197 - The Next Generation of Military Weapons ft. Kevin Brittingham | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 197

Summary

Unsubscribe Podcast Episode 197 Summary: "The Next Generation of Military Weapons ft. Kevin Brittingham"

Release Date: January 27, 2025

In Episode 197 of the Unsubscribe Podcast, hosts Eli Doubletap, Brandon Herrera, Donut Operator (also known as King Trout), and special guest Kevin Brittingham delve deep into the advancements in military weaponry, focusing primarily on the innovative Boombox gun. The episode blends technical discussions with personal anecdotes, offering listeners both insightful information and entertaining stories.

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1. Kevin Brittingham’s Return from Africa

The episode kicks off with Donut Operator welcoming back Kevin Brittingham after his lengthy stint in Africa.

• Donut Operator: "Kevin's back. Kevin. It's been what, a year? How long?" [01:02]

• Kevin Brittingham: "I was in Africa for probably six or seven weeks, and then the flight's very long." [02:24]

Kevin shares his experiences in Africa, emphasizing the challenges of long travels and the intense schedule that kept him from attending a live show in Boston.

• Kevin Brittingham: "We are going hunting and shooting. Good times... traveling for like 36 hours." [02:24]

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2. The Boombox Gun: Features and Development

A significant portion of the conversation centers around the Boombox gun, the latest innovation designed to succeed the Honey Badger.

• Kevin Brittingham: "The Boombox is the next generation of the Honey Badger... It’s an AR15 size, a lightweight AR15. It takes a .308 mag and it's in 86 blackout, a cartridge we developed." [06:09]

Kevin elaborates on the technical specifications:

• Versatility: Capable of firing both subsonic and supersonic rounds, making it effective up to 600 meters with supersonic ammo and 300 meters with subsonic.

• Design Improvements: "The Boombox is probably four and a half pounds and the barrel is under six pounds." [05:14]

• Engineering Excellence: Stressing the importance of a robust charging handle to handle high recoil in a lightweight platform.

• Kevin Brittingham: "You can’t fake it. You have to do all the work... It’s different." [08:19]

Notable Quote:

“We have the only system where you have low recoil, lightweight, and heavy caliber—all three.” – Kevin Brittingham [10:22]

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3. Company Culture and Engineering Approach

The hosts discuss the company's dedication to quality and the integrated role of engineers in the production process.

• Donut Operator: "We're going to get the best people in there... your engineers are part of every part of the process." [49:03]

• Kevin Brittingham: "We have 17 engineers, which is pretty incredible. It’s how we're going to earn it." [09:43]

Kevin emphasizes the company’s refusal to compromise on quality for quick profits, highlighting a culture where engineers are deeply involved in every stage—from design to testing.

• Kevin Brittingham: "We have to develop the fixtures and the testing... No, you can't fake it. You have to do all of the work." [07:41]

Notable Quote:

“We want the best in the trade... average is not good enough.” – Kevin Brittingham [41:01]

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4. Hunting Experiences and Conservation Efforts

Kevin shares his passion for hunting in Africa, linking it to conservation and population management.

• Kevin Brittingham: "All the real conservation comes from hunters. That's all the money." [78:13]

He discusses various hunts, including big game like elephants, hippos, and forest buffalo, and the impact of hunting on wildlife populations.

• Kevin Brittingham: "We shoot stuff that we eat and that's fine... It is what they do to support the villages and to keep them from poaching all the elephants." [103:46]

Notable Quote:

“Hunters are managing the populations... keeping these animals here for future generations.” – Kevin Brittingham [78:03]

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5. Anecdotes and Team Dynamics

The podcast lightens up with humorous stories from live shows, team interactions, and personal experiences.

• Brandon Herrera: "I accidentally spilled white claws across the stage." [107:35]

• Donut Operator: "We asked to see you, then we accidentally ran into each other." [01:15]

These anecdotes showcase the camaraderie among the team members and the unpredictable nature of live performances.

Notable Quote:

“We have a fantastic team. Everyone's just crushing life.” – Donut Operator [93:00]

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6. Challenges in International Hunting

Kevin discusses the complexities and dangers of hunting in different African regions, including interactions with local communities and wildlife behavior.

• Kevin Brittingham: "The danger comes from the environment... snakes in Cameroon’s venomous." [70:43]

He recounts intense moments during hunts, such as encountering aggressive hippos and navigating dense jungles.

• Kevin Brittingham: "Chasing a boat with a hippo is like chasing a giant, aggressive drill bit." [74:07]

Notable Quote:

“Africa makes me realize I love America but how stupid some things have gotten here.” – Kevin Brittingham [83:24]

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7. Conclusion and Future Plans

As the episode winds down, the hosts discuss upcoming projects and potential future hunts in Africa, expressing excitement about further innovations and adventures.

• Kevin Brittingham: "We’re going to have semi-autos there. So, good times." [97:00]

• Donut Operator: "We need to schedule still next year. Like, all of us going out to Africa and hunting with you and just document that entire..." [56:53]

The episode concludes with light-hearted banter, reinforcing the strong bond among the team members and their shared enthusiasm for both their professional and personal pursuits.

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Notable Highlights:

• Innovation in Firearms: Detailed exploration of the Boombox gun’s design and functionality, emphasizing its groundbreaking features in the military weapons sector.

• Integrated Engineering: Insight into the company's holistic approach to engineering, ensuring quality and innovation from design to deployment.

• Conservation through Hunting: Kevin’s perspective on hunting as a means of wildlife management and conservation, highlighting the delicate balance between human activity and environmental stewardship.

• Team Camaraderie: Engaging stories that reveal the dynamic and humorous interactions among the podcast hosts and their adventures.

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Key Takeaway: Episode 197 of the Unsubscribe Podcast offers a comprehensive look into the future of military weapons through the lens of Kevin Brittingham’s experiences in Africa and the development of the Boombox gun. It underscores the importance of quality engineering, ethical hunting practices, and a strong, dedicated team in driving innovation and conservation efforts.

Transcript

[Donut Operator]

We're learning kinks today.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's like, you know who the I am Mafia nerds. Man.

[Brandon Herrera]

That will your not regular gay RFK approved.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Slight titties. It's worth it.

[Donut Operator]

HR does not exist anymore. Now we're good. That's why we got that nice mic now on top. Because I learned lessons.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Don't want to miss anything.

[Donut Operator]

No.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Voice scout, everyone. Ready? Three, two, one.

[Brandon Herrera]

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Unsubscribe podcast. I'm joined today by eli double tap, Mr. Kevin Brittingham, Brandon Herrera, and myself, Donut Operator, also known as King Trout.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like I can still hear his voice.

[Donut Operator]

Donut died. Just starts like that. It's like, God dang.

[Eli Double Tap]

The death of Donut.

[Donut Operator]

Okay, there we go. Now we got it all buckled in. Is cold. Hi, everyone. Welcome.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Dude, it's a boy.

[Donut Operator]

Kevin's back. Kevin. It's been what, a year? How long?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Maybe, I don't know, a year and a half.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, at least a year.

[Donut Operator]

We had just moved into this house, I think, right.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I wasn't sure.

[Eli Double Tap]

I don't know. Yeah, something like that.

[Donut Operator]

I'm drawing blanks. Drawing blanks. It was good to have you back, buddy. We asked to see you, then we accidentally ran into each other.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. The Boston live show. We're. We're like halfway through our second string of the live tour, and we're heading to Boston and. Or. Excuse me.

[Donut Operator]

We're.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, yeah, we were heading to Boston from Atlanta, and then we just. I see a guy across the bar. I was like, damn, that guy kind of looks like Kevin. And then we do the whole, like, Spider man meme. Like, it is Kevin. Where are you coming back from?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, General Herrera, I was.

[Eli Double Tap]

God damn it.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Africa. So, yeah, we were just flying back from Africa. We're doing some, you know, testing, hunting, shooting. Good times. So, yeah, very nice. It was weird to run into you guys all at the. Well, it was not strange to run you at the bar, but at the airport on the same place. Yeah. So it's cool.

[Donut Operator]

We might. Yeah. You missed the Boston show. You're like, I'm going. And then we started day drinking, morning drinking, let's be honest. And then fly drinking and then landing. And then you were pretty spin after that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, I think so. Look, we'd been hunting enough. I'd been in Africa for probably six or seven weeks, and then. The flight's very long.

[Donut Operator]

Put that right.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, the mic is. The mic is closer now.

[Donut Operator]

Treat it like a dick now.

[Kevin Brittingham]

There we go.

[Brandon Herrera]

Thank you.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. So no it was. I was so hyped to see you guys. I want to come down the Boston show, but then halfway back when I land in Boston, it's an hour to my house and halfway there I'm falling asleep and I'm like, ah, been traveling for like 36 hours. There's no way I'm that going to Boston till 2 in the morning.

[Eli Double Tap]

No hurt feelings on that one. That travel.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So I apologize but I really wanted to see you guys but not that badly.

[Donut Operator]

Same dude. You're the traveling is so taxing. It seems like an easy thing. Like oh, you're only landing and talking to people and then flying and landing. Everyone is dead by night.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Three cooks. You. Well, yeah, that when I come home from Africa, it's a fly from the ranch three hours to Johannesburg and land and go through all the there to go through the airport with guns and all things. Then fly 17 hours to Atlanta and then land in Atlanta, go through all that again, then fly two and a half hours to Boston and then drive driving hour. It's a pain in the ass.

[Eli Double Tap]

No, it's worth that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's like titties. It's worth it.

[Donut Operator]

I ain't flying that far for titties.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, you're just not committed to being heterosexual.

[Brandon Herrera]

This guy wouldn't fly 17 hours for tits.

[Donut Operator]

See? See what I mean? That'd be miserable. But we had a. We had a really good day today. Just warning is going to be a very autistic episode with just fine out. Brandon's so hyped for it. We tried didn't get experience it but holy. It is very rare to have a firearm actually just surprise the out of you like that. From the weight to the recoil to the sound. We were side by side shooting machine guns all suppressed without ear pro.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And it was your rifle caliber machine. Which, which rifle was this? Well before we say that, it's like at first when you started complimenting it, I was very touched, but I was like, wait, you expected it to suck or not be great? It's like, you know who the I am? No. So it's the boombox. And then we were shooting a contract version of the Honey Badger that's select fire and only subsonic and oh, they are so good. The boys did a good job.

[Donut Operator]

They are dialed and you're like, how much do those weigh?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Like, well, the Honey badger is probably four and a half pounds and the boombox with the 12 inch barrel is under six. No, how, how heavy are they, Mitch? 5.5. What about the eight inch gun, so five pounds, but takes a.308 mag. And I mean, you guys felt it. Eight, six. I mean, those are big, heavy bullets. And how easy is that gun to shoot?

[Donut Operator]

I just for reference, I held it out with one hand. It was just going like that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, but look, you work out, but.

[Donut Operator]

It is like Finn, he got behind the gun.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

He's like, is it like. What's it gonna. He shoots it. He's like, oh my God. It is a.22. Yeah, like the A6.

[Eli Double Tap]

What?

[Brandon Herrera]

So to anybody who may not know, what is the boombox?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, it's all my idea, design and hard work. Mitch did none of it. So it is humble.

[Brandon Herrera]

Humble.

[Eli Double Tap]

I too am extraordinarily humble.

[Donut Operator]

There you go, Mitch. Flip him up.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's just the greatest gun ever. You know, we did the Boom or the Honey Badger a long time ago, and that was to replace the MP5. So a 9 millimeter sub gun with rifle capability, but still as quiet with subsonic ammo is like the MP5SD. And so what the Boombox is, is the next generation of that, in my opinion. It's an AR15 size, a lightweight AR15. It takes a.308 mag and it's in 86 blackout, a cartridge we developed. So, you know, six, five Creedmoor case with a.338 bullet in it. So you can have a 400 grain subsonic bullet or down to 100 and 60 grain Supersonics. You can shoot people at 600 meters or with subsonic to 300 meters. And it's slightly, slightly larger and heavier than the Honey Badger. And it just the operating system that Mitch Diddins worked on for several years now. It's. You're shooting that round and it feels like you're shooting an MP5. But it's. I don't know, what, 30%, 40% lighter than an MP5. So it's. It's pretty remarkable. I mean, I think it's like what all the things we try to do, you know, is like I was telling them today, I want. We. We only have production and cell guns to fund the R and D that we want to do.

[Donut Operator]

It's a dude. It's the level of sl. You cannot say how hard it was hitting that. The hostage target, you know, the floating head. Yeah, it fucking slaps.

[Eli Double Tap]

That motion you had like the Dueling Tree, like the Spinners, it would smack one at the very top and all of them would just shake and justle like on the entire tree.

[Donut Operator]

And it feels like a str. It feels like you're shooting like a.45.

[Eli Double Tap]

I. I don't get impressed by many guns anymore. You know how that is just, you know, you shot everything under the sun and it's just like, oh, like, that's cool. Like, certain things can be cool, but they don't really impress you very much. I was impressed because.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Thank you.

[Eli Double Tap]

It is quiet, but how big the round is. I mean, you're shooting out of a.308 magazine. It is probably, especially in full auto. I was blown away. That was more controllable in full auto than some 5.56 guns I've shot. And still lighter than a lot of the 556 guns.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, you're holding on target. There's 20 rounds you could hold down. And we were like 30 yards. How far were we? 20 yards?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Probably about 30 yards.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, 30 yards. All full auto, just. And they all hit the steel. And it is very loud. The only loud part is the steel getting.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much. I mean, I know we're all so proud of it at our place, and especially, you know, with. With my attitude. But, you know, I expect us to do stuff that no one else has done, and I expect us to be awesome. But it is no matter my expectation. When you go to the range and you shoot it, that's where the proof is, right? And then other guys, like you guys that know guns and shoot a lot, when you're that excited about it, when you shoot and it's because it is different. And you can't fucking fake it. You know, it's like, it looks like an ar. It's just not everything on it is different. It's years out of Mitch's life and a lot of the other engineers that helped him work on it. And it's the only way you get there. You can't fake it. Like, you have to do all of the work, and it's a pain in the ass. But getting that last little 5% that makes the gun that special to when you pick it up and shoot it, you know, it's different. Like, that's all the hard work, you.

