Well hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Q savage.com.
Today I've got special guest Brian Loftus on the line and we
dive deep into the wonderful world of survivor survivorship
and bushcraft. So he is a master when it comes
to learning how to be completely self-sufficient in the elements
and what kind of equipments 1 needs, what kind of you know,
food, water and shelter you need to come by how to be
self-sufficient, How to thrive, not just survive but thrive.
Against the elements. So wanted to bring him on the
podcast and just dive into what got him interested in that.
What inspired him to start his own company selling quality gear
he sells The keto brick is a survival style food because it's
shelf stable. That's how we got connected.
Plus I just love outdoor and bushcrafting so I wanted to just
pick his brain and kind of dive deeper into his area of
expertise. Third, enjoy the conversation
I've gotten. No doubt that you will as well.
So that further ado sit back, relax, enjoy the podcast with
Brian Loftus. And we are live, Brian.
How are you brother? I'm doing OK.
How about yourself, Robert? I'm good, man.
I'm good. So quick little intro here.
We got connected. I believe you initially were
talking to my wholesale manager. And you own a survival
outfitting store and you're interested in carrying the
bricks. I'm not sure how y'all got
connected. I don't know if he outreached to
you or how that all went down, but you got the bricks now in
your store. So I checked out your store and
you got all kinds of cool stuff. And then somehow another we got
on a podcast together, cuz I like that kind of stuff as well.
So I'm excited to be chatting with you today, man.
Well, it's an honor. It really is.
I mean you guys, your your products are fantastic.
I've had almost every flavor this point.
I'm working my way through them. Yeah, One of you guys reached
out to me, just a regular customer message.
You know, we get dozens of them every day.
And I thought to myself, you know, this, this is something I
think I could really get on board with.
You know, as survivalists, we're always looking for something
simple that's high in fat and high in calorie or something
that's that's going to hold you over, you know, a level of
satiety when you're looking at putting stuff in your pack and
you really have to whittle down what you're going to be carrying
with you on a daily basis. And you know, the Keto Brooks,
they fit the bill all the way around. 11 Man, that's the kind
of news I like to hear. What gets you into the wonderful
world of, you know, obtaining survival skills in the 1st
place? Man.
Like, where'd that interest come from?
You know, I get, I get the question quite a bit.
And I was in the electrical contracting industry for a
number of years now, was out the field as an electrician, went
inside, did estimating that was kind of my bread and butter.
Construction projects and whatnot.
And being stuck in an office, you know, a 10 by 10 white
walled room, a fluorescent lighting, no windows, listening
to some old guys AM radio from down the hall.
And it got to the point where I'm waking up in the morning and
looking at my sidearm and night stand and thinking, you know, I
bet if I put around to my kneecap I wouldn't have to go
into that office for at least a week.
And it was kind of like, hey, now it's time for a change of
scenery. It's it's time for change of
pace. And I was kind of hanging out
watching TV1 night watching documentary and they featured a
survival school in this hour long documentary and they were
showing some of the training they did.
I thought, hey, that's pretty neat, let me check it out.
I didn't do a whole lot of camping as a kid, you know, I
think my parents took us once, maybe twice, didn't spend much
time in the outdoors, but I've always loved the outdoors.
So I went out and I tried a little five day kind of intro
course. Just to see how I would like it.
And I was permitted to use some modern day amenities like a tent
and a sleeping bag and a Jetboil and things like that.
I completely fell in love with it.
And I went back a few months later for the instructor course,
spent 40 days and 40 nights out in the wilderness.
No tents, no sleeping bags. You're building your own
shelters, You're sleeping in them.
You know, rain or shine didn't matter and you know, just
absolutely loved it. And then I saw a need.
For the equipment side of things, you know, which is what
I've been doing for a number of years now when I started
survival gear BSO, our website Survival Gear dot us.
My idea was to create a website where not just instructors could
go to get some quality products for teaching their students, but
also students and the average Joe.
So my ability now to you know how businesses as you know they
morph. Over your time in business and
figuring out what works and what doesn't, one thing that I really
enjoy doing is working with a multitude of different schools
across the board, schools, government agencies.
I mean, we've had almost everyone order from us, you
know, whether it's the Coast Guard and Marine Corps, the DEA,
you know, everybody, retired guys, veterans, a lot of
military in a lot of Leo. And just your, say your average
enthusiast, you know, your weekend warrior camper and then
you get the shows like Alone and Naked and Afraid and it's drawn
a great big interest with these reality TV shows into the
industry in the last dozen years or so.
And I wanted my store to be one of the creme de la creme stores
out there. I put my name behind quality
products, quality gear that has been tried and tested out in the
field by. Actual instructors for years on
end, and that's what I try to do.
I love it, man. I feel like especially within
that industry, there is a massive need for people that
kind of disseminate between the quality gear and the the
gimmicky step. Because with that rise and
reality TV shows that we've seen around the theme of survival,
there has been just massive influx of crappy, you know,
manufactured overseas with minimal quality.
Just coming into the market and people that don't know the
difference between like a quality knife and a non quality
knife, like if you get out in the woods and you don't have a
quality knife it's not gonna last too long.
Absolutely, you're 100% right. And without throwing any labels
or any brands under the bus here as an instructor years ago.
We would get some students who would come out and we would see,
you know, let's, let's see your knife, let's see your hatchet.
You know, let's check out your tools and see what you have.
Let's see if you're going to make it, whether it be a two or
three day course or a 40 day course.
And some people come out with, yeah, you know, some companies,
some products from some companies that pour a lot of
money into into marketing And because they pour their money
into marketing, everybody thinks of the best.
And that's not necessarily the case, you know, we get.
