Episode 323: Knight 9- Celebrating Community and Future Tech in Airsoft

When a heartfelt gift finds its way into your hands, you're reminded of the incredible community that's sprung up from a simple idea. Our latest episode is a celebration of that community, a look back at our roots in airsoft gaming and unboxings, and how it's blossomed into a place for vibrant discussion and shared life experiences. We've hit the 323rd episode mark, and with Alex, Dakota and Corey from Knights 9 Airsoft joining us, we're not just reminiscing; we’re setting our sights on the 400th episode by New Year's Eve. Their stories of growth, from skirmishes to major events, and how an airsoft team adapts to life's shifts, mirror our own podcast's evolution.
Embracing the camaraderie of airsoft means more than just talking tactics. It's about the connections made, the laughter shared over gear mishaps, and the collective groan when a well-placed shot hits a little too low. From recounting moments of silent, tactical prowess during games to exploring the challenges of building a YouTube presence in an ever-shifting social media landscape, our conversation covers the full spectrum of life as airsoft enthusiasts. We dive into the ethics of gameplay, the unspoken bonds formed on the field, and how even amid the intensity of the sport, a sense of humor can turn a sniper's perch encounter into an anecdote for the ages.
Every episode is a step forward in our journey, and this one is no exception, exploring not just the past but the future of airsoft with the introduction of innovative tracking technology like Skirmish. Offering real-time stats that could revolutionize how we play and engage with the sport, we're peeking into what might be on the horizon for players around the world. As we share these insights and stories, we're not just speaking to airsoft aficionados; we're inviting anyone who's part of our growing community to join in the conversation, laugh along with our tales, and maybe, just maybe, find themselves intrigued enough to gear up and join us on the field.

https://www.facebook.com/Knight9Airsoft/

https://www.youtube.com/@knight9airsoft/videos

Transcript

Erock: 0:22

Welcome guys.

Corey: 0:25

Thanks for having us Thank you. Absolutely.

Erock: 0:27

Yeah, we're pretty excited.

Corey: 0:28

This is pretty cool. I'm glad it's like that 1776.

Erock: 0:35

Yeah, that's a wooden flag, so all the black on there is burnt wood.

Corey: 0:40

Burnt wood.

Erock: 0:40

Yep with a torch.

Erock: 0:41

I need that so shout out, yeah, shout out to Hateful Hank that's his screen name on Instagram and early on in our channel, like the first God, I want to say the first within the first year, for sure, but maybe the first six months. I was scrolling through Instagram and his his. Some of his videos popped up on my feed and it was a short video of him making one of these flags and it was like clipped, you know, like edited, where it was kind of sped up and this kind of thing, and I saw him making this. I was like, oh, I need that. So I reached out to him here.

Erock: 1:24

It turns out this dude knows our channel. Oh, he said, hey, my nickname's a Iraq. You know, I run this, uh, this YouTube channel for a traffic airsoft. And he was like, oh, I follow you guys. I was like what? So I was like, dude, I want one of those flags. So I bought the flag from him a couple hundred bucks, whatever. And then that red uh led sign right here.

Corey: 1:45

Yeah.

Erock: 1:45

He made that as a gift and sent it with the flag.

Corey: 1:49

That's cool yeah.

Erock: 1:50

It was bad-ass. And then he made this dude. I was like I felt so spoiled. I was like, holy shit, um, he made this uh knife and uh like from scratch.

Corey: 2:03

Oh okay, cool Okay. He Like from scratch. Oh, okay, cool Okay, because he burned him to it.

Erock: 2:06

Yeah.

Corey: 2:08

Nice.

Erock: 2:09

And this thing is probably the sharpest blade I have in the house besides a razor, no kidding. So it's pretty cool. Man Made the leather holster and everything. So I felt like, geez bro, like we were a new channel and everything. So it was pretty cool.

Corey: 2:26

Well, you're now up to what? 321 episodes?

Erock: 2:30

Yes, sir, out of what you came out of one day or yesterday. Yeah, today one came out, it was 321. Tomorrow is 322. Next week, next Saturday, this one, your guys' will be 323.

Corey: 2:41

Sweet.

Erock: 2:42

Yeah, man, yeah, I didn't. Uh, in case you guys don't know the history um of the actual podcast itself, I didn't plan on starting a podcast. We started a YouTube channel doing um airsoft, like mystery boxes, unboxings, reviews, all kinds of stuff, started playing airsoft or whatever. They got busy with life, kids, marriage, houses, okay, and I was like yeah, right.

Erock: 3:13

I mean, that's what happens. And I was like, man, I really want to keep the channel going, you know, because once you start interacting with a bunch of people that are questioning this or we have a Discord and all this kind of stuff. So I was like, let me keep doing this stuff. So that's kind of where the podcast came from. I didn't really plan on it, it just happened along the way and I didn't at first, I really didn't plan on calling it a podcast. Right, I'm making a podcast. So it was like I'll just throw these videos up. It's something cool. I think, you know, our current viewers will enjoy me talking with this other person that they've already known because they know from our discord and that kind of thing. So, and then it I was like man, this is cool, like this is really fun, so I'm gonna keep doing it. And then later on, like months into it, then I was like I'm gonna make this like a real podcast. So yeah, I've enjoyed.

Corey: 4:08

Alex here is actually the one that kind of got me into it. Just, we were I'm going to make this like a real podcast. So, uh, yeah, I've enjoyed. Um, alex here is actually the one that kind of got me into it introduced we were on our way to uh, is it bowl of air? Missouri, yeah, I'm Missouri to an event, uh, almost two weeks ago and, um, he's like you got to check out this podcast podcast and he's likeecta. I was like, okay, I like the name. All right, I'm, I'm listening. So we put it up on the in the uh, in the truck and I think we listened to like two or three episodes all the way out there. And uh, he's like you know, we can go on there, I'm like you're lying. And then he showed me like the, the form where you fill out, you know your information and try to put in a request. And then, when you messaged us back, I was like, okay, he's not lying, so absolutely cool.

Erock: 4:53

That's, that is cool, man. Well, I'm, I'm on uh. My goal is to hit episode 400. Um, I want episode 400 to be released on new year's eve day, so so December 31st of this year. So, no, um, it's, it's more of um, it's not even the number of 400 episodes, it's not like a bragging right, it's more of a um, it's kind of a goal for myself to keep me consistent and focused on Uh, because I've, if I keep that goal, I've got to release two every week and then kind of throw in a couple more here and there which I want to do like a Mother's Day one, I want to do a Father's Day one, and then Veterans Day I always do every year I do a special one for Veterans Day, so those will kind of add in and that'll get me to 400.

Erock: 5:48

So, uh, but yeah, it's more about the almost every episode out of the three, something 300 and something is a new guest, so it's a new story, uh, and that maybe will help somebody in the future. So when I, when I started these podcasts, it was like therapy for me, uh, and so it was like I want to. This is what I want to do, to give back Right, but um, yeah, man, I. So I put that form on there and the last three people I talked to I did not find online. They found how you guys did or whatever. Actually the last two guys. They found it by saying to their little Echo, you know dot thing, or whatever, the Amazon Echo thing.

Corey: 6:30

Oh yeah.

Erock: 6:31

They said Alexa, play Airsoft podcast and mine was the first one that came up and I was like whoa, that's crazy.

Erock: 6:39

So, yeah, it's pretty cool. So then they went on the website and filled out the form. So, yeah, man, I love your guys', your icon, your logo, the Knights 9 Airsoft, and I definitely want to get into that because it's very intriguing. But I have your Facebook page pulled up, but why don't you guys give kind of an intro of each of you or introduce yourselves, and then we'll go into how you came up with night's?

Corey: 7:11

night. You want to go first? Yeah, sure, I'll go first. My name is Dakota, so I'm actually one of the original founding members of team night nine, and I've been doing this for gosh a long time now. Let's talk to one of my other teammates who's been there with me too. It's for a very long time um old man now, honestly playing get joint pains and stuff now, backers now.

Corey: 7:41

But no, I said I've been doing this for quite a while and uh, it was something that started kind of in, uh, kind of near high school for us. So we had kind of started playing then and then, after we graduated high school, we kind of took it a little bit more to um, getting more into like nelson events, going to bigger, larger events, traveling a lot more, since we were at vehicles at that point. You travel, you know, during high school we literally kind of keep it local and go an hour away or hour closer, you know, to go in these places. But now, since we're kind of out, we're able to branch out and travel to new fields, meet new people. We've met tons of awesome people and been a part of tons of awesome events and we started just trying to original.

Corey: 8:24

Our original goal was just to travel around the Midwest, because that's what we're at. We're located here in Kansas, so we're in the right in the middle of Midwest and we were. Our goal was to travel to all these different shops, all these different fields and just kind of meet new people, ask how they got started, ask how long they've been playing, what they, you know, look forward to or want to improve on with their fields or their games. Yeah, this is my turn.

Erock: 8:56

Yeah, let me go over a couple of things real quick. I forgot to go over in case anyone out there that's listening that maybe finds this podcast like you guys did, and just kind of turn it on, you know, on their, on their car when they're driving or whatever. There's no rules. We don't self-censor, it's, it's. We talk openly, we talk freely. There's no subject that's off limits. Okay, if, if it's a part of your life journey or your airsoft journey or whatever, like uh, then then it's cool. Man, like we don't. Um, yeah, so it's all open and all good to go. Okay, so we don't have to.

Erock: 9:37

And I don't, uh, I don't purposely self-censored to buck the system, right, I'm not trying to be rebellious in that way, although I am a rebellious kind of person. So I'm not. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to have a free, flowing, open conversation about our life journey, our history, our whatever. Okay, like, what got us to where we're at today? Who am I and how did I get here right, and how does Airsoft fit into that? So, anyway, so continue, yeah, you're good.

Corey: 10:09

Yeah, I got you. My name is Corey. I'm a call sign chef in the Airsoft world. I started with these guys. I'm much older, I'm 36. So I didn't start playing in high school. I actually met another teammate that is not here right now, hunter, and he was actually one of my employees. I used to be a chef, executive chef, so kind of go figure with the call sign Makes sense and he was telling me about, you know, this Airsoft team. I had played paintball when I was younger. I'm originally from California, so paintballball was really really big out there, right, um, so and uh, I've noticed like the difference between paintball and airsoft community is night and day difference. Yeah, airsofters really don't like paintballers and vice versa it seems to be that way.

Corey: 11:09

But I come from military background. My mom retired army, was in the Marine Corps and it was the closest thing that I could get to without the repercussions.

Corey: 11:22

I guess you could say Right so he brought me out to a field in lawson, missouri, um, which is an old military, uh, silo. I think it was like the 40s or maybe in my 40s or 50s. It was a. It was an active base, has all the original structures, um, as far as like office buildings, helipads, water tower stuff like that, and it was the greatest thing that I could have ever switched to. Yeah, it was, and obviously I brought some, you know, real world experience to these guys being younger whether or not they looked up to me or not, who knows, we know it. We talk a lot of shit on each other oh, that's necessary, yeah yeah, it's necessary

Corey: 12:14

but, um, yeah, it just kind of got me into it and, um, you know they, these guys, alex just bought a new house about a year ago and this young man over here is having babies and I'm pretty much well established my son's 15 years old and in high school. So, um, we kind of talked about it and I kind of pushed us to go a little bit further and travel a little bit further. We've gone as far down as, uh, waxahachie, texas, which is about 11 and a half hour drive down the way. So we try to push for as many events as possible, even open place. But, yeah, it's been a lot of fun and I've just poured as much money, time and sweat and tears and do it as as possible and we're only growing from here.

Erock: 13:08

So you said, your, uh, your mom is an army retired, and then you were in the Corps. I was yeah, yep Fellow jarhead here.

Corey: 13:16

So I usually don't get too much into it. Um it was uh it was a lot, oh yeah, so mine was so far along, so long ago.

Erock: 13:29

I don't. I don't remember most, so you know I don't get.

Corey: 13:33

I stay in contact with maybe less than a handful of the guys that I was with. Oh yeah, but these guys kind of filled in that that empty slot, if you will. So yeah, I've only got.

Erock: 13:51

I've got two guys that I well, one that you know from back then when I now I served from 89 to 93. So that's a long ass time ago.

Corey: 13:57

Yeah, I was two years old, or one years old.

Erock: 14:03

Right, and there's one guy that actually ends up living like we're both from up north, we both live in south carolina now and we were stationed at pendleton together and we live like 10 minutes from each other it's crazy so and both ended up here for different reasons, but, um, so I keep in contact with him. And then one other guy out in Idaho from my when we were stationed at a small little shooting range on Pendleton called Edson range. So, yeah, yeah.

Corey: 15:14

Yeah, it was cool. I will say the the parents in the military life was was not easy. You know, every two years new school, new people. I was in Hohfels, germany, for well, all over, all over germany for six, seven years when I was, you know, really, really young and in school, and then yeah, I could go back um in 2004, and so it was a lot of fun.

Erock: 15:42

But yeah a lot of moving around. Yeah, when you have parents that are in.

Corey: 15:47

Yeah, for sure.

Erock: 15:50

See adults go. Hey, traveling is so cool, but when you're a kid, like dude, you just want to hang out with your friends and then you're leaving all the time. So it's not really that cool when you're young.

