From 1 Product to Dominating the Industry: The MDT Story

What does it really take to build a company that dominates an industry?

In this episode, we sit down with Martin from MDT and break down the real story behind their growth — from a single prototype built out of necessity… to becoming one of the most respected names in the space.

This isn’t a highlight reel.
It’s the reality of building something that lasts.

We cover:

How MDT started with 21 product revisions before launching
Why supply chain, operations, and execution mattered more than ideas
The mistakes, delays, and challenges behind the scenes
How they built a company around product development first
Why they release new products constantly (and how they actually do it)
Their approach to marketing when traditional ads aren’t an option
And the deeper mission behind what they’re building beyond just business

If you’re building a company, creating products, or trying to figure out how to grow long-term — this episode will show you what it actually looks like.

Transcript

unknown 0:00

Stand by. Shoot a ready. Stand by.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hey, welcome back to another PRS podcast. Here we have Martin Von Rutenberg from MDT joining us today. Thank you, Martin. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you. This is cool having you on the show. I it's an honor to have you you here. Obviously, uh everybody knows who MDT is in our in our sport. And um, you know, to see the growth that you guys have had over the last 10 years uh has been it's been incredible to follow. Um obviously the impact on the sport is is amazing and incredible. And uh so that's all the you know, a lot of the reasons I'm honored to have you here, man. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, thank you. Hey, we like being part of this uh industry, so it's uh it's easy work to a certain degree. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Well, let's let's start with the history of MDT, right? Let's go back to uh the very beginning and um and take us through that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah, very well. So I I am not the uh the original founder, really. Even some people will refer to me that way, but it's not really true. So in 2009, my um who was my business partner for quite a while, Laszlo Clemente, he uh he wanted to uh get a chassis, he actually wanted to get an international, uh, an actually international chassis, but he couldn't afford it. Okay. Yeah. But uh he was a machinist by trade, so he worked with some local people and said, hey, you know, can we make this? Uh uh they started working on some different designs in SOLIDWORKS, something they could make, so they made they they kept updating it so they got to the when when they got to the 21st version, they said, Okay, this one we're gonna prototype. So that was the TAC 21, that's the 21 in the TAC 21.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

So that so that was cheaper to Laszlo to go through it. Uh 21 product development cycles or revisions.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Well, it probably was that, but you're kind of oblivious to that when you get started, right? You know, you're you're like, oh, I can do this for cheaper, and uh it ended. So I am sure that it was not. Yeah. So but uh but it was uh you know a pretty cool product, and uh back then there was not really any chassis companies. Uh Across International probably was the only one, maybe. 2009, you're probably right, yeah. Yep. So he so he made it, he posted some pictures online, and people were like, oh, I want one, I want one. It was just for Remington 700. Uh it's only sport action, only in black. And um, you know, he started making some here and there for people. But he went uh he went a few years uh through that, so from 2009 until about 2012 when I met him. Okay. And um, you know, he was you know making a few here and there. Um it was it was a one-man show or maybe a half-man show or whatever it was. And um I actually was introduced to him by the owner of the machine shop where he was making these in. And uh so they asked me if I wanted to get involved with the business, and I said, Well, I'll take a look at it because I don't really know what I'm talking about here. So uh I I went home and uh researched what people were saying about the TAC 21 and the things that I was seeing was you know, people really liked it, that people wanted to buy it, but they couldn't, and you know, they ordered one six months ago and they didn't have it yet, and both so I so I thought it was opportunity and my background, I I had done quite a bit of sales, I had done quite a bit of supply chain management, operations management. So all those different things that I worked on, I was able, you know, in a sense to start from scratch in a way that I uh really wanted to do it. So Laszlo was working on product development, I ran the sales and the operations. Uh I still remember uh Laszlo, he was very proud of this. He had a big whiteboard where every time somebody would call in for an order, he would write it on there. And I said, we gotta get rid of the whiteboard. And he was very hurt by that because he put all this effort in to make it this really awesome system and said, Laszlo, you know, like if we're gonna we have to buy so many whiteboards if uh if that's how we're gonna run things. So uh so he didn't understand.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

And can you imagine can you imagine what that whiteboard would look like today? I mean, it would be a mile long.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Yeah, it would be uh it would be a lot of whiteboards, yeah, no doubt about it. Uh yeah, that would that would be very rough. But uh yeah, no, it was cool. There was a few things that I remember from uh previous places where I worked that really annoyed me, so I was able to uh implement those. You know, one of them, for example, was you know, a lot of a lot of these manufacturing companies, they pay their suppliers in 90 days, 120 days, 150 even. And I have been in those environments, and I really, really hated it as a supply chain director uh in one of those. Uh so early on we said we're gonna pay everybody every week. And um we don't do it every week anymore, we do it every two weeks now inside of the company, but like just haven't those things have stuck ever since. And uh, you know, they've been part of our success, I would I would say as well, because uh, you know, our suppliers like dealing with us, you know. Uh we buy a lot of aluminum and uh you know other materials. So uh yeah, it was uh it was a lot of fun, but man, it was a lot of work, you know, every every day. My wife would come in the evening and help us assemble, and we would like assemble in this tiny little space. Um, our warehouse was a toolbox with nuts and bolts and screws and every also stuff that we need, like literally, uh I think we still have it hanging up somewhere. Um but um yeah, it uh it was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun. And uh back then there's I would not have I I would I didn't imagine that we would be the size that we are today.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Right, right. Hey, we want to take a brief break in the show to give a shout out to one of our partners, Bart Line Barrels. They're the makers of great precision rifle barrels, whether for your AR, your bulk gun, or carbon wrap barrel on your hunting rifle, you need to use Bartline. Go check them out at BartlineBarrels.com. Now back to the show. What a what a cool opportunity to be able to apply uh your like your operations and supply chain management background uh to something you could really dive into, right? Like that you could make your own. Um I think that's that's like the you know, that's the dream career, right? Where you know you work for somebody for so long and you're always doing doing the things and you're passionate about it, you're driven, you want to do the right thing or whatever, but being able to do it for yourself, you know, and apply all that, and that's cool. That is super cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

It was cool, it's been awesome. Um, but you know, as uh rosy as it might sound, we've made a lot of mistakes along the way. We have switched software systems, we have uh oh yeah, no, the um you know it it looks sort you know sort of good from the outside, but uh it has been uh uh riddled with mistakes real quick. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

