State of the Second hosts John and Kaylee sit down with Dan and Danielle, the husband-and-wife team behind Ammo Squared, to break down an ammo model that works nothing like the gun store. Ammo Squared started in their garage in 2015, right as the country was coming out of an ammo shortage. Dan, who was working in tech as a product marketer with a SaaS background, had a simple thought: what if you could put away a little ammo every month the way you put money into a 401k, then pull it when there's a shortage. The first version ran on WordPress, sold ammo in $5 increments, and vacuum-sealed small quantities like seven rounds of 45 ACP. That pivoted fast. The company has since moved through a string of warehouses, from a 1400 square foot space up to 7500, and is now looking at a 20,000 to 30,000 square foot space, probably in Texas.

The core of the conversation is how the program actually works. You set a budget, pick your calibers by percentage like a mutual fund, and the system auto-buys on the schedule you choose. Ammo accumulates in your online account down to a fraction of a round, priced just below the market median, until you have full shippable boxes. You decide when to ship with triggers like every $300, every thousand rounds, or every six months. Because you can buy without taking delivery, customers can exchange calibers, sell their inventory back at the market price, or hold ammo as what Dan and Danielle call a security blanket. They walk through 2020, when the model got its real test: customers who had been accumulating for years just hit the ship button while everyone else stood in line. New signups came in so fast the company had to start a waitlist. PMC came through with pallets when distributors ran dry, a relationship that started with an unplanned booth visit at SHOT Show.

Much of the back half is a shared war-story session about the shortages. John, who worked behind a gun counter and on the manufacturing side, recounts empty shelves, a single store order of 996 guns, a steel-case case of 9mm for $112 per thousand rounds, and people reselling 22 ammo at gun shows. Kaylee ties it back to new and rural shooters, the intimidation of the gun store, and why a clearly labeled practice-versus-defense breakdown helps people who do not know what they do not know. They cover state shipping rules like California's background-check requirement, the trouble with Alaska and Hawaii, catalog trimming from 500 variations down to about 60 common calibers, free shipping over $250, and Ammo Squared's pending-state system for handling shortages. To find it, the team points to ammosquared.com and a newsletter signup.

Questions this episode answers

What is Ammo Squared and how did the business start?

Ammo Squared is an ammunition subscription and storage service that lets people accumulate ammo over time instead of buying it all at once. Husband-and-wife co-founders Dan and Danielle started it in their garage in 2015, coming out of an ammo shortage, after Dan imagined funding ammo monthly like a 401k.

How does the auto-buy and accumulation model work for a customer?

You set a budget, pick your calibers by percentage like a mutual fund, and the system auto-buys on the schedule you choose. Ammo accumulates in your online account down to a fraction of a round until you have full shippable boxes, and you choose when to ship with triggers like every $300 or every thousand rounds.

Can you sell ammo back or exchange it for a different caliber before it ships?

Yes. Because you can buy ammo without taking delivery, customers can exchange calibers, sell their inventory back at the market price, or just hold the ammo as a security blanket. This flexibility is built into the program and is part of what sets it apart from a normal purchase.

What happens to Ammo Squared customers during a shortage like 2020?

Customers who had been accumulating for years simply hit the ship button and received their ammo while everyone else stood in line at empty stores. Demand was so high that new signups came in faster than the company could handle, forcing it to start a waitlist.

How does Ammo Squared price the ammo it ships?

Ammo is priced just below the market median, and it accumulates in your account down to a fraction of a round until you have full, shippable boxes. Because customers buy without taking immediate delivery, they can also sell inventory back at the current market price.

How does shipping work, including state rules and the free-shipping threshold?

Shipping is free on orders over $250, and you control when it happens through triggers like a dollar amount, round count, or time interval. The company handles state-specific rules such as California's background-check requirement and the added difficulty of shipping to Alaska and Hawaii.

Why do new and rural gun owners find the program useful?

New and rural shooters often find the gun store intimidating and don't always know what they don't know, so a clearly labeled practice-versus-defense breakdown helps them choose. Co-host Kaylee notes the program lets people start somewhere small and build up at their own pace.

How did the relationship with PMC start and why did it matter?

The PMC relationship began with an unplanned booth visit at SHOT Show. It mattered because when distributors ran dry during the shortage, PMC came through with pallets of ammo, keeping Ammo Squared supplied while the broader market went empty.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Welcome and introducing Dan and Danielle
• 00:21 — Starting in the garage in 2015
• 03:42 — How it works from the consumer side
• 05:38 — Trying new brands and selling ammo back
• 06:50 — Pricing and the 2020 shortage test
• 09:51 — Turning ammunition into a SaaS product
• 12:24 — Education, budgets, and the ammo security blanket
• 16:30 — Distributors, buying power, and PMC at SHOT Show
• 21:03 — Shipping rules by state and Alaska and Hawaii
• 25:17 — Curated variety and the new-shooter experience
• 30:14 — Gun store intimidation and getting talked down to
• 39:42 — Nine million new gun owners and the shortage
• 45:00 — Oddball calibers and game-time buying decisions
• 1:00:13 — The pending state and trimming the catalog
• 1:06:13 — Three most-asked questions and diversity of ammo
• 1:17:25 — Where to find Ammo Squared and sign off

About the guest

Dan and Danielle are the husband-and-wife co-founders of Ammo Squared, an ammunition subscription and storage service they started out of their garage in 2015 as the country came out of an ammo shortage. Dan was working in tech as a product marketer with a SaaS background and built the first version of the site on WordPress. The company has grown through a series of warehouses, from a 1400 square foot space to its current 7500 square foot space, and in 2020 raised about $400,000 from roughly 650 small investors through a WeFunder equity crowdfund, most of them customers. Danielle has been a firearms owner for a long time; she and Dan went shooting on their first date when she was 19. [VERIFY their roles/titles beyond co-founders]

Key quotes

"if I would have just been putting away a little bit of ammo into, like, a 401K" — Dan

"one thing that, that I always tell people, we don't have a magic wand to make ammo appear when there isn't any in the market." — Dan

"you should have ammo at home, you should be shopping deals" — Dan

"the interesting thing with our program is that you can purchase ammo and not take delivery." — Danielle

"it's literally like an ammo savings account where you build up your supply and you could be anywhere." — Dan

"what I like about your program is you can start somewhere" — Kaylee

"if our customers at least have confidence in knowing that, hey, ammo squared's got my ammo, I don't have to go and stand in line" — Dan

Kayleigh: 00:00:00

Welcome to the gun owners of America, state of the second podcast.

Kayleigh: 00:00:03

I'm Kayleigh.

John: 00:00:04

And I'm John.

John: 00:00:04

And today we're joined by Dan and Danielle from ammo squared.

John: 00:00:07

How are you guys?

Dan: 00:00:08

Good.

Danielle: 00:00:08

Great.

John: 00:00:09

Are you enjoying the smoky mountains?

Dan: 00:00:11

Oh, it's beautiful.

Danielle: 00:00:12

That's gorgeous.

John: 00:00:13

Let's get started with.

John: 00:00:14

Tell us a little bit about who ammo squared is, what you guys do, and how the business came about.

Dan: 00:00:19

Sure.

Dan: 00:00:20

Yeah.

Dan: 00:00:21

started out of our garage in: 2015

Dan: 00:00:27

So it's kind of like the classic american business dream at the time.

Dan: 00:00:34

So: 2015

Dan: 00:00:38

And at the time, I was working in tech as a marketer, product marketer, and I had a lot of people have a thought.

Dan: 00:00:48

I can't find ammo anywhere.

Dan: 00:00:51

Store shelves were empty.

Dan: 00:00:52

22 was like Hen's teeth.

Dan: 00:00:55

You couldn't find it.

Dan: 00:00:56

And so I thought, well, if I would have just been putting away a little bit of ammo into, like, a 401K, AML savings account, whatever you want to call it.

Dan: 00:01:04

And then I could just draw it or I could just pull it when there's a shortage.

Dan: 00:01:09

That would be ideal.

Dan: 00:01:10

And so we basically started it.

Dan: 00:01:15

The first iteration was actually kind of funny because I was in tech, but I'm not a developer, and so I don't really know how to build anything.

Dan: 00:01:25

Right.

Dan: 00:01:25

What I did know was WordPress.

Dan: 00:01:27

And so I built the first site on WordPress.

Dan: 00:01:31

I remember when we got our first ten customers, it was, like, crazy.

Dan: 00:01:36

It was like, wow, we've got people actually signing up, and we had four calibers, so we had nine millimeter, 45, 223, and 308.

Dan: 00:01:47

And people could sign up in $5 increments back then.

Dan: 00:01:51

And what we were doing was we were actually selling in $5 increments.

Dan: 00:01:56

And then people could ship whenever they wanted.

Dan: 00:01:58

And we were actually vacuum sealing when they were in a full box.

Dan: 00:02:04

And so I remember for a while, we just were vacuum sealing, like, seven rounds of 45, self defense.

Dan: 00:02:12

And, well, that lasted what?

Dan: 00:02:15

How long?

Danielle: 00:02:15

Not very long.

Dan: 00:02:15

Not very long.

Danielle: 00:02:16

We quickly pivoted.

Dan: 00:02:18

Yeah, so a few months.

Dan: 00:02:20

So our boxes literally had, like, the vacuum sealed bags.

Dan: 00:02:24

And then we did a little label that we wrote on.

Dan: 00:02:26

It would be like seven rounds.

Dan: 00:02:29

I remember this specifically was like, seven rounds, 45 ACP, federal HST.

Dan: 00:02:34

And we sent it off to the guy we had.

Dan: 00:02:40

So our first, we had one customer for a long time.

Dan: 00:02:44

We only had one customer for a long time.

Dan: 00:02:47

And then we started, like, maybe four months later, we started to kind of.

Danielle: 00:02:51

Well, you wrote a blog or a blog post that went, I mean, not super viral, but it spreads better than.

Dan: 00:02:59

A box of underwear getting ammo delivered to your door or something, you know, and it was comparing, like, because there was all the under.

Dan: 00:03:05

There probably still are, but the underwear, you know, subscription services.

Dan: 00:03:09

And so I wrote that.

Dan: 00:03:11

And then, yeah, that's when we started adding people.

Dan: 00:03:16

But kind of just the story.

Dan: 00:03:18

and then we moved to, like, a: 1400

Kayleigh: 00:03:40

Wow, that's awesome.

Kayleigh: 00:03:42

So explain to people how it works from the consumer side of things.

Dan: 00:03:48

Yeah, so basically, if you think of an ammo subscription with the ability to store the ammo for as long as you want and then get it shipped automatically.

Dan: 00:03:58

So there's really kind of three components.

Dan: 00:04:00

So there's an auto buy.

Dan: 00:04:02

So you set up your budget, you pick your calibers, and it will auto buy that for as long as you want.

Dan: 00:04:08

And we have it.

Dan: 00:04:09

You could do it weekly, bi weekly, monthly, bimonthly quarterly.

Dan: 00:04:12

So it's very flexible.

Dan: 00:04:14

And then that ammo, what we've done is we've kind of commoditized it in a way, in that you're signing up for a caliber and a grade or purpose.

Dan: 00:04:23

So nine millimeter practice, nine millimeter self defense, those self defense.

Dan: 00:04:28

We've got two.

Dan: 00:04:29

We've got a premium, and then just a regular self defense, like 308 hunting or 300 or 762 practice.

Dan: 00:04:37

And then what our customers will do is they'll actually accumulate that in their online account.

Dan: 00:04:43

And then once they reach whatever level they want, we have shipping triggers.

Dan: 00:04:49

So you can say, I want my ammo shipped every $300, every thousand rounds, every six months, anything like that.

Dan: 00:04:57

And then what we do that's pretty unique and different is that we'll take that generic.

Dan: 00:05:01

So let's say nine millimeter practice.

Dan: 00:05:04

And for example, let's say the customer has 500 rounds.

Dan: 00:05:07

And what we'll do is we'll send them a mix of brands and bullet weights.

Dan: 00:05:10

So they're all, we don't manufacture ammo, so it's all factory ammo.

