Firearms Nation Podcast

My guest this week is Caleb Giddings.   Most people first met Caleb when he was a contestant on the first season of the History Channel's Top Shot series.   Before he was on the show, Caleb served in the Coast Guard and was a competitor in a variety of competitive shooting sports.   He is a Five Division Master in IDPA and also competes in USPSA and NRA Action Pistol. After Top Shot, Caleb was par...

My guest this week is former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan.   Shawn served in both Iraq and Afghanistan on SEAL Teams 2 and 8.   Once he finished his deployments he left the Navy and took a contractor position working for the CIA overseas.  Shawn has 14 years of combat experience and fighting terrorism.   While deployed he also help protect our athletes during the Olympics in Greece and developed a skill s...

My guest this week is special forces veteran and firearms instructor Aaron Barruga.   After serving in Iraq and Afghanistan Aaron branched out to form his own training company, Guerrilla Approach.   He wants students to push themselves out of their comfort zone because that's where the real learning begins. Aaron also has made a name for himself publicly questioning current training techniques and...

Mike Hughes is a force to reckon with.   He played college football before he went on to become a patent attorney.   Along the way he got into pistol competitions and soon developed a dry fire tool called the Shot Indicating Resetting Trigger Training Pistol or SIRT pistol for short.   This tool is basically allowing people to dry practice with a trigger that can be adjusted and has two different...

Tim Kennedy is the closest thing we have to a real Captain America.   For those of you in a cave and don't know who he is, Tim is an active duty Green Beret sniper.   Before he was a sniper, he was a door kicker in both Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.   After 9/11 he was so committed that he signed up for a program that has a pipeline directly into the Green Berets..as long as you pa...

Jon Dufresne is a former Army Ranger and now a firearms instructor.   He teaches for both Sage Dynamics and Frank Proctor (who was an instructor on the 2016 Shooter's Summit.)   Jon's focus as an instructor is not only on fundamentals but low light techniques and emergency tactical care. In todays podcast you'll learn why more lumens (that's the rating on flashlights) is better when you need to fi...

Ben Simonson is the owner and craftsman behind the company Boresight Solutions.   If you have a plastic framed gun, you probably already know about Boresight Solutions.   They were one of the first companies stippling (creating texture on frames) guns which forced the gun makers to develop better grips.   Boresight goes further in the custom work that you can do on the frames.   The work is very d...

Ben Stoeger is a five time national champion in USPSA (action pistol).   He also is a world class competitor and firearms instructor.   Ben has written several books on shooting, dry fire practice and live skill training.   In addition he had time to produce two DVDs on shooting ("Training to Win" and "Practical Pistol Foundations").   Finally, Ben has his own podcast "the Practical Pistol Show" w...

Normalcy Bias is a mental state for people in a crisis.   It makes people underestimate the crisis and the effects of the crisis by thinking things will always be normal.   This keeps people from preparing… Wayne Black has provided security protection details for several high powered clients including the former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and Pamela Geller who was the target of the firs...

Riley Bowman is the host of the Concealed Carry Podcast, a top 200 ranked podcast which talks and analyzes self defense shootings and discusses best practices when it comes to carrying a gun. Riley is also a NRA and Post Certified firearms instructor in Colorado and works full time at concealedcarry.com , a site that has news articles, resources and gear all in a one stop shop for people intereste...

Lucas Apps is the host of the Triangle Tactical Podcast, which is a weekly show that covers all things USPSA or IDPA.   Lucas has done gun and gear reviews as well.   Recently he has expanded the podcast into three shows:   the main podcast, Junk Science and a live Q&A.   If that's not enough, he has a Patreon news show for folks who support him. Lucas is a supporter of gun rights and talks about...

Yong Lee has been a law enforcement officer for over 28 years and a firearms instructor for 25 of those years.   He also is on the departments SWAT team for the past 11 years.   In addition he is the departments Firearms Training Coordinator, Chief Firearms Instructor, and Use of Force instructor.  He is a Certified Analyst and instructor for the Force Science Institute who's mission is to analyze...

My guest today is a writer, instructor and competitive shooter.   Joe Dawson writes about guns and gear for Recoil magazine, Breach Bang Clear and Modern Service Weapons.   He teaches swat officers and military guys how to reach out and touch bad guys at long distances with a rifle and he also competes in PRS and Action pistol sports.   I found his articles really capture his personality and look...