No, I yeah, like any business, right? And the successful ones, they always say, Oh, it's an overnight success. Like, well, if overnight was 10 years, yeah, sure. Right. So 2012 you got involved. Um man, it's I mean, that's 14 years now. Uh 2012 you had one product, right? The the TAC 21.

unknown 7:29

Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, we had one. What Lazlo had made a couple more in the meantime. Back then, the uh Magpul PRS stocks, they had no adjustability, so he had made a couple of uh butt adjustable butt pads, and there was a few of those. Uh, he had also made some deals with uh a few other companies where we were sell reselling some products, and I stopped that pretty quickly because I didn't want to be somebody that just resold stuff, like I really wanted to only sell our own stuff, uh, which uh 99% of what we do today we still make ourselves. Uh so uh the the only thing that we don't really make ourselves is our cleaning products. That is something that we took on about a year or maybe two years ago because I made Australia. Um, but yes, it uh it's uh so yeah, so if just a few products, and uh he had already had a con uh made a connection with Remington Arms.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

So so uh I I took on uh the the uh that account from that point going forward. They hadn't ordered anything yet. Yep. But um, you know, I in in uh January of 2013 we went to SHOT Show. That was my first shot show. Holy cow. Yeah. I was uh I was extremely uh motivated. Uh I don't know that I had the same amount of energy anymore today that I had that.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

There's something to be said about uh you know being youthful too, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, yeah, that's so I um I did everything I could to get the max amount of impact from there. We had a 10x10 booth. Uh I was pretty proud of how it looked, but really it looked awful. Uh and I did whatever I could to pull people into the booth along with the other guys that we that were there. And I went home with about, I think we had just over 700 business cards. Uh and so yeah, I went back home and I started calling and calling and calling, realizing that more than half of those were really people that just kind of had some personal interest or they liked it or so. It wasn't really business. So it was uh it was a lot of hard work for sure. But um yeah, it it kind of got us to the next level. Yeah, it's that same year that Lazarus and I we were traveling somewhere. I think we went to a trade show in Ontario, actually, a military show. And um, this is still a disputed thing. He thinks it was his idea, I think it was my idea, but at the end of the day, it was both of ours. Like the idea was we have this TAC 31 chassis. One of the pieces of feedback I often got was that it was too expensive. We were selling it for about$800. And then we yeah, which is which is a cheap chassis in today's standards. Well, this is this is uh close to 15 years ago, you know. So um, so I said, like, you know, from from my perspective, you know, I'm not an engineer, but I always uh I have no shortage of ideas. And uh so I asked her, like, could we like cut the top off and like sell it for like half the price or something like that? And he says no. And uh like, well, we've got to be able to figure something out. So as we were driving, we were discussing that. And um uh when we got back to uh uh to our office, uh, because he's a machinist, uh, through the night he started working on something, he worked with somebody to do the solo works on it. Uh and he was working very hard because he was gonna go on vacation soon. Okay. So uh one morning I came in, it was the morning that he was gonna fly out. He was he's originally from uh from Romania, he was gonna fly to Romania. Uh and um he said, Yeah, I left the chassis on your desk. So that was our LSS chassis.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

No joke. And what's that? Yeah, no joke. So this is 2013.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

2013, I believe, the LSS, yes. Yeah. Uh would have been later in 2013. Okay. And uh so I'm like, oh, I better assemble this thing. So I assembled this thing, and uh uh my knowledge about optics wasn't super big, and we had one of these uh scopes where the front end is about the size same size as the back end, like the you know, and and I I put the thing on backwards. I took a picture of it and I posted it on Facebook. And the first comment I uh got was, hey, you know, the scope is backwards. I'm like, oh crap. So, you know, deleted the pictures, scope the other way, put it back online. Uh, but we sold a fairly decent amount of those. Uh and then also um we were able to get a OEM customer on those, which was Maosburg. So they uh it was the Maosburg MVP LC, if I uh remember correctly, and they would have launched that in 2014, probably. And that really kind of got us to uh kind of like a next level where uh people saw, you know, they're doing business with Remington, they're doing business with even though I think Mozburg may have released their product before Remington did. Remington was much, much slower with everything that they did. Um boardroom with 12 people and stuff, right? Yeah. Um, but uh no, it was uh I mean there were exciting times, you know. It was like pushing and and and you know, we were uh we weren't able to go to the bank and get a loan, so we had to work with some of our suppliers. Can we pay you a little bit later, even though they went right against what we really uh wanted to do? Um but uh yeah, eventually, you know, like every every check that came in the mail, you had to drive to the bank right away and pause it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

So oh my gosh. Yep. So I mean you're talking about the LSS now that so that's chassis been around for you know call it 13 years now. Uh we're on Gen 3 of it, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

We are on Gen 3 of it, yeah. Uh the Gen 3 really combined uh a number of different things together because the LSS, you know, I mean we it's not like we had this plan of going to what the LSS Gen 3 is today. I mean, we did that, you know, we we made that chassis the best that it could be at that time. Uh but then we also, you know, had some people like we you were only able to uh able to use a collapsible stock on it. Those inherently, because we didn't make our own butt stocks yet, always had a tiny bit of wobble in them. So then we had to have a version where you could put a fixed stock on there. So we made that version, and then we thought since we have to make that version, let's also make it give it a little bit longer forhand. We call it the LSS XL. And uh and then people wanted to have it for Rimfire, so we call it the LSS RF, and then later we realized why didn't we give that a different name? The only thing that's different is just what you put in it. Yeah, uh, so and then also we had our ESS Elite Sniper System chassis developed later on. There's actually probably more like 2017-18 that I think that that came out. Um, but the um uh the Gen 3 just combined all the different LSS models and the ESS. And essentially, I mean that is just an extremely versatile system because somebody can build uh something that is 90% of what our um ACC is, or about 90% of what our H ⁇ T is, and just by just by swapping butt stocks and uh forens.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I I I think that's probably the most admirable quality of that uh that chassis system, right? You know, and I I I recently purchased uh two LSS kits for the Ruger 1022. And in fact, it was kind of ironic timing. I I reached out to uh Ryan McLean and and was talking to him about it, and he's like, I think we just released that. And and then he got back to me, he's like, No, it releases tomorrow. And I'm like, Well, I'll I'll add it to card as soon as I see it, you know. Uh so I built I built two of those on 1022 platforms uh for my son and I to basically go shoot squirrels, you know. Oh yeah, but in the process of doing that, I'm like, oh, I get to build this thing out and kind of do how I wanted. And and I'm like, man, the 10 years ago, me, uh if I was starting my PRS journey would have been with that chassis, right? Because I had a Remington 700. Um, you know, and it's like, well, if this is really modular, I could I could start with, you know, the fore end and the you know the receiver part and then maybe use a butt stock I already have, and then I could just I can kind of build and play with it, you know, as I go, but I don't have to spend you know a thousand dollars right up front, right? You can kind of work with within a budget and and be creative too. I mean it's so many different options for that foreign and and you know, so many different color options, all the stuff, right? So you can really make it your own, which I think there's a lot of shooters, you know, that that look for that, right? I mean, they um you know, and and with as many inlets as you offer, like anybody who's got like a a bold action hunting rifle could jump into the tactical game with us, you know, and and and and build what they want.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah, that's right. I believe that we did a calculation of how many uh variables there are or how many combinations you come up with, but it's in the millions. Yeah. So um, yeah, we do offer some pre-configured kits just for people that don't want that don't really know what they want to configure, like but this is a good setup, and that's a good setup. Yeah, but other than that, yeah, people can configure it however they want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

