Good Neighbor Podcast: South of the River
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of South of the River
Good Neighbor Podcast: South of the River
EP #111 What happens when history meets modern firearm education?
Austin Reville shares the fascinating story behind 2 If by Sea Tactical, a firearms and ammunition retailer expanding into a 10,000-square-foot facility with an indoor shooting range in New Prague. His passion for history and firearms education has transformed a basement hobby into a thriving business that connects the community with both modern and historical weapons.
• Business expanding from 700 to 10,000 square feet with an eight-lane, 25-yard indoor range
• Name "2 If by Sea Tactical" references Paul Revere's midnight ride and the American Revolution
• Will feature historical weapons from WWII that customers can actually shoot and rent
• Austin's personal collection dating back to the 1860s will be on display
• Debunks common firearms myths like "AR" standing for "assault rifle"
• Tested and disproved the myth that 3D printers can easily create functional gun modifications
• Originally from Alabama, played and coached college football before finding his calling
• Started as a basement-based FFL transfer business that quickly outgrew the space
• Will be the only indoor range within approximately 45 minutes in any direction
• Emphasizes community involvement and building relationships beyond just business
You can reach out via email at support@2ifbyseatactical.com, visit their website at 2ifbyseatactical.com, or call 952-290-0929.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mark Bratton.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbors Podcast, number 111. And today we have a very special guest who will lift up your spirits and love of history and service to our community south of the river. My guest today is Austin Revell with 2F by Sea Tactical. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:Austin Doing well. Thank you for having us on. We're very excited about this.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm equally as excited to share your business with a whole bunch of other people, because it's super fascinating and I know you have a whole bunch to share and talk to us about today so with no further ado. Um, why don't you just give us a little idea about what you do with two if by C tactical?
Speaker 3:well, uh, two, if I see, tactical is a firearm and ammunition retailer. We are expanding into an indoor shooting range coming in quarter one of next year, so we'll have that up and running eight lanes 25 yards up the 338 Lapua Magnum. So we're expanding quite a bit, moving out of our 700 square foot facility here over to about 10,000 square feet. It's about two blocks from where we are currently standing. Pretty excited to bring that. We do a lot of online sales as well, so it's not just in person, it's also online.
Speaker 2:Well, austin, that's pretty nice, but I know you have a little bit of history in your head up there, so I'd love for you to go back a little ways and tell us a little bit about your love of the history of oh, wars and guns and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm a bit of what they call a nerd. I do enjoy reading a good book and just learning a little bit about where we came from, and hopefully that can help set the template about where we're going as well. I kind of came up with the name too, if I see tactical, as a reference to that historical bent that we kind of do things here with, and it's the Henry Longfellow poem Midnight Ride One If I Land Two If I See Paul Revere's the British Are Coming Ride, that kind of kicked off the American Revolution and what would later become America, with the shot heard around the world up in Massachusetts, lexington and Concord. So that's where the name comes from. We really strive to have a historical analysis through everything we do. So if you go to our website there's going to be a bunch of references, some you'll get, some are somewhat vague depending on how deeply you go into it, but everything we do is with that in mind.
Speaker 2:And your location there in New Prague. Are you going to have some history on the walls? Are you going to have some history that people can touch and feel and see some of these fun weapons from the past? Absolutely, we're going to have weaponry going all touch and feel and see some of these, uh, fun weapons from the past, absolutely.
Speaker 3:We're gonna have uh weaponry going all the way back to at least world war ii. We'll be looking at trying to do some a little bit uh, older than that as well, but at least world war ii to start off with. You'll be able to shoot some of it. We're even going to have it available for rent. So if you would like to feel a little bit of what your forefathers did before you, at least in a small, very small controlled setting, as opposed to, like, say, jumping out of an airplane in Normandy, you'll get the opportunity to do that. So we have that.
Speaker 3:And we'll also have my own personal collection on display. We're going to have pieces of that. I have a collection going all the way back to the 1860s, some very rare historical pieces, stuff you won't see hardly anywhere. I got a few that don't even pop up in video games. That's kind of how obscure they are. So we'll make sure that we put that on display so you'll at least get to see it. Some of those you may not get to shoot or touch, but at least you'll get to see it.
