Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Hunting For Opportunities In The Canadian Ammunition Market
Daryl Kenny, a visionary from the Canadian Rifleman, takes us on a compelling journey through his bold venture into the ammunition industry amidst the scarcity brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. His relentless pursuit to create a local source for hard-to-find ammunition like the 300 Win Mag reveals the complex web of regulations, specifically navigating the nuances of Canada's Explosives Act. Daryl's story is a testament to the power of networking and expert advice, showcasing the resilience needed to make a mark in the competitive world of outdoor sports and ammunition.
For the passionate hunters and sports shooters across Canada, an intriguing investment opportunity awaits. Partnering with a licensed outfitter and guide from Grand Prairie, we've introduced a member-owner program that not only promises financial engagement but also offers the thrill of adventure. With an investment of $1,500 or more, participants gain shares and a captivating three-day wolf hunt in Alberta, combining the excitement of the wild with potential financial rewards. This initiative is designed to break financial barriers and pave the way for the company to eventually go public, offering a unique blend of community involvement and economic growth.
Through candid discussions, we address the misconceptions surrounding firearms ownership in Canada, often skewed by media narratives. By comparing Canada's firearms culture with that of the United States, we aim to reshape public perception and emphasize the responsible nature of gun enthusiasts. The episode also explores strategies to expand the ammunition market, with an eye on international demand, particularly in the U.S. As we conclude, we look towards future developments with newfound expertise, driving the company towards innovative horizons.
Check us out on Facebook and instagram Hunts On Outfitting, and also our YouTube page Hunts On Outfitting Podcast. Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!
this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, ken meyer. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to how to's. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast. All right, hey, thanks for tuning in to the podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you listeners.
Speaker 1:New and upcoming businesses are great, especially in the outdoor industry. In my opinion, it shows that, despite what the aunties say, we aren't really going anywhere and we are growing our great pastime of hunting and shooting. And new small businesses are great too. In a place where very large ones dominate the industry, is it better to offer more choices and not just have a few choice companies control the market? I believe so. That's why, when Daryl Kenny contacted me from the Canadian Rifleman, I was all ears. In this podcast we get to talk to him and learn about his experience in the startup and challenges of making a brand new ammunition company. It's an interesting one. I hope you enjoy it. But yeah, I mean thanks for coming on. When you guys, when you reached out to me and saying you know it'd be cool to come on the podcast, you know if you're looking for somebody. I said I'm always looking for somebody. And then when I went on and saw what you guys are doing, I was like hold on, they started an ammunition company from scratch, like.
Speaker 2:I was like that's pretty neat and I'm sure a lot of red tape to get across yeah, well, that's what kind of what we thought, right, we, we, we figured we were told that from the beginning. Oh, there's just no way that you guys would be able to do this. But really we didn't really set out to start an ammo company, it was more of a. I asked some questions. I was like, well, why don't we have an ammo company in Canada? And this was during COVID, when it was difficult to get ammo, you know, like you go to the store and most of the shelves were empty. I mean, a box of 30-30 ammunition you couldn't buy one, even to this day, a box of 410, you know, and in my case it was.
Speaker 2:Actually I was going guiding and I had a fellow coming up from the United States who wanted to use my rifle and I shoot 300 Win Mag for hunting moves, and so I was looking for some 300 Win Mag ammo and I drove 700 kilometers checking through all the different sporting goods stores and whatever, checking online, looking for, looking for even one box of 300 Win Mag ammo, and I couldn't find one, not in 180 grain, it was 150s, and I seriously considered resetting my rifle for 150s just because it was possible. But anyways, one thing led to another, I wound up finding a box of ammo for the 300. It was $110 when I found it, and so this is sort of what led to asking the questions. It was like well, first of all, I guess if we had our own ammunition company in Canada we wouldn't have that problem. And that sort of led to the next question Well, why don't they have an ammunition company, right?