[Donut Operator]

Know, and that's a. That's even something as simple as the charging handle. Mitch, you were talking about, like, even something that they had to walk that. And that was one of the hardest pieces, correct?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. Difficult. It was difficult, but just a setback that we didn't want to waste time.

[Donut Operator]

On, but it had to be correct. Charging handle. Like, you just don't think I was like, well, it needs to seal. I'm Assuming it was to seal better.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, actually noticed to keep it latched and in place because the gun light, very high recoil for a lightweight platform.

[Donut Operator]

High recoil, Liar.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But yeah, then how soft does it shoot? You know, and I mean, it's one of those rare things where you have ultra lightweight and compact, very shootable, you know, low recoiling, easy to control it like it doesn't make any sense. But again, the only way you get there is just devote years to going that extra little bit.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like the triangle where it's like you have low recoil, lightweight and heavy caliber. And normally you can pick any two.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

But you can't get all three. And that somehow has all three. And that was, that was the coolest part, I think, to me.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, I think it is too. And I think it's all a testament to really, our engineering department and the hard work and just the dedication of we are going to do this no matter how hard it is. And as long as I can afford to pay everyone every month, like we're going to go until the gun's right, you know, and we've said before we could have, we could have shipped it a year and a half or two years before we did, but the gun is so much better waiting. So not having, you know, is the guy that owns the company. I get to make the decision. Right. And it's. I would rather wait and it'd be awesome because, you know, I want that HK reputation to where if we put something out, you're going to buy it, you're going to know it's good, you know, and that takes a long time to develop that reputation. But we can't compromise for like, quick money today. And every gun that we do, every new project has to be better than the last one we did, no matter how good it was. And that's how we're going to earn it, you know, and, and I feel it now. I mean, we all do it the company now. And we've got 17 engineers at a company our size, which is pretty incredible. And you know, I mean, which causes me not to get a pay raise ever. But it's, it's, it's, it's a great thing, you know, Like, I much prefer like what we're doing and to win than, you know, just the money today. Like, I don't ever want to not work. So I have to own the company because I'm probably unemployable and I have to control the company because then we can make those decisions. You know, you don't have finance running the business and saying, shit, we got this much money invested. We got to get a return now. You know, investors, like, I don't have investors saying that shit to me.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like we were talking about earlier. Like, anytime, like, a founder leaves or sells a company or dies, things start going to. Because as soon as you leave that stuff up to a board, they're not here for, what will this company be in 10 years? They're usually here for, how do I Show the best Q3 return?

[Donut Operator]

Margins. I want margins. And you get that. And as you're saying, you have that 17 and that's it. And then the engineers are out at the range with us having a blast with these. They are like, breaking down the gun of like, hey, we need to refine it. We need to make it better. And instead of like a triple A studio where it's like, but it's close enough. We'll fix it as we release gen 2, gen 3. You guys are like, no, make it perfect as it releases. And you guys are. Anyone that's watching, it's like, you can't wait to buy one right now. They're fucking backlogged. Yeah, they're like, how many backlog right now?

[Kevin Brittingham]

There's thousands at this point.

[Eli Double Tap]

Good fucking place to be.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. And it was shocking to us, really. We know the gun's awesome, but it's, you know, MSRP on the guns. $4,400.

[Eli Double Tap]

So without the suppressor.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Without the suppressor, it's like, how many can we actually sell on the commercial market? And then, you know, this is the beginning of the gun because this is just 8.6blackout. 12 inch is all we have out now. But there's an 8 inch. You guys shot the SD today. Then there's so hot. 6 Creedmoor 6.5 Creedmoor 308. So it's. It's a whole weapons platform that we'll do. Because it's just a switch barrel. You don't have to. Did you guys see all that stuff today?

[Eli Double Tap]

No, we didn't take it. Well, we broke it down and field stripped it, but we didn't take the barrel out.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Okay. Yeah. So the barrel comes out. It's not a traditional AR with the barrel nut and everything. So you can just switch it to a different caliber. Sort of like you. You can with the scar. Know that so. But a much better system. And, you know, it's all tied together. Just the gun is a whole system, and we're talking about. It's the stiffest rail ever on a Small arm. So. And being that lightweight. So you know, for the military guys with lasers and stuff like that, you can't, you don't. You load the hand guard, you're not getting poi shift with it. And so you know, these guys also develop the test. Like the Geisley handguard is very stiff and some others on the market military. So we had to devise the test for deflection and then return to zero of the handguard. And so we do all this testing. We'll release it in a documentary about development of the gun. But we have to develop the fixtures and the testing. Like the government's not done this. So we do it and then we show the government and it's like, yeah, so this doesn't return to zero. And this does. And this is why this is designed this way. You know, a lot of people have the lmt, right? Cool gun. It's a, that one piece receiver in the board. But it makes it big and heavy and it's no stiffer. And you know like having engineers and doing that development then developing these tests. And then we know, you know, Mitch, like I said today isn't afraid to come to the range with you guys because he's done so much testing. We know what the gun is.

[Brandon Herrera]

I have a dumb question.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Sure.

[Brandon Herrera]

So you've developed rounds and rifles. So the 8 6, 300. But do you develop like the honey badger around the 300 blackout or did you develop the round and then created a rifle in regards to that, does the round come first or the rifle.

[Donut Operator]

The chicken or the age old question?

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's a good question. And what happened was 300 blackout. We were asked to do it basically take 300 whisper and it wasn't reliable.

[Donut Operator]

Which I'd never heard of that round. Yeah, I didn't even, I did not know that was a thing until you said that today.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. And we did that for a special operations group here in the US and which one? Yeah, the one, the, the best one.

[Eli Double Tap]

That was great. The best one.

[Donut Operator]

Terry just wave. Terry's just waving at the camera.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You know, I have two children that I love a lot and one's blue and one's green. And you know when, when, when the blue one's here, you say they're the best. We're not going to name names. Yeah. And so they asked us to, to do it and we built. So we did the round and basically we just need to. The problem with 300 whisper was it used 308 bullets and they were too short and too wide. So the oji was wrong. And so the front rib and the AR magazine will push it to the center and away from the feed ramps. And then when the bullets are too short and doesn't take up the full magazine, they move in there. And that also induces malfunction. So we needed to do bullets that were the right length and shape to feed reliably. And that was pretty much what the work engineering work was.

[Eli Double Tap]

Which is hilarious because a lot of people that make 300 blackout now do the same fucking shit. That was the problem in the first place.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Horndy just released 10 years after they made the loaded the first rounds for what year's 14? No, fuck no. 12 years after they. 13 years after they loaded the first round.

[Brandon Herrera]

What fucking year is it?

[Kevin Brittingham]

But they, they just this year release the first actual 300 blackout round. They're still selling 300 Whisper and they put 300 blackout on the box. And then people at me about it not being reliable. To me, a picture of your ammo. Yeah, well that's 300 whisper. Like yeah, it doesn't. Because, so 300 blackout 300 blackout mags that magpul and everyone offers those are actually 300 whisper mags. Because the, the front rib that helps align the cartridge half of it is cut away for the 308 bullets. So we did 300 Blackout to work flawlessly in 5, 5, 6 mags. So if you use an actual 300 Blackout ammo, it goes in 556 max, 300 Whisper goes in 300 Blackout banks. So it's all right. There wasn't a standard, but anyway we did that and we, we sold uppers and silencers to this organization to go on their, their guns, which were HK AR variant gun. And so after they adopted it, I go to, to his brother and I say, yo, you know, your brother just got uppers for their guns. How about you? And they're like, nah, we don't need that. And so being the two groups I worked with a lot, I knew their inventory and life cycles and stuff. And I was like, you man, you're not going to tell me? No, this is great. And so we did the Honey. The Honey Badger, the first prototype in two weeks to take to them. And I took it to him to shoot. And it's like, what is this? And it's like, well, your MP5 SD life cycle is up. So here's like a rough prototype gun that we built for a concept we can do. You can replace that with a 300 blackout. And so that became the Honey Badger we did a special gun for them, and that's sort of how it happened.

[Eli Double Tap]

And that is why a no is really a yes.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Kevin Brittingham, short answer round first round first.

[Donut Operator]

I've been wild, going from like a 9 mil to 300 blackout. Like, yo, what the Is this thing?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, it's all. And it was almost half the weight of the MP5.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So just crazy.

[Eli Double Tap]

What kind of MP5s are they using? The SD.

[Kevin Brittingham]

SD, which is right at 8 lb.

[Donut Operator]

Metal oil.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's not, like, heavy.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And the original prototype Honey Badger with The silencer was £4. So once we got to delivery, the gun was heavier. We made the silencer longer, and they wanted more rail space, and so that got a little heavier. But still with the silencer was £5.

[Donut Operator]

Fucking wild.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Wild.

[Donut Operator]

And then, Brandon, you yesterday. Can you even talk about all the audio stuff you were doing?

[Eli Double Tap]

No, it's a great story. We recorded that out. We recorded some audio for some really cool people over at Drive Tanks.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

And it was just really neat to be included and see. Oh, actually, to tie it in, it was neat to see how a professional sound studio and sound engineers record audio for gunshots. Weapon cycling, brass landing. Like that. And that brings us back to what we first talked about, I think, when we first had you on the podcast, is how a lot of your collection was used for the sounds of movies like Saving Private Ryan.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, yeah. Saving Private Ryan. That's been so long now. I think that was 97. And then Blackhawk Down, Pearl Harbor, Band.

[Eli Double Tap]

Of Brothers, which I just watched Blackhawk down again on the flights when we were doing the. The Unsub Live tour. That's. I always forget, like, it's always a couple years and then I watch it again. Not just how good of a movie, though, is.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That's wonderful. Causes me anxiety, though. But the sounds, it is cool. Like the. It's extraordinary because this was Skywalker sound that did all of the sounds for those movies. And just the detail and just linked. Of just how difficult it was. Everything you could think of shooting into all kinds of materials and then the brass and the links landing on different materials, all the bullet impacts. It was. It was pretty cool.

[Eli Double Tap]

It was. It was really neat. The. The variety that they would do because they had, like, they. I don't know. These people are like 40 microphones out there at different distances, several attached to the different guns that were being shot. And they had like, multiple channels at any point because they're like, well, it's going to sound different if somebody is in A window versus next to a wall versus outside of a window versus outside. Like, they want all the different sounds to make sense. And I don't know, I just appreciate when people have that kind of attention to detail because they don't have to.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Tell you how you get the best product. I mean, watch any war movie up until Private Ryan and then watch that movie. Like, the sounds scare the shit out of you in that movie. Like, it's so realistic compared to every other war movie I'd seen up until then.

[Eli Double Tap]

Because in the 80s, like Rambo to, you know, Red dawn, like, those are some of their. They're great movies. Yeah, but they're 80s movies. Like, the sound is fucking dog shit.

[Donut Operator]

That was the first one. And you see that you sent a photo and it's just. I was like, ah, there it is. You get to see all the cool equipment into like one single sound. And that is tens of thousands of dollars to record those individual sounds. And the level of detail they go in, it's.

[Eli Double Tap]

And those guys are masters of their craft. I wish I could talk about who it was, but they. They are really good at it. And they were like, we don't get the return on investment to do this. If we want to, we. We do it because it like, fucking love of the game. They're like, we want to do this.

[Donut Operator]

You get to watch those guys. If you. A really good one is Godzilla the 2008 or whatever. One recent one.

[Eli Double Tap]

Of course he'd bring this to Godzilla, dude.

[Donut Operator]

The sound design into it. The sound design of all. Even the monsters were like, oh, well, how is this thing gonna breathe? Oh, if we run a piece of rubber over a basketball, that will be that little sound for breathing. And then we'll slow it down.

[Brandon Herrera]

Foley stuff.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, yeah. And it's one thing. It's just like hundreds of layers to get one piece of audio. And you're like, God dang. I would never thought I'd just layer on layer on layer.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Nerds, man. That's the people that do that shit.

[Donut Operator]

Have you always. The 86 are they. Have they picked it up already to be in any of the. The video games or they're just gonna snag it and then you're gonna find out later.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You know, I did work with Infinity War that does some of the Call of Duties back a dozen years ago. But I. I don't know what's happened there. But, you know, they stopped calling it the Honey Badger. And it wasn't because of me. Like, of course I wanted to use the name Honey Badger. But they changed all the names.

[Eli Double Tap]

And I can actually tell you why on that one. So this is at least to my understanding of it from what I've been able to pick apart, I think that they were named as a plaintiff, one of the people that was sued after one of the school shootings. Because, you know, it's not the shooter's fault. It's obviously the fault of whoever made the gun, who made the ammo. I think at one time they sued the. Whoever made the gun safe that they stored their guns in and they're suing the violent video games and they're going to sue every fucking person under the sun. But it was enough that Call of Duty's attorneys were scared shitless. And so they were like, they didn't want to be seen as working or collaborating with gun companies from that point.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, because I know I did it originally. And so I still had that relationship when I went to Sig, when I worked at Sig. And they were absolutely against. I could not work with a video game company because they were. They were afraid of marketing to children was what, you know, Sig told me.

[Eli Double Tap]

Well, I guess if you're an attorney, that makes sense.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. If you're a lame ass attorney.

[Brandon Herrera]

Because what led to the development of the 86.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You know, my kids, like Terry, you know, it's. I mean, seriously, it is. Yeah. I mean, it's bigger, better. Like it kills better.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And you know, have you seen it?