A lot of people who show up with some so very well known brands,
but the quality is just not there and you don't see these
brands, you don't see these products surviving a class, you
just don't anymore. So you know information is
everything, information is or knowledge is power.
And you know when you say overseas, it depends on where
you're getting it from overseas. The Scandinavian area, that's a
really big quality area for outdoor equipment and.
Anything that comes out of Scandinavian areas and you know
it's top notch and we try to carry that.
Of course, price points vary. You know, if you we try to live
by the model, buy once, cry once, hey, you know you're going
to buy something as it costs a little bit more and you might
cry over that price. You're going to cry one time
because you bought quality. Now if you buy less than
quality, if you buy junk, you're going to be crying because
you're going to have to buy it 4567 times because it breaks on
you, right? Learn.
And I learned the hard way myself.
I probably have five, six, $7000 worth of junk equipment sitting
in my attic collecting dust until I actually started using
the equipment a number of years ago and I realized what's good
and what's not. So anything on your side as
you've kind of vouched for is going to be the higher in the
creme de la creme type quality that people don't have to wonder
about? But like people listening right
now, what are some like if if someone's going to go out and
they're going to get a basic set up, like what are some brands
that you would recommend and as having some degree of confidence
by them? Well, when it comes to you know
your number one tool is always going to be a knife.
If you ask you know any survivalist out there or
bushcrafter out there, you know what is the one item you would
take into the woods, whether it's a stainless steel canteen,
a knife, a sleeping bag, a tent. Almost every one of them, 99% of
them, are going to choose a quality knife.
So you got a a wide variety of knives out there every time Dick
and Harry now is making a knife. And you know again going back to
the reality TV shows, you see forged and fire and that's done
a lot for the for the blacksmithing community.
And then the blade enthusiasts out there, I would say more a
knife, they're out of Sweden. They've been around for quite
some time and they make some very, very high quality Bush
graft and survival knives right here in the USA.
Company called S EE, S EE. I mean, their knives are bomb
proof. That's a very common term.
They're just thrown around in our industry.
You know, something that's really tough, it's going to
withstand the test of time. I've seen videos of guys
sticking these knives in a vice and turning that that vice on
end and they're standing on the blade.
And the blade is expanding. I mean it's it's really quiet.
I would say more knife is probably #1 as far as well known
quality and reputation in the industry SE knives definitely
out there. Tops knives, tops knives are are
are really great and for a very affordable outdoor cutting
utensil I would say Condor. Condor makes some really good,
really good products and the price point is great.
If you're looking to not break the bank and you know, you know,
be shocked at your monthly credit card bill, Condor is.
It's a definitely a quality company.
Great reputation on them. I actually happen to know one of
their knife designers personally.
Wow, the guy does top notch stuff.
He flies all over the world teaching people.
He takes people into the jungles right around Peru area.
He makes a trip. Peru, El Salvador.
He makes that trip a couple of times a year.
Really, really great guy. And I know he wouldn't put his
name behind crap and his name is actually on many, many of the
many of the blaze, many of the knives, many of the machetes out
there. Nice.
Yeah, this, I mean, all those
are brands that most people that are not in this would probably
not even recognize that people are probably familiar with, you
know, Kershaw or something like that.
They're expecting you walk out in the woods for 40 days with
the Swiss Army knife or something, you know, that's just
not the case. No, no, definitely Kershaw or
Gerber. You know, that's, you know,
they've reality again, reality TV shows and that's Bear Grylls.
You know, that's his brand. They've done some really great
marketing. Totally.
When it comes to knives, we just kind of stay on the topic of
knives here for a bit longer. If you're only having one knife
to take out there, what size knife do you typically take?
Are you taking like a like a six inch fixed blade, like what you
go to for one one stop shop with a knife?
Fixed blade, absolutely fixed blade.
I would not go any less than 4 1/2 inches and.
It's not so much the size of the blade, it's the grind on on the
knife, so basically the angle of the bevel.
And I am a a really big fan of the Scandi grind.
It's short for Scandinavian grind.
It's a great, it's great angle on the blade to do smaller tasks
like carving. You know, you can have a very
large blade 6-7 inches long, which is a pretty big one.
No, I'm not talking about overall length, I'm talking
about the length of the blade. And that's great for processing
firewood, you know, things like that.
Hey, you know, it's it's a beater.
You're going to use that thing to to split up some firewood and
to build yourself a shelter, should you need to.
But if you're getting into Bush crafting, you need to be making
primitive traps In order to have some level of food procurement,
some sustainable level of food procurements, you need to be
able to make a a Bojo set, and that that entails some smaller,
more intricate work. You know some better cutting
power, and that's the Scandinavian grind.
And that's what I would go with no less than 4 inches.
I try to get around 5:00 to 5:00 to 5 1/2 and I would go with a
scanny grind blade. Nice, right?
Good to know for sure. And you said that you were not
really camping much as a kid. You love you outdoors like when
you took this first class, like you total greenhorn out there or
like did you have some some St. sense, so to speak and we're
able to pick things up pretty quickly.
You know, I think a lot of it. In my case, I think a lot of
people kind of fall a suit with myself now, I grew up in the
suburbs. I actually went to high school
in the city and you got a lot of people have interest and a lot
of these get interest in the in the outdoors or something
outdoorish. And a lot of these social media
platforms now, it focuses, focuses around the tactical
aspect of things. Tactical is great.
Everybody loves tactical stuff, looks cool.
There's tactical and there's tactical as far as use.
I definitely had to do my research before I went out
there, so I knew to get some quality blades.
I made sure I was reading forums.
I made sure I was watching videos from quality name
survivalists out there and survival companies.
So I made sure that I did have the proper equipment before I
went out there. That was one thing I was smart
with. As far as being green there and
wet behind the ears, absolutely 100%.
