collecting dust yes you're a collector but hey they're just collecting dust and and go actually make yourself better as a shooter uh as a concealed carrier.

Uh well you need to make it a hobby right people spend money on their hobbies right it you just were telling me previously that that you and your life wife like to run and you want to you want to run in this this marathon and so you're gonna travel to that location you're gonna run a hotel you're gonna run that marathon and okay so make self-defense your hobby and and maybe you only go to one but you don't have to get 400 hours of training a year but say hey I really want to train with whoever and I am going to get in the car and drive for several hours and get a hotel and Yeah. You've already mentioned some trainers' names on the podcast, which is great.

And many of those, actually, I should say all of those are our friends here. And I think they've all probably been on the podcast at some point. Uh we're talking as you mentioned uh obviously people know uh especially they should know if they're on this podcast uh john correa neil widener stephanie widener their crew over there at active self-protection and you know those folks they they travel around they put on classes they teach classes they got a training conference coming up in like a month um the active self protection national conference i've taught there several times i i can't couldn't make it this year But that's a great conference. And that's another.

So on that, I guess, point. Let's pitch the Guardian Conference. Let's talk about conferences. HK is a sponsor of the Guardian Conference. Hey, look at that. Way to go, Bill. Look at you. A major sponsor of the conference, I might add. And we appreciate your support. You've attended some conferences and training events like that.

But kind of maybe mention some of your – what are some of the high points as you've attended conferences and things like that? Conferences are a great place to learn who you want to train with because you kind of get this poo-poo platter. So you go into Guardian or ASP or some of these others. And realistically, let's discuss what happens at these conferences.

Riley takes his two-day class, and he turns it into a three-hour class. Yeah. Riley's not going to hand me a certificate for his two-day class at the end of three hours. But the great thing is that they're usually like a Friday, Saturday, Sunday type of thing. So I'm going to take six three-hour blocks. So three hours is a lot of time to decide whether that's somebody you want to take a two-hour class from.

So maybe a good approach would be, hey, my goal for this year isn't to travel somewhere and train with somebody for a couple of days. It's to go to the Guardian conferences to go to the active self-protection national conference and take these different blocks that I'm interested in And then based on those six blocks that you that you attend you decide One of those six people you're going to train with next year And that's where your training dollars go with next year.

So whoever it was your favorite or you thought you needed most Go back and get you some more Mm-hmm yeah that's awesome appreciate you sharing your perspective on that i mean that's kind of how we see it too uh some people refer to it as a buffet of training go go shopping sample this i'm going to sample that like oh i really like that that was okay but not my style or whatever but that's like that's part of it too yeah and you'll.

See that like i've there's been some trainers that people love and they're famous and everybody loves them and and i think to myself Yeah, but I'd rather, I connect better with this other person and I think I would learn more if I trained with this other person next year. And there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's just the way it goes. Like, not everybody jives with everybody else, right? And so we certainly recognize that.

I would say that every instructor that teaches at our conference is a top-notch, top-quality, like, world-class instructor, right? But not everybody's going to like every instructor that's, you know, so that's a cool thing. It's like, I think, I promise that you're going to learn important skills and you're going to learn good information from everybody teaching.

But there's just going to be some that you like the way they teach. You like their style. You like their flow. You speak your language. Exactly. You know, and I've certainly been in classes before where, you know, I didn't jive with an instructor. And I still got a lot out of it. But I had to like maybe work a little bit harder to like, okay, instead of getting distracted by whatever thing that's not jiving or that they do that I don't care for that I don't like or whatever.

And you have to put a little more effort into to maybe learn sometimes. And there's other classes where it just seems so easy and seamless. And it just, you're like, you're speaking my language, like you just said. So those. Yeah. In that respect, Riley, I'm sure you've said it a million times on this podcast and your guests have, but I'll just float it out there and add my two cents too as well. If you take a class to somebody and they're doing things different than what you've been taught before, so what?

Do it the way the instructor is asking you to do it for the two days or three days, whatever it is, and just do it. Give it a try. And then don't pass judgment on the way home. Yeah. No, that's great advice. You know, you're exactly right. I've been in classes where they did something very different. Absolutely. uh and and it i've always just tried to take the approach of okay give everything a fair shake you know and there's been times that it pleasantly surprised me and maybe i didn't and there's been times where i didn't necessarily even like adopt something exactly as it was presented in a particular trainer's course but it kind of led me to something else or or i've or i've adopted like a variation of it's like you know that i didn't it didn't exactly work for me but i tweaked it just a little bit that helped.