[Eli Double Tap]

I've not in person. Do we have one in here? Rad. If we can compare it to like a 556 or anything.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But yeah, always trying to do something that like the guys don't even know they need yet or they don't know it exists and not waiting for solicitations, trying to develop product for them to make solicitations around. Like I spend half my life hunting now, like Africa, six months a year, and all I do is kill all the time. And part of that is like, I want my buddies to have the best chance possible to go do their stuff and all come home. And so we think about that constantly. And the good part of that is, you know, not everybody hunts. Right. But there's self defense or home defense and all this. And, you know, it doesn't really discriminate if it's a 200 pound, whatever.

[Brandon Herrera]

200 pound anything.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, insert.

[Eli Double Tap]

So a lot of shit weighs 200 pounds.

[Kevin Brittingham]

A lot of does.

[Donut Operator]

Name that Pokemon.

[Brandon Herrera]

I just asked because it feel, it feels like not many, not many companies or people are like in round development.

[Kevin Brittingham]

No, we probably actually do more than a lot of ammo comes. Here's the thing, we want to build the system, you know, and it's not that we want to develop cartridges, like just like I don't want to design a trigger, you know, because then I don't want to have to spend two years doing drop test. But if what's needed doesn't exist, then it's an opportunity for us. And I think too, the best thing I've done in my career is surround myself with very good people and manipulate them into getting on the bus with me doing the thing that I want, you know, like I want to accomplish this thing that I can't do. I gotta have all these nerds do it. But yeah, but then it's the real thing. And so I have to keep them engaged. Like Mitch. Mitch is a real smart kid, but oh my Lord, that engineering department, those geeks. And it's so. But trying. What you realize when you get to a certain level, developing guns or silencers or whatever, the thing is, is what you really want is the whole system. And if I'm not controlling the ammo, you know, or if we don't make the magazine, it's the most vital part. They're gone a lot of times and so it just sort of, I don't know, you get halfway down the road and you either turn around or you got to go.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, one thing leads to another type thing.

[Eli Double Tap]

But see, I see one of those eight sixes though.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But seeing how successful blackout was, which one knowing we could, we have the theory of that whole thing is good, we could do better.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, there's a 300 blackout six. Connor, that's a 300 blackout. Which is more your AK, your 762.

[Eli Double Tap]

Variant or your like five five.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, there's a five, five, six right here.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, actually.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh yeah, that'd be a great, great comparison.

[Eli Double Tap]

And that's 8, 6 blackout. Holy.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And that's one of them expanded.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, the expanded looks crazy.

[Brandon Herrera]

5, 5, 6, 300 blackout and 8.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's 8, 6.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And it's just as quiet as 300 blackout.

[Eli Double Tap]

But that's after it's been pulled out of an animal that will your.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, that thing is just rotating. And now what's more crazy is your standard AR is probably like 1 8, 111 twist rate, right?

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, we get to talk 556.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, I know.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So you're looking at 111.

[Donut Operator]

So you're looking at every 11, 11, 10 inches. It will rotate a Single time. And then you guys were like, no, let's keep the speed at 900 subsonic, but let's just rotate it every three inches. It rotates. And then you have this rotating once it opens up at that speed. So you have a drill bit.

[Kevin Brittingham]

There's a lot of good things to the fast twist. You know, the. The bullets will expand on impact now, rather than being six inches inside of something. And yeah, you think about that turning if. If a human is 15 inches here to here, like a grown man. You know, if it's a 1 in 10 twist, by the time the bullet expands, it's going to have one rotation inside the body. So that cutting surface. But Connor, that's the bullet. One in three turns, five times.

[Eli Double Tap]

Holy hell.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, it looks like you're putting somebody.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It is. And the fast twist is actually like having high speed on a blender.

[Brandon Herrera]

A bullet next to a five, five, six round.

[Eli Double Tap]

Holy hell.

[Donut Operator]

So, like just the bullet next to it.

[Eli Double Tap]

I explained it poorly on a previous podcast, but talking about, like, how you're able to get more energy out of it because you're doing rotational velocity and not linear velocity.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. So we can't really create more energy, but it's more efficient use in rotational energy. So a subsonic rifle cartridge, it has to, you can maximum, let's say it's 10, 50ft a second generally to stay subsonic. So you can't go faster in that direction. But if we spin the bullet faster, you know, you have to stop a bullet going this way and this way. And the rate of decay of rotational velocity is much slower than linear velocity. And people don't think about like a 16 inch, 308. You know, it might be 2600ft a second or 2500ft a second at the muzzle. At 850 yards, it's probably 900ft a second. Well, I can shoot eight, six, blackout. I mean, you would never shoot subs. A thousand yards. You have 160ft of drop, but indirect.

[Eli Double Tap]

Fire at that point.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. So. So be 10, 50ft a second at the muzzle, but at a thousand yards, it'll be 900ft a second. So, yeah, it's faster than 308 supersonic once you get to like 800 yards, like linear velocity. So subsonic bullets don't slow down. That's why you get really good penetration with them. And the fast twist also helps with penetration. Just like think about a drill bit. You speed it up fast. So like, we'll get, you know, that probably shot a zebra and probably got 30 inches of penetration or was. Well, it didn't pass through because we were covered. But yeah, I mean, I shoot Cape buffalo with it.

[Donut Operator]

Subsonic.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Subsonic, yeah.

[Donut Operator]

And they drop, I'm assuming pretty quick.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, I mean, I will say I just shot one with sub a week ago and it was four shots into it within a couple of seconds at about 40 yards. And it was dead 30 yards where I shot it and probably less than a minute. And for a Cape buffalo, like, that's the most durable animal you hunt on the planet.

[Eli Double Tap]

Out of curiosity, I know it's not designed for that, but how does it do on armor?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, this is the first time too. There's subsonic armor piercing. What?

[Eli Double Tap]

Come again?

[Kevin Brittingham]

There's subsonic armor piercing against what, what.

[Eli Double Tap]

What kind of, what armor are you able to penetrate with it?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, we, we'll see once it's all done.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, shit.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But redacted. But you know, that's never happened. And it's so quiet like you guys shot it and heard it. You think about being able to pop somebody at 200 yards with that and penetrate armor. So there's a, there's a lot we can do with that.

[Donut Operator]

I'm speechless.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I mean, think about like the nano explosive stuff with that. There's so much, you know, capacity in a bullet that size.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's a lot of payload.

[Kevin Brittingham]

A lot of payload.

[Donut Operator]

God.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So it's a new capability. Right.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like the bullet is the size of a 2. I'm trying to figure out how.

[Donut Operator]

Where do you put the powder around it. Again, that is crazy.

[Eli Double Tap]

But literally it's the side. The bullet is the size of the cartridge.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Again, it's slapping still. It is somebody, a human, just punching those steel plates as hard as possible.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And you know, we had to do the whole system because we needed 308 size mags to get this cartridge. Because we wanted everything shot. 99.9 of everything shot on the planet in any capacity is inside 300 meters. So the goal was what's the most badass thing we can do for 300 meter? So we want 300 meter subsonic. And so AR10s, traditionally like a 308 size gun, are big and heavy. 10 pounds.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So the problem was the gun and then also the ammo. So we develop the ammo, but it had to be a compact, lightweight gun.

[Brandon Herrera]

So for clarification sake, you develop the boombox around eight, six.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yes.

[Eli Double Tap]

Okay.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, you had the mini or the fix. You were like, okay, a six. And let's do this now with.

[Brandon Herrera]

So you develop the Rifle around it.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, like we love 300 Blackout, but it's. But when you think in terms of replacing a submachine gun, it's incredible when you start to see how useful it is. But then it limits. Like with subsonic, return to Blackout, it's really 100 meters and Supersonic is really 300 meters. We need more than that. And so this is that answer.

[Eli Double Tap]

I remember talking to you about this probably two or three years ago. I was with all of my employees like once a year we do like a lake house, like vacation essentially just like a week off. We just fuck off somewhere off in some lake house in Indiana. And it was, it was a couple of years ago and we were talking about it and we were just on speaker with my boys and we were just kind of talking back and forth because a lot of my like more engineer minded employees and, and you were describing 86 and like quietly around the phone, it was like the fucking Joe Rogan meme of like, oh, this is going to be dope when it's out. And I mean, sure enough, it's fucking dope. So it's, it's cool.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's cool.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Thank you. You know, I love it because us doing things that are unsolicited or whatever, it's amazing within our industry when we started out doing this and we talked about what it was going to do and then talk about the boombox, like people who should know better, like didn't believe it, mock us, like, I don't care. That's fine, we'll see you in a couple years. And. But you know, I love it. But yeah, I mean it is. I mean when I saw you guys shoot today and you guys look at each other, it's like you can't fake that. Like you guys aren't that smooth. Like if you're like, oh, it's just another AR, whatever, but you just call the actors. Well, I wouldn't say. I would say like ready tier, Red Dawn.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, okay.

[Donut Operator]

I can live with that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

It was one of those who write it. I just like, holy.

[Eli Double Tap]

Especially the Full Auto. The Full Auto that me up for a minute.

[Donut Operator]

Instantly we're like the.

[Eli Double Tap]

Well, one of the things you said earlier that kind of stuck with me was the fact that like, well, 300 blackout was of course like solicited. It was something that somebody asked you to make, you made it and then you, you did the, the Honey Badger with it and everything. The thing that got me about eight, six. You were like, we wanted to make something that nobody was asking for yet, but was going to be so good that they would. They didn't know they wanted it until we make it kind of thing. And it reminded me a lot of the, like, the Henry Ford he was like, I just made what I thought was great because if I asked the people what they wanted, they would have.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Said a faster horse or Steve Jobs with the iPhone, you know, like, that. That wasn't, like, easy for him. I mean, I think the original ones, what they do, he would let whoever have an exclusive if they wouldn't change the phone because everybody wanted buttons and shit on. He's like, you guys are stupid. Like, the whole world is stupid. You don't need buttons. And now, no, he's just so right. And I don't think it's at that level. But, you know, we have a lot of experience, and we've been fortunate that during a time, you know, in our nation when guys were shooting lots of people, you know, we're starting to mature in our jobs and had the opportunity to work with them and just learn a lot, and you start to see. And over time, it's like, rather than just responding to these guys, you understand what they're doing, and it's like, okay, what's the thing they really need? Like, because, you know, most of the guys, they don't understand from our perspective, just like we don't understand from theirs. But once you have that relationship and you start working, it's like, they say they want this, but we think, you know, they want this, but we think we can get it here. And, you know, it's also good. Like, I don't ask the government to fund my stuff because then I control it. I don't. You know, at the end, it's like, we have this awesome thing, and, you know, you guys want to be really good, then you use this. So, yeah, it's. It's good.

[Eli Double Tap]

Turns out shit's easy to sell when it's the best.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. There's always room for the best.

[Donut Operator]

How big is your entire team? Like, you have your 17 engineers, but then outside of that, with every. Everyone.

[Kevin Brittingham]

The company is around 90 employees.

[Donut Operator]

That's wild. Okay, bro. Dude, 90 employees.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And you have dialed right now. Thank you.

[Donut Operator]

You have dialed in employees. So, like, you have, like, hey, we're.

[Kevin Brittingham]

We're.

[Donut Operator]

We want the top in the trade for this.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, you know, it's always a struggle, right? And I think, like, I love our people, like, people in general, and I. For us, you know, it's always hard as you grow, whether it's Anything. You have a team. Some people grow with it and some don't. And, you know, that becomes hard. But I think it's like our responsibility. We want to be all Stars. We want to be the best in the world. So we can't have average at our place. And they might be stand out when we're here, but they're average here. And, you know, we want to. You know, I don't want to just hire from the outside. Like, I want to grow our employees and see everybody have awesome lives. Like, I love going to work every day, and this will be my 32nd year in a month from now.

[Donut Operator]

Damn.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And I still wake up every day. Can't wait to get to work. With that being said, I'm in Africa halftime, so. But it's probably better for them, but so dialed in, you know, and every department doesn't grow at the same rate because we don't focus on it the same. And then so, you know, you have some careers or some parts of the business where that particular job is no one's passion or dream. But they love our company and the culture. And so, you know, it's never a problem to motivate the engineers. And they're very spoiled. I don't turn them down for money, for anything. If we. If I have the money, they can have it for whatever they want. But, you know, half the time it's convincing them to go home or go see their women or whatever, you know.

[Donut Operator]

You liar.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, they don't know women. A couple of them.

[Brandon Herrera]

Engineers, engineer with a woman off.

[Eli Double Tap]

You know, I believed you on the stats before that.

[Donut Operator]

No.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But it's. It's true. I mean, but I think it's a dream. You know, when we start, we're almost nine years old, and when we. The first five years, it's hard to recruit people because we're new and they might not think it's stable. But now we've had enough success. I can recruit anyone in our industry. Like, there's not an engineer I can't hire from any company in our industry.

[Donut Operator]

I bet they're fighting to be part of that team because, like, how is it on your side? You love it. Yeah. How long have you been with Q now? And yet. Exactly. It's wild.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Why would it take for you to go work at another gun company if you went to another.

[Brandon Herrera]

No pressure, but your boss is watching.

[Kevin Brittingham]

No, I'm not that way. You know, but yeah, I mean, I think it's true. And that's not always the thing. But you see it now and it's like I'm their biggest cheerleader. Like, I believe in them more than they do. Generally.