I was brand new into the Bush crafting and the survival
techniques, and I really had no idea what I was doing, which is
why I was just soaking out from the start and I completely fell
in love with it. I just wanted to know more and
more and more and more and it's like, hey, you know, how quickly
can I get into this? How how deep can I immerse
myself in this? And hey, I did 5 days.
I loved it. Let's just let's just go.
Head first into this and let's spend 40 days out there with no
tent in their sleeping bag and see what happens.
I love it, man. This is this is cool because
most people don't realize this. But before I got into
bodybuilding and fitness nutrition, my first, like,
serious passion in life was Native American history.
And I've always kind of grown up hunting, so like I was reading
all this primitive Bush crafting from.
Various different authors like Ernest Thompson, Seton way back
in the day and I would go out in the woods because we grew up on
land and I'd be like making wigwams and all my own cooking
utensils and like all that stuff.
Like I just loved it, man. So having, you know, talking to
somebody like this on the podcast is, is is getting me
fired up. Well, you know I it's great
because you know I didn't grow up.
As I said I didn't grow up with a lot of that stuff and the fact
that you did my, you know, my father was never hunting
Typically you'll. Father, as far as the outdoor
activities and my father, you know, God bless him, he very,
very successful man. Started some sort of a few
companies of his own but didn't have a whole lot of time to to
spend outside. I think my first camping trip
ever with my sisters, my twin sister and she and I was our
birthday and we have a sisters two years younger than we are.
And we went, went out for a camping trip with my parents.
We were probably about 8:00. And my mother forgot the tent
poles and my father threw his. That was the 1st and the last
time we went camping, these kids.
So I was learning this stuff. You know, I was winging it.
It was tough. So I really had no hunting
experience. I had very, very little camping
experience. And a girl I dated, you know my
mid 20s, we did a lot of camping, but that was really
about it. So but it's interesting, you
know that you have gone from. You know, growing up hunting and
and learning the Native American way of Native Americans, I mean
those guys had it down. Those guys had it down.
They knew exactly what they were doing.
And then you get into the fitness industry and I was
almost like the other way around.
I did the fitness stuff and then I started getting into into the
survival stuff. But we sell a lot of, a lot of
books in our store that revolve around some of our top sellers
revolve around Native Americans and primitive skills.
They knew and they lasted. For as long as they did, you
know, sustainable lifestyle, as long as they did because they
had the skills. Yeah, 100%, man.
I eat this stuff up. So like for for, I think it's
super impressive that you and other people have talked with
that, have gotten gotten into hunting and camping and fishing
and whatnot without having that as an upbringing, not having
that father figure that did that kind of stuff.
Like for me, I feel very fortunate to have that.
You know, we had a bunch of land that we were growing up on, so
just kind of came by default, But for somebody to acquire
those skills just because they want to learn those skills is
more impressive in my opinion. So hats off to you there for
doing it. Oh, thank you.
I appreciate that. Yeah, it's tough, you know, when
you walk into a course and there's, you know, 30 some
people in this course who are there to.
To do the the 40 days with you. And then I'll say, yeah, I
trained at this school. I trained at this school where
I've been hung my entire life and I'm thinking I am done.
I am going to come in dead last in this class.
So the best way to do it, as with anything is hands on
experience. Jump in, get your hands dirty.
Learn from your mistakes. And I had some right instructors
over the years so it's not like I had to be retrained.
And a lot of people, they learn the wrong way.
They come out with the poor products, as we were speaking
about a few minutes ago. Yeah.
And they suffer. They, they, they learn from
suffering. There was learning from
suffering and there there's learning from doing.
I prefer to learn from from doing.
You know you're going to fall down, that's for short.
You're going to fall down frequently, but you got to be
able to get back up and keep forging ahead. 100% man.
So when people come out there to to go through a class and
they're pretty new at this, like where?
Where do you find? Like there's some common
denominators, like what did most people tend to have the most
trouble with in the beginning? The most trouble, honestly, with
pretty much everyone. It's a it's a very tough skill
to get down from Most people I know it was for myself, is
primitive fire, friction fire. So I'm talking no big lighters,
even ferro rods. Are you familiar with what a
ferro rod is, Robert? Like the magnesium runs.
Yeah, so there's magnesium and then there's Sparrow, Barrow,
Rod Ferroceum. It's a more common, more favored
method for for fire striker. And yeah, there was a season of,
I want to say it was season six or season, season seven of
alone. And if for the listeners out
there, if you're not familiar with the show alone, it is the
Olympics of survival. Go check it out.
I know some people personally have been on the show.
Some really, really great survivalists.
But there was a guy on there, one of the contestants, and I
believe he was picked to win and he lost his Farrah rod.
You know, something happened where it became detached from
his belt and he lost the Farrah rod and the conditions out there
because you're out there for months at a time.
And yeah, could he make a bow drill kit, you know, for
friction fire? He could.
But he's, he's gonna have to start a friction fire every
single day. And when you're out there in the
coal and the elements and you get a lot of the moisture that
you know, seeps into the wood and then you really have some
problems with the friction fire. So friction fire is something
that you usually spend a solid day on learning the basics, you
know, learning from the ground up.
And then you learn different methods.
Typically it's that bodro fire that's the first method and
that's tough. It's, it's backbreaking.
Yeah, it's. The positions you have to get
yourself into, I mean literally it's it is a pain in your back.
You know you have to spend a lot of time on on one knee and bent
over and it's it's a very acquired skill.
It's brought that acquired skill.
It takes time and it takes a lot of patience.
That's the toughest thing for most people is friction fire.
When it comes to fire in general, man, like like we've
got a family forum on Southwest Arkansas.
And you know, we go down there for hunting camps and
Thanksgivings and whatnot, and it will always build a fire
because everybody loves a good fire.