Speaker 1:And so, as it sort of happened, my pal was up for renewal last year and so- which, for those listening, in Canada we have to have that card in order to buy ammunition and have possessed firearms.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah, and once in a while, when you apply for your renewal, they once in a while they'll flag you at random to do either an inspection or an interview or whatever, and they're just checking to make sure that you got your stuff safe. And, as it happened, I got flagged and they called me for an interview and they just asked me about how my firearms were stored and they quizzed me on some stuff. I wasn't too concerned about that, but while I had the CFO on the phone or actually it was the regional firearms officer, not the chief firearms officer I just asked her. I said well, can you answer me this? Why don't we have an ammo company in Canada? And she kind of says I don't really know. She says it doesn't fall under the Firearms Act. I said what do you mean? It doesn't fall under the Firearms Act? And she says no, it falls under the explosives act. You'll have to talk to somebody with national or, yeah, natural resources, canada.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, it was like this light bulb went off in my head and I thought, well, if it doesn't fall under the firearms act, then none of the legislation that they put through um, you know, banning firearms or regulating firearms even applies to what we're doing. So then I started reaching out and I went on LinkedIn actually, and I reached out to somebody that was an explosives specialist former Canadian forces, et cetera and he said oh, you know, I don't really deal with the regulatory side, but I know somebody that does, and he gave me. He says oh, you know, I don't really deal with the regulatory side, but I know somebody that does, and he gave me. He made the introduction and this fellow used to work, he was former Canadian forces as well, and then he worked for ERD Exposives Research and Development Canada.
Speaker 2:And now he's retired, and so I called this guy up and we got talking. I told him what I wanted to do and he says, oh no, he says it's totally doable. He says we just have to get through the process. And I said, well, what's the process? And he said there's a bit to it. He said for the first thing he says you have to have a storage magazine license. And I said okay, and he says they won't do anything. I said okay, and he says they won't do anything, they won't help you at all unless you have a place to legally store you know, explosives or, in this case, ammunition. And he said you know you can't import it. You can't export, you have to have a place to put it right Legally. I said okay, well, let's get through that first. So then you know we did that.
Speaker 2:I went and found a friend that has an acreage and we basically put an empty sea can on his property that says danger on the outside and has security cameras monitoring it and fire extinguishers and all the rest. Meanwhile there's nothing inside of it. And so just to get it licensed. And we got it licensed and just like that we had a storage magazine permit and along with that came, we had a storage magazine permit and along with that came a vendor's license and then an import permit. And then it was like Holy crap, this is actually happening. So then I asked him I said, well, our plan is to actually be able to make the ammunition here in Canada. So what would I have to do to get that license? And he says, well, it's what's called a Division II explosives license. And I said, okay, by the way, I'm kind of giving away the farm here, I guess, but anyway, I'm sure people are just going to be running out and doing it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sounds quite ambitious, yeah, so then he gave us a bit of a run through and he says so, you'll need the factory license, but then you'll also have to have an authorization from the federal government to distribute the product in Canada. I said, okay, well, how does that work? And so he says, well, you'll have to submit, you'll have to make them on your, you'll have to get the equipment that you're going to use. He says make the product that you're going to make and submit it to the ERD or NRCan and National Resources Canada to get it. And basically they put it through destructive testing, they take it apart and they weigh the bullet and they weigh the propellant charge and they test the range of the propellant charge and then they test the primer oh, so just the oil, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And then they fire it and they test the pressures and they test the range of the high and the low velocities, like 50 rounds, and see what's what. And so then they send you a printout and it has to fall within certain parameters. If you get it within the right parameters, then it goes to the Minister of Natural Resources federally to be signed off. And it actually sat. We got the paperwork from ERD I think the beginning of July, and it was another eight weeks on the Minister of Natural Resources desk and we were a little bit white knuckled for a little bit. That's where we didn't know if it was going to be possible or not. We were sort of waiting for that sign off from the minister. And then it came through. We literally got a piece of paper that said you know, you're authorized to distribute your product in canada, and it came with authorizations for 30 different calibers. So, oh, wow, yeah, yeah. So it was a bit of it, it was a bit of a thing we didn't you know. And then at that point, like I said, we were just trying to answer questions and, lo and behold, we got through it. It's okay. Well now, what are we going to do? I mean, this thing has a multi million dollar barrier to entry. It's not like I was a truck driver in the oil field and my brother's a crane operator. It's not like we have $8 million just in our back pockets, kind of thing. Right, okay. So now, how are we going to fund this thing? We've proven that it's possible in Canada. How are we going to fund this thing?
Speaker 2:So I reached out. Actually, there was a bunch of things I was starting to go through, looking at partnerships with different companies and corporate partnerships and this kind of thing. And then I reached out to Go Alberta. They're a company I hear out of Alberta that does equity crowdfunding and the idea was to create a lifestyle brand and like a following with Canadian hunters and sports shooters, I suppose. And I figured that if we got a big enough following and we built a base of member owners, that there would likely be somebody in that group of people that would have the resources to help us, if that makes sense. So we would be able to produce ammo on a small, smaller scale and in the meantime, you know, um, buy the components and put it together, just get it on shelves and then there would be somebody in there that would be able to reach out to and say, hey, you know, like if we can really ramp up these sales, would you be willing to work with us and fund the orders for it? Right, and so that's kind of.
