Episode 321: Alex- Bak Bak Labs-Tactical Talks with an Airsoft Innovator

As I sat reminiscing about the burst of adrenaline during my first airsoft match, a decade ago, I couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement introducing our guest, Midwest airsoft aficionado Alex. His stories of transition from paintball