Interview With Battlbox's Currin1776

[00:00:00] All right, welcome back to the Survival and Basic Badass Podcast. Brandon and Chuck today. I'm lost here. Brandon from Battlbox and we're talking about land navigation. See what's going on. So I don't know, give us a little bit of your background, I guess. Let's kind

[00:00:31] of start there for a minute. Oh, background, huge background. I mean, I was the only child so I had to entertain myself and I did that by going out in the woods back in the day

[00:00:45] when it was safe to do so. And there was more woods to be had now in some neighborhoods and fricking buildings in most places. But yeah, man, I just, um, I'm just an outdoorsman. Always, always was hunting, fishing and camping and goofing off in the woods to entertain

[00:01:03] myself because I didn't have brothers or sisters to beat up on, you know? So, um, and I just fell in love with it, I guess is kind of my happy space, you know what I mean? Or my place

[00:01:14] to kind of get away from reality. And, uh, I'm just still do that. And, um, I don't know it formed into me eventually as an adult being the face of a subscription box company, which

[00:01:26] is crazy, but yeah, that worked out. So, but hey, doing what you love, right? I mean, it's all about outdoor stuff and so that's, yeah, no, that's not a bad way to be. Yeah. Always

[00:01:38] been a gear junkie and stuff like that too. So, man, I love knives and all, you know, just seeing what I can learn how to use to, um, enhance my abilities. Like I never refer to myself

[00:01:52] as a expert or anything like that. I feel like we're always learning, right? So I think that's right. I mean, that, that's one of the things is I find that, you know, like I've been doing this since I think 2016 talking about nothing but like prepping and

[00:02:10] survival. And it's like, you know, gee, I guess I am an expert, you know, like you, cause you research the heck out of stuff and you, you know, obviously takes practical application to a lot of things, you know, obviously these knowledge shouldn't just come from books or whatever.

[00:02:26] Um, but, uh, yeah, you just, the more you get into it and it's like, well, I know a whole lot more about this subject than 99% of the people out there. And you realize that, you know, cause

[00:02:38] it's what you do, you know? And then that's the thing. Yeah. And I've done a, I'm kind of, um, information junkie in a ways, like I got real bad ADHD. So like if something catches my attention,

[00:02:51] I'm not happy until I just beat that dead horse to death to learn or figure out as much as, and that could be with anything. I mean, um, I was, I was a mechanic, a chiller mechanic. Um,

[00:03:04] I've always been a person that was interesting and interested in how to fix things and stuff like that. So I'm very well rounded as an individual when it comes to, I mean, this shop

[00:03:15] that I'm in now built, you know, myself and it's all from at some point in my life, I wanted to build something and I dove head first into trying to learn how to do it. Right. Yeah. You know,

[00:03:29] so that goes with survival, prepping, camping, hunting, firearms, uh, long range shooting, close quarters, combat navigation, fishing, fixing a vehicle, building a house. I'm that guy. Like I know enough about a lot of stuff to be considered it by a lot of people

[00:03:52] as an expert and stuff, whether I say I am or not. Yes, fair enough. Fair enough, right? No, I think that's what it comes down to. Um, so land navigation kind of jump into it. The, uh,

[00:04:05] like my knowledge, you know, I grew up, uh, is in the military, but, uh, I'm the Navy. So we don't, no, no land navigation there. Um, I've got a guided missile cruiser, so I don't know about

[00:04:16] that, but, uh, yeah, I did the boy scout thing growing up and, and, uh, you know, you got your compass. I can orient a map and understand the topography of a map and that kind of thing. But,

[00:04:31] I don't know. I mean, I know which side the sun's on. I know about looking at Moss, but I don't know. Like, like what are the aspects of land navigation? Like, what would you even, uh,

[00:04:43] what, what are we talking about? I guess. I mean, you know, is it, is it working a compass and a map or well, I mean, honestly, man, a lot of stuff in it and this is true with literally everything

[00:04:56] in life comes down to the basics. You've got to have the basics down. Um, I think a lot of times, uh, we try to, um, over complicate things. Right. Um, and a lot of people do not understand

[00:05:15] the basics of a compass, just the basics. I don't care if you could figure out inclination and freaking how to use this thing with a map. If you can't walk a straight line,

[00:05:28] you're screwed. I mean, it, you know, uh, the basics of walking a straight line, um, the basics of understanding your declination, depending on where you are in the world to get true north

[00:05:41] versus magnetic north, um, understanding parallel. Like if me and you were in the same block of woods and we said, okay, we need to go 170 degrees, which is dead West, right? Well, if you're 300 yards that way, your West is parallel to my West. We're never going to meet

[00:06:01] each other to get the, well, I guess we're never going to hit each other because we're not going north or south. We're just going to constantly go around the earth on our parallel axis of each

[00:06:11] other's West. Um, so the basics get overlooked and people get scared of using this stuff. Like they see all these numbers, they see all this stuff on here at the end of the day,

[00:06:27] it's a basic compass to freaking needle points to magnetic north. And you just need to understand that, you know, it's a director. It's not a, um, a pinpointer necessarily. Now it can be in

[00:06:43] the advanced side of things, right? Like, but a lot of people will never use the advanced stuff. Right. And that's it. I mean, yeah. And it confuses me when you get into the real hard, heavy advanced stuff. So like, screw it.

[00:07:02] I just want to be able to like, when you're already lost, this may not help you at all. If you don't understand the hard course. That's it. If you don't know that town is north of,

[00:07:11] you know, whatever, you can see a mountain peak that you know where it is and town is worth of that or whatever. Or if I follow the Creek, it goes north and town is north, you know, whatever might help you. But if you don't have a landmark,

[00:07:26] you don't have the landmark or you didn't use this right at the beginning of getting out of your vehicle, you're, it's not probably, probably not going to help you. So, um, and that's another

[00:07:36] thing. Like people don't like when I first started learning how to do a compass, I was like, like when I first started learning how to do a compass, I'm going to age myself a little bit. But

[00:07:47] when I, when I first started hunting by myself without my dad or on a known property, um, you know, I, I didn't, we didn't have cell phones like this now. Like we didn't have Google maps.