But I'll like, let people try to build the fires.
And without fail, they oftentimes fail.
And it's just simply because they rushed the process like
good fire building. Like you just simply have to
take the time at the onset before you ever even try to
start the fire and just get the right tender, the right fuel and
have all that at the ready before you ever even bend over.
To get a flame going. Otherwise you're going to be
putting, you know, just the wrong stuff on there.
You're going to be cussing for too long.
Absolutely. You have that down 100%.
You got a lot of people say I'll start this fire.
Well, hey, you get a flame going.
And I was like, oh, I need something to put on the fire.
Guess what? By the time you want to get
those materials that quote, UN quote fuel for the fire and you
come back, your flames gone, it's gone.
You got to prepare you, you know, you got to get yourself.
Three or four different thicknesses of of you know, of
fuel sources to begin with, some very small stuff and you know
and smalls you know everything from you know the thickness just
to start off with the thickness of your thumb to the thickness
of your of your pinky finger and then a half size of your pinky
finger as far as circumference and then 1/4 of the size and you
still have to start with some sort of tincture like or I'm
sorry, tender like a like a bird's nest.
You know literally how a bird's nest would look, where you're
going to be scraping, you know, use the butt end.
If you have what we nickname a Tinder teaser or basically a
claw on the butt end of your fixed blade knife, you can use
that to get some fine shavings from underneath the bark of a
tree. Peel some of that bark off and
get down low. It's very fibrous, You know, if
you if you have some dry land around there and you know you've
got some dry leaves or some or some dry grass.
You know, that's primarily what you're going to use and that's,
that's what you're going to start that with.
And then hey, you better have those sticks or different size
smalls nearby. Because once you get that flame,
you're going to be able to sustain that flame for as long
as you can until you have a sustainable fire that you can
walk away from for an hour in order to replenish your fuel
source, fuel sources. And yeah, you're 100% right, you
have to have all that stuff down in front of you before you even
get down on your knee to say, hey, I'm ready to go.
Be prepared. Definitely, definitely.
So like I love this kind of stuff.
You live this kind of stuff. Like we talk about this all day
long, but for somebody listening that has not any interest
whatsoever in bushcraft. Like what?
Where do you, where do you like? For me, I like to feel
self-sufficient. I like to be able to know that,
you know, somebody can take everything from me and I can
still make it like that. That's important to me.
And a lot of people I would imagine are like becoming.
I think Doomsday Preppers as a concept has gotten much more
popular in recent years with all the political mayhem and just
where people think about things like there seems to be a growing
demographic of those types. Are you seeing that grow on your
side of things as well? Like people are just more
interested in being self-sufficient in case shit
hits the fan? Absolutely 100% and the big
driving force behind that now doomsday preppers.
I wish they would really pick that show up.
There's been some rumors that they're going to start that show
up again. That was one of my favorite
shows. But the big catalyst there
honestly was COVID. You know, that was a little
taste of how bad it can start off.
And I remember, you know, my girlfriend coming home and I
guess is, you know, 2020 and I'm sitting there in the morning and
drinking coffee. She hit the gym early and she
comes flying in the door. And she said, Oh my God, Brian,
she's not someone to get fired up and excited.
She came in and she's, Oh my God, Brian, the grocery stores,
they're they're a madhouse. It's just totally packed.
People are running, they're shoving one another.
There's no chicken, there's no beef, there's no bottled waters,
no toilet papers, no paper towels.
The canned foods are almost totally exhausted.
And it was just nuts. And she said, I know, you know
this stuff. What do we need to get?
And I, you know, I have been
waiting for this day for, I don't know, 15 years.
I I just sat back and grinned and sit in my coffee and I said
let's go out and and get some booze.
We pretty much have everything else.
So we're just going to have a good time while everybody else
panics. And she said what?
And I said, you know, we've got enough food here to last our
ourselves, long term storage food to last ourselves.
Between the you and I a couple of years, you know, we can
purify water. You know, we have fire sources.
We have a roof over our head. It's a big thing, roof over our
head. We have sustainability
resources. We even have two portable
toilets and we have everything. And she said, well, what about
this? And what about this?
And what about that? We have enough toothpaste to
last a year. We have enough deodorant to last
half. You know, we pretty much had
everything because I, you know, I am very much of the same
mindset as yourself. Where I want to be able to be
self-sufficient. Now having having the products,
having the gear, that's one thing.
But hey, what happens when you run out of that stuff?
You know you still need to have that skill set like you had.
You were born and raised with the skill set of of putting meat
on the table with hunting. That is a skill set that a lot
of people out there don't have that I never grew up with.
I had to learn as I was as I got a bit older.
So being able to put meat on the table, that separates the mental
boys. But you better have some sort of
skill set for one year. Your supplies went out.
Yeah, I was thinking I. Was thinking it's like, man, if
she hits the fan here, like I've got like we got all the bricks,
like we got, you know, 10,000 bricks on hand at all times,
1000 calories each. I got the ability to hunt at my
family farm whenever I need to. So I felt pretty, pretty good
too going into this, like, you know, if worst thing happens, I
feel like we'll totally be fine. And you know what, you're in a
great area really being there in Southwest Arkansas.
You know, I actually my training was, I'm not sure if you're
familiar with Huntington, Arkansas.
It's on the other. Yeah, you've heard it's only
about an hour and a half from you I think.
And that's originally where I was trained was in Huntington.
The school no longer exists there, but there is a really
great school just a little bit north of you in Rogers, AR and
the. I just called the American
Survival Company. Have you ever heard of them?
I haven't, but I'm gonna Google them right now so that I can
save it for later. American Survival Company.
American Survival Company I thought, what?
Do yourself a favor. If you're looking for something
good to watch on TV, it's a binger.
