Episode 606 - Brandon Maddox || Past, Present, And Future Of Silencers

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Origins Foundation Podcast

Episode: 606 – Brandon Maddox || Past, Present, And Future Of Silencers
Date: November 6, 2025
Host: The Origins Foundation (Will Cooper)
Guest: Brandon Maddox, CEO/Founder of Silencer Central

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Episode Overview

This special 20th-anniversary episode features Brandon Maddox, CEO and founder of Silencer Central (formerly known as Silencer Essential). The conversation explores Maddox's journey from pharmacist to suppressor entrepreneur, the evolution of silencer technology for hunting, the regulatory history and trajectory of suppressors in the US, and a look ahead at legislative changes affecting the industry. The tone is candid and passionate, focusing on demystifying suppressor ownership and their increasing role in conservation and hunting culture.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Brandon’s Origins: From Pharmacist to Silencer Mogul

[04:26] – [07:25]

• Maddox’s academic background in pharmacy and business, leading to pharmaceutical sales.
• Decision to leave pharmacy in favor of building and selling suppressors.
• The challenge of convincing family and peers about the career switch.
• Key realization: “People would come up to you in pharmacy, complain about a $5 prescription that could save their life. But hunters, they’d find a way to buy a silencer, no matter the cost. And once they used it, they’d never go back.” – Brandon Maddox [06:01]

2. Personal Hunting & Firearm Journey

[07:31] – [14:29]

• Maddox’s initial, limited exposure to hunting (family perception: firearms were “blue collar”).
• Motivated by his in-laws’ passion, he immersed himself in hunting after moving to South Dakota.
• Prairie dog hunting obsession led to seeking quieter shooting options, culminating in his first suppressor purchase.
• Encounter with dismissive gun shop employees, highlighting knowledge and cultural barriers in the early suppressor market.
  • “That gun store could tell instantly I wasn’t a gun guy... made me feel about a quarter-inch tall.” – Brandon Maddox [14:29]

3. Early Suppressor Sales & Business Building

[15:21] – [22:32]

• Friction and lengthy process in buying early suppressors (~9-10 month waits, complex paperwork).
• Decided to become his own FFL (Federal Firearms Licensee) to streamline purchase and eventually sell to others.
• Recalled the challenge of breaking into a “collectibles-focused” gun show culture, using his pharmacist background for trust.
• First customers: nearly all coyote hunters wanting quieter, more effective hunts.

4. Technology & Product Evolution: Innovation for Hunters

[22:32] – [35:00]

• Early market lacked lightweight, hunter-focused suppressors—mostly tactical, heavy designs.
• Maddox’s strategy: seek out products others weren’t selling, focus on titanium for weight savings.
  • “The ideal scenario for a hunter is titanium—lightweight, strong, not like aluminum or heavy stainless.” – Brandon Maddox [31:25]
• Collaboration with Mack Brothers and other manufacturers for custom, titanium suppressors.
• Spearheaded white-labeled lightweight models focused on functional hunting use, setting a trend in the industry.

5. The Compliance & Sales Education Battle

[27:26] – [30:25]

• Early on, majority thought suppressors were illegal.
• Selling required educating the public on legality and paperwork, overcoming mistrust and fears of scams.
• Maddox used “pharmacist” on business cards for credibility: “They gotta trust me. I’m not gonna risk my pharmacy license.” [28:38]

6. Recent Innovations: Shotgun Suppressors

[35:08] – [38:53]

• Launch of the Banish 12, a 3D-printed titanium shotgun suppressor, lightweight enough for hunting without disrupting shotgun balance.
• Noted competitive edge over “tactical” suppressors; focus is on function and experience for hunters rather than home defense.
• Field-tested for upland game, duck, and turkey hunting; positive reactions from experienced shooters.

7. Legislative Landscape & Regulatory Changes

[39:09] – [54:27]

• Dramatic reduction in form processing times in the last year: from 18 months to same-day approvals in some cases.
• Credit given to key ATF attorneys, especially Ben Hiller, for identifying and removing unnecessary steps in NFA paperwork processing.
  • “He was able to cut out over 80% of the steps... from four days to four minutes.” – Will Cooper [41:14]
• Discussion of the new tax stamp elimination (effective Jan 1, 2026), potential industry boom, and logistical/financial challenges for manufacturers.
• Insights into unsuccessful legislative pushes (Hearing Protection Act), budget reconciliation roadblocks, and state-level hurdles—some states’ laws link legality to the federal registry.
  • “If the federal registry process goes away, then silencers become illegal in South Dakota... and about 13 other states.” – Brandon Maddox [53:02]

8. Looking Ahead: Over-the-Counter Silencers & Industry Growth

[54:40] – [58:33]

• ATF’s goal: allow same-day silencer purchases, akin to standard firearm background checks.
• Recognition of ongoing government staffing and resource challenges.
• Silencer Central’s multi-pronged approach (direct & wholesale/distribution) as a hedge against further regulatory changes.
  • “We built, arguably, the strongest brand out there... which makes us comfortable doubling down.” – Brandon Maddox [57:43]
• Maddox discusses industry optimism, strategic inventory buildup, and the need to balance risk with opportunity given recent history (companies that over-leveraged and collapsed).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On risk and reinvention:

  • “You went to college for eight years… why would you want to sell suppressors? People paid five bucks for prescriptions but bitched all day about it… but they’d make any sacrifice for a silencer after they tried it.”
    – Brandon Maddox [06:01]

• On being the outsider:

  • “They made me feel like a quarter-inch tall. I was so excited… and they just berated me.”
    – Brandon Maddox [14:29]

• On the sales pitch to coyote hunters:

  • “When you call in four coyotes, how many do you want to kill? The answer is five—or more!”
    – Brandon Maddox [20:00]

• On customer trust:

  • “I always put pharmacist on my card… they gotta trust me.”
    – Brandon Maddox [28:37]

• On suppressor innovation:

  • “No one ever would’ve put a stainless 30 cal on a .223—it’s just too heavy. Titanium changed everything.”
    – Brandon Maddox [33:10]

• On legislative shifts:

  • “He was able to cut out over 80% of the steps… sped up from four days to four minutes.”
    – Will Cooper [41:42]
  • “If the federal registry process goes away, then silencers become illegal in South Dakota… and 13 other states.”
    – Brandon Maddox [53:02]

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Key Timestamps

• [04:26] — Brandon details his first steps away from pharmacy and into suppressor sales.
• [14:29] — Maddox describes his negative, formative first gun store experience.
• [15:21] — Maddox’s first silencer experience revolutionizes his prairie dog hunting.
• [22:32] — Transition from tactical to hunting-specific suppressor design.
• [27:26] — Early struggles convincing the public about legality and trust.
• [35:08] — Launch of the Banish 12 shotgun suppressor.
• [41:14] — How ATF streamlined paperwork, drastically reducing wait times.
• [46:46] — Explaining why budget reconciliation couldn’t include full deregulation (Hearing Protection Act).
• [49:50] — Anticipation for a “big wave” in suppressor sales after the tax stamp is eliminated.
• [54:40] — Vision for “over-the-counter” suppressor sales and the industry’s future.

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Tone & Language

Conversational, direct, and pragmatic. Maddox is forthright about industry challenges and solutions, while Will Cooper provides context and frames questions in a relatable, story-driven way. The dialogue balances technical detail with humor (“How many coyotes do you want to kill? The answer is five!” [20:00]) and optimism tempered by hard-earned lessons.

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rich, first-hand account of how one entrepreneur's quest to solve his own hunting problem evolved into an industry-changing business. It details how technology, regulation, and personal grit combined to shift the public perception and legal landscape of suppressor use in American hunting. For those interested in hunting, firearms innovation, or business in the outdoor sector, it’s a masterclass in perseverance and adaptation.