No, I it's it's been fun to watch. And and then, you know, of course I'm on the email, email chain. You guys do a uh fantastic with marketing, you know, we'll we'll come back to that. But it seems like almost monthly there's new inlets being offered or, you know, uh a different inlet for a different chassis. So it seems like it's a constant product development cycle, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, we have a fairly large product development team. So, but you know, uh we have several designers, engineers, and just other people that work in that department, maybe junior engineers uh or people that uh do engineering work but don't necessarily have to P engine. There's a few of those as well. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

But yeah, in Are you guys still using SOLIDWORKS?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

We do use SOLIDWORKS, yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

I love it. I love it. That's what I was training on as an engineer. I was a design engineer for 10 years or so. Yeah, and I love SolidWorks.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Anyway, probably our largest software spent right there. Uh SolidWorks, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But uh yeah, I like I I love that uh that department. Like we we um we yeah, I mean we on average release a new product every week. Uh so yeah, so it so it is quite a bit of work that we do now. We do divide those up in like major projects and and minor projects. So, you know, we only of the major ones, you know, that generally take two, three, four years to develop. Uh there's only a few a year in the smaller project of course we can do more. But um, yeah, no product I mean, I think that's uh we probably are a product development company first and foremost. It is uh it is really the DNA of what we do.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah. No, it makes sense. And that makes it easy for your marketing team. I mean, when there's new stuff that always comes out, like, okay, well, that this is the plan. We're just we're just you know in step with the engineers and production and all that, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you guys recently hired, well, recently, I mean it's probably been a year, it feels like yesterday, but um uh you recently hired Francis Colomb, right? Yes, we did, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What's uh yeah, talk about his role at MDT and and uh some of the things I don't know what he does. He might tell me the same thing, too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

No, so I mean I've known France Francis for quite a bit longer, of course, because he has been part of our shooting team for quite a while. Uh and he came, you know, he was at Applied Ballistics, and um uh we we are um well, we are just constantly always looking to be better, you know, adding to our knowledge. Uh Francis most certainly has a wealth of knowledge, but he is also extremely detailed. Now I remember being at a match with him in Pennsylvania last year, and it was the day before the match. And uh, you know, I I don't reload because I think it's uh you know super boring. Um so I I I use match ammo, I got very good accuracy out of that. Uh my skills aren't high enough that I can outshoot that accuracy. But uh I asked Francis to kind of help my uh rifle kind of redial back in. And he went to levels that my brain still hurts a little bit from. And uh but I but I do very much appreciate how how he analyzes things and how he looks at things to to such a incredible level of detail. Uh it is the opposite of who I am. I'm not a detailed person. I just you know want to point and aim and shoot, and I wanted to hit the target, and and uh uh yet, you know, he obviously obviously I do need to put effort into understanding and and what's going on there, but but the Francis level is just uh it's it's something else, and I think it's a very valuable part of our team. So when I have a uh question on something, or I even today I sent him a message on or on something and I said, um, hey, what do you think about this or do think about that? And and he just very valuable feedback, and if he doesn't know it, he goes and figures it out. But what his actual title is, I don't know. Um, but but he doesn't a huge amount of our research. When we develop a new product every week, like all those products get huge amounts of uh research to make sure that why are we making this? How does that make it better? Uh what you know, are we uh you know, we are we're we're very careful that we never uh copy something or appear to have copied something. Um, you know, so when you think back at uh us acquiring the Skypod, we acquired it because uh what we were working on ourselves would have been too close to that. So we rather uh do the acquisition than appearing to uh yeah to copy something. So yeah, I I mean it's uh it's a it's a it's uh we always call it a small large industry, you know. A lot of people know each other, but it is you know still fairly large. Uh a lot of products out there, hard to really understand all of them and all the different players. Uh so uh yeah, knowledge is power.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah, yeah, and he is Francis is a a crazy good addition, right? I mean, he is he eats, sleeps, breathes this stuff, right? And and his thoroughness and and the way that his his mind works and and everything, like very, very powerful uh addition to your team.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yep. Yeah, no, he is for sure. And and I mean, talking about our team, like both our shooting team and our product development team. I mean, like it like uh there we have a lot of people that just really care a lot about what we do on our shooting team. They give us d feedback, you know, they'll send a message. I got it, you know, just recently I got a message from um from from uh Patty Young's and he said, Have you thought about this? You know, take a look at that. And you know, so he's not an employee. Uh I um Same thing with the people in our engineering department. It's uh yeah, we have we have a very passionate group, and I I I love being part of it. And when people ask me, you know, like what else would you do besides this, you know, if you sell the company, uh and I don't even want to think about it. Like, what what am I what what are we gonna do that is more fun than this, really? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

I I've you know that's kind of I know you're from Canada, but that's kind of like the American dream, right? Where you could retire early and then go do your own thing and all that. And you know, I've I've posed that same question to to to myself, like, you know, or friends of mine that are business owners, and I'm like, man, like, you know, if we ever could sell the Precision Rifle series, and then, you know, with them, what would I do? Like go to matches, shoot, you know, like it's what I do now, you know. Like I I would spend more time at home with the family and all of that stuff, but like, yeah, this is this is wonderful. Like it checks all the boxes and I call work, you know, which is fine. Like it's you know, doing stuff like this, this is fantastic, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

For sure. And I am super blessed that I hate golf. Because if I loved it, then maybe I would have a reason, you know, because I look at golfers and they're like they want to go do it every day or whatever, but I hate it. So, you know, I may as well go to work.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

I've had the same relationship with golf, and and honestly, since I started shooting rifles, the clubs went underneath the stairs in our basement here, and I pulled them out. That's okay. I'm totally okay with that. Yeah. Um, you know what? One of the things I wanted to ask you about, um the one of the latest additions of the MDT ACC Elite, um and and I I I'm not asked this question. I kind of heard some things on the outside, but uh your pro team was really involved in the development of that, right? So uh can you walk us through like what that process looked like and who was involved and and and how it got to be the awesome product that is today?