Corey: 16:02

Well, you know now that I'm, you know, uh, my wife, who's a little bit younger than I, am, um, she's very seldomly left kansas. I think she went to new york one time. Why anybody would want to go to new york, I don't know right, but you know she's heard all these things, that that I've done and the places I've been, and you know I don't want to travel anymore. When you go to like 16 to 19 different countries, by the time you're like 23, you're just, you want to sit in one spot yeah like oh, this is nice okay yeah awesome.

Erock: 16:41

What about you, alex?

Corey: 16:43

um, Alex, actually in the middle, I guess changing my name he's in the middle of a call sign. I'm a midlife crisis right now. I just turned 30. I just bought a house 30-30.

Erock: 16:59

Did you get a minivan?

Corey: 17:02

Nope, not yet.

Erock: 17:02

Okay, well, you're so good.

Corey: 17:06

I got a cigar and some beer, so it works. Um, yeah, I've been probably playing for 10-15 years, maybe a little bit more than that. I'm not originally from here in kansas, I'm actually from fort wayne, indiana.

Corey: 17:23

Uh, played a few years up there and just throwing on some hunting jackets and paintball mask and just going at it with a couple of other friends at their house, it was kind of headed from there and came over here, met Dakota over here and he was like hey, we've got an airsoft team. So I kind of joined into that and I've been hooked ever since that. Yeah, I think it was a message to me, I think on Facebook, saying hey, you Airsoft, what's that about?

Erock: 17:57

I paint, mold and I was like, oh yeah, it's nothing like that. It's better. It's a lot better.

Corey: 18:10

It's a model kit. So I showed him what we had done and he's like yeah, how do I, how do I get a part of that? And so I think the next day you dropped like almost a thousand dollars. I dropped fifteen hundred dollars he's like I was like yeah, I was like yeah, I was like I just got a mess. This is like.

Erock: 18:30

I swear that's the most common story. It's like, uh, somebody gets into it and then two weeks later they're oh yeah, I've got I don't know $1,200 into this stuff already.

Corey: 18:42

Yeah, like eight packages on your doorstep. It's been fun. I mean, I've been with these guys ever since then. We've been traveling around.

Erock: 18:59

You're cut off, son. Okay, I'm cut off. Not too many, that's okay. He's the medic. Yeah, there you go.

Corey: 19:06

My call sign was ghost, but kind of want to switch it over to something a little bit more plain, like doc or something like that. But that's like I said. I'm in that weird phase right now. Yeah, I'm just trying to find the army call signs.

Erock: 19:26

So what was it? Ghost? Is that what you're?

Corey: 19:28

Yeah, it was ghost.

Erock: 19:30

Yeah, so ghost Reaper, like all these, those kind of you know, those are all those call signs are like all of them are taken like a hundred times.

Corey: 19:44

Well, there's one. There's one nickname that I'm swaying to it's Caboose. There's multiple reasons behind that. There's Red vs Blue. I don't know if you've ever seen that, oh yeah.

Erock: 19:57

I used to watch that when it first came out, well before your time.

Corey: 20:03

We think you should be called Hello Kitty and there's a story behind that, oh shit, now that's a great one. Okay, we'll get into that hello kitty is probably gonna be the number one I think we're just gonna force it, okay.

Corey: 20:21

Um so we got caboose, got hello kitty, I guess, and then, um so the other story about caboose was I was actually at his wedding and I was the very last person to walk out, and I think the lady was like, yeah, you're gonna be the caboose of the line from that moment on, of course that's how they come up, yeah it was.

Corey: 20:45

It was at my wedding. Yeah, lady was trying to get us all lined up to walk. You were last. Yeah, he was last. I was a bit looser, I know he was like all right, you're the caboose.

Erock: 20:55

So how did all you guys meet again? Through work or for school or something?

Corey: 21:00

So I met these guys through you.

Erock: 21:04

Guys went to high school together yeah, we went to high school, but we never actually really hung out in high school, which is pretty crazy.

Corey: 21:12

So there's a guy named Johnny who we will speak of never again. So I met him through a computer class in high school and that chain reaction went all the way up to Dakota and that's how I met Dakota, and that chain reaction went all the way up to.

Corey: 21:25

Dakota, and that's how I met Dakota and that team actually. And then, um, I was the food and beverage director at a restaurant or at a local college and, uh, hunter, our other team, one of our other teammates, had, um, actually brought me out to an event or I think it was an open play out at that loss in Missouri. Yeah, it was an open play. Uh, I don't even think these guys liked me to be there. I was iffy because they're like well, who, the who, the fuck's this guy?

Erock: 21:59

we still really don't.

Corey: 22:04

But no, we we worked together too, oh it was a blind tiger, yeah we worked together and then hunter was kept talking to me about you because I got that I was in the kitchen part um, and he was like a like, I was the ex, like a busser or a food, like a food runner, and I would yell at him and all them all the time and I think that's why they didn't like me at first. But then Hunter brought me out to one of their open plays and they were very unsure and then you and me together we tore up that building, we tore up the whole building just working.

Corey: 22:38

We didn't even speak, we just kind of were able to just do everything.

Erock: 22:41

Didn't say one word to each other.

Corey: 22:42

And we took out the entire building, just me and him, didn't say a lot more to each other. We took out the entire building, just me and him. We got like 12 guys I think. I think we had almost 15 guys out with just pistols, yeah, and we didn't communicate at all. That was the first day we played together and we just went through the building and we just were able to read each other super well and we cleared out the whole building with like 15 guys, what.

Erock: 23:02

It was pretty cool there's a video, I think.

Corey: 23:05

I think it's like one of the earliest videos we have on youtube of us, or no, it was my uh youtube my amoeba m4 the brand the first gun that I ever bought yeah I also spent like 1500. I actually the other day I checked on my uh-vick account because it'll save all your past history. I'm up to like $4,800. Oh my God, it's a lot. It's a lot.

Erock: 23:31

I mean it adds up fast.

Corey: 23:33

I never did that yeah, I never, spent that when I got into it. I never did any of that. I actually got all mine from just other people who were either playing or that were stop playing. They're like like, hey, you want this, you know, helmet, I'll give it to you for 20 bucks. I was like yeah, sure, and like hey, colin, that's where I got my plate carrier from is from our other teammate, colin. He was like he swapped it up like gary. He's like hey, here's this. You know fly industries plate carrier.

Erock: 23:58

That's top quality top notch.

Corey: 24:00

You give it to you for like 60 bucks, including some taco pouches, you know, included in my pool. That's what I still run with to this day. And you drop all your stuff and I still drop that's pretty common as well. You got stuff falling out of your pouches, which I'm now starting to do well, there's so many people.

Erock: 24:23

I've talked with they. They go all right. So what our team does this is what they tell me. What our team does is when they blow the whistle or sound the horn or they say, go like at a Milsim or a big event, they don't even run, they just stay there and then they just walk forward and pick up all of everyone's gear.

Corey: 24:45

I saw a short clip of that the other day when I was uploading one of our youtube shorts and I was like man, I'm usually the one that I'll look at like last weekend. I looked at dakota. I was like I'm gonna outrun all these little fucking kids. Sure enough, I was just gone, fully geared, rifle, swinging back and forth and, uh, I don't think you dropped. I don't think I dropped a single thing that time, but every other time I've got it. I'm running like this weird knockoff chinese battle belt with these real kydex pouches and things are falling out of my, out of my waistband, and it feels all good if I, if my rifle presses against my plate carrier, even with the slightest pressure, my mag will fall out of my rifle. Nice, I think that's your beer. Yeah, it's not beer.

Erock: 25:38

So you guys started out and then just pretty much went gung-ho right Like getting into the events and what was your first bigger? What's that?

Corey: 25:48

we stayed around kansas for quite a while. Yeah, we found uh overwatch tactics. We went to with that water park in missouri. Well, I had originally when I when I had started before overwatch tactics.

Erock: 26:04

Yeah, oh nice For my t-shirt. Who's that?

Corey: 26:08

Shout out to Soto, Soto yeah.

Erock: 26:12

Yeah, shout out Overwatch Tactics. Who are they?

Corey: 26:15

They're actually not. They don't. It used to be a Milsem host. They're not active. Okay, gotcha, they put on probably one of the best, I think, nilsson experiences we've been to with Overwatch Tactics. They had fantastic props, they had fantastic objectives, everything about it was great. Everything flowed so nicely. One of the most famous events they would put was Conquest of Avalon.

Corey: 26:45

That's the one we would drive down to texas for. So it was actually a um, renaissance field. That's what it was a renaissance fairground that they were. They had permission for us to play airsoft and milson event for the meeting there and it was. It was a lot of fun. They would have all these cool props there. One of them was they had like american gladiator, um, like type of swords and stuff. So they were on a bridge and you were kind of doing American Gladiator fighting yeah.

Corey: 27:12

So he did a lot of fun stuff and I heard about him originally because I talked to him. He actually messaged me, I think a long time ago, and this was back in Joplin. It was a water park.

Erock: 27:25

You did the Enola Gate, that water park, you did the Enola Gay. That's where I did the Enola Gay commercial.

Corey: 27:29

That's where I did that you did an EG commercial yeah, so it was terrible. It was terrible, it was pretty bad hopefully this trumps that. A local kind of was a hobbyist store um in town. They were trying to branch into the airsoft zone and they were kind of asking me because I went there and bought some like bbs and batteries and stuff from them and they're asking me like, hey, how do we branch more?

Corey: 28:03

into this and get more into this, and one of the things I recommended to them was well, you know, you gotta sell bbs, you gotta sell ipro and then you gotta sell batteries and then you can sell some guns. That's what you need to get going. And they talked about some kind of pyros and so I told them about anola gay. So they bought a giant box of anola gay smoke grenades and they said, hey, like if you can do this commercial for us to promote us and send it to us, we'll be happy to start giving you guys the Enola Gay smoke grenades.

Corey: 28:32

So they gave me, I think, three or four grenades and they said, yeah, just go ahead and make a video. And I made this really, really bad video. It's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. Yeah, it wasn't that bad video. It's on our.

Erock: 28:51

It's on the Facebook page under videos, but it's like one of the very first ones well, it's gonna come down here for me, we're gonna show it right now. What are you talking?

Corey: 29:03

about. I actually, I actually, um, I've kind of taken over. Well, alex and I have both have kind of taken over the social media aspect and we don't have like a massive following. But I will say, anywhere that we go, the following is a lot different in person versus on on social media very much. So everybody knows exactly exactly who we are. They've seen us before. They know what we're capable of, the work that we put in and so on and so forth.

Erock: 29:35

This topic has come up a lot in the last month or so. We were just talking about this. I did a podcast last night with a guy in Missouri no Minnesota. I did a podcast last night with a guy in Missouri no Minnesota, and I'm on the way over here to his house.

Erock: 29:51

Okay, so, yeah, so that guy, the one that came out today, his friend or the, these guys know each other. I actually taught, uh recorded one last night. That one comes out tomorrow. Yeah, they were both in Minnesota. Uh, we were just talking about that how in real life the Airsoft community is way bigger than what it looks like online.

Erock: 30:12

And the reason is is because of the shadow banning, the censorship, all of that bullshit. And so, yeah, you're going to find like there's one of the things I said to him last night if you, if anyone, looks online, it looks like the airsoft community is not growing. But you go to these events and I'm talking, I'm not talking events that are put on by these well-known event coordinators that have been doing it for years, even smaller ones that started in the last, like year. Okay, there's like 500, 300 people showing up, 500 people showing up just out of the blue, because wherever you go to put on an event, there are people in real life looking for these events. But it's like everything else online is the opposite, like it's amplified online, but in real life it doesn't really happen that much. And Airsoft is the exact opposite online, but in real life it doesn't really happen that much, and airsoft is the exact opposite.

Corey: 31:08

Well, you know, and like so I've been, I've been dabbling into like video editing for the last probably five years. Um, I've been getting used to it, I've been all right, I built a pretty bcpt years ago, but my wife and I decided um after the uh 2020.

Erock: 31:28

Um, things that happened around around the riots and all the bullshit, yeah the summer of love, as they call it.

Corey: 31:37

We ended up moving out into the country, so we actually haven't had internet for three years now. Like nothing. I maybe have two bars of cell service on my phone and I do all of my editing and everything social media literally from my phone. What?

Erock: 31:59

And then? So then you just use the cell service. You don't have the Wi-Fi or nothing like that, you just use your cell service.

Corey: 32:06

So I have my couch. This is funny. I have my couch oriented in the position to where, if I lean over and I hold it up to my face, I've got perfect 5G.

Erock: 32:16

Oh, shit, okay, oh that's funny.

Corey: 32:20

But yeah, it's been a struggle, I'm sure. But you know we had a short video. I don't know if you've watched any of our YouTube stuff. I had one that we were out at the Rock Airsoft in Missouri. Shout out, john. I posted a short video of me running a Glock, the shipping containers that he just added to his field, and I think I I think I took out like nine or 10 guys. You know they're all getting medicked and not paying attention to the surroundings and I'm just dumping mags. You know dumping a mag but that video got almost 4,600 views in less than 12 hours. Jeez.

Erock: 33:05

And you know the next day.

Corey: 33:07

I try to post every single you know, at least a couple of times a week to kind of fight the algorithm, but I haven't figured it out yet. Man. You know 4,600 views on one day, and then I can wait two days and it'll get 70 views.

Erock: 33:22

Yep.