On Netflix, there's a show called Snowflake Mountain.
And came out about a year ago. Without getting too far into it,
the the owners of of the American survival company is
Matt Tate and Joel Graves and they are the Co hosts of this
reality TV show on Netflix and basically teach survival skills,
self you know self responsibility and things like
that. It's a little bit of a different
twist on survival if they're if you're thinking of yourself, oh
it's hardcore survival, I'm not interested you're thinking down
the down the wrong Ave. Go watch the trailer on YouTube
for Snowflake Mountain. It's absolutely it's absolutely
eye raising our eyebrow raising ratter.
But yeah the the main school was right there in Rogers.
Rockets are run by Matt Tate but phenomenal instructor,
phenomenal school, great guy all the way around.
Awesome. And yeah, I mean, so my farm is
in Southwest Arkansas. We're located in Northwest
Arkansas. So Rogers is like 30-40 minutes
from me. Oh yeah, that's that's great.
Yeah, you're you're you're very close to him and he's worth
reaching out to and just. Yeah, yeah, for sure on.
The weekend course. So when it comes to survival,
being self-sufficient, having the bare necessities they know
everybody's mind automatically goes to food, water, shelter.
So like when you are thinking in those terms, like how do you
kind of organize your thought process, like what does that
look like for you and how would it be applicable to somebody
that's listen to this and needing to go through a similar
mental road map. Well, you know, I learned a lot
of this in in my training. And again, setting all things
aside as far as where your demographic might be, you know,
or geographically you're, you're located, what kind of gear you
have, what, what kind of skills you have, you always do.
The primary is your environment. Your environment will kill you
faster than anything else. So shelter is always #1.
Water is number 2 and food is #3 and they kind of refer back to
the the rule of three three minutes.
You can roughly, you can survive 3 minutes without air, 3 days
without water, and three weeks without food.
Now where they clean water the shelter, you've got to have
something you know it's good just ties into the.
The big keyword here or the the buzz term bug out, where
everybody needs a bug out that I'm going to bug out.
Why would you bug out? You need to bug in, you know,
why would you leave your your walls of your home and a roof
over your head? You have protection or you have
protection from the elements. Stay where you are.
So once you have something to protect you from the wind, from
the rain, from the cold temperatures, from the extreme
heat, you need to have a way to purify your water.
And if you don't, you're going to be in trouble.
Because let me tell you, I've gotten Giardia before doing some
training, and it's wicked. And it's basically a parasite in
your stomach that you get from drinking unclean water, in a
water that's been contaminated with animal fecal matter and
things like that. And sometimes when you're out in
the wilderness. You're stuck and you don't have
a choice after maybe two days, 2 1/2 days where you don't have
water and you're forced to risk it.
You see a lot of that on that show naked and afraid to be
purified water. A lot of times just going back
to having that that friction fire skill you know of making
fire. Because in order to purify water
it's a heck of a lot easier if you can boil it and you got to
have heat source in order to boil the water.
So I would say shelter is #1, shelter is always #1.
Once you have that shelter, get yourself some clean water.
Figure out a method to get yourself some clean water and
there are numerous methods out there.
Then it comes to food. Food is is not an easy thing to
come by in the wilderness. Depending on where you are.
Now, where you're located Robert, you've got you've got a
great pool of of wilderness out there and the critters, it might
be out. I mean, I spent a lot of time in
the Ozarks and some watchetop mountain range.
And you know you're going to, you're going to go towards
protein source. You know it's going to be a a
higher fat higher protein. You're not finding, you know
potatoes in the for the most part, unless you're growing
them, you're not going to find them in the woods, carbohydrate
sources. Unless your body goes to, you
know as a guy in the fitness industry, especially running
your products, you know creating your products, you know that the
most efficient fuel source out there is the carbohydrates.
So your body's going to want to tap into those first, but you
don't have the luxury of having carbohydrate rich sources out of
the wilderness. So you've got to go for the
animal proteins or you're doing foraging and when you're
foraging, you're eating a lot of those greens, you know, you know
some some wild onions, things like that.
So things are very low in carb and low in calorie.
You got to be able to get that medium on the table and that's
what. And food comes last, and you can
last a couple of weeks without food.
Sometimes. In extreme cases you can last
for all over a month. It's not going to be a very
enjoyable experience, but you can do it.
When it comes to like you say, staying in kind of holding up,
staying in making your own environment and the shelter just
more resilient, I think it makes a ton of sense, which is kind of
why we've been in a lot like homesteading that I love
homesteading plus it kind of just plays in the whole
self-sufficient aspect like we're getting chickens, we're
growing a garden, like we're doing stuff at our own home
because it just. Again makes it feel more
self-sufficient. What do you do at your home for
for water purification? You have like a rainwater
collection system like how do you do that?
Well, my home right now, we're actually looking at moving a
little further out into a rural area and we would have a
rainwater collection system for for what I had.
Now especially, you know, I'm in a unique position here because I
have access to the greatest gear in the world.
And the greatest water purification systems in the
world, now, the best water purification system on the
planet is made by NASA. But unless you know somebody at
NASA or you're an astronaut, you're not getting your hands on
one of those. So we sell, we sell something.
We we partnered with this company called Grail GRAYL, and
they sell probably the number 2 water purification system on the
planet. Do you think about, you know,
tropical storms? Tidal waves, things like that,
where hurricanes, where the water sources have become
compromised, they've they've all become compromised.
Or with pollutants or viruses and bacteria, now you get a lot
of people go down there and you see these, you see it on the
news all the time. These trucks or airplanes are
showing up with pallets for a bottle of water.
And they get these people, whether they're volunteers or
they're paid, and they're sending these people in there to
help. And they don't want these people
to eat up those resources that they're sending aid in there and
relief for. So they outfit them with one of
these grill purifiers. The Geo press is 24 ounces.