Dan: 00:05:14

So right now, for example, we're shipping Fiocchi PMC federal.

Dan: 00:05:18

Um, there's a local, uh, ammo company in Idaho that's manufacturing nine mm.

Dan: 00:05:24

Right now, federated.

Dan: 00:05:26

Um, so that's kind of something else that we try to do is kind of include brands that people might not have heard of before.

Dan: 00:05:32

And, um, people love it.

Dan: 00:05:34

I mean.

Dan: 00:05:34

Cause it's something different, right?

John: 00:05:37

Yeah.

John: 00:05:38

So when we talked, there's a.

John: 00:05:41

It's an interesting concept to me because you, you guys are, first off, I get to try a whole bunch of ammo that I may not try.

John: 00:05:49

The other thing that you were, we were talking about is like, let's just say I bought in on some 300 blackout and I decided I don't want it anymore.

John: 00:05:57

That's another option that you guys have.

Dan: 00:06:00

Yeah.

Dan: 00:06:00

So we literally, you can exchange it into another.

Danielle: 00:06:04

You haven't taken shipment yet, right?

Dan: 00:06:06

Yeah, that's a good point.

Danielle: 00:06:07

Yeah.

Dan: 00:06:08

Because you can't return ammo.

Dan: 00:06:09

That's the other thing, too, is like, if you buy it from, you know, Cabela's or somewhere, you can't go and return ammo.

Dan: 00:06:14

They don't want it back because there's liability issues.

Dan: 00:06:18

So.

Dan: 00:06:19

Yeah, so you can, any of your inventory and your ammo squared inventory, you can exchange for other calibers and you can also sell it back if you.

Dan: 00:06:28

We've kind of changed how the system works a little bit.

Dan: 00:06:30

But basically we have, you have your main account, and then you create, at least we're kind of still calling ammo asset accounts or just ammo accounts.

Dan: 00:06:39

And so you can take that entire account, say, oh, I just need the money, and so you just delete it out and then you basically are selling it back to us.

Dan: 00:06:46

That's how that works.

John: 00:06:48

So how does that work?

John: 00:06:51

We saw during: 2020

John: 00:07:00

And hopefully we don't have another one on the horizon.

John: 00:07:03

But how does that work when it comes to an ammo shortage like that?

John: 00:07:08

erever, let's just say I have: 1000

John: 00:07:19

Does that give you the ability to be flexible with your customers?

Dan: 00:07:23

So actually that kind of gets into more the pricing, because what we do is we have a market price.

Dan: 00:07:30

So it models, we go out and we gather the high, low, and then the median, and then we price just below the median.

Dan: 00:07:38

So, for example, nine millimeter practice.

Dan: 00:07:40

So during the last shortage, during COVID I mean, it went from twenty five cents to sixty five cents.

Dan: 00:07:45

Right.

Dan: 00:07:46

scenario, where if you've got: 1000

Dan: 00:07:53

And so, you know, you could technically make some money or you could put that into another caliber, but with the shortage situation.

Dan: 00:08:02

So one thing that, that I always tell people, we don't have a magic wand to make ammo appear when there isn't any in the market.

Dan: 00:08:09

Right.

Dan: 00:08:10

And so during: 2020

Dan: 00:08:21

And then they were getting the ammo, and then they were, you know, taking it to the range or telling their friends about it.

Dan: 00:08:25

And those friends were signing up.

Dan: 00:08:27

And so July and August of: 2020

Dan: 00:08:38

And so just like anybody else.

Dan: 00:08:40

But what our customers were basically doing was they were essentially pre buying so that they didn't have to stand in line at, like, Cabela's or go and do the notifications online and say, oh, and then have it be, like, concert tickets and try to get a case of ammo.

Dan: 00:08:55

And so they were pre buying with us.

Dan: 00:08:57

And then once we got ammo, they got ammo.

John: 00:09:01

That's fantastic.

John: 00:09:02

I mean, your business model intrigues me.

John: 00:09:05

I find it super interesting.

John: 00:09:07

I heard about you guys.

John: 00:09:08

We talked about this when you and I talked on the phone through Griffin or Graham Bates.

Dan: 00:09:15

Oh, yeah.

John: 00:09:17

At GB guns, who's a good friend of ours, a great guy.

John: 00:09:20

But as you know, that's what intrigued me, to be able to put ammo aside and not have to store it in my own house.

John: 00:09:30

It was an intriguing idea to be able to have it stored somewhere and have it shipped to me when I'm ready to get it and not have to, you know, fork up all the cash right up front.

John: 00:09:40

I can put it aside and with you guys and keep going and building up until it's ready to come to me.

John: 00:09:46

And that's.

John: 00:09:48

That's totally different than what everybody else is doing.

Dan: 00:09:51

Yeah.

Dan: 00:09:51

And one thing, you know, when you think about the gun industry, there isn't a whole lot of, like, tech.

Dan: 00:09:58

You know, like you would think of digital tech.

Dan: 00:10:01

Digital tech.

Dan: 00:10:02

Yeah.

Dan: 00:10:02

As far, I mean, obviously, there's.

Dan: 00:10:03

Because it's such a physical product.

Dan: 00:10:04

I mean, there's constantly new physical products coming out, but as far as, like, online type technology.

Dan: 00:10:11

So I come from kind of a SaaS background software as a service.

Dan: 00:10:16

And so essentially what we've done is kind of take ammunition and make it into, like, a SaaS product because you're able to buy ammo now automatically.

Dan: 00:10:25

In fact, the program that we use to collect payments is a SaaS based product.

Dan: 00:10:30

So people use it for software products that people are paying for every month.

Dan: 00:10:35

And we've modified it.

Dan: 00:10:37

And then we have our own site, which is custom built.

Danielle: 00:10:40

No longer WordPress.

Danielle: 00:10:42

No longer WordPress, that's right.

Dan: 00:10:44

I forgot about that.

Dan: 00:10:45

We actually did a wefunder.

Dan: 00:10:46

So in: 2020

Dan: 00:10:57

Most of them were our customers.

Dan: 00:10:58

In order for us to be able to pay to build a custom site, there's actually a lot of tech that people don't see, and that's probably the best kind of tech, is just that it's intuitive.

Dan: 00:11:11

When you think about, I'm going to go and I'm going to set up an auto buy.

Dan: 00:11:16

That ammo has to go somewhere.

Dan: 00:11:19

It has to look at our warehouse and say, okay, first of all, do I, I have that ammo, right?

Dan: 00:11:22

Because that's one thing I don't do is I'm not going to say, oh, I've got this ammo for you, but I really don't because that'll put us in a bad situation come the next shortage.

Dan: 00:11:30

And so it's got to look at that, and then it's got to allocate it, what we call allocating the ammo, into the customer's account.

Dan: 00:11:36

And then it's by a fraction of a round.

Dan: 00:11:39

So it's based on the budget.

Dan: 00:11:42

And so, like, if your budget's $50, you might buy, let's go throw out some numbers, you know, 47.2 rounds of something.

Dan: 00:11:49

And then the next month, if the price goes, let's say, down, you'll buy 49.8 rounds, and then those will add together until eventually you have full shippable boxes.

Dan: 00:12:00

Because we can't ship fractions of rounds and we're not vacuum sealing anymore.

Dan: 00:12:03

Right.

Danielle: 00:12:05

That ship has sailed.

Dan: 00:12:07

But there's just a lot of tech, I guess, in our system that's kind of hidden from the average user.

Dan: 00:12:13

I guess it's kind of interesting because when we went to shot show, I mean, we're always looking for other technology companies in the space, and there's just not too many.

Kayleigh: 00:12:24

One of the things that excites me and I know that there's going to be a lot of people that hear this and are like, oh, I don't like the idea of owning ammo and not having my hands on it immediately.

Kayleigh: 00:12:37

But for somebody who is wanting to build up a supply of ammo or somebody who is on a tight budget where you can't go purchase a full box of ammo a month, or maybe you don't have the discipline to not spend every dollar in your bank account.

Kayleigh: 00:12:57

Let's be honest, not everyone is financially well off or super financially literate.

Kayleigh: 00:13:08

And so what I like about your program is you can start somewhere, whether that is your $5 buy in or whether it's allocating.

Kayleigh: 00:13:22

Hey, here's a month.

Kayleigh: 00:13:24

Because I do want to have the variety to try things out.

Kayleigh: 00:13:28

I do want to see the higher end of the market and maybe the lower end of the market and, you know, have a good, fair price at it.

Kayleigh: 00:13:39

And it allows for some diversity because sometimes that your local gun store doesn't have a ton of diversity in the brands because they don't have the, the warehousing or the floor space to do that.

Kayleigh: 00:13:51

So it's a very, it's very interesting, you know, from the consumer side to, you know, digest exactly what it is you're doing.

Dan: 00:14:00

And that's the biggest thing we struggle with is really the education piece is like, because you have the status quo.

Dan: 00:14:06

Everybody knows the status quo.

Dan: 00:14:07

You go to the store, you buy your ammo, or you go online, you buy your ammo, it's shipped to you, and then when people sign up for our stuff and they don't understand, they don't quite get it yet, the one question we get the most is what.

Danielle: 00:14:20

I was going to say, the biggest.

Dan: 00:14:21

Complaint, but you is like, when is my ammo going to ship?

Danielle: 00:14:24

Oh, yeah.

Dan: 00:14:24

Or why haven't I gotten my ammo yet?

Dan: 00:14:26

And we've really changed our site.

Dan: 00:14:28

So in the early days, it looked a lot more e commercy than it does now.

Dan: 00:14:33

It's hard when you go through all the hoops and set up your account, and we literally have it set up where you've got your budget and then you pick your calibers, and it's like a mutual fund kind of thing where you put percentages.

Dan: 00:14:45

So you say, I want 25% to go to nine millimeter, I want 10% to go my 308, I want another 25% to go to my 300 blackout.

Dan: 00:14:54

And so it's so different than the e commerce experience, but we still get that right because of the education piece.

Dan: 00:15:01

And the one thing that I usually like address with people is if you look at it like a system where we say it all the time, too, is you should have ammo at home, you should be shopping deals, it's like, we're not, we should not.

Danielle: 00:15:14

We shouldn't be your only source of ammo.

Dan: 00:15:15

Only source of ammo.

Dan: 00:15:17

But if you have your at home supply and your ammo squared supply and you're drawing down your at home supply because you're going shooting, you're training, you're doing what you're supposed to, and then every month, you just have automatically coming out of your paycheck.

Dan: 00:15:30

You don't even notice it.

Dan: 00:15:31

It's just building up and building up and building up.

Dan: 00:15:34

At any point, you can either just say, oh, just send me my ammo, and then it flip flops, right?

Dan: 00:15:39

And then you build it up again.

Dan: 00:15:40

Or you just leave it as a security blanket so that when you can't find ammo, you say, oh, send me my ammo.

Danielle: 00:15:47

at happened during, you know,: 2020

Danielle: 00:15:51

People couldn't find ammo.

Danielle: 00:15:52

And we had customers who had been accumulating with us for like, three years, right?

Danielle: 00:15:57

And they just said, ship me my ammo.

Danielle: 00:15:58

know, most of them were like,: 1020

Danielle: 00:16:02

They'd been collecting for several years.

Danielle: 00:16:04

That adds up.

Danielle: 00:16:05

And they're getting cases of ammo shipped.

Kayleigh: 00:16:07

To them, and they're not paying that peak price.

Danielle: 00:16:09

Right.

Danielle: 00:16:10

They're paying what they paid over the last three years, which was, you know.

Kayleigh: 00:16:13

That'S the biggest thing for so many people that, you know, their first experience as gun owners was quite a pricey time.

John: 00:16:21

Right.

Kayleigh: 00:16:23

To do that.

Kayleigh: 00:16:24

And so, you know, to have that security blanket, I think, is interesting.

John: 00:16:30

As a new ammo company, what was it like dealing with distributors and getting product in?

John: 00:16:37

And now that you guys have grown so rapidly, does the buying power seem to increase with that?

Dan: 00:16:43

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dan: 00:16:44

It's.