Corey: 33:23

So the and just like, just like you said, I fully agree Out in the real world, the difference between how noticed you are, or recognized you are, out in the field versus online is a night and day difference. It really does suck, it does dampen the mood about that. It kind of does dampen, dampen the mood of you know about that.

Erock: 33:47

But we're trying, it is, it is nice to you know, when you put a lot of effort into a page or a video and trying to grow that kind of stuff, it is very discouraging. I went when we uh we, when we started our channel, um, it was steadily growing, number all the numbers. Our channel, it was steadily growing, number all the numbers, all the analytics were going up and up. And then when YouTube first, they were the first ones to change their terms of services back in right around 2020, 2020, yep, so the first big change that they had our channel, overnight, within one day, the analytics went from all this growth to like half of our videos on our channel at that time were demonetized. Yeah, so overnight.

Erock: 34:42

And so I look at it, I'm like what the hell? Like what happened? So when I read their Terms of Service specifically, I actually did a video on it early, early on. When that happened, I did a video and I posted on channel because I was going over all the wording and what they you know they clumped in with the gun stuff or whatever, with the toy guns. But even then it still hasn't made sense. It's not been consistent either way.

Corey: 35:08

Yeah.

Erock: 35:09

So it's but yeah.

Corey: 35:11

Well, they can change it whenever they want. Yeah, on the fly, you know they can watch. Let's say you know, hypothetically, watch a video that you know we start talking about. You know pew-pews and you know it can be changed. You know pew pews and you know it can be changed. You know, just like that.

Erock: 35:28

And and that's the thing, Like people at first were like, okay, you know, it's a private business, they can do whatever they want. Yeah, that's fine, Do whatever you want, Okay, but at least be consistent about it. Like, if you're going to hold people you know people's videos and channels accountable to this kind of standard, then do it across the board. And when we weren't seeing that and it's still now we haven't seen that. So the thing people still talk about, oh, they're going to fix their, their whatever that you know their system they're going to. No, they're not. Like, this is done on purpose.

Erock: 36:05

So I have a theory about it. I think it's because it's one of the only hobbies that introduces tactical training and gun use at a young age. Because airsoft attracts 12, 13, 14 year olds, Uh, and not just with little gel blasters or whatever. You know what I mean, Like squirt guns or whatever it is like they're. They're looking up to these guys that are playing mil Sims, that are fully geared up, Okay, and learning real world tactics, and they don't want a society that's awake and in control of themselves and know how to use weapons. That's I think. That's me. Maybe it's a conspiracy theorist in me, but uh it, if you put that mentality to how they're doing, you know, treating all of our videos and our our online stuff and make sense.

Corey: 37:03

Yeah.

Erock: 37:04

You know, but it's frustrating.

Corey: 37:09

I keep telling people let's go to let's go to twitter.

Erock: 37:12

Okay, twitter does videos, twitter does uh, posts, it does, and none of that stuff is censored no so let's just switch over let's just switch over.

Corey: 37:24

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of podcasts that I've watched. Um, I actually so, in 2020, when the riots were going on, I actually, um, joined a podcast, um, as far as like hosting and being a uh, a voice on there, and we would actually have people physically out in the shit watching these. You know, like Portland Oregon, when they're, you know, trying to bomb the courthouse, the federal buildings oh yeah, like that, we had guys out there and we had their feeds up on our, on our channel, and we would get cut off because it's, you know, the they're hurting people or this and that. But I think it's just YouTube writing the narrative with absolutely the, the certain people.

Erock: 38:12

My original Facebook. I had a Facebook, my original Facebook. I started in 2008. So late 2007, early 2008. And I had all my family, all of our friends, you know, know all this kind of stuff over the years. Well, when I, when uh, 2020 happened, I started a new youtube channel called educate yourself, and it was all about what you're talking about. I was going it was the political stuff. I was going off about this. I would, I would play kind of a know, I had a persona, I would wear like a American flag bandana and I would be yelling and screaming about how dumb wearing a mask is and you know the vaccine, blah, blah, blah. Okay, and all my shit got taken down. My YouTube channel got cut off. My Facebook, my personal one, because I was, I was posting links to my YouTube videos, oh yeah.

Erock: 39:10

So my original Facebook got taken down. It's all that shit got away, so I had to start over on my Facebook thing. What's funny is if you look up TriVec Airsoft on Facebook, there's two pages my current- one.

Corey: 39:23

I didn't notice that, did you?

Erock: 39:25

see that. And the old one that has, like I don't know, 300 followers. Like you can notice a big difference. I can't get into that one Cause that was the one that was attached to my original. I'm like shit, so, but yeah, anyway, I know, I know the feeling, but yeah, I started doing all the stuff on rumble at around that time. Yes, right, yes.

Corey: 39:49

We're actually going to start. We um this. Last couple of weeks we've started talking about getting a rumble channel going and actually doing our own kind of uh I guess you can call it podcasting. We're more interested in doing gear reviews. Something I've been working on for the last probably four or five months is working on getting small sponsors for us, and I'm not looking for anything free. I'll definitely pay for good products. You know good good products for what we need. You know what we need them for. So we've actually got X fog on board. So that'll be coming up in the next maybe month or a couple of weeks.

Erock: 40:38

Yeah Good, I love X.

Corey: 40:40

We'll have. We'll have a promo code for us and then, you know, if we do our own like reviews and stuff like that, we'll have promo codes for any kind of. I thought about doing it just for subscribers, but I don't, I don't know. I think someone could easily just watch it and then type in the code and they should be fine from there. But you know, do gear reviews, um, maybe, uh events, or talk about videos, airsoft fields? You know that we go to, or that we want to go to um and who knows, if it grows big enough, maybe have have you on our podcast absolutely.

Erock: 41:20

I love that. Well, so I I've been on. Let's see, I was on. They don't do a podcast anymore, which I was hoping they would start back up, but the oh my God, I had them on the podcast, each of these guys, the Task Force, task Force, podcast, and so they were doing podcasts like every week and they would have guests as well, and that was one of the ones that I saw before I started doing, like before. I really know, you know, known, okay, I want to do a podcast or make this into a podcast, but I watched a handful of theirs and I invited them on. It was great, man, they were. I really looked up to what they were doing because they had a good setup. They had a cool background. They actually had like a little studio set up with different camera angles and stuff. I thought it was awesome. And I'm still not that fancy. Look, I got a webcam. I got some light up stuff back here, all this cool stuff that I've gotten, but that's it. I'm not doing all the different cameras everywhere.

Corey: 42:27

You could have seen how long it took us like this, like we were arguing with each other. So we asked, we asked if he had any tape he brought, like this little ass piece of scotch tape that he put with. We got tape in it, and it was a feat. So, we got here at like 5 o'clock to get ready and set up and I'm glad you did.

Erock: 42:54

And we were down to the minute.

Corey: 42:58

That's crazy, dude. I think we did. Okay, it's a great.

Erock: 43:00

Yeah, I was going to say it's a great flag, though.

Corey: 43:02

yes, this is actually we just got what. Two weeks ago I had this made and we had it up at the. You know, I really wanted to go with. We try to push for local and support local, like small businesses, because I mean, you know how that's going and they're all going downhill, but Vistaprint $86. Oh yeah, oh yeah, it is really, it's really good material.

Erock: 43:31

Shout out to this. Oh for real man shout out to this that's where we got our first uh yeah, when we got our business cards made for the for the channel. Same thing, yeah, no yeah, I mean you.

Corey: 43:42

Just as much as I want to support local, I'm gonna go with the best price. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean you. Just as much as I want to support local, I'm gonna go with the best price, yeah.

Erock: 43:48

I mean yeah, I mean we all have that, that balance, or that there's a point where, okay, so like and I'm sure you guys know this, I've been hit up numerous times in the last few years since we started channel by patch companies that say, oh, you know it's send us your that, you know it says pakistan. I'm like no, nope, not doing it.

Corey: 44:10

We had a guy reach out to us a couple weeks ago, um, about patches, and so I I kind of entertained the conversation and he's like I think it was like two dollars a patch.

Erock: 44:22

I'm like okay so let's go a's go a little bit deeper so he can bury himself in this hole.

Corey: 44:28

And it was not good, not good. I expect to pay about $5 to $10 a patch on a bulk order which again shout out to Poppins Patches who makes our patches? Out to Poppins Patches, who makes our patches? Pretty soon we'll probably have a link, probably on our YouTube and Facebook, so people can actually order and purchase. And Instagram, yeah, instagram, twitter, that's all he's in charge.

Erock: 45:01

That's all.

Corey: 45:04

Most pictures. I'm good. We're in the process of trying to get hoodies and T-shirts, but the design that we want seems too extravagant for the maker. I guess. So we're in the process of doing that. I think we have like five websites pulled up right now. We tried to do a design last night through some local company. On their website they have an option to make you know, kind of like upload your images and make the like a PDF preview. Oh, yep.

Corey: 45:37

It was I, or I was going to order 25 large T-shirts with everything you know I want. We want the flag on the on the sleeve, oh yeah, our logo on the back with 99 airsoft going on it, and then kind of like work, you know, to pick a kansas on the front where the pocket would be like 487 dollars for 12 t-shirts.

Erock: 45:58

I was gonna say, when you start adding stuff on the sleeves, man, that's, uh, that's where the price goes up.

Corey: 46:04

Yeah, it's crazy. I might just bring out a paint pen and start calling it some Fruit of the Loom t-shirts. Make a stencil man out of paper and cardboard and just spray paint that shit on.

Erock: 46:20

okay, that's actually not a bad idea, hey listen, I'm saying that because I did that, not with these shirts.

Corey: 46:24

Oh shit.

Erock: 46:25

I did that, for this is about four years ago. We had a Super Bowl party here Whenever the Bengals, the Cincinnati Bengals, were in the last, whatever last Super Bowl they were in. Maybe it's three years ago, but a couple of our family members are from Cincinnati. My daughter married into her husband and his cousins and stuff are all from Cincinnati, so they were Bengals fans. So we had a big Super Bowl party here and I was like shit, I don't have a Bengals shirt and they're kind of expensive, you know.

Corey: 46:54

I mean like if you buy that because especially once they go right. So I bought.

Erock: 46:59

My wife bought orange shirts. I said, just when you're at the store, by the cheapest orange shirts you can get. So we bought orange shirts. I said, just when you're at the store, buy the cheapest orange shirts you can get. So we bought orange t-shirts. I made a stencil, while she was at the store, of a big uh B with the little stripes through it. You know the tiger claw scratches and I spray painted black spray paint on this shit, uh, front and back. It looked awesome. And they everybody came over and they were like dude, where'd you get that shirt? I'm like in my shed.

Corey: 47:22

Came over and they were like dude, where'd you get that shirt? I'm like in my shed. Yeah, that's funny. That's actually not a bad idea. I don't know. I think this thing would be hard to stencil yeah.

Erock: 47:38

Well, that kind of stuff you have to do in layers, see, like this right here, because the T's not touching the triangle.

Erock: 47:44

The stencil you have to do separate, like two separate things. It was a pain in the ass. You know what I did with this to get the stencils on my. So we painted some custom like paint jobs on certain guns that we gave away, and so I ordered the stickers that go on your car. What are those called? You know where they? Like this A vinyl. It's a vinyl sticker. Uh, the stickers that go on your car. What are those called? Um, you know where they? Uh, like this it's a vinyl stickle, sticker stickle, but uh it's like uh you, you rub it on, it's got.

Erock: 48:21

It comes in on a plastic uh backing, whatever. You stick it on there and then push it real hard and then peel it off and then this all stays. These are all separate pieces, you know, and um, so it's uh, yeah, you, if you see these uh ones uh stickers on the back of somebody's window on their car that have all these different designs but it's all together, that's it is, it's one of these kind of stickers. So I took one of those. I ordered a two inch.

Erock: 48:47

One is real small and maybe about this size, maybe a little smaller, and then I would spray paint the gun whatever color I wanted the this to be, and then I would let it dry, then put this on and then spray paint the gun whatever the color. The guns gonna be the custom, whether it's camouflage or we painted one that was all bright yellow and we called it the Chappy. Have you guys seen the movie Chappy? Remember the gun that Yellow M4, the guy's using? So we called it the Chappy gun and we gave it away. So everything was bright yellow and then this was black. So anyway, if you get one of those stickers made that'll, you can put it on something and use it as a stencil. It's perfect.

Corey: 49:34

We have, we have. I think you ordered stickers for us, didn't you? You made stickers a while back. They're like just the plain Jane, you know, you put the four quarters in and push it in and slide it out. Yeah, oh yeah. They're not, like you know, like a PVC patch sticker or anything like that, but they do somewhat mimic the shield. I don't know if you've seen like our Facebook photos, but the original shield was pretty cheesy well that was so yeah, that was the original one was actually really bad.

Corey: 50:14

But the story behind that one was one of my other teammates that started with me. He was no, that was Colin. Still, he was like, hey, I'm going to make a patch order for our team and I was like, okay, I was like when? Like when are you doing? Because I'm doing it tomorrow, so I need to make a design, like right now. So I was at my dorm and my mom had laptop it's like.

Corey: 50:39

It's like two in the morning and he's like I need you to make me something right now so I can place the order. So I made something just within like two hours, I think, and said to him he goes, great, I'm going to go and place the order. And yeah, then you came along like hey, what, what is this? So I was like this actually took me probably 15 minutes to make online and this is our, this is our patch.

Erock: 51:07

Oh, is that the original.

Corey: 51:08

This is the new patch, oh okay, so and their PVC.