Speaker 2:You're not going to get much work done during the day when you're telling everybody the history and they're talking and touching and feeling those old guns right.
Speaker 3:I know there's very few things that you can do with historical items that makes them relevant to the day, other than maybe collecting cars. Most of the time if you want to collect something, it kind of has to sit in the box and you can't really touch it. I mean, if you want to get a letter from Benjamin Franklin, for instance, that's really cool. It basically has to sit in the display case. You can't handle it, otherwise it would completely fall apart and obviously disintegrate.
Speaker 3:Firearms, as long as you take care of them and maintain them, will last forever. It's something that you can take out and use right now. In fact, I've taken deer with some of my World War II rifles. One of them was from 1939. The other one's from 1944. I've got a few deer with those, still relative, still something you could use today. Of course you could just shoot them for fun or at least to maybe get a sense of the feeling of what it was like. You'll be surprised how heavy some of these things are for sure and how much recoil there are, and when you consider the average size of an American around 5'8 back in the 1940s, and the fact that they were jumping out of airplanes or running up beaches with hundreds of pounds of equipment you know being 150 to 180 pounds, maybe 210 on the high end it really gives you a great respect for what they did and they did that for years for a great cause, and just get you that personal connection that you sometimes can't get by just reading a letter from, say, benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they wouldn't let me jump out of a plane now with anything.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure I'd want to, even if they would let me.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm way over that deal. So those parameters. But you know one thing I did notice, not only your history and stuff, and in your world, like a lot of them, there's so many myths and misconceptions about anything to do with firearms how you can shoot them, where you can shoot them. Give us a couple of those myths that just aren't true and you'll find over at your new facility.
Speaker 3:Sure, I mean, one of the big ones we hear a lot about is say, like take an AR-15. The AR stands for assault rifle. It does not. It stands for armor light rifle assault rifle. It does not. It stands for armor light rifle. That is the original designer and manufacturer of the AR-15 platform that would later on become the M-16 platform that Colt would produce for the US military from well, really from 1961, all the way up until 2004. They would have various variants of that.
Speaker 3:The other big myth I would say at least we see this a lot in Minnesota and you're seeing it more in the inner cities is 3D printed firearms. Ghost guns per se. We call those homemade firearms. Those are legal in most states and in order to make a firearm you don't necessarily have to have a license like we do. You just can't sell them. You can't make them to resell. That's where the crime comes into play. If you're just making them for your own personal use, that is fine. Some of the 3D printing stuff is a huge myth. That is something I don't know if you remember the old MythBuster show from the Discovery Channel back in the early 2000s.
Speaker 3:But we started doing some of that where we hear you know, oh, you can 3D print a Glock switch to just turn it into a machine gun, for instance. So we got our 3D printer out. We're an 0702, which means we're a manufacturer of firearms and specifically we can manufacture National Firearm Act items, those extra controlled items such as suppressors and machine guns. So we're able to do this legally and we would, uh, we try to print up a glock switch to make it work. We could not 3d print one to make it work. I'm gonna say myth busted on that one. Uh, now could you make it out of metal and machine it to make it work? Sure, absolutely. But these, you know, in 30 minutes you could have it out of your 3d printer. I'm gonna say, no, I we tried multiple different types of ways to do it and we could not even get it to function because it's so brittle, it just is shattered. So I hear that a lot these days. I'm like, yeah, that's not what that is, it can't be.
Speaker 2:Well, I can tell, with your history and your love of the history, you also, uh can help somebody out virtually with anything today. Uh, with any question they'd have from their modern a weapon that they purchased today, that's brand spanking new right well, I don't know about any question.