Dan: 00:16:46

We.

Dan: 00:16:47

I'll tell you kind of a story about our shot show.

Dan: 00:16:51

Was it the: 2020

Danielle: 00:16:52

Yeah.

Dan: 00:16:52

Cause it.

Danielle: 00:16:53

Yeah.

Dan: 00:16:53

Okay, so we went: 2019

Dan: 00:16:56

You know, we're just small, mom and pop, and it was even before our refunder, and we were able to sign up with a lot of the regular distributors.

Dan: 00:17:04

Distributors.

Dan: 00:17:04

Yeah, you know, RSR and, you know, Davidson's those kind of guys, but we weren't able to really crack into the manufacturers because they, they needed such high volumes at the time.

Dan: 00:17:14

We didn't have it.

Dan: 00:17:15

And I'll tell you this story about who saved ammo squared.

Dan: 00:17:19

And it was PMC.

Dan: 00:17:21

And so during: 2020

Dan: 00:17:31

Right.

Dan: 00:17:31

And we didn't have an appointment.

Dan: 00:17:33

And we just kind of walked up and we're like, hey, we're amosquare.

Dan: 00:17:36

We found that.

Dan: 00:17:37

I don't know if he came to us or we came to him, but there was a young guy, right?

Dan: 00:17:41

And he came to us and we just started talking and we said, oh, we're almost squared.

Dan: 00:17:45

This is what we do.

Dan: 00:17:46

And he said, okay, that's interesting.

Dan: 00:17:47

Interesting.

Dan: 00:17:48

He took my card, he said, okay, well, I'll follow up with you.

Dan: 00:17:50

I wasn't expecting much, right?

Dan: 00:17:52

And the next day, we were still at shot show, and he wrote me an email.

Dan: 00:17:55

He's like, dan, this is great.

Dan: 00:17:58

This is really interesting.

Dan: 00:18:00

And so he got us as a dealer, and our very first palette from them was a mixed pallet.

Dan: 00:18:07

I think it was maybe $5,000, something like that.

Danielle: 00:18:10

It was pretty small.

Dan: 00:18:11

It was pretty small.

Dan: 00:18:12

It was a mixed palette of different calibers.

Dan: 00:18:14

And then, and at this time, we were already signed up with other distributors, so we were getting regular shipments of mixed ammo.

Dan: 00:18:22

We were getting palata mixed, and we just before our Covid hit, and we couldn't, the distributors were starting to run out and we couldn't get any more new ammo in.

Dan: 00:18:36

And PMC came through because we had.

Danielle: 00:18:39

Placed, I think we had placed some pallet orders with them just after shot show.

Danielle: 00:18:43

Didn't we do that?

Dan: 00:18:44

Maybe that was it.

Dan: 00:18:45

But I remember our rep, basically, he sent us a pallet of M 855, so green tip, right?

Dan: 00:18:52

And I remember him saying, and this is tens of thousands of dollars.

Dan: 00:18:57

I'm not going to say how much it was at the time, but it was way more than we were able to really make at that time.

Dan: 00:19:03

But he said, I swear to you, if you do this, you won't regret it, you know?

Dan: 00:19:09

And it was probably, I would say, two or three months of our, you know, ammo buying at that point.

Dan: 00:19:15

But the cool thing was we're not able to buy ammo from anybody else.

Dan: 00:19:19

And so, and then throughout that whole timeframe, we were actually like, we were kind of swimming in 5.56 and two, two, three because they were just sending us pallets.

Dan: 00:19:29

And we were, we bought that one pallet.

Dan: 00:19:31

We would buy three pallets at a time, and from there it was like, you know, it was kind of taking it off.

Kayleigh: 00:19:36

Wow, that's really cool.

Dan: 00:19:38

Yeah, yeah.

John: 00:19:41

I love the guys over at PMC.

John: 00:19:43

They're great people.

John: 00:19:45

They've helped a lot of people out through Covid.

John: 00:19:48

They make a fantastic product.

John: 00:19:52

Goodness, I'm gonna.

John: 00:19:53

They're strong, but, yeah, as you know, it's hard when you're getting into this because you.

John: 00:20:01

You don't have the buying power right away, but as more companies start seeing the business model and start seeing what you're doing, and they go, okay, that's interesting.

John: 00:20:11

I can get behind that.

John: 00:20:12

And then they start going, I mean, how many ammo brands are you guys working with right now?

Dan: 00:20:17

I mean, we've got almost all the majors.

Dan: 00:20:20

You know, Winchester, Fiocchi, PMC are our biggest right now, but then we get a lot of, like, federal and that sort of stuff through distributors.

Dan: 00:20:29

But, I mean, we go direct with almost every.

Dan: 00:20:34

Well, there's just a handful that we don't go direct with.

Dan: 00:20:38

And that's.

Dan: 00:20:39

I mean, that's the way to do it, is the volume for us now is so huge that, you know, we're getting.

Dan: 00:20:45

We're not quite to truckload level yet, but we're doing, like, multi pallets, you know, depends on what we're buying.

Danielle: 00:20:52

Yeah.

John: 00:20:53

Can't wait to see when you guys get to those truckload loads show up with.

Dan: 00:20:59

With ammo.

John: 00:21:00

Yeah, it's a sight to see, I'll tell you that.

Kayleigh: 00:21:03

So what is the shipping?

Kayleigh: 00:21:05

You know, because obviously, different states have different roles.

Kayleigh: 00:21:08

You know, California, you have to ship to an FFL.

Kayleigh: 00:21:10

Like, there's all kinds of different hurdles that you guys have to jump through.

Kayleigh: 00:21:16

Give us a little bit on what that's like from.

Kayleigh: 00:21:19

From your perspective.

Dan: 00:21:20

I mean, it's definitely a pain in the butt.

Dan: 00:21:22

You know, we.

Dan: 00:21:24

We follow the rules for each state.

Dan: 00:21:27

We also leave it up to our customers to really make sure that we're sometimes.

Dan: 00:21:34

That they let us know about things that are happening in their state and that kind of thing.

Dan: 00:21:38

So we get those questions a little bit.

Danielle: 00:21:40

We try to keep on top of it.

Danielle: 00:21:41

But the interesting thing with our program is that you can purchase ammo and not take delivery.

Danielle: 00:21:47

So we've had customers who once, especially California, that was one of our big.

Danielle: 00:21:52

We did a lot of business in California, and once they changed the rules where you had to go through a background check, there were a bunch of customers that were like, well, can I still buy ammo?

Danielle: 00:21:58

Because I'm moving out of here in two years?

Danielle: 00:22:01

So they would just continue to buy ammo with us.

Danielle: 00:22:03

And then once they moved, we shipped it to their new address.

Dan: 00:22:06

Or there was kind of that California freedom week for a little while.

Dan: 00:22:08

So we had tons of California shippers that are California customers that were like, oh, ship my ammo.

Dan: 00:22:13

Ship my ammo.

Dan: 00:22:14

It was like they had this window right.

Dan: 00:22:16

And that's the other thing is technically, you don't even, our site is set up, so literally, you don't even have to be in the US to buy from us.

Dan: 00:22:25

We can't ship international.

Dan: 00:22:27

We can't ship to Canada.

Dan: 00:22:28

We can't ship to Alaska or Hawaii.

Dan: 00:22:30

But you can buy and accumulate, and then what you do with that ammo is up to you as far as selling it or exchanging it or if you want us to ship it to somewhere else, once you come into the US or into the States, in the case of Alaska.

Dan: 00:22:45

But that's also what's really unique is that it's literally like an ammo savings account where you build up your supply and you could be anywhere.

Dan: 00:22:53

You'd be anywhere in the world.

John: 00:22:55

Yeah, I know that ammo has to ship ground, which is annoying.

John: 00:23:00

It's such a pain in the butt because it has to ship ground.

John: 00:23:03

But do you guys have to deal with anybody in Alaska who wants to ship to a shipper who votes it over?

John: 00:23:10

Is it.

Dan: 00:23:10

We've had discussions about that.

Dan: 00:23:13

I mean, there's a lot of, they.

Danielle: 00:23:15

Have to buy a lot of ammo to make it worth it for them because there are already companies that vote over ammo and sell it there.

Danielle: 00:23:24

But if you're buying a couple hundred dollars worth of ammo and you're having it shipped, it's not really worth it.

Danielle: 00:23:29

The fees, the doc fees are just so high.

Danielle: 00:23:32

And so we have had people who've wanted to coordinate things like that, or they live in, they live in Washington, they have family in Alaska.

Danielle: 00:23:38

It's like, cool.

Danielle: 00:23:39

You guys can handle that because that is, I mean, it was just like, and we didn't have enough customers out of Alaska that we could do that with.

Danielle: 00:23:46

So.

Dan: 00:23:46

Yeah, because it's more like group buying.

Dan: 00:23:48

Yeah, someday doing that where it's like, essentially, you know, you could ship it to somebody up there that then distributes it to customers.

John: 00:23:59

Alaska is one of those tricky states, really, is Hawaii as well.

John: 00:24:04

You know, it, it's sad to say that those states, because of their geographic location, are kind of like, in trouble when it comes to getting ammo and stuff, especially ordering it from the lower forty eight s.

John: 00:24:19

I know when I was working in ammo, we had people from Guam reach out and people from Puerto Rico reach out and they're, and I would be like, yeah, we only ship lower 48.

John: 00:24:30

They're like, what?

John: 00:24:30

I'm a US citizen.

John: 00:24:32

And like, well, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't fly it over to you.

Dan: 00:24:35

Yeah.

Danielle: 00:24:35

Yeah.

John: 00:24:36

I don't have a dinghy that I can drive out there.

John: 00:24:38

I'm sorry, as much as I would love to, but it's crazy.

John: 00:24:44

Like, even the trade routes through Canada to get up there, they won't allow it.

Danielle: 00:24:48

Right.

Danielle: 00:24:50

So the only.

Danielle: 00:24:50

The only way is.

Dan: 00:24:51

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are ways.

Dan: 00:24:53

Like, obviously, people in Canada shoot.

Dan: 00:24:56

I mean, they get ammo somehow.

Dan: 00:24:57

I just don't know how.

Dan: 00:24:59

Yeah, we got.

Dan: 00:25:00

We're kind of focused on.

Dan: 00:25:01

On saturating the market.

John: 00:25:03

Yeah.

John: 00:25:03

It'd be like you'd have to revert.

John: 00:25:05

You'd have to import it and then re import it or import it out and then re import it in as it goes through Canada and into Alaska.

John: 00:25:14

It sounds like so much work.

Kayleigh: 00:25:16

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:25:17

But to go back to the point that you made, I like the passiveness of building up your supply because I love the firearms community.

Kayleigh: 00:25:31

I'm a part of the firearms community.

Kayleigh: 00:25:34

I find myself not going to the gun store every week.

Kayleigh: 00:25:40

Definitely don't go every week.

Kayleigh: 00:25:42

Probably don't go every month.

Kayleigh: 00:25:45

Just because, you know, there's a lot of life and stuff and obligations that I have to do.

Kayleigh: 00:25:52

And so, you know, for a lot of people, for me at least, I live in a pretty rural part of Tennessee, and it's an hour and some change to my quote unquote local gun store.

Kayleigh: 00:26:05

And they actually just opened up.

Kayleigh: 00:26:07

They're fantastic.

Kayleigh: 00:26:08

You can go listen to their podcast, but, you know, they're decently far away.

Kayleigh: 00:26:15

And the issue with that is I don't want to spend 2 hours in the car.

Kayleigh: 00:26:22

Right.

Kayleigh: 00:26:22

Especially with a toddler.

Kayleigh: 00:26:24

And so it's hard to check prices or to just running and get something.

Kayleigh: 00:26:30

And so the passiveness there is something very, like, reassuring of, okay, I'll allocate $20 a month to this and then let it accumulate.

Kayleigh: 00:26:40

And when I need it, I got it.

Dan: 00:26:43

Yeah.

Dan: 00:26:43

And, you know, you actually reminded me, too, is a lot of our customers are new to the gun industry.

Dan: 00:26:49

Like, they're new shooters.