Erock: 51:14

Velcro, yeah, you got it right up here so that's the original one that I made for like an hour. It's not bad. It's really not bad.

Corey: 51:25

It's different.

Erock: 51:26

It's different.

Corey: 51:30

I haven't seen one of those in a long time. That's some nostalgia Really. I can feel myself crying. It was definitely time for an update. The new patch just came out really really well. They never had to update it again. Why, oh, yeah, yeah.

Erock: 51:55

Our original one was actually had a lot more going on than this. So we it was like the same kind of idea you guys have like a crest right, like a shield, with this in the middle, and then it had crossed M4s above it and then below it it had a bunch of stuff Like it was a lot to fit in in this little thing. And so me and my two sons and then JP JP actually drew it up, so he was actually the one that came up with trifecta airsoft. So when we started talking about it, I said I had another YouTube channel that I was doing reviews on and that I still actively post on now, but I was doing reviews and these guys got these. One of my sons got a little airsoft. I think it was a JG or something like that.

Corey: 52:52

A JG shotgun or something.

Erock: 52:55

And oh no, it was Jag Arms. That's what it was, Jag Arms. And we got I said, dude, that's kind of cool, a little pump action right, a little stubby sawed off kind of thing. And I was like, oh, let me film that and put it on this review channel. So then a couple of weeks later they come back with like legit looking M4s, you know airsoft, like Crytek or something. And I was like, bro, what is that? And so then they were telling me about all these different guns and then all this stuff. And that's how I was like man, that sounds like a lot where, like a lot of content, we can just make our own separate channel just for Airsoft. And that was kind of how the channel started. I was like, I'll do the channel, I'm already running this other one or whatever. So I'll film all this crap and I'll put it on here. You guys, I'm already running this other one or whatever. So I'll film all this crap and I'll put it on here. You guys just play.

Erock: 53:50

And and then Johnny was telling us about the mystery boxes, and so it kind of snowballed from there, and so originally we would all sit down together and kind of come up with ideas for the, the channel, you know. So we came up with this logo. Johnny came up with the name cuz I said I don't want to be in it, I'm just going to run it from behind the scenes. So you know, jew three. So that's how he came up with trifecta because of the three of them. And so he came up with this logo and it had a bunch of other stuff and I was like man, it's, it looks awesome, but it's fit well on a patch, on a sticker, on a embroidered kind of thing.

Erock: 54:28

Probably seemed really crowded. It was very crowded and I said so look at, look at all the major biggest companies out here, right, google, amazon, like facebook, like you. Look at their logos. It's the shortest, simplest like thing out there, right. And uh said let's just take this out, take this out and leave this. And when he drew it up the second time, he drew it up just like this, and I was like I like that dude, let's, let's go with that. So it is kind of cool to have a lot more stuff on it, but for a logo purpose or whatever, like a t-shirt, you know, you want to add a bunch of cool, like a scene or whatever, uh, but you have a lot more space on a t-shirt and I think you know, with with like a, with like logos.

Corey: 55:18

I think that ties into like people's attention span, especially like even tying it into like social media yeah people's attention span on a video is probably 20 seconds, so you know you want a patch that sticks out. You know, with some, something that's gonna catch your eye with vibrant colors or you know from your peripheral.

Corey: 55:38

Oh, okay, you know what the patch that when they finally look a little closer you can, you can really see what it is. So that airsoft team, uh, slaughter, yeah, yeah, it's just plain simple, it's just a slaughter it's just a black, black simple background. Uh cloth background with a pvc riser that says slaughter on it but yeah cool little font like blood dripping and yeah yeah, yeah, I had one of those guys that was kind of the idea is to make something more simple and and copy right, absolutely yeah, because a logo is really for branding.

Erock: 56:14

So your logo should be, like you said, uh all that stuff like simple and basically uh something that somebody's going to recognize later on, like they don't even have to know that, they don't have to have any words to it or nothing. They just see it and they remember. Okay, that's what it's connected to this Yep.

Corey: 56:33

Like a, like a specific. You know your own little image. You know like when people see this patch, they like they. They know like. Oh you know, that's my. Yeah, that's Night 9 Airsoft.

Erock: 56:47

So how did you guys come up with the Night 9? What's that about?

Corey: 56:51

That would be this guy right there, so this is going to sound really nerdy.

Erock: 57:01

Hey man.

Corey: 57:02

Airsoft is full of the weirdest, the goofiest and the nerdiest people I have ever met, and it is fantastic.

Erock: 57:10

The last event.

Corey: 57:11

We had two guys running around in Teletubby hats, I remember that, and it was like 80 degrees outside.

Erock: 57:18

Oh, shit, they had me burning up bro.

Corey: 57:22

Yeah, yeah, they had me sweating just looking at it but yeah, no, it's actually from uh, an anime where we were back in high school. We're big into anime series and we had originally started a team. Originally, and our team before night nine was called saber company and that's what we had started first. But um, another local team, um, we had like some issues with them and so we kind of disbanded after that, just out of respect for that team and, um, well, that's sweet, yeah, yeah.

Erock: 58:03

So then we decided to come up with a new team and rebrand ourselves on that.

Corey: 58:07

So one of the animes um gosh, I can't remember the name of it now, it was a viking name, I think yorgamond or yorgamonda or something like that. What's the snake that wraps around? The yorgamonda? Yorgamonda? Yeah, that's what the anime is called. And there's a team, there's a group in there of seals, and their seal team name is Night Nine. So we decided to kind of take that, but we changed theirs was Night Time and we decided to take the medieval route with it, because we liked that a little bit better. And so that's kind of where we came up with night nine, right, and it's uh, we have the templar cross, but don't be confused, it's not a religious patch, right, it's not so I actually get a lot of people that'll mess.

Corey: 58:56

Like I'll get people that'll message me like, are you guys a christian airsoft team? Like if you hear how we talk to each other, it's a no. Well, I had a guy at my old job who was really big into conspiracy theories. He was really big experience so me yeah way worse than you, and one of his biggest fears was um templars. Yeah, that that was one of his biggest fears was modern templars and saying all this stuff to do so, um, isn't that the illuminati?

Corey: 59:29

yeah so I had our patch on one time, walked in there and he just absolutely freaked out. You know seeing it, and he's like asking if I was a templar, if I did this, or associated with this. I'm like dude, I have no idea what you're talking about. I can see it like yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Erock: 59:44

I can see it like yeah, no idea what you're talking about.

Corey: 59:46

Like it's just a sort of team name and then, yeah, it was, it was funny. But yeah, usually people like to connect it to something else. That's what a real templar would say yeah, you got me right, but I say it's a great conversation starter right, it is all right.

Erock: 1:00:10

Yeah, that's cool though. Yeah, it looks good. Yeah, I went. I scrolled all the way down on your photos on your facebook page, all the way to the bottom, with which like the first posts or the first uh photos, and that's I see the, the original.

Corey: 1:00:24

What year does it say on there?

Erock: 1:00:26

Let me see let's find out May 20th of 2016.

Corey: 1:00:31

I'm actually going to share. It was 10 years ago.

Erock: 1:00:34

I'm going to share the screen for you guys. Oh, there's the road.

Corey: 1:00:41

It even got the Nordics Well, originally the star was going to be. A rose is what it was going to be.

Erock: 1:00:49

So look, I have.

Corey: 1:00:50

I have our logo tattooed on.

Erock: 1:00:55

You know, what's crazy too is when you hover over the date, it actually tells the time that post was made 158.

Corey: 1:01:05

I told you that's what happened. I was making the patch, yeah I thought I was, I was sitting in my dorm room did you make that on microsoft no, it was probably off-brand of my I mean for a spur of the moment stuff.

Erock: 1:01:21

Man, that's not bad really funny story about these photos.

Corey: 1:01:26

So that was this. This was my very first time joining with these guys to play airsoft and I went as the cameraman. Yeah, well, at the time, uh, hunter, that's hunter he's so skinny.

Corey: 1:01:44

That's where you got the dad boss. So I had this bracelet. It was bright green, and their bracelets to get in were also bright green, so they were getting their asses pretty handy to them pretty much all day, and they told me to get in. So all I did was flip my bracelet around and I just went in. You just walked right, yeah. Well, what happened was they ended up putting me into a commanding role. When I get a commanding role, and so nobody's listening to me, you know how well it goes. You know nobody's listening, nobody knows what they're doing, and I had only two members of my team there with me that were actually, you know, listening to me. And so, alex, over here, our camera guy.

Corey: 1:02:26

I was like Alex, you might have your stuff. Get your stuff on, let's get in there. I was like, come on. So then two minutes later he just comes out with his gear, and then we ended up just turning the game around completely after that.

Erock: 1:02:37

But that was where we first met Overwatch Tactics.

Corey: 1:02:39

They had sent me a message inviting us to go to that event at a water park. Is where it is at a empty water park. Oh, really, yeah, it's joplin, missouri, and so that was a lot of fun. You could go up the slides and stuff. They have a bunch of caverns there. Yeah, like that slide you could go up it was. It was a blast dude.

Erock: 1:02:58

this looks crazy because it's so like old and run down and overgrown. It looks like a scene from the Walking Dead Lots of tetanus Right. I know we had a lot of good times there.

Corey: 1:03:12

As you can see, the grass is so tall. We're waiting for the Velociraptors to come out and get us.

Erock: 1:03:18

Yeah, it is dude. Look at that.

Corey: 1:03:23

That's you, that's me. Right there, here's a little baby. That was our first Overwatch Tactics event. I think that was one of the very first ones they had put on at that point. And you're getting into our next Overwatch Tactics, one which was at Dogpatch. Arkansas is where we went to.

Erock: 1:03:42

Is that like here?

Corey: 1:03:43

Yeah, that one was a carnival, it was an abandoned theme park. Okay, that one was at a theme park and the owner there let us have a game going on there and watch Toxic's host there. That was where actually if you probably know where they are now Titan Battery that was one of the first promotion vendors was at this event. What's there? But yeah, I met them when they that was the one of their very first vendor booths was at this event here oh my god, that's crazy yeah, so that's a long been in the game, right?

Corey: 1:04:20

yeah, yeah, because I met the titan battery guys there and I was talking to them and they were explaining how great their batteries were and, you know, talking to all the stuff I didn't understand about and it was really cool. But they said this was one of their first airsoft events they were out to and yeah, I got to kind of meet them and talk with them about that majority of our team actually runs.

Erock: 1:04:45

Yeah, A lot of us.

Corey: 1:04:45

I mean yeah, there's some of the pictures of the vendors there, Like JTAC was there and they were one of the hosts there too, right, yeah, so they they were there, we met them. They came out with their tourniquet system. That was kind of before the Nilsson West, oh, oh, okay, really, they had the white tourniquets there and they had a lot of those there. So that's where we got our JTAC tourniquets and so that was kind of before the Nelson West tourniquets came out. Yeah, or maybe around the same time.

Corey: 1:05:13

This was before I even thought about yeah.

Erock: 1:05:24

So yeah, there was a lot of cool people there and a lot of cool things that were there when they were just kind of starting off and man so seeing all this is crazy thinking going back there, yeah I'll say I mean 2017. When I say 2017, right to my, to myself, it sounds like, oh, this is a couple years ago, bro.

Corey: 1:05:38

Yeah, this is 2024 already a lot of shit has happened, especially in the airsoft community right, I mean overwatch tactics isn't even around anymore, unfortunately yeah a little backstory on why so uh, soto and overwatch tactics would do um conquest of avalon. I think they did one through five. Um, they hosted five different events and it was basically just one big storyline yeah um, I think I went through.

Corey: 1:06:12

I went to three through five, yeah, I think so, three through five. Um, and every year it was something a little bit different at that renaissance festival and, uh, it was literally like if you go to the Renfest, anywhere you are, and you take out all the civilians, all the original structures, even down to the props there was zombie props, gypsy statues, they had a haunted maze. They had this haunted maze was, which was the worst thing you could put in your saw.

Erock: 1:06:50

You know there's almost 500 people every time to see you, and it's always you know, we have this little.

Corey: 1:06:57

We have this little saying joke. Saying that we do is uh, because we were on merc, the mercenary team, and you know we're in the middle of this maze and nobody knows who the hell is who around each corner. So all you hear and I think we have it on some kind of video, yeah, and all you hear is everybody started yelling.

Corey: 1:07:19

Mark Mark, mark, mark Mark Mark, you hear some guy screaming. So, pretty much, we just shot everything. Yeah, even friendlies, it happens, Casualties happen. Yeah, this is great. So, yeah, they even in the beginning, before I came, they made their own little profile pictures. Well, that's your very first picture right there of you, oh, when Hunter hit me in the nuts with his gun.

Corey: 1:07:51

Yeah, I say that's your very first day going. That was my very first day. No, beard. Beard hit me with the stock of his rifle and thought it was funny, and so did I, apparently.

Erock: 1:08:12

Now, what kind of gear and guns are you guys running on this picture right here? So surplus?

Corey: 1:08:20

as a army surplus store. So the BBUs I know Hunter on the left there we went to a. Uh still, actually I still go to that. No, not einstein's, I go to a place in junction city, um, there's a base there, fort riley, and they get a lot of really cool stuff.