[00:08:00] We didn't have any of this stuff. Right. Um, it was still, you know, bag phone. And I think the, the flip phone was just about to come out. So when we would go hunting in unfamiliar places,

[00:08:15] we, we had what we called a safety waypoint, which would be like, if we're parking on a road, we know this road is going east and west, east to west. So as long as I can come back to that road,

[00:08:30] I'm at least at the road, I can go one way or another end up finding my truck. Right. So we'd get out of our truck and we go, okay, we want to hunt this way. Well, what is that way?

[00:08:40] So we'd put our back to the truck. We know this road's going east to west. So I know that if I go, you know, south or north, depending on which way I was looking, if I go the opposite direction,

[00:08:51] I'm going to hit that road somewhere no matter what, right. No matter what. Um, so I'd be like, I'm going this way. So, okay. I'll put red in the shed. I know that's my north. I'm going,

[00:09:03] I want to go, you know, south. I go south when I've come back. I know I need to come opposite and hit the road because I might veer. I might shoot a deer and have to track it. You know,

[00:09:14] I might be, you know, 300 yards off my bearing, but I know if I go this way, I'm going to hit the road. Right. And they always run in the thick of everything, you know,

[00:09:26] you know, they don't, they start out on the trail and then they're gone. You know, you're like, oh man, yeah. So my first tip would be don't be scared of a compass,

[00:09:37] right. And don't be too proud not to use it. That's another thing. Some people are like, Oh, I'm good with direction. I am too. Like I did a lot of hunting. Like we used to go

[00:09:51] raccoon hunting a lot in the dark and we always somehow got back to our vehicles because we just naturally understood and we kind of aware of our surroundings or whatever, but we're somewhere that we somewhat knew we, you know. Um, so by being able to do that,

[00:10:08] pride can get in the way sometimes you'd be like, I don't need, I don't need to use a compass. Then you sure enough end up getting lost and then you're right. You're in a bad spot. Um,

[00:10:17] but the basics are the basics, man. Understanding how to set your declination. So like mine, so like mine, I think it's negative seven West in Georgia. So I make sure that I've set my

[00:10:30] declination and negative seven West. So when I put my shed, my, my needle in my shed, I know that's true, true North versus magnetic North and negative seven degrees. Doesn't sound like a whole lot, right? When you go to 10 miles, five miles even. Yeah. It makes a difference.

[00:10:51] It makes a difference. So when you get your compass, typically the declination is set at dead zero of magnetic North. So you need to adjust that. That's one thing people don't do. Um, especially if you're using a map because the map's going to show true North, right? So

[00:11:11] I think that's, that's one of the other things is you had already touched on, you know, about kind of, all right, well we know which way the road goes or whatever, but I think it's so

[00:11:21] important before you go into the woods. Like you said, is the key that to look around and what landmarks are there, you know? Oh, there's a really tall building that I can see from, you

[00:11:31] know, far out or, and then at least if nothing else yet, maybe you're in the woods surrounded by trees, but if I can get to a high point, you know, at least you have something to go off of,

[00:11:41] you know, that I can see outside of, um, or look for mountain peaks or know that there's a stream or a river that goes, you know, like you said, especially, you know, if you have multiple

[00:11:52] landmarks, you know, that you can kind of go off of just taking two minutes to kind of be aware of. I know, like I grew up in New York and, you know, we're in the Catskill mountains and,

[00:12:03] you know, you could look at the peaks and there are some very recognizable things. And if you orient yourself before you go into the woods, it can make a big difference on you getting out. Yeah. Especially in places like that, like mountainous terrains and stuff like that,

[00:12:20] because as at the more dense it is, the more difficult it is to walk a straight line, the more difficult it is to navigate because you've got, and your compass doesn't know that there's a fricking cliff over there. Right? So you're be bopping around. You're like, yeah,

[00:12:36] okay, I'm walking a straight line going in and boom, you're at a daggum cliff with a 500 foot drop off. You got to hike back or yeah, you got to go around it or now, now what do you do? Right?

[00:12:49] It's a, but yeah, like you say, like you see a mountain that's got, you know, a mountain top or a hilltop that's got three radio towers on it. And when you shot your

[00:12:57] azimuth or whatever, you know, okay, well that's on my right. So if I keep that on my left coming back, I'm going to be in the vicinity. Right? It may not take me exactly where I'm going, but

[00:13:09] I know I did a training course a long time ago and they talked about how if people just naturally walk through the woods, like they're always turning and you're never really walking a true

[00:13:21] straight line unless you have a fixed point. Right. You got to think about your, like if you were looking at a map and you stuck a pin, a thumb tack or whatever they call them, a pin down

[00:13:34] into the map, right? It's 360 degrees around that thing. Well, if you put a pinpoint over here, it's 360 degrees around that. Right? So if you're going 270 and 270 years, it's parallel to each other. So trees, all these landmarks are just pins on the map. Right? So when you shoot,

[00:13:57] walk in a straight line, you wouldn't believe how one main reason most people get lost in the woods is they can't walk a straight line and they find themselves walking in circles. Because that's what we naturally do. Some people, some people naturally,

[00:14:13] like one leg can be stronger than the other and no joke, like just the way your head tilts, different people, you will naturally drift in one direction or another when you're walking in the woods in a straight line. So some people that naturally drift to the left,

[00:14:30] they'll find themselves, they'll be doing left hand circles in the woods. People that drift right will do right hand circles in the woods. And you learn that by tracking yourself, counting your steps, you know, doing the training part of kind of navigation or traversing, you know,

[00:14:48] woods and stuff like that and figuring all that stuff out. And I didn't realize that until one time I was I did find myself walking, I tend to lean to the right when I'm wandering. And I always

[00:15:01] for whatever reason, like I tend to go to my right. So but walking a straight line is, is something that I think everybody should practice in a controlled environment and go to a park. You can

[00:15:14] go to wherever, right? And the problem is a lot of people they'll shoot something and be like, okay, well there's that tree over there. That tree may be if you could see that far, let's say it's a

[00:15:26] thousand yards away, and you have to cross stuff to get there. Well, that trees now, it's a fixed point, but it's moving to you, right? Depending on where you're going. So you need to learn how

[00:15:41] to shoot short distances. I'm going to get to that tree. And then when I get to that tree, I'm going to put that back the tree to my back and I'm going to shoot again. I'm going to shoot another tree.