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Uh yeah. Um yes, our our team is a huge part of it. Uh we would be crazy if it wasn't. Um so uh it it's um you know they're the ones that really are using it the most. And you know, we do have shooters on our engineering team as well. And uh actually a lot of them uh shoot uh regularly. Uh not all of them. We do also try to, you know, they have engineering range day or engineering shooting day or whatever. Uh yeah, we do uh we have done a lot of employee matches as well where just anybody can come and shoot, and uh we give our employees an ammo allowance for when they go shooting and that kind of stuff, because we really want people to go out and shoot. Awesome. Um, so um, you know, we can't really, you know, point to one thing, but you know, it starts as uh you know just always a drive to be better and uh what makes something better. You know, and you know, we know that there is um you know some some uh f you know newer companies and and not so new companies that are uh uh that have products that are sort of close to ours, but but uh what we do get feedback on often is that somebody have you know used them. I'm I'm not you know speaking down about any of the other uh guys, but uh when they shoot our products, they're like you know, there's just something about it that's just really, really fine. It seems like you guys thought of everything and and and love I love hearing that feedback, and it really is because uh we did try to think of everything, every little detail. And sometimes it's very hard. I'm a fairly impatient person, and I want to, you know, it's always very exciting to put to get another new product uh to market. Uh but uh what we want first and foremost is for the product to be legendary, and um so so uh we we do more sometimes we do testing to a level that's frustrating. Sure. Uh you know, it's like you know, you've done the last iteration, we fixed all the different things, and we go out and shoot and shoot more and shoot more. Sounds terrible, right? Um and uh we got still gotta fix this. Obviously, and you know, in the engineering team as well, if you want to are you willing to uh to delay your um product uh your release, and the answer is kind of yes, unfortunately. Um, you know, or you know, or can you do it faster? You know, uh I think I think I stopped asking people to do stuff faster because uh I it just means I have to sacrifice something somewhere else. But uh yeah, uh our shooting team got they get they're part of it. You know, when people are shooting with a shooting team, they they will uh you know regularly see that they're using prototypes of something and they ask about it, so product gets leaked a little bit that way, and that's fine. Uh, but it's never really the final product. So um yeah, it's that's it's an essential part.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

I I'm glad that you see it as an essential part of your your product development. I um I I think there's a lot of there's a lot of companies that could could you know that have shooting teams that could benefit from the same thing, right? Like the typically the folks that are on the shooting teams are the tip of the spear, right? Like they're the um the the folks in our sport that are are shooting the most, that are placing the highest, that are the most successful, and you know, they're they probably are looking for, you know, little changes here and there to make the product better and make them better shooters, right? So uh I think it's I think it's a it's a really smart uh part of your product development cycle and is and I think it's probably led to uh a lot of the growth and success that you guys have. And you guys have a great team too. I mean, they're um you know, and I when I show up at a match and there's all the green and black jerseys, it's like, man, like I know I know all these guys, right? And I can I can say they're all friends of ours, too, right? I mean, they're a big part of the sport.

unknown 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Well, yeah, that's that's good to hear. I mean, we look for people on the team that are just really fit our values. Um the day, you know, that that comes before placing first or whatever, you know, that's that's a very important part for us. That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Is there is there anything we could talk about product development cycle uh the moving forward, right? Like, or what what's in the plan? Uh uh maybe in some generalities. I I don't want to put you in a spot where you know, get some secrets out there and you know, whatever happens. But is it um like for MDT as a whole, are is the future um way more competition minded? Is it is it hunting? Is it somewhere in between or both? You know, like what's um, I guess in generalities, what what's sort of the the tracks we're on?