[Donut Operator]

It's hard finding, like, employers or employees where you're trying to find that level of, like, dedication and motivation where they're. They rally around each other, and then they're. They're the ones that's, like, pushing the envelope, like, working hard.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

And it sets the standard for the entire team. So you get to see individuals like yourself are killing it. And then I guarantee all the engineers pretty much on the same level as what, like, work. Work ethic and everything.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I think their culture, like, the. The three or four senior guys, Mitch being one, they're just, you know, they're just full of grit. You know, they don't like me. We're not taking no for an answer. We're going to get it done. And it takes sacrifice if you want to be badass. And they've created that culture. You know, our guys, they do everything. They run machines. You know, they don't have to, but they do. They all know how they. I mean, they do everything themselves. They. They're gonna be part of testing. Like, right now, I fight with him some because I want parts of the boombox and our vision for him to pass some of it off to a junior guy under him. And, like, that's hard for him. He's like, no, too autistic. But, you know, that's what you want in the guys too. You know, it's like he's so proud of it, and it's his baby, and, you know, you want him to feel that way, but. Yeah, you know, I love marketing and I love engineering. Like, the development. I don't like business and operations and all that. So I try to stay out of that. But, like, us hiring a real CO and him being focused on that, and I see the improvements in our production, and I understand now that's what really funds all of our stuff. So I've got a passion for that too. Like, let's get the best people in there that care about the product that they're doing, and they're part of the QC process. And so now I'm sort of, you know, I appreciate it more now I'm more mature. I appreciate it and support them. And, like, the people that work in our factory that do the assembly and all that, I go talk to everyone every day. I do everything I can for them because, you know, you don't want them to leave. I don't want them to leave for $2 more an hour. I Want them to turn down jobs for $2 more an hour to be at our place? You know, that takes effort on my part. You know, it's. It's like that's my day. I just walk around, talk to everybody, figure out if anything's going on, then push our leadership to, hey, you know, this is sort of going on, or this department is lagging behind some of the others. We need to focus on that.

[Eli Double Tap]

How many total employees do you have right now?

[Kevin Brittingham]

About 90.

[Brandon Herrera]

He said that when you got up and made a drink.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Idiot.

[Brandon Herrera]

When you brought up South Africa earlier. So is your, your companies based in the states or when you're in South Africa, what are you doing?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Testing, obviously. But yeah, I hunt so damn, when.

[Eli Double Tap]

I shoot it in the head, it dies. Scribbles notes.

[Donut Operator]

It's a crayon bullet kill.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But, you know, it started. I never.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's just a crude sketch of a zebra with X's.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But I never hunted until we did 300 Blackout. And then I wanted to like. So I had a farm in North Georgia and so I started shooting deer, testing bullets. And that sort of led to the hunting, which I'm passionate about now. But it's still, I mean, 90% of my hunting to some degree is testing our stuff. A lot of it the last few years has been eight, six. Because, you know, it's people, it's, you know, the hunting crowds, like every other crowd. Right. It's like, oh, it's unethical to shoot some with subsonic. And it was like, well, maybe back in the day doing this. But what we're doing, but it's also, it takes some to go out there and do it before you know it. Like, you only know it because some dude, you know, that wasn't ordinary 50 years ago went and did this and now it's the standard. And that's what you're just regurgitating. Yeah. So, you know, we're trying to do new and somebody like, I'm not gonna tell, you know, 30 year old Terry to, oh, trust me, take this into combat. It's gonna be fine, you know, until I've killed stuff with it. So I don't know, I do that and I leave the company alone. So I think me being there half the time is good because, like, I'm generally very driven and it's. It's hard for me to see things not happen. And you know, when I forget, like, this is just consumed my entire life for 32 years. And, you know, I don't necessarily want all my guys to have my life, like the not great part of it, like, my personal life's never been awesome. And it's like, well, this is all I do. And so if I'm there, you know, I think it's not good for the company. So I'm there half the time and then I go away for half time. It gives them, these guys time to, you know, there's some development process and I can come back and see the results. And the company just outgrew me, you know, and like, I'm good at motivating and it's good for me to be involved in picking products and working with the engineers. And it's good for me, I think, marketing wise. I've always had a knack for it and the rest of the company. I just try to stay the out of it. You know, I like talking to the people, all the employees. Every day I go around, say hello to everyone because I don't want to be blind to things either. So if they have some issue or something and they're telling their manager and it's not getting conveyed up the chain and there aren't changes happening, that pisses me off. So I want every employee to have access to me. If it gets to, you know, a situation where something could be improved but somebody's too lazy to do it or.

[Donut Operator]

Whatever comes are like the most like, pivotal part of business.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Really mean. It's like everyone, as long as you're communicating, say, hey, I have an issue here. And that is actually brought to the proper people. Shit gets fixed.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It does.

[Donut Operator]

Then you have the other side where it's just nothing happens. Fuck.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I mean, I think what it does does is highlights to me a supervisor that isn't doing the right thing for what I want for the company and the employees and the customers and, you know, like, like I said, like, I. Average is not good enough. Like, being good at your job is not good enough to work at my company. And it doesn't mean you start out knowing everything, but you got to have that commitment and willing to sacrifice and grind. And you want to be the best. You want to be proud. I mean, you know, I can think of some girls that work in production, like, they don't fucking shoot and all, but they're so proud of what we do and they're proud that, you know, like a girl that works in production now I can think of came to work about a year ago for us, and she was at SIG for several years. And you know what she says to me is she doesn't care about guns, but she loves the production work and doing it. And it bothered her a lot at SIG that they would ask her to ship things with parts she knew weren't right. And, you know, that's not a thing at my place. I don't care who it is, QC finds it. You know, the people in production find it and, you know, bring it to the engineer's attention. If it's not right, we just don't ship guns that month, you know, and that's another advantage of me not owing anybody money and me controlling the company, you know, I can say, okay, well, I just won't get paid this month.

[Donut Operator]

Brandon, when you're working with you like on the AK50, how was that like handing off your baby to have you have Fantastic autistic shop also that again, they're just like living and breathing firearms.

[Eli Double Tap]

No, that's it.

[Donut Operator]

I've got.

[Eli Double Tap]

No, I got a fucking awesome team. Like, we all have the same kind of brand of TISM in that way. And it's unfortunately a necessity, especially with what I do and like the way that we live. It's like so much of it is content and having to make videos and things that pay for everything, that pay for the R and D to pay for the cnc, that pay for all this stuff. Like I can't be there every day, all day. So I have to have people that I trust. And I'm thankful to have a team that I do trust. But I actually wanted to bring that background. Funny you mentioned that, because we have a running joke in the shop that we fucking hate engineers so much so that we have Chase. I'll send this to you. It's the thing we've got up in the wall. We were given eyes not to judge others, but to spot the stupid engineer. A mouth not to criticize, but to call the engineer a dumbass. Ears not to eavesdrop, but to eat hands. Not to fight, but to kill engineers. And it's funny because, like, one of the things that you'd mentioned before that I really liked as you said, that the engineers are part of every part of the process. Because what starts that animosity against engineers from the guys on the ground is when you have engineers that are designing shit who have no practical experience, that don't know how to machine stuff, that don't know how to assemble things, that basically make impossible shit to put together in real life.

[Donut Operator]

Porsche.

[Eli Double Tap]

And to have engineers involved in like the machining, the assembly, the, the, the testing is really fucking cool.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, I mean, I hold them accountable for everything ultimately, because they're the smartest guys at the place. And did you know that when we started the company, for the first two or three years, the engineers who designed the fix, they did all the drawings for the parts, they sourced the parts, they QC'd the parts, they assembled all the guns, they developed all the assembly, fixturing, and then they shot all of them for accuracy on paper. Five shot groups.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And so that is so ridiculously, like irresponsible financially for me in the short term. Right. And but long term, we have a product that is so superior. And then when we start hiring assembly people very quickly, they can build guns just as good as the engineers can because, you know, the engineers are lazy in some ways, so they'll build fixtures quick to help them assemble ship, and, you know, it's all good. And so they do have relationships at all. And it's not like some of the bigger companies. Like, I don't like the way SIG did their engineering because I think all these memes and jokes from machinists and guys that do that kind of work, they hate engineers because the engineers sit in their little office and design something and then.

[Eli Double Tap]

And they don't finish up.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, but like, Mitch is a machinist. He knows what to be made. So is Ethan, so is Nick. They know. And then makes such, such a difference.

[Donut Operator]

That little thing like VW's port, like German engineering on cars. When you actually go to take apart your car, it becomes a frustrated.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Jesus Christ.

[Donut Operator]

Yes.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Your coolant line burst.

[Brandon Herrera]

It cost me $10 in a parking lot at AutoZone to fix it. I had a coolant line burst in my Volkswagen. It cost 600 in two weeks to fix it.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

[Donut Operator]

You're just.

[Eli Double Tap]

Even though we like, we're on two radically fucking different scales with what we're doing, there's not a single guy at my shop that doesn't know how to build an ak. Even though, like, even if there's no. Just like dedicated, like, no, it's all engineering spot. It's like everybody does kind of a little bit of everything or at least knows how to. And I think that helps so fucking much.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So much. But also, you know, like, I can't demand that quality control and production and machining respect the engineers, you know, they can only command it by like being a part of it. And so that's a great part of the relationship. I. It's so rare that I have ever had anyone at the company, any of the departments, be like, this fucking engineers. If they would do this and get off their ass. Because if there's any issue because actually separate them because they're so involved. The engineers are so involved in every part of the company. Because they're the smartest people and they've been there from the beginning, they know how to do everything that I actually got them their own. We moved into a new building three years ago and within six months I got the engineers their own building. Separate geographically, like three miles apart. They have their own machine shop, their own everything. So everybody will leave them alone so they can design stuff. And so. But if there's a problem, it probably happens, you know, once a day at a company our size, there's a problem in production or QC or whatever, and you don't blink before two of the engineers are over at the building looking at it and you know, and being involved. You know, none of them sit behind a desk on their ass all the time. It's just. And if you have that mentality like, you cannot work at our place.

[Eli Double Tap]

I think Elon. Elon Musk has the same thing where. I think. I can't remember if it was Tesla or SpaceX. I think it was SpaceX where he said that the. The engineers weren't like separated in their own area. They were on the assembly floor. He's like, you're behind like a curtain while they're blasting, you know, Def Leppard out on an assembly line. And then you've got a row of dudes at computers. It was just that integrated because they talk to each other.

[Donut Operator]

I think that makes a huge difference on every level. Is that everyone's blending in together now. Hey, this doesn't make sense. Why you get to see it really quick. It's like, oh, let's fix that and roll out.

[Kevin Brittingham]

No.

[Donut Operator]

God, I love it. I love that. Just that that is like the perfect business models. Like everyone's just crushing life.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I don't know.

[Donut Operator]

And you're just dedicated to the crab versus hand it off, make your money. And then you'd watch quality control go to like, yes.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Try me. I'm like, what do I think I could sell the company for right now. But no, it is.

[Donut Operator]

I mean, it's a new plan.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. I mean, I think I should be way richer than I am, but I have all these 17 children that I take care of. But no, I mean, for business wise. I mean, I think it's why we're all so passionate about it. And Mitch wouldn't leave. You couldn't get Nick or Ethan to leave any of the key people. They wouldn't take other jobs anywhere. They just wouldn't.

[Eli Double Tap]

My guys might leave.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Your guys? Probably. Well, they see you balling out with the Rolls Royce.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh yeah, Rolls Royce for sure.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That's. That's.

[Eli Double Tap]

That screams me right there.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I saw it. I saw you getting out of it today.

[Brandon Herrera]

Brandon rolled up in a diamond encrusted Tesla today.

[Donut Operator]

Wild.

[Eli Double Tap]

My. Up until the. Actually when I was in Texas, up until like three or four years ago, I was driving around the fucking $3,000 flooded out. Dodge 2500. You remember that?

[Donut Operator]

Holy shit. You drove here in that piece of shit? Yeah, I forgot about that.

[Eli Double Tap]

It was a flood. Car had like no functioning ac Radio didn't work. I remember driving down to Florida at one point, my AC was. I rolled the windows down and I had a free water from McDonald's that I was pouring on myself to stay cool.

[Kevin Brittingham]

This is like that white chicken that tried to pretend she was black and was part. I don't believe this at all.

[Eli Double Tap]

Eli was there for.

[Kevin Brittingham]

He probably remembers that he would have an afro situation.

[Donut Operator]

Dud. He pulled up during the winter storm in Texas. Like the San Antonio like we are shut down storm. He pulled up in that. @. Yeah, pulled up and then you tried to leave and then you walk back in like two hours later. You're like, yeah, we were. Yeah, it's not going anywhere. We're just gonna stay here.

[Eli Double Tap]

No, we got re. Snowed in that night. That was.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, I forgot you drove in on.

[Brandon Herrera]

That because it was.

[Kevin Brittingham]

We.

[Eli Double Tap]

We drove in on the. The night of, you know, the big snowpocalypse. Literally as we got to Houston, the first snow started to fall. Got snowed in that night and we had three days or in San Antonio by the time we made it to San Antonio, we were snowed in this brand new house. I just got no food in the refrigerator, no nothing. All the stores are closed. So like.

[Donut Operator]

And no power.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Three days anywhere.

[Eli Double Tap]

Shout out to Texas. They have their priorities in line. The liquor stores were open. Yeah, that was the only thing that was.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Forget about all the other stuff. I mean, you can forget you're hungry.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, I was just about saying I'm not hungry.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I got whiskey.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, I mean, it's calories. Or calories, man.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So about a week ago I was hunting and so my tracker's name is Whitey and I post him a lot on my Instagram and occasionally I get some little Karen send me some message about how racist I am because I'm calling him Whitey. And I'm like, he had that name 40 years before I got to Africa. You named him?

[Donut Operator]

What a rude nickname.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Kevin. We have a fridge and the cruiser, and he's supposed to keep drinks and some snacks and stuff in it. And it was. Other day. It was late afternoon. Hunt's kind of over, and I'm like, hey, whitey man, hand me a snack, would you? Out of. Out of the cooler. He just hands me a bottle of Jack Daniels. He's like, I said, snack. He says, whiskey. He forgot to pack the snacks. I was like, he gets it.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's why Essentials.