It takes about 8 seconds to purify, 24 ounces of water.
Boom. It's right.
There you go. Very fast, very efficient, very
lightweight, very, very durable. So I have access to that.
I even do that since we had this situation several months ago in
East Palestine. OH, I don't know if you watched
that on the news. I was with the freight train
that went through and this chemicals bill.
Exactly. And that's less than an hour
from us and. I purify all my water in the
house with either a Berkey filter or a Grail.
When I take my dogs out for a walk, I've got one of those
grail purifiers on me. I won't even let them drink the
rain water around there out of the Creek.
I will purify water for them just so I know that we're on the
up and up and we're on the safe end.
Now for some property, you know, the rural area, yeah, definitely
rainwater collection system. I mean you can get these massive
tanks around 920 gallons and you know you have them on the side
of your home. You tie in your your gutter
system with some sort of filters or strainers in there.
You clean them out a couple times a year and you've got
yourself a great resource for a large quantities of water in a
short notice situation. Yeah, water.
Water is key, man. I was elk hunting in Washington
a few years back. And we ran out of water pretty
quick. Like we were out there longer
than we expected to be. We ran out of water, didn't
bring enough. And we started looking around,
man, and we found this puddle basically like, it was like a
small palm, but I mean, it wasn't very big at all, but it
was like straight up green pond scum.
I mean like there was like 2 inches of scum just on the top
of it. That's where, like the coyotes
would go for water and bathing and everything else.
I mean nasty. And we had one of those.
Not the grail filter. We just had like one of those
water balls that have all those little tiny, I don't know what
they're called, like little tiny strands in there and you just
push the water through that, that that captures all the
impurities or most the impurities.
And we were drinking that for a week and totally felt fine.
Didn't get sick at all. Well, I'll tell you what, that's
a true testament to whatever product you were using.
And there's a there's a bunch of them out there.
Yeah, I know life's a big one. That's people know.
Again, going back to the quality marketing, you know, some of the
first products they came out with and not so great.
Wouldn't really hold up. They pumped a lot in a lot of
money into marketing and some of the products they're making out,
from what I understand, are pretty quality.
But I I think they really had to build themselves up and make
their money in order to start putting.
They're pumping some money into some better production methods
and better products. So, you know, the staples in the
industry are Gray out. They're a little bit pricey and
Sawyer has been around. For years.
And they're really great. I mean, you can put something in
your pocket, literally, you can fit in your pocket, and I think
it's rated up to 100,000 gallons.
You know you're going out there, you know, secondary to your
knife. Find a way to purify water, even
if it's and if you're confident you know.
If you don't have a fire starter, source some matches or
a lighter and you're confident with your friction fire skills,
Get a stainless steel canteen or titanium canteen, because.
You can purify water over and over and over and over again in
that. Yeah, for sure.
That's the way to go. What about, like when it comes
to equipment, we're talking about, you know, shelters and
whatnot and clothing, you know, that kind of is another
component of shelter. What's some good brands that you
typically gravitate to there, like Fall Raven?
Took the words out of my mouth. Absolutely.
If y'all Raven is, I'm a huge fan of y'all Raven stuff I have.
A number of their pair of pants and their shirts, they make some
great shirts. You know, we've got some lighter
weight shirts that are great for the warmer months.
Like right now I've done some some training courses and those
it's a trade off, you know, depending on where you're going
to be. Some of the training courses
I've taken were at the tail end of the Appalachian mountain
range and it's kind of like the Appalachian jungle with its
nickname and you're kind of down in this valley.
And my buddy Dave runs the school, Dave Canterbury.
You know, if you're in the industry, you, you know Dave.
You definitely know Dave. He was even interviewed recently
about the plane crash a couple of weeks ago where about four
kids, four children survived in the jungles of Columbia I.
Read that article. Super impressive.
Yeah, yeah. My dad actually called me and he
said hi. I was watching TV today and had
this survivalist on Dave Canterbury every here.
And I said sure, I know Dave. I'm taking a number of his
classes. You know he's got a phenomenal
store and I'll send people over to his store if I don't have
something. I know he has and I believe he
does the same thing for me, at least I've been told.
So great guy really is a very skilled survivors, great school
and you know when you get down to to the the quality and the
environment as far as the clothing goes, you know at his
school in particular I've got a lightweight shirt that's
breathable from Phil Raven. And then I also have more of
what I like to call a brush busting shirt.
It doesn't breathe as well, but man is it tough.
It's real tough and their pants are tough.
You're going to bust through some briar bushes and you're
going to be crawling on the ground.
You really don't have to worry about ripping your clothes.
You don't. It's it's going to withstand the
test of time. Their packs are really great.
I swear by their packs. You know, you can have all sorts
of cool looking tactical packs with Molly webbing on the
outside. That's great if you want to go
to tax going and you can strap some things you know Molly
compatible products to the outside of those packs.
But I really like the Fioraven packs.
You know, they've got this wax, this Greenland wax they make and
they have this proprietary material called the G1000.
And they make their pants out of it, some of their shirts out of
it, and they make their packs of it out of it as well.
And you rub this Greenland wax on that G1000 and it makes it
water resistant. That water just beads right off
of it. And so if you're cotton, you
know. Nasty weather.
You're not going to have to worry about taking shelter
immediately because you don't have to worry so much about your
clothes being, you know, way down and sop down with water.
Totally, man. What about when it comes to,
like if you're if you're going very minimal out there, like if
you're in a plane crash and you're stranded out, then you
get just, you know what you got on your person.
There's that for sure. In which case you know, having.
Probably having some type of water purification.
The ability to make fire a knife like just the bare necessities
is key when it comes to if you're kind of trying to post up
in your own home or makes things make things more, you know,
self-sufficient in your normal normal location.