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Yeah, I mean the hunting market in general is bigger than a competition market by by uh by quite a bunch, right? So I wouldn't say that we specifically target one or the other. We have a group of people that focus on uh competitive shooting or long-range uh plinking or whatever you want to call it. Uh and we have a group of people that look at hunting products. Uh you know, we we we look at uh you know we do stuff uh smaller amounts of stuff for military and police. Okay. And uh, you know, we we that that there's a different level of focus again, even though there's overlap uh on the especially on the competition side. There's overlap on the hunting side as well, actually. Uh, you know, we did a project quite a while ago for uh for the FBI HRT, and they they are you they I think they're still using it, our LSS chassis on their rifles, and certain modifications that just made it more of a hunter product, and then to a certain degree they are hunting with it. You know, they wanted it to be mobile and wanted to be lightweight, and uh, but they still wanted a chassis. So uh I think that we just really just adapt to uh what uh what the customer demand is without saying, oh, we're gonna, you know, uh focus harder here or harder there. And we look for for the opportunities. Um I would say that uh we are probably more focused than ever. And the reason that I say that is um over the last years, uh, you know, my like I always want to try new things and try different things and get into certain areas. You know, we have electronic products, we have soft goods and all that. Uh what we what we make and sell there are very good products, but they are not our core competency. You think about the LRA ascendant level, uh that's a acquisition for us. Really, really awesome product. And uh, you know, now we have the Gen 2 out for that. Um for certain for like especially for you know it's actually used quite a bit in military applications as well, actually. And um, but is electronics our core competency? Um, even though the product was very well developed, when we start looking at what we would want to do, what more we would want to do, I would say the answer would be no. And um the same with soft goods. There's a couple of companies out there that make just really, really good soft goods. And yes, our customers will buy ours and we make really good stuff there. Uh, but there's only specific areas if you really want to put your mind to innovating and being the best, just just being legendary at it. You you you have to choose where that is. And uh, for us, that's gonna be rifle parts and accessories.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Hey, we want to take a brief break in the show to give a shout out to one of our partners, Bartline Barrels. They're the makers of great precision rifle barrels, whether for your AR, your bulk gun, or carbon wrap barrel on your hunting rifle, you need to use Bartline. Go check them out at BartlineBarrels.com. Now back to the show. Okay. Okay. Um, have you guys ever considered more than just rifle, whether it be shotgun or pistol or that type of thing? Yeah, the the pistol market again is I mean, if we talk like competitive rifle sports and then there's hunting, like I have to imagine the pistol market is unreal, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah. Uh me too. So the the short answer is yes, we consider everything regularly. Cool. Um are we gonna go into those markets? Uh we only want to go in, like, you know, we could start making pistol accessories today, really, but are they gonna be really good? Yeah. I don't know. You know, um, like I don't want to get into it unless we know that we are gonna make these and have really fantastic products. We don't we don't make things for the sake of making them. Uh we don't want to be uh a Me Too company, you know, make uh you know a bunch of stuff that everybody else is already making. Sometimes you can get away from that, you know, like uh you know uh a Picatini rail or something like that. You know, it's not like you're gonna reinvent the wheel on that, and and if your customers are buying for me, you may as well have it, or a pistol grip or something like that. But um, if we enter those markets, it would be uh likely, it would be possibly an acquisition of somebody that is uh a company that is uh very well known in that space for having a very high quality innovative product, uh, or we enter it slowly uh and having it extremely well thought out. But um yeah, it it we only want to do it if it's awesome. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Yep. Well let's let's talk about that. Recently, you guys uh MDT acquired Lone Peak Arms. Yes, we did.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Yeah, that was a very uh very exciting acquisition. Uh Lone Peak Arms, along with their sister company slash supplier uh leading edge machine. Okay. So uh yeah, it's a good acquisition for us. It's uh it's only two hours south of our Idaho location, uh, so it is uh you know easy to drive between the two. Uh not that distant, not that the location of it was super important, but uh, you know, we've also built it does help, yeah. Um for us to expand our our uh US manufacturing capabilities. So we actually did already uh you know, we brought in a bunch more CNC machines into Idaho uh last year. Um but this also expands our manufacturing capabilities. Uh the Lone Peak Action is um it's just a very good product. Uh, you know, I I've been shooting it myself for the last few years. I generally build one one, sometimes two personal uh new rifles every year because I uh I you know I just want to, you know, want to go with a rifle first of all, but also just kind of stay on what what's all out there.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

I I do the same thing. I absolutely I and it is probably a problem. Um actually uh can I show you my latest? Of course. And I'm actually shooting this this weekend. Let's see. I should I should have that. This is the first ACC that I'm shooting at a Pro Series match. I'm excited. I'm excited to do that. I have a little speaking of product development, a little uh something there that Francis shared a STL file with me recently and said, hey, this is going into production, but you should try this out. So I lost a customer right there.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

I'll still I'll still buy it. You're not gonna not gonna be able to uh lose that rifle in the in the lineup at your stage. Nope, that's the plan.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

I it's it's I I do a lot of red and black because nobody else does and it stands out. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yep. Uh very cool. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

So yeah, on the on the on the lone peak side, I'm actually uh I just built uh two of them. Actually, they're both in Idaho right now. Uh so their Lone Peak uh Chad at 5x5 precision uh tamered them for me. Um got some proof barrels, so these are gonna go on our uh DRT chassis, both of them. So I like to have a Canadian and a US identical rifle. And uh because I don't want to travel across the border with rifles and uh not if you don't have to.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

No, not if I don't have to. And uh, you know, I mean, like um uh when you go across the border with different things, you know, everything is always up to the interpretation of uh the border agent. And I have had uh issues uh that were, you know, there wasn't that that I didn't foresee, and I just I don't want to go across borders anymore with this stuff. I mean, like it's too important for our business that I stay uh without any uh any problems. So next so next week I'm shooting the uh the Snake River match uh together with the Loki guys. I'm very much looking forward to it. But before that, I'll go to our Idaho uh warehouse and uh finish those rifles. Cool. Um it will have uh loophole Mark Vs on them. Um maybe they were Mark IV. I don't I don't even remember what I got for them. Both good options. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good options. And uh yeah, I mean it's just uh fun process to to build the thing and then you know take the first shots out of it. And uh and I I love the process. Uh I I actually when I when I build even our own products, I I go to our website and I I purchase the products, I go through it as if anybody else would, so that I you know also understand the process, what our customers go through. Uh I send our customer support department some annoying uh tickets well that they have to deal with me. And I tell them you gotta deal with this like any other customer. And uh uh Yeah, it's uh it's it's a good process.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Yeah, that's fun that that's fun that you get the opportunity to do that. Um let's talk Black Friday for a minute while we're kind of talking about customer support and the website and that type of thing. That has been it's been fun to watch uh unfold. For you, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Actually, this year there was a few items that I I went in and and purchased. And um Yeah, I so first off, uh pretty cool to have the queue set up, right? And I understand that was to sort of throttle traffic, you know. So I sat there and queued probably for 15, 20 minutes or whatever. I'm like, okay, you know, like I get it though, you know, I don't want to sit, but I but I understand what's going on here. And um, but uh you know, one of the things that we ordered was uh a muzzle break. And man, I think it took two weeks to come in, you know, and it was it was a product you guys had on the shelf. But how many orders did you have to process from the 2025 Black Friday sale?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I don't know really know if I want to disclose that information. I mean, if it's at least two weeks worth, right? Uh I mean you can yeah. Yeah, so we get about a month worth of orders in a weekend. Um definitely, you know, in overtime and all the kind of stuff. I'll say this we will uh we will ship about 2,000 orders per day after Black Friday.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and and that went on for for several days. That's that's crazy. That's crazy. So you guys you guys went through and developed a new website, release that in the last week or two, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Yeah, well, it's kind of an interesting thing. So uh, you know, I I know uh a thing or two about uh websites. I'm not I'm not a programmer or any of that kind of stuff. And uh maybe you know some people might agree because our website has crashed a lot, so you know, maybe I don't know anything about websites. But um in 2014, probably we would have done our first Black Friday sale. And uh I still remember that time actually. I went to uh a local electronic store, um, or that might have been the year before, or whatever it was, and I I just had the feeling I couldn't really I I didn't have any records, but they must have increased their prices to show a discount so that people would be feel good that they had a discount. And it just really annoyed me. And I and I also found that that there was just less and less deals on Black Friday or Boxing Day or whatever the sale was. I I've never wanted to uh do sales and all that kind of stuff really, but um you know, once a year is is fine. So we did that, so we did that first sale. I managed the website completely myself back then because you know we were we were that small. And uh uh it went pretty good, you know, like no crashes, nothing. But we I don't know how many orders we did back then for the size of company we were, it was a very successful Black Friday. So the year after, I think people had just caught on that hey, you know, MDT has pretty good deals on Black Friday, so let's just all go there. And the website crashed, and I had no idea, you know, what I was doing about all of this. Like I was just using uh Magento or or WooCommerce or like one of the more popular platforms, uh, but I had no clue why it was crashing or what was happening, and I'm you know frantically clicking buttons and pushing on things and probably making it worse. Um but then you know, slowly you know, over time we we started uh using uh other companies. I believe it was 2019 that we switched to Shopify. You know, Shopify, I'm pretty sure the number one uh e-commerce platform in the world. Uh we did we did not crash that year, everything went just great. It's like, oh great, you know, Shopify that's the place to be. And then Shopify sent us a message and said, you know, uh there's a number of your products you're not allowed to sell on our platform, you know, any magazine over 10 rounds, and there was some other things. And so we thought about it and said, you know, how do we deal with this? Um and we decided that we were not gonna be on a platform where they are gonna dictate what we can and cannot sell. So we switched uh back to Magento, Magento Enterprise, uh using uh uh Adobe's uh hosting services. So you think, you know, very large company, they manage everything, you pay for the whole nine yards. So uh Black Friday in uh 2020, the COVID year, I remember this one very well. Uh fairly big Black Friday sale. I mean, this website crashes, and we're on the phone with Adobe, and they're not picking up the phone really. And and then I think finally we got somebody and they said, Oh, you just need to upgrade your we need to upgrade your plan. We're gonna send you some paperwork tomorrow, you have to sign it, and then you don't know. This is like a problem right now, and um so we decided so we thought, you know, well, we don't want to deal with Adobe, but we still need to be in Magento, blah, blah, blah. And just you know, it seems like every we actually ended up switching to uh BigCommerce, and uh we had problems there, but we just you know kept switching, maybe we shouldn't have. I don't know, but every year the reason was different. No, I think that only early on was it that the server actually couldn't handle it because I mean let's face it, we were on Amazon AWS servers, and that may that might mean something to people. There were elastic setups, they were um uh like there was no reason. But there was just always some other reason why. It was like, you know, we use Cloudflare, and all of a sudden it looked like some kind of an attack on our website, so they shut everything down, and like every year it was something different. But, anyways, the um I I had a connection with somebody that was fairly high up at Shopify, and I said to him, I said, you know, this is kind of crazy. He said, Well, we've changed our uh regulations that as long as what you are doing is legal, you can use Shopify. I'm like, you know what, I don't want to deal with crap anymore. We're going back to Shopify, so that's what we're on now.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