Dan: 00:26:51

And because I think that they're intimidated to walk in both in the gun store.

Dan: 00:26:57

Right.

Dan: 00:26:58

They don't know what they're looking at.

Dan: 00:26:59

And then also online, they still, again, don't really know what's the right thing to buy a lot of times, what's a good deal, you know, all of that.

Dan: 00:27:07

And so rural customers, we have got a lot.

Danielle: 00:27:11

We got a lot of rural.

Dan: 00:27:12

Right.

Dan: 00:27:13

Just for that exact reason.

Dan: 00:27:14

But then also just new gun owners.

Dan: 00:27:17

And because part of our program is almost like wine of the month.

Dan: 00:27:21

Like, we're curating ammo for people.

Dan: 00:27:24

And so what we strive to do is so our pricing is just below the median, but when we ship out, we're usually including two to three brands that kind of fall between, like, a high medium and a low.

Dan: 00:27:37

So, like, a budget brand, a middle of the road brand, and, like, a higher premium brand.

Dan: 00:27:43

And so if you've got enough of that one caliber, you're going to get all of that.

Dan: 00:27:47

And so it's so that one, you can, you know, people can try different things, right?

Dan: 00:27:54

Like, I was talking about, like, the federated ammo, but then also for that exact reason, like, if you're like, I don't know what to get, it's like, oh, here's three things.

Dan: 00:28:01

You know, you can shoot them and go buy more of what you do.

Dan: 00:28:04

Like.

Kayleigh: 00:28:05

Yeah, and one of the other things I like is how you've got it sectioned out.

Kayleigh: 00:28:09

You talked about how you have it as, like, defense practice, right?

Kayleigh: 00:28:14

A lot of, you know, first time gun owners, you know, we just had our women's, our national women's range Day talk to a lot of girls there that that was their first time ever shooting.

Kayleigh: 00:28:25

And, you know, they're, they're full of questions.

Kayleigh: 00:28:29

And I was talking to this one lady, and she was talking about her first range experience, and she was like, I like shooting.

Kayleigh: 00:28:38

And she's like, this is my second time at the range.

Kayleigh: 00:28:40

She's like, but what an expensive hobby.

Kayleigh: 00:28:42

And I was like, yeah, it can be kind of pricey.

Kayleigh: 00:28:44

Well, as we were talking, she was using critical defense ammo to go practice with.

Kayleigh: 00:28:49

And I'm like, let me save you a lot of money.

Dan: 00:28:54

I can see the logic, though.

Dan: 00:28:55

She's like, I'm practicing for defense and.

Danielle: 00:28:57

I need defensive ammo.

Kayleigh: 00:28:59

And so, you know, it was just that moment, like, you know, Bravo to her.

Kayleigh: 00:29:04

Like, she was putting in the time.

Kayleigh: 00:29:05

She was definitely putting in the effort.

Kayleigh: 00:29:07

Yeah, but you don't know what you don't know.

Kayleigh: 00:29:11

And so for it to be very clear, like, this is for practice, this is for defense.

Kayleigh: 00:29:17

And I'm sure on your invoice, it kind of says that again.

Kayleigh: 00:29:21

And so if you're looking, you're, you got 50% and 50% and it all ships at one time.

Kayleigh: 00:29:27

You know, at least you can kind of educate yourself in that regards.

Kayleigh: 00:29:31

Hopefully once you realize that, you can, you know, switch those percentages a little bit.

John: 00:29:37

But if you guys ever get into guns, I'm in trouble.

John: 00:29:41

Cause putting a little bit away every month for.

John: 00:29:44

Okay, cool.

John: 00:29:45

So what's getting shipped to the.

John: 00:29:46

Oh, that's good.

John: 00:29:47

Cool.

Kayleigh: 00:29:48

Get Anna wish list.

John: 00:29:52

I'm in big trouble if that happens.

Kayleigh: 00:29:53

$50.

Dan: 00:29:54

Oh, yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:29:55

I'm so screwed.

Kayleigh: 00:29:56

You can edit it, raise up and down.

Kayleigh: 00:29:59

Listen, it'll be like trading stocks.

Kayleigh: 00:30:01

I'll never leave your website.

Kayleigh: 00:30:02

You're gonna be like, man, who is this person spending like, a thousand hours a week on your website?

John: 00:30:10

Well, and the gun store thing is funny.

John: 00:30:14

Cause I walk into the gun store, and I go, yeah, I'm just here for two boxes.

John: 00:30:18

And I know I'm here for two boxes a night.

John: 00:30:21

Mm hmm.

John: 00:30:22

What's that in the use section?

John: 00:30:23

Oh, hey, I got that new so and so.

John: 00:30:26

$300 later, I'm out of the gun store with way more things that I didn't need.

John: 00:30:33

But the gun store can be very intimidating for somebody who's new, because it's a, it's an interesting environment, especially depending on the store.

John: 00:30:44

Some of the stores are very welcoming, very well knowledge, very helpful.

John: 00:30:48

Some of them can be very intimidating because you don't know.

John: 00:30:52

And we're seeing this trend now that there's a lot more knowledge of the guys behind the counter, more willing to work, more customer service focused.

John: 00:31:00

Bob's back there pedaling in: 1911

John: 00:31:09

And it gets very daunting to go in there, and you're like, okay, well, it's my first time buying a gun.

John: 00:31:16

I'm real nervous, excited, and being able to just order ammo and go, hey, cool, I'm ready to get it shipped to my door.

John: 00:31:24

It's just amazing.

Kayleigh: 00:31:25

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:31:26

And it kind of, again, for those people who don't like asking questions when it comes to what should I get?

Kayleigh: 00:31:35

Or, you know, they don't want the lecture because they don't know the right thing.

Kayleigh: 00:31:40

Or, you know, come to think of it, I don't know that I've ever been to a gun store except for Covid, when everybody's ammo was behind the counter because no one could be trusted.

Kayleigh: 00:31:51

But, you know, I don't know that anyone has ever been there to even ask a question, too, in the ammo section.

Kayleigh: 00:32:00

And so I wonder how many new shooters find your website comforting just because of how it's laid out naturally answers questions that can arise.

Dan: 00:32:11

Yeah.

John: 00:32:12

Have you ever thought about.

John: 00:32:14

Because you guys get a lot of new shooters.

John: 00:32:16

Have you ever thought about putting, like, a list of guns and caliber so people can go and go.

John: 00:32:21

This is gonna have.

John: 00:32:22

And I know what caliber to go to.

Dan: 00:32:23

We played around with that.

Dan: 00:32:25

Yeah.

Dan: 00:32:26

I guess it gets a little complicated, though, because there's so many.

Danielle: 00:32:29

It's like, well, there are so many guns that are the same configuration now in different calibers.

Danielle: 00:32:34

Like SiG just came out with their P 365 and 380.

John: 00:32:37

Yeah.

Danielle: 00:32:38

So now you've got the same gun, seemingly, and to a new shooter, they may not know the difference.

Dan: 00:32:44

You know, I was gonna mention that you had that story about the.

Dan: 00:32:49

By the yellow box, right.

Dan: 00:32:50

By the green box.

Dan: 00:32:51

I think it was Kellyanne talking about training.

Dan: 00:32:56

New.

Kayleigh: 00:32:57

New, yeah.

Danielle: 00:32:58

She was talking about how it was just like they.

Danielle: 00:33:00

She would just tell him to go to the store, buy the green box, and then come to the.

Danielle: 00:33:05

They didn't know what to buy at all.

Danielle: 00:33:06

Well, I mean, and as far as gun stores go, like, I've been a firearms owner.

Danielle: 00:33:11

I've for a very long time.

Danielle: 00:33:12

I mean, our first date, when I was 19 years old, he took me shooting.

Danielle: 00:33:15

And so.

Danielle: 00:33:16

And, you know, just so you know, that was a long time ago, so.

Dan: 00:33:19

But it was just 24 years.

Danielle: 00:33:21

Yeah, but so as a woman walking into a gun store who does know what she's doing, it is frustrating to have people treat you like you're stupid, because for a very long time, that was the gun store.

Danielle: 00:33:32

And so I think that people still kind of have that taste in their mouth for gun stores, and so they just don't want to go.

Danielle: 00:33:38

And you're right.

Danielle: 00:33:39

Ammo, there aren't very many people that will answer questions for you about ammo.

Danielle: 00:33:43

In fact, I had a friend who I was kind of introducing to shooting recently, and we had some nine millimeter, just FMJ.

Danielle: 00:33:50

And I had given her some self defense as well.

Danielle: 00:33:52

And I said, this is for self defense, and this is for practice.

Danielle: 00:33:55

And she said, well, why can't I just load the practice?

Danielle: 00:33:58

And I was like, well, let's get into a discussion about ballistics.

Danielle: 00:34:01

Right.

Danielle: 00:34:02

And so, and I said, also, you know, you don't want something to pass through something that you're shooting at and go into a wall or go through a wall or whatever.

Danielle: 00:34:09

So you want, you, you know, you want it to expand and stop.

Danielle: 00:34:11

And so.

Danielle: 00:34:12

But as a, as a seasoned gun owner, it just seems second nature to me to know that.

Danielle: 00:34:17

But there's so many people that don't.

Danielle: 00:34:18

And so, you know, breaking it up for them, explaining it to them, it's.

Danielle: 00:34:22

It's been really, I think, helpful for them.

John: 00:34:24

Yeah.

John: 00:34:24

As somebody who used to work behind the gun counter, it.

John: 00:34:29

It's hard when you shoot.

John: 00:34:30

Come in, and you go, okay, how do I explain this without sounding like an arrogant.

Danielle: 00:34:34

Well, that's helpful right there.

Danielle: 00:34:36

There.

Danielle: 00:34:36

And there's always those guys there.

Danielle: 00:34:37

e because I was looking for a: 1911

Danielle: 00:34:48

And so I just was like, I looked at Dan, I was like, we're leaving.

Danielle: 00:34:51

And we went to Cabela's, and the guy at the Cabela's gun counter was super helpful and nice and so there.

Danielle: 00:34:57

I mean, you just have to find the right guys.

Danielle: 00:34:59

Right or the right people?

Danielle: 00:35:00

The right people, yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:35:01

The challenge is the good people generally move up and on very quickly.

Danielle: 00:35:12

Yeah, yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:35:12

And so, you know, I commend the stores that focus on education, that focus on customer experience.

Kayleigh: 00:35:24

I think women usually get a hardened feeling when it comes to, you know, how many times are we going to have to walk into the store and.

Kayleigh: 00:35:37

And be shown the pink firearm or the revolver or whatever, you know, it is that they're trying to sell.

Kayleigh: 00:35:43

But also, you know, unfortunately, me being in the world that I'm in, if someone has a negative experience, for whatever reason, they feel like they should call me as if, like I am Google reviews.

Kayleigh: 00:35:57

And no, believe it or not.

Kayleigh: 00:36:01

But, you know, there.

Kayleigh: 00:36:02

There are plenty of first time gun owners that are, I would say, in the 30 to 50 range males that will go in and ask questions and be openly mocked or laughed at by asking a question because you don't know this.

Kayleigh: 00:36:23

And it's like, well, no, I never grew up around guns.

Kayleigh: 00:36:27

Like, this is my first experience, so I appreciate the stores that are taking that seriously.

Danielle: 00:36:34

And it seems like more and more of them are absolutely.

Kayleigh: 00:36:38

And I think the people who are doing it well are expanding.

Kayleigh: 00:36:41

I mean, how many of the gun stores that are doing a really great job?

Kayleigh: 00:36:48

One, they're building a huge following, and so people are coming from the next county or the next town over to shop at a great place.

Kayleigh: 00:36:55

Or they're the.

Kayleigh: 00:36:56

Because the customer experience is so good that one place won't, you know, fill the need that's in the area.

Kayleigh: 00:37:05

And so you'll see, all of the sudden, it's like, are you a chain?

Kayleigh: 00:37:09

And they're like, no, we just have five stores in the local area.

Dan: 00:37:12

Exactly.

