https://youtu.be/lFOcB1eF6Lg: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

https://youtu.be/lFOcB1eF6Lg: this lFOcB1eF6Lg video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Mark Wulfe:
From The Aasgaard Company Studios in beautiful Wichita Falls, Texas... From the finest mind in the modern fitness industry... The one true voice in the strength and conditioning profession... The most important podcast on the internet... Ladies and gentlemen, Starting Strength Radio!

Mark Rippetoe:
Welcome back to Starting Strength Radio. It's Friday because what other fucking day would it be? You know, Friday's the best day of the week. Remember when you were little and Friday was your last day of school for two days. And Friday was the coolest day of the week. I remember that. And it still is. So that's why we have Starting Strength Radio on Friday. And those of you people that don't understand that, God help you.

Mark Rippetoe:
We're here with our friend Justin Nazaroff. Justin's got a company in Novi, Michigan, called Fenix Ammunition. Fenix Ammo, is that what's the actual name, Fenix Ammo? You spell it all the way out, or is it just?

Justin Nazaroff:
All the way out.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, that's luxurious of you, you know. It's like somebody that can... Almost like somebody that can afford another middle name. You ever known anybody with two middle names?

[off-camera]:
Yeah.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah. That's you know. What are their parents thinking? Parents are thinking, hey, we got the money. That's what they're thinking.

Mark Rippetoe:
So Justin, wanted to talk to you today about several things of interest to lots and lots of people that watch the podcast here. But the first thing I wanted to talk to you about was this thing last night with this Rob Pincus boy who is associated with some Second Amendment organization.

Mark Rippetoe:
And what I... The first question I got for you is, what the fuck were you thinking about talking to this guy? What I mean, it's not like we don't have enough spineless weasels all over the place already, but we got to talk to spineless weasels that are Second Amendment advocates too? What what did you... Did you not know?

Justin Nazaroff:
Oh, I knew, for sure, I mean, to be honest, it was just a matter of it had to come to a head at some point. I mean, I met him at SHOT Show 2020, before that I had never even heard of the guy. But he can't seem to keep my name and the name of my company out of his mouth. He talks about us over on Instagram. We don't have the ability to respond, so...

Mark Rippetoe:
That's what I would do if I were he.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah. So you know, his, his whole thing is he believes that we have to be more inclusive in the gun community, which was...

Mark Rippetoe:
Because that works so well.

Justin Nazaroff:
So his his, his problem is he doesn't seem to understand the difference between diversity within the gun communities is is great. I mean, you know, if we can expand beyond the typical white male that people think of that, that's fine. What we don't need is diversity of the core values and principles. And that's what he can't seem to wrap his head around.

Justin Nazaroff:
He's after a quantity, not quality. And I'm after exactly the opposite. I want I want people who I know are going to not turn in their AR 15s, if asked politely by the government. And he seems to think that, well, we need those people and we hope that we can convince them later on. And you and I both know that that's very rarely.

Mark Rippetoe:
Justin, what do we need them for?

Justin Nazaroff:
We don't.

Mark Rippetoe:
I mean, what the hell do we need people who would hand the government their guns like a fucking Australian, what good are people like that? You know?

Justin Nazaroff:
I'm not really sure. He again, really the discussion came to be because I said, well, if you if you're a gun owner and you voted for Joe Biden, I can understand if you have other reasons. I mean, actually, I really can't understand what the reason you voted for him for. But if you did, what that tells me is you have priorities that are over and over and above defending your life and your family. And that's just not what I'm interested in, soyou can go do business with somebody else. And he seemed to think that that's, in his words, that's "insidious" to the community because we are shutting people out who are acting as...

Mark Rippetoe:
Insidious. I don't think he understands what insidious means. If he actually used that word.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right, it's obvious to me that these people are... If you voted for Joe Biden you should be automatically and in fact, forcibly, placed on testosterone replacement therapy. Because you... Forcibly injected with testosterone, because something is seriously wrong with your ass, that is probably fixable with some testosterone.

Mark Rippetoe:
But more important than that, he didn't seem to understand the basic deal here. All right. This is your company, right? And if you want to have a box on your website that says that you do not sell ammunition to people who own purple shirts, then it's your company and you should be able to do that. And if that cost you a bunch of business, then there you go. The market paid you back for your you know, for your prejudice, so to speak. It's your business, it's no one else's business.

[off-camera]:
And he claims to be a libertarian, this market libertarian, free market libertarian over and over and doesn't understand the fundamental concepts.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, I heard that. The goddamn guy's a politician. That's all there is to it. He's one of these people that that has he's established his little bread and butter position in the Second Amendment organization. But he has learned over his vast years of experience, which, by the way, Justin, you simply do not possess. You do not possess the levels of experience and and intelligence that our friend Rob Pincus has earned the hard way. Right?

Mark Rippetoe:
But over that period of time in acquiring all this depth of experience, he's also learned how to say shit that...

Justin Nazaroff:
Is not actually saying anything.

Mark Rippetoe:
Without actually saying anything. That's that's exactly right. He he's learned how to use words the way politicians use toilet paper.

Mark Rippetoe:
And this is common to all these people. They can't just say two plus two is always and irrevocably four. Because that would expose them to some kind of liability or or hell, I don't know, I don't understand.

Mark Rippetoe:
I didn't hear the guy stake out a position at all last night, except that we need to be nice to people that voted for Joe Biden. What a Biden voter voted for. He voted for the superficial pleasure of saying to the ballot box, I'm green. I feel, I don't think, I feel. I feel positively about the planet, I feel positively about Joe Biden because Donald Trump said mean things to people. Donald Trump was mean. He was so mean. I'm just so glad he's not there anymore.