That's okay. It just recently went back. That's uh last week. Last week, okay. Well it's crazy is this has been a 10-year, uh a 10-year journey, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Yeah, I don't even I don't even want to be in the office anymore when the Black Friday still starts. It just it is just so frustrating and it makes me feel sick that it's just happening. And you know, I mean people post pretty nasty comments online sometimes. The ones that bug me the most is where they um question our uh integrity on it, saying you're doing this on purpose and all that kind of stuff. Um, I you know, I I'd rather than just say you guys are just really useless, you know. That's that's a better comment because it'd be kind of you know sort of true when it comes to the web side stuff and the things, yeah. Um but um uh yeah, I I am I'm very hopeful for this year. There's more to than just the server handling it, but there's also a switchover, everything like that. So we are going to do a mini sale this year, which is just a test run for Black Friday. Okay. Um, I I I told the marketing team it can be a five-minute sale, 10-minute sale. The the the the key is just to kind of do the switchover, it's a practice round. Uh get as many people to it at the same time as you possibly can, and uh, you know, hopefully it doesn't fail. But if it fails and like learn from it, then you can have to do another mini sale until you get it right. So that's where we're at.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

So we have that to look forward to this year, MDT mini sales.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Yeah, I think it's summer mid-June, I think we're starting the first mini sale. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Okay. And I uh well, I I guess here's a plug like everybody go sign up for the the newsletter that you guys send out pretty frequently and make sure that you're on those those email chains. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yeah, the email is the number one place to uh to get information. It comes before any of the social media posts, any of that kind of stuff. That's uh yeah, that's where we uh that's the number one place where we communicate. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

Yeah, I'll I we all get a ton of emails in our inbox and uh the MDT ones, I either I look at them right away or if I don't, I'm like, well, I'll come back to that because there's usually video content you guys put in there uh or some sort of release, and it's just it's impressive to watch. But what uh let's talk about marketing for a second because you guys uh I don't I don't think anybody else does it as well as you do in our sport, right? And I would say industry, uh and it probably is industry. I think uh there's more emphasis by by you all on the social media and YouTube and that type of thing uh than anybody else. And uh do you think I guess do you contribute that largely uh or your success largely due to the marketing initiatives that you guys have have gone through? Uh to the marketing what? To to the initiatives that you guys have gone through and and and the amount of content you guys put out? Like is that uh do you contribute a lot of your success to those?