Speaker 2:That's kind of where the idea came from was to build a community around our brand, and so the community it's not just ammo as a matter of fact, ammo is just kind of really one. I wouldn't say it's a small piece, but it's one piece of the pie. And I'm a licensed outfitter and a guide. We're offering wolf hunts, for example, this winter, and so like we're trying to, and like local events. I'm in the Grand Prairie area, so we're talking about doing local events, and you know we've got a piece of property, so put on classes. For what were some of the things we were talking about? I'm kind of going off topic here but the whole, the whole yeah.
Speaker 2:no, the whole thing is to is to engage. We're trying to engage with with um Canadian hunters and sports shooters to bring them so that they're familiar with us, so that we can get over this right, this, this um financial barrier to entry, by drawing people into the fold, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you guys have looking at your website, you have a chance to kind of buy into the company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly yeah. So, like I said, I've gotten a little rambling a bit here because there's a lot to attend to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot to it. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was a member owner program and so when you buy into the company, you wind up with shares of the company, and one of the things that we're offering this winter if somebody's interested, if you spend $1,500 or more, you get 3,000 shares and we're offering a fully guided three-day wolf hunt here in Alberta with my company.
Speaker 1:That's a really good deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the wolf hunt itself is actually worth as much as that. And then of course we'll throw in some swag company T-shirt, a hat, this kind of thing, and then the whole idea is that at that point you've gotten a little bit out of it from us. If you're not interested in the hunt, there's a. Like I said, there's some other things that I'm just going to see if I can find it here. If a person's not interested in the hunt, there's other things that we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the shares you know with the company come along with that.
Speaker 2:That's really the tag on bonus yeah, so what we found, though, was that a lot of people, because they're not familiar with us, investing us in us, in a company that we're not, that they're not familiar with, is kind they don't want to do that. There's some. There's a lot of red, I guess red flags, because it's it's not something that people are familiar with, and so we've tagged on the hunt, because it's like you know what it doesn't for a resident, or even somebody in Canada. It doesn't cost us a lot to do that, and we can take that money and invest it in our company, so we decided to at least give them something for their money up front in the Wolf Hunt.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because the Wolf Hunt is worth more than the $1,500. So I mean it helps kind of legitimize you guys if somebody is kind of iffy, and then also I mean they're getting their money's worth, not just with the shares but 100% with the Wolf Hunt.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's a great idea and I just want to talk. I mean, you know, keep going over this, and it's interesting too. You know you're outfitting. Uh, the wolf hunt must be neat. I mean, how big would these wolves be? What's the average size? And is it a difficult hunt? You guys set up over bait. They're quite weary, I'm assuming, like a coyote yeah, well, okay, there's a few questions there.
Speaker 2:It's not as if it's cold, it's the biggest thing this year. We've got openings in February and in March and we've got quite a few openings for them. The wolves themselves a big one is around 150 pounds probably, so that would be a big wolf. But we're actually setting up baits right now and essentially, I just came back from deer camp and so we've got the entrails from deer that we froze. We actually left them outside because it was minus 30. We let them freeze and then I brought them home with me and we're using those as baits. We're setting setting them up right now and then we we put cameras up and the hunts themselves take place from a heated blind. So that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a three-day wolf hunt you wind up with with a fully guide hunt from a heated blind over maintained bait, the like. The opportunity rate is in 2024. We did some did some of these hunts as well, just to keep keep the wolf populations in check. In one of our areas where we hunt elk and we hunted, we hosted four guys and all four of them at least had a chance at a wolf. Actually, one guy went home empty-handed, but it wasn was because he missed the wolf is what happened. But the hunt is fully guided. We provide accommodations. We'll pick you up from the airport. The only thing we don't supply is the flights, if you need it, if you're coming in, but we'll pick you up from the airport. We provide meals, accommodations, beverages, snacks and, like I said, the hunt itself. Right, so it's pretty good. It's actually very good value for what you're getting.
Speaker 1:Even if you didn't get the shares that right there is worth the money.