Mark Rippetoe:
And meanwhile, that level of analysis has people freezing to death in Texas.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, Mr Pincus is hovering around that level of silliness. Right? I don't I don't know what... I wonder, I get the impression that he's 55, something like that, you know, all his depth of experience has been acquired over years and years and years and years. And but at some point in this process, he's lost his ability to understand that some shit is yes and some shit is no.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, you know, that's that's more or less what I what I said, and I forgot to use the analogy of Texas in that discussion, which was exactly. Yeah, that's that's the problem that you're seeing for yourself.

Justin Nazaroff:
So when all these people from California and New York and Oregon and all these places that they screwed up and they come to Texas, they end up diluting the sample, if you will. Now you have Texas leaning purple when there is just no way that that should be the case.

Justin Nazaroff:
So know, all these people that move to Austin still hold the same values that they held in California and they're importing those politics. And that's precisely the problem that we're seeing in the gun industry. If we allow people to dilute the sample and get to the point where CNN can go out and take a poll of gun owners and arrive at the conclusion that 80 percent of us support universal background checks, we just know... You're either lying, which wouldn't surprise me, or they're polling these people that Rob Pincus feels the need to reach out to.

Justin Nazaroff:
Somebody that bought a gun during the pandemic, maybe shot it, maybe didn't, has it in the original case under their bed. And as soon as they feel that the government can provide to them security again, they're going to be more than happy to turn that thing in. And what's more, there are also going to be willing, if asked to say, yeah, my neighbor owns five or six of these things that we used to talk about them. So, you know, when when the time comes for things to be turned in, you have these people running around, ratting out their neighbors, the people that they used to be friends with.

Justin Nazaroff:
And I just you know, there were two separate issues. I don't feel the need to do business with those people. And those people need to understand that at very least, they need to understand the ramifications of what they've done. And if they still believe that that's the right way to go, then I definitely don't want to do business with them. And he just couldn't seem to wrap his head around the idea that this is not what the industry needs.

Mark Rippetoe:
No, I mean, over and above your absolute right to do exactly what you want to do with your own business, he doesn't seem to understand that just like all exercises, not all opinions are created equal.

Mark Rippetoe:
And you know, it is just so - yeah we talked about this a little bit last time - a dogma is what gets.. What this gets called. In other words, a two plus two equals four is dogmatic.

Mark Rippetoe:
Isn't that bizarre? And it bizarre that this is this is exactly this is how we've we have been so thoroughly penetrated by people who feel instead of think that that is an acceptable reason for doing things now. You don't want to be dogmatic.

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, if if if if I hire an engineer to build a bridge for me, a multibillion dollar bridge project, I'd rather that that engineer was dogmatic, so the fucking thing doesn't fall down and kill everybody's ass. Because that's happened before.

Justin Nazaroff:
It it's tough. I'm not even sure what to call it, but he seemed to have a real problem with the idea that people can have principles and that those principles are something that you carry forward through your life, into your business.

Mark Rippetoe:
And they're inviolate. You know, they're absolute. They're absolute. There are a few principles that must be regarded as absolute. Like my freedom to not let Rob Pincus in my house. Because it's my house, it's my house, and people that I don't want in my house can't come in my house because it's my house and I bought it and I paid for it and I paid the taxes on it. And it's mine. And that's not up for discussion. Some shit's not up for discussion. My ability to defend myself is not up for discussion. All right, and yeah, is this spineless weasels don't seem to understand this.

Mark Rippetoe:
So for, you know, we've been assuming here for a few minutes that everybody saw this goddamn thing last night, and that's certainly not the case. It's far from the case. I think most of the people that are watching this are aware of the fact that because you've been on TV about this now, about your your loyalty test, your "check the box if you voted for Biden oath."

Mark Rippetoe:
So what precipitated this conversation between you and this guy last night?

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, so about four or five weeks ago, I had seen a gun store in New Hampshire that had a sign on the front of their shop that said "we don't want to do business with Joe Biden voters" and I thought that was funny. And since we don't do any in-person business here, everything is through our website, I thought, well, maybe there's a way I can incorporate that into the site.

Justin Nazaroff:
So we have a little chat box you have to check in order to move through the checkout process. And originally I put that there when things were getting really busy, we were a little bit behind, and I just want people to understand that there was a lead time associated with their orders. So I updated it to include in the in the terms of service that I agree I did not vote for Joe Biden. And so that has been in place for several weeks.

Justin Nazaroff:
I didn't hear anything about it from anybody. I wasn't even sure if anyone noticed. Then I got a phone call from a... We did a big sale on a Thursday and I got a phone call and a woman said, I want I'm confused, I'm trying to check out, but it's asking me to check this box that says I didn't vote for Joe Biden and I did. What do I do? And I said, well, we don't want your business. And she was...

Mark Rippetoe:
You should have said, well, you could lie. Depends on how bad you want the ammunition, do you you want it bad enough be a liar as well as an idiot?

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, and so we actually had a I mean, she hung up and then she called back a little bit later and we talked for about half an hour. And I didn't change her mind. I tried to point her in the right direction. She seemed to be fine with everything that Biden's proposing. So I said, look, you can. You got to read this plan for yourself.

Justin Nazaroff:
And so then I thought to myself, well, I should probably explain this. And so I made a Twitter post and told people about the check box. And I explained our reasoning and our thought process, and yes, we are serious, we feel this is very important and it ended up getting shared around the internet by some big names. And I did an interview with Newsmax and got a little bit of publicity in that sense.

Justin Nazaroff:
But really what I wanted to do is raise awareness. And so I actually updated the site. Now we have a gateway. So you know if you go to, say, a website that sells alcohol or products, something like that, you'll popup a window that asks if you're over the age of twenty one.