Speaker 3:I mean, of course I I would go find it there. I'm always learning something new. No one can know everything. And well, I pride myself obviously on on, uh, the collector market and understanding the historical bent. I would like to think that we between me and my staff here we could answer pretty much all questions, but of course there's going to be some things we don't know. We are human after all, and I think that's actually more exciting. When someone brings me a question that I don't know, it gives me a reason to go find out and learn about that. When it comes to laws and regulations, those are obviously ever evolving and changing state and local as well as federal levels, and that's hard to keep up with. We try to stay on top of it, but I really liked to be stumped because that makes me go down that rabbit hole of like well, well, okay, let's take a look at this and see what we can learn from it um, I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that and me not being. I mean, I deer hunted a couple times, but I'd have no idea how far a gun can shoot, what type of ammo to put in it, but I know that you and your staff can take care of that, so it is, and it has evolved my, my knowledge on a bunch of different things and even my opinions on some of them.
Speaker 3:Um, I mean, again, we talked about ar-15s, for instance. This is not an ar, anti-ar-15 stance, but ar-15s don't generally make great home defense rifles. You say why? Because, well, you got a which is going to take a standard one in the 5.56, 2.23 caliber. It's a bullet moving at 2,700, 2,800 feet per second. You don't want something like that indoors. It will go through a bunch of different materials, especially from your own personal liability perspective.
Speaker 3:You've got to look at gun platforms, kind of like you look at your toolbox. You've got your Phillips head screwdrivers, you've got your flathead screwdrivers. They all come in different shapes and sizes for different jobs. Guns are the same way. They're all designed with unique capabilities that do fit a job most of the time and you got to tailor it to the job. Uh, you know I I say, hey, I got a ton of them here for sale. You should absolutely come buy them all. That's not an anti-ar 15 stance, that's just not what they were designed to do. They're designed to be outdoors. At this medium distance, I should say, um, love it, and that's just something that you pick up along the way as you get into this well, I love that, and uh, they just have to come and see you.
Speaker 2:That's all there is too.
Speaker 3:I mean, we got a pretty cool gun wall here. You should take a peek at yeah, I will, I promise, um.
Speaker 2:But now that we've got that under our belt, you and I and everybody else good business owners. We don't just live at work, so why don't you share a little bit of your love of the community, the things you do around the community, your family? What do you do to relax?
Speaker 3:I don't know if I know the meaning of the word relax sometimes. But you know, truthfully, we are very blessed here in New Prague. New Prague is an amazing community. I mean, yes, they're highly supportive from a business perspective. But we have some lifelong friends here now too. I'm originally from Alabama, so nowhere near Minnesota.
Speaker 3:I lived in New York for three years, then California for a year before I moved here, so I've kind of been all over my wife, you're not a football fan, oh yeah, roll Tide all the way Right, my my wife's from Owatonna, which is about an hour South Southwest of here, so we're not necessarily originally from new Prague and then a smaller town. That can always be challenging, but truthfully, this has been a really welcoming area In terms of what we do. I mean, obviously, I own a shop here. She works with the police department as a police officer here in town and our community involvement really comes down to the Chamber of Commerce here. I mean, the people that run that CeeLo Walden and Brooke Stika are amazing. They really do an amazing job of connecting businesses with the community but also allowing us to get out and meet people on an individual level, and it's been great.
Speaker 3:I truly have lifelong friends because of all this. Not something that you would imagine when you open a business, because a lot of times, people just want to open a business and and be done with it. Um, I don't know how you can do business that way personally, but I also don't think I would want to. I want to know people on a on a personal level, you know and I love it.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of things to get involved in. Whether I hope one day here soon I can have the time to go volunteer with a new prague high school football team, get back into coaching a little bit. Uh, after playing college football and coaching it, I would love to get back on some level. And my wife teaches gymnastics here in town. We love we.
Speaker 2:We really do love living here yeah, I know that's why I was so excited to get you on the podcast today. Another thing is and I think I kind of know the answer, but you kind of alluded to your football, your love of football, your career, your wife with gymnastics, sports and stuff. Was there something that just moved you in to the trade you're in and the business you're in with the guns and stuff? What made you go that route and a different direction?
Speaker 3:Well, truthfully, I did try to do the football route in the beginning. I was blessed enough to play college football at the University of North Alabama. We were a D2 school at the time. We were a very successful team and I played with a lot of good players. I'm not going to sit here and say it was because of me. In fact, most of the time I say it's probably in spite of me. We had some really, really amazing talented players and excellent coaches. My final head coach is in the College Football Hall of Fame. Actually, as a head coach I went on to coach there for a year.