[00:15:50] Right. And some people are like, man, that's aggravating every hundred yards. I'm shooting a, well, if you want to walk a straight line, you need to constantly be shooting your direction

[00:16:01] else you're going to get off of it. Because it's all about the pin and the map. You need to have your back to your truck. You need to have your back to the tree that you first shot to continue

[00:16:12] that straight line. If not, you're going to bounce off. You're going to be going parallel to what you think is a straight line. I don't know. My goal is always aim for a big target,

[00:16:24] right? Then like I said, if I'm trying to hit a highway, probably going to get there. If I'm trying to hit a house that's in the middle of the woods, every degree matters.

[00:16:37] Every degree matters. Yeah. But it's a fun thing to do. You can set up little games or whatever for you and your friends. You can go out into a controlled environment. When I mean controlled

[00:16:49] environment, a place you know, a place that you can't get lost in. And you can put markers on trees. Like go out there beforehand and be like, okay when I get to this tree I'm going to put a

[00:17:01] marker on it and write like a degree heading. So when the person gets that tree they have to shoot that degree to get to the next tree that has the other heading. So it's kind of like a

[00:17:12] scavenger hunt if you will. And then go out there with your buddies and use your compasses and try to find all the trees you know that were marked. Then you kind of, you know, it starts making sense

[00:17:23] but the main purpose of a compass is to get to a point and then get back to a point. And it's awful easy. It's just people get freaked out by all these freaking numbers and crap that

[00:17:37] you know I never use. I just use the bezel and the red arrow and the shed and that thing. But it's, and people don't get me wrong. These are great. Right. Right. But these fail. Yep. The batteries go dead. I mean that. Break you know.

[00:18:04] Yeah I feel like now you get lost in the woods and it's like oh how do I get to where I have phone service? You know that seems to be the goal of you know everybody is. Oh I just need to find. And

[00:18:15] it's not even necessarily that I can call or text somebody but then I can look at my map or I can look at my you know. Nobody even like has any concept anymore. You know you see people

[00:18:26] you know they used to have all those videos of people like walking into things on the street. Oh man. Because they're caught up and unaware of what's going on around them and

[00:18:34] they're staring at their phone or whatever. You know it's nice if you take a look at things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah being aware of your surroundings is a big deal. Um I'm constantly scanning and looking. I mean I don't know I just naturally do it like

[00:18:48] I'm the guy that never sits in a restaurant with his back to the door you know. I'm that guy you know. I'm always observing taking in information you know. And it's not a tactic of being like freaked out or scared or nothing like that. It's just

[00:19:06] I don't know it's how I'm wired. It's like. Become second nature yeah. Yeah. Nah it sounds right. The uh yeah I don't know I spend half my time in the woods staring at the ground looking for poison ivy going on. Oh god poison ivy sucks dude.

[00:19:23] I'm highly allergic to that stuff dude. God. It's brutal. I just uh I just uh agreed. I I'm always looking for the how to get out of working for the man all the time and uh it's funny I've been doing this podcast a long time

[00:19:38] and actually now we're starting to have some success with it and good things. But anyway um another thing so I have like a tractor and tillers and whatever and and so I'm always like well how

[00:19:51] do I get out of my job and like sit on my tractor all day? I'd be a lot happier you know that's the goal. And uh I I so I I took a job for one of my neighbor guys and he's like oh I have this trail

[00:20:03] through the back of my woods and I want it to kind of be a car you know drivable or whatever and I was like oh yeah no problem. And I didn't pay that much attention when he took me for a

[00:20:13] walk through and then I I went over and started doing the work and I'm like man this thing is poison ivy everywhere you know there's the big hairy vines on the trees hanging down everywhere

[00:20:23] and I'm like come on dude. And uh I got in there and I gotta say I got through pretty unscathed you know just a couple of patches and a couple of fingers you know took the hit. But it's it's

[00:20:34] always something I'm aware of when I'm out there. I don't know I got a buddy of mine who's hounding me he's like yeah you gotta start drinking goat's milk it'll uh help offset it you know

[00:20:44] because they're eating it all the time and whatever. I I don't know if he might be crazy so you know who knows. Dude that stuff put me in the hospital uh one time when I was a kid. I think

[00:20:54] that was the first time we really realized how allergic I was to that stuff. My granddaddy was burning brush um big old brush pile and uh I had a little dirt bike. I don't know man I was

[00:21:09] second third grade something like that. I had this little Honda 50 we called it the Honda Fat Cat had these fat tires on it little motorcycle and the wind was blowing so there was like smoke coming

[00:21:22] across this small field. So I was riding my dirt bike through that smoke like evil knievel you know driving through the smoke or whatever. Well that night I got where I couldn't breathe.

[00:21:32] My throat was closing up took me to the hospital and it was the poison um all in the smoke and everything that I was breathing when I was running through it and dude the next morning when I woke

[00:21:45] up my entire body was a breakout like yeah I looked like a giant pimple. It was so bad dude. Quite a bit of my I never had it with the inhaled from the smoke and I've

[00:21:59] heard other people you know tell that story you know same type of thing happening to them but uh yeah no I used to have like the eyes closed shut you know your face all whatever and the welts you

[00:22:10] know up and down your arms like yeah. Yeah I get this like bad like cystic like some people just get a few little spots like mine looks like a bag of mountain terrain has grown in my arm or something

[00:22:21] grown in my arm or my leg or something. It's freaking brutal man it's brutal I hate that stuff all of it ivy sumac and oak all of it tears me up. That's it I don't know which one I got you

[00:22:32] know necessarily. What I know is it don't like me and I don't like it. That's it no it's fair I don't know now like so if you're stuck without a compass there are other options just knowing your landmarks like what would you do? Yeah I mean