Speaker 2:Right, but we need the investment so that we can build the ammo company. And that's the thing is that on the back end of this, you're going to own a piece of our company as well, and as we grow, your shares will grow. That's our goal, this whole thing. Put forward as much as we can, and eventually we'd like to take it public so that people can cash out on those shares too. So I mean, just imagine you go on this wolf hunt and then, five years from now, eight years from now, 10 years from now, you get you know, you're getting quarterly updates from us, you're watching your share prices grow and you're like, damn, that was pretty good wolf hunt, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, exactly yeah. So I mean, really, you starting this ammunition company, is you? Just, you didn't even plan it, did you? You just kind of came by it by happenstance, just kind of realizing, because, I mean, it's no secret, here in Canada we do have an ammunition supply problem. The prices are usually really high. If we can get it, and that's if you can get it, we're not a priority. The US, I mean, they are good for them. They've got a lot more guns, they've got a politics are a little better in their favor for, uh, the allowance of ammunition, all that here in Canada, uh, we kind of get the last of the pickings. I guess you could say yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker 2:What happens is that we wind up in Canada, we only get what falls off the end of the line from the US manufacturers that hasn't already been sold into their primary market, and so their primary market obviously is military right. So when the war in Ukraine kicked off, for example, there became such a shortage that a lot of these guys they went and they retooled their line to be able to produce 7.62x51 and 5.6 NATO to be able to send to Ukraine. Well, what happens then to the civilian stuff? Well, they retooled the lines from the civilian stuff Takes a backseat. So then there's already a shortage of civilian ammunition, and then the civilian ammunition that does exist, they sell it into their primary civilian market, which is the United States, and we only get what's left over in Canada essentially, and so that's what really led to the shortage.
Speaker 1:And it certainly did. I mean, there's a lot of, I know, people that were buying new rifles or new shotguns just because the one that they prefer and like to use during COVID and all that they couldn't get the ammunition for. They just couldn't get the ammunition for.
Speaker 2:They just couldn't. Yeah and that was another thing is buying 410 ammunition. There were a few companies that had, or a few stores that had, a few boxes of 410 ammunition, but in order to buy one, they either wanted $200 for a box of ammunition or you had to buy a shotgun and they give you one box of ammunition. It's like, seriously, I've got to buy at 410. You're going to give me one box, like yeah, yeah, I mean I, I know that.
Speaker 1:Um, I was going on a rabbit hunt around that time and I had my over and under 410. I wanted to use that and did a lot of hunting around. My uncle ended up finding me a box at this store in the, this convenience store in the middle of nowhere. They had a box, I think, a box or two left. But other places that you go to like a gun dealer or something like, well, we do, but we're, we're holding that box. So if someone buys, you know, the shotgun from us, we'll sell that box with it, but they they wouldn't sell it unless you bought the gun yeah, no, you're right yeah.
Speaker 2:So just to be clear, we don't. We don't have any intentions of producing shotgun ammunition. We are considering importing it. Like I said, we did get an import license right off the hop, so we were considering importing it and selling it. But we have to find a partner, a US partner, that can produce it with a private label for us or whatever. We haven't done that yet. Hopefully we're going to be in SHOT Show in January down in Las Vegas. Hopefully I'd like to talk to a few companies about doing that for us. We'll see how it goes. That would be great.
Speaker 1:You're based in Alberta, canada, and your guys' goal is to be able to provide ammunition to all Canadians I mean, you guys your mission has four parts to it and just to bring basically reliability to the Canadian ammunition trade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, sorry, I'm not on the website there, but yeah, the main missions are to ensure affordability the supply and affordability of ammunition in Canada and to support to ensure the longevity of sports shooters, sports shooting in Canada. There's there's a social aspect to it as well. You know, I try not to get into politics too much as well. I try not to get into politics too much, but the firearms owner in Canada, I feel, has been cast in a negative light by the media especially.
Speaker 2:I think some of the policies that have been enacted by government are heavily persuaded by public opinion. That is erroneous, if that makes sense, it's based on faulty information. Whether or not the people peddling the information know that it's erroneous, I don't know. I don't think so. I think what it is is non-firearms owners don't really have a horse in the race and they don't know the difference. And so if you don't know the difference and you have somebody telling you something, that becomes your basis for your opinion, if that makes sense. Part of our goal is to showcase the Canadian firearms owner in a way that is different than what the media would have you would have you believe. You know, like you and I are sitting here talking. We're both firearms owners. We're just average ordinary people, right, and this is the thing out. This is the thing is that we're not guys in ghillie suits waiting to shoot somebody. We're not. We're not potential terrorists ghillie suits waiting to shoot somebody. We're not potential terrorists. We're your banker, we're truck drivers, we're farmers.
Speaker 1:I have lawyers that own firearms, for example, and we're average law-abiding citizens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're everybody. That's the point is that we're ubiquitous with Canadians.