John: 00:37:13

It's funny, I thought about this the other day, and this is when I first started out behind the gun counter.

John: 00:37:22

A couple came in.

John: 00:37:24

They had.

John: 00:37:25

There were some break ins in the area, they wanted to buy a gun for home defense.

John: 00:37:28

And the store I worked at did not sell handguns.

John: 00:37:31

I'm not going to name the chain, but we sold shotguns, and they were very interested in shotguns.

John: 00:37:35

So I was telling them about how to practice, practice ammo, things like that.

John: 00:37:39

And we were talking about the safety.

John: 00:37:42

I'm like, because a term that I had always heard as a kid, and red is dead.

John: 00:37:48

When the safety read, when the safety goes red, it's dead.

John: 00:37:52

So sitting there, I talked to him about it.

John: 00:37:54

We sell it, and two days later, he calls me and close the store.

John: 00:37:58

And I pick up and I'm talking to him and he's like, hey, so I was reading the owner's manual, and it says red is fire.

John: 00:38:03

I'm like, oh, yeah, I should probably just say that now instead of using terminology that I've heard over and over again.

John: 00:38:11

And it was a very humbling experience because I'm like, oh, that's just common knowledge because I've grown up with it so much.

John: 00:38:17

And that's something.

John: 00:38:18

And it's just, it made me change the way I would talk to people and learn and do stuff.

John: 00:38:23

And that's what I think we're seeing with most of the good stores is that the guys are being more well trained, they're more knowledgeable, and they're less likely to, you know, do the, make fun of behind the counter.

John: 00:38:39

That being said, I still cringe every time I hear the word clip, but.

Dan: 00:38:43

I think we all do.

Danielle: 00:38:45

I believe the technical term is magazine clip.

John: 00:38:47

Oh, magazine.

John: 00:38:48

30 caliber magazine.

Dan: 00:38:50

That's right.

John: 00:38:51

But, but that's just me.

John: 00:38:53

And you have to learn, like, that's the knowledge that most people who are not in this have heard terminology.

Danielle: 00:38:58

That's what they've heard on tv or the news or whatever.

John: 00:39:01

So then when you go to say, well, it's not actually a clip, it's a magazine.

John: 00:39:04

And then eventually you hear for the hundredth time, you go, clip goes in your hair, goes in your gun.

John: 00:39:10

And, but you got to just learn because it's a, they don't know everything.

John: 00:39:15

You've got to just teach them.

John: 00:39:16

And that's the cool thing about our community, is that as people that I think the gun store people are learning is that the more people that join the community, the stronger we are.

John: 00:39:28

And we have to be this very welcoming community.

John: 00:39:31

And most of us are very welcoming.

John: 00:39:33

We still have some bad apples out there, but it's good to see that that culture is changing and shifting to be more welcoming, more knowledgeable, more understanding.

Dan: 00:39:42

And just think about how many new shooters we have since COVID timeframe.

Dan: 00:39:47

I mean, that time alone, and I've seen different estimates or whatever, but added 9 million new gun owners during that timeframe.

Dan: 00:39:57

And so it's no wonder, too, that we had a shortage, because 9 million new gun owners buys 100 rounds of ammunition.

Dan: 00:40:06

Now you've got a 900 million rounds that you have to come up with.

Danielle: 00:40:10

It was no grand conspiracy.

Danielle: 00:40:12

It was.

Danielle: 00:40:12

It was just a lot.

Kayleigh: 00:40:15

And all the people buying that were like, I need some.

Kayleigh: 00:40:18

Some more ammo.

Kayleigh: 00:40:19

I only have, you know, one box, and it's like, I don't like where I'm at right now.

Kayleigh: 00:40:25

And so, no, I definitely, you know, the shortages are unfortunate.

Kayleigh: 00:40:31

And then you also had, during that time, the russian ammo ban, and you had all of the issues where it wasn't just ammo shortages, but it was component shortages.

Kayleigh: 00:40:44

And so the reloading community was also dealing with that.

Kayleigh: 00:40:47

I mean, there was essentially no one was free from the feeling that, I mean, even manufacturers were having problems getting ammunition for test firing.

Kayleigh: 00:40:59

And so, like, the supply chain was just all kinds of mess.

John: 00:41:03

It's funny because I.

John: 00:41:05

The local store, I used to.

John: 00:41:07

Who used to be a dealer of mine, I used to go in there all the time and talk to him.

John: 00:41:11

They were telling me a story about how this guy went on their website and ordered a Glock.

John: 00:41:15

45.

John: 00:41:17

A Glock and 45 caliber.

John: 00:41:19

But he.

John: 00:41:21

When he got there, it was 45 gap, and he's like, oh, I ordered the wrong gun.

John: 00:41:26

And they're like, maybe you didn't.

John: 00:41:28

I have ammo for this.

John: 00:41:29

I have a lot of ammo for this.

Dan: 00:41:32

I used to have a 45 gap.

Dan: 00:41:33

Yeah, believe it or not.

John: 00:41:35

How many?

John: 00:41:37

So the first.

John: 00:41:39

I'm gonna date.

John: 00:41:40

Date myself some more.

John: 00:41:41

The first ammo scare to the: 2012

John: 00:41:45

Nine mil, 556, 760 by 39, they were all hard to find.

Danielle: 00:41:50

A 22.

John: 00:41:50

22.

John: 00:41:51

Yeah.

John: 00:41:52

So I bought a 40 because 40 was available.

John: 00:41:54

Yeah, 40 on the shelf and.

John: 00:41:56

Yeah.

John: 00:41:57

Do I regret buying for a 40?

John: 00:41:59

Yes, because I don't.

John: 00:42:00

I don't shoot forties anymore.

Dan: 00:42:04

But I have this philosophy.

Dan: 00:42:05

I think 40 is the best handgun because you can shoot 357 sig, 49 millimeter, your absolute.

John: 00:42:10

That is true.

Dan: 00:42:11

And that's got to do a barrel, barrel, barrel swap.

Dan: 00:42:15

Yeah.

John: 00:42:16

But the other thing was, like, we saw this in the COVID era.

John: 00:42:21

Is that, like.

John: 00:42:22

Because there was such a mad rush that I was like, okay, 40 is ammo scare proof?

John: 00:42:29

Because it was always on the shelf.

John: 00:42:31

And then next thing I know, 40 is not ammo scare.

John: 00:42:35

It's not on the shelf.

John: 00:42:37

But the weird calibers that nobody was buying anymore, like the 45 gap, that was no longer in popularity, nobody would really want it.

John: 00:42:45

People were buying those guns because you could find the ammo.

John: 00:42:48

Same thing with 357 sig and 32 h and r super magnum or whatever.

Dan: 00:42:56

32 h and R Magnum.

Dan: 00:42:57

And then it's 327 federal magnum.

Dan: 00:42:59

Yep.

John: 00:43:00

And all the weird calibers that you never would as a gun store, you would never carry because it's like, nobody buys these, or I sell one every six months, so I don't really need to keep a stock of it, is those went quickly.

John: 00:43:16

And it was surprising how many people were just like, I need to take my self protection in my hand.

John: 00:43:23

I don't care the caliber.

John: 00:43:25

I just know that's got ammo and that's the gun.

John: 00:43:28

And I wonder.

John: 00:43:30

I just wonder how many people have from the pandemic and the people who blog guns that are in there, went out and trained with them, and now have switched to more common use rounds like nine millimeter and five six.

Kayleigh: 00:43:45

I think certainly many have, especially those that have stayed consistent with training and practicing.

Kayleigh: 00:43:52

But I know a lot of gun owners that hadn't diversified, diversified what they owned because they wanted to have, you know, that ammo supply, and they wanted to know that not only did they have that ammo supply, but they had the ability to get more.

Kayleigh: 00:44:12

And so people that would have never deviated from nine mil because they were like, this is my.

Kayleigh: 00:44:18

This is.

Kayleigh: 00:44:19

This is my team all of a sudden.

Kayleigh: 00:44:21

Like, you'd see him.

Kayleigh: 00:44:22

You'd see him at the store and he'd be like, what you got there?

Kayleigh: 00:44:29

You know, I'm pretty sure you just started, like, a whole fight in the comment section on the post, like, I.

Kayleigh: 00:44:35

Like, two months ago, like, what's going on?

Kayleigh: 00:44:38

And it was, you know, I decided that, you know, a little diversification never hurt anyone.

John: 00:44:44

Yeah, listen, I only have 33 calibers that I have to buy for.

John: 00:44:50

So, I mean, there's something like that.

Kayleigh: 00:44:53

That's not that there's always room for improvement.

John: 00:45:00

But it was interesting because I was like, cool, I bought some weird calipers, but during the pandemic, like, 32 auto could find some of that.

John: 00:45:10

I could find 25 acp.

John: 00:45:13

Yeah, I found that.

John: 00:45:15

I was like, okay, well, I'm really don't want to train with this little bitty thing, but I'm going to buy it.

John: 00:45:19

So I have some ammo if I want to go out and train to.

John: 00:45:22

And it was weird, like, how many oddball calibers had got a resurgence and how many more people were like, okay, I'm team 357 sig, and everyone's like, nobody.

Dan: 00:45:41

I call that nine millimeter magnum.

Kayleigh: 00:45:45

But.

Kayleigh: 00:45:45

But those kind one, it shows, you know, like, we can laugh about it now, but those are real game time decisions for people.

Danielle: 00:45:53

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:45:54

And the other thing is, I think it shows.

Kayleigh: 00:45:59

I think it shows where innovation comes from and where the industry has been and where it's going.

Kayleigh: 00:46:07

Right.

Kayleigh: 00:46:10

The price of ammo in certain calibers went to the point where people just couldn't afford to shoot.

Kayleigh: 00:46:17

Even if you could find the ammo, the price per round got so cost prohibitive that a lot of people were like, well, let's branch out a little bit.

Kayleigh: 00:46:28

Let's see.

Kayleigh: 00:46:29

And I think that spurs innovation, that spurs people to go, well, maybe we can come up with something even better that can stand.

Kayleigh: 00:46:41

These are peaks and valleys, or maybe we can come up with something that fits that niche.

Kayleigh: 00:46:48

And even if they're not longstanding things, it is part of the firearms history in the US.

Kayleigh: 00:46:55

And those were decisions that were made.

Kayleigh: 00:46:59

I think in those type of moments, we really see the resilience of people branching out and trying new things and becoming gun owners.

Kayleigh: 00:47:09

You know, for many of them, what they bought is what they still own.

Danielle: 00:47:12

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:47:13

And it's what they, you know, will always own.

Kayleigh: 00:47:17

You know how many.

Kayleigh: 00:47:18

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:47:20

People will say all the time, you hear the saying, you know, your first gun is more important than your first car, because you get rid of your first car, you never get rid of your first gun.

Kayleigh: 00:47:28

And so you hold a fondness to it.

Kayleigh: 00:47:32

And so it's going to be interesting when those people start telling their story of.

Kayleigh: 00:47:38

So it's the middle of the pandemic.

Danielle: 00:47:42

I waited in line for 4 hours to get a.

Dan: 00:47:45

357 sig.

John: 00:47:47

You still have your first gun?

Kayleigh: 00:47:48

I do.

John: 00:47:48

Do you still have your first gun?

Dan: 00:47:49

No.

John: 00:47:50

Do you?

John: 00:47:51

Oh, no.

John: 00:47:53

I know what your.

John: 00:47:54

Mine was a Glock 17.

John: 00:47:56

What was your first gun?

Dan: 00:47:57

Glock 17.

John: 00:47:58

Yeah.

Dan: 00:47:58

Yeah.

Danielle: 00:47:59

Glock 19.

Dan: 00:48:00

Glamis.

Dan: 00:48:01

Yeah.

John: 00:48:01

I've been comfortable.

Kayleigh: 00:48:03

Y'all had money?

John: 00:48:07

I scrounged for months.

John: 00:48:09

I had money.

John: 00:48:10

It was like.

John: 00:48:11

I scrounged for months.

Danielle: 00:48:13

We ate a lot of ramen.

John: 00:48:14

A lot of ramen.

John: 00:48:16

A lot.