What what's your opinion on things like solar?
Like do you go the the round of solar or what do you do for
that? Solar, absolutely.
I mean solar is a great way to go.
I've got a pretty open backyard, decent sized deck on the back of
my home. So I'll pull out some solar
products. Goal Zero, although we partner
with Goal 0, they're great. I mean they're really, really
great products. There are a couple of companies
out there that deal with solar power stuffs.
I would say Goal Zero, although it can be about on the price.
Again, it is quality stuff. So if you have something like a
solar still even to purify some water, that's that's great.
Now if you really want to get down and do your research and
want to do it the economical way, you know there are some
great books out there and obviously YouTube, YouTube is a
great source and I remember growing up YouTube didn't social
media didn't exist. I remember when the Internet
came out, I'm sure you do as well.
It it's a wealth of information out there and you can find some
methods for purifying water with basically two cups and a piece
of cotton cloth and I won't go through the process here is a
bit of lengthy process but yeah you know look it up on on on
YouTube it's pretty easy to find you know some simple ways of
purifying water but you know as they say you don't know what you
don't know and. If you're in a position where
you need to scatter to look up how to do it, guess what You're
You're already done. You're already done.
Yeah. No, totally, man.
Totally agree. Yeah, we, you'll appreciate
this. We needed to get a rig for our
business, like deliveries and whatnot and for conferences.
And I also think about getting a travel trailer because there's
just so many things that we've been traveling for, for the
business. And I'm like, man, I wish there
was like a way to hybrid, you know, to like have a cargo van
but then also have a travel trailer because both of those
independently are pretty expensive.
And my buddy hit me up and he's kind of into the survival, you
know, game as well. But he also has like a food part
of business and he bought, he's, he's really big into old diesel
engines. So he bought this 1999
Freightliner ambulance. That's just like massive.
And he put a big old military bumper on there with £18,000
winch. It's like 1000 watts of solar on
the roof and I bought that from him.
It's all blacked out with rhino lining, you know, truck bed
liner, paint. So I'm I'm going to get that
thing rigged up to be like a business vehicle that's also a
hunting rig and just badass savage all the all the same
time. I'll tell you what you're You're
a man after my own heart. I've always wanted to put
something like that. And I almost jumped the gun a
few too many times and just, yeah, I'm going to buy that.
But I've been taking my time. And, you know, if I'm going to
do it, I'm going to do it, right?
I'm going to do it once I get, like I said earlier in our
conversation, buy once, cry once.
Yeah, I want to make sure I have something, something like that.
And that's a great sort, you know, an ambulance vehicle like
that. I never even thought about that.
That's a great source because they're.
Large vehicles, they got a lot of muscle through them.
You know, in an emergency situation, it's got to be able
to get from point A to point B and you've got a lot of storage
in a vehicle like that. Yeah.
And the ambulances are cool, man, because like they the box
on them, they're, they're made to withstand like rolling over.
So like if you were to, you know, get in an accident, like
they're they're all just freaking solid and ambulances or
decommissioned after X many years because they don't want to
have as at a frontline, you know, emergency response
vehicles, they're all pretty well.
Saw them. Mechanically speaking, if you
get them second hand they're all wired to the hill, like there's
like a 270 amp alternator in this thing that they're just
they're just tanks. Man, this thing weighs £23,000,
like you almost have to have a CDL for it, but you don't have
to cuz it's under 26 so you're able to just outfit it however
you want. It's super versatile.
That's how it's very unique, unique vehicle bugging out or
you know. Bugging from one point to
another type of vehicle, yeah. And yeah, load down some
necessities and that and when you need it, it's gonna be
there. I thought about getting a
Sprinter van, you know, and loading up a Sprinter van, but a
Sprinter van you've got to do. Quite a bit more to it, to bring
it up to speed with, to have it something like what you've got.
And like you said, they've just got rollover.
I don't want to say rollover proof, but rollover resistance,
you know, to the bodies that might, the bodies that might be
inside of the vehicle and the products that might be inside of
the vehicle. You know, you're a sustainable
life giving products that you're going to be carrying with you
and you've got to protect that stuff at all costs.
Totally, man, Totally. Well, what's in the pipeline for
you, man? Do you have any other courses
coming up? Do you have any, what's exciting
with the business you've got? Kind of like what's the future
hold for you? Well, without saying too much,
there's an entity or throwing out that interview yet because
they haven't launched yet, be on the lockout in the outdoors
industry for a soft launch. In mid August.
So basically it's going to be a live selling platform.
So think of it like QVC but for the outdoors.
I've been talking with these guys lately.
I was connected by a very, very reputable guy, really great guy
in the. In the survival Bush craft
industry and he's connecting me with, with the guys who are
going to be launching this platform and collectively these
two guys have something like you know 3540 years doing the live
selling. So yeah, think of like the QV C
but for the outdoors and we've been in some discussions with
them to to get on board with what they're doing and it's it's
a very exciting time. You know the the industry has
been taking off over the last 10 or 12 years like I said with the
the influx of reality TV shows for survivalists and self
sustainability, the movement there And as I said earlier, you
know COVID, COVID gave everybody a little taste of how they
needed to be prepared whether they have three days worth of
supplies or they have three years or the supplies again have
something. So we're looking in the
direction of. Doing some live sales and we
also started a a new brand, kind of a sister company called
Waypost Outdoors. And you know, we have for the
nature of our business, we sell what a lot of platforms, you
know, like Facebook and Instagram, they consider it to
be weapons, you know, weapons. They're tools.
These are these are the first tools that were used by The
Pioneers that came out. They were used by the Native
Americans, you know, a bushcrafter survival knife.