Justin Nazaroff:
So our site is very similar now, but it pops up a window that says, did you vote for Joe Biden? If you click "no," it lets you proceed into the site. If you click yes, then it actually redirects you to Joe Biden dot com forward slash gun safety.

Justin Nazaroff:
And the idea was, if you don't know his plan, then now you can see it. And we've redirected more than one hundred and fifty thousand people in three days to his. I mean we probably redirected more people to his site.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, of course you did. Nobody reads Joe Biden's website. What kind of idiot would do that? Even they don't do that.

Justin Nazaroff:
I thought I thought legitimately thought to myself, well, some of these people are going to read this and just not care. Some people might have been a third party voter or might not have voted at all. And they're going to click yes, just for the hell of it to see what happens. And they're going to be able to see this for themselves. And hopefully we inform people and at least make sure that they...

Justin Nazaroff:
You know, Rob Pincus' whole point seems to be that Biden voters are ignorant of his plan. Well, they voted, but they don't really understand what they voted for, even though they talked about it in every democratic debate.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right. And that's OK with Mr. Pincus. Right? It's OK if you're ignorant about it. Sell them ammunition anyway God knows what else they're ignorant of, but it's OK for them to have...oh god.

Mark Rippetoe:
OK, all right. So how did you get hooked up with this guy in terms of this thing last night?

Justin Nazaroff:
So we both have a mutual friend in common, Maje Toure at Black Guns Matter organization who we support pretty significantly. A lot of energy into his efforts. He teaches gun safety in inner cities all across the country, and he's done some work with Pincus.

Justin Nazaroff:
And so he said, you know what? Look, you guys have been having it out on Twitter. Why don't we just do this thing? Let's get you guys together and have a discussion and you can make your points, and he'll make his points.

Justin Nazaroff:
And I said, that's fine. If it if this puts it to bed and it gets him to stop talking about us in a negative way, that's fine. Because I have never once in my life woken up in the morning and thought, no, what I really want to know what Rob Pincus thinks about... To wake up every day wondering what we're doing and having a problem with what we're doing and wanting to talk about it and trying to rally support. And coming up with his hashtags. I mean, it's just it's kind of sad, really, but just...

Mark Rippetoe:
Spineless weasels are everywhere. They really are.

Justin Nazaroff:
Right. And I think that's really part of his issue is he runs a Second Amendment organization that he's trying to build and he's got corporate sponsors. You know he's sponsored by Springfield and some other big name companies. I believe that he's actually sponsored by Winchester. And so he's got to...Let's say that back in the day when he was a young pup, he was a little rough around the edges, but his edges have been rounded off very nicely.

Justin Nazaroff:
And unfortunately, that's what happens in the in the gun industry. If you want to get corporate sponsors, you want to get lined up with the big companies, you've got to you've got to have a pretty milquetoast opinion. And it really seems to bother him that we fortunately are in a position where we haven't had to do that.

Justin Nazaroff:
And I'm not trying to be Winchester or Remington or some company. I'm perfectly happy with the niche that we've carved and the relationships that we've built. And I I think he just really has a problem with the idea that we are making a name for ourselves and people are listening to what we have to say, and less and less people seem to be listening to what he has to say.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, but if last night's exchange was any indication, he doesn't have anything to say, except "can't we all just get along?" You know, to quote the words of the famous Rodney King.

[off-camera]:
This happens. Hey, tis happens in our world, too. You know, these guys just just just equivocate themselves into complete irrelevance. And they get mad when you've got a guy with a strong, you know, a guy or a company with a strong personality, strong principles and opinions that are backed up. And and then they they just can't handle it. They fucking lose their minds, you know.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right. Because it's not good to say mean things.

[off-camera]:
To say things. Or just to say things in general. Like to say things definitively.

Mark Rippetoe:
To say things in general. This is the way shit is. And if you don't... If you think I'm wrong, let's hear it. And then there's silence. And therefore we're...you know. But this is the way it's been over here for for quite some time. And it's just...

Justin Nazaroff:
I'd say it's actually very similar to the fitness industry in that way. I mean, obviously, there are, you know, Crossfit, these programs that have made real big names for themselves. But unfortunately, as I think you agree, have diluted the sport in a sense, where they don't focus on the core principles, the things that that you guys are focusing on.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right.

Justin Nazaroff:
And they seem to get really angry at the niche that you've carved, at the idea that you don't want to take over the world. You're perfectly happy with doing what you do and letting them do what they do and letting it all come out in the wash and allowing people to decide what works best for them.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, we've always said that we're narrowcasting. And I haven't heard from anybody at Crossfit in a long time. I talked to Glassman a year and a half ago on the phone. He and I are still friendly. And...But in terms of Cross Fit, Inc.

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, he made a real bad mistake last year when he apologized for what he'd said. You can't do that. You can't say something you believe and then when shit hits the fan, say, oh, well, you know, I shouldn't have said that. You just can't do that. And he fucked up and did that.

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, as a... It took rogue fitness about 15 minutes to throw his ass under the bus after he did that. And yes, we're you know, rogue fitness is dedicated to getting along with everyone, despite the fact that not everyone is worth getting along with. So as a result, we're going to cut all ties with with Greg Glassman and Crossfit.

Mark Rippetoe:
And OK, that's fine if that's the way you want to do it. You all go ahead, but, you know, we don't use them anymore. And it's, you know, it's just just shameful. That...

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, and in this particular case, I mean, in this particular case, that really galls me because Rogue Fitness wouldn't even be in existence without Crossfit. They would not exist. They literally would not exist. There are a great big successful company. They have excellent customer service and at one time they were our go to deal. But my God, you can't behave that way.