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For further information:

• Silencer Central
• The Origins Foundation

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Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Will Cooper]

CEO and founder of Silence Essential. Brandon and I sat down at his headquarters in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at their 20th anniversary, the 20th year anniversary and really I just wanted to get out of Brandon some things that you may not know about Silence Essential. How they came to be. What caused him to start being a pharmacist and then turn to essentially building silences. Honestly, it would be the same question. My wife is asking me, like why are you doing what you're doing? You've got a really good, well paying job. What are you thinking? That's what this podcast gets into. I really love the story. It is the true American dream. Work hard, find an issue, find an, find a solution implemented and now they could turn a revenue of 500 million I think is what he said. If I remember correctly on selling suppressors. It's unbelievable. I'm a big fan of brand, I'm a big fan of the team. I just, I just had a great time up at the silence essential 20th anniversary. So enjoy this podcast. So five years ago there was a reason why I started this movement and the truth then is the truth now that we need to champion our narrative. We need to champion the truth around what we do and who we are. There's a sweet spot with a gun.

[Brandon Maddox]

You know, too heavy and it's a burden to walk with.

[Will Cooper]

Too light and you whipping it. Why is the project so important to the hunting community? It's, it's a. I think it's not only important, I think it's, I think it's vital. I think it's, it's just in time. It's like snakes and ladders. You guys are climbing the ladder and then somebody does something stupid and you just slide that that is such an amazing analogy. Snakes and ladders.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

You know, ivory. In. In my opinion was the plastic of its age. Okay. The expenses were going up.

[Brandon Maddox]

It goes a long way with families. We have families that do need it.

[Will Cooper]

Let me close this door because I have a little wiener dog. What you are. You're laughing because I said wiener.

[Brandon Maddox]

I'm really glad you finished the sentence out. I'm sure the first happened. We doing here today.

[Will Cooper]

You're telling the whole world. Like it. I like it. Brandon Maddox, you've been on this podcast before. You're returning guest.

[Brandon Maddox]

That. That's a good thing, right? That means I didn't mess up too much last time. And you're kind enough to think of us again, which is all we want.

[Will Cooper]

Well, now we're in person. So you. You know, the pressure's on.

[Brandon Maddox]

Absolutely. I like it better, man. I.

[Will Cooper]

You know, if I had enough, I was telling Carter earlier. Obviously we're a very small nonprofit and we've only been going for five years.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right.

[Will Cooper]

Okay. But for. For us being five years old, our fingerprint in this world is probably the largest fingerprint defending hunting in the world.

[Brandon Maddox]

That's amazing.

[Will Cooper]

For us, obviously we're still building budgets to try and do more of what we're doing. But if we could. If I could figure out like a Joe Rogan kind of model, actually I would do it opposite. I would go to them.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right.

[Will Cooper]

Because we're here. We're in your facility.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. That's a good idea.

[Will Cooper]

And face to face. Face to face is always. Yeah, Always better.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

True. You know that better than anybody, right?

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh yeah, for sure.

[Will Cooper]

You started selling silences out the back of your car.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes, true.

[Will Cooper]

Face to face.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes, I would agree.

[Will Cooper]

Were you a salesman?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, I did. My first job out of pharmacy school was pharmaceutical sales.

[Will Cooper]

This building.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh yeah. Yeah. Was it in this building?

[Will Cooper]

Yeah.

[Brandon Maddox]

And then I was a pharmacist. Yeah. For Signatel drug that owned this building. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Now I know that we. We talked about this in the past, but it's worth repeating because how does somebody. And I guess you could say the same thing for me. I'm. I'm a PhD scientist with. That's a wetland ecologist and aquatic biogeochemist.

[Brandon Maddox]

Wow.

[Will Cooper]

That now defends hunting every single day through a nonprofit. I used the same question could be asked to do you are pharmacist by training?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes.

[Will Cooper]

And now. But then decided I don't like pharmacy.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right.

[Will Cooper]

I'd prefer to build suppressors. Were you building suppressors at the Time or were you just selling them?

[Brandon Maddox]

You know, good question. I would say that the expertise I brought to the table is the compliance side, but essentially I was selling them. I had to sell people on the idea that a suppressor is lawful. Sell them on an idea that it was going to benefit their hunting experience. Sell them on the idea that we were going to make it easy and we were going to be doing it.

[Will Cooper]

But why? But, like, go back to the. And I think maybe we even talked about this on the last podcast. Like, you're sitting around the dinner table with your wife saying, hey, babe, just want to let you know that I, I'm going to start selling this thing that is technically illegal in a lot of different places, but I think it should be legal. And so that's what I'm going to do.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, good question. So, of course I would be hesitant to talk to my wife about anything Bill and Risk. So I, I, I doubt I brought this to her attention. Um, so what I would tell, like, you know, I, I mean, my dad would say, okay, you went to college for eight years. You know, you did undergrad in pharmacy school, and then you did a master's, you know, in business. Why would you want to sell suppressor silencers? And, you know, I try to explain to him, I, I never really worked at a retail pharmacy other than getting my license. You had to put in, I think it was, you know, 40,000 hours or some crazy number to before you could sit for the boards. But what I found in a pharmacy, oddly enough, is people would come up to you and they would complain about a $5 prescription, the price and then having to come in and pick it up, that could potentially save their life. But what I found when I would sell suppressors is if somebody wanted a suppressor and they were a big hunter and they thought, like, it would, it would give them an advantage in their hobby. They would find a way to get the money no matter what it took to buy a silencer, and then to talk to them after using a silencer. From when they went from not using a silencer to utilizing one, it was such a complete change that they're like, I'll never hunt again without it. So I try to explain to my parents that people paid five bucks for something that they, they complained nonstop about that could save their life. But when I was selling a suppressor, that made their life easier and they wanted it. It didn't matter how much it cost. They would find a way to get the money, and they would get it, and then they Would love it. And the response was amazing.

[Will Cooper]

The Maddox. Why, like why were you a big hunter? Were you like, man, I hunt every day and my ears are ringing.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, yeah. No, good question.

[Will Cooper]

Okay, so I, and this is appropriate because Today is the 20th anniversary of what you're doing. So I want to know like that's a good question. Style this whole thing.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. You know, to go back further. And it's in my speech tonight, so this will a prelude to it but you know, I met my father in law and he had a room bigger than the room we're in now. And there was literally firearms circling the entire room like laying against the, you know, the whole room. And this realization came to me very quickly that man, if I'm going to fit in with this family, I'm going to have to really get into firearms.

[Will Cooper]

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[Brandon Maddox]

No. You know, that's, that's a good question. I mean like my, my grandfather was into hunting so I didn't spend a ton of time with him because he died young. Died at 54. And then my uncle was into it so I did a little bit, but he was in Alabama and I was mostly in Georgia or North Carolina. So geographically it wasn't convenient. I would say I had a genetic propensity towards it. I really enjoyed it. But you have to realize I came from, I would call highly educated family where they felt like firearms were blue collar and they wanted their kids to be white collar.

[Will Cooper]

Okay.

[Brandon Maddox]

So it was not necessarily a negative perception, but it was a little bit frowned upon. Like, well, what would you ever need a firearm for?

[Will Cooper]

Okay.

[Brandon Maddox]

But I, you know, I'd always had like a small rimfire 22. Growing up. I would shoot squirrels and you know, turtles at the rivers and you know, stuff like that. I thoroughly enjoyed rats, whatever I could find with a.22. But when I moved to the, when we were before I moved to South Dakota, just visiting here, my, my in laws, I could tell they were really into firearms. And so when I First did when I finally moved here, which honestly wasn't the original plan, but once I moved here, I was like, man, to fit in.

[Will Cooper]

Did you move here before you got married?

[Brandon Maddox]

No.

[Will Cooper]

You're like, okay, I need to be close to this girl because I think that there's your future here.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Good question, though. So when we first met, she was in St. Louis. She was a college professor, and I was living in Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina, working for the Glaxo Pharmaceutical Company. So she ended up moving to North Carolina. We started dated locally too.

[Will Cooper]

You.