Corey: 1:08:39

That this, the surplus stores, and one of them's called military outlet, and I usually take a trip there probably once a month to see what they have. And they had a sell of all these like cry precision knee pads and then like knockoff cry precision pants, like he's got there, and then they had these really expensive um shirts that they were selling for like 30 bucks, and so we went. We bought just a bunch of them and they had some vests there. We just kind of loaded up and, you know, spent under 200 bucks for a full, full kit. Was that's wild? 2017, yeah, oh, busy year apparently, I think. I think, even if there's another photo of me wearing like construction glasses.

Erock: 1:09:24

They're like that's what you're wearing that day, that's what you had that day was yeah.

Corey: 1:09:29

I had no, I had no helmet.

Erock: 1:09:31

I had like a ski mask. I had no eyebrow.

Corey: 1:09:36

I think I was using like a cold weather ski mask. I would go like snowboarding, yeah, up on the top left, yeah, right there.

Erock: 1:09:44

That's your day one right there.

Corey: 1:09:46

That was day one, yeah that's all you need you don't need much to play. So that vest is something that I already had, um, but I had to buy the uniform and I think those glasses were from my garage, yep. But that gun, uh, which is actually they don't even make anymore, uh, that was the Amoeba Aries, aries, aries, amoeba, aries, amoeba M4, um, which is now a pretty beefy DMR, but that's my, uh, that's my backup rifle now, since I've upgraded every other gun that I have and then sometimes they don't work, maybe.

Erock: 1:10:33

So what do you guys run now?

Corey: 1:10:36

So we let's go up to some modern ones, our biggest thing is, is we, we try to run the same platform, basically the M4 platform? Yeah, the idea is. So if you go into red on your ammo, that we can share.

Erock: 1:10:51

Good idea, yep.

Corey: 1:10:53

I dump through 900 BBs pretty quickly, so I'll be yelling for a mag. You're doing covering fire. Those are a lot newer. Fast, so you're doing covering fire, those are a lot newer. Yeah, I say right now, most of us, except you, have switched to the crytacs.

Corey: 1:11:11

That's still yeah, I'm on the uh, the vsc avalon, which has been completely gutted out. Um, a lot of people are going to hate this, but I run the gate aster instead of the gate titan, which the vsc is down on the right. That copper, copper colored rifle yeah, that's my vfc. So it's got an updated, pretty beefy spring uh stock gears, because the vfc gears are just fine, but it's got the gate aster in it and uh, the quantum trigger and it is laser beams.

Erock: 1:11:44

So what's the difference between the Gate Titan and the Gate Aster?

Corey: 1:11:48

I think that honestly, I don't know what the difference is, other than, obviously, price point.

Erock: 1:11:55

Oh, they are so yeah.

Corey: 1:11:56

It gives you much more features than the Gate.

Erock: 1:11:58

Aster. Oh, is that what it is Like programmable stuff.

Corey: 1:12:00

The binary laser function and then the pre-coding. Oh okay, so I just finished kind of building I've been doing a high-speed build on a G&G 556, and I put the Gate Aster in it. It was going to be HPA, but I don't want to spend the money on the HPA setup.

Erock: 1:12:17

Yeah.

Corey: 1:12:20

So I bought the Expert version. So there's three tiers of the gate aster that you can get. You get the basic, the intermediate and the expert version. The expert version actually allows you to customize down to the pre-cocking and active braking and you can do safe, semi and binary or safe, semi binary.

Corey: 1:12:44

You can do like a two stage trigger. So if you pull at 20%, it'll, you know, do a burst, and then, if you do like a full, a hundred percent, pull on the trigger, it'll do full auto or however you want to set it up.

Erock: 1:12:58

Wow.

Corey: 1:12:59

I felt like for for what I do and how I play. It worked out better for me and it was only 90 bucks oh yeah.

Erock: 1:13:07

So what is the gate? Titan, is it? What are they like 200 yeah, hundred mid.

Corey: 1:13:16

Yeah, I don't think they're up to two yet, maybe some places, but they're definitely over a hundred and I'm on where you buy the retailers gotcha but, it's also one of those. Yeah, you're paying the wind, right, I know because yeah, you have that then for the longest time I had my. It still works as my kwa magpul pts um erg. So the actual magpul licensed airsoft, before Magpul quit making airsoft. So that was a couple of weeks ago. That was an old one too, I think that was last weekend.

Erock: 1:13:52

Yeah, this is April 10th.

Corey: 1:13:54

Yeah, that was last weekend. That's Colin with the LMG, which he just bought and he doesn't know how to use it yet. You got it, he was behind it, nobody knows not shooting anything.

Erock: 1:14:11

They, uh, most people don't. Most people I've found in airsoft they don't know how to run lmg setup. They, uh, they want to. They haven't been taught. Okay, you are strictly for covering fire, that's it.

Corey: 1:14:28

And they don't know how to do it. I think 90% of the time we're just trying to find him on the field. So really I would put my rifle on the ground or lean it up on some structure and I would just run my Glock and just push in. Yeah, that's funny.

Erock: 1:14:42

So are all you guys just push in? Yeah, that's funny. So is. Are all you guys in this picture?

Corey: 1:14:48

Yeah, so far left is Dakota.

Erock: 1:14:50

Here I'm the skinny one, and then Colin is the LMG and then Alex on the far right Now where's your guys' guns? Mine's slinged over on the back, mine's on my. Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah, mine slinged on my back. Yeah, and what kind of pistols do you guys run? Or secondaries?

Corey: 1:15:15

so I run actually what my wife got me um, that doesn't work.

Erock: 1:15:19

Oh no, you broke it already.

Corey: 1:15:24

Yeah, it's the John Wick Combat Master. 2011 is what it is, and you know it's a great gun. It's just got to replace the seals on my mags.

Erock: 1:15:38

Oh yeah, yeah, those are spitting gas all day, if you don't.

Corey: 1:15:43

We had a couple of those as well apparently I run a 1911 old elite force that's my kit right there.

Erock: 1:15:56

Okay, super basic man. You know you know less is more. You know that absolutely. So you run the 1911. I love the 1911 platform man I love it too.

Corey: 1:16:03

Uh, the thing is that the magazines love to bust their seals a lot the mags are the guns are made really well, but they do really shit job on their magazines yeah I'm in the process of shopping for a new one, for more gotcha.

Erock: 1:16:17

Yeah, I mean you run the I run the blog.

Corey: 1:16:20

I have a gen, gen 3 or Gen 4, 17.

Erock: 1:16:24

Yeah.

Corey: 1:16:25

Yeah, that one on the table.

Erock: 1:16:28

You actually found that one.

Corey: 1:16:31

So we were in Lawson, missouri, and we were in a building called so they color coordinate all of their buildings on their map and we were in Black Building, which is one of the largest buildings there, and I was clearing a corner and it was pitch black, dark, so I pushed as far into the corner as I can and I ended up kicking this, this. I kicked something on the ground and, um, I went to pick it up and it was this glock, so I put it. I had someone put it in my, in my rock, on my pack, and, um, we got back to our campsite and I we had left the next day and I had completely forgot to turn it into the pro shop and, uh, I got home and I posted it on their page. I think I waited it was about it was a few weeks, I waited almost a month for anybody to claim it and nobody did.

Corey: 1:17:27

Um, still, hasn't, and so and so I so I ended up keeping it. I don't know if that's theft or whatever, but we actually we don't go to that field anymore for a lot of reasons. Um, there was a team there that is now banned, that you know. The the biggest thing in airsoft is that a lot of people the honor system it's not, it's not the best right.

Corey: 1:17:50

So you know, people calling hits and we had this group of guys I think it was a group about four or five guys that would be fully kitted, I mean top of the line gear, the most money you could spend on gear and they thought they were the biggest, baddest people in the world ex-military and there's actually a video on our youtube of me I'm like crawled up into this freaking cavity of a wall and I'm shooting through this hole in the wall and, um, this guy kind of looks at me and, and you know, super pissed off about it, but that was one of the teams and so we originally had gotten banned from the field until I showed the video footage of.

Corey: 1:18:34

The other team was the one that was, you know, negligent and not calling their hits right so then we got unbanned and then the field increased their prices from I think it was 20 bucks for an entire day of play to like $45 for a single day of play. And I love airsoft man and it's one of the greatest fields that I've been to. That was, you know, that was my pot, my cherry field of airsoft and we refuse to pay that for a full day. They even have events. They had a 420 event, I think, this weekend and it's like $174 for a single day of airsoft Woo, and it's just not worth it.

Corey: 1:19:18

Well, the biggest problem that I had noticed that day was a lot of the people that were following us and you know, listening to what we're saying, we're a lot of the younger aerosol players. You know, like we talked about 13 or 14 year olds. A lot of them were following us and we were playing and they liked us a lot.

Erock: 1:19:38

We liked them.

Corey: 1:19:38

We always have fun, yeah, and of course you have these guys that come in and you know, just just kind of ruin it for everybody and we ended up we just kind of stopped. We just stopped playing that day. And then all the other kids stopped playing because they said that it just became unfun and that they understood and they kind of took that we were trying to stop their business you know they'll.

Corey: 1:20:03

You know, these guys would overshoot kids and yeah, yeah, I can see it's coming to us saying that they were getting shot too much or that the what wasn't fun anymore.

Erock: 1:20:13

And it was it was it sucked.

Corey: 1:20:14

I mean, it was just like. You know. That's not why we're here, it's not why we're playing, we of fun. You know, like you said, if anything, it just kind of gives it a bad a bad rap I mean I pay to get shot and shoot, so yeah, but I mean if, if I've clearly got a dead rag on my helmet, I mean, and you're still getting shot, it's just, it puts a damper on on the entire day.

Erock: 1:20:38

So oh for sure. And you know what's weird is being a military vet myself yourself like it's strange to me to hear these stories and I've heard them a lot about these groups of military guys. You know vets that get into airsoft and then I don't know, are they taking it too serious? Is that what it is? Like they're trying to prove themselves again or something.

Corey: 1:21:03

I don't get it. It's strange since I've started, um, there's been a lot of people that just because and a lot of people claim to be that out on the air.

Corey: 1:21:18

Well, that's true, yeah I've seen, I've even seen people out at this, you know particular field talking about, you know have have, you know, get overshot, or me myself. I had an experience, probably about three or four years ago, where we had a. We had probably about six or seven guys clear in this room and we had some people flank us in a tagging round or tagging grenade came in and triggered some PTSD and it took the breath out of me. I was like blurry vision, I couldn't breathe really well. But then there's other guys that are $2,000 kits on their person and think that they're just the baddest motherfuckers in the world and a lot of people do take it too seriously because they think that they're, you know, back in the shit and it's nothing. I mean, dude, you're slinging six millimeter BBs at people. It's not the real thing.

Corey: 1:22:23

I mean dude, you're slinging six millimeter BBs at people. It's not the real thing. So, like earlier, when you started the podcast, you know talking about real life tactics and stuff like that, which I definitely agree that you can bring a lot of real world tactics into something like Airsoft. But in the years that I've been playing in just airsoft and trying to push even just you know us guys into some of the tactics that. I've learned in my life it doesn't ever actually play out the way that it no it doesn't.

Erock: 1:22:58

It doesn't translate perfectly over and but yeah, the I understand what you're saying, but you know the point I was making with these guys that run these channels or these platforms that censor it, that they're, they're. Most of these people have never been around a gun they've never been. You know been around tactics. They see somebody geared up and carrying a m4 style or whatever assault rifle.

Erock: 1:23:23

Quote unquote they're uh they're freaking out and they're like, oh, oh, my God, that's a 12 year old kid, look at what they're doing, you know, like dude, just shut up, okay. So, yeah, I, I get it, that's, but yeah, I don't understand this. One of the one of the things that I really wanted to do on this podcast, too, was shed light on all the positive, and I'm not talking about oh, let's everyone give a hug and sing kumbaya shit. I'm just saying like, bro, there's all all the stuff that gets attention for airsoft online. Is the no full auto in the building. You know the fights, the the 15 year olds that are just blasting each other and getting pissed off and getting kicked out and you know what I mean.

Erock: 1:24:07

Like that's not the majority of Airsoft. The majority of Airsoft is what my boys went to. They went to an indoor field early on, didn't like it because it attracted the younger crowd. They go to three-day Milsims.

Corey: 1:24:22

Like a CQB style.

Erock: 1:24:24

Yeah, CQB stuff, you know yeah, cqb stuff.

Corey: 1:24:26

You know, it's just uh, yeah it's now.

Erock: 1:24:29

If you and there's a, there's a difference with that as well. So, like, you've got some fields that host a lot of speed soft tournaments and those guys, even when they have younger players on their team, uh, they handle themselves pretty well, right, and because they're very competitive, they want to play by the rules, they want to, they want to win, but they're not doing stupid stuff, like they're not going to go off and just, you know, like all these videos we see but yeah, that was the one of the things I was like, dude, I don't know we're going to promote. Like these kind of people, like you guys, okay, that are uh in it for uh the fun of it and they don't want it to go away, cause if we just keep promoting all this bull crap that's going around there now, it's uh well, I don't think it's going away at any time soon.

Corey: 1:25:22

Anyway, no, I don't know. Yeah, it's only growing exponentially.

Erock: 1:25:23

Yep, um, I don't think it's going away anytime soon anyway, no, I don't know, yeah, if anything, it's growing exponentially.

Corey: 1:25:28

Yep no-transcript going out to a field and having, like what we were saying earlier, having all these little younger, younger cats follow us and it's literally like a fricking Tonga line and you know like well, where are you guys going? Where are you guys going?