Mark Rippetoe:
And once again, we are narrowcasting. We don't expect everybody to appreciate what it is we're doing. And so are you. You are narrowcasting as well.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, by narrow...Let me clarify what I mean by this. I would like very much if everybody on Earth did squats, presses, bench presses, deadlifts, and power cleans. OK. But not everybody on Earth is intelligent enough to understand why they should. And I also know that. All right. And as a result, we are talking accidentally...we're speaking to the broad market, but we're we're being received by a very narrow slice of the market because of the nature of what we say you need to do.

Mark Rippetoe:
And you're in exactly the same position. Right? And that's where I want to be, I'm assuming that's where you want to be to, right?

Justin Nazaroff:
Right. And we've never tried to claim otherwise. And back when we started the company after the first year when Trump got elected and the industry was starting to shift, I took a look and I said, well, we need to find a niche. So we went into competitive shooting and people that take training classes. And those people are narrowcast in the same to the same degree.

Justin Nazaroff:
You know they are, they have specific objectives that they're looking to fulfill. They have a very particular mindset. I mean, I've been to hundreds of shooting competitions. I've talked to, shaken hands with tens of thousands of shooting competitors, people that take training classes.

Justin Nazaroff:
And I mean, I would I would estimate the number of people who voted for Joe Biden that I've met at those places to be about as close to zero as you can get. We talk politics there. It's not like I'm...

Mark Rippetoe:
Sure it's unavoidable.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, I'm not like I'm making assumptions here. And so that's fine with us. Like, we've never tried to be all things to all people. I'm not interested in teaming up with the NRA. I'm not interested in teaming up with, you know, local gun clubs that we perceive to be teaching things that we wouldn't want to teach.

Justin Nazaroff:
So we select who we work with and we stay in our lane. And that, I think, really makes some people angry because it makes them feel like they don't have any leverage against you. We don't have any sponsors. We don't have anybody that we're beholden to.

Mark Rippetoe:
That's that's a real good point, Justin, you know. The way people have leverage over you is they make you dependent on them. And it really pisses them off if you're not. You know, that really, really pisses everybody off.

Mark Rippetoe:
I mean, how does the federal government have leverage over all the states? Money. They give them money. If you don't do what we want you to do, we're going to take away your federal highway funds. And no state has the balls to say take them away, we'll have dirt roads, but at least it'll be our dirt roads. You know, they they none of them behave that way.

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, places like Hillsdale College are few and far between.

Justin Nazaroff:
They are one of the shining jewels in that market, and we're lucky to have them.

Mark Rippetoe:
You're right. I mean, we get asked on a regular basis to come to our seminar for government organizations. Or state owned campuses, and we just don't work there. We work in private gyms and that's all. We won't be at a college. We won't be at a...

Mark Rippetoe:
Last time we did a gig was for the San Antonio Fire Department. Last time we did a gig for a government organization. It was a giant pain in the ass. And we're not going to do it again. We don't need the money that bad.

Mark Rippetoe:
And that's the whole deal. If you don't need the money that bad, then they have no leverage over your ass. And when you have a box on your website that you make them check that essentially says we don't need the money that bad. Oh, it pisses them off. Because more than anything else, they want control of you.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, and, you know, if we even started that process a few weeks ago before all this fighting stuff went down. Same deal. The only governments that we worked with were local police departments and municipalities for qualifications, which are mostly a joke anyway.

Justin Nazaroff:
And early on in our company, that was good money. It was decent sized orders in one lump sum, but we had to wait 30 days for the money. It was always kind of a pain.

Justin Nazaroff:
And then, you know, come November of last year, we get fined by our health department as a result of our local police department filing a report that we weren't wearing masks. And so I said, we're done.

Mark Rippetoe:
The cops that you sold ammo to... Let me get.... The cops that you sold ammo to, ratted you out to the health department for not wearing masks?

Justin Nazaroff:
That is exactly correct. In full disclosure, we hadn't worked with them in about two years, but we did work with them for two years prior to that. And, you know, these guys, these cops hang out in our parking lot. Sometimes we go out and chat them up and now they're pretty friendly for the most part.

Justin Nazaroff:
But, yeah, I just decided why... I don't need the money at this point. And I'll be damned if I'm going to support people that watch cities burn to the ground and do nothing. And then have the gall to come in my business and write a report that results in me getting fined.

Justin Nazaroff:
You know, there's another company in the industry, Barrett firearms, who doesn't sell their rifles to law enforcement in California or New York, because in those states, citizens aren't allowed to possess 50 caliber rifles. And so that's the case for more than a decade, if I remember correctly. And so if I... You know, I wouldn't pretend to say that I'm in the same category as a company like Barrett, but it seemed to work out pretty well for them. They don't seem to be suffering.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, I think you are in the same category as Barrett. You you know, you're you're governed by your principles, not your need. So that that that makes you in the same category. And I'm proud to be here with you.

Mark Rippetoe:
So Justin tell me...let's talk about a subject that's on everybody's mind. I need to know what the hell is wrong with the ammunition industry right now. Why can we not get any any rounds? What in the hell?

Mark Rippetoe:
I went to Midway USA. Hell, I've been checking them relatively regularly. About once every two weeks I go over there. And it's been a three or four months, seems like, since they've had anything in stock. I guess they get some stuff in stock in about an hour later. It's gone, that sort of thing. And and they're a big outfit. You know, I bought stuff from them for years, but nobody has any any ammunition right now.