[Brandon Maddox]

She had her own place. And we made sure we're compatible when we're in the same quality. Fine, but no. And when we moved to South Dakota, the realization hit me, to fit in with my in laws, I'm going to get more into firearms, which I knew I had a genetic predisposition to. I knew I enjoyed it. It wasn't hard. But I really started shooting prairie dogs. So I went to the local gun store and I was like, hey, you know, what do most people shoot here? And they said coyotes or prairie dogs? And I'm like, all right, what do I need? And they gave me a 2, 2, 3 seika. Um, I think it was a, you know, t ticket t3x or something. Anyway, I, I bought that. The. Bought the ammo. I still remember it was Black Hills ammo. Try to get a discount on the ammo because I just bought what I thought was an expensive gun, it wouldn't cave. So then I started shooting prayer dogs and I became almost like obsessed with it. Like, okay, where are they at? How, How. You know, there's, there's the reservations, there's private land, there's public land. And, you know, I just, I, I like to win. And I would go to, you know, and drive three and a half, four hours, shoot prairie dogs. And I would find that I wasn't, you know, shooting as many as I wanted. And so I had it in my mind if I could just find a way to make the, you know, the sound quieter. And the problem is there's so much wind in South Dakota on these open prairies that you can't really cut back the gunpowder or you're not going to get the. Yeah. The killing effect you need or distance. You know, people say we use a lighter around like a.17 HMR, you know,22 mag, or it just. You couldn't get the kill power you needed and you couldn't, you know, cut through the wind. The wind was horrible here. My experience coming from the south, so I was with my father in law at a gun show. And, you know, one day he called me after church. He said, hey, let's go to the gun show in Sioux Falls. It's kind of a big deal. I was like, all right, let's do that. And I saw a silencer there, and I don't think it was really for sale. It was more decorative. It was more like for a tactical type setup. And it planted the seed. If, gosh, a suppressor could make it quieter, I could shoot more prairie dogs. So I went to the local gun store. I actually shopped online. Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

What was the suppressor? Silencer landscape.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. There was nothing out there. It was hard to find anyone that could sell them. You know, what's interesting about the story is I went into the local gun store, and I'm a very inquisitive person by nature. And that gun store could tell instantly I wasn't a gun guy and didn't know a ton about hunting. And they made me feel like, you know, a quarter inch tall. I mean, they just berated me. They just. Because I said, hey, do you know anyone that hunts with espresso? And they're like, no. And I'm like, well, that's what I'm hoping to buy one for. What do you think? We don't know. Do you want one or not? I mean, it was just a weird. It's kind of weird. But I ended up buying one that changed the game completely.

[Will Cooper]

I can still remember that interaction 20 years later.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. They were so derogatory to me. Like I said, I feel like I went to good colleges for eight years and to be treated like it was such an opportunity to sort of. I mean, I was so excited. Like, hey, this is what I'm thinking. What do you guys think? You know, sort of like.

[Will Cooper]

Because you probably have thought through this. You've. It's. It's clearly a problem that you were trying to solve to say, I want to become better.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

At this thing, which was prairie dog toileting.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, totally.

[Will Cooper]

Okay. I see an opportunity. I see a thing here that can work.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they totally just not. I mean, so, I mean, people. I probably am tight anyway, but I think my first silence was 350 bucks. I found the cheapest one I could find. I wouldn't buy anything they had on the shelf because it was all looked more tactical and it was very expensive. And I'm like, you know, if this is an experiment that I've got to go through and do all this paperwork and it was interesting. They basically hang the paperwork, so go figure it out. And that's kind of how I ended up creating my model of, no, we'll manage the paperwork for you. Completely different mindset. But anyway, after I bought one and used it, it was phenomenal. I mean, I literally ran.

[Will Cooper]

What was it like then buying what was it? The, the process, you know, rewind the clock. A year ago, Was it a 12 month, 18 month wait process?

[Brandon Maddox]

You know, I think it was like 9 to 10. I just remember it was very disjointed because like most, you know, local gun shops, you typically have one person that's your point of contact. And in this scenario it was the owner son. And I found that every day, you know, he was supposed to work Tuesday, Thursdays or whatever it was. And it seemed like every time I called then or showed up then he was never there because I was always wanting updates or where are we at or have you heard anything? Because at this point, I don't know anything. You know, I just know I've given my fingerprints, my photo, I've convinced my local sheriff to vouch for me, get his signature. That's the way it used to be years ago, submitted, you know, the photos, fingerprints, gotten fingerprinted. Yeah, it's just kind of a waiting game. But no, once I got it and shot it, I actually ran out of ammunition. I shot so many prairie dogs. I was like, man, I'm 100% sold. I'll never forget, I was in a. Of course we got so many prairies out here, but I was in a, a shelter belt and I was shooting into a prairie dog field. So I was literally hiding kind of in the wooded area, shooting out at them. And I remember looking out at the field after I left and I was like, like a civil war. I mean, it was just blood everywhere. I mean, I bet I shot two or three hundred prairie dogs and, you know, half a day, they were just. The whole landscape was covered with them.

[Will Cooper]

I was like, do you think potentially could, could that have been the first person shooting a prairie dog with a suppressor?

[Brandon Maddox]

You know, I don't know. Probably not. I mean, one of the first.

[Will Cooper]

Yeah, yeah, maybe not the first, but maybe some of the first.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, because, I mean, there's definitely such a huge benefit that I just. I don't know. It's weird to me. No one ever really talked about it. But no, it was a game changer for me. So, I mean. And you know, long story short is the license is pretty expensive to, you know, a gun License to sell farms is not that expensive. And I was fortunate. My father in law had a federal farms license. So I saw the benefits of having your own license. So that was another incentive for me to get my own. But my wife honestly was kind of leaning on me because, you know, I'd gotten the. I bought two at the local gun shop. It never went well. So I finally just told myself the third time, I'm going to get my own license and buy it through my own self. And you know, there was even there's.

[Will Cooper]

So you became an FFL yourself?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Oh man.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. So I mean, the other thing is, you know, it's 200 bucks tax, it's going away in January, but you know, now there's a 200 tax on suppressors. And there was then. So I justified it by, well, it's kind of expensive to get all these licenses, but then you could buy silencers as a dealer and you're not paying that tax. Now of course, ATF frowned on that if it's for individual use, but still that's how it justified immensely is the license is kind of expensive. But it got to the point where the license is pretty expensive to maintain. So my wife's kind of like, oh, okay, we're spending a thousand bucks a year for.

[Will Cooper]

You could have silencer, your FFL license. Yeah.

[Brandon Maddox]

And your srt to sell silencers, you ought to sell a few because you came from sales and you were really good at it. So I was like, you know what, that's actually a good idea. So I made business cards and brochures and you know, just kind of went from there. You know what was interesting for me though is I could tell I didn't really fit in here because I, my accent was probably different. I just moved from the South. It was called the Dakota Territory Gun Collectors Association. And so they were all about collectibles. And in their mind, a silencer is not a firearm and it's clearly not a collectible. So they were kind of doing everything they could to keep me from getting into the show to sell. And luckily, unfortunately for me, my mother in law, her brother was a gun dealer, had a great spot there. And he's a pharmacist too. He's passed away. What the heck? I know. Is that crazy? Yeah. I'm a pharmacist, my wife's a pharmacist, both my in laws are pharmacists, my.

[Will Cooper]

Dad'S pharmacist, and everyone went in the gun trade business totally.

[Brandon Maddox]

But I ended up getting a booth at the gun show. And I could tell instantly, like, this is amazing to sell, because at the time, it's like a huge event. You know, this gun show, it's one of the bigger gun shows in the country. And it's. When I go to it now, it feels super tiny, but it was. It felt like there was a ton of people there. And I knew more than everyone in the room about silencers, and everyone in the room wanted to learn more about silencers. It was a perfect scenario for a sales guy. And what I found is that 100 of the people that bought for me in North Dakota and South Dakota, the first two states I started in, were all coyote hunters. And I've never even shot a coyote until recently.