John: 00:48:16

A lot of ramen.

Kayleigh: 00:48:18

Listen, I was.

Kayleigh: 00:48:19

I identify with the game time decision people because there was an incident at the apartment complex that I lived at, and there was, like, a stabbing and a shooting that happened, like, right outside of the apartment complex.

Kayleigh: 00:48:33

Where I lived, like, my building.

Kayleigh: 00:48:36

And it was like, that happened.

Kayleigh: 00:48:40

And I had a gun within, like, four days.

Kayleigh: 00:48:43

Like, there was no, like.

Kayleigh: 00:48:45

It was like, we'll buy it now and figure out what we're eating later type thing.

Kayleigh: 00:48:51

I was like, I don't like my odds here, so, no, my first gun was.

John: 00:48:57

That was a lie.

Dan: 00:48:58

What was your first gun?

Kayleigh: 00:49:00

Mine was just a little bursa 380.

Kayleigh: 00:49:02

And I paid $219 for off the clearance rack.

Dan: 00:49:06

I thought you were going to say a single shot shotgun.

John: 00:49:08

No, I lied a little bit.

John: 00:49:11

My first handgun was a Glock 17.

John: 00:49:12

My first gun I bought for $89.

John: 00:49:15

Bought a Mosin nagante.

John: 00:49:22

I remember $89 still in Cosmo lane.

John: 00:49:26

I bought it because we were going out to the ranch.

John: 00:49:29

I wanted, like, I wanted my own gun.

John: 00:49:32

Probably not the best gun decision, but also it was a good.

John: 00:49:36

It was a good gun decision because I think has skyrocketed in price.

Danielle: 00:49:40

Oh, yeah.

John: 00:49:42

The amount of people who are.

John: 00:49:43

That I brought it into.

John: 00:49:45

I brought it to a range day, the one day with some friends, and they're like, you have a mosin?

John: 00:49:49

I'm like, yeah.

John: 00:49:50

They're like, oh, my God.

John: 00:49:51

I've been looking for one.

John: 00:49:52

They're like, $500.

John: 00:49:53

I'm like, I'm not talking about how much I.

Danielle: 00:49:58

Really.

John: 00:49:59

What?

John: 00:50:01

It's crazy to think, like, the amount of, like you said, a lot of people made game time decisions.

John: 00:50:07

I know.

John: 00:50:07

I scrounged for months and months.

John: 00:50:09

I was, like, taking a $100 out of every paycheck to go get it.

John: 00:50:13

I still remember the day I bought my first handgun.

John: 00:50:15

I remember going in and filling out the paperwork and sitting there going, wow, there's a lot of guns on this floor.

John: 00:50:21

And about two weeks later, there were no guns on the floor.

Danielle: 00:50:25

Oh, wow.

John: 00:50:25

About my first handgun, the day of sandy hook.

John: 00:50:28

Oh, I was at the store when it was happening.

John: 00:50:31

They were like, hey, did you know what's going on?

John: 00:50:33

I'm like, what's going on?

John: 00:50:35

And then the very next week, like, I went to go get.

John: 00:50:38

I went to the range.

John: 00:50:39

I'm like, cool.

John: 00:50:40

There's nine millimeter everywhere going to the range.

John: 00:50:43

No ammo.

Kayleigh: 00:50:44

Yeah.

John: 00:50:44

Or we came back, no mo.

John: 00:50:45

I was like, what a night and day difference to get how quickly it happens.

John: 00:50:49

How quickly it happened.

John: 00:50:50

It's like night and day.

John: 00:50:52

I was like, wow.

John: 00:50:53

I.

John: 00:50:54

It was crazy to see, like, I walked in the same store.

John: 00:50:57

I'm like, you guys have nothing?

Dan: 00:50:59

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:50:59

Were you robbed?

John: 00:51:01

What happened?

Dan: 00:51:03

It's crazy because what other time in America, other than the toilet paper from COVID Right.

Dan: 00:51:08

What other time were the store shelves empty of something?

Dan: 00:51:11

Most never, right?

Dan: 00:51:12

You don't go to the store and say, oh, there's no batteries.

Dan: 00:51:15

You know, I mean, there's nothing else other than ammunition in general that even.

John: 00:51:20

Disappear last go around.

John: 00:51:23

Like, it was.

John: 00:51:25

It was crazier than the first time with the pig shortage.

John: 00:51:28

It was crazier to see going in.

John: 00:51:31

And I had.

John: 00:51:33

I had, you know, would go in.

John: 00:51:35

I remember the day before they sent us all home to work.

John: 00:51:41

From home, I went up to a company, an online retail friend of ours that is in Ohio.

John: 00:51:48

I went in there, and I bought a case of steel, nine mil.

John: 00:51:53

And this is.

John: 00:51:54

I'm dating, and people are going to.

John: 00:51:56

There's no way I paid $112 for a thousand rounds of nine mil.

John: 00:52:01

And I bought steel case.

John: 00:52:03

Yeah, I bought two cases.

John: 00:52:04

And I'm like, cool, I'm good to go.

John: 00:52:06

And then I went into three training classes, and then I'm like, I need to call some friends.

John: 00:52:13

And I called a bunch of friends.

John: 00:52:15

I'm like, hey, buddy.

John: 00:52:18

Yeah, I do.

John: 00:52:19

But it was crazy to even think, like, I had the.

John: 00:52:24

I had enough nine mil to get through classes, and I had stuff, and I walked into the local shops and like, hey, do you have any extra nine mil you can sell?

John: 00:52:32

And I was like, I don't.

John: 00:52:34

Like, I do, but I, like, I'm using.

John: 00:52:36

I've got classes coming up and things like that, and they're like, we're really hurting.

John: 00:52:41

And I've never seen a gun store.

John: 00:52:46

So, like, the first, the Obama era craze, like, stores were empty, but there was still.

Danielle: 00:52:54

It was still being manufactured and shipped.

John: 00:52:56

Ammo on the shelf and things like that.

John: 00:52:58

This is the first time that I've seen, like, nothing.

John: 00:53:03

Like, there was shops that had a gun.

Kayleigh: 00:53:06

Yeah, well, you know, more to your point, you know, we work with a lot of, you know, we have a caliber club program, which is our gun store and range program.

Kayleigh: 00:53:16

And we work with nine line apparel.

Danielle: 00:53:20

They.

Kayleigh: 00:53:20

We have a wholesale program with them.

Kayleigh: 00:53:23

And it was crazy because we would be getting messages from gun stores that are like, we don't have anything to sell, so we're gonna get some t shirts because it's.

Kayleigh: 00:53:36

Get t shirts and try to stay in business or just continuing to pay for a building with nothing to sell.

Kayleigh: 00:53:44

And it's like, we don't have.

Kayleigh: 00:53:47

Because, you know, it's.

Kayleigh: 00:53:49

We talk about, like, the.

Kayleigh: 00:53:50

The gun and ammo shortages, but, like.

Kayleigh: 00:53:54

Like, we've got some calls where it was like, hey, do you know some like holster companies?

Kayleigh: 00:53:59

Do you have like a recommendation?

Kayleigh: 00:54:00

Because it's like people were getting their concealed carry permits or they were in a constitutional carry state.

Kayleigh: 00:54:05

And like, when you're starting from nothing, you're starting from nothing.

Kayleigh: 00:54:08

And like, all of a sudden, like, it's just you're out and they're looking around, they're like, so who can we, what can we sell?

Kayleigh: 00:54:18

I think we're about to change our name.

Dan: 00:54:20

We're gonna start selling car parts.

Kayleigh: 00:54:22

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 00:54:25

How do we keep the doors open?

Kayleigh: 00:54:27

Sort of.

Kayleigh: 00:54:28

We, you know, we joke about it now, but like, being that store owner in those moments must have been terrifying.

John: 00:54:38

Oh, yeah, because manufacturing side was terrifying.

Dan: 00:54:41

Oh yeah.

John: 00:54:42

Yeah, it was really so.

John: 00:54:43

It was so being.

John: 00:54:47

I was working at fax and during this and even during that time, we had just the shot show.

John: 00:54:54

2020 just launched our rifle line.

John: 00:54:57

And I remember being super pumped about it and selling the fur.

John: 00:55:01

I sold the first hundred guns in company history and then the order started rolling in and then I started getting the phone calls like, hey, when is this gonna ship?

John: 00:55:10

When are we gonna be able to get these?

John: 00:55:12

And I'm like, hold on, let me make some calls.

John: 00:55:15

And I.

John: 00:55:16

Even on our side, like, steel was hard to get.

John: 00:55:19

We couldn't get lowers made fast enough.

John: 00:55:22

We couldn't get stuff made fast enough.

John: 00:55:23

And then I remember it at the time, and somebody probably broke it.

John: 00:55:28

My largest order was from the shop that was down the street, small shop down the street, 996 guns.

John: 00:55:37

They ordered in one batch.

Danielle: 00:55:39

Wow.

John: 00:55:40

And I was like, okay.

John: 00:55:42

And I walked into the office and I go, hey.

John: 00:55:47

And I still remember the look on the director of sales face.

John: 00:55:51

I was like, hey, I just got an order for guns.

John: 00:55:53

He goes, oh, great, like, what are we, what are we looking at?

John: 00:55:56

I'm like, 996 guns.

John: 00:55:59

And he goes, say that again.

John: 00:56:02

996 guns.

John: 00:56:03

And he's like, there's no way.

John: 00:56:05

Like, there's no way that this is possible.

John: 00:56:07

I'm like, yeah.

John: 00:56:08

And I printed off the order and I handed it to him.

John: 00:56:10

He's like, we are in times that, like, he's like, that's three years.

John: 00:56:15

Like, to get that built.

John: 00:56:17

It's three years.

John: 00:56:17

Because we were getting so slow movement of stuff.

John: 00:56:21

And, you know, I, the same store, I called them the day they were able to reopen their doors, I called them and I was like, hey, you mind if I swing by and want to just say hi?

John: 00:56:33

Because I'm sitting at home, I'm bored.

John: 00:56:35

I want to just, I want some social interaction yeah, come on over.

John: 00:56:39

And I walk over, I'm like, you guys, your shop's empty.

John: 00:56:42

He goes, yeah, we sold 300 guns today, okay?

John: 00:56:44

And I'm like, what?

John: 00:56:45

He goes, we broke Black Friday records.

John: 00:56:49

We've never, like, every day for some of these shops, they were breaking records.

John: 00:56:56

The issue was like, they couldn't get resupply from everything.

John: 00:57:00

And it just.

John: 00:57:01

It's.

John: 00:57:01

It was an unprecedented time.

Kayleigh: 00:57:03

I mean, we.

Kayleigh: 00:57:04

There are several people that called us, and they were.

Kayleigh: 00:57:07

They were looking for t shirts so that they could keep their doors open because they were basically, like, just waiting for a truck.

Kayleigh: 00:57:13

And the truck would arrive, they'd open up the door, crowds of people would come in, they would buy everything, and then they'd leave, and they're like, well, what are we gonna do now?

Dan: 00:57:25

So I got a question for you, though.

Dan: 00:57:27

996 guns.

Dan: 00:57:29

y couldn't you upsell another: 4800

John: 00:57:37

And I was like, you can't squeak.

John: 00:57:39

I was good friends with the buyer, and I remember his last name was Pancake.

John: 00:57:46

That's how I remember he's such a good guy.

John: 00:57:49

But I was like, come on, pancake, give me, like, four more guns, man.

John: 00:57:54

I was like, I'll make it worth your time.

John: 00:57:56

Just four more.

John: 00:57:57

He's like, dude, you're asking for four more on such a large order.

John: 00:58:01

And I'm like, I just need an even number.

Danielle: 00:58:05

I really like round numbers.

John: 00:58:10

And he's just like.

John: 00:58:12

He basically told me to go, go away.

John: 00:58:14

And not so many kind words.

John: 00:58:17

And so I remember delivering the first order of it.

John: 00:58:22

I think I delivered 30 of the first.

John: 00:58:25

I would hand.

John: 00:58:26

That's how close we were.