Speaker 1:Canadians, right, yeah, and I want to try to showcase that in a way that, like I say, that challenges the negative perception yeah, yeah, I mean absolutely, and if somebody from the states is listening to this too, I mean it's, it's better there, but I know that a lot of um I guess you could say antis and stuff, and some politicians are trying to come for the guns a bit more there and you know it's like we all know this they're barking up the wrong tree Us legal firearm owners that buy our hunting licenses or buy our range passes and this, and that I mean we're not the problem.
Speaker 1:It's hard to get that out there and try to you know, say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, like I said, I think some of it is people aren't listening, right, they don't have a reason to listen, they don't care like if you come from. I'll just give you the background on this. My wife was first one where I ran into this, where the light kind of went on for me of. I think where some of the disconnect is is that I took her on, I took her bow hunting and and I I killed a white tailed doe and I'm elbows deep in the thing trying, trying to trying to field dress it. And she says to me what happens if a bear comes? I kind of looked at her and I said now you know why I'd like to be able to carry a handgun. And she looked at me and it was just like she'd never thought of that before.
Speaker 2:And then she looks at me and she says well, you have a handgun, how come we don't carry it? And I said because it's illegal. And she looked at me and she says, well, what's the point in having a gun license if you can't carry your handgun? And I said, now you understand, and it was just like the lights went on in her head, that idea that having a gun license in Canada means we have a license to carry a gun in public, if that makes sense, and so if that's your basis for the belief and you grow up, maybe you're in a city.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it probably makes sense that maybe we shouldn't be doing that. I don't know whether you're on one side of that or the other. Right, it's not the truth. This is the point I'm making is that her assumptions were based on faulty information, and I think our public perceptions, our public policies, are painted heavily by that. They're painted by people not understanding what's what, and I don't know how to get that message out in a bigger way other than to try to showcase who we are as, as a community.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's like any kind of uh hunting or something that people are against, or maybe not against, but uneducated about it's. I'd like to spread the word and tell as many people about it, like whether it's hound hunting, deer hunting, whatever and I don't expect everyone to go out and take up hunting, but I just like them to know about it and know that it's okay and that, if the conversation does come up, at least they are educated about it yeah, yeah, and I don't even know what I'm ultimately trying to say here, and kind of again I get it to explain my position.
Speaker 2:But it seemed clear to me that the public perceptions are not exactly reality, I suppose, or reality perception. There's a difference there and the public policies are not based on what I think are reality.
Speaker 1:Facts. Yeah, that's why you guys are trying to kind of create a lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's what the lifestyle brand is about.
Speaker 1:yeah, Yourself, daryl. We've been talking about the ammunition company, a little bit about you. You have a lot of years experience in hand-loading.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:How did you get started in that? I guess just as a hobbyist.
Speaker 2:Well, that was interesting. I was 12 years old and my dad gave me my first hunting rifle. It was a .270 Weatherby Magnum. If you're familiar with the Weatherby calibers, they're extremely expensive to buy ammunition. This was, I think, in 1993. Dad gave me my rifle. I was 12 years old and he gave me my rifle. When he gave it to me I think there was 10 rounds of ammo or something and he had a bunch of empty brass and I went to the store to buy another box of ammunition and back then it was $70-something for a box of ammunition Back in the 90s. Other box of ammunition and back then it was 70 something dollars for a box of ammunition back in the 90s. This is when, like, you could buy a box of uh 300 windbag ammo for 15 bucks at the time and my 270 my my weatherby was, you know, 75 or
Speaker 2:whatever. So, anyways, I went home and I said to dad I'm like you know what was I going to do? Spend my babysitting money or or my lawn mowing money to buy ammunition? Like this is crazy. And he said well, your uncle is a is a competitive shooter. He said go talk to him and get him to teach you the hand load. I said okay, so I went and I see my uncle Roy and he took me down in the basement and I'd see my uncle Roy and he took me down the basement and he actually did the, of course did the first
Speaker 2:ones. I was 12 years old but I was there, I was there for the whole process and over the next six years or whatever it was seven years I just I would go to his place once a year and we would hand load you know 50 rounds or whatever. I'd go and I'd pop a few off at the range and then hunt with it. And that was sort of the beginning of my, of learning how to hand load. I suppose he taught me everything that I know. Well, not so much now, but it was everything that I knew at the time. Right, and I just fell into it, like I said, at a young age, at the age of 12, because of the extraordinary cost of buying ammunition from a hunting rifle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, no, it's uh. That's neat. I mean, you have a lot of experience doing it, which obviously helps translate into uh, to the job you're doing now. Um, so you guys plan, like starting out, what calibers are you guys doing? Just the more common ones, yeah.