[Kevin Brittingham]

He's like. Like, you might be hungry, but you can forget in half a bottle, my man.

[Donut Operator]

Holy. We need to schedule still next year. Like, all of us going out to Africa and hunting with you and just document that entire.

[Eli Double Tap]

Just thinking, Kevin doesn't get the shakes if he doesn't get peanuts.

[Donut Operator]

Ter says no. Awesome.

[Eli Double Tap]

Awesome. We keep saying Africa.

[Brandon Herrera]

Whereabouts in Africa do you hang out?

[Kevin Brittingham]

My house is in South Africa, in the Eastern Cape, in the. In the mountains a couple hours north of Port Elizabeth. And then I've got a beach house in a town called Impequin, which is between East London and Port Alfred on the Indian Ocean, and. But I hunt all over, sort of West African, Southern Africa.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah. Because I heard you bounce up to, like, Tanzania and.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. So just. I was just in Cameroon a few months ago on a hunt. And it's cool. Like, the more I'm there, like, people. People contact me to see the hunting stuff, and they'll be like, oh, how dangerous is it in South Africa? And I'm like, I live in New Hampshire, and I don't have locks on my house in Africa. Like, you thinking South Africa is dangerous. It's, you know, Johannesburg or Durban or whatever. It's like, any big city in the world. There's, like, neighborhoods. But, like, where I live, there's not a town for an hour. It's the safest place on the planet. But so what it's done is, like, I have this love affair now with, like, wild Africa. Yeah. Like, where you'll be 12 hours from a town and, you know, or you're in Cameroon or the Congo or somewhere. You're like, it is dangerous. But I'm like, I love it. This is my place. You know, it's fun. Like, Africa is just different, man. I'm telling you, you guys are so fortunate. I'm so proud of you. Honestly. It will change your lives going to Africa for a week. I swear it is. If I didn't have the company and the employees that I love. I would never come back. And I love America. Like, I'm not hating on America. I love it here. But I'm so free in Africa. And it's just. I don't know how to explain it. I mean, Terry's been all over the world too, and had an awesome life. It's just a whole different world. It's. It's like the US in the 30s and 40s when you had freedom and you could do what you want. People are awesome. And the danger doesn't come from the people. The danger comes from the environment.

[Eli Double Tap]

No, you could drink raw milk.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

So you can drink raw milk there.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Out of a goat. But it is, and it's beautiful. It's like where I live, it's like the mountain. My house is on the side of a mountain and 6,000ft elevation behind it. It's just every view is incredible. And the property that I live on, there's 25 species of game that you can hunt that free range there. So like, you, I can drive you around for a day and you'll see 500 animals in the wild. Like, it's unbelievable. So even within Africa, even within South Africa, where I live is the best place in the world for free range hunting and diversity of species. And it's just so beautiful. I mean, I'm there for a week and I mean, I catch myself all the time. Would be glass in the mountainside looking for animals and stuff. I just like start daydreaming, looking around and I'm like, I am the luckiest guy in the fucking world. Like, why don't more people do this? Like, I just made a conscious decision a few years ago that, you know, you think about, okay, you build a company, the thing to do is sell it. And I'm like, well, like, building company is hard. You know, I've done it twice. It's. It's difficult. And I don't mind being uncomfortable, which I think I didn't realize, but as time's gone on and I have a lot of employees over time and it's like, I'm okay being more uncomfortable than a lot of people. And I also know, like, I'm never gonna starve to death in America. Like, you can't starve to death in America. Like, it's easy. No, you can't. You can't start a death unless you want to. Well, but you know, in Africa there's a consequence. Like, you can and I don't.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's just so no safety Net.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So for. No, there's not. Nobody gives a. Which I think is the way the world should be. Right? Like it's great out in the country. The neighbors are great. You know, the, all the, the natives there, the casa people are wonderful. It's like country people everywhere in the world, they're just good. And it's just so relaxing. And I just see myself there and like kids, it's like, yeah, like America maybe in the 50s. Like kids are still kids, you know. I live on a friend of mine's family's ranch, which is hundreds of thousands of acres. And he's got so my house about 300 meters from his and he has three young kids. And like when I say young, I think the oldest daughter is 13 and it would be like a 7 year old here. She's still a kid. She doesn't have a cell phone and you know, just all this social media and things.

[Eli Double Tap]

So they don't have access to the Internet, cell phones, modern culture. How will they know they're gay?

[Kevin Brittingham]

You know, it's like the good old days. You had to experiment to figure it out.

[Eli Double Tap]

You had to have that, that one experience in college. Just like the good old days, you.

[Donut Operator]

Know, I don't like that that tastes bad.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like Jody, Jody plea. Yeah, he's like, I know I'm not gay.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Sucked a dick, didn't like it.

[Donut Operator]

Jesus.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So, yeah, sort of still scratch and sniff there, you know.

[Donut Operator]

It's literally just everyone having the time of their life.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, it is. But you know what I would say was I decided I don't ever want to sell my company. Like, I don't care about like the value or whatever because my company, like, I have the greatest job in the world. It provides me with so much fulfillment. Then I just decided I'm not going to like, working for retirement is fucking stupid. Like, it's super gay. Like I'm just, It's not regular gay.

[Donut Operator]

Extreme now, kids.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. But so I'm just. Now I just am retired half the time. Like I go and do what I want because I'm never going to stop working. So who am I kidding? Yeah, it's like my job doesn't require me to be, you know, like, I'm not a Navy seal. I don't have to, you know, stay fit or stay younger. I could be an old man, still do my job. And so, like, why would I ever stop? It's so fulfilling. And then, so, okay, I'll just semi retire now and I just go to Africa and do all this shit. And it cost me a ton of money. But, like, I'm not gonna. Like, what am I gonna do? Like, retire and sit around like, that's.

[Donut Operator]

Not a thing we've talked about that many times. That would be the most minor. A day without work is insanity. We had Sunday off. Like, we landed Saturday. Everyone was dead white. Boom. And then Sunday was like, oh, no work.

[Eli Double Tap]

I think we had one reset day. That's it.

[Donut Operator]

And it's still like, I'll answer emails and catch up on the I missed during that. And then right on Monday, it's back into the flow of everything. Flew to Africa, and you're. You're back at the grind. And then it's like, oh, and 17 hours for titties.

[Kevin Brittingham]

As it turns out, I'd go 47.

[Brandon Herrera]

Full circle around the planet.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I mean, I love titties so much. I wish had three.

[Donut Operator]

We're learning kinks today. Like the chick from a total. I don't want to see your ig re.

[Kevin Brittingham]

There's a lot of going straight to.

[Donut Operator]

Mars for the three titty.

[Eli Double Tap]

When Elon takes us to Mars, it's gonna. You're gonna fly a couple thousand hours for titties.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I'm gonna be the first one on.

[Donut Operator]

The flight buying a girl of tits. And you're like, hey, doc. Okay, she's down. Okay, I'm gonna pay you extra. He's gonna raise five grand. Put one in the middle. It's for me.

[Eli Double Tap]

He's gonna land in a colony in Mars. Those bastards lied to me.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I want to go home. Home. When?

[Donut Operator]

When. When's the next time you're going out? When do we go? When do we visit you?

[Eli Double Tap]

When's the best time to.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I will go in. I love basically March until June. And then it depends, like, your tolerance for weather because it snows where my house is. Like, we can hunt in the snow if you come in July. Wild hunting African animals in the snow. But so kind of mid March to June, and then, I don't know, September, October. But anytime you guys can go, we'll go.

[Donut Operator]

Mark, how's March weather? Good.

[Kevin Brittingham]

March is awesome. It's my favorite time. It's the fallow rut. And my buddy's family that I live on, his family's from Scotland. They were gifted the land by the Queen 200 years ago, and they brought fallow deer to Scott to South Africa. And they free range now and thrive in the fallow rut. Is so fun. And you go on a hunt in America. Oh, you go get shoot one animal I shot 24 fallows in the rut last year and I got kicked out of conservancy.

[Eli Double Tap]

Why?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Because I get after it. Dude.

[Donut Operator]

Don'T tell the trap.

[Eli Double Tap]

Sorry, I'm an overachiever.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, you know, there's a quota for animals and like, if I'm there first, like, I see the quota. It doesn't say quota for Kevin. It says, here's the quota. Like, I pay the bill.

[Donut Operator]

It's like, I can't wait, kill them all.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But. But I did.

[Eli Double Tap]

So it like you like the kid at the Easter egg hunt that's pushing.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Other kids down, but at 24, they're like, we're going to have to have a talk. What? I was like, well, I thought the quota was 32. Well, it is. I was like, why are we talking? Save some for the rest of everybody. Like what? Like, I pay my bills.

[Donut Operator]

Can you ship any of the meat home or is that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Not me? No, but the trophies. But I, I don't ship anything back.

[Eli Double Tap]

I want to do with the meat.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Depends. We eat a lot of it. I mean, it's the only source for meat there. But there's a hundred person staff on the ranch because we do cattle as well. And so we feed the staff and then any that's left, like when my guys come over because we ball and we can shoot drunk.

[Donut Operator]

Kevin's coming out. The last podcast is when I ball.

[Eli Double Tap]

Daddy's a pirate.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But so there's so much excess that. So there's an orphanage in the closest town too, which we provide meat to. But then I thought you were just.

[Eli Double Tap]

Gonna say you hang your trophies there.

[Kevin Brittingham]

No, but you can. So you, you sell it to a butcher and they sell it to restaurants and stuff. So. Yeah, like in South Africa you can eat the wild game and restaurants and get it at the butchery. That's pretty cool. So when we're there, like we might shoot, depending on what we're doing, 100 or 150 animals in a month.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And so it's more meat than we need for the staff and for us. So then we'll sell it and it gets consumed. Or we'll just feed all the staff in the valley.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's kind of cool. Whenever we go to Ox Ranch, like sometimes at the. They're like in house kitchen there because they'll have animals that die on property or just extra left over, whatever you can. They have a menu there and then they. Sometimes they just have wild Game Burger and you just ask the chef, like, what's it today? And they're like, oh, it's zebra or you know, whatever it is.

[Kevin Brittingham]

They always lie to you. Just don't even ask.

[Eli Double Tap]

It was a three day old ostrich we found.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Ostrich is good.

[Donut Operator]

Hippos. Hippo is really good.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Hippo's really good.

[Eli Double Tap]

You want to shoot modang?

[Donut Operator]

I do. That little hippo. I'm glad Cody's not here.

[Kevin Brittingham]

They have Jordan in Cameroon.

[Donut Operator]

What's that?

[Kevin Brittingham]

They have dwarf hippos in Cameroon.

[Donut Operator]

Do they?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Everything is so wild.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

The jungle and Cameroon in the forest. So they have little 3 inch long squirrels too. It's crazy. But that's where the pygmies live, the people. And so you hunt with them. And like a little 80 pound pygmy man can carry 200 pounds on his back.

[Donut Operator]

How tall?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Like four six, four five.

[Brandon Herrera]

I don't, I don't believe you.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's true.

[Donut Operator]

There's video.

[Brandon Herrera]

How can an 80 pound man carry 200 pounds?

[Eli Double Tap]

Look at ants.

[Kevin Brittingham]

They're stronger than you, Connor.

[Donut Operator]

They're, they're born and they're working by the age of two so you can.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Crawl, I think like what would you say, like per size? That have to be the strongest people on the planet.

[Brandon Herrera]

Really?

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's amazing. Yeah. Like on the back of the truck, they'll reach up and grab the rack. Just pull themselves up with one hand. Like a monkey or something. They're so strong.

[Brandon Herrera]

Well, yeah.

[Donut Operator]

There's a video of them ripping a man apart. Oh God. They like monkeys.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I mean they're just so tough. But so there's dwarf buffalo, there's dwarf elephant. So the forest elephant are half the size of regular elephants. And there's dwarf hippo.

[Donut Operator]

Are they way more aggressive?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. Well, and I don't know, it's because they're small. It's just the jungle is like, makes you angry.

[Donut Operator]

Oh yeah. And if you're getting hunted because you're.

[Eli Double Tap]

Smaller, I'm also, I'm trying to, I'm trying to find it. Like they're also just super skinny. Like I'm thinking of like what, what a small like four foot man would look like carrying £200.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's on my Instagram. You can see it. No, my last hunt I did a forest buffalo and a bongo. And so we walk. So the, the forest is so thick the paths will be very narrow and just one guy and you can't even like jump into the bush. It's so thick. And it's a triple canopy like jungle. It's, it's gnarly. Like it'd be 130 degrees, but you never see the sun all day. Once you enter the forest, it's like you can't ever see the sun.

[Donut Operator]

That's terrifying.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Also so great. Every. Every snake in. In Cameroon's venomous too. There's like 30 species.

[Donut Operator]

They'Re watching.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's the. The carrying all the packing out the meat.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So when we were 11km and so that's six hours in. And when I shot the bongo or the buffalo, I can't really tell which one that is. They go, there's bark that they use for the straps, but they make baskets, they make backpacks there when you shoot it. And then the only thing they don't carry out are the stomach contents. So the buffalo weighs 850 pounds. The only thing they left were the stomach contents. And four of them carried everything else out. So you start doing the math. And the bongo. So, dude.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, my God. I'm gonna have to show Matt.

[Kevin Brittingham]

When they get down on the ground, you have to help them get up generally. But then once they're up, they just go. And you can't keep up with them.

[Donut Operator]

So these are like, geez, that last one. This?

[Kevin Brittingham]

And like, yeah, their waist is like this big.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like approximately the size of Eli.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, dude.