Me figure something out yeah right Yeah and that's that is so much more freeing and sort of like unlock some doors than just this closed mind attitude of i don't like that i'm not going to do that so that's good you know learning. Learning in general is just such a beautiful um Living thing in that the more that you learn your ability to learn more improves in it where there's any skill the better I am at piano the more I can learn from a piano lesson from somebody who's better than me and I think so my shooting style isn't 100% like anybody any of the people that I've drawn bits and pieces from you and from Neil and from Adam and Brian and a lot of these other places and that's what I've used to kind of just cobble together what works for me because a good instructor won't tell you this is how you have to do it he might say this is what I teach and this is why and most of the people say these are the things I teach and this is why you know you could do it this way or this way but I think I think that level of learning is hard for a first time learning you talked about scenario new shooter whatever yeah you're probably just going to try to do exactly what that instructor taught you to do but like as you learn and as you develop more and as your skills improve you'll notice that you're not incorporating anybody's type of training or philosophies in in whole that you're just kind of using all of this to form your style and your performance portfolio, you know.

At least that's been the case with me. Totally. I know. I agree. You know, so here's the other thing, too. And it's good to train with a variety of instructors, too, because what that does is it expands your perspective on a lot of things. I mean, for instance, And it's really informed a lot of what and how I teach my curriculum is having been exposed to a bunch of different instructors and trainers over the years.

And what happened was, is I started to recognize things more on a principle level as opposed to like, so in other words, like there's like techniques, you know, and then there's principles that guide those techniques. And i would notice i'm like okay so and so does let's just talk about grip because grip is grips a great one because everybody's grip frankly looks different in some regard because there's different ways of doing it and there's different biomechanical stuff like people's hands are different shapes different proportions different proportion of palm to finger to i've seen people have, like bizarrely long thumbs for instance like just as an example it's like you know not to make fun of anybody but like there's like the.

Makings of a seinfeld episode you should see the thumbs on her Yes so okay so i know a guy i personally know a guy who's whose thumb is like as long as my middle finger and it's just like that looks like a finger but it's not it's a thumb like it's just so like it just seems so out of proportion of things you know and so anyway like my point is is you just take grip and so-and-so teaches it this way and so-and-so teaches it this way and so-and-so teaches it that way and and then if you want to even expand beyond that and like look at like top competitive shooters and go find some youtube videos of them and like watch their grips and then so like what i started figuring out is like these people all teach or do something a little different but yet they're really good shooters and the results tell the story so it's like what's going on here because so and so tells me that that grip's the best way you know and this person over here clearly believes that's the best way and that has really helped guide me in my curriculum development because i no longer teach the way it's just here's some principles that you that's.

Just it all those shooters probably adhere to the same general principles Exactly they. Apply them differently Yeah and i mentioned this not to like prop myself up it's just the realization that happened on my own journey and that will happen on many of your journeys talking to to the folks out there of go and take some classes and train with a bunch of different people uh because you're gonna see some things that are different but at some point hopefully you start going oh but this is it's different but it's kind of the same it's different but it's kind of the same and then you start kind of figuring out where that all gels and uh it's a beautiful thing you know next thing you know you have the riley style the bill style you know the, But, you know, Joseph is, well, sadly, the only person that's commented today because I think it's Friday morning or Friday afternoon for Bill here out there in the eastern side of the states.

But, you know, it's Joseph style, you know. So anyway. Well, that brings up another point, Riley. I think one way to screen trainers is do they train? Yeah. Do they go and train with other trainers? is they're going to learn about shooting, but they're also going to learn about training better, the training techniques. I think that's not a guarantee, but it's certainly an indicator that you've got somebody who's pretty dialed in as if they can tell you who they've trained with and who they've learned from.

What have you changed your mind on recently? That's going to be a better trainer than somebody who was in the Marine Corps back in nam and now he's teaching classes at the local gun shop um and he's been teaching the same classes since then Yep yeah no you're you're you're right about that i've i've used that criteria myself and i've given similar advice to people like how do i select an instructor and it's like one good question is when's the last time you took a class yourself and who was it with, yeah because who do you pay money.