Speaker 2:All rifle, or rimfire too? No, just rifle, I don't. Again, it's like with the shotgun thing we'll be talking to some other companies to produce rimfire with our label on it, but we haven't got there yet. But no, as far as centerfire rifle, I don't know how much your readers understand this or listeners understand this, but we've got um centerfire rifle.
Speaker 2:Casings exist in families. So, for example, and the ones that we're starting with is what we call the 308 family of calibers cartridges, and so 308 was invented. Casing as a straight wall cartridge is the same casing as is used for a 243, a 65 Creedmoor, 7 millimeter, 08, uh 260, remington, a 338 Federal and, of course, the the um 308 itself. So you get six different cartridges out of the same brass casing. The only difference is the taper and the neck and the die that shapes the neck, and so that's what we've decided to start with.
Speaker 2:Just from an economic perspective standpoint, we can produce by getting the equipment to produce brass for the 308. We can very economically change that so that we can produce brass for those other calibers that I just mentioned, and so for that reason, we're starting with the 308 caliber and then probably work into those other ones, right, and then from there I mean going forward we can do the same thing again, like the magnum calibers we talked, we've talked a lot about producing magnum calibers, especially the belted, talked a lot about producing magnum calibers, especially the belted magnums. So that's your 300 wind mag, your seven millimeter remington mag. Um, I think the eight millimeter remington mag is like that as well. Yeah, 338, there's a bunch of them. All the weather recalibrated, all the weathering magnums. They're all based off the 375 H&H standard casing, I suppose. So that will most likely be our second line.
Speaker 1:Okay, yep, yep. No, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just from an economic standpoint. At some point we're trying to get the most that we can out of the equipment that we buy. It wouldn't make sense, for example, for, like people have asked us about 303 British, and 303 British exists on its own. It's one of a kind casing, so to produce that we would have to have a whole set of equipment, a whole line of equipment. You know, 4 million bucks or 5 million bucks or whatever it is, to buy the equipment. It's one caliber. It just doesn't make sense for us to do that. We're we're better off, you know, like I say, buying the 308 setup and be able to produce six different calibers right, yeah, no, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, especially you know starting out. So yeah, that's really interesting and people wondering you know obviously they're in good hands if you've been been kind of dabbling in the reloading world since you were 12 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that was actually back to the questions that I. There was four main questions that I I jotted down sort of the first. There was a first day where I was just I was like, okay, if somebody's gonna do this, why don't we do it right? So I was writing okay, if somebody's going to do this, why don't we do it right? So I was writing some questions down and writing some stuff down at the beginning of what became my business plan, and the four main questions were number one what are the regulatory, what are the rules, right? What are the laws, what are the permits that we require, this kind of thing. Number two was what is the process Like? I knew a fair bit about hand loading, but the go from being a hand loader to being a professional loader and being a manufacturer, I didn't know anything about the equipment itself, and so the question was okay, how do I make that jump? Um, who do I need to talk to? What kind of, what kind of experienced people do I need, right? Number three was how much money do I need and what's the capital structure? And number four was who do I need on my team? What kind of professionals do I need? What kind of consultants? What kind of experts do I need? If I could answer those four questions in a meaningful way that we would have a realistic shot at making this happen.
Speaker 2:And today that's exactly where we're at. It's taken a year. We got through the regulatory process. I've got a couple of fellows that have some experience in the business that have offered to sort of take me under their wing. One guy is retiring from the business and he's willing to take us under his wing, provide some of the technical knowledge. I suppose We've spent good money to get a full not just not just financial business plan, but we actually have a fully, full blown financial model where we can model different situations and scenarios and you know, we put in different inputs and check the output and we can tailor our business plan based on the on the model that we, that we choose. So we have that.
Speaker 2:And then we've got a pretty good team at this point.
Speaker 2:There's myself. I'm running a lot of the business and the sales. My brother's the technical guy. We've got another guy, kurt, that is a consultant on the manufacturing side, and then we've got Rod. He's the consultant on the explosives side, and then we've got a good legal team as well. We've got two lawyers out of Calgary that that have been helping us with that part and then you know.