Mark Rippetoe:
What is that... Give us a little lesson here as to where the bottleneck is. I mean, we've heard it's primers. I haven't heard it's brass. I've heard powder. I've heard... I don't know. What is going on? Are they buying it as fast as you can make it and there's nothing wrong with the supply, it's just demand is up so high? What's the analysis?

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, it's a multi factor problem. I mean, the demand right now is at an outrageous level. I mean, last week we we had... We put up three thousand rounds of nine mm for sale. It's gone in less than five minutes. It would have taken us a month.

Mark Rippetoe:
Point three million rounds was gone in five minutes.

Justin Nazaroff:
If we would have had a million rounds, it would have been gone in 10 minutes, maybe less, because people would have just bought more.

Justin Nazaroff:
So the real issue is demand is for sure through the roof. But the point is, is primers.

Justin Nazaroff:
And so the reason that the choke point is almost always primers in these situations is because primaries are difficult to make and they're very small. They have to be assembled precisely. The explosive compound in the primer has to be mixed on site. So it's very complicated.

Justin Nazaroff:
And when they design these plants, they design them like any other high volume, low profit margin manufacturing. They're trying to run at 80 to 90 percent all the time regardless of demand. And so when demand gets spikes as much as it has been, it takes them a long time. They're not going to go buy 50 million dollars worth of equipment only to install all that equipment and a year later, the demand drops off.

Justin Nazaroff:
And that's basically what happened to the industry in twenty sixteen. Everybody or twenty seventeen, everybody was so sure Hillary was going to win, they were investing a ton of money into ramping up production and then that didn't happen.

Justin Nazaroff:
So they had this huge glut of supply. They were holding on to notes that they couldn't pay. You had a lot of bankruptcies within the industry. So people are even more leery now to get involved with ramping up production.

Justin Nazaroff:
So the problem with primers is that they're all made by only four... There's only four companies in the United States that really make primers. And all those companies make their own ammunition. They're vertically integrated. That's why they make primers.

Justin Nazaroff:
So they're happy to sell people like US, primers when things are slow. But when things are busy, they just don't have the time. And it takes a long time for a small company like us to figure out that aspect of the supply chain. We are trying to import them from some companies overseas. But having never done those permits before, it's a time consuming process. We have to have a lot of cash on hand and you have to be willing to fork that cash over and wait 60 to 90 days to get your product.

Justin Nazaroff:
So it's very similar to what's happening in the weightlifting industry with plates and bars, except it's much harder to build primers than it is to get the raw steel that you need to to make a plate.

Mark Rippetoe:
And barbells and plates aren't regulated by the ATF.

Justin Nazaroff:
So we can't get primers from China. It's illegal to import from countries that don't abide by ITAR regulations that we have to follow.

Mark Rippetoe:
So if if if you had access to primers, then you could be running. You could ramp up your capacity, right?

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah. Yeah. Capacity is not a problem with our equipment. We can make reasonably about one hundred and twenty five, to one hundred and fifty thousand rounds a day. We can't quality inspect it quite that quickly, but we're working on an automated solution right now that will have a big piece of equipment to speed that up.

Justin Nazaroff:
So I mean when we when we did have primers in March and April and demand was as unlimited as it was now we were working seven days a week, it was no big deal. And then when the primers started to slow down, we had to start to cut back and try to decide, OK, how are we going to manage this process? We can't just take preorders or back orders and assume that we're going to get the primers because we just don't really know.

Justin Nazaroff:
So and for a while, brass was tougher to get. A lot of what we do is remanufactured brass. And so when all the gun ranges were closed and the military wasn't training, that that dried up the supply of raw brass, that's become better. Although right now, because of the prices on ammo, very few people are actually shooting. Most people are hoarding it and storing it.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, you can't.

Justin Nazaroff:
There isn't a lot of raw brass. Right, you can't.

Mark Rippetoe:
You can't shoot.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah you're you're shooting sixty cents every time you pull the trigger. And so what was already a rather expensive sport has becoming almost unattainable for the average person. And that really sucks more than anything. I mean, obviously, we love the idea that there's a huge amount of demand. We don't have to do a lot of marketing work. It's a it's a seller's market.

Justin Nazaroff:
But to be honest, I would much rather see our ammo going into the hands of a competitive shooter who is training and keeping their skills fresh, doing something fun than I would see that ammo sit in somebody's basement for twenty years, never get used and just kind of be there. It's the. It's like it if you if you see somebody who buys a bunch of weightlifting equipment and they use it as a coat rack, I mean, sure you're happy you made the sale, but.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, that's not why we made it though. And it's you know, here's the other deal. It may be 60 cents a round where it used to be 15, but you're not sure whether you can replace it or not. You know, you don't know whether you're going to be able to replace that box that you took to the range. You have no idea.

Mark Rippetoe:
So what you do is you don't shoot because you don't have the option if, in fact, you think you might need it for something later, you're not going to shoot it today. And, you know, this is not this is not good. I mean, we all do this for fun, you know, in addition to the preparedness aspect of the thing.

Mark Rippetoe:
But so let me let me back up and I want to dive into this this thing a little bit deeper. You had said, and I've heard this from other people, that that we're not going to tool up to make to to satisfy an increased demand when the possibility of the demand dropping precipitously would leave us hanging with a bunch of debt and a bunch of of debt leveraged against this. This is the I guess this is the case in any volatile market.

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, I mean, the oil and gas industry for many years was in the same the same situation that oil and gas industry is famous for ups and downs and bankrupting people and putting people out of work and and people going to school for years and years to to learn and learn the trade, learn the science, learn all about the engineering and everything. And then suddenly oil drops down to glut level prices and nobody can get a job.