Is no more harmful than a kitchen knife is because we've
run into some of the road, some of those roadblocks.
We developed Wait Post Outdoors, and we did a soft launch
ourselves just about a month ago for Wait Post.
And we're already for some of our products and some of our
pages on Wait Post, we're already outranking ourselves
under the Survival Gear brand. And our SEO guys, really great.
He's, he called me up about a year, year and a half ago, he
said. Brian, I've never seen this
before in my career, all the years I've been doing this, but
you guys have actually outranked Amazon for some keywords, which
we were shocked with, absolutely shocked.
So we're very excited about the traction this brand has gotten
so far and our ability to to kind of morph and change with
the demands of the sales channels, the platforms.
Not just the steel channel platform, but what people are
looking for and what they want. You know with your products
coming on board. You know with us like I said, it
is very, very quickly become our number one seller because it's
something that's lowering carbohydrate is a little bit
higher in the protein and the fat where that has that
sustainability, that satiety factor in there that a lot of
foods don't and. We're excited where it's going
to go. We've already over the weekend
we've sold out of a number of the flavors from Keto Brick and
we just got a shipment in. So we're going to be placing
another order here in the next day you got.
Well, let me ask you this with with this growing, like with
this interest in these skill sets growing, what is the
community like as a whole? Like for me, you know that the
keto community has been, you know, just.
Tremendous in in giving me a platform, everybody's been super
perceptive within the survival Bush craft community.
Is that like a community that's opening people and and being
pretty forthcoming with any knowledge they have or is it
kind of like a, you know, if the more people I tell how to
survive the more competition I've got for resources when that
time comes like is it, is it kind of standoff or is it pretty
open? Oh no.
It's very often the the people in this industry are wonderful
people. They'll give you the shirts off
their backs and they're genuinely excited to pass their
knowledge down. As I said we we partner with
some really great schools and affiliate schools about seven of
them and we're peppered all over the country or these school like
I say affiliates it's we basically sell the equipment for
their students. You know if they say hey here's
your required gear list or have this and this and this and these
people don't know where to go. They they have no prior
information or skill sets. You know we do some cross
promotions from links from our site to theirs and vice versa.
And you can call up, you know, call us up and you're going to
get a live person. You're going to get someone
who's actually going to talk to you.
Has actually gone through the skills.
They've gone through the courses.
You know, there's a school called the Survival University.
It's out in Colorado. They pretty much have a lockdown
on the entire state of Colorado. Phenomenal school.
I said they're in Colorado. Earth Trek or bushcraft.
They're in your neck of the woods.
Arkansas, Missouri. Allies Wilderness is up in Maine
and Massachusetts. You know, they're we're all over
the place. We even just took on.
A our first ever traveling instructor with Wild Card
Wilderness and she travels all over the US.
You know if you could check out our website and you you go
under, go under training, educate yourself a little bit.
You're going to see some drop down menus for not just books
and films but schools. You know one of the films.
I think that's really great what you mentioned.
A bit earlier is, you know, the the bugging in factor and what
do you need to have at home? Yeah, the shoulder stop is
great, but what other supplies you need to have at home?
We were with the great guy who was the number one contestant
from From Naked and Afraid. His name is EJ Snyder.
And we did a film about a year ago called The Ultimate Bug in
and on Defense film. And he gives you all kinds of
golden Nuggets in that film about what you need to have in
your home to be prepared for yourself, your family, your
loved ones, even your pets. Love it man.
I think that's what it all boils down like.
I think anybody listen to this no matter where they're at, no
matter where they sit politically, no matter anything.
Like it just makes sense to not have to rely on the government
or your neighbor or anything else for all of your needs.
Like one should be self-sufficient to a degree for
sure, especially within their own home.
Being able to provide to their their their spouse, their kids,
their their livestock. Like you just need to be able
to. Be self-sufficient, you know
it's all is what it all boils down to.
I feel like any resource, any online entity like yourself, any
outfitter like yourself that's able to help provide that to
people 100% man you get my respect.
So I'm excited for. I'm definitely be checking out
your website and probably getting some gear from you here
in the near future and that there's ever anything I could do
to help promote. Anyway ma'am, just let me know.
I love that. Sounds great.
And you know anything you need at all.
Any advice? Any information?
You know my cell phone number? Give me a buzz.
I'll be happy to do any sort of collaboration with you there
that we can. Loving your products so far.
Like I said, I can't believe that they that they went up all
the year. We sell, we got some really
great selling stuff, but man, they shot to the top right off
the bat. So whatever you're doing, keep
doing it and keep coming out. Those new flavors, that
nootropic icing, that's my favorite so far.
I'm gonna see some more of that stuff around.
Love it, man. Well, if you're ever in this
neck of the woods, brother, just let me know.
I'd love to show you around our operation here.
We can go hunting, do whatever you want to do.
That'd be fantastic. And if you're ever out in
Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia area, you know, for
competition or anything, you know, give me a buzz.
Like I said, I was competitive bodybuilder for years.
I still know a lot of people in the industry.
My gym is a great big bodybuilding gym.
Doesn't matter if it's the NPC or any other entity, the OCB,
whatever it might be. If you're out this way, give me
a buzz. Awesome, man.
Well, Brian, pleasure, pleasure chatting with you.
Definitely keep in touch and we'll talk soon man.
And one more time for the listeners, what was the name of
your website so they can find it easily?
It is survival gear dot us and name of our company is Survival
gear BSO that's short for Bushcraft and Survival
Outfitters survivalgear.uswaitpostoutdoors.com.
Wait, postoutdoors.com. I'll link out to both.
Those make it easy people to find you for sure.
That'd be awesome. I appreciate that all.
Right, Brian. Take care, brother, and talk
soon, ma'am. Yeah, my friend have a good one.