Speaker 2:So we've really got all the components of the business that I that I set out to find in the beginning. At this point it's just raising a bit of capital and you know enough to keep the lights on and keep wages paid and that kind of thing, and then also finding somebody that would be willing to partner with us on a bigger scale, when, so that we can go and make the bigger sales, so that we can go and sell 250,000 rounds, so we can go, go and sell, you know, a million rounds or 2 million rounds or whatever it is to law enforcement and have the financial backing to be able to actually produce those things. If that makes sense, yeah, yeah, absolutely that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely it does. Yeah, no, I think it's really great what you guys are doing and you've definitely from the sense of having the right people in your corner to help make this happen and come to reality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's tough right now. I mean things have slowed down a bit and it's a bit of a slug, but every business has that. We have ups and downs. We're hoping that with SHOT Show in January that we can break through. For anybody that's listening, that's interested in investing with us, this is kind of important.
Speaker 2:One of the things we were told early on was that the Canadian market may not be big enough to support an ammunition manufacturer on its own. There was a lot of people, quite a number of people, that suggested that that was that the market itself is the reason why we don't have a manufacturer, why we don't have a manufacturer, and so I dug into that and there seems to be some truth in that. So I don't like talking about you know I hate it when people say, oh, if only we could get 1% of the market or whatever. I don't think of it that way. But the entirety of the Canadian market for centerfire rifle ammunition is about 400 million rounds a year. If I was to walk into an investor and say, hey, we're going to get 1% of the market, 1% of the market is 4 million rounds. We could produce 4 million rounds, but 4 million rounds is not really that much ammunition it would be pretty hard to give you not to give away the farm here, but break even on the whole thing. Is 3.5 million rounds right? So they kind of look at it and go, yeah, economically we would have to pull a minimum of 1% of the market just to be able to break even essentially.
Speaker 2:So the question became well, how do we deal with this? Like Canada needs this, how do we deal with it? And so we decided to get import licenses and export licenses and we found that there are shortages in the US and elsewhere in the world that are as bad or worse than in Canada. For example, I've got a friend out of New Zealand who says, like he shoots a seven REM mag, it took he had to order his ammunition. It took three months for him to get it.
Speaker 2:So the opportunities elsewhere where we can sell in bulk. So instead of selling you know one case to a retailer in grand Prairie and another to in Moncton or whatever we can sell 200,000 rounds to a shooting range in Southern California, for example. We can sell larger quantities into the U market. And so what we decided to do was find, find the buyer first and we and find the people that want to buy the bulk quantities first and use that as the basis for our company so we can pre-sell.
Speaker 2:What I'd like to do is pre-sell the three and a half or 4 million rounds that we need to hit, break even and then sell as much as we want to in canada, right, or sell as many as we can into the united states to be able to get to, you know, to provide our, our investors with a return on their money, and just hold back enough reserve or enough capacity that we can supply Canada with what it needs, you know, based on the demand that we get. And that's the thing is that we've actually found that the demand, when we start looking outside of Canada, the demand is way bigger than we can ever produce. So it goes from saying to an investor okay, we're going to try to get 1% of the market or whatever, which I hate that to be able to say, okay, there's way more demand than we can produce, this is how much we can produce and this is where the market, these are where the markets are, and in this way we can maximize the efficiency of our operation, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So it's a two or three-pronged strategy, right? So selling into the global market and then selling into the Canadian market, or holding back a little bit for the Canadian market and the US market or the global market. We would really focus just on 308 and 223, I think, or we will, and then the Canadian market will be more diverse with the calibers. Hopefully I'm rambling again too much. I get off on these tangents because there's, you know, so much in my brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a podcast. We're here for talking.
Speaker 2:I get off on these tangents, because there's so much in my brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a podcast. We're here for talking. I think what you're doing and working at is great. Anybody that's trying to promote and help get the word out there about hunting, the outdoor, the shooting industry, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:We just need more people involved and interested in it and aware of it in a positive light.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly, you know, and make sure that it doesn't die. I mean, yeah, well, yeah, one of the things that's happened is that since 1995, we've been under more and more and more restrictions, I suppose, on like on firearms. But counter to that, the the number of firearms that are being sold each year, or purchased each year, has been growing. It's not dying, it's growing, and one of the keys, I think, to maintaining it is ensuring that the supply of ammunition isn't so expensive that people don't want to get into the sport. Right, exactly, I don't know. You're probably like me. We don't shoot as much as we used to, because a box of ammunition used to be $15 or $18, and now it's $45.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean yeah, I'll admit I don't skeet shoot as much as I used to, and things like that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I've got a box of. To give you an idea, I've got a box of .243 ammo downstairs. I shoot .243 at the range all the time. I have an old box. It doesn't have any ammo in it, but it's a box of federal ammunition and it says 1899 on it and that was purchased, I think, in 2016 or 2017. So what was that? Seven years ago, it was 1899. Today I can't buy that same box of ammunition for under $40.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like anything that goes up, but with the ammunition prices I find they really do that because I mean, what are you going to do, right and then? So that's why guys like you coming along and trying to make that more affordable for the average person is great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's difficult to do, and this is one of the things. I go saying, that we've gotten bogged down a little bit. And one of the reasons we've got bogged down is there's what's called tier one and tier two manufacturers in the ammunition business. Okay, we're going down a bit of a rabbit hole again, but essentially all of the or most of it the brass component or not just the brass, but the components are produced by the tier one manufacturers or manufacturers that produce components in-house, right. Then the tier two manufacturers most of them are just load like we're loaders, so we take components from this guy and components from that guy and bullets from this guy Excuse me and then our job is to load them and put them together, put them into boxes and get them on the store shelf.