Speaker 3:I went up to Ithaca College in Cortland State up in New York after that to pursue my coaching career. That eventually led me out to Gavilan College in Gilroy, California, which is just about 30 minutes south of San Jose, and after that ended, for whatever reason, wasn't picking up college jobs. The only opportunity I had was to take a job with Edison High School in North Minneapolis here. Never been to Minnesota, Didn't really do any research. North Minneapolis ends up in the news a lot for various reasons. It went well as well as you could expect. I guess we had more success than we had in years past, but it's not really a priority up here. That particular sport you know, hockey is the big thing. I didn't, you know. I exhausted every opportunity to do that and, for whatever reason, God had a different plan for me and my love of the history and firearms really is what started to become more prevalent around this time. I really was getting into several different authors and books, namely Ian McCollum uh, he does run a YouTube series called forgotten weapons, and just learning a little bit about that and I don't know it ignited a fire in me. So I started looking into what it would take to get my federal firearms license to assist me in building my own personal collection. And part of the deal of that is you have to show you're in the business of. You can't just use it to enhance your own collection. My original plan was just to do the bare minimum, what we call FFL transfers. You buy something online that's a firearm. It can't be shipped to your house. It has to come to a federally licensed firearms dealer to run a background check and make sure that you can legally possess it. That was my only plan. I was just like I'm just going to do these transfers. It'll probably once in a blue moon. I'm in a town of 9,000 people. How busy am I going to be? Really Turns out very busy. I'm the only one in the area, Of course.
Speaker 3:2020 happened in COVID and the firearms exploded in sales and it got to the point where it took over my 400 square foot basement and my wife wanted it back and was like, hey, you need to make a decision. Are you going to do this full time which there does seem to be potential here or are you going to continue to do it part time? If you are doing it part time, you really need to scale back, Because I was running myself rack and working a full-time job and from there we started our retail shop, and that was in 2022. And now here we are, expanding again, going over a 10,000-square-foot facility. So it really exploded.
Speaker 3:I mean I thought I was busy. Just running out of my house, I opened a retail store. It's nonstop. We have very, very few slow days I mean, election year is always spiky a little bit but we're maintaining a pretty steady customer stream and, truthfully, we're really the only ones around. We're kind of and I didn't really factor this in when I started it because I wasn't thinking about this becoming my full-time business? I didn't realize. I was the only one around in about 30 minute radius. Either way, you slice it um and for our indoor range, we're going to be the only indoor range north of us for about 35 minutes, south of us for about an hour and a half. So we are going to be somewhat exclusive.
Speaker 2:That is amazing, and I'm going to be the first of many people to thank God for taking you in that direction, Cause I've had a great time learning it's. It's an area that I guess you'd look at. Your deal with sports. I've been in sports my whole life. I don't know if I've ever had the interest in firearms like I have since I've met you, and I appreciate that so much because every time we get together, whether it's networking or a chamber event or something, you throw something out that sticks in my head for about two days and I try to figure out.
Speaker 2:What in the world earth is he talking about? Do a little research, and I don't know exactly what austin's talking about. So I'm excited for the future for you and um you know I'm a very fortunate man.
Speaker 3:Be honest with you. I've god's blessed me and my family, there's no question about it. Uh, you know, I I am religious and, uh, I've been fortunate enough to live a couple of different dreams. You know, I wanted to be a college football coach. That's what I want to do, and I did. I enough to live a couple of different dreams. You know I wanted to be a college football coach. That's what I want to do, and I did.
Speaker 3:I got to live that for five years, I mean, even though the career didn't end the way I thought it would be. That doesn't mean that my life is any less rewarding and fulfilling as it is now. I never in a million years thought that this would become something, and I have so much fun doing this. I mean not doing the paperwork as much, but the actual. You know, doing the selling, getting to interact with people, being out in the community and seeing people and educating people on what we do, how this works and what these things are for it's. You know, like they say, you never work a day in your life when you're having fun, and that's true.