Mark Rippetoe:
I mean, it happened to me a long time ago. It's happened several times since then. And any volatile market is going to create your current problems. I mean, when it's hot, that's where you make a lot of money. But if you tool up anticipating that it's always going to be hot, typically you get kicked in the balls because it doesn't work that way.

Mark Rippetoe:
And I would imagine that the primary manufacturers are in the in the same thing. They don't want to tool up to make more primers, I'm sure. I mean, if you've ever seen a little primer, they're little bitty things. Those are the little brown things that go in the in the ass end of the round. And when they react to firing pin, punching a hole in them, they spark the rest of the powder. It flares off in great pressure behind the round and shoots the bullet down the down the barrel of a gun. A primer does that. Little bitty thing, very precision piece of equipment. And who makes primers? Olin I is one of the one of the companies, is that right?

Justin Nazaroff:
Olin is the parent company of Winchester. So you have Winchester, Remington, and then CCI and Federal are both owned by Orbital ATK That makes everything from small ammunition to, you know, 40 millimeter cannon rounds and missiles, things much larger than that.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, the issue is not only is it a small size part, but any time, any time you're asked to make a billion of something that becomes a logistical nightmare. The problem is it has to be highly automated. There's just no way that.

Mark Rippetoe:
No, you can't have humans involved in that at all.

Justin Nazaroff:
And automation is not cheap. So, you know, these companies have to make a decision on whether they're going to spend tens of millions of dollars. And also these plants are located in areas that are kind of out in the middle of nowhere. And so even if they build a big addition to their plant, they have to now hire one hundred or so people, skilled employees in small towns, Black hill. Can they find a hundred skilled employees? And Black Hills, South Dakota, on a moment's notice? Probably not.

Justin Nazaroff:
So it's a long tail problem. And unfortunately, because of the because of the nature of the firearms industry is inherently political, just like oil and gas. You know, like it rises and falls based on regulation or.

Mark Rippetoe:
Public perception.

Justin Nazaroff:
Right. Public perception or the perception that regulation is on the way overseas wars, etc. So you're talking about a four to six year plan for some of these companies, but the the ebb and flow is maybe on a two year cycle because political elections happen every two years. And so it's very tough for them to have a plan that will fit into that cycle that that leads up just right.

Justin Nazaroff:
I do know that there is a primer plant that's about ready to be producing primers, a new company, and that's all they're going to do is make primers for the retail market. So that's good. That will help out.

Justin Nazaroff:
Powder will be the other problem. And we're starting to see some scarcity with powder. Again, all of that stuff is made by basically General Dynamics and Dupont. So you have two big companies that control that whole market. Hodgdon Powder, for example, is General Dynamics product. It's labeled as Hodgdon, but it gets to Hodgdon. But when we get it, it's labeled as General Dynamics.

Justin Nazaroff:
So the industry is much smaller than it appears. There are a lot of brand names, but there are very few raw material producers.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right.

Mark Rippetoe:
There's been some discussion and I specifically want to ask you about this of some of this problem being introduced by the government buying up a bunch of rounds. Is there any truth to that?

Justin Nazaroff:
It's hard to say, truthfully, I don't have all that many connections in those types of areas, but I mean, it does happen. Homeland Security bought several billion rounds back in twenty sixteen, and that definitely exacerbated shortages that were happening back then. And I believe there was similar things happening you know, and they.

Mark Rippetoe:
Homeland security.

Justin Nazaroff:
We.. Yeah, we need to buy all this. And actually in 2016, I believe it was the IRS that was buying some odd millions of rounds of ammunition, which is pretty....

Mark Rippetoe:
Right. So they... Because they kill so many people a year in their audits. Goddamn. FEMA, is FEMA has FEMA been buying a bunch of rounds?

Justin Nazaroff:
Not that I'm aware of, but, you know, probably.

Mark Rippetoe:
Why does the Department of Homeland Security need billions of rounds? Is it is this a training?

Justin Nazaroff:
Prob... Well, it's not based on what I can see in the training classes I've attended with police officers and government employees in the class. They need to shoot a whole lot more than they are. But yeah, that's going to get my dog shot and my house raided, so...

Mark Rippetoe:
Could be, could be. Better put a vest on your dog.

Justin Nazaroff:
That's right.

Mark Rippetoe:
You guys need to start manufacturing those. Those would sell.

Justin Nazaroff:
That's a whole other issue. You know, the like for example, AR500 and AR550 steel, which is what some armor is made out of, that steel is only made in a couple of steel mills across the world. So they have the same problem that they run into big shortages in the Kevlar manufacture. All the all the body armor is basically made by two or three different companies and then relabeled.

Justin Nazaroff:
And we sell armor from a company called Spartan Armor Products, but it's actually manufactured by somebody else with a different label on it. So there's a lot of consolidation in that part of the industry too.

Mark Rippetoe:
Heard from a friend of mine today, car manufacturer, he talked to his steel supplier and he wanted to buy 100 sheets, a hundred sheets of steel he uses for sheet metal on his body. They said, no, I can't do that, we're going to sell you 20.

Mark Rippetoe:
And people don't understand how deeply disrupted every supply chain in the country, probably in the world is as a result of this insanity we've been dealing with for the past year. People understand way down... They go in the grocery store and they see an absence of soup. They do. I mean, you go to the grocery store and there's not any soup.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well what does that do? You know, what is what is the fact that everybody's buying all the soup do? Well, we've just had a discussion about this and you can apply that analysis to the whole goddamn economy at some level. These abnormal, perverse incentives that we have been exposed to recently have disrupted the economy in ways that... I can't understand it, you know.

Mark Rippetoe:
I mean it's... most people can't understand this. Why I need a can of chicken broth and I go to the store and there isn't any fucking chicken broth.