[00:22:49] there's different things like um a lot of times the trees like where I live anyway like more tree limbs grow on the southern side of a tree than not because where the how the sun kind of goes

[00:23:03] more in the southern hemisphere um and um just little things like that one thing you can do is just understand that no matter where you are in the world the first shadows point west

[00:23:16] you know so if you end up having to hunker down for the night you know be sure you're up in the morning where you can get an idea of looking at the sun you know you're kind of stuck it's like

[00:23:28] yeah it's gonna get especially like in a desert situation yeah like trust me I have zero experience of survival in the desert I've never been in an area like that but let's just say you're in a

[00:23:41] say you're in a desert situation where it's huge and vast you know it's just an ocean of nothing right um if you can put a stick in the ground first thing in the morning that shadow is going

[00:23:53] to be pointing west and then you can start putting together the puzzle right the last shadow is going to be pointing east um so boom you got your east west and then you can hopefully

[00:24:04] navigate from there so just little things like that you can do um you can make a compass using a needle um you know um on a leaf in a little pocket of water in a mud hole or something like that

[00:24:18] that'll point to magnetic north um but at the end of the day you got to know what way you need to go if you don't know how it is north or whatever yeah it's not gonna help there are ways yes there's

[00:24:33] plenty of different ways fair enough just think of a big map right um eventually you'll hit the atlantic ocean or the pacific you know if you make it you're gonna you're gonna hit something

[00:24:45] eventually you know maybe halfway you hit the mississippi you know i don't know yeah but yeah you know eventually you just got to keep going and north and south you got a long way to go you

[00:24:56] know you got to keep going and you got to you got to know how to walk a straight line so that you keep going in the direction you think you're going fair that would be key is figuring out

[00:25:07] how to walk a straight line so you don't veer off and then you end up just doing this you know nice now were you in the military or no no i was not um i wanted to be um also in addition to me

[00:25:24] being the only child i'm until i had my children i was the last male in my family everybody else in our family had girls so i was very um now my my uncles and stuff like that were in the military

[00:25:39] they actually i was i wanted to be a of course they're going to let you be what they want you to be but i wanted i wanted to pursue um scout sniper in the marine corps i've always been

[00:25:52] um i've always been a ballistic guy i've always been a long-range shooter i've always that's kind of my my drug of choice like i love just trying to hit something way the heck out there and

[00:26:03] figuring it out and i started doing that at an early age so that was kind of my want to do you know so um i was working on enlisting into into uh the marine corps and my uncles and my dad um

[00:26:17] invited me out to dinner one night and basically were like you're not doing this i'm like why huh they're like if something were to happen to you the current name on our blood on our tree is

[00:26:32] done you have to get get through life and have some boys boys first yeah so i that's what i did man i took their advice and it worked out got i got two boys now yeah it's funny my uh my

[00:26:48] grandfather was a marine and uh he uh he was like he would call up recruiters like all through like junior high and and high school and i'd be getting phone calls oh i heard you want to enlist

[00:27:02] in here and i'm like no who are you what these guys are just calling and harassing me all the time like nope but yeah no he said you're in i'm like uh yeah i used to get that call a lot i don't

[00:27:15] know yeah but uh yeah i wanted to i had a it was a group of buddies that i rolled with in high school when that was kind of our pact when we graduated we all were going to do it and i was the one that

[00:27:26] didn't um and three of them are no longer with us out of that group so yeah that's maybe it was a blessing yeah you're exactly yeah sad um so guns so long range shooting what uh oh man what what's

[00:27:43] your uh kind of choice here what's your go-to setup when you go to the range say you go to you know a thousand yard or 500 yard or whatever i don't know long range i don't know i've finally

[00:27:54] graduated into the very pricey side of my long range rifles so i um i now have i have one rifle that i have converted i changed the barrel on it and everything but but i've got two

[00:28:13] rifles that are jared they're full-blown jared custom rifles out of south carolina um and they're ridiculous man oh my god uh they're expensive yeah um but oh my god so

[00:28:28] i've got a um i've got a competition and i i used to do and i recently have worked on getting back into doing competition shooting so i've got a competition rifle that's a 6.5 creedmoor that's

[00:28:41] a jared rifle it's in a in a uh a masterpiece arms chassis um it's a 23 pound rifle like it doesn't move when you pull the trigger on it um and i've shot out to 1700 yards with it um i've got a uh

[00:29:03] a 300 jared which is their um own proprietary round so it's like a imagine a 300 wind mag on steroids so it's it's uh it's an eight millimeter case with a 40 degree shoulder neck down to 308 so um it shoots 185 i'm shooting 185 grain um burger hybrid target bullet at 3200 to 3300 feet

[00:29:34] per second that it's nasty yeah it is nasty and it's a it's a um it's uh my grouping so on that gun i've shot a it consistently shoots about a two tenths of an inch moa two tenths of an moa

[00:29:55] um my creedmoor uh my best group of that is nine hundred tenths of an inch group like literally one hole like you can't hardly measure it right right it's it's if i do my part it's

[00:30:10] gonna be what it's supposed to do it yeah it's it's freaking nuts and a lot of people don't believe it i've got tar i have i keep targets over here that i've shot to show people because

[00:30:20] they're like there ain't no i'm telling you like it's a tenth of an inch or less moa rifle if i do my part yeah yeah so um but yeah man i love it i freaking love this stuff i did the

[00:30:36] me and a buddy of mine did the mammoth sniper challenge earlier this year which kicked our freaking butt um that was brutal um i'm still trying to decide if i'm going to try it again

[00:30:47] next year right um and we do some prs matches and we do some uh we do a match every year up in north carolina called the groundhog match it's pretty fun it's it's a max 500 yard but you have to shoot

[00:31:00] this little groundhog target um and uh you know just stuff like that man i love we can go down a huge rabbit hole when it comes to talking about ballistics and long range what about optics

[00:31:14] where do you lean there dude this is kind of a funny story so you know everybody wants to shoot the night forces and the swarovski's and freaking you know all these high dollar things and what's

[00:31:26] funny is is i've got three extremely expensive rifles and a lot of people say you should spend as much on your scope as you do on your rifle or more right yeah and i used to i used to be in that camp