[Kevin Brittingham]

If we get these guys a giant there.

[Donut Operator]

If we get these guys on steroids and CrossFit, we will have champions.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I thought when I was there, a.

[Donut Operator]

Trend out pygmy, they just knew CrossFit world champs.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You know what I thought when I was over there is if you started like a. A pygmy UFC league in Cameroon, it would be the best fights in the entire world. Feather weights.

[Donut Operator]

I guarantee there'll be monsters in the ring.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Destroy them.

[Eli Double Tap]

Weighing in at 75 pounds, just on their head, bashed 40 kilos, ultra featherweight, maximum wild.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, it's. It's cool. So Africa's wild, man. I mean, just this one place in Africa, right there, the Congo and Cameroon, there's all these dwarf animals. Like, everything is half sized. The people, the animals, everything.

[Donut Operator]

That is weird.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. Like, how's that happen? I don't know.

[Eli Double Tap]

And you can shoot hippos there.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

And it apparently tastes really good. That's why I always hear, that's why.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I'm like, hippo's the closest thing to be. Like when you shoot, there's a few animals that you can be. So remote. There's not a village anywhere around. Like, you shoot an elephant or you shoot a hippo or certain things, you Know, you start gutting that thing, you turn around and there's like 60 people with buckets there. Yeah. So, yeah, hippo is like the prize meat. It's delicious.

[Eli Double Tap]

Interesting. Yeah, because I mean, like, that I like, you always, like, innately feel bad thinking that it's like, endangered because we never see shit. But like, I didn't realize this, but, like, iguanas in Florida, like, people shoot this all the time because they're just an invasive pest. But you never seen iguana, so you just assume like, oh, I guess you can't shoot that. But they shoot them all day long.

[Donut Operator]

And then hippos are aggressive as they kill way more than alligators. Like territorials.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's probably the number one thing that in crocs that kill natives in Africa, it's number two.

[Brandon Herrera]

When you count mosquitoes.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, yeah, definitely malaria.

[Brandon Herrera]

Malaria, yeah. Mosquitoes are number one. And then hippos, and then crocs and.

[Donut Operator]

Hippos are on like 30 miles per hour or faster.

[Brandon Herrera]

You've seen how fast they swim.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, they're.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Oh, you know, they run like they're always touching the bottom.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, they're just top bouncing.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So if you see like a hippo, like, if you get all the fat and everything off of it, it is like shred and it's like, oh, that's how that thing runs so fast. Just has all this, like, fat on it. So it can be very buoyant and stuff. But yeah, if you hippo in the water is like, it'll chase your boat and you up. But the hippo on land, if you catch, if you get. But when it goes out to feed, you get between it and the water. Yeah. Hippo hunts are very exciting when that happens because you have to dome it like it's gonna you up. So you have to. You have to dome it. Oh, we're going.

[Donut Operator]

We are going for like a week or two.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And a hippo is like, what, five to six thousand pounds? It's about the size of a Land Cruiser. They're very big.

[Donut Operator]

Dude.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's almost as heavy as a cyber truck.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

The way of a crazy.

[Donut Operator]

Have you watch them pop watermelon. They just put the watermelon, like, just the gu.

[Eli Double Tap]

This is podcast.

[Brandon Herrera]

Pull up, pull up a video of a chimpanzee.

[Donut Operator]

Hairless, hairless chimpanzee.

[Eli Double Tap]

I'm here for it.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And even in. In the jungle, the gorillas, they're the lowland gorillas, not the mountain gorillas. They're half the size too. But seeing a gorilla in the wild Is terrifying the craziest thing you ever see.

[Eli Double Tap]

Half of these things sound like slurs and I'm trying to keep up. I don't know.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I'm racist.

[Eli Double Tap]

I don't. Who should be offended by what?

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, just. That's how we get Kevin cancelled. It's bleeping out. Gorilla.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Bet you can't cancel me.

[Donut Operator]

We know I don't Ow Anybody money now. Big cat like big cat hunting is absolutely terrifying. That is the one thing everyone always stresses like. Oh yeah, like cat hunting is the one thing where it's like these Will you up if you're in like high brush or anything?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, I, I don't know. Like I've hunted cats and I've hunted everything now and I'm very careful to not make a bad shot on a cat because a cat like they're not tough animals to kill. But if you wound a cat, if you wound a leopard especially, it's extremely dangerous to go after it because they don't warn you. They're small enough, they'll be 100 to 200 pounds, they can hide very easily and. But where like a lion, you wound a lion and he runs into the bushes, it's very dangerous. But they'll typically 99 of the time warn you when you get close. So you know and they'll warn you when they're gonna charge.

[Eli Double Tap]

Why do they do that?

[Donut Operator]

How do they do it?

[Kevin Brittingham]

I don't know, they just like roar and like you can like a cat roars at you 100 yards away. You feel it in your chest. It's unbelievable. Like a Lion is a 550 pound cat. I mean a lion can just slap your head off your body. But a leopard, it's a Thou know 100 stitches a second when it's on you. But. So leopard is scarier to me than a lion and lions are like predictable. Yeah, yeah. I mean I've been up by some but never.

[Brandon Herrera]

Make that mistake twice, man.

[Eli Double Tap]

Shouldn't have flown 17 hours of that one.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Boobies, man, you're safe. But yeah, the cat hunting is. And people are sensitive to it, but it's just like what you say iguanas or elk or anything else, like where they are and you could hunt them. Generally there's an overpopulation just like elephants and, and most people, yeah, elephant. I didn't even actually care about animals growing up in the city until I started hunting and I have such a love affair like with all the African species and. Or here like whether it's whitetail or whatever, have a Much greater appreciation for animals. And all the real conservation comes from hunters. That's all the money. All the greeny stuff is.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yep.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And, like, you have to manage the populations. Like, elephants go to Kruger national park. Now it's destroyed and it's ruined because they won't manage the elephant population. And there are no trees standing in Kruger anymore. So now there's no kudu, there's no other animals. And now the elephant, the poor things, like, it's such a magnificent animal, but, you know, like, they get nine sets of molar, like teeth in their lifetime, and so they need to eat a lot of green. Well, there's no green because the trees aren't growing in Kruger national park now, the most beautiful, incredible place on the planet. 20 years ago. And so now the elephants are eating bark and they're eating limbs, and so now they're molars. Like, an elephant in the wild in Africa traditionally will live 55 to 60 years, and now they live 40 years because they wear their molars down and, you know, two thirds the time they used to. And it's sad to see. And, you know, like, they won't acknowledge it. Like, the greenies won't acknowledge it. It's like, you should never shoot an elephant. Well, you're gonna cause them all to die. It's sad.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's one of the things that when I did the. That elk hunt, it was about a year ago, we went up to Utah, honestly, like. Like you were talking about, like, where you just, like, start daydreaming, looking off. Like, it is some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen in my life where I was just sitting there, like, falling asleep on the side of a mountain, waiting on an elk with Cody and them. Like, I was. I was. I felt more in touch with nature in that moment than I ever fucking have been in my entire life.

[Donut Operator]

No cell phone, no nothing.

[Eli Double Tap]

But the way that they treat it out there is they're like, look, we're looking for elk that are about this age where it's like, man, everything in their life after that is all downhill.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, they're past their prime. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like they've already peaked. Everything from now on is just going to be sad and a downhill decline until they die of starvation because they can't eat.

[Donut Operator]

It's like big game.

[Eli Double Tap]

So you're just harvesting?

[Donut Operator]

Yes. Big game hunting. That is one of the things they don't understand is, like, hunters are paying big dollars. And it's not just, like, I got this trophy that's it, it's like, hey, this is feeding everyone a village. Also, it's taking care of overpopulation. And usually the alpha is out of cycle. Run it off.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. And, you know, I think it's even, like, bigger to me. And like, I like to kill stuff. I don't know what that says, but I do like it.

[Eli Double Tap]

I feel that's innate.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's Donnie Vincent, who's a great hunter and tells a great story of any of his videos. The cinematography is incredible and he's got this really great, like, line about if he's a real conservationist and if you are alive today, at some point, like in your lineage, there were great hunters, or you would find. Wouldn't be here. They all starved to death. And you start thinking about that. But that connection with nature, it starts to sound all weird and hippie ish. But if you haven't experienced it. And I think it's one thing, me spending time in Africa in places like you're talking about, like, whether it's, you know, Utah or Idaho and remote places, hunting elk or whatever, you just feel this connection. But Africa makes me realize I love America but how stupid some things have gotten and how, like, we're chasing this thing that doesn't really exist here. Like, why does it matter? Like, once you get a certain amount of money, like, like being poor sucks. I. I get that I like having money more than I like being poor, but over a certain amount, it doesn't matter. Like, what are you chasing? Like, some kind of status or this or that. And you don't know the freedom of if you've not gone and done it, being out in nature in a wild place and seeing these things. Not just, like, I love YouTube and I love looking up all the things I can see now, but there's no replacement for going and seeing the Grand Canyon or going, experiencing these things. And, you know, I spend months there at a time and I, like, we've gotten life wrong in America, like, as far as, okay, work hard, do all this, make a bunch of money, get a beach house, retire one day. It's like, you should enjoy every day. You know, like, we create all this stress here, it seems like, for just bullshit. Look at all things. Like you, you guys and all of us that are, I think, you know, have a reasonable mind. Like, mocking all the trans. Like, we come up with things to like about. Like, how up is that?

[Eli Double Tap]

It's the, the Doskie Dostoevsky thing where it's like, oh, yeah, well, if you had nothing to, to. If you had no real problems to solve, you will find them.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like, and I feel like that's where we fall into. It's like we just, you know, if you look 200, 300 years ago, what problems were they trying to solve? It's like, okay, those are real problems.

[Donut Operator]

Living day to day.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like now we live in the most racist country in the world. It's like, and it's look at how things were 200 years ago anywhere.

[Donut Operator]

Also we're struggling day to day. It's really hard. Everyone's dying. Terry, I guarantee you have like one of the best outlooks on life because you're like, man, we have it so good here.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Us is way easy. Go. Go live in a place where there's no value on life. It's funny where you think like Americans are so self righteous about Africa. Africa, you know, the real racism in, in Africa. Like as someone who I think I'm half South African now, I'll say. But like you're one of my favorite.

[Eli Double Tap]

African Americans that lives there.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Like the causes, the, the natives in the south. So they're a mixture of like the original natives now and then, like when the French Hugos came there and then the Africa, the Dutch came there and everything. And the Zulu in the north, like Shaka Zulu, like, what a great freaking general and warrior. He was like incredible, you know, like pretty horrific. He did, but he was effective. And the Zulu and the Causa, like, they're racist. Like when we like as an American we would think, oh, apartheid is so bad and whites don't treat blacks well over there. Natives, well, it's like there are no problems between the whites and the natives. Like the causes in the Zulu hate each other. Like, and it's all just race based. You're not truly black anymore. You know, you're causing the Europeans showing.

[Brandon Herrera]

Up and just drawing lines on the map.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

I mean this is, this is now South Africa.

[Eli Double Tap]

You're talking about a continent where in the last 50 years there was a machete genocide like that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's terrible. There's some real shit you'll see like on some of the ranches I've heard of, it's like if they generally won't have like Zulu and causes working in the same ranch because eventually there's going to be murders. Yeah. And it's never like, you know what we would make movies about in America? Are you trying to say evil white man? And it's not like. No, they'll get an argument over, like, potatoes in the garden. Those are mine. And next thing you know, in the morning, they come get you. One of them stabbed the other one, killed them because, like, over potatoes.

[Donut Operator]

And this is not like. I cannot stress that. You see that when you go to countries like that, Third world countries, that is like life is. Is a completely different meaning. It's one of the hardest things to get across because in everyone's head, you think, oh, that's a bad person. That's not even evil. It's like taking a life is just like breathing.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And they don't like, they're valuable there.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. There's no consequence.

[Eli Double Tap]

Disney taught me that. They're just like us.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You know how great it would be if, like, everyone either had, like, mandatory service or you go live in a third world country for three years and serve somehow what's it us in, like the 1850s, it was like, survive, provide your families. If you didn't, you would die. Yeah. It's the same thing. Yeah. But the US is so successful in the GDP side that we just give things to people. Yeah. So I'm saying you can't starve here. Across the board, people are people.

[Eli Double Tap]

They're going to survive.

[Kevin Brittingham]

They're going to provide for the families they're going to protect.

[Donut Operator]

It's just what they have to do to achieve. That's completely different. Just.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's just offset by, like, prosperity.

[Eli Double Tap]

I don't know. I feel like at a certain level, biologically, you're wired for a certain amount of adversity where, like, you're always going to survive, you're going to fight, you're going to do everything so that you can feed your family and you can provide. But when that adversity is not there, your caveman brain is going to find adversity somewhere, even if it doesn't exist.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But we were talking about that. The. Well, I'm work out to make it harder for myself. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

A side effect. You get jacked.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That's pretty cool. I mean, look at how soft we are. Like, you spend time in nature too, and you realize, oh, my Lord, humans are good thing we're smart because we would have been dead a long time ago. Like, we're so weak, pathetic now.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, bro. I always think about it. I was like, man, if we lost Internet and power and everything, I'd be like, oh, oh, okay, what am I good at? Okay, well, I'm gonna acquire a lot of stuff.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Easier gun, some ammo.

[Eli Double Tap]

Could your neighbors like, wow, thanks for stocking up on food.

[Donut Operator]

Otherwise it's gonna take. I watch people like Outdoor Boys. I love watching that dude. He has his kids out there, like, staying out in the wilderness. But that dude is. If you haven't seen his YouTube content, I think we've talked about it multiple times.

[Brandon Herrera]

He kicks ass, dude.