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Well it's it's uh amount, sure, but also you know what is it, right? Like what is the content, you know? Um we um you know I mean we're in an industry where you know we we cannot go on Facebook and pay for advertising or Google and all that kind of stuff. So uh so it it is partially a necessity that uh we have other avenues to reach people. Um it kind of comes down as well to you know just just you know doing things that are awesome. Like we have a number of videos where uh we just want to know what what happens if you do this or what happens if you do that, you know. Um you know, one of the earlier ones that we did that with was the uh the super tall scope base. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Yeah, maybe that thing was uh a meter tall or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Yeah, I didn't expect it to be that high. So when we had a TAC-21 chassis, some of the comments on those were that's been discontinued a few years ago now. But one of the comments was, well, your scope is too high on on that, so and it loses accuracy. And then I thought to myself, like, how would you lose accuracy from that from that optic being higher off of your action? And I thought to myself, you know, that you know, I can say whatever I want and I can argue about it, but why don't we just try it? So I said to the engineering department, Can you make me an extra high scope base so that we can test it out? And uh I honestly I was thinking this thing was gonna be me, you know, three, four inches high, you know, something like that. And uh they ended up actually filming when they brought it out. Uh, I think I was sitting in the coffee room or something like that, and uh this thing is like two feet high. And I'm like, okay, well, it's super cool, but how am I gonna shoot this thing? And so it was kind of an interesting thing going to the range and shooting it. I just didn't have an idea how to hold it. Uh recently the marketing team put a short on uh on YouTube, and I think people didn't quite understand the context because you know they went, Yeah, of course it's gonna reduce accuracy because you don't have a proper cheek weld, and this is that so well, those are all other variables. Yes, of course you have to, you know, have a good position, it's got to be comfortable, like all these things. The point is that if you get your calculations right, that that that distance makes no difference. Yes, there it yes, of course, you know, there's some given that's co-base now, you know, and that's gonna flop around. Like, of course, it's a stupid idea to have uh scope that high off of your rifle, but we're just trying to show um you know that there that when you calculate it properly, there's no reason that uh that you'd be less accurate. You know, Ryan did one that you know a twice as long barrel than normal and started cutting pieces off six foot one. So yeah, we'd three. Yeah. I mean, when somebody thinks, you know, wouldn't it be interesting if you could try this or try that? You know, we we try to make it happen real life and uh uh and have fun doing it.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

So Yeah. I I yeah, I mean when you when you start talking about some of these things, like I like the frozen rifle, like that was that was pretty cool, or when Ryan uh was shooting, he he reloaded ammo and put the bolts in backwards. Yeah. And you were kind of knuckleballing out. Um it's uh what's funny, what's fun about it is that they are informative, right? They they're educational, um and they're fun to watch, right? I mean, there's some element of of humor, uh humility, you know, th that type of thing, right? And I think that's what is most attractive about all that content, you know?

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Yeah. And we have fun doing it. You know, we do have uh, you know, a number of full-time uh content producers here. You know, they get very excited about it. I'm just kinda kind of uh thinking about yesterday. Uh actually one of them said to me, you know, uh, are you gonna be in office in your office around, you know, tomorrow, whatever they said. And like, yeah, yeah, why? Oh, well, we've got an we got our uh April Fool's product, and we want to get you like, oh, what is that gonna be? So anyway, yesterday I kind of see him sneaking around and waiting, seeing if I was in my office or not, and they came walking in with it. And uh um, yeah. So anyway, we're only a couple of days away from that, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Hey, yeah, five days. This podcast will release after April Fool's Day. Uh so yeah. We we have we have something in mind too, uh, where we're gonna we're gonna do a rule change and and publish it on April, hopefully first thing in the morning before people are like, wait, no, can't take this seriously, you know, it's the wrong day. What's what's the what's the rule change? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna really piss people off? Uh I I don't know if it'll piss people off. And uh I mean by saying it here, I'm committing to it, but that the shooter before beginning their stage must tell the RO what their original win call is gonna be. And if they don't, they get a zero uh zero on the stage. So yeah. So this is this is kind of playing on the uh talking wind and making you know at pro series matches, and that you know, you you know, are you ready for comments, Mike? I'm never shooting a PRS match ever again. All right, so I no, I'm not I'm never ready for that. I'm a people pleaser by by at heart, right? And um, but I also and and I think you you understand this too, uh, the more engagement you get, right, the more uh the better it does for your brand and and and the consumers that go, ah, that's funny. Okay, you know? So to a degree. Yeah, I think it'll be a good thing now. Maybe not. Maybe you tell me like, whoa, stay away from that. Oh no, I think I think it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

I'm uh I'm gonna be watching. Well, actually actually maybe I'll comment. I'll never shoot a PRS uh uh match ever again.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

You should, yep. Yep, maybe I'll I'll well it's probably gonna be in the middle of the night. It'll probably be three or four a.m. your time, Pacific time.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Well, maybe I can figure out some kind of an AI thing to automate my commentary.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

Yeah, I'm not waking up for it. Yep, and just keep keep commenting, right? Based on other people's comments, that'd be fantastic. Man, well, I look look forward to to whatever that product is on April, April Fool's Day. Um, well, at this point it'll be beyond it we'll be behind it. But um man, uh so we're we're like 50-some minutes in. One of the things I wanted to ask you about was the lantern rescue project uh that that you guys support. And um uh I want to hear more about that. Maybe we get the message out for that too.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Yeah, very important. So, you know, I I I believe that uh not just personally, but as a company as well, we just have you know responsibilities, social responsibilities. Uh we are in an extremely male-dominated market. Uh, when we look at our statistics, it's like 96%, something like that, you know, uh and the other 4% are super awesome women. Um but you know, being in a um uh masculine uh business like this, I also believe that is a unique opportunity to uh put extra attention to that, you know, to be protectors, to be liberators, uh, to protect people that are weaker. Uh sex trafficking, and it's it's just a huge issue. Uh you know, we don't see a lot of it. Uh, but you know, when you go to you know some of the airports like Atlanta or something like that, you see the signs, right? You know, that you know, if if you see somebody being taken- I forget exactly what the signs say. So Lantern Rescue, yeah, Lantern Rescue, uh, what I like about them is like they're not this organization that's like you know to send us money and we're gonna do whatever, and you know, 80% goes to administrative and 20% goes to you know, maybe actually getting something done. Because those organizations, there's a lot of those organizations that are set up that way. Seriously. I was introduced to them by one of our customers, uh Cleaver Firearms in Australia. Uh they actually uh so when we are in Las Vegas for uh shot show, uh we rent a house, and so uh our customer Cleaver Firearms and uh the people from Land and Rescue came to uh have dinner with us at the house uh with our staff. And so I'd asked them to kind of explain a little bit about what they do and why they do it. And uh it just kind of really spoke to us that uh that that you know uh when we asked like how can we help, and they're like, Well, whatever you can, you know, like you know, so they have some people that do on some of the go on the some of these missions to to literally free kids and uh and women and they're saying, you know, but buy their airplane ticket when they go there. Or uh, you know, do you have a lawyer that's on staff that can help prosecute these people? Like all these things are part of it. Uh my wife and I went to South Africa last year and met with their operations manager. He also goes into these situations and and and frees uh uh people that are uh in captivity. Uh some of the things he told us are just awful to hear. And I think the easiest thing to do is to just not listen and stick your head in the sand and um uh you know not deal with it mentally. Um, but it's wrong. So uh I believe that uh bringing attention to it, um uh giving financially to it, we do that monthly uh from the company as well. Um, you know, having uh there's different things, you know, like we have uh you know little things, like we have you know, we make stickers, lantern rescue. There's just a whole bunch of little things that we do to bring attention to it. We did an auction for it last year. There's a bunch of people that are shooting uh lantern rescue branded, if you want to call it rifles out there right now. I think one of the chassis went, I think for five, six thousand dollars or something like that. So all that money went to lantern rescue. Um, yeah, I think we we just have that responsibility, I believe. And uh uh there's there's we we support smaller other things as well, you know, local soup kitchen, all that kind of stuff. Uh we have some employees in the summer. Uh when things are a little bit slower, they'll actually go help out and prepare food and all that. And uh but yeah, lantern rescue is uh is something that uh yeah, we need to we we we need to talk more about. Um I I think um we might all know somebody in our lives that has gone through a very difficult time because I know of an abusive situation or relationship or whatever like that. And you think about how just one small situation can really screw up some kids or some person's entire life. These are large groups of people. I think Lantern Rescue freed over a thousand children last year. It is like it's mind-blowing. And um yeah, uh, whatever we can do, uh whatever our community can do, uh, you know, we are uh looked down upon by by by people on uh you know different values or whatever like that. And I think the best thing that we can do, like I I very much dislike uh, you know, all the arguing back and forth and and and and uh speaking down about what their beliefs are on the kind of stuff. I I I don't I just want to focus on what we can do, where we can make a difference and how we can uh uh yeah, just just do good things for for society and for the world and especially coming from our industry.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Yeah, yeah. I I I agree with that. Uh we I mean we we're negatively looked upon by so many, you know, and it's not just one political party or whatever, but you know, it's it's kind of widespread and um which is too bad. Like all the points you made, right? Like we're you know, we're uh a crowd mostly of protective male, you know, uh uh demographic, right? And uh we do have this opportunity. So uh if you guys are looking for more information on this, it's lanternrescue.org. It's a lanternrescue.org, check it out. Uh support MDT obviously supports them. Um but yeah, I mean it's a worldwide organization that that needs help. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Yep, 100%. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