To train with Right because it only tells you like how recently or how frequently they've done a thing but also then you can be like oh and who they trained with oh they trained with so and so and like it's sort of like uh you know it's a big deal in brazilian jiu-jitsu and other martial arts so that that that um uh oh it just had a, total loss of the word here but uh that not genealogy but you know what i mean like the um, You know what I'm going for, right?

Yeah. This guy trained under Hicks and Gracie or whatever. That lineage is like super important in many of those martial arts disciplines. I would say it's also dang near as important. I'd say it's as important in the firearm space. Defensive shooting is a martial art. 100%. Because I can, you know, that's honestly how I evaluate a lot of people.

Like, okay, who have they trained with? Oh, that person, that person, that person. and you know because of reputation or because you've trained with those same people I know what they teach. Yeah you can kind of get oh this is who they trained under okay maybe I don't know them like I was I just was given a presentation at work it was kind of a quarterly update for the rest of the company and say hey we added a couple of brand ambassadors this guy's been assisted instructing at active self-protection for all these years and this one's been assisted instructing at Defenders USA for all these years and everybody just nodded and went oh okay yep yep rubber Stamp boom you know yeah it's uh in other words if you're evaluating i'm talking i'm speaking to the audience if you're evaluating because maybe you're still thinking you're still stuck in this position of i don't know if i have the budget to travel somewhere take a class and not only that but i don't know who i should go and travel to to teach or to take a class with even though we've mentioned a few names here.

And you're looking at maybe something more on your local level. Well, here's the thing. If you're looking at an instructor and all you see on their list of certifications is a couple of national level organizations. NRA certified instructor. Right. And that's all you see. No offense. That's not lineage. That's just those are like checking boxes because like every instructor starts with like an NRA instructor certificate or something like that, right?

You gotta have that. Yeah, you gotta have that. A lot of times it's an insurance thing. Sometimes it's a state related thing. But if there's nothing beyond that, I'd probably move on to the next guy or gal. You start getting to somebody where it's like, I have this certification, I have that certification. Rangemaster, by the way, is a good one to look for as well. Okay, you start seeing some of those things and then you start seeing, oh, but I've also trained with this person, that person this person that person and or this school and they're in their reputable schools or organizations like gun sight or thunder ranch or act of self-protection i've trained with act of self-protection.

And if they don't list these things on their website, they don't have them. Because anybody who's invested that much in their training is proud of it, and they're going to list it out there. These are my certifications. I'm a range master. I've done the active self-protection cohort. They're going to list it on their website.

Yeah, absolutely. That's good stuff. I'm glad we talked about this. It's been a while since I think we've kind of hit on some of this on the podcast before. So I think that's good to come back to that and sort of remind people. But anyway, we started by talking, you know, with this little bit about talking about the conferences and Guardian Conference.

And, again, appreciate your support of that. We're looking forward to that. We're, what, like six weeks or something out from that now. And we're going to have a great crew of folks, a bunch of you are coming. We've got a bunch of great instructors. Let me just list off a few. And, in fact, some HK ambassadors. I mean, you mentioned one.

Brian Hill is going to be there. Brian Hill is the complete combatant. He'll be there teaching. Adam Winch of Defenders USA will be there teaching. This is his first year. I think Brian's second or third year. And there's Kerry Dudenhofer, who's affiliated with the Act of Self-Protection crew. Self-Protection, there you go. So there's a pattern that's playing out here.

Right, right. Others that maybe aren't necessarily affiliated with HK, but are wonderful, awesome instructors. We've got Chuck Haggard, Mickey Shook, Wayne Dobbs, AJ Zito. And I don't just train with the HK people. I've trained with Chuck. Awesome. Of course you have, as long as you've been around. I took a pistol class with Chuck that he did for a new product event that we did once.

And Warrior Poet Society is here in Georgia? Yeah, John Lovell. John Lovell's outfit. It wasn't John Lovell that taught the class. It was... Paul, Paul, they call him the Battle Gnome. Took a rifle class. Oh, yeah. Really, really good class. They're not HK brand people or whatever. They work with other brands or whatever. But I just paid my money and went in undercover and took a rifle class.

Yeah. And, yeah, I would say go take a class from them. Great guys. Awesome. We got Tyler Tharp, Paul Sharp, Dan Brady, Zach Cox. Dan and Zach are from Apache Solutions. They're a great training outfit out of North Carolina. Yeah, you're the second person who's mentioned them to me today. There you go. Yeah. They're good dudes. They're a good crew, and they're a good training organization.