Speaker 2:Well, I know for a fact, and I know you know for a fact, that there is a plan for us.
Speaker 3:You and.
Speaker 2:I are walking down that path, going the right direction, and we're pleasing that guy upstairs every day. I know, because I know you a little bit.
Speaker 3:I would encourage people who think about starting a business is rewarding. I mean, is it hard? Sure, I'm not going to sugarcoat that. But and then, when we took that leap of faith to me quitting my full time job and doing it, there is a moment of like, oh no, what did I do? But boy, the rewards have been amazing.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm not talking monetary necessarily. I'm talking the relationships, the connection you have with not only your customers but your community even, at least for us, including civil government here just because we are heavily regulated, so therefore we have a lot of interactions with that. It's all been life-changing in the most positive way. So I would encourage you, you know, do your research in your field, of course, but, man, if you're thinking about it, you got a backer in me go for it, because it is awesome.
Speaker 2:I agree, and there's things in our lives and you know I'm very much involved with anti-bullying in the schools. I know you and your wife are involved in the schools but when you actually save somebody's life, boy, it just changes your life. Because you know, yeah, monetary big deal, you have money, you have this, but if you're not there, what good is it? And you've got your kids and people out there that are struggling. We're here to help them and that's again why I love hanging around with you as well. But as we wrap up here, what is there one thing that you want everybody to remember about this podcast and your business?
Speaker 3:As far as this podcast goes, get involved with your neighborhoods, your community, your cities. I don't care if it's a city of 200 people or if it's a city of a million people. There are so many amazing people out there looking to get connected with you and they don't even know it. I mean, I got friends now that I never in a million years would have thought I'd be friends with, but your life is fuller for it. So you, you know. Podcasts like this, broadening horizons. Obviously I'm in the field where there's a lot of strong opinions on either side.
Speaker 3:Um, I'd encourage you to learn about it and in a podcast like this, brings in so many different speakers, it will allow you to get a pretty broad range, in a relatively short amount of time, of different industries, different types of people, and you will see that us business owners we're as varied as the businesses as we're in. We're all different and we all have a lot to offer in many different ways to enhance our communities. As far as what I want them to remember about, I guess me and my business that we did things the right way, we cared, and I do hope that our business will one day become a pillar in this community, and I don't mean that from a selfish perspective, I mean that in the sense that uh new preg has done so much for me and my family. I hope that we're in some small part a way to give back and uh help prop this amazing town up and community up well, I know I'm with a company that's basically in every state, united states and canada, every province in.
Speaker 2:I know I'm with a company that's basically in every state, united States and Canada, every province in Canada. I'm waiting for that Anywhere I go. Oh, you're from Minnesota. Hey, do you know? That company called two of the two, if I see tactical? You knew, craig, I can't wait till that day. Austin, I can't wait.
Speaker 3:I mean we would be very humble that that becomes true, but I'm thankful for the people I know now.
Speaker 2:Tell everybody how to get a hold of you whatever way you want to tell it.
Speaker 3:So you know you can reach out to us via email. It's support at 2, the number 2, ifbyctacticalcom, and C is S-E-A like the ocean. Our website is the same web URL 2F by CTacticalcom. Our phone number is 952-290-0929. I'm here most days too, if you'd like to speak to me, but we have an amazing staff. Really got to give a shout out to Gary and Brent, our two sales reps. They know a lot. In a lot of ways, they know more about certain things than even I do and, uh, we're always here to help you any, and I don't even need to be gun related. If you want to learn how to get more involved in new preg, reach out. I mean, I'm a member of the chamber of commerce.
Speaker 2:uh, we can definitely connect you with the right people well, I know for a fact you and I were cruising up and down the streets during dosankey trying to keep kids safe. I appreciate that. So, hey, austin, I've had a great time. I thank you so much, and we're going to wrap up here, ready.
Speaker 1:Ready, all right. Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast South of the River. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPSouthoftherivercom. That's GNPSouthoftherivercom, or call 952-592-3737.