Corey: 1:25:51

I'm like okay you need to go over there, you need to shoot that guy, you stick on my hip and so that's a lot of fun. You know, actually fun, you know, actually. You know we meet a lot of kids that are in their teenage years or even in their 20s and they're just kind of starting out to air soft and they're like checking out our gear. You know, our traditional colors, I guess, are black and tan, which I think is the sexiest color you can wear. But um, it's, it's.

Corey: 1:26:22

It's a really good feeling having people kind of look up to you. You know, being that younger generation, um, and kind of having them see what kind of tactical shit you can do, even with just airsoft. You know they've got, whether they've got like a rental or you know, I think there was a video I posted last week of um dakota. He went up on this sniper's perch and immediately got shot in the face, um, or no, some other guy got shot in the face, as they're, you know, and he had a minigun and you know he then ducks down and then this kid hands him a little mini gun to start shooting and then he starts having fun with it.

Corey: 1:27:07

So it's, there's a lot of positives in airsoft there's also, you know, a lot of the niggas where oh yeah, you know you're cussing people out because they're not getting hit, trying to call it with people's hits or people getting mad because they got shot, and that's you know the, the guys who think they're just. You know, I was in the military for X amount of years. There's no way you could have shot me Right. So, and I've, and I've had, I've had instances like that where I'm like no man, I'm way better than you. I've had training.

Erock: 1:27:43

I want to pull up this. I think I found your Enola Gay commercial. I want to bring it up.

Corey: 1:27:51

It's actually not a bad commercial.

Erock: 1:27:55

These are cool man.

Corey: 1:27:58

We're just so dumb.

Erock: 1:28:00

It's this one, right here, right, it's the first one.

Corey: 1:28:02

It's the very first one. Look at that video quality. Is that Colin? That's Colin man. That's the water park. And Overwatch Tactics said we had to hold their banner If we were going to be able to do.

Erock: 1:28:34

Those things are some of the best smoke grenades out there, man.

Corey: 1:28:40

Oh, they've gotten better since since this video.

Erock: 1:28:41

Oh yeah yeah, they put out some smoke dude the name of the solo.

Corey: 1:28:49

That's crazy. Well, this was, I think, soto filming for us.

Erock: 1:28:53

He actually was using the camera I think, was he, was that soto, I think so, yeah, yeah, well, something from uh I can't remember Well, because you were supposed to have the camera and then somebody said here I'll take the camera and you hold up our banner, and I think that was Soto that held that.

Corey: 1:29:09

I mean who was that? 2016? Yeah, I mean.

Erock: 1:29:14

Yeah, that was May of 2016.

Corey: 1:29:17

So just real quick, so right above your mouse, where you see Dakota, the 156, so this was my very first time meeting Dakota.

Corey: 1:29:26

And this is the first time we had ever played together. This was our very first time together. Dude, the audio of this video is hilarious. Yeah, and, like I said, you and me did not say like a single word to each other. So this was the. This is the mass in Missouri. Well, I think at the time, this was the mass. This was still the Mac Mako team still had this one. But yes, this was your very first day playing and we didn't talk to each other at all. We were still trying to figure.

Corey: 1:29:57

But yes, this was your very first day playing and we didn't talk to each other at all. We were still trying to figure each other out as men. I think after this is when we started talking. We're like dude, that was awesome, I know we're like bro, you're my husband.

Corey: 1:30:25

There's BBs flying everywhere. Dude, this was so funny. Yeah, this was. And we still I mean, we still get down like this. Yeah, that's one of the reps with a bullhorn behind us that was following us around. Okay, yeah, because you and me were just clearing out, I think we took out like 15 guys. Yeah, wasn't this?

Corey: 1:30:55

the building that you actually filmed that night. Yeah, we were the last two guys alive out of our entire team. Yeah, we were the last two guys alive out of our entire team and our objective was to completely clear this building to find some kind of tech or something like that. So who's doing the camera? Our other teammate, Hunter. Yeah, I get shot in the freaking spine. It's a little intricate.

Erock: 1:31:20

And it misses your vest, of course.

Corey: 1:31:24

Oh dude, I still feel it.

Erock: 1:31:28

That's funny. Well, I found your YouTube channel too, and this is the one you were talking about earlier.

Corey: 1:31:39

This was so much fun to edit and for anybody watching. Like when we're talking about tactical stuff, you need to be very wary of where the barrel of your rifle is when it's when you're around a corner.

Erock: 1:31:52

Look at this.

Corey: 1:31:53

Wait, wait for it. Right there he's off. I just to tap everybody. And then this last guy he shoots me with his LMG from 10 feet away after I already shot him.

Erock: 1:32:10

Yeah, it was close.

Corey: 1:32:11

Videos like that will get you know almost 5,000 views, and then nothing. On the other ones, the peekaboo one was way better than that one. So this is the Rock Airsoft. In Bolivar, missouri, they just introduced these shipping containers on their field. They're incredible. These guys are just getting medic. Oh yeah, that's the one you were talking about, and then I shot some kid in the face in this one yeah it's just crazy the whole, the way the algorithm works. Man is just right insane it is so.

Erock: 1:33:00

Subscribe the way the algorithm works.

Corey: 1:33:01

man is just insane. It is Subscribe. Please subscribe, so we can beat and suck.

Erock: 1:33:12

Yeah, we're just going to have to switch over to Twitter and Rumble Like the whole Airsoft community all at once. Just start switching over. I don't understand that's one thing I don't understand about people that get their channels, so pages or whatever. They get them shut down and then they try to start a new one posting the same things on the same platform. Right, I'm like, bro, let's all move Whenever I bring in the past. I've been talking about moving over to Twitter since Elon Musk took it over, the very first I don't know six months. I would bring it up to somebody on here. They're like oh no, I'm not going to Twitter, man, it's toxic. I'm like it's just a platform. It can't be toxic.

Erock: 1:34:01

Like, yeah, like it's only you only see what you want to see. And if you, if you see something that's fed to you that you don't like, you literally click the little three buttons or three dots and say I don't hide it, you know like, I don't want it, so it's, it's really curated to what you want. So if it's toxic because you didn't you know, go through and take the time to fix your your own stuff that you're seeing. But, uh, at least you won't have to start over, yeah, uh, and worry about your posts getting taken out like there.

Erock: 1:34:35

There are a ton of people that I've had on here that I see in the Airstop community that probably spend two or three days a week trying to repost on either Instagram, facebook or TikTok and they're like oh, I had to submit a thing and do this. And, bro, why are you wasting so much energy on this shit? Let's just move to a platform that won't censor it. Yeah, you know, yeah, it does suck on Twitter and Rumble as far as gaining numbers right, like following and getting it takes a long time it takes a long time, bro it really does.

Erock: 1:35:15

I've been on Rumble for like since 2020 or 2021, early on and I'm not bragging when I say this. I promise you, I'm making a statement that there is a huge opportunity for Airsoft on Rumble. I am the number one Rumble Airsoft channel on Rumble.

Corey: 1:35:38

Okay, so you're bragging.

Erock: 1:35:40

I'm bragging. I'm only bragging until you hear the numbers. I only have like 240 followers on there and I'm still the number one.

Corey: 1:35:51

A lot of people are just too damn lazy to just to click the damn follow button. It takes. It takes less time to just click the subscribe or follow or whatever button there is. Yeah, and it doesn't actually look up the damn name of the of the page. I know, I don't. I don't understand.

Erock: 1:36:11

It's this generation, they're weird, uh, you know what, though it's, so that's changing, okay, um, my wife and I have five children. They're all in their 20s, three of them have kids and we have seven grandkids. Okay, actually, two of them are spending the night tonight.

Erock: 1:36:30

We're watching it because we have them this weekend. That's why there's a operation stone breakers going on this weekend, which is only two and a half hours away from me here in South Carolina, and I've been to that one before, twice before with my boys, as cameraman and I was thinking about going this year because of all the people I've had on here that are at that event this weekend. But we have our grandkids this weekend. It's my daughter-in-law's birthday. Her birthday is actually on 420. So, and my son smokes, so it's you know they go and you know they go hang out. She doesn't, but he does so but we have their kids all weekend and they're five and three, okay, boy and girl, and my daughter, my granddaughter, so when she's on the tablet or on my phone, if we're sitting there, we do snap.

Erock: 1:37:21

She wants to do Snapchat videos, you know, with the filters, and I never post them, I just, you know, save them and then she likes to look back at them. We were doing that before I got on here tonight. That's what we were doing, tried all the new filters and so the new generation, like her age she is, if she scrolls through, like the Instagram stuff or whatever, she'll like it, and then hit follow, like she is trained bro, like they know. So the next, that generation coming up. So if you can hang on and keep doing your YouTube channel until then, okay, and your Rumble channel, they will click subscribe. That new generation will click it. I'm telling you, man, she knows what to do.

Corey: 1:38:02

It's crazy yeah, the con. The content is like uh, I came over here to the to alex's house the other day and we were going through his gopro footage and, uh, it was not good. There's a video. I posted one of the shorts that I posted. You can see a side.

Corey: 1:38:22

It was like um, uh, the one where you were like giving dakota directions on where this got, but there was like a sniper out out long ways and he was trying to give him directions of where he was out of breath and you can see the gopro angle is angled up. Yeah, yeah, we got to work on that GoPro angle. I've had those.

Erock: 1:38:45

So we had.

Corey: 1:38:45

That's one thing I'd say, that's really hard in aerosol is when people try to get to videoing, filming audio video. It's really hard to try to get that stuff to work If it doesn't work, it definitely can really ruin the day.

Erock: 1:38:57

The app on your phone helps out tremendously.

Corey: 1:39:03

My GoPro always records upside down because instead of you know, you can hit the power button and then record. But if you hit just the record button it doesn't give it time to oscillate and and rotate 180 to do it. Uh, right side up so well, my gopro gets shot out. So I don't want to hear you gopro lenses get shot out within the first probably 20 minutes of a game. Oh my god, that's fun. Yeah, just stop sticking your big ass head out.

Erock: 1:39:31

Yeah we, uh, it is one of the more difficult things to do, uh, for airsoft, like videos and stuff, is that gameplay stuff? It is, um, when we first started, I once I started editing some of this stuff. When they started doing the gameplay, uh, I was like, wow, okay, silo novritsch, kiki mussang, uh, airsoft alphonse, all you guys have been doing it for years. All of these hours and hours and hours of video they've had to edit, I'm like props to you guys, man, because this shit is hard, like just what you're talking about? Those simple things where you go out for a whole day and your camera is just a little bit down too far or a little bit up too far, and when I'm editing, right, it's these guys' videos. So I put it in here, I get it loaded and I started to edit and I find myself, when it's when it's up too far, I'm like I'm like bending my head, I'm like shit, I can't fix it.

Erock: 1:40:32

Like that it's gone, Like it's just, I can't fix it.

Corey: 1:40:34

So Imagine doing it from all your phone. From all your phone, oh man that's crazy, but I I really it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun editing and I have a really I don't know if it's a bad or well you have to edit for three. Yeah, I have to edit for three or four people and trying to merge everything into one and and then I'm sending it to these guys. Hey, what do you think? And then you know, I post on youtube and then it'll get.

Corey: 1:41:08

It won't even be uploaded because it's you know not made for kids or right the bad the guidelines are wrong, but, um, it is a lot of fun and and, uh, I just I enjoy the hell out of it and I I have a bad habit of watching my own videos over and over. Oh yeah, and I'm just like man, that's bad.

Erock: 1:41:33

it's very common. It's very common. When you put a lot of I, I mean you're creating something, you're taking something from nothing, you're creating this thing and yeah, it's definitely.

Corey: 1:41:46

yeah, it's cool, I did the same thing In my late 30s. My attention span is just as low as someone in their 20s. So I'm like, okay, maybe this is too long of a video. So yeah, maybe this is too long of a video.

Erock: 1:42:01

So, yeah, there's a scene in a kids movie that grew you know the Minions movie where the Minions came from yeah, okay, so I can't remember the name of the movie, but grew is the character. There's one of them where I think it was the first one that came out.

Corey: 1:42:29

No, oh, I don't know, that's a little tree dude. That's a little tree dude. Oh yeah, that group, yeah you're talking about.

Erock: 1:42:32

Okay, so they know, but I don't so uh, it's despicable me.

Erock: 1:42:35

Okay, it's the movie I haven't seen it and uh, we've seen all those with the, with the grandkids, so it's um, there's a scene there where he's a little kid. It shows kind of like his backstory when he was growing up and he was inventing things, right. So he's like he has one of these little tiny rockets you make, you know that, just shoot up, you've seen those, right for science experiments. He's like hey, mom, look, I made a rocket, okay, okay, it's like. And she's like meh, okay, yeah, that as he's getting older, he's a teenager, he makes this cool thing. We see an older teenager. He makes a legit, full-sized rocket that goes into space, and she's like meh like you never.

Erock: 1:43:15

I felt the same way when I first started editing these, these videos. I would take all these hours of gameplay and put something together and put music on it. And then I'd show my wife and I'm like, dude, look at this. And she has no idea how long I spent on this right. And she goes, oh, and then she goes back to her phone and I'm like, bro, come on, where's the love man I was at work.