My guest today is an attorney, an author, competitive shooter and tv guest host.   Andrew Branca has been a lifelong shooter and reached master class in IDPA.   Knowing that there was a lot of misinformation on being involved in a self-defense shooting, he focused his legal career to learn the subsection of criminal law the deals with use of force and defending your life.   He quickly became a sub...

Tim Herron is a grandmaster level shooter in USPSA and has won the Missouri State Championship 4 times in a row.   He also has won his division (Single Stack) at 3 Area Championships.   Time has been shooting since 2010 and struggled in B Class for many years until he learned how to practice.  Before getting into shooting, he competed in SCCA which is racing stock cars.   Tim is a mechanic by trad...

Steve Anderson is the host of the podcast "That Shooting Show" a several times a week podcast that is part Van Halen retrospective and part shooting variety show.   He talks about what shooters need to become better at shooting and competing.   Steve also has written three books and dry fire practice and competition, "Refinement and Repetition", "Principals of Performance" and "Get to Work!". Stev...

Steve Tarani has served in the US Defense, Law Enforcement and Intelligence communities for over 25 years.   He is an instructor for the DoD, NSA, FBI, DEA and Homeland Security   Before that he worked for the CIA and DoE.   He has published 8 books and is also known for his work with Filipino blades such as the karambit.   Steve also worked at the Gunsite Institute as a firearms instructor.   Ste...

Bennie Cooley is both a competitive shooter and tactical operator.   Bennie has won numerous World and National 3 Gun championships.   He not only competes in 3 Gun, but also in High Power which are those scoped bolt action rifles that shoot far distances.   Bennie works full time on a SWAT team and as a firearms instructor.   He teaches private groups for competition and elite military and law en...

Tony Blauer has been teaching people to protect themselves for over 37 years.   His SPEAR (Spontaneous Protection Enabling Accelerated Response) system of close quarter defense is currently being taught in all levels of law enforcement and in military groups.   His company is Blauer Tactical Systems and it has several branches to meet the needs of elite athletes, high speed SWAT officers, and even...

If you watch the Outdoor Channel you probably have seen some of the hit shows like The Best Defense, Shooting Gallery, Gun Stories with Joe Mantegna and Shootout Lane.   All these shows are the brain child of Michael Bane.  Michael has been around the gun world for over 40 years and during that time he's written 22 books, shot four different shooting sports, worked with Hollywood and trained with...

Show Notes Jessie Duff is a professional competitive shooter.   She is sponsored by Taurus Guns, Leupold, Hornady and several other well known firearms or gear companies.   Jessie competes in handgun competitions and was the first female to make Grandmaster classification in USPSA in the Open Division.   An accomplishment that was dominated by men since the sport was created.   Jessie also compete...

Anthony Cruz is the host of the weekly YouTube show, "The Shooter's Mindset".   The show has been running since 2013 and he has had all sorts of top competitive shooters on the show in addition to gun makers.   He shares the hosting duties with other up and coming competitive shooters (mostly 3 Gun) and has over 2 million channel views.   Anthony is a competitive shooter as well and competes in ID...

Matt Hopkins is a Grandmaster shooter in the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA).   He has competed since he was a young boy when his father took him to the local bowling pin matches.   Matt's drive continued and once he became grandmaster, he was able to connect with a major firearms manufacturer, CZ-USA.   Since 2010 he has not only been sponsored by CZ-USA, he also works for th...

Robert Vogel and Jessica Hook are quite the power couple.   Robert (Bob) is a world champion competitive shooter.   He competes in both USPSA (United States Practical Shooting Association) and IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association).   Bob also shoots for Team USA in the IPSC World Shoot.   Bob has won 3 world championships, 23 national championships and also had time to be a full time l...

Bruce Gray is a master level gunsmith, competitive shooter and reserve deputy sheriff.   He has worked in the firearms world for over 40 years.   Bruce is known as the guy who makes your SigSauer pistol sing, in fact he just released a new trigger for the highly successful striker fired Sig P320 (which just won the new Army pistol contract).    Bruce stared working on guns when he was 16 years old...