Justin Nazaroff:
Part of it is.... You mentioned perverse incentives. Unfortunately, with a lot of this coronavirus relief, it's actually made things worse. They think it's supporting these companies. But when you're paying people to stay home and giving giving companies free money.

Justin Nazaroff:
I mean, here at Oakland County, theyour county got several million dollars worth of coronavirus relief. And they thought the best way to spend that money was to buy a bunch of twenty five thousand dollar 3D printers and give them away to companies as part of a grant program so that in the next pandemic we can use these 3D printers to print personal protective equipment.

Mark Rippetoe:
Masks. Now that...

Justin Nazaroff:
Something like 12 million dollars.

Mark Rippetoe:
That is some convoluted shit, right?

Mark Rippetoe:
On the other hand, this is real simple. I go to... We have a little fried chicken chain down here in the southern United States that inhabits, you know, gas stations all over the place. Chester's Fried Chicken. Well, I like it. I think it is real damn good fried chicken.

Mark Rippetoe:
So I go over to the... They have a store over on 287 on my way into town. I stop in there. Third time I've stopped in there and the damn thing is closed. And so I asked the girl at the front counter, I said, are you guys out of business over here with the chicken stand? And she says, we can't get anybody to work. Do you know anybody that wants a job? We need to have the chicken up, but we can't find anybody to make the chicken. Because the government is paying them to stay home.

Mark Rippetoe:
It... You know, this is.... History is going to look back on this year as possibly the most fucked up thing that's ever occurred on the surface of the Earth, you know? You know, I don't you know, I don't know about you guys, but I kind of think that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not quite that big deal compared to bombing the economy of the world, the whole economy of the whole world. Those little isolated incidents like that just are dwarfed by this game that people are playing.

[off-camera]:
Amazon and Walmart doing pretty well.

Mark Rippetoe:
Amazon, Wal-Mart, Levit Oh God, yeah. Hell Wal-Mart doesn't even have to stay open 24 hours a day anymore. You know, they don't have to keep everything in stock. You order stuff from them and they substitute for you when they don't have something on your order.

Mark Rippetoe:
Amazon, I mean, if you don't want to go in a big giant building full of people wearing these things on their faces that say "I do as I'm told," then you have to order it from Amazon whether you want to or not. That's where books are sold. That's where everything is. So you. What choice do you have? You know, so this is a big giant perturbation

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, it's worked out really well for them. And it doesn't seem to bother people, especially on the political left, as much as... I think unfortunately this is this is a real good preview for a future where, you know, honestly, people have been afraid to tell the government no for a long time. I think we both know that.

Justin Nazaroff:
But we're getting to the point where the government doesn't even have to tell you what to do. They're letting private companies tell you what to do and that absolves from having to use force and violence to enforce what they want.

Mark Rippetoe:
And you've just demonstrated that you'll do it. You just told them, yeah, all right, I'll wear this ridiculous mask. Doesn't do a goddamn thing. But it is a handy indicator that I do as I'm told, you know. And you know, I mean, here we are, here we are sitting in Texas, you know, it was eight below zero here last night. Everybody's pipes are frozen. Everybody's house is is colder than they want it to be. People are freezing to death and they're still wearing their masks.

Mark Rippetoe:
Oh, my God, what are these fucking people?...This is just more than I can process most of the time. It really is. I can't I can't run this shit through my head and come out in an ordered way on the other side. I just can't I just can't do it.

Justin Nazaroff:
I got two great things for you. So first, my wife's a professor, a professor at Michigan State University, and she has to go back in to teach lab classes. She teaches gross anatomy, among other things. And in the lab, they are requiring them to wear not just one mask, but two masks and a face shield.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, yeah, because someone might get sick. Someone just someone might get sick. And we can't have that. Because when people get sick, they feel bad.

Justin Nazaroff:
But I've actually... This is even better. I don't know if you'll be able to handle this, but in Ann Arbor, which is about the equivalent to Austin, they are still doing completely virtual learning in their schools. Right, so the kids are the kids are at home. And I saw a report this morning that said they declared a snow day today because...

Mark Rippetoe:
At home!?!?!?!

Justin Nazaroff:
Yes. They declared a snow day because it was... The superintendent said it was we all remember snow days and those are a great part of our childhood and we need to keep that tradition going.

Mark Rippetoe:
Keep their tradition of snow days going when you don't have to go in the snow.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, for kids sitting at home on a computer they have snow day.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, you know, that's...

Justin Nazaroff:
What can you say?

Mark Rippetoe:
I don't know. I don't know what you say, except that, you know, they're probably better off at home.

Mark Rippetoe:
You got... If you got the choice of having a teachers union interact with your child or you interacting with your child. I know what I'm going to do, even though I don't have any children, my theoretical children. I don't want my kids around these fucking people, do you?

Mark Rippetoe:
No, you can't have it.

Justin Nazaroff:
They're going to be in for a rude awakening pretty soon.

Mark Rippetoe:
Oh, in fact,

Justin Nazaroff:
I think they've made some bets and I don't think it's going to pay off for them in the long run. People are looking at charter schools or private schools.

Mark Rippetoe:
Home schools. People are looking at their own living room and they're saying, what's wrong with that? All right. You know, I can put a chalkboard up if I think I need to, you know. I can Sit on the couch, you know. If if the little bastard smart off to me, I can actually spank them.

Justin Nazaroff:
Maybe that'll be a new market segment for Starting Strength. You guys can be the the new gym teacher for all these home schooled kids.

Mark Rippetoe:
Write that down.

[off-camera]:
No, no, that doesn't sound like fun at all.