[Will Cooper]

Wow.

[Brandon Maddox]

So they didn't. Some of them, I think, shot prairie dogs, but they all shot coyotes because their goal would call the coyotes in, get two or three to come in, kind of like hyenas or whatever, shoot. And then, you know, you don't want them to run off. And the benefit of the suppressor is they. They hear the shot, they just can't tell where it came from, and they can't tell where it came from. They don't know where to run, so they usually just sit there and. Because the joke I would say at the shows is, you know, when you call in four coyotes at the same time, how many of those four do you want to kill? The answer is five, you know, more at all. You know, you want everything that's right. So, you know, it's kind of my sales pitch. Well, that's why you really have to have a suppressor. If you want to shoot everything out there, you're going to need a suppressor to do that. And, yeah, that's how I got into it. It's just, you know, I think that.

[Will Cooper]

At the time, when you're getting into it, how many options did you have?

[Brandon Maddox]

That's a good question. I mean, the first show I worked, I literally had the two silencers that I bought myself. So they're in my personal name. And then I had a third.

[Will Cooper]

What company was that? Do you remember?

[Brandon Maddox]

So Tactical Solutions was the first one. I think it was attack 65 was the name of it. They were out of Utah.

[Will Cooper]

They still live around today.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, they have a website. It's changed at all. The other one was an aac. You know, it's interesting. The first one I bought super cheap, super heavy, and, you know, I thought shooting from a bench, who cares about weight? But when you put a sling on and you got a Rifle and it just starts, you know, slinging all over the place because it's so heavy on the end. It just became awkward. So I was like, I need something lighter. And the second one I bought was Advanced Armament Corporation and it was shorter, but it was too loud. I mean, it was more for like a tactical firearm. So the third one I got was titanium that was super light. And that's when I was like, okay, it's perfect for hunting. But yeah, when I first started doing it, right or wrong, I don't know why, but I just tried to find stuff that no one else was selling because like, if there weren't that many, there was only a couple dealers in the whole state selling them. For some reason in my head I was like, you know, let's just sell something different because I feel like I'm doing a service, I'm doing the paperwork. Let's, let's. Because if I'm having to compete on price where, well, this guy's got 10 bucks cheaper, will you match him? I just immensely, I didn't feel like that would work. So I was like, you know, let's try to get reasonably priced silencers. Let's try to get something that's got a decent enough margin for me so I can justify going to a show and doing the paperwork. And that's kind of how, how it started. And then it got to the point where I'll never forget, I was working at Gunshopping Pier, which is north of here, big hunting area, Pierce, South Dakota. And I could tell everyone was looking at my stuff and they were super interested in this concept of hunting with a suppressor. But what they didn't like is everything I was selling looked very tactical. And back then.

[Will Cooper]

What do you mean looked tactical?

[Brandon Maddox]

Good question. So everything was really set up for like an AR15. It was like the flash hider would screw off an AR15 and the sandwich would screw on. And it looked very uniform. It looked very, you know, I would call Weekend Warrior Tactical Ex military. You know, it looked, it looked like it was for just target shooting or kind of, you know, tactical. You hear some people say, okay. So I could tell that was a deterrent from people buying from me. They wanted something that looked more hunting. You know, they're using on a bolt action, not a, you know, a semi automatic AR platform. They're not using gas operated guns, they're using a bolt action. And typically they're using bigger bolt actions too because of the open prairie here. In some cases, you know, a lot of them, they were shooting 300 wind mags and weatherbees. So they wanted. So they, it got, I got in my head, okay, well, I need something lighter, like titanium. That would be a.308 that they could also then use on the 223. And they could use it on both because I, I always use. 22. 250 when I shot prairie dogs. Again, same pretty much bold as the.223, but a little bit more powder so you could get the cut through the wind and the Dakota prairie. So it evolved to. You know, I would, I, I honestly would say we were one of the first people to sell titanium and had titanium silencers made for us that were lightweight for hunting.

[Will Cooper]

Are you communicating back to the advanced armaments of the world, the tact solutions of the world, and saying, hey, give me a titanium product?

[Brandon Maddox]

Not so much. Because I kind of felt like, who.

[Will Cooper]

Came up with the titanium product then? You?

[Brandon Maddox]

Well, you know, I. There was a guy.

[Will Cooper]

You weren't building suppressors?

[Brandon Maddox]

No, I hired some people to do it who are really good.

[Will Cooper]

Okay. Okay.

[Brandon Maddox]

So what I did is I found someone. Honestly. Well, there was. There was one company that's gone out of business now. They were out of Idaho. Qsm. Quicksilver Manufacturing is where I bought my first titanium ones. So that's how I kind of got some exposure to titanium. Then there was Liberty Suppressors out of Trenton, Georgia, kind of near where my grandparents lived. And I'd go see my grandparents and go pop up and see them, and they're kind of in that tri state, Tennessee, Georgia. They made sort of a hybrid. Like it was a titanium tube and then stainless steel baffles. I worked with them for a while. They did kind of a white label. They would sell their silencers to me and then they would put our name on there. Like our model name was Varmeter, and they would put that on there. And I sold that for years. And then, you know, the hard part was for them to make their magnum caliber rated for magnums, their.30 cals rated for magnums. They had to make them so long and big. And I don't know if they were just over engineering it or what it was, but it just got too confusing that the ideal scenario for me is the guy comes up and says, I want a 30 cal silencer that's small enough and light enough to use on all my 30cals and everything. Less than. And it just, they. There's. I don't know, it almost looks like a rocket launcher thing. It got to be too big. And so I Met these two gentlemen at the Rapid City Gun show in South Dakota. Here, it's western part of the state. We didn't work many shows over there. It's more rural area. But they have one gun show a year in April. There's always tax season. I always remember, as I was driving out there, my CPA would call and tell me how much I owed for taxes. And I always responded with, well, I don't even have that much money in the bank.

[Will Cooper]

What are we going to do?

[Brandon Maddox]

He's like, pay as much as you can and just pay the fees and pay it off eventually. But I met some guys that were from Sturgis, South Dakota, the Mack Brothers. And they had made a lot of firearms for some really big companies. And they said, we have a. We have a sincere interest in silencers. We've made a few, and we'd be interested in working with you. At this point, I'd looked at buying a company, another company in Idaho, and.

[Will Cooper]

That was a company that was making silence.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, they were making silencers. I looked at buying them. Honestly, I had a purchase order together and everything. He, you know, he was an older gentleman. He's like, no, I don't do purchase orders. I do shake a hand. And he didn't have a good track record of doing a good shake of the hand. He had made breaks and kind of, you know, backtracked with some people. So that didn't work out. But, you know, by this time, I bought a sound meter, and I had found that these designs from HTG is what it was called. I can't remember what that stood for, but they were the quietest silencers on the market for sound. And that was my goal. Now, his were stainless steel, so they're heavy. He was manually making all these on the HTG guy? Yeah, he's making them on manual lays. I do think he was a brilliant guy. So what I did is I bought one of every caliber I could find on the marketplace and took them to the Mack brothers and Sturges and said, here is what you need to be as quiet or quieter than. And I want them made out of titanium. And that's when we started a relationship. And, you know, again, they'd both come from Dakota Arms, which eventually got bought by Remington. And so they'd been making farms their entire life. Broke away from there, and they'd make stuff for Bhagavan, BA Precision, badger ordinance. They made a lot. Almost everything they made in their shop was gun. So I felt very comfortable with them. I mean, I'm very honest that the expertise I brought to the table was the compliance side, understanding and making sure we're following all the compliance at a state and federal level. Yeah. But then also my expertise was the selling of. You know, I honestly spent the first couple of years just telling people they're not illegal because most people thought they were illegal there, 100%.

[Will Cooper]

I would imagine that would be a tough hill to climb 20 years ago.