John: 00:58:28

I would leave the shop in Cincinnati, drive up to.

John: 00:58:33

Because he was downstairs.

John: 00:58:33

I drive the hour to Dayton, back up to the shop, open up my trunk and go, all right, who's helping?

John: 00:58:42

I dropped off 30.

John: 00:58:44

Well, yeah, I was hoping they got the whole time.

John: 00:58:46

That highway patrol didn't pull me over.

John: 00:58:51

What's in your car?

John: 00:58:53

We're not going to talk about this.

John: 00:58:54

Yeah, the funny, I didn't even have the suv at the time.

John: 00:58:58

I had my little hatchback sports car.

Dan: 00:59:01

Oh.

John: 00:59:01

So it was loaded.

John: 00:59:06

So I remember the first drop off and I couldn't thank him enough.

John: 00:59:10

I'm like, you've made my year.

John: 00:59:14

Like, you don't understand.

John: 00:59:14

So I think I brought him a cigar and something to drink, and we sat there and we chatted, and then I left and then brought more orders.

John: 00:59:24

And again, that states to again the networking and the stuff in this industry.

John: 00:59:30

And the day I moved on, from fax, and I walked up to him like, hey, man, it was great working with you.

John: 00:59:36

Like, thanks for everything.

John: 00:59:38

And he's just like, no, you don't.

John: 00:59:41

You stay.

John: 00:59:41

And you are the best rep I've ever had.

John: 00:59:43

I'm like, why?

John: 00:59:44

Because you actually show up and come in, and that's another thing that.

John: 00:59:47

And we're seeing more and more of with reps coming in.

John: 00:59:49

But it was.

John: 00:59:50

It was an experience.

John: 00:59:51

It's a friendship that I'll have for a lifetime with him.

John: 00:59:54

Every once in a while, he'll call me and check in and see how we're doing.

John: 00:59:56

But it's just.

John: 00:59:59

It's just was a crazy time.

John: 01:00:02

It was amazing.

John: 01:00:03

As, in my position, it was amazing.

John: 01:00:06

But, you know, you guys had probably a similar experience with ammo and going, hey, man, like, we're.

John: 01:00:13

We're hurting and we're getting this stuff out as fast as we can.

Dan: 01:00:16

Well, and I was just thinking it kind of speaks to the desperation of, like, the whole supply chain, right?

Dan: 01:00:22

So you've got the consumer who's doesn't have a gun and that they're buying their first gun.

Dan: 01:00:27

They're desperate because they haven't bought a gun before.

Dan: 01:00:31

Or if they already have guns, they always need more guns.

Dan: 01:00:34

Um, and then the gun stores that they're running out of stock because everybody's buying them because there's some outside thing that's going on, in this case with COVID and just all the crime and just overall just causing fear in people's minds.

Dan: 01:00:49

And then the distributors running out, manufacturers running out and running as long as 24 hours a day, as much as they could trying to get in enough supply and enough primers or steel or whatever.

Dan: 01:01:05

It always amazes me because you never really have seen that before in America until recently.

Dan: 01:01:14

But, yeah, with us, because we basically have where people are pre buying, so they're signed up for calipers, and then they go into a pending state.

Dan: 01:01:26

On our website, it's actually pending.

Dan: 01:01:28

So you have ammunition pending.

Dan: 01:01:30

So right now at it's pending for less than 24 hours.

Dan: 01:01:34

We verify that's in the warehouse.

Dan: 01:01:35

And then we put it into their inventory.

Dan: 01:01:37

Right, their electronic inventory.

Dan: 01:01:40

And during that whole timeframe, we just had stuff that was pending for a long time.

Danielle: 01:01:45

300 blackout was one of those ones that just took forever.

Dan: 01:01:48

300 blackout.

Dan: 01:01:49

Remember six five Grendel 410?

Dan: 01:01:51

I mean, all these things that you've heard of, like, oh, we can't find any of it.

Dan: 01:01:54

Well, for us, it was like we had customers buying it, but we weren't able to get any from anywhere.

Dan: 01:01:59

And so it was just.

Dan: 01:02:00

It was.

Danielle: 01:02:01

And we made that very clear with them, too, is that we're basically waiting in line for you.

Dan: 01:02:04

Exactly.

Danielle: 01:02:05

And so we, you know, there's always the option to.

Dan: 01:02:07

To exchange it.

Danielle: 01:02:08

Exchange it or sell it or, you know, whatever.

Danielle: 01:02:11

Like, you know, also, you know, if you want to refund on that amount or whatever, or you want to put it into a different caliber, like, we made that very easy for them because sometimes people just got tired of waiting for stuff.

John: 01:02:21

Oh, sorry.

John: 01:02:23

Is there still calibers that are hard to get?

John: 01:02:25

I know 410 for the long.

John: 01:02:27

Even after the supply chain, 410 was always.

Dan: 01:02:30

410 is.

Dan: 01:02:32

And actually, we trimmed our catalog.

Dan: 01:02:34

So we had, at a time going into Covid timeframe, we had 500 variations.

Dan: 01:02:40

We literally went through, like, the midway site, and I was like, oh, 375 Ruger.

Dan: 01:02:45

I'm gonna add that.

Dan: 01:02:46

And I'm gonna add it in three different variations, like a dangerous game and a large game, and, you know, like.

Danielle: 01:02:51

Whatever the offerings were, because at the time, you could get anything you want.

Dan: 01:02:54

I was like, we had.

Dan: 01:02:56

I can't even remember how many actual.

Danielle: 01:02:58

Calibers, but probably I thought it was over 200.

Dan: 01:03:00

Yeah, I was gonna say like 300 or something.

Dan: 01:03:03

And so with.

Dan: 01:03:04

With our thing, what we did was we let people sign up for anything.

Dan: 01:03:07

And then if, like, one person would buy one random thing, like, let's say 375 Rukor, then I would go and make sure that we had that in stock.

Dan: 01:03:17

I would buy it from the distributor, from our distributors, and then we would allocate it to the customer, because mostly they're probably buying, especially with the oddballs, they're building up to a full box.

Danielle: 01:03:28

So usually pretty expensive, too.

Dan: 01:03:29

And it's usually pretty expensive.

Dan: 01:03:30

And so we would buy one box, right?

Dan: 01:03:33

Or I would pre buy sometimes.

Dan: 01:03:35

Like, if there's stuff out there, I'd be, oh, what was some random stuff?

Danielle: 01:03:39

Nine millimeter flow Burt was one of them.

Dan: 01:03:41

Nine millimeter flow Burt.

Danielle: 01:03:42

I never even heard of that.

Dan: 01:03:44

I mean, we could tell you stories.

Dan: 01:03:45

I mean, we've got all kinds of stuff.

Dan: 01:03:47

In fact, we were just.

Dan: 01:03:48

We were doing gun shows recently because what we did was we had all these oddball calibers, but nobody signed up for them.

Dan: 01:03:55

And so we had all this excess inventory.

Danielle: 01:03:57

Or people would sign up and then sell it back.

Dan: 01:04:00

So then we just all these, like that one.

Dan: 01:04:04

Or I'm trying to think of something like six millimeter creedmoor.

Dan: 01:04:07

It's like, we just.

Danielle: 01:04:08

338 Lapwa was another one signed up for it.

Dan: 01:04:11

Well, we trimmed our catalog.

Dan: 01:04:13

So what we did was we went from that 500, we went down to 100, and then now we're down to about 60 of the most common.

Dan: 01:04:19

I'm probably going to need to bring back a handful.

Dan: 01:04:22

Like, we took out 410 because I couldn't find it.

Dan: 01:04:24

And so I don't want to keep people on the list if I can't find it.

Dan: 01:04:28

And then they're just stuck in this perpetual pending state.

Dan: 01:04:33

And so we have all of the most popular calibers now.

Dan: 01:04:37

And then we're going to be adding back a couple.

Dan: 01:04:40

But, but, yeah, I mean, we did go through a time period where it was just like, just oddballs, you know?

Kayleigh: 01:04:46

So if someone selects something and it's not in, in stock with you, and that is the next time for that withdrawal, it just continues to go up until you can fulfill it.

Kayleigh: 01:05:02

Right?

Dan: 01:05:03

Yeah.

Dan: 01:05:03

So it's in a pending state.

Dan: 01:05:04

Yeah.

Dan: 01:05:05

So if you think about, like, the box of something random that I was saying, so, like, they would sign up for it and then it would be pending.

Dan: 01:05:11

And so we're not telling them we have it, right, because we're saying it's pending.

Dan: 01:05:15

And so it's like, on backorder.

Dan: 01:05:17

And then I would go get it.

Dan: 01:05:18

And then once we had it, then we would fulfill it to their inventory.

Dan: 01:05:21

And so that's exactly what happens in, like, a shortage situation is where something common, let's say like nine mm or 556, we would have all of our customers that they're on auto buy.

Dan: 01:05:31

We've got probably 40% of our auto buys are nine mm, 556, 223 variation.

Dan: 01:05:37

And so they were in a situation where we are having trouble getting stuff, where we have to wait a long time for stuff, our customers are in a pending state.

Dan: 01:05:47

And then once that truck rolls in and it's like, oh, we just got three pallets from PMC now.

Dan: 01:05:53

It's like, okay, we're going to allocate all that inventory to all of our customers.

Dan: 01:05:57

And so it might be like three months worth of auto buys for somebody.

Dan: 01:06:01

And it's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Dan: 01:06:02

Then they get it, and then they're, then they say, oh, I've got my 500 rounds of 223.

Dan: 01:06:07

I'm just going to hit the ship button because it's all, you know, they get email notifications, so they know when they get everything.

Dan: 01:06:13

So.

Kayleigh: 01:06:13

So I'm going to ask what I'm assuming are your three most frequently asked questions.

Dan: 01:06:18

Okay.

Kayleigh: 01:06:18

One, how much on average is shipping?

Dan: 01:06:22

So it's over 250, it's free.

Dan: 01:06:24

And then below 250, we charge actual shipping of the.

Danielle: 01:06:28

So one confusion is that people say, well, I've spent $250.

Danielle: 01:06:31

Why haven't I received my ammo?

Danielle: 01:06:33

And the reason is because it's probably not complete boxes.

Danielle: 01:06:38

So it has to be $250 worth of shippable ammo because we allocate, you know, by partial rounds.

Danielle: 01:06:43

So you might have.

Danielle: 01:06:44

You might have 45.5 rounds of nine mm.

Danielle: 01:06:48

Well, we can't ship that if it's in practice because that's, you know, it's 50 round box.

Danielle: 01:06:52

So.

Danielle: 01:06:53

So it's like that.

Danielle: 01:06:54

That 45.5 wouldn't go toward your shippable value.

Dan: 01:06:59

We do give people the option when they go to ship out, they can buy up on all of their partials.

Dan: 01:07:03

So, like, in that case, with the 45.5, you could just add, buy a.

Danielle: 01:07:07

Few more rounds, 4.5 rounds, get a.

Dan: 01:07:09

Full box, and then you've got that box.

Kayleigh: 01:07:11

And then the second question is, in the case of another shortage, which we all pray that there's not, but in the case of another shortage, you said the term we're standing in line for you.

Kayleigh: 01:07:24

Did you find that because you were able to purchase at such higher quantity that you were being refilled faster than other orders, or is this kind of like a fast tracking type situation?

Dan: 01:07:38

I think especially more now than it would have been in the past, because we have manufacturer relationships, and so we have standing orders, you know, with.

Dan: 01:07:47

With the manufacturer right now.

Dan: 01:07:48

So, like, let's say right now, all of a sudden, there's a big shortage of something.

Dan: 01:07:52

Right.

Danielle: 01:07:52

Well, October, there was a bit of a shortage of 556.

Danielle: 01:07:55

So that we did recently go through this, but just with a single caliber.

Dan: 01:07:58

Oh, that's true.

Dan: 01:07:58

Yeah.

Dan: 01:07:59

So we did put 5.56 on allocation so that we would make sure that we had it.

John: 01:08:03

Yeah.

Dan: 01:08:03

I mean, longer allocation, basically.

Dan: 01:08:05

So we would make sure we got it in and then.