[Donut Operator]

He just goes out there. Nerdiest looking dude. He's like, oh, we're just gonna go camp out in negative 40 degrees in Alaska. No tent this time. We're doing a new method. So I'll find this stump and then I'll build it out. And then he. Two days he'll stay out there and do that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That's tough. That's strong mind. I mean, that's the way men need to be, though. I mean, we're just getting so weak as.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, I. I would die. It's. That's how I get humble. Die so fast.

[Brandon Herrera]

Hates being cold.

[Kevin Brittingham]

He's like basic white girl now.

[Donut Operator]

I get this cold or wet, he gives up.

[Eli Double Tap]

He's not as bad with the wet things. Nick. Oh, shoes. That was so funny.

[Donut Operator]

Wait, what happened?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Nick.

[Eli Double Tap]

Nick with his wet shoes. Were you not there? Oh, you weren't there for that?

[Brandon Herrera]

Nick got his shoes wet in the ocean and he just gave up.

[Eli Double Tap]

We. We went. When we were there in San Diego, we were at the. The hotel there on the beach. We all walked to the beach. The wave comes up too fast and gets in his shoes and he has like a tism fit and like, literally leaves and just like, I, I've got to go buy new shoes and goes. And we're just like, you can. Well, I have a spare pair of that.

[Brandon Herrera]

Okay.

[Kevin Brittingham]

In San Diego.

[Eli Double Tap]

Funny. Nick is. Nick is one of my favorite people and it's. He's probably one of the better adjusted amongst us, but it's funny to see that tism come out. I knew it. I knew it was somewhere.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Oh, he seems tough too. He was that wet. San Diego wet. I thought you were going to say, like, I don't know, like Great Lake wet in December.

[Brandon Herrera]

Get his shoes wet, he'll freak out.

[Donut Operator]

He loves the cold. That dude's like, I don't know why you guys don't move to Iowa. It's fine up here. So just move to highway.

[Eli Double Tap]

He doesn't talk like that, like, at all.

[Donut Operator]

It's Nick's new voice.

[Eli Double Tap]

But speaking about that, that racial divide in Africa where you have like those, I guess, combative interactions between locals, are you, like, we can cut this if it doesn't fit, but can you tell that story about when that did Actually escalate to violence at that ranch.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Well, I know of several stories. I mean it's kind of what I said. Like it's always this undertone of the different, like I guess you would say racist there. The causes and the Zulu, they're both very offended by one of them being in charge of the other. It's very offensive to them. And so it always ends up in some violence. And so I think as a ranch manager owner you have to be like aware of that. Yeah, just like in the cause of culture. Like Nasipo, our cook, she's a 55 year old causal woman. It's so incredible. Well, in their culture she's in charge. It's sort of like in some Middle Eastern cultures, like the eldest woman is in charge. And so it's just this weird dynamic and it always escalates. And they tend to drink a lot. And so ranches that will allow them to drink. Like at the ranches it tends to, you know, like a lot of stuff, it escalates things. But one that I can think of is these three guys that worked on a ranch. They lived in a little house together on the ranch, staff housing. And so it's two causes and one Zulu. And so the most senior guy was a casa guy. And the Zulu guy didn't like it, him being in charge. And so that night they go home, they start drinking and cooking. And one wanted potatoes and one wanted. What's the name of this stuff? It's like grits that they have. I always forget the name but like a sort of like a corn grit sort of thing. They. So one wanted potatoes, one wanted that. And so they're drinking and they start arguing over it. And so the Zulu guy just takes the old butcher knife and gets in between the ribs there and it's like we're having potatoes and then they go to. That is wild escalation goes to the ranch. And this is like common with in that. But it's always that sort of crime. It's very rarely towards like white people there. It's just they don't like each other. And so the ranch owner, he was telling me and he says, yeah, the. So the Zulu guy wakes him up in the morning. He's like, you know, Mr. R, Mr. R, we need. There's a situation, says what the is it? Come see. You know, so and so's hurt. Like oh shit. Okay, go down there. You know, he's cold. He had died 12 hours earlier, very dead and just lying in the kitchen floor with all the dried blood. And everything. And he's like, what happened? And he tells him quickly what happens. And Mr. R just says, we don't have a problem. You have a problem. And just went out the door, locked him in the cottage and so made him sit in there. Call the police, tell them there'd been a murder. It took him a day and a half to get there. God, he made him stay in there wasn't. But it's like that kind of senseless. And that's the thing you see, in third world countries, that is Americans were generally immune to it. You know, like that's not like, you know, your Uncle Rodney and whatever cousin Kip might get in a little argument to smack one another, but no one's stabbing each other in the kitchen and killing them. This was over potatoes.

[Eli Double Tap]

Not typically.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. And it's just like, it's that kind of stupid. Well, another story like my ph was telling me, several years ago in Zambia, they shot an elephant. And the local village comes to ph, professional hunter. So it's like your guide, he was saying, and he was a young guy back then, and they shoot an elephant. And generally in most of Africa, the elephant, like you get the hide and you get like the skull and the tusk. Like the meat will belong to the local villages. And that's just in most places, probably sort of just a shan handshake deal or it's just what they do to support the villages and to keep them from poaching all the elephants. Like, we'll feed you. So don't poach everything. Excuse me. Because a lot of people don't understand, like lions and elephants and hippos and all like they're going to be poached out of existence if there's not hunting. Because there is no value other than meat to, to any of the native villages. You think about a 500 pound cat living in your yard, you know, because they all raise. Thank you. Cattle and goats. And so if you're a lion and you live there, it's like, oh, all you got to do is live over there in the bushes, jump this little fence, you grab you a little calf every day and you're good. And so they snare them and kill them all. So there's no value to a lion if they're not hunted by natives. But so anyway, they shoot this elephant, the village comes and so they're skinning it to get the hide and get the skull and then they're done. And then it belongs to the village and they start just taking the meat and they have you know, machetes and axes and knives and. So once they gut it and get everything out and the elephant's so big, they go into the rib cage and start cutting the meat. Now then guys go on top and women and they're cutting meat off the ribs and everything and then hacking the ribs off with an axe. And he's sitting there watching them as they're loading up the hide. And the guy with the ax misses the ribs, hit somebody square in the head below him, kills him dead. They do not stop. He comes down off the rib, gets the guy, drags him out, lays him down and goes back to hacking the rib.

[Eli Double Tap]

Jesus.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's like no one stopped to acknowledge it. And like that's, that's like reality over there. Like, that's the value of life in a lot of those places. Like, that meat is so valuable to them. Yeah, it's just like that happens all the time. Like you don't think about it. It's just not the way we live here.

[Donut Operator]

No. Yeah, that's crap. Damn it.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And he said no one else stopped doing anything. And the guy just came down and drugged the dude out and laid him down and then went back to.

[Eli Double Tap]

Much like Indians with trains.

[Donut Operator]

Just all loaded on. Well, we lost. Lost a few good men on that journey.

[Brandon Herrera]

How inconvenient.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, God, I cannot wait. That is one place I truly look forward to.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Like, hey, if it'll change Hemingway and Roosevelt's lives, it'll change yours.

[Donut Operator]

How long do we do, Brandon?

[Eli Double Tap]

I'm down for. He was, he was saying in the airport, like, at least a week.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, yeah, 10 days. 10 days is awesome. But if you can only do a week, a week's great too.

[Eli Double Tap]

That'd be awesome. No, I, I appreciate the invite because I. I really would like to do that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I think I would love for you guys to come. There is Internet, so you guys can do your work.

[Eli Double Tap]

How is it bringing guns to Africa and back?

[Kevin Brittingham]

You can't bring semi autos, but you can have semi autos in South Africa. There's no barreling restrictions. So when you're in charge of ATF as General atf, then we can do away with short barrel rifles. They don't even have that in Africa.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, yeah, I like, we always joke about how cucked the UK is, but at the same time it's like, well, to them having suppressors is just like being decent to your neighbor.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, it's.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's so stupid.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But taking the guns in and out are easy. But I've permanently exported a Lot of guns over there. So there's plenty of guns for hunting and stuff.

[Eli Double Tap]

So it's like taking a boombox to Africa is not a thing you can do.

[Kevin Brittingham]

No, but we have two over there.

[Eli Double Tap]

Interesting. Okay.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I mean, we did it legally. I don't want to sell.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But we had to permanently export my. You can't take them.

[Eli Double Tap]

That eyebrow race was a little blur after eyebrow race.

[Donut Operator]

Just that one black bar.

[Eli Double Tap]

You can't do it.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But there's.

[Eli Double Tap]

There's two there. The black bar follows the eyebrow.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So I permanently exported Honey Badgers, Sugar Weasel as our AR base gun and then two boom boxes. So once it's. And those are all being approved now. Actually, yesterday, Andrew, my buddy, who I live on this property, picked up like 16 of the guns. The semi autos take a little longer for the permanent export once they're there to be licensed than the bolt guns. So. But yeah, so we'll have them there. So. Yeah, we can. And we do calls about three calls a year in different places to even know is like, spring buck and bless buck. And some of the animals are selective grazers, and they eat the good grass for the cattle. And so we keep those populations down because if you have, you know, one blessed buck, then that's one cow you can't have up there.

[Donut Operator]

Right.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And so we'll use helicopters to do coals and culling and helicopters in the mountains. It's fun because it's way tougher than like in Texas and flat ground. But this is, you know, 6,000ft elevation. The helicopters getting blown everywhere. We normally do it with the bolt guns, but now we're gonna have semi autos. So. Good times.

[Eli Double Tap]

Hell, yeah.

[Donut Operator]

I'm so stoked for this. This is gonna be heavenly.

[Eli Double Tap]

Calculating that spin drift off like an 86 plus the rotors has got to be a interesting experience.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, walking in.

[Eli Double Tap]

Walk it in.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Man. Just get after it.

[Donut Operator]

Are you just eating all the meat like that you harvest that day or is like, how. What are dinners or meals like when you're.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, yeah, I want to leave Africa with the keto.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Shit. No, the meals are so good. Like, I actually end up gaining weight over there. I mean, even though I walk up mountains every day, because, like, I don't eat dessert and a lot of bread when I'm in the States. But the Khosa women make the best bread in the world, and it's fresh every day, and they have it all there. And then they love desserts. And like all the cause of women are like £300. So like the idea of people starving over there. Yeah, not really. And so I end up even gaining weight when I'm over there, even though I'm probably burning, like, 4,000 calories a day, because. Yeah, she makes me desserts every night. But the food is great because it's all. It's all, like, organic in the sense of. It's all free range. Yeah. So they're not being, you know, RFK approved. Yeah. So you go kill something. We eat it. But there's a. There's a big cooler about the size of this there. So there's. You know, so when there's big groups there, we're hunting a lot that he.

[Donut Operator]

Pointed at the house. It's about living room, kitchen. Fucking living room and kitchen.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, it is. And so. So sometimes if we shoot an eland or something, we eat the back straps that night. Like, well, Bry, that's barbecuing in South Africa. But generally you let it hang for a week or a week and a half and whoo. But, yeah, I mean, all you eat is what you kill there. And then we have a garden. So everything from broccoli to peppers or whatever. And there's no pesticides or used. Like, none of the animals are fed bullshit or injected with bullshit. Yeah. No Cheerios or anything. So, like, you eat real clean, and it's delicious. Man, those women can cook.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like those starving African children. You're describing these, like, amazing meals. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there at, like, 2am with a. What is it? Uncrustable.

[Brandon Herrera]

More chemicals, please.

[Eli Double Tap]

Give me the red 40, Daddy.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It's interesting. A lot of people that have never been before that, because I try to encourage, like, everyone I know and care about to come over there and. Yeah, like.

[Eli Double Tap]

And then us.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah. But even the girls from the office, like, they were worried about the food and stuff. And I'm like, no, you don't get it. Like, your accommodations there are nicer than your house, you know, that you live in. And then it's like, no, the food is incredible. And. And they all say if they've never really traveled stuff before, it's like within a week, they feel so much better.

[Donut Operator]

American food sucks.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You're not eating bullshit American food.

[Donut Operator]

It sucks. When you go overseas and you eat out there, you're like, oh, oh. This is actually when they care about the process they're buying or cooking it that day. Everything is not refrigerated. Ice then take time to get to the restaurant.

[Brandon Herrera]

I love Red 40.

[Donut Operator]

So delicious.

[Eli Double Tap]

We get paid $10 every time we say Monsanto. Monsanto.

[Brandon Herrera]

Monsanto. Monsanto. Monsanto.

[Donut Operator]

That's why I get so excited doing something like that because it is an experience. Like again it's a bucket list. Like we never knew we had the opportunity to have on the bucket list. And I was like, oh, it's so cool.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And you know it's, it's the hunting. When people think about it. Like the reason I love hunting is actually the adventure, you know, it's cool like we shoot stuff that we eat and that's fine. And you know, doing our part for real conservation because I want like if it weren't for hunting, all these animals would be extinct and we just like be reading about them and you know, like I'm building like a conference room about a 5,000 square foot, like 20 foot ceiling conference room, like trophy room there. And it's all mostly going to be like some aspirational hunts and stuff like animals that are shooting Ethiopia or Cameroon or Congo or whatever in a full body mount. So people can see when they go there. Because I want to when people come over there, you know, to South Africa, it's a pretty, by African standards, a pretty vanilla hunt, you know, plains game hunt. But it's so fun and wonderful. But it's very inexpensive relatively too. But the other animal is full body mounting them because I want people to come there and see them and be inspired to go to other parts of Africa that need the help too, you know. So forest elephants can survive. You know, they're in just a small area of West Africa and you know there's a pygmy elephant, it's half the size and the day that they stop hunting there, they're extinct. Like the natives will kill all of them. And you know, so to keep hunting in different areas of Africa alive. So these animals will be there in three or four generations from now and people can still see them.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's just like the thing the argument like why are cows still plentiful but the buffalo are almost, you know, extinct in most of the country. It's because nobody owned the buffalo.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, good point.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, actually a really good point. Yeah, we got wiped those out. America did a real good job with that. Just like I just kill them all walls. I don't know if you've chase put up the picture of you've seen the.