[Brandon Maddox]

And honestly, Sioux Falls is so close to Iowa and Minnesota geographically, and you'd have so many people come from there. And at that point, they were illegal in those states. So, yeah, you'd have to say, what state are you from? Because they're like, aren't those illegal? Where are you from? Minnesota? Yeah, actually, unfortunately, they are illegal there. Or Iowa. But, you know, now that's fixed. But at that time, it was a tough conversation. But I always tell people, you don't realize how tough of a sale it was for someone to walk up and me to convince them they're not illegal, then to convince them someone they've never seen at the shows before. Because most of these people are very old at these gun shows. They've had the same booth, same location. This is their hobby. It's almost like it's a social outlet that people go to. Every year when that gun show comes to their town. It's usually in the winter when the farmers are out of the fields and they see this new guy there, and he's got a little bit of a Southern accent, and he says he's a pharmacist, and he wants me to give him anywhere from, you know, 6, 7, $800. I gotta give my fingerprints. I gotta convince my sheriff to sign this stuff, and then he's gonna give me my silencer. You know, could be 10 months, could be a year. Who knows? That's a tough sell. Give me money up front. You know who I am?

[Will Cooper]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brandon Maddox]

You know, I always put pharmacists on my card. I think people thought that was stupid. Why do you put your pharmacist. And at that time, I was like, they gotta trust me. Yeah. I gotta convince them that I'm not gonna risk my pharmacy license and not be able to practice pharmacy if I ever wanted to, because I'm, you know, keeping your money. And the other sort of hard thing was there were several analogous examples where the Class 3 dealers would collect the money, never order the product, keep it, and then disappear. And so, you know, there's a guy in Nebraska that did that where, I mean, he basically took in millions of dollars, told everyone, oh, yeah, your paperwork's with atf. You know, we're just waiting on it. You know, it'll be here soon. Played that game for a year and a half and then just left the country. So people would hear that, and I'd see it all over the country. You know, people talking about they just couldn't get the money front, know how to handle it or know how to manage it and then not buy the product and then, okay, what do we do now? Kind of scenario. So I could see people worried about. It was tough. It was a. It was a tough. But, you know, I. I think back even years ago at the gun shows. I never gave any of the other vendors any discounts. And I. I'm shocked now that. But they all loved me because they're like, he doesn't compete with us. He's the only guy in the room that's not selling handguns, not selling long guns. Right. He's not trying to steal our customers. And he seems like a nice guy. He's always busy. Because I would always come in on Friday night, get to bed, get up Saturday morning, I'd be there, the first guy in the room, setting up for the gun show, have everything perfect, talk to people all day long. Wouldn't eat lunch, wouldn't go to the bathroom, just solid. And then do that all day Sunday. And they're like, dude, it's a social event for us, but for you, this is like a passion. This is like. This is like, your thing. And I'm like, it is. I love it. I mean, I'm educating people on something that they think is illegal, and once they buy and use it, they're hooked and they're never going to shoot again without it. Well, I've got the best job in the world. And plus, I have a day job, so if I don't like it, you know, I can always.

[Will Cooper]

Yeah, yeah. You just described what I do. I just, you know, replace silences and suppressors with the benefits of hunting.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Will Cooper]

Is them. Are the Mac Brothers still around?

[Brandon Maddox]

They are. They are. You know, I really like them. They do great work. I think that, being candid, they struggle to maybe find the employment, the employees they needed to grow with us and in a rural area in western South Dakota. And, you know, it's hard for me conceptually to think about this, but maybe they just didn't want to grow as big as we were.

[Will Cooper]

You know, some people are very happy with, you know, where they are and what they do. And especially if you're in the, in the gun rifle game and you're a very boutique. Sound like they're very boutique y kind of thing. Yeah, that's how we want to stay.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, I love the guys. I mean I haven't seen them in a while because I haven't worked the gun shows or seen them. And they send other people to some of the shows. They work. But you know, one thing I would say is I probably help them with the titanium because now they're very popular with titanium actions. They're just kind of.

[Will Cooper]

Oh, crazy.

[Brandon Maddox]

They're well known for that.

[Will Cooper]

Yeah.

[Brandon Maddox]

And I, maybe I take some credit for that, convincing them, hey, let's make stuff out of titanium. We'll figure it out and create a kind of a whole market out of, you know, most everything we make is titanium. And I, I look at the price points of things that are made out of stainless steel versus titanium. I mean it's significantly more expensive. Just more aware on or has to be. Yeah, More wear on your tooling and just the having to source it overseas, you know, it's significantly more expensive. But it was a hard sell to convince them. But over time I commenced them. Hey, let's try titanium because it's the ideal scenario for a hunter. It's lightweight. I mean, aluminum to me is just not reliable or strong enough long term for hunting. And I know some people use it and probably works fine in some cases, but I'm just not there. I'm not.

[Will Cooper]

Are there any new alloys that are coming out that are being used in the silence again?

[Brandon Maddox]

You know, I read about some. I mean, I used sometimes to hear people say, you know, carbon fiber maybe. I think that there's kind of touch or go, hit or miss because that's super light, gets brittle. I don't know, I think there's other things they're looking at. But just to be able to do it at mass scale, I mean, 3D printing may open up some stuff. I mean, we do 3D printing with titanium. But there could eventually be other things that you just buy the dust and it makes it hard. Part is, you know, you just, it's, it's tough in this market. You'd hate to make something and find out, you know, two years later it doesn't withstand or it doesn't hold up. You know, then you got a coil problem.

[Will Cooper]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brandon Maddox]

Just from a regulatory standpoint, how do you get all those back? And we can't repair them, we got to replace them and you know, you'd.

[Will Cooper]

Have to have some significant R D behind it. Explain to me. I've always been curious and obviously I've never asked anybody this question. You're the boss of a silencer company so you're the perfect person to answer this question. When you say and I've got, I've got two 30 cal suppressors. I bought a banish.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

How does it work that it can go from 30 all the way down? Is it just the fact that the hole is large enough?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And it doesn't affect the bullet if it goes lower than a 30 cal.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right? Yeah, exactly. You know, I think that the big point too is it's titanium. Because years ago when I first started doing this, everything was stainless steel. No one would ever have wanted to put a 30 cal silencer in stainless steel. Why on the end of a 223? Just too heavy.

[Will Cooper]

Oh, too heavy.

[Brandon Maddox]

Just so much weight, so much mass.

[Will Cooper]

Because Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

[Brandon Maddox]

The craftsmanship that can handle. And most everyone now that's buying something that works on a 308, they wanted to work on a 300 win mag 300 weatherby so it can be strong enough construction wise to handle that. And to have that in stainless steel, it ends up being just so heavy. That's why I always say I had good luck at sales, at shows, because you hand someone a titanium silencer and they're like, okay, I want that. You know, it's interesting learning for me. Like I don't know why I had in my head that no one's ever going to pay more money for a titanium silencer When I first started because I again, I went cheap. I bought the cheapest one I could find.

[Will Cooper]

Well, it's the Yeti model. Right. Who's going to pay $350 for a cooler?

[Brandon Maddox]

Totally. I mean that, that was the way I went into it at shows. And then I quit carrying a titanium to shows and guys come up and they're like, hey, where's that light when you had last year? Like people are willing to pay for it. I need to embrace this and lean into it. Instead of trying to mass produce stainless steel and you know, try to keep the price as low as possible. Let's mass produce titanium and get that price down lower. Because now we buy so much titanium. I feel like our pricing is probably as good as what some people pay for stainless steel with tariffs.

[Will Cooper]

Wow.

[Brandon Maddox]

But yeah, there's been, you know, so many different learnings on materials and types. But I do feel like since we kind of revolution this idea of a 30 cal, that's titanium. That's multi caliber. But to your question, typically having a lot of baffles in there helps too, because the goal is to sort of catch that gas before it escapes, wick the heat out of it, and then let it, you know, kind of go out the end. It slows the gas down, but it still speeds up the bullet. That's what helps with sound suppression.