Yeah. Thank you for yeah, thank you, thank you for bringing this up, man.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Oh, you brought it up. Thank you for it. I'm very happy that we were able to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Heck yeah. That's awesome. Man, any anything else? Uh anything else we can look forward to? Obviously, April Fools will be behind us by now. Uh I'm gonna look forward to that from from from this point forward. Uh anything else this summer that you think?

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Um Yeah, I don't know about the summer. I would maybe maybe I should address one question that I'm just getting a lot. Uh, and that is when are when is MDT gonna do rifles?

SPEAKER_01 58:35

And uh Well, uh yeah, I mean, uh obviously with the pickup of uh Lone Peak, you know, uh uh the product development uh path looks pretty clear from the outside looking in, right?

SPEAKER_00 58:47

From the outside looking in, yeah. So I have um, you know, uh in the uh you know, 10 years ago when somebody would say to us, when are you gonna do an action? I would say I said never. Uh and I've said that all the way up till 2022. I would say never, we're not gonna do actions. But in 2022, we had a discussion with you know with uh uh my management team here, and we said, you know what, maybe one day it actually does make sense. So let's let's let's not say never anymore. Let's just start start saying not now. And so uh for the last uh four years, we've essentially said not now. Um you know we consider all options, you know, starting it from scratch ourselves, uh buying a company, whatever it might be. And uh so now here we are, you know, with uh Lone Peak, uh super excited about it. The only thing really that we still have missing is barrels.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

And um uh it looks like you it looks like you're thinking about like how do I make barrels? Like how do we bring that all the time?

SPEAKER_00 59:51

So if people are if people ask me, are you thinking about the answer is generally yes. Uh but what is the decision? Uh the decisions 10 years ago would come really fast and rapid. Today, you know, I'm I'm getting older. I've got uh two grandchildren, a third one next month, you know, hopefully. And um I'm just much more thoughtful about things. So when it comes to MDT making a rifle, the answer is not now. I don't have plans for it. I don't want to make a rifle right now. I want to provide really good parts and allow people to build whatever they do. There's another reason for that. I really want to support our gunsmith customers, let them make those rifles. Um, you know, that does that mean that there's not a factory rifle? Like I hope that one of our customers maybe maybe sets up a factory rifle based on all MDT products. I don't know what the answer is to it. Uh I don't want to say never. I don't want to say never anymore ever. You know, never say never. I actually really want to apply that. But I don't have plans to do full rifles at the moment. Even inside of the company here, some of the managers just say to me, now we gotta, you know, because opportunity, this, that, blah, blah, blah. And um not now.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:56

Not now. Man, you guys would be really well poised to put together a production division rifle for the PRS. I mean, you'd be excellent spot, but really good points. You know, let your let your guns.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Well, maybe somebody listening is thinking it's like, you know, maybe I can do a uh factory rifle on all MBT things, and I'd be open to talking to whoever that is, you know. But when it comes to us right now, not at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Not yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

Uh but I just don't want to say I I can't I can't say never.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. Martin, man, I appreciate your time today. Thank you very much for for coming on the podcast here. And uh good luck. Uh good luck this this weekend, this next weekend, right? You're gonna be in Idaho. Yeah, um, you're gonna shoot some more matches this year. You're gonna be at a couple, you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

Yeah, I do plan on it. I would love to shoot the uh Impact Foundation match. Uh I went there a few years ago in August. I I love those people. Uh so uh I want to go there. Um I'm shooting the uh Viking trail in Norway in May. Yes. Yeah. So uh I'm looking forward to that as well. That's a great and uh I don't know what else yet, but uh I I should I should shoot more. But you know how it is with time and priority and family and and business, and uh so uh my my goal as long as I kind of am able to stay a mid-pack shooter, I'm pretty happy. You know, I can't put the time and effort in to be in the top. Yep, even if I did have the time and effort, maybe I wouldn't have the skills to be as good as Francis and stuff, you know. Um so it's uh sort of a safe place to be. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

I subscribe to the the same principles. Yep. Man, well, I hope I can see you if if you end up at Impact Foundation, I might see you there. Um man, really good luck at Viking Trail. That I shot that a couple years ago. What a great experience. Uh one of my one of my most fun matches I've ever shot. I think you'll really enjoy it. And you and I think you're really gonna enjoy the people there. So thank you, Martin. Appreciate having you on, buddy. Thank you, appreciate it.