[00:31:42] um and understand i've been doing this for a long time i've been doing this where like getting the first focal plane scope was like super expensive even if the scope was crap even if the glass was

[00:31:55] crap getting a scope that was first focal plane you had to you had to pay a premium for it right um getting a scope that was in mils instead of moa you had to pay a premium for it well now you can

[00:32:07] get first focal plane you know adjustable turrets all the bells and whistles for not a whole lot of money now there's still crappy scopes out there that have all the features and there's still very good expensive scopes that have all the features but this company came out

[00:32:24] in last couple years called arkin um so i had like miopta scopes i had uh had uh you know some vortex scopes and stuff like that i never had the money to buy like the high-end swarovskis or

[00:32:39] or night forces but i mean miopta makes a really really good scope at a decent price comparable in comparison um vortex makes really nice scopes but they're still kind of pricey

[00:32:54] you know so i saw this arkin company and they were selling a first focal plane mill dot adjustable turret um uh 56 millimeter objective freaking first focal point like all the bells and whistles great

[00:33:10] great uh um crosshairs or my brain ain't working right now until it call it the proper term anyway had all the features all the specs look great japanese glass which is really good glass you

[00:33:25] know all this stuff and the thing was like 430 dollars and i was like that ain't no freaking yeah so i ordered one yeah dude that scope is freaking amazing so i've got a roughly

[00:33:42] 12 000 rifle with a 400 freaking scope on it and it works great it's amazing so it's a uh it's a 5 by 25 by 56 with a 34 millimeter tube on it um vpr reticle zero stop turrets i mean and it's under 500 freaking dollars dude and it's amazing so i've sold my mioptas

[00:34:11] i've sold all my other stuff and i've got that scope on all my rifles so i'm shooting the same scope on all my rifles and i've i made money by selling my other stuff right i mean it's ridiculous

[00:34:24] so um so yeah it's funny like people kind of pick on me you know i'll go to a competition with this super expensive rifle and i'm like got a 400 scope on it hey i'm hitting the targets man

[00:34:36] and it works you know that's i always you know you never know and i gotta say you can't try anything i mean yeah it's so hard to find you know somebody who's got anything you know you might have one guy

[00:34:49] at the range who's got a fancy something or another and you know but you don't have access to that stuff we did uh we promote a lot of stuff with uh palmetto state armory and so they do that

[00:35:02] the gathering they do in uh right in in south carolina there and so i went down they had us down there this year and uh we went down and to get to go to all the different you know glass

[00:35:15] companies kind of thing and see all the different scopes and try them a lot of that was like first time for me i'm like oh yeah you know and i mean i've shot a lot in the military and i've shot a lot

[00:35:26] at gun ranges and stuff but you know everybody's got loophole they're pulled or vortex and you know and yeah i had i think i have some eotech which i gotta say i'm not really impressed with to be

[00:35:39] honest right i mean but again i'm i'm more 100 yard guy you know that that's where i want to be i want to be fast i want to be you know get on target like right away and that's my goal is just

[00:35:51] getting better and better with that and you know i do reasonable with some distance but i've never shot beyond 300 yards you know and so yeah not not distance in a distance shooter world um a buddy of

[00:36:04] mine is uh is all about you know a thousand yard and we have a local range here that has a thousand yard range but it's and he's there all the time but it's they're spending so much money and that

[00:36:15] always scared me you have me intrigued with the 400 scope though or 500 scope where yeah it's it's great i mean and that came with rings and that came with rings and bases and the scope caps

[00:36:27] and i mean that came with the the um my mind ain't working the um piece you screw on on the front so you the sun doesn't get into your eyes bad the shade um it came with everything like it was a

[00:36:44] full package um came with the uh bubble level to go i mean it came with all the crap for 500 bucks um and i was skeptical maybe i need to throw some money at a ruger precision and uh there's a yeah

[00:37:00] there's a company uh oh man i can't it eludes me at the moment but that does the uh the barrels for the uh integrated suppress it's like integrated weapons systems i think yeah and they do the

[00:37:12] rigor precision they'll you know throw the the suppressor in the barrel kind of thing like right whatever yeah um maybe i need to be you know maybe i need to get that other companies making a good

[00:37:24] rifle now that i've seen um dang it slipped my mind it's not a rigor it's uh well i was thinking budget i wasn't mentioning previous this is a budget this is a budget when it's um bergara

[00:37:39] uh bergara is putting out some pretty good rifles nice um out of the box um but yeah man i mean it's all about i mean the way i look at it if you want to get into shooting no matter what your budget is

[00:37:53] get something that's based off of the remington 700 footprint as far as the action and then you can i mean you can you can mod that thing out like change the barrel change the triggers change

[00:38:06] because i mean that's what that's what makes a good rifle is is good harmonics and a good barrel and a good trigger um and then uh you know you can play with all sorts of different things different

[00:38:18] stocks and things from there where are you at on uh triggers where do you go to i like trigger tech so i shoot a trigger tech diamond and trigger tech specials again i come up short i've never

[00:38:31] used them we did a uh trigger episode and and i reached out to a ton of companies and they were great and uh but uh timney i think won out on what we used i've used a good trigger i used a lot of

[00:38:45] uh guys lee or is that how you say guys exactly right everyone's like i don't know jazelle guys i don't know whatever but uh i've used a lot of them and i'm not impressed i'm not the fan like

[00:38:59] they they sell them as but i'm also not in love with the whole two two stage trigger thing like the way it is so i'm kind of dependent on platform by trigger so like i've got a six mil a six five

[00:39:16] grendel that i built when i first got into competitions and it's a ar 15 platform so it's a and a six five grendel is a eight is a 762 by 39 case or an ak-47 case neck down to 6.5 millimeters

[00:39:33] for the bullet so it's a short action so you can run it you know in the ar platform and uh that was my first like and the reason i built that was i was going to a competition that you

[00:39:45] can shoot whatever but majority of guys shot like bench rest rifles and i was like i'm wanting to build a gas gun and go compete against bench rest guys just to say i did it you know right so