[Will Cooper]

Okay. Okay, that makes sense. So you've just literally have just come out with a new Banish product.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes.

[Will Cooper]

The shotgun suppressor.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes. Okay.

[Will Cooper]

I will say this. Gosh, when was, when did I duck hunt with this guy in the Delta, Brandon? This must have been 10 years ago.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh, wow.

[Will Cooper]

Okay. I remember him having a suppressor on a shotgun.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh, really?

[Will Cooper]

It was a big black, like, rectangle.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Do you remember that?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yep.

[Will Cooper]

And I remember him shooting that. And I was like, it doesn't sound suppressed.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right.

[Will Cooper]

Again, it was like a. There was like a zing to it as a, like a thing. But it was also still super loud.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And I would think. And again, I didn't play with it a bunch. And if I did, I don't even remember it today. I would think that the. Probably the biggest thing that was holding back any sort of suppression on a shotgun is what you just described, the stainless steel, titanium thing, which is because shotguns apart, other than, you know, is the only weapon that is really a balanced kind of weapon. Right. Feel it to your face kind of thing.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

You add this thing on the front.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Takes out a balance. Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Does it take it out of balance? I'm assuming you've designed a product that's light enough that.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. I mean, of course we're spoiled because we have access to getting barrels shortened, but we sent off our shotgun barrels and got them short. And when we did, it basically just becomes an extension of your barrel. But, you know, the, the suppressor that our engineers have come up with, the banish 12, is 3D printed titanium. So it's really lightweight. And the beauty of that is that it's about half the weight of, you know, the one you're probably talking about. And it just makes it a whole lot easier to swing, especially if you shorten a barrel a little bit. Sometimes it's harder if people have a longer barrel, but once they put it on a longer barrel, they're like, you know what? I'm going to send it off for a few hundred bucks to get it shortened. And next thing you know, I can swing it better and just everybody wins.

[Will Cooper]

Well, I'M just, you know, I'm obviously, my first brain, went to pheasant hunting.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And quail hunting, where it's a little bit quicker kind of deal. But duck hunting.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, totally.

[Will Cooper]

Gonna be huge.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Will Cooper]

And turkey hunt.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, absolutely. So.

[Will Cooper]

Well, you don't really have to worry about the weight. Right. You're sort of positioned up totally.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Yesterday we went pheasant for the first time as a group. Like, we took a group out and.

[Will Cooper]

I saw videos and stuff. They didn't send me a video of you. You know what I'm saying?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Maybe I missed too many. I don't know. You know, it's fun. Like, what was interesting is it was like, industry people, our lobbyists and some other people from the industry. But what I found interesting, and I've seen this in other examples when we were testing it at a range, people that can shoot really trap really well in sporting clays. Doesn't affect them at all. In other words.

[Will Cooper]

That's what I asked Carter earlier, because I was thinking, oh, man. Were there people out there that said, oh, man, I can't hit anything now with this thing on the front?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, no, they were shooting just as well. I think some guys said, took a little bit longer to get used to it. Maybe some of those birds, you almost have to hit over the top of them. And then it's maybe harder to see the bird if the silencers blow it. But once they got used to it, they're like, wow, this is great. You know, you're getting less recoil. You're not having to worry about earplugs. And you can chat amongst yourselves. Everyone seemed to really like it. I saw some guys did wear earplugs, just, you know, for the protection if needed, you know. But, yeah, everyone seemed to really like it. Maybe they're just being nice because we put together a nice hunt. South Dakota. Right. But everyone seemed to really like it. They're like, wow, this is pretty cool.

[Will Cooper]

Is anybody else on the market have a shotgun suppressor?

[Brandon Maddox]

There's a couple out there.

[Will Cooper]

They're just not. I don't see them.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, they're not functional, I don't think. I think that those companies that developed them were historically more tactical companies, so they probably took it from like a home defense tactical or you sometimes say tactical. The. The perspective that the Banish engineering teams came up with is more user friendly for hunting. So it's just a different perspective.

[Will Cooper]

Yeah. So give us a. Obviously, this is. Again, we're here at your 20th anniversary. There's been a long road to here. You've been probably involved in all of, you know, as many of the opening of states to become legal as possible.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And we've clearly seen a shift in the last 12 months.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And again, for. We probably discussed this on the last podcast, but it's worth reiterating, you helped with something that has changed everything in the last 12 months, in which it used to take me. It took me 18 months to get my thunder beast.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh, wow.

[Will Cooper]

Okay.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And now I've heard people walk in the gun store in the morning.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And they get a call that afternoon saying, come get your suppressor.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

What's. What has changed?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Good question. And, you know, some organizations are really big about trying to take credit for stuff. And I'll be honest with you, I don't feel like we had a ton honestly to do with that part, because I'll explain what happened.

[Will Cooper]

Okay.

[Brandon Maddox]

So, I mean, we did push our lobbyists and push the industry to try to get more funding for ATF so that they could get E forms from that perspective. But E forms, when it first rolled out, was honestly not that more efficient than the paper. I think that it was sort of the, oh, we got eforms, it's gonna be quicker. And there was a big influx of purchases, and then the system got overwhelmed, and then it got slow again. So it didn't. Eforms in itself, in my mind, didn't necessarily fix it. You know, I give two gentlemen 100% credit, and I've gotten pushback for this. But there's two guys at ATF that I know for sure are gun guys, because I've had a lot of conversations with them.

[Will Cooper]

Are the people at ATF that are not Gungans?

[Brandon Maddox]

Well, I think less of them than there was. I think recently they've started getting rid of those people. But, yeah, there's two guys there, two lawyers that are both gun guys, James Van and Ben Hiller. They. Ben Hiller, a lawyer, he said, hey, I'm going to work the form that my staff works. When he was the acting director of the National Farms branch in West Virginia, he said, I'm going to work the forms as if I'm one of my employees, but also I'm going to wear my legal counsel hat because I know legally what has to be done based on the statute, what has to be looked at, what has to be touched.

[Will Cooper]

Okay.

[Brandon Maddox]

He was able to cut out over 80% of the steps. They would.

[Will Cooper]

That's what. That's what I remember you saying is that it was almost like the form would come in and whoever's judging would take them, whatever it was. Right. Four days to go through every line item on the form.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And what the guy did was he said, look, if the form comes in like this, you literally only have to look at one thing.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Everything else is a check the box exercise. It's good.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Legally, it's good.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Which sped up from four days to four minutes or something.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. They had too many touch points. To me, people were looking at them, I think was part of it. So some process changes. I think the other thing is they were doing. You know, I just learned this last week when I was there. I didn't realize this. I thought they used to hold your background and do your background check about the time they thought that they would get to it. So then when they did approve it, it could go through. But some people were getting, you know, five and six background checks. So, like, if you submitted your paperwork, they might be doing a background check on your paperwork every two months, not knowing when they would actually get to it and actually work it.

[Will Cooper]

Oh, wow.

[Brandon Maddox]

Because one of the requirements is, I mean, that's easy. They just send it to FBI and FBI sends it back. But, yeah, I think that one thing, functionally they changed on the background checks is they do 100% of the background checks. Step one, and 80% of them get approved the same day. And if they do, they make sure the paperwork's right and they get them off the. You know, in other words, it's this idea of.

[Will Cooper]

That's amazing.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Instead of bringing all this work in house and then trying to sort it out and figure out how to work through it, it's like, hey, let's do a background check. Is the first step. Anyone that's approved, let's figure out a way to get them out the door instantly. Yeah. The ones that take a long time are the ones that, you know, if you've ever been arrested, that's going to slow it down because they have to see what happened. You know, why were you arrested? And then how did.

[Will Cooper]

Bushel.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. How did end. And then there's. You know, sometimes people's name is the same as someone else who's a prohibited person that can't own it. So they have to make sure. Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

If your name is the same as somebody else that tolling. Oh, my gosh.