Mark Rippetoe:
Write that down, write it on that board.

[off-camera]:
What a terrible idea.

Mark Rippetoe:
You don't think that's a good idea?

[off-camera]:
No!

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. Anything else you want to talk about, Jus-tine?

Mark Rippetoe:
What?

[off-camera]:
Rip in every living room.

Mark Rippetoe:
Get that, that flat Rip thing that Paul Horn made. We'll just sell that.

Mark Rippetoe:
Think of the power rack sales. We need to get a bigger percentage of.

Justin Nazaroff:
I got to think I got to thank Grant for getting a rack and some equipment here at the shop. So my guys can lift here because, you know, they're still close. So we're we're setting up shop here and getting these guys back on the program.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, that's good. His plates are the best probably I've ever seen. His rack is a piece of junk.

Mark Rippetoe:
You want to buy that rack from Texas Strength Systems. His rack, it's lighter and easier to move around, but it's a piece of junk. It's just, you know. It was designed for Californians, if that tells you anything.

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, right. That's true.

Mark Rippetoe:
So. Well, all right, Nick, did we miss anything?

[off-camera]:
No, no. That's good.

Mark Rippetoe:
We discussed it all. Pissed a bunch of people of off.

[off-camera]:
Good.

Mark Rippetoe:
Which is... You know, I mean, if we hadn't pissed anybody off at the end of one of these things, what the hell are we doing here? Rob Pincus? We're acting like Rob Pincus?

[off-camera]:
We'll just retreat to our respective echo chambers.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right, echo chambers. You know, I'm sick of having to learn vocabulary words. What is an echo chamber? That's where...

[off-camera]:
This right here is an echo chamber.

Mark Rippetoe:
This is an echo chamber.

[off-camera]:
Because we all think similarly.

Mark Rippetoe:
Oh, where you think... So I'm echoing it here... And you're... and we're all echoing back and forth.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. What is gaslighting mean? I get so tired of hearing that fucking shit. Every third word on every news page has gaslighting. And I don't have the slightest idea what the fuck it means.

Justin Nazaroff:
Gaslighting is basically when you're the one in the wrong. But you you convince the other person that they're in the wrong.

Mark Rippetoe:
Oh, you're in the media!

[off-camera]:
We know all about that, don't we?

Mark Rippetoe:
So you're in the media, right?

Justin Nazaroff:
Yeah, you're in the media. Precisely.

Mark Rippetoe:
Where did that term come from?

Justin Nazaroff:
It's a movie. I can't remember the name of the movie. But in the movie, the main character is an abusive husband of some sort, and he keeps turning down the gas light in their house, a gas lantern, and the wife keeps asking if the room is darker. And he keeps telling her, no, no, you're crazy. the room's not darker. It's all in your head. That's that's where it came from.

Justin Nazaroff:
But honestly, the only people I ever hear used that are people on the political left. They seem to be the ones that are the best at it. So...

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah. Why you're just gaslighting! And I'm supposed to know what the fuck, you know. And if I don't know, I'm stupid.

Justin Nazaroff:
You're uncultured.

Mark Rippetoe:
I'm an oaf.

[off-camera]:
It's from the nineteen thirty eight stage play called Gaslight.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well there you have it.

Justin Nazaroff:
That fixes that.

Mark Rippetoe:
Just invented by somebody.

Mark Rippetoe:
That reminds me of the Star Trek episode where Picard is captured by the Kardasians. You remember that?

[off-camera]:
Oh, and the three lights.

Mark Rippetoe:
The three lights. How many lights are there. Three lights. No, Captain Picard. There are four lights. You will come to understand.

[off-camera]:
Great episode.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, two part episode. Stewart is just.. That's that's I really miss that. It was some great work.

Justin Nazaroff:
That's basically the last scene in nineteen eighty four. How many fingers am I holding up.

Mark Rippetoe:
Same kind of deal, same kind of deal.

Mark Rippetoe:
If you haven't seen that episode of Star Trek, you ought to break down and watch it, even if you're not a fan. This is just to watch Stewart do this. It's he was good. He was really good.

Mark Rippetoe:
So anybody else have anything? Bre you have anything you want to say? Let me guess. No!

Mark Rippetoe:
Nick?

[off-camera]:
I'm good.

Mark Rippetoe:
Rustoleum? You're fine?

Justin Nazaroff:
Bre, I've got to get you to I don't know, I got to get you to help my wife figure out her bench press.

Mark Rippetoe:
No, if you ask Bre to do that, Bre's going to say, "I'm good." Because that's all she, that's all she knows how to say, I'm good.

Mark Rippetoe:
Rusty, on the other hand, will help your wife.

[off-camera]:
I think I have a few times.

Mark Rippetoe:
Have you really? Does Justin know that?

Justin Nazaroff:
She has been. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.

Mark Rippetoe:
Justin knew that or not?

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah between Justin and his wife, whatever she told him...

[off-camera]:
Justin's got more ammo than Rusty, I guarantee it.

Mark Rippetoe:
Certainly true.

Justin Nazaroff:
That's true. The guy that owns the ordinance company is the one that you slide into his wife's . I take videos and she posts them up and Rusty's been great.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah. Rusty great. We'd love Rusty.

[off-camera]:
He's just the best.

Mark Rippetoe:
He's the best. He's the cat's meow.

[off-camera]:
That feels sarcastic.

Mark Rippetoe:
Rusty's the cat's meow.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right, let's get out of here before we embarrass ourselves any further.

Mark Rippetoe:
Thanks, Justin. Appreciate you being with us again. We'll talk soon.

Mark Rippetoe:
And thank you guys for being with us on Starting Strength Radio. Next week! Bye now.

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