I've had the opportunity of teaching at their range. They hosted me there last October. I got to know some of their crew a little bit better. It's just the thing. You start to see more and more of, you know, these sort of almost like family-like relationships. Herds of a feather. Yep. They flock together for sure. Well, Bill, I've kept you for longer than an hour. I told you it'd be about an hour. We've covered a lot of ground.

Turns out I had more than 12 minutes in me, didn't it? I feel like there's still quite a bit more, but we can save that for another time perhaps. What would you, as we kind of wrap it up here, if we were to summarize things or if there's something that you wanted to touch on that we just didn't quite hit as much as you would have liked or final words of advice, whatever it is, how would you want to leave folks here listening or watching today?

I'd say maybe just spend some time really thinking about the things that we just say in a very cavalier manner. Right you know we talk about you know why do I own a gun because I want to protect my life or I want to protect my home I want to protect my family I want to protect the people I love and stuff like that so well if that's the case I Don't use cheap equipment. Don't use crappy ammo.

Spend money on training and practice. Training and practice are two different things, and you need both. We could all spend a little bit more time. There's not a single person. I don't shoot as much as I would like to. I don't train and practice as much. We could all step up our game a little bit. Um so i would say if if you really believe what you say then i could i might have to use this protect my life i might have to use this protect my family it's like well internalize that what does that what does that mean in your action and it's just like um get the right gear get the right training get trained up Yeah um yep very good i think that's a fine summary and, final words of suggestion and advice for for everybody uh so and that's what we came here to discuss uh talk about quality gear and equipment talk about good training talk about preparing ourselves for that day the preparation happens ahead of time by the way just a reminder like.

It doesn't when the moment of truth arrives the time for preparation is Over yeah you know, as uh i remember being taught as a young lad if you fail to plan you plan to fail, so the time is now and i hope that something that we've said here today will inspire somebody some of you out there to go and do something do something a day to make your life better tomorrow, so bill thank you for your time today it's been marvelous thank.

You thanks for having me i loved Yeah, and we appreciate all that you guys are doing there at HK and for your support of the podcast as well. I should mention that specifically. And, of course, the conference. In case folks, by the way, it's not too late to sign up for the conference, just so people know. The Guardian Conference is September, I think it's the 19th to the 21st in Oklahoma City.

We picked that location because it's pretty centrally located. If we specifically wanted, if we chose like, I don't know, I don't know why we would choose Las Vegas, Nevada, but if we had chose Las Vegas, you know, you'd have people in New York that are like, no way I'm driving to Las Vegas. We chose Oklahoma because...

We knew there'd be some people that drive in and want to make it easy to travel there from a convenience standpoint or cost, whatever it is. We have a great block of hotels there that are reasonably priced with really good room rates that we've negotiated. And you can camp on site. You can set up a tent. There's showers there on site if you're worried about cleaning yourself off each day with all the range dust.

So showers, camp, RV, come stay in one of the hotels. Fly in. You moved all the excuses. Yeah and it's an awesome range it's a cool range like an old cowboy town because they do like the the world cowboy action shooting championship there like every third year or whatever so it's pretty cool place so come on out folks guardianconference.com, you'll see a bunch of hk pistols there we'll have a bunch of loners there we'll have loner holsters we'll have loner gear uh so in all honesty if you were like i don't want to i want to fly in but i don't want to have to pack a bag or i don't want to check a gun you could come with a carry-on, and we'll hook you up with the gear okay you can buy ammo and have it shipped to us I can't say for sure how much there'll probably be some ammo on site you can buy if you needed to but, yeah just come and HK like I said will be a part of that and we're excited about that so thanks for your support Bill thanks for all you do keep making awesome guns, I'm sure you've got some cool stuff in the pipeline So look forward to seeing what comes out later this year, next year, and the year beyond.

So, well, until next time, a reminder to train right, train often, and train safe so you can fight hard, fight fast, and fight true. Take care. A reminder that laws vary from place to place and we encourage listeners to seek local legal advice to understand applicable laws concealed carry inc its brands and properties and the concealed carry podcast is not a legal service nor are we attorneys at law we make our best faith effort to share concealed carry related insights and information about firearm related incidents and the laws pertaining based on our own understanding and experience but things can be different where you live or laws may have changed by the time you listen to this.

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