[00:39:57] me and a buddy he built a six millimeter i built a six five and um we went to the competition and we did really well we didn't win but we didn't i mean we were like middle of the pack or a little

[00:40:07] bit better middle of the pack which everybody like looked at us like we had a third eye when we were walking up with these right gas guns you're out of your league 50 60 pound you know single

[00:40:18] shot bench rest rifles you know and um but anyway um so that i have a two stage guisely trigger on what two stage does for me on the ar platform is it forces me to have trigger control

[00:40:35] um for like a long range precision shot so short distance stuff i would never go to stage long distance stuff if you have trouble with trigger control i think a two stage is good to

[00:40:49] kind of get you get get your brain talking better to your finger to be easy on the trigger because you can pull back until you hit that dead stop and you know if you go any further it's going to go

[00:41:03] right so on an ar long range ar platform i kind of prefer a two stage um but with my you know bold actions and stuff like that i don't shoot a two stage

[00:41:20] but i shoot a super light trigger like it it's like like three pounds like two and a half god it's way less it's like it's right at a pound it may be less talking to a guy last night he's like

[00:41:34] yeah i have like a 0.8 trigger and i'm like yeah it's it's at or under a pound you put your finger in there you you it's going off yeah you need to be on target you know um because i'm a firm

[00:41:49] believer and you need the you need the rifle to surprise you when it goes on i'm with you there but uh yeah concentrate on your target and let the rifle do the rest in my uh my short distance

[00:42:02] uh world like i think like 2.6 is like as low as the lowest trigger i have and most are like that three pound you know somewhere right in that world and yeah yeah but again i i haven't done the other

[00:42:17] i don't know you know it's not my world so so my my 300 jarrett has a jewel trigger in it um that thing's nasty that's things so that that rifle i bought i bought it used um it was built

[00:42:31] in 1993 um and back then they were putting jewel triggers in it and uh dude it's the most amazing feeling break you've ever it's stupid my god it's it's amazing but that rifle being you know 30

[00:42:49] years old 31 years old it's uh it's a one hole i mean you shoot at 100 yards it looks like one hole i mean you can't you can't tell a difference it's stupid that yeah that's hey that's the way to be

[00:43:04] now i'm seeing in the comments they keep pounding uh tell me about the scope that you got what is it like do you know the model it's called the arkin ep5 i believe is what it's called

[00:43:17] all right a-r-k-e-n is how you spell it and i think it's called the ep5 it's a 5 by 25 by 56 first focal plane rifle scope all right so they'll have me forever and be like well

[00:43:31] you know yeah it's great man i mean for the money like of course there's things i can i can say i don't like about it right like right but i'm comparing it to a freaking five thousand

[00:43:43] dollar scope like you know so so to my my opinion so my scopes were kind of in that 1100 to 1700 range was kind of where i was at with my scopes i cannot see a measure of measurable

[00:44:01] advantage anything that i've used and used of others that is in that two thousand dollars and below area that's better than that five hundred dollar arkin so i've run the five hundred

[00:44:13] dollar arkin i mean right right there has to be a substantial benefit to me to spend two thousand more right yeah um and i really can't put my finger on anything that is two thousand dollars

[00:44:30] and less that touches that five hundred dollar arkin i just can't yeah no that's can't argue that it's my opinion i mean somebody else might buy it and say it's trash but

[00:44:43] right right that's it i mean you know i keep going with my buddies i'm like well you know i i just buy the vortex or whatever but again my distance is very different than the distance

[00:44:54] hereafter and you know they give me grief and i'm like you know and then the big thing like i always hear is you know leopold's got to be made in america or whatever and and i gotta say

[00:45:05] i've spent i so they finally convinced me and i bought some leopold scopes and i wasn't impressed i was like you know it's not again now mind you i'm not spending two grand on leopold scopes right

[00:45:17] i'm buying 500 hour or less leopold scopes and i wasn't impressed compared to what 500 can do for me elsewhere right and i understand made in america and i mean i'm i'm tried man you know i just just

[00:45:29] like yeah it's yeah you know it's it's it just doesn't it does i see guys man i see guys that are running you know four or five thousand dollar optics right okay i mean you do you bro but i can't

[00:45:48] afford that so um but at the same time like there's a huge gap right it's it's like you shooting a cabela special okay that's a three by nine by you know by 40 or whatever you know just typical

[00:46:09] hunting scope um you can't compare that to a freaking three thousand four thousand dollar night force you can't compare that to a to a um a high-end leopold or high-end vortex you just

[00:46:24] can't but people do it all the time it's not apples to apples it's just not two different purposes two different price points but the gap is so big from the arkin to say a vortex viper

[00:46:39] hd or something i just don't see the benefit in spending that more money uh it's the arkin does everything i mean i shoot a thousand yards plus regular with this thing regular with it and

[00:46:55] i mean if i'm shooting a freaking five inch group which is way less than a half an moa at a thousand yards i'm happy jack right right yeah no that's it you're you know you're shooting groundhogs at

[00:47:08] at uh yeah at a thousand yards with that and yeah yeah i mean i've shot pigs at 800 850 yards right square between eyes with with that scope yeah so yeah that's the way to be all right now

[00:47:25] tell me quick a little bit about battle box what do people need to know so i was a customer to start with um and uh in like by accident became the face of the company and they ended up offering me a job

[00:47:39] uh and i took that job in september of 16 so it was like a year and a half or so as a customer um and it's a it's a subscription box company and what we do is uh we we send out you know

[00:47:57] general outdoors survival prepping adventure type gear um in the beginning it was it was viewed as a survival and tactical box um but the internet and the powers to be don't like the word tactical

[00:48:15] right so um we had to kind of switch up for because we couldn't market we couldn't you know they considered us as selling things that they deemed were you know bad right so now it's adventure

[00:48:27] and survival is kind of our tagline but um we send out um all sorts of stuff it could be medical food supplies knives um camping gear you know uh edc tools um flashlights you name it the whole

[00:48:46] gamut and the idea is over time you build up a pretty good gear set of things to add to your preps or add to your general you know adventure that you're doing you know in the outdoors be it