Dan: 01:08:07

But we had these manufacturer relationships, and so it's easier for us to get it now than it would have been in the past.

Dan: 01:08:14

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 01:08:16

That's awesome.

Kayleigh: 01:08:17

Because I think that there's always a certain amount of hesitation or I fear, you know, when all of the shortages were happening, I know several friends that were like, well, I'm gonna go take off work Friday to go stand in line.

Kayleigh: 01:08:32

Cause they're supposed to get a truck.

Kayleigh: 01:08:34

So I'm hoping to get something, and.

John: 01:08:39

It wasn't me.

Kayleigh: 01:08:43

But, you know, for people, you know, taking off work is not.

Kayleigh: 01:08:46

That's quite the personal.

Danielle: 01:08:48

And then to not even have a guarantee.

Danielle: 01:08:50

Right.

Danielle: 01:08:50

You might stand in line for 3 hours and get nothing.

Dan: 01:08:52

And maybe it's a truck full of ski equipment or something.

Danielle: 01:08:55

Yeah, depending on the story you went.

John: 01:08:56

To during the Obama shortage, I may have know what stuff was on what truck for this place I was working at.

John: 01:09:04

Maybe I was at the door early in the morning.

Danielle: 01:09:08

Well, but like certain places were putting limits on what you could buy.

Danielle: 01:09:11

So it's like you get two boxes of 22.

Dan: 01:09:13

Well, and then people would go in and they would hide it around, around the store.

Dan: 01:09:16

Oh, yeah, there was those stories, right?

Dan: 01:09:18

So, yeah, and then their buddies would come and they go, oh, go check by the fishing rods.

John: 01:09:24

We were brand, we were a brand new store when, when I got hired on and we got a shipment of everything.

John: 01:09:32

And I remember very distinctly there was a gun show going on down the road.

John: 01:09:38

And there was a guy who came to the store, bought a brick of 22, left, went to the gun show, sold it, came back another brick of 22, went back to the gun show, sold it, and then a third guy came in and was like, yeah, I just went to the gun show and I bought a thousand rounds.

John: 01:09:55

I felt so bad for this too.

John: 01:09:57

He goes, I bought a thousand rounds of 556 for a got around and I go, I got a thousand rounds right here for 429.

John: 01:10:08

And I'm like, I'm so sorry.

John: 01:10:10

And he's like, dang it, I knew I should've came here first.

John: 01:10:13

I'm like, do you have somebody you can sell a thousand rounds to?

John: 01:10:16

Because I can.

John: 01:10:17

I can sell you this.

John: 01:10:19

He ended up buying it too.

John: 01:10:20

I guess he went back to the gun show and sold this stuff again.

John: 01:10:25

But it was crazy, like how the secondary market for ammo just went through the roof and people were just coming in and buying.

John: 01:10:33

Like I, like I, when shipments and nine mm would come in, I would like snag a couple boxes and I keep them behind the counter.

John: 01:10:43

And then I would come back, I would buy it on break and then put it away.

John: 01:10:48

And I remember this very, this girl comes up to the counter and she's like, I really need nine mil ammo.

John: 01:10:55

And I was like, here you go.

John: 01:10:58

This is what I have.

Dan: 01:10:59

Special stash.

John: 01:11:00

Special stash, my little stash for me.

John: 01:11:02

But like, like Black Friday was crazy.

John: 01:11:04

We got shipments then of large blazer, but the prices were roof and it's just was an insane time again.

John: 01:11:15

And I really hope we don't see it again.

John: 01:11:17

But you know, who knows what happened?

John: 01:11:20

It is an election year and, you know, we're so good.

John: 01:11:26

I believe we're going to see another, like, uptick like we normally do around that time.

John: 01:11:31

But I think, I think our industries are a little bit more prepared.

John: 01:11:35

A lot of companies are starting to open up primer and brass manufacturers here in the state.

John: 01:11:41

I know SIG just opened a huge facility.

John: 01:11:43

I know there's a couple companies down in Florida that have opened up their own primer and case facility.

John: 01:11:51

I know that there's another place opening up for the shotgun show, plastic, because that became a issue as well.

Dan: 01:11:59

So it's all the market, right?

Dan: 01:12:01

It's the capitalist system and, you know, when there's a need, it's going to get filled.

Dan: 01:12:06

And so if you think about with all of the more capacity that we have in the system, but we also have more shooters.

Dan: 01:12:14

Right?

Danielle: 01:12:15

And so, so there's, there's that just overall higher demand.

Dan: 01:12:17

Yeah.

Dan: 01:12:18

But ultimately, actually, if you think about what we're trying to do, it really is to help.

Dan: 01:12:25

We were never going to be able to prevent a shortage or a panic buying situation.

Dan: 01:12:31

But if our customers at least have confidence in knowing that, hey, ammo squared's got my ammo, I don't have to go and stand in line now.

Dan: 01:12:39

That's one less person that's trying to.

Danielle: 01:12:41

Panic buy, we can help them ride.

Kayleigh: 01:12:43

Out the storm and I think give some people some confidence.

Kayleigh: 01:12:48

Especially, um, you know, if you are, again, what I like about your, your, your product and your brand is the fact that you don't have to have enough money to purchase a whole box.

Dan: 01:13:03

Right?

Kayleigh: 01:13:03

Like, I think it is so awesome.

Kayleigh: 01:13:05

Like you said, you know, it's a five dollar buy in a month.

Kayleigh: 01:13:08

You know, if it takes you four months to get a box, so be it.

Kayleigh: 01:13:12

Yeah.

Kayleigh: 01:13:13

And, you know, especially if it gets, you know, you're kind of getting a fairly good price because in a month that ammo can, can fluctuate tremendously.

Kayleigh: 01:13:25

So there's one last question that I think a lot of people will have.

Kayleigh: 01:13:34

Maybe not go for it, but we're going to go there anyway.

Kayleigh: 01:13:38

Never know until you were talking about the fact that you got some green tip ammo in the past, I know we brought up like, steel casing.

Kayleigh: 01:13:47

What is the diversity of what people can expect even within those two or three tiered groupings that you have so.

Dan: 01:13:58

Out of like, common rounds?

Dan: 01:13:59

You mean because we trimmed our catalog down and then it's actually a lot of diversity.

Dan: 01:14:07

Diversity because we have, and everything is on our website, so you can always go in and click on prices.

Dan: 01:14:12

We've actually got kind of a cool price chart that it goes back in time and it looks at, like, the highs and the lows and then our price, and then we list right there exactly what we're shipping out right now.

Dan: 01:14:21

And so.

Dan: 01:14:23

And that's actually something you didn't ask, but is kind of a misconception, is that people think they have a bin with their name on it and they don't.

Dan: 01:14:31

Right.

Dan: 01:14:31

So it's.

Dan: 01:14:33

You have an online account that has a certain amount of ammo, and when I total all of that up, I need to make sure I've got that in the warehouse.

Dan: 01:14:41

And so then when it comes time, there's actually a good thing, too, is that when it comes time to ship that you don't have a bin that's been sitting there for five years with dusty old ammo.

Dan: 01:14:50

You've getting fresh new ammo that literally just came off of our truck.

Dan: 01:14:54

You know, it came off a factory truck, and it's been sitting in our warehouse maybe for a month or two, you know, because of our, you know, churn time or our turnover, I guess.

Dan: 01:15:03

But, um.

Dan: 01:15:04

But as far as the diversity, we.

Dan: 01:15:06

We really do try to introduce people to different brands, but we also.

Dan: 01:15:13

We take responsibility in the fact that we're picking the ammo for them.

Dan: 01:15:21

Right.

Dan: 01:15:21

And so I don't go to questionable brands or things that I wouldn't shoot myself and then expect people to take that.

Dan: 01:15:30

So, actually, we don't have steelcase anymore.

Dan: 01:15:34

That was one of the ones that got cut.

Dan: 01:15:35

The only one we do have is: 76239

Dan: 01:15:38

It's obvious.

Dan: 01:15:39

But we don't have green tip anymore.

Dan: 01:15:42

Because the other problem with the green tip was we had to create a category for.

Dan: 01:15:47

It was five, five six.

Dan: 01:15:48

No green tip.

Dan: 01:15:49

Because there were so many people that said, in the early days, we just lump it all together and they said, I can't shoot that at my range.

Dan: 01:15:56

Because steel targets, we just decided, as a company, we'll just eliminate that.

Dan: 01:16:02

But within the.

Dan: 01:16:04

So where it does get tricky is hunting and match ammo, because obviously, usually somebody, if they're going to sight their gun in at a certain.

Dan: 01:16:14

Certain bullet weight, even certain type of bullet.

Dan: 01:16:17

And so in those instances, we still send a variety.

Dan: 01:16:20

Usually we send at least two, sometimes three, for both hunting and match.

Dan: 01:16:25

And I always say, try it out.

Dan: 01:16:28

Use it more like a way to find new things that you would want to shoot versus.

Dan: 01:16:34

Oh, I didn't get all of this.

Dan: 01:16:36

One thing that I always shoot.

John: 01:16:38

Yeah.

John: 01:16:38

It gives you a chance to see what your gun really likes.

Danielle: 01:16:41

You might find something that your rifle loves that.

Danielle: 01:16:43

You just had no idea.

Dan: 01:16:45

Yeah, well, we were just shooting 300 blackout this last week, and there was the Barnes 150 or the 110 grain, the TSX bullet, which is a awesome bullet.

Dan: 01:16:56

Well, for whatever reason, my gun didn't like it.

Dan: 01:16:58

It was like shooting off to the side.

Dan: 01:17:01

Like everything was centered with everything else I was shooting.

Dan: 01:17:03

But with this one bullet, it was like down low into the left, you know, and that's the classic low into the left.

Danielle: 01:17:09

But this was a right, it wasn't a trigger issue, but it was just.

Dan: 01:17:12

This one that it didn't like.

Dan: 01:17:14

Right.

Dan: 01:17:14

So, like, I can now find if I've got like five different types of, you know, hunting 308 or 300.

Dan: 01:17:20

300 blackouth that I could find what, what my gun likes and shoots the best.

John: 01:17:24

This has been fantastic.

John: 01:17:25

I think this has been a great podcast.

John: 01:17:27

Even though we did go over time, it was great because the conversation just kept flowing.

John: 01:17:31

So I'm going to give you guys the chance to shout any socials, website, anywhere they want to go ahead and go for it.

Dan: 01:17:38

Yeah.

Dan: 01:17:38

Animalsquared.com, you can sign up there.

Dan: 01:17:41

We're actually not big on, we have accounts on Facebook and Instagram, but we don't, we're not friends.

Danielle: 01:17:47

We don't hang out.

Dan: 01:17:48

But we do have, we do have XDev account.

Danielle: 01:17:51

Yeah, we do have an square account.

Danielle: 01:17:52

I mean, we technically have a Facebook page and an Instagram, but we don't post on it because we don't want to get zucked.

John: 01:18:01

That's.

Danielle: 01:18:03

Yeah, but ammasquared.com, yeah, amosquared.com.

Danielle: 01:18:06

and we have a newsletter you can sign up for.

Danielle: 01:18:09

You know, we.

Danielle: 01:18:11

Dan, he won't say this, but he's a great writer.

Danielle: 01:18:13

He's a smart guy sometimes.

Danielle: 01:18:15

He has his moments, but, you know, he just, you know.

Danielle: 01:18:18

And our CTO has started writing some blog posts and newsletters, post and things.

Danielle: 01:18:24

I've wrote one so far.

Danielle: 01:18:25

I'm a busy lady, so.

Danielle: 01:18:28

But, um.

Danielle: 01:18:28

But yeah, I mean, there's, there are ways to get in touch with us.

John: 01:18:31

Perfect.

John: 01:18:32

Well, guys, thank you for joining us today.

John: 01:18:34

Make sure to, like, share and subscribe.

John: 01:18:35

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John: 01:18:37

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John: 01:18:40

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John: 01:18:44

There is a link for a discount for $20 for the year.

John: 01:18:46

And thank you for watching and have a great rest of your day.