[Brandon Herrera]

Buffalo, the buffalo, pyramids.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. The most wild photos from back in those days.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I mean it'd be okay too if they didn't taste tastes good or something. But it's like Whoa. Buffalo is so delicious, man. I was just sitting around. What do we do? I know. I mean, cows. I mean, the cows are so dumb, though. If they didn't taste great, we'd probably kill them all. But buffalo, that's good meat. That's.

[Donut Operator]

We'll go there and then Japan. I still want the guys to go visit Japan, at least. I see.

[Eli Double Tap]

Probably gonna do a lot of international travel next year. That'll be good.

[Donut Operator]

You're actually talking about doing a first, like, show out in Canada. We have to test that marketplace because that would be our first, like, outside of the United States.

[Eli Double Tap]

The worst. The worst United States.

[Donut Operator]

The worst of the United States.

[Brandon Herrera]

51St state.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. Wherever we have it. We had. Oh, Uncle Dijon walked.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

He pulled up to the border, parked, and walked across to us in Buffalo.

[Eli Double Tap]

He's worried about his truck tags, so he just fucking walked across.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Pretty awesome.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, he's a good friend. He told the story on stage. He, like, knocked on the thing. Hey, like, what the fuck are you doing?

[Eli Double Tap]

It was like seven degrees.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. Just stormed. He's like, oh, I'm going to America.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

I'm just on my way to America.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's funny because he could have just kept walking.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, no shit. He got there and then went back the other way. I was like, oh, thank you.

[Eli Double Tap]

One of the only snow Mexican illegal immigrants.

[Donut Operator]

The snow Mexicans were big. That was cold as. Thank you, Buffalo, by the way. Y'all were fantastic.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's a good show.

[Donut Operator]

That was. Yeah. Y'all rowdy as they did, like. Yeah, yeah. The stomp thumbs thing that we didn't hear that entire time until Buffalo.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So many high school basketball games.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, it was, like, cool, man. It's like Buffalo. People throwing people through tables, stomping on the floor. It was a whole.

[Eli Double Tap]

The Bill's mafia is wild.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It.

[Brandon Herrera]

Bill's mafia.

[Donut Operator]

I like, all. None of us. None of us knew that cheer. Angry cops. Did you know when he. At the beginning or did you know?

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like a universal thing.

[Donut Operator]

Is it?

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, man.

[Donut Operator]

I don't sports at all. I had no idea what they were sporting.

[Eli Double Tap]

The chant that they did, which I. I don't remember it right off the top.

[Donut Operator]

I had Buffalo. And then he said something else, like, multiple times. And they were cheering back to his cadence, and we were like, what the is he doing? And then he pulled the chair, the table out on stage, and multiple of.

[Eli Double Tap]

Us got choke slammed through a table.

[Donut Operator]

I branded, too.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, football.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. Brandon was like, it. That's.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Rich is Just like, come up. I'm like, we didn't rehearse it. Didn't mention it at any point. I'm like, it sure.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I'm glad you didn't land on your head.

[Donut Operator]

He got like half.

[Kevin Brittingham]

It didn't.

[Donut Operator]

Classically, it was like. And the chair went sideways. I was like, yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's how much it didn't hurt. Was kind of surprised. Surprising. It was just like. It's all showmanship, but it's still fun, dude.

[Donut Operator]

The crowd went wild, wild on those things. It was quite an experience. And then Connor killed it on stage. Let's forget I'm like, here, Connor, go be on stage with us. It's only 1200 people.

[Brandon Herrera]

I smoke cigarettes. That was my whole thing.

[Donut Operator]

On every venue, he lit up a cigarette just to smoke in the theater.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Why wouldn't he?

[Donut Operator]

That's what we were. He took advantage.

[Brandon Herrera]

It was a wonderful excuse to smoke on stage.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's. It's always allowed when it's part of the act. And funny enough, when he's on stage, it's part of the act.

[Donut Operator]

Dude. Yeah. Is a. Doing live shows is a wild experience. It is.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That seems fun.

[Donut Operator]

It is.

[Eli Double Tap]

Good time.

[Donut Operator]

A lot of work and fun at this. It's that weird. It drains your social battery. Like, most of the guys are introverts.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

So it's like the most draining experience. You're like, hey, high fiving, talking, getting in front of an audience. Cody's in fear because. Yeah. He does not like puppies though, man.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That's a pick me up mandatory. You come into work in the morning, you get a high five. It's a way to start the day.

[Brandon Herrera]

Kiss on the mouth.

[Donut Operator]

No, wait, a Mexican.

[Kevin Brittingham]

But if you got titties.

[Donut Operator]

HR does not exist.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Mexican titties. Any kind of titties.

[Donut Operator]

Do we have some dude handed down. Like, he brought cookies from a store. And I was like, oh, cookies. And after I ate them, I was like, weed. Wow. I should have it. Why am I eating food from a stranger?

[Eli Double Tap]

And the name on the box.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

What'd your mama half baked cookies? I was like, I'm like, oh, hey, hey, hey. On the balcony.

[Eli Double Tap]

Where these weed.

[Donut Operator]

He's like, no. I was like, I'm gonna trust you hour. And I'm like, okay, we're good, we're good.

[Eli Double Tap]

I'm a trust you random stranger. You handed me edibles.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, Terry, really good cookies, though.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Most people, I think naturally are. Are good. Unless they're from Buffalo.

[Donut Operator]

And then Rich drove the Merv.

[Eli Double Tap]

That was good.

[Donut Operator]

That was do you know what the Merv is?

[Kevin Brittingham]

No.

[Donut Operator]

So Angry Cops has a.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's the morale response vehicle. I believe it's a fire truck that he bought and converted into, like. It's a mobile bar with a dance floor and everything. It's like.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Sounds like the best stuff the. This thing. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Buffalo.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That's halfway across the country. Who killed it the most on this tour? Who. Who was on fire?

[Donut Operator]

Everyone, dude.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, everyone's balance, I think.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Everyone has, like, dialed in portions. Like, I. I think again, by Boston, we had that show so refined. Everyone got a really good experience because you have from the beginning of Unsub. We come out and then we announce the guests. And when the guests come out, you have Rich during the Hulk. Hulk Hogan original America song. He walks out with the two by four. Yeah. Waving a giant flag.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Someone's hack. Saul Dugan. Jim.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, yeah. Jim Duggan's the one that did it. That's why he's just like, I want that music. I want this. So he wave it and then rip his shirt off and then put that down. They'll be like, Ed Carter or King Trout. And you'd walk up, pull your cigarette.

[Brandon Herrera]

Out, getting ready, spill out my smoking. Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

At the one venue where I accidentally spilled white claws across the stage on.

[Eli Double Tap]

The perfect comedy beat, though.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

That was on purpose.

[Donut Operator]

And I caught her afterwards.

[Eli Double Tap]

The guy backstage was like, dude, you guys have that dialed. How did you, like, sabotage the bag to rip at that moment?

[Brandon Herrera]

It was a accident almost.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You really upset with yourself?

[Donut Operator]

No, no, I don't give a.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's like, I'll never see these ever again in my life.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Oh, even if you do love, you just get after it.

[Donut Operator]

No, it is a good time. Everyone killed it. Like, every. Like, the jokes are so dialed in. Everyone's just playing off of each other. The Buffalo show went completely different ways.

[Eli Double Tap]

Which is to be expected with Rich in his home turf.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, we had, like, sets kind of rehearsed, and then that one was like. It was good because people go from, like, multiple shows. They will. They went from Atlanta to.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Really?

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. They went to both shows and they're like, man, it was a completely different show. We're like, that wasn't on purpose. These just aren't rehearsed and they kind of just go where they go at the end of the day.

[Kevin Brittingham]

That's so great. I guess if you have one person doing comedy. Yeah. That's interesting about a group because if you have an off night or you up, like, you. You don't. Yeah. You don't have, like, a tribe to support you. No, I think it's just. Yeah, yeah. Like lions living in a pride, you know, like a leopard, solitary its whole life, it only gets together to bang. And then. So if it gets hurt, it can't feed itself. It dies. But, you know, you live in a pride. Like, a lion gets hurt, like, up. They'll still give him some food so he survives. Interesting. Thinking about it like that.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's the word that sums up unsubbed. The best is pride.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yes.

[Eli Double Tap]

Al.

[Donut Operator]

When a joke doesn't land. We said a joke. And he. Look, it's like, yeah, that one really killed it, Rich. Anyway.

[Kevin Brittingham]

And it makes it funny.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. And then everyone starts laughing. Yeah, it was a really good time. And then everyone's like, good, because you're on edge because it is live. You're calling out the audience because you don't want cell phones recording anything that is said during the live shows.

[Eli Double Tap]

You're like, yeah, because the. The more cell phones you see, like, the lamer the show has to be.

[Brandon Herrera]

Throws you off.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, you real back in jokes real quick.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You're saying Dave Chappelle bit where he's talking about where he bombed, you know, that night. It's like, well, if Dave Chappelle can mom by himself. But I love that you. Well, I get paid for the attempt.

[Donut Operator]

Y'All paid. I can leave right now. I'm still paid at the end of the day.

[Brandon Herrera]

Unsubscribe podcast is on par with Dave Chappelle.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Yeah, that's what I said.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's the one I love. The one where. I think it was in Philadelphia with Bill Burr, where he just starts roasting the audience. Or like, he was gonna leave. He's like, no, you. And just starts tearing into the town. Was it that, or.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, that was. Yeah, exactly.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah.

[Kevin Brittingham]

So you could do whatever the you want.

[Eli Double Tap]

But then they loved him for it. Like, about halfway through, they're like, all right, this guy's cool.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Who he is that character.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, you.

[Donut Operator]

And that's what's really good on stage. When you have, like, Rich. Offsetting Rich is the one that will, like, pick on the audience. Like, he's hard. And then you also have, like, what's the superpowers? A girl would say her superpower, and Connor would be like, you're offset. You're a woman. So how our superpowers work is like, oh, Cody can fly. In order to fly, he has to yell racial slurs. We offset.

[Eli Double Tap]

Did we ever give Kevin a superpower?

[Donut Operator]

Did you get A superpower.

[Kevin Brittingham]

When you realized. I think it was something about a giant penis.

[Donut Operator]

That's your super.

[Eli Double Tap]

I think we were all hammered that episode.

[Donut Operator]

Did we give you one? I don't even know if we remember the show.

[Eli Double Tap]

You fell asleep in my truck after that.

[Kevin Brittingham]

I think he fell asleep. I like to party.

[Donut Operator]

He fell asleep someplace else first.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Do you remember? I think I have a photo on my.

[Kevin Brittingham]

No, I probably don't want to see it. You fell asleep.

[Eli Double Tap]

Won't surprise me at the bar with your sandwich halfway spilling onto the cash register.

[Donut Operator]

It's one of my favorite.

[Kevin Brittingham]

We had a great day.

[Donut Operator]

It was a fantastic day. I like that guy was just like.

[Eli Double Tap]

And we were just all like looking at each other like. This is so surreal.

[Donut Operator]

Hey, buddy, let's go to the car. Anybody turned on the raptor and you're just like, ow.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Oh, what good friends you guys are.

[Donut Operator]

Dude, of course we got you back.

[Eli Double Tap]

And just like good friends. We took pictures first.

[Donut Operator]

We asked.

[Eli Double Tap]

And like better friends. We've never put them on the Internet.

[Kevin Brittingham]

You guys are gold.

[Donut Operator]

We're gonna keep those. Those are for us. Chase pulled those up. I'll send it to you. Just hundreds of thousands. I you.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, man.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Dude, I like fun.

[Donut Operator]

Yes, you do. We're gonna have Mr. Connor close us out when he old blondie over here. Connor, by the. Before you close it out, can you explain that hand drawn photo you're gonna.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Hide in the actual photo of his grandpa.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, okay.

[Brandon Herrera]

Well, the Pepperbox exclusive video, which you can see coming up well before this, this episode of the unsubscribed podcast is available. Sorry, I'm spitting everywhere. There's a zin in my lip.

[Donut Operator]

Not a potato chip.

[Eli Double Tap]

Not a potato chip.

[Brandon Herrera]

Where we show off the gifts we we received on the unsubscribe live tour. I may or may not have gotten a portrait of myself.

[Donut Operator]

Hand drawn.

[Brandon Herrera]

Hand drawn. Where I am an officer of some sort.

[Eli Double Tap]

I think it's a super sport.

[Brandon Herrera]

A super sport officer wearing a uniform designed by who? Who designed the uniforms?

[Eli Double Tap]

I believe it was Hugo Boss.

[Kevin Brittingham]

Hugo Boss, I believe designed or Star Wars. Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

Might have been some kind of mensch.

[Donut Operator]

It's like a high five, but it's 45 degree angle.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, like in the uber kind of men, if you will.

[Eli Double Tap]

Indians.

[Brandon Herrera]

Anyway, thank you for watching the unsubscribe podcast. As always, I'm joined by Eli Double Tap. I am here with Kevin Brittingham, Brandon Herrera and myself, donut operator or king trout, whoever you ask. Thank you. Thank you for watching.

[Donut Operator]

Love you guys. Kevin, where do we find you by the way?

[Kevin Brittingham]

Africa.

[Donut Operator]

Find [e-mail] hashtag africa. Love you guys. We're gonna do an after show. Be like 10 minutes. Patreon, go check it out. Kisses, love.

[Eli Double Tap]

Why watch Africa be like a black dot com kind of site?

[Kevin Brittingham]

No, I hope it's gay porn. It.