Corey: 1:43:40

Two weeks ago, when I was chatting back and forth with the XFog owner or whoever on XFog I was speaking with about sponsorship, and I work in kind of like electrical outside, electrical slash solar installing and stuff like that. Yeah, electrical slash solar, um installing and stuff like that. Yeah, we're actually building I can't go heavily into it but, um, we're building a new federal prison for the leavenworth penitentiary. Oh wow, and um, I'm, you know, on a federal job and I'm emailing back and forth with the sales team on x-fog and then I text. My wife was like I think we just got a sponsor from x-fog.

Corey: 1:44:21

And she's like, oh, my god, it's so good and then I get home and you know I'm editing some videos and post the videos like, look how badass this looks. And she's like, yeah, it's really awesome. And then right back to her phone.

Erock: 1:44:34

Right, I think I drove. I drove her nuts and, uh, my other kids nuts by when I was like look at this one and look at this one here, you need to go on here and watch it and hit the like button and do all this other stuff. When you first start your channel, you're trying to get all this. I remember when we first uploaded our very first video of unboxing. I uploaded it, made it public and then I sat here and watched the analytics and I'm like nothing's happening.

Corey: 1:45:04

What the?

Erock: 1:45:04

hell Hour goes by nothing. I'm like I finally got bored. There's no zero views, okay, and I'm like what the hell Like?

Corey: 1:45:14

when's it going to?

Erock: 1:45:14

go. It took a while to learn like okay, I got it. Yep.

Corey: 1:45:21

I remember calling my mom like I need you to subscribe to this channel and some tactical shit on there. You need to watch it yeah.

Erock: 1:45:33

So all of our.

Corey: 1:45:35

most of our likes and stuff on Facebook is like is this my mom?

Erock: 1:45:40

Like whatever you know, cool so you know, when I had, I had Kiki Mustang on here and he goes the worst thing.

Erock: 1:45:51

Yeah, the worst thing you can do is now I hadn't told him that I had done the same thing you're doing and you know he goes. The worst thing you could do is tell your friends and family to go on and follow and like your videos and follow your channel. And I was like, really, why is that he's like? Because they'll never go back to it, they don't really care about this stuff. So he goes, it messes up the algorithm for your videos. He goes what it's, what it shows, that the algorithm is that, uh, initially when your channel first starts, people were interested in the first post, but then never again, Right, and so then it doesn't show it to as many people. And I was like, yeah, I would never do that. What? Oh shit, yeah.

Corey: 1:46:43

So many people have done that. Right're mom to start following. We're actually trying to set up a youtube live with for this podcast and we've never done a live before, so it was like you need to wait 24 hours and it had, like this countdown, which was kind of bullshit.

Erock: 1:47:00

But I guess you have to.

Corey: 1:47:01

If you don't have enough subscribers and or followers and you haven't been live before, you have to wait X amount of time, which makes absolutely no sense to me, because we're not trying to monetize anything. I'm not trying to make any money off well, no, it's not about that it's.

Erock: 1:47:17

It's about getting rid of bots yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so people create bots, people probably smarter than you and me that create software that that creates a channel by itself. The program does and then, and, and so it's trying to get rid of that stuff.

Corey: 1:47:34

Yeah, cause I think all of our most probably 90% of our views are through um like people's feeds, like it'll. Just nobody will search it, but it'll, it'll just pop up on the feed.

Erock: 1:47:46

That's what you want, ideally your videos. Uh, you want it Once your videos like that one that short you posted, that got posted in people's suggested Right and that's how I got so many views.

Corey: 1:47:58

So, yep, and then all the other ones are not.

Erock: 1:48:06

You can see a big difference. I'm the same way. Mine are like yeah, okay, whatever.

Corey: 1:48:11

I stopped watching it. It's really defeating, though, like oh my God, 4,600 people and then 70. So it is kind of like a slap in the face, but it is what it is.

Erock: 1:48:23

Right yeah.

Corey: 1:48:28

That's a post on YouTube. I'll be like hey, alex, post this to IG. I'll send it to the uh, our nine, nine, uh Facebook channel and then I'll put it on my personal page. Yeah, yeah, night nine facebook channel, and then I'll put it on my personal page. Yeah, yeah, a lot of people don't follow my personal page because of how political, how political I get. So, yeah, no views there, right?

Erock: 1:48:52

yeah, you know what's kind of wild is. It seems like a large part of the airsoft community is, um, like they, they don't want to talk about any of that stuff, or maybe is like they, they don't want to talk about any stuff or maybe it's just they don't want to talk about it.

Erock: 1:49:03

On, on, on their airsoft stuff or whatever, but most of the ones I found they. There's a lot of people that really kind of want to keep their head in the sand a little bit. Yeah, and I'm like you can't, like you're literally the thing that you love to do will go away if gun rights get taken away yeah they're, they're not gonna.

Erock: 1:49:26

I mean, look at australia, look at all these different countries that have taken this stuff away. Um, it is, you know. Yeah, it's inevitable if you don't pay attention I mean other other than your podcast.

Corey: 1:49:38

I've only heard of one other Airsoft podcast that actually does like video. It's not another podcast not another Airsoft podcast that's the only other one that I've ever even heard of. I think that's what it's called.

Erock: 1:49:58

I have no idea why don't you know what he's?

Corey: 1:50:01

saying they're supposed to. I'm going to look it up.

Erock: 1:50:06

I'm looking it up too, yeah.

Corey: 1:50:12

Not another teen movie.

Erock: 1:50:14

Not another airsoft, because I think I've heard of that.

Corey: 1:50:23

Your podcast pops up Right. Maybe they're not.

Erock: 1:50:37

There's a there's a handful of them out there. I actually have a one of this.

Corey: 1:50:47

Facebook, because I've seen Soto has been on there with Overwatch Tactics when they were promoting COA event out at the Ren Fest or the Ren area. So yeah, I don't know. Wasn't it a little like ASAP or something, not Another Airsoft Podcast?

Erock: 1:51:17

That sounds really familiar. I want to say that's, that's listed. I'm going to look right now because there's a this thing called feed spot. Let's see. I got an email from a guy a couple of months ago.

Corey: 1:51:40

I really have to use the bathroom.

Erock: 1:51:42

Yeah, go ahead, man.

Corey: 1:51:44

I have to pee. Oh yeah, he's gone. Yeah right.

Erock: 1:51:59

For sure it was ASAP.

Corey: 1:52:03

I have no idea they have some weird kind of like futuristic logo.

Erock: 1:52:09

Oh really and this is the podcast about.

Corey: 1:52:15

About that, I have no idea judging be like I have no idea judging be like, don't I in life stuff, I have very social media. That's why I gave it to you guys.

Erock: 1:52:30

Take care of well, when I do it, when I do a Google search, like when I go under like a what do you call that Uh, incognito kind of tab, if you open up a uh, another page, uh, yeah, new incognito window, right, it doesn't have any of my uh, my personal information, it's not curated. You know, when I do a search it's like a fresh search. So, um, when I do that, this is what comes up on airsoft podcasts under uh on the list for player FM. Player player FM is pretty big, so they've got uh, ours on there. They got airsoft and chill. I've heard of that one Gorilla airsoft radio, femme fatale, airsoft, the airsoft experience, war dog paintball, uh, airsoft socials Podcast. Spitfire Airsoft, which I haven't heard of, but that was older, like six years ago, has been Airsoft. A lot of these are older, airsoft Medicine, older. Yeah, the one that I was talking about, the ATEM Podcast, was called, all Seriousness Aside, podcast.

Erock: 1:53:45

Okay.

Corey: 1:53:46

You're out of beer.

Erock: 1:53:48

Yeah, I see that one right here. All Seriousness Aside, yep, it looks like the last post was two years ago for them. I'm trying to find that one you're talking about, dude, because I've heard of that as well and I can't find it Conversationalist. Milsim podcast with Tractor.

Corey: 1:54:11

I'll have to do some digging and maybe send you a message or send you a link to it. Yeah, it was a really good podcast a handful of years ago. It would be more than just airsoft discussions, which was pretty cool. They would talk about real steel gear and stuff like that.

Erock: 1:54:34

Do you guys follow Savage Actual or the Savage?

Corey: 1:54:42

Where are they at? Wait? What's the podcast they're talking about? Isn't that the one we were? Just talking about.

Erock: 1:54:49

Those are two Marines as well.

Corey: 1:54:51

Another Airsoft podcast. I don't freaking, know man, I'm old.

Erock: 1:55:01

Savage, let's see.

Corey: 1:55:07

I'm old Savage, let's see, nope, probably not, we're going to find it.

Erock: 1:55:12

We're going to find it. No, I'm just kidding.

Corey: 1:55:13

Not another Airsoft. You know how to spell airsoft. You know how to spell airsoft. Oh, there's right back there yeah, me and um.

Erock: 1:55:32

So as far as airsoft podcasts go, the uh uh mine's listed up there because I post so often yeah.

Erock: 1:55:44

And I post so often like real episode, like full episodes. So there's two, two full episodes every week and I don't I don't clutter the internet with tons of shorts from that one episode. I'll do like one or two shorts from the episode, just to kind of like a teaser almost, and I'll post them on Instagram or whatever. But I don't usually post, I don't post a whole lot of shorts on YouTube and so if you post full episodes then you get picked up by all these these websites that index podcasts. But if you just post the shorts it kind of kicks those out. It doesn't count those. So like, if you haven't had a, if you posted a short yesterday of your podcast but your actual full episode was eight weeks ago, it's only going to show that eight weeks ago that you've made a post. Uh, as far as the podcasting in uh websites that index that stuff. But um, so yeah, it's uh, I I do the full episodes twice a week.

Erock: 1:56:54

I was doing for a year and a half I did. I was releasing three a week monday and Friday, every single week for a year and a half. Talk about a frickin. I mean, I'm talking recording, I'm recording those and then I'm editing them and then put posting them and doing all the social media posts with it and I'm like, bro, I was, my brain was fried. Okay, I'm not, you can. I really needed a break after that, but so I went down to two. It's really helped. I'm trying to find this one. I think it's Savage, actual, it's Jason and, yeah, I can't remember, but they have a podcast as well and they're really good man, they're. These guys are cool, they have, but they don't do airsoft podcast.

Corey: 1:57:50

It's like real steel, like you know these guys were teams guys you know, so I would would like, I would like to have, um, we had somebody that was in that was interested in doing like photography for us, like follow the team kind of thing, um she kind of went her own direction. But it would be really cool to get into like the uh, the deep editing world of of photography. And I've just some of these pages, like the one that he just pulled up. I mean, those are some bad-ass pictures. That was the Savage.

Erock: 1:58:31

Oh, that was from Savage. Yeah, savage technicians or technicians, that was a.

Corey: 1:58:38

Savage Airsoft. Oh, okay, they got some cool photos on there.

Erock: 1:58:42

Right, yeah, this is Savage Actual. Okay, I'm going to share the screen because these guys are cool as hell. Man, come on If it'll come up Now. Do you guys know about? Yeah, so these guys went to a. They they played Airsoft a couple times. Let me share the screen real quick for you. That's one of the only other but, like I said, they're not an Airsoft specific podcast, but they have talked about it on here. Yeah, from Tarkov Savage Actual.

Corey: 1:59:40

I've never heard of them.

Erock: 1:59:43

So they've been to a couple of Milsims down here in South Carolina at GTI with a. It might have been Stonebreaker last year that they went to. But see, right here have special operations. Veterans react to airsoft battles. They do reaction videos and then they've also played what are your thoughts on stuff like that?

Corey: 2:00:09

I see a lot of these shorts like ex-British operator tries airsoft and obliterates the field. I think that shit is so dumb. I'm sorry, but who gives a shit?

Erock: 2:00:25

well, those became well, I mean they're they're popular catchphrases for videos. So like uh, there was uh one called marine reacts and it's an old school Marine guy. Have you seen those?

Corey: 2:00:42

I see him all the time.

Erock: 2:00:44

Those videos. His channel blew up back in 2020, I think, when the lockdowns and everything, and there was when they changed their terms of service. One of the things they did was and I don't remember the exact name of it, but it was something like free to share or free to something. But part of it was you could do these reaction videos where you could use other people's videos that they post on YouTube, as long as, yeah, you couldn't go like more than 30 seconds without stopping the video.

Corey: 2:01:19

It allows you to mix or something audio and video, but you can, and you can take that off, not allowing people to Exactly.

Erock: 2:01:28

Yeah, well, that's a more updated one recently, like in the last year or so, that they've done that one you're talking about. Yeah, that's a similar type of thing. They've given us control over our our each video video, what we want to allow people to use or not. But so, yeah, if you have that open, people can use it for reaction videos. So, yeah, that guy's channel blew up and so all these reaction channels started becoming very popular. I don't really watch them, mostly because I don't have time I'm like.

Erock: 2:02:05

I'm recording Like I'm talking with you guys tonight and then I have a podcast scheduled for Tuesday night, actually with some guys you might know, I don't know. They have an apparel company called SFH, still fucking here and um this dude's a Marine Corps Sounds really familiar.

Erock: 2:02:24

Yeah, he's a Marine Corps vet. Uh, one of the guys that started it. He's had he's missing part of his arm, both legs from above, right above the knees, and part of his other hand, and um, he and his friends it looks like um have started a, an apparel company with t-shirts and all kinds of stuff and he's heavily involved in the so he like, he like, he makes t-shirts for people I don't know um send me his info, please, yeah matter of fact, let me let me pull it up, because he's mostly on Facebook.

Erock: 2:03:02

I believe that's where I found him.