[Brandon Maddox]

So my insight lately, and I. I'm surprised I'm saying this is as odd as it sounds, but I almost recommend if you've ever been delayed. And most people may not know if they've ever been delayed. But if you know you've ever been delayed from your background check or it takes you longer to get a silen, I recommend getting a upin. And years ago you could only get a unique PIN from the ATF and FBI if you had been denied. But now they let anyone get one. So I've got one, which I thought, let me just see how this. It is super easy. I basically submit my information, my fingerprint cards. Basically what it does is they do a.

[Will Cooper]

It's a unique identifier for you, for you.

[Brandon Maddox]

And basically what they do is the FBI. It's managed to. The FBI. FBI does a full deep dive in your background check from the day you were born up to the day they're looking at it and everything is clear in there. They seal it. So that becomes sealed. And the next time they do a background check on you, they only look at that day they pulled it before. And then today's day. Okay, so by sealing that, if there's something in your record, we've been arrested, or you have a similar name or there's something, it'll. With a unique pin, it'll make sure you're not that other person. And also if you've ever been arrested, it'll seal it and then you'll be in the group of people that go through in the first 24 hours.

[Will Cooper]

That makes sense.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. I mean, I know some people are like, well, you know, you're subjecting yourself to more regulations or giving more information. They've got a. All the information. Think of it as the easy, you know, the pass you have to get through the airport and you get exactly the line. Quicker is the way I would look at it. I mean, it's not a hundred percent analogous, but it is a lot quicker to have that upenn. And again, I, I was working an event and I saw one at the FBI. Booth was a gun guy asked me questions about silencers. And I was like, how do you convince anyone to get a you pen? He goes, I think you should get one. I think everyone should get one. After I started talking to him, I was like, actually, I don't necessarily disagree. That's a good idea because, you know, every morning I see how many refunds we have to do for denials. And at some point when ATF does your background check and if they can never figure out exactly how your arrest ended, they have to deny you because they can't prove that you can legally own it. So even Though you might be able to. So we have to refund the people their money. So I would love if everyone had a UPenn that has ever been arrested, because then they would all get approved as long as they're lawfully could own one.

[Will Cooper]

Oh, yeah, Good thought. Maybe you should make a marketing campaign.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, I agree. But I could see the people, you know, the gun rights people saying, wow, why would you encourage people to be further regulated or scrutinized by the government? It just, it helps you exercise treasure rates more efficiently, which makes sense. Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

So we've had this, this shift, this 80%, you know, form efficiency system.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yep.

[Will Cooper]

But then obviously we. There was a lot of conversations around the budget reconciliation bill.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes.

[Will Cooper]

And all the things tied to silences in that bill.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes.

[Will Cooper]

And as a layman looking at that process, I was like, oh, man, we're about to like, silences over the counter kind of deal.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right.

[Will Cooper]

And then it got pulled and I was like, as a, again, as a layman, I was like, well, what's going on?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

And again, what I needed to understand was this is not a, this wasn't a lawmaking process. It was a budget reconciliation bill.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Which according to the bird rule that we heard come up over the whole public land sale scenario. Yeah. The bird rule needed to look at everything that was going to be put into the budget reconciliation bill and look at it through a lens that is this adding to the budget or decreasing the budget? And that's the only things that could stay in the budget reconciliation bill. Right, I get that. Right. So far.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good, General.

[Will Cooper]

And so that's the reason why that we got the tax stamp. Yes, but it wasn't. But it was also the reason why the Hearing Safety Protection act stuff got tossed.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right, Correct. So, you know, one thing I haven't talked about on podcast that I think is very interesting is so there's three or four US Senators that went to the parliamentarian, the lady, and sat down with her before any of this started, and they asked her, is there a way that we can get the full hearing Protection act through budget reconciliation? Is there a way we can write this? Is there a way we could phrase this? Is there a scenario where we can get this through? And basically the parliamentarian said, kind of like you said, that, you know, if it's not a budgetary issue, then it can't go through. Because the benefit of a budget process is you only have to have a simple majority, whereas regular laws to go through. You know, Congress, Senate, has to be 60%. So it's a higher threshold, because if you could get stuff approved with a simple majority, everyone would push everything through the budget reconciliation.

[Will Cooper]

Right.

[Brandon Maddox]

So my understanding is these US Senators sat down with a parliamentarian, and she was very frank that there's zero chance this is going through. So I, you know, we proposed, hey, let's look at other options. And then, you know, people are kind of yelling at us. But the hard part for me is it appeared to me as if these organizations knew that, and they used it as a fundraising activity, and they tried to convince everyone in the industry this could go through. This is a once in a lifetime. Send us money, we'll make this happen. Call your congressman. And the reality is the. The parliamentarian had already told them, I'm not going to prove this. And Thune, our US Senator, lives here in Sioux Falls. He had said publicly, I'm not going to fire the parliamentarian. And basically what he's saying is, if I fire her and I hire someone that goes along with everything we want, the same thing's going to happen to us in, you know, four years, six years, whenever the Democrats turns over totally, they'll put their own parliamentarian in there and everything will pass and they'll say, hey, you did it. We did it, too. And then who knows what it could be? They could outlaw all firearms. They could make the NFA process for any firearm you buy. I mean, it could be super bad. But, yeah, I feel like there's people. There was groups in the industry that use it as a fundraiser and got everyone fired up that it could potentially go through. But I think the writing was already on the wall that Congress knew it couldn't go through. And so the more yelling they got put on their plate from constituents, they just said, hey, we'll put it all in there. Because in the back of their mind, they knew it was all going to get pulled out. So it's sort of like people felt like the rug got pulled off underneath them. I agree. But they knew from the beginning that didn't have a chance because it wasn't in the spirit of budget specifically, but the tax stamp. Yes.

[Will Cooper]

Good.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. So that, you know, the hard part for us has been, and I was signed into law July 1, but it doesn't actually go active till January. Yeah. So that's five months of, you know, everybody's kind of on the sidelines waiting, which is good. We're excited.

[Will Cooper]

Are you Expecting a. From January 1st? Get your sales team, marketing team, your. Your customer service team ready because, oh, yeah, a wave should be coming.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oh, yeah, atf. We were meeting with them last week. Their executives in D.C. they're expecting, you know, at least a 2X. So that's what they're staffing to. So they'll feel like it'll be 100% increase. You know, I've been candid with people, too, that like most companies that we talk to, honestly, I can't think of anyone we've talked to who's selling a ton right now.

[Will Cooper]

Right.

[Brandon Maddox]

Because of the change. The question is, are they going to have the capital and the resources to build inventory for the last five months of, you know, nominal sales?

[Will Cooper]

So it could be a year up for potential.

[Brandon Maddox]

Because it makes sense, right? I mean, I go to my bank and say, I want to borrow some money. I want to build some more inventory. And they're like, show us your revenue. And it's like, well, it's kind of bad. It'll get better in January. Yeah, we promise. Well, how does the economy affect you? Well, economy won't be an issue. I mean, you know, it's a tough conversation. So I. I wouldn't expect anyone's in a different position than we are, per se. You're kind of like, you're super optimistic, but you. You don't want to push all in. I mean, there's companies in our industry that went all in in 1617, thinking that harem text actor was going to go through, and they went under. The bank end up taking them over. So there's some of the, you know, the biggest. So, you know, you don't want to. You don't want to put yourself in that kind of scenario. But we're definitely gearing up. We're definitely making more product. We're definitely buying other people's products. You know, a big percentage of our sales are other people's products through our partners and channels. So, you know, we're working closely to get inventory so that when it does hit, we have inventory already here. But, no, I think it could be huge. And I know that it's not 100% of what we wanted. Obviously, full deregulation would have been perfect. You know, we own a product, Banish, so I think I've said on other podcasts, we did 125 million in banish last year in sales. And think what I could have done if the Hearing Protection act went through and they weren't regulated. Because right now we know there's about 20,000 dealers out there that sell silencers, and there's about 80,000 dealers that sell firearms, you know, wow. So the SOT is a sub. The. The silencer dealers are a subset of the total. But if they had become deregulated and all 85,000 dealers could have sold silencers over the counter just like a regular firearm, the market would have absolutely exploded. So our banished product would have been, you know, so popular. You know, we sell through wholesalers, we sell through distributors, we sell direct. So it would have, you know, obviously benefited us better if that gone through.