Speaker 2:Well, the tier two manufacturers purchase the components from the tier one manufacturers, but the tier one manufacturers, because they've got their own interests manufacturers, but the tier one manufacturers, because they've got their own interests, won't sell product to the tier two guys at a price, at a price point where you can compete directly with them, if that makes sense. So, like you could, you could buy. You can buy brass and hornady with your own head sample. I'm not sure that they'll be happy to do that, but they're. But they're going to sell you the brass casing at $0.60 a case. Meanwhile, for them, the cost of producing a round in its entirety is $0.60. So you're going to be able to compete directly with them.
Speaker 2:And so the key for us is getting in to be able to produce the components themselves, whether it's a bullet, whether it's well, we'd like to do primers for a different reason. Whether it's a primer, whether it's the casing or whether it's propellant powder, if a person wanted to get into that, lower the cost that you can make any one of the components. That's where our profits are going to come from, or where our margins are going to come from, essentially because it gets us out from underneath the thumb of the of the tier one manufacturers, and so that's really important for us. My brother actually, he's got a bullet machine on the way right now for being able to produce. I think we're starting with uh 168 grain jacketed hollow points for the .308. Oh nice, yeah, it's a really cool one. We're hoping to be able to get it so that you put you know, if you got your rifle strapped into a sled, you can put three bullets through the same hole right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, from a business standpoint, bullets are going to be first, and then we'd like to get into producing the brass casings next. And when I say I'd like to, we're going to do it. It's just a question of time, right? Um? And then primers are a big one. For us, primers are like from a. From an investor standpoint, the primers are probably the most lucrative. From a a loader standpoint, it doesn't make that much of a difference Whether we buy a primer for $0.05 or $0.03 or $0.02,. Yeah, those pennies matter, but they're not going to change whether or not we can put the ammo on the shelf if that makes sense. But from the perspective of the investor, if we can produce primers for $8 a thousand and sell them for $56 a thousand or $70 a thousand or $100 a thousand, the markups are incredible, right? So again, I'm giving away too much information here.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it's neat getting an inside look in this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm hoping that somebody listening will say, hey, I like this idea and come along to and maybe potentially want to partner with us and make this happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, if somebody's looking for more information and to see what you guys are all about, where's the best spot to check that out?
Speaker 2:Um, right now, the best place is Instagram, uh, or, or Facebook, facebook. We had our, our Facebook account restricted and so it's kind of hard to find. But if you type in, uh into the search bar Canadian right, uh, canadian rifleman or Canadian rifleman company, you'll come across some of the some to find. But if you type in into the search bar Canadian Rifleman or Canadian Rifleman Company, you'll come across some of the feeds and things that we've uploaded and people talking about us, and you'll be able to find us that way. Instagram is another good one. It's Canadian Rifleman Co.
Speaker 1:And then also your guys' website. Yeah, or you can find us at CanadianRifleman Co. And then also your guys' website.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or you can find us at canadianriflemanca. That's under development right now, don't judge us on it.
Speaker 1:It looks good. I think it looks good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks okay. It's whatever I could put together in a few hours, basically, but we've got a professional now on board with our company and in the next few weeks or so it's going to look stellar yeah.
Speaker 1:No, daryl, I can't thank you enough for coming on and I'm excited about what you guys are doing, and maybe we'll do another podcast here in six months from now or a year, and I'm sure everything will be quite different. Yeah, I hope so. I hope that, uh, we'll. We'll have moved it along for a bit by then, so, thank you. Just a note, uh, before the podcast ends this company has teamed up with go alberta to offer their shares to the public, and the investment is available through their website at go-albertaca. Slash CRC. Thanks.