Corey: 2:03:05

There's a couple of reaction YouTubers that I actually are kind of funny and enjoy to watch. Nico Ortiz he's kind of a newer one that I've seen. He's like a young ex-military I think he was in the Corps but he does some funny ass commentary with his stuff. I would love to be on one of those podcasts. He is hilarious, Nico Ortiz.

Erock: 2:03:35

I don't think I've seen. Yeah, I haven't seen those.

Corey: 2:03:37

He is hilarious. Alright, so this is yeah, I've seen that, I've seen this.

Erock: 2:03:45

Yeah, yeah, this guy here, yeah, they make some badass stuff so I'm having him and a couple of his business partners and friends, I guess, on Tuesday night. So I'm really looking forward to that, and then Wednesday I have one with, so I'm kind of branching out besides Airsoft. So I'm having these guys on. So the way I found him was he's connected with Freddie Lux that runs Veterans for Airsoft. I had Freddie on a couple times.

Corey: 2:04:16

Oh, that's right.

Erock: 2:04:19

Yeah, so he's. I don't know how they're partnered, but they work together on some events or whatever. So that's how, and I reached out to them. So, like this coming, I'm too busy, man, I don't have time to watch a lot of these reaction videos, but I have seen them. But, um, I would love to have time to watch all of them, man, because I, I, you know those and the other stuff. But, uh, you know how it is, man, editing. My computer is very slow with editing.

Corey: 2:04:51

It really is so the best ones to watch are like, uh like, if you just type in and youtube, airsoft fails, oh yeah, people will load a fresh magazine and they'll, you know, the rack, the slide and they go to shoot. The bb just goes right. Who was that? Your gun, that was?

Corey: 2:05:12

my, that was my gun yeah, I'd say it was last. Uh, last weekend. Yeah, I'd say just started dropping bb's for no reason. It would fall like five feet away from me. That was very frustrating. Oh my God, brand new gun too. Well, it was a mag issue that was going on with it. It was the PTS-E PM1s, it was the Gen 2 PTS mags yeah, the old 250 rounds, and they're dog shit we had a similar problem.

Erock: 2:05:44

Actually I got I put it on one of the videos we made when we were doing um so two of my boys that were into airsoft. They, uh, I had them. We were looking for more content to put out during that week. I was like we need more content. Okay, let's, let's film something.

Erock: 2:05:59

So I had him gear up, we went out in the backyard, I filmed and they ran like a pistol course, okay. And then after the pistol course they did mag reloads, right, like timed reloads. So they were standing next to each other and it was like a contest and so they had those little metal targets sitting on the table in the back by the shed and you know we're probably 30, 40 feet away and so they have to start with no mag, come up, load, you know, pull it out of their their mag pouch load, shoot the target, drop the mag reload, then shoot the next target. You know that kind of thing. So we had a similar issue during. That was one of the new mags they had my son. It was not locking in, so he puts it in, it falls out before he could shoot. So he finally gets it to stick Later on. He puts it in, it falls out, so no shit, throw that mag in the trash, okay.

Corey: 2:07:01

I don't know. No, Velcro works. I actually use you had that issue, I get a lot of shit about the magazines I use. They were the first. I bought a 10-count box of Elite.

Erock: 2:07:16

Force Elite.

Corey: 2:07:16

Force Mid-cap, mid-cap, 140-rounders. The Elite Force, elite Force Mid cap, mid cap, 140 rounders. I've had them since the day I started playing and I still run them to this day and they have never failed me. But they wobble in the well, the mag, well. So I took a piece of the female side of a Velcro yep, the fuzzy side, it's like the felt yeah, stuck it into the inside. Well, now I can barely get the damn things out of the bag, right. So I need new mags. But I've dropped them and I've thrown them that you know they've never broken, or the springs are still good. So I mean, why buy new stuff if it still works?

Erock: 2:08:03

yeah, man, yep, and most of that doesn't really matter, like, unless you're really trying to be really super quiet like a night game or something. They're not. No one's going to hear that uh mag jiggling a little bit, you know, yeah, people run around with drum mags and the bb's are like, oh like the high caps.

Corey: 2:08:21

We call them bitch buckets. Right, you got the winding wheel. It's like hold on. You're holding down full auto while you're winding right and they won't keep up.

Erock: 2:08:42

Well, listen, guys, it's been great having you on here. I appreciate you.

Corey: 2:08:46

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having us on here.

Erock: 2:08:49

Absolutely, man. It's fun. I love meeting you guys, so give a shout out to where people can find all your stuff going forward Unless it gets censored.

Corey: 2:09:00

Instagram, youtube, facebook soon to be Rumble, so you can find Night 9, anything Night 9 related on YouTube, Facebook, instagram soon to come to Rumble. We're going to start our kind of like small review going on. Obviously, it hasn't happened just yet in set in stone, but I want to give a shout out to x-fog for sure. If you haven't gotten any of their stuff, I highly recommend it. And yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it.

Erock: 2:09:41

Yeah, that's about it for us yeah, I want to give a shout out to our sponsors as well. Jackal Tactical is up in Pennsylvania. Paul Whitman runs that. He's got two storefronts and a field and then he runs, him and his team run Otherworld Milsim and they do events all over the place on the East Coast and so they're a sponsor. And then the one that has sponsored this from the very beginning of the podcast is Skirmish.

Erock: 2:10:12

I don't know if you guys have ever heard of the Skirmish system. So it is, if you set it up right. There's some fields that they need a little tech help, okay, but uh, it's, it's really simple to set up. But the one major feature that you have to complete first is registration of your bands, uh, so that you know who has what and who's doing what when they tap a box. But uh, this system, in opinion, is like the future of airsoft tracking as far as tracking all your stats on the field Every event you go to. It doesn't matter where you go to. If you went to anyone playing at the Stonebreaker, if they had that system set up, you would see all your stats Two months from now. You'd go back and look what objective you took, how many times you had to respawn or get revived, all kinds of cool stuff like that. But a shout out to Skirmish for sponsoring podcasts Well, go to skirmishnet.

Corey: 2:11:10

Yeah, dude.

Erock: 2:11:13

I'm telling you, man, it is. When I first heard about this I was like, why isn't everyone using this? Because, you know, a lot of airsofters are gamers and one of the things that we like to see at the end of a match or whatever kind of game you're playing is our stats uh. So I'm going. This is the only one out there now. There's a lot of different uh types of equipment that people use, you know, on the field, like stonebreaker. Third coast airsoft has uh their own system they've been using for quite a few years that they developed to show like their objectives being taken over, and it's a good system but it doesn't track individuals. So this is the only one that I've seen and it can be used for Milsims, it can be used for Speedsoft. So anyway, yeah, it's definitely growing.

Erock: 2:12:00

Ballahack Airsoft used it in an event a couple months ago and Brandon, the owner of Skirmish, he texted me and was like bro, I think my server's about to crash Because there were so many people. It was like the biggest event that Skirmish had been used on. So four, five, 600 people. It's pretty crazy. And it's tracking that all in real time. You can watch a game on skirmishnet uh and see all the objectives. It's top down view of the map. You can see the objectives being taken over and who owns what uh, and the points it is cool, yeah, but we had an app that we used out at um down in Waxahagiexas.

Corey: 2:12:43

It was called map rica. It didn't give you any stats or anything, but you could actually link with uh, your, you know, your squad or platoon or whatever, and run around and kind of see their, their um real-time gps position, and there was so many people using it, it would just keep crashing and crashing. It was real laggy. So Alex would be standing next to me, but it shows them 300 yards to the west.

Erock: 2:13:12

But yeah, that would be pretty cool, I'd like to.

Corey: 2:13:14

So how does it count? So how does it keep track of all that stuff you have to physically? I'm assuming you input it.

Erock: 2:13:23

Yeah, so this is RFID right RFID, so you have to tap. So the these. He's created these boxes, so he's made all this stuff from scratch, him and his buddies. So the guy that created this is he went in the Navy, okay, for some high-level stuff. He scored really high on the ASVAB really smart dude and the Navy sent him to MIT. So he goes to MIT to work on a certain project. He brings that knowledge whatever back to the Navy, uses it for what they wanted. He brings that knowledge whatever back to the Navy, uses it for what they wanted. And he gets out of the military and he's working with a contractor that works with DARPA OK, so he developed a mesh system for them for a way to communicate with drones, yeah, and he used him and his brother went to a Milsim and a year you know a few years ago and years ago and was like he's going, you know they're going, like they're on the field, like halfway through the milsim and going like who's winning, like what's going on, like we don't even know until the end.

Erock: 2:14:33

Right, and not only that, when at the end of a milsim, you, you only know, okay, green town or green team one, and there's 350 people on each team, but you have no idea how individual teams did, how individuals did like nothing like that. So he went home and developed this system where you could put this bracelet on, wear it and then, if these fields incorporate this or wherever it's incorporated, you could take. I could take this band anywhere around the whole world, no matter where it's at. If they have these boxes set up and the system set up. It will track each place that has it set up. He has on his website on skirmishnet, each field that has it set up, the overlay of the map, like the whole thing set up where the objectives are, like the whole thing set up where the objectives are, that kind of thing. So he made this to use for big mil, sims or bigger events. And yeah, it's pretty amazing man it's and he can program each box however you want to use it. So, for example, you can put a box.

Erock: 2:15:36

One of the guys that I had on here from kdk airsoft he uh, he has an indoor field and outdoor field and what he did was he took a small pistol case, cut the center out okay, put a piece of plexiglass in there so you could and he put the uh, skirmish box in there. The skirmish box is only about like this big, okay, maybe six inches by, maybe two inches deep or whatever and it's got blinking lights on it, right? So when you tap the way it's programmed, if you have, let's say, you're medic somebody. So he used this pistol box spray painted red for a medic box.

Erock: 2:16:14

The medic has to carry this box around, and when you're down on the field to carry this box around and when you're down on the field he has to come over to you you hold your wrist up to that medic box for 15 seconds and it'll beep and it shows the red lights on the box inside there that, okay, now you're medicked. What that does in real time. It shows on the website, real time in that game this person, whoever this is registered to, has a number on the back that you register. That person just got medicked. So now you know. Okay, you were down, so you got killed or wounded, whatever. Now you're medicked. It shows if I went over there and took over this objective, it shows in real time I was the one that took it over.

Corey: 2:17:04

It's pretty amazing man that's fancy.

Erock: 2:17:08

It is the future of airsoft tracking. I'm not kidding. It's awesome.

Corey: 2:17:14

Having something to recognize what uniform and who's on which team would be nice too. Recognize who, what uniform and who's on which team would be nice too, since exactly we get killed by the uh, by the other team, and then the other team's medic will come and revive us and then we'll wait for them to walk past us and then we'll just take them all out. It happens, it's probably happened to dakota and I seven times in the last four or five years, I believe it. That would be cool, right?

Erock: 2:17:37

yeah, that's, that's pretty awesome I think we're gonna have to yeah we'll check it out.

Corey: 2:17:41

Yeah, in the last four or five years, I believe it. That would be cool, right? Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I think we're going to have to check it out?

Erock: 2:17:45

Yeah, check it out. Go to Skirmish If you guys are interested in getting something like that. So if you don't have it available at your fields, what I tell people is ask your field owner or contact Brandon. Go to skirmishnet. I have all these links, you know, between Jackal Tactical, jacktaccom and skirmishnet. I have those links on all of our videos and also the audio versions as well. So if you go to Spotify, you'll see these links in there as well. But, yeah, go there and hit up Brandon and see if he can. You know, hey, this field over here doesn't have it, you know, and make a connection.

Corey: 2:18:26

So yeah, I don't think a lot of the fields that we've kind of been going to the last year or so aren't really, I guess you'd say, big enough to probably run something like that. We are going to ESR 19 here in a couple months, so that will be maybe something that's actually our first major mills. Yeah, that'll be nice. Next weekend we'll be in Wyandotte, oklahoma, for a LARPing event that we've gone to last year Crabastan, crabastan, I've heard of that for a LARPing event that we've gone to last year. Grab a stand, grab a stand, grab a stand. I've heard of that. We're going as mercenaries. We'll be in blue jeans and plaid long-sleeved shirts. For some reason we bought wool shirts, so it's going to be a little oh shit.

Corey: 2:19:19

You got your months fixed up.

Erock: 2:19:21

It's not December, shit, you got your months fixed up Like it's not December bro.

Corey: 2:19:23

Okay, yeah, it's going to be really bad.

Erock: 2:19:26

Just cut the sleeves off, you'll be all right.

Corey: 2:19:29

Yeah, red marks.

Erock: 2:19:32

You'll look like chicken pox up and down your arms.

Corey: 2:19:34

Okay, yeah.

Erock: 2:19:38

Well, I appreciate you guys, man, thank you so much and I hope you guys have a good night yeah, you too, man, we'll definitely, we'll stay in touch yeah, I usually try to have the same people on or more team members or whatever, like later on, a few months down the road, after some more events, or if you have something to talk to or talk about. Like I've had people hit me up later and go hey man, I just went to this event, let's you know, I want to jump on the podcast. So I've had people on before like two, three times to talk about events or whatever. So, yeah, definitely, definitely have you guys on again in the future.

Corey: 2:20:12

Cool, appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, brother.

Erock: 2:20:15

Thank you, bye brother, brother, you guys have a good weekend.

Corey: 2:20:18

You too Outro.

Erock: 2:20:28

Music.