[Will Cooper]

Sure.

[Brandon Maddox]

I see it as a. As a step.

[Will Cooper]

I think that what will happen, like, what do we. What do you anticipate in 20. Do you think that the Hearing Protection act will come back onto the floor somehow?

[Brandon Maddox]

I've always been told, and no one has been able to prove wrong. I mean, I'd love to hear differently, but I've always been told unless you can get 60 votes in the US Senate, it's not going to go through.

[Will Cooper]

So. But what about this whole tax stamp implication? Right. Yeah, I've heard. And again, I'm not a lawyer here.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

That now that I don't have to pay for this thing, how can it be regulated?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. No, I agree. It sounds good from a consumer perspective. So the litmus test I use is I called three or four attorneys that I know that are in this space that I don't feel like have a vested interest, and they all say that has no chance to pass.

[Will Cooper]

Gotcha.

[Brandon Maddox]

And I've talked to the people that are funding it, and I don't want to quote them, but I think that they would say the same thing.

[Will Cooper]

Gotcha.

[Brandon Maddox]

They're putting money behind it because it sounds good to the consumer, but the chances of it going through are very small. Phenomenal, nominal. But I mean, we hope it goes through. So we're working on state issues. So South Dakota, where we live, we have a state issue. It basically says in our state statutes that if you buy a silencer, it's illegal unless you went through the federal registry process. So if the federal registry. So if the federal registry process goes away, then silencers become illegal in South Dakota, and there's about 13 states. That's a lot. There's 13 states that have a similar issue. They basically say silencers are illegal unless you went through the federal process of registering it. And if that goes away, where it's not in a register anymore, then you got a lot of.

[Will Cooper]

You got another couple of hurdles to decline through.

[Brandon Maddox]

The other thing that no one really talks about is how do you work with some of these states too? If you completely deregulate them. I could see a Maryland making them illegal. I could see Connecticut making them illegal.

[Will Cooper]

On a state by state basis.

[Brandon Maddox]

I could see Washington state. I could see California.

[Will Cooper]

Well, they're already illegal.

[Brandon Maddox]

Oregon, you know, there's a lot of states that say if, if you made them too easy to get and there weren't enough check step, then they would make them illegal. Which, I mean, honestly, that's what the Hearing Protection act would probably end up happening. So best case scenario, I could, let's say the loss one of these lawsuits goes through and they win. Then you got to fix the state issues. Then you got to go talk to the other states that are blue states and keep them from plugging the hole of making them illegal.

[Will Cooper]

I wonder if, because you're right, what is the difference between where we are today and buying them over the counter? It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a convenience thing. Right. That's where it comes down to.

[Brandon Maddox]

Right. I mean, and I, I, you know, meeting with ATF last week and I talked to them a lot. I don't know if they would say this publicly, but their goal is to make it where you can buy silencers over the counter so that you could walk in and buy a silencer and leave with it that same day. So they're working on technology, they're working on processes that would be.

[Will Cooper]

Well, it's almost like buying a gun. Right. You have to go through all the, you can't technically just buy it over the count. You have to get approved, right?

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. Do a background.

[Will Cooper]

And that background check is happens within the five minutes that you're there or 10 minutes that you're there. Can the silencer process still go through the federal registry?

[Brandon Maddox]

That's the goal.

[Will Cooper]

And get it to that 30 minute mark.

[Brandon Maddox]

That's the goal.

[Will Cooper]

And have your, your shops, your tactical shops, your gun shops.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Know, based on experience, they can tell the customer, hey, if everything's kosher with you.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Based on our experience over the last four months.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

We're talking about a 20 to 45 minute wait time right now. So if you're willing to wait.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. You could leave with it.

[Will Cooper]

You could leave with it today.

[Brandon Maddox]

That's the goal. I think that, you know, there's always obstacles with the government. I mean, in October they're cutting back a lot of the people at the atf. You know, there could be cuts, there could be problems that, you know, sales go up so much and then the E forms start taking longer to get.

[Will Cooper]

Padding the ADF in October, but gearing up for two times in January.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, you know, and I guess they'd say it's two different staffing. The people are, they're hoping to cut back at least. The plan is the people that go out and do the inspections on the actual dealers, the IOIs, industry operation inspectors or investigators, they, they're cutting them back significantly so that there's not as much pressure on the industry. But yeah, there, there, there could. In other words, it's going to be a struggle for the government to do that. But I know that's their goal. They'd like to eventually get to a point where you could walk in and you know, I don't know if it's an hour, two hours, whatever it takes. You'd submit all the paperwork. You would do the, the dealer would do the background check, they would data entry that into the nfa. NFA would approve it and then it comes right. And they walk out with it. Obviously that impacts our business. That's why we sort of doubled down also of selling banish to distributors so they could sell it to dealers. Because if that weren't over then you know, dealers would be selling more locally as well. Probably more people get into selling them.

[Will Cooper]

It's a catch too really, you know.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, we're in a good position in that we really have a couple different businesses. We have, you know, silence essential that sells everybody and everything and then we sort of have banish that we sell, you know, through Silencer Central but also through other dealers and wholesalers. And so you're kind of winning from both sides. So no matter what happens, you're sort of hedging your bets. And it didn't start out that way. It started out more like I said in the beginning is there was really no hunting brand out there in my mind and all my consumers when I first started in North Dakota and South Dakota were 100% hunter. So I had to create a brand that they could relate to, benefit from and like to get them to buy. And by doing that we built, you know, arguably the strongest brand out there, volume wise so that we sort of benefit from any law changes which makes us comfortable continuing to kind of double down, invest in the market and the industry. And I think it's got nothing but upside.

[Will Cooper]

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah.

[Will Cooper]

Well, I know that you. It is a busy day today just to end this thing off. 20th anniversary today.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes, sir.

[Will Cooper]

Super grateful to be here. I'm excited to come out up. Just a big celebration from the Back of a truck, back of a car, small gun. Shows to this juggernaut.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, and I tell people I don't want it to be about me. I mean, we've just been fortunate to find good people who probably, like me, didn't like corporate America. We kind of felt like you were just, you know, who knows what you're doing? And now you could work in a situation where you're, you know, bringing benefit to people. People want to be able to shoot, you know, quieter, reduce that recoil. But no, we've had a lot of good partners like yourself that's helped us get the work.

[Will Cooper]

Well, I'm super grateful for the support that you give us and the partnership. And I know it's only going to grow. And we're getting bigger. You're getting bigger. Be amazing.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yeah. It's one win. No. Thanks so much for coming.

[Will Cooper]

No, I'm looking forward to tonight. And we'll have to do this again when you know the next set of rules and regulations. I like to come into play when it gets easier.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yep.

[Will Cooper]

Thanks, Maddox.

[Brandon Maddox]

Yes, sir.

[Will Cooper]

Well, that's it for today. I appreciate you listening. As always, leave a review, share it with your friends, and most importantly, do what's right to convey the truth around hunting.

[Brandon Maddox]

Hit the road for fun and heartwarming fishing adventures with the real American road trip. I just want to hook up one time. I just need to hook up one time. Catch the Waypoint Original series every Tuesday at 9:30pm Eastern on the Waypoint TV channel. Waypoint TV, your destination for outdoor entertainment. I did get a bite. I have gotten a bite. I did feel it. This is the Hunt Stand podcast. I'm your host, Will Cooper. Each week we bring you real hunting stories, proven strategies, and dive into the topics hunters care about most. From chasing your first whitetail to planning a western elk hunt, we cover the conversations that matter to every hunter out there. Tune in, subscribe, and join the hunt only on the Hunt Stand podcast.