[00:48:58] if you like to hunt or camp or whatever hopefully you like to do a little bit of all of it um but um it's just a fun way to to be introduced to new brands um new products we do a lot of first

[00:49:12] release stuff with a lot of companies um we um we've got our huge community our community's probably the the coolest thing man about it is is um we've got like a facebook page it's for

[00:49:25] members only and uh they get in there man have a big old time they trade gear they get together find out who lives near them that are into the same things and end up becoming friends and

[00:49:36] kind of building their little wolf pack if you will you know in case something did go down and um training together and uh and all that so um i mean we've sent we send compasses we send uh

[00:49:49] you know we send hearing protection if you like firearms we send problem solvers we send food preparations um a few months ago we sent a big old pack of heirloom seeds you know so

[00:50:03] you could start growing your own food it's kind of you know bushcraft stuff books um we also have for um for members and when i mean members i mean subscribers to the subscription box you can go to

[00:50:17] we got a store i mean you don't have to be a subscriber to go to our store and buy things but if you want the subscription box um you know you sign up for that it's a month it comes to your

[00:50:26] door every month um and there's four levels you got a basic advanced pro and pro plus level so as you go up in level you get everything that was given that month in the lower tier so if you're

[00:50:38] a pro plus subscriber you get everything if you're an advanced subscriber you get advanced and basic but you don't get pro and pro plus you know that's kind of how it works um so for an example

[00:50:51] i just happen to have a mission brief here so there'll be a card like this in here so this one was uh mission brief 111 so this was box 111 that we sent out and then it's got

[00:51:07] you know everything so it's a write-up that i do there so basic box had a book some flits renewal system stuff some wound closure kits from my medic had a rucking river spice wallet in the basic advanced had a water purification system in there the pro box had

[00:51:27] a really cool flashlight from power tech and then we had a condor knife in the pro plus box the pro plus is always going to have a knife or a cutting tool of some sort it might be a

[00:51:40] axe a hatchet a saw a multi-tool something that has a sharp edge you know a lot of people call it the knife of the month club um but then uh then we got what we call the battle vault

[00:51:58] and that's kind of uh the best way to say it is a as a is a way into the store and it changes the prices of everything so you get you get exclusive deals as a member in that section

[00:52:12] of the store that's only accessed by members um there's training opportunities in there there's stuff in there that's too expensive to put in the box in there like it could be you know a daggone solar generator we might have in there for sale that's like

[00:52:28] got a really deep discount in comparison if you bought it anywhere else so there's all sorts of perks to being a member it's not all about just getting the box every month it's about

[00:52:38] being a part of the community getting access to the battle vault we do giveaways every single month we do um we do all sorts of things for our subscribers um i typically do a live feed on the

[00:52:55] on the members only page on facebook and i typically give away a bunch of stuff just randomly to people um it's all about community and that's the goal like we just want to encourage

[00:53:04] people to get outdoors and work on their skills and if that's work on how to be a better camper it's working on how to be a better camper i i don't care what you want to do i just want you

[00:53:15] to get out there and do it um and if it's bushcrafting you know you'll get bushcraft gear sometimes if it's um you know prepping if it's you know bug bug out gear if it's get home bag

[00:53:29] gear whatever you're gonna over time you're gonna get a really cool collection of stuff and if it's something that you don't want or you don't like it's an amazing gift to your

[00:53:39] loved one there's somebody in your family that'll take it yeah yeah and a lot of stuff gets taken by them anyway like uh we get emails all the time for guys that you know they're subscribers and

[00:53:52] they're like they sit down when they get their box they sit down at the kitchen table with their family and they go through it and they turn around next thing you know everybody in the family's

[00:53:59] grabbed something ran off and he ain't got nothing so he ends up having to come back to the store to buy his own stuff because his wife takes his knives and keeps them or a blanket that we may

[00:54:11] have seen or wool blanket or you know tarps or whatever it's just it's pretty fun man it's a lot of fun and I thoroughly enjoy doing it doing what I do and um all the stuff I've tested like we just

[00:54:25] we don't just pick anything and put it in there it's a pretty big process to get in the box um I've got stuff all over my desk right now that I'm I'm testing out and if it doesn't if

[00:54:37] this crap and you wouldn't believe how much crap I get like I would say maybe let's say one week I get 10 items in from 10 different companies maybe one or two will make it through

[00:54:51] it really wow like you know what I mean I try to be really scrutinized yeah no it definitely is a premium box we uh we actually uh we promoted it uh way back like 2016 somewhere around had to be

[00:55:08] 2016 2017 and they sent us they sent us a box and uh we opened it up I'll put the video on here you guys can see it but it's from a million years ago but it was all

[00:55:21] premium stuff I'm like yeah that's great I think I think the bonus too they were like oh you can choose a box you know like for many of the past yeah so your first so your first box so the way it

[00:55:35] used to be set up was we had what we called a welcome box and it was and we would change it every year but as a new subscriber you would get the welcome box so you knew what was going to be

[00:55:47] in it if you did any research right but it helped get you in rotation so let's say let's say we were on box 200 okay which we're not there yet but let's say we were say we were at mission 200 and

[00:56:04] you came in as a new subscriber let's just say we had mission um 190 was the welcome box so you would get that and then the next month when everybody that was already a subscriber would go into box

[00:56:19] 201 then your next one would be 201 and then you'd be on the normal rotation because it's a logistical nightmare okay keeping up with all this stuff so but now what we've done is as a new

[00:56:33] subscriber there will be a list an option that'll be a list where you can pick any of our past boxes that we have in stock right or you can elect to get the box now so by selecting the one that you

[00:56:54] that that is of a pass box you'll get it immediately like it'll it'll ship out next day or next two days depending on if you ordered it on a weekend or what whatever right it'll it'll go

[00:57:04] out to you as quick as possible but if you select to go with the mission that's coming you have to wait until we ship that box but then you'll be on the normal rotation

[00:57:15] of numbers you know be it whatever number we're sending out so um and then we do promotions like we like right now i think we've got um a uh kind of like a bogo if you will buy one you get one so

[00:57:30] as a new subscriber if you select you want to subscribe to pro plus you you get the pro plus it's going to coming in the rotation but you also get a second pro plus of a past mission absolutely

[00:57:43] free so you get two boxes in your first month pretty awesome and you know then you're on just one box a month rotation um you can cancel at any time you can upgrade or downgrade at any time

[00:57:54] you just you know i think we build on the 15th so if you get built on the 15th we ship out the first week of the next month ish depending on holidays weekends yada yada yada so typically say

[00:58:07] third through the ninth we're shipping out that month's mission so um like august what's today today's like the 16th or something right so yesterday subscribers got build and they'll be getting their august box the third through the ninth of august

[00:58:28] nice and then august 15th they'll get billed they'll get there next month third definitely it's like you said i mean you guys are putting a lot of thought into it because like i said we went

[00:58:40] through them and we're like damn every box like we couldn't even choose you know going through the old one yeah like oh i don't know that one's great but that one has a cooler knife or whatever it was all

[00:58:51] like and i think the knife won out you know whatever had the coolest life was like oh but that's the pro plus is our biggest our biggest seller i mean our majority of our subscribers are pro plus

[00:59:04] um and they fluctuate like you know everybody's got a bad month sometimes right so you might be a you know you might need to some people will be a pro plus for a few months and they'll go down to

[00:59:16] you know pro for a few months or something and they bump back up you just got to be sure you do it before the 15th else it'll be it'll bill you for whatever you're signed up for but um

[00:59:27] you know it's it's really cool man i mean i've i've uh i've really enjoyed the uh the community that that is built and the people i work with and i mean we got a great team um and uh everybody's

[00:59:42] like we're really looking out for the customer um and built trying to build a really cool community so it's not just about the box you know um we want people to meet other people we want people

[00:59:55] to enjoy we want people to get good deals and we want uh we want people to be introduced to cool brands and um get outside get freaking outside and do some stuff man i'm pushing to go use you

[01:00:09] know yeah yeah that's i mean the quality was definitely there you guys you know really are top shelf i i you know i was impressed when you guys reached out to do the episode i was like yeah

[01:00:20] that's cool we can do that yeah so it's like you know you're on it so no i appreciate it appreciate you taking your morning here uh giving up your time um anytime man i like talking to people i i

[01:00:33] i live out in the middle of nowhere and i work by myself i mean i don't have people like right i'm kind of remote from the rest of the guys so i communicate through them

[01:00:44] with messages and emails and stuff so whenever i get a chance to kind of hang out talk to somebody i'm down man because i'm kind of by myself a lot but you get to ease into it you know you don't

[01:00:56] have to go you know the huge crowd it's like yeah yeah i like being out in the middle of nowhere there's a reason you're out there right there is a reason i'm out here you know i'm like i promise

[01:01:09] you do i gotta drive to work because yeah it's it's a hike i don't want to be by people but yeah now i'm with you all right um so anyway i appreciate you guys don't forget to like and

[01:01:20] subscribe battlebox um i put a link to us opening a battle box on the uh me and kevin in the show notes and uh yeah no we got a we got an event coming up called battle games in september

[01:01:36] um so you do not have to be a member to potentially be a part of it so we're doing a giveaway it's a 5 000 plus dollar gear giveaway and it's at battlegames.com so if you go to battle

[01:01:53] battlegames.com if you're listening to this before i think it's the first of august or sometime in august this cuts off so whoever's listening to this three years from now don't work

[01:02:05] but anyway you go to battle games with no e because we don't know how to spell b-a-t-t-l-g-i i know i was going to point that out i'm like if you guys want battle box it's b-a-t-t-l-d-e

[01:02:17] yeah no e in battle but so on there is a uh five thousand plus dollar ish gear giveaway that we're doing and so you can sign up for that and what it also does is it it puts you in a

[01:02:34] in a random drawing to potentially be a contestant in our battle games which is in september of this year so um some subscribers are getting golden tickets um in their box in august that has

[01:02:52] directions for them to uh now we're too late if you want the august box because it's july 16th we missed it right correct you had to be already on top of the game all right you had to be on top

[01:03:03] of the game but non-subscribers have an opportunity to be in so there's going to be subscribers and non-subscribers in this competition gotcha so for non-subscribers you got to sign up for the five

[01:03:16] thousand dollar gear giveaway and it also signs you up for potentially being in the battle games and um so you either win five grand worth of stuff and or get selected for the battle games

[01:03:33] and in the battle games the winner gets 25 000 so there's going to be a it's going to be an elimination type survival-ish competition it's going to be difficult but not like we're having fun with it we're not this isn't survivor right we're not sending you out there to freaking

[01:03:54] suffer okay but it's going to be fun but it's going you're going to need some skills to win this thing and um it's going to be pretty neat it's going to be freaking neat we're excited about

[01:04:04] it it's something that we're wanting to do every year this is our first year doing the battle games um last year we did a mission 100 giveaway so we hit last last july we celebrated hitting

[01:04:18] our milestone of 100 boxes and uh you know we had a potential of winning somebody winning 100 000 at that but nobody won it we had you had to shoot a tank we went down to this place

[01:04:30] called drive tanks in texas you had to hit a basketball with a tank um whoever did it would win the hundred grand but nobody did it so but this one somebody's winning somebody's gonna have 25

[01:04:43] grand and you can somebody's leaving with 25 grand you can put together a pretty nice gun for 25 grand that's all absolutely or a couple if you or a couple go my route and buy the most expensive

[01:04:56] crap might be able to buy a cheap tank i don't know 25 grand you could do some things you can do some stuff with 25 grand man i would gladly take 25 grand somebody gave it to me definitely in the eye

[01:05:13] that's what i got all right so with that stay safe appreciate having you brandon and we will talk to you guys next week so waypoint tv's great outdoors month celebration presented by battery tender

[01:06:26] every tuesday and sunday in june from 7 to 11 p.m eastern enjoy fishing and hunting content that will inspire you to get outside but also to take action in preserving the land and water that allows

[01:06:38] us to do what we love most tuesdays and sundays in june starting at 7 p.m eastern on waypoint tv the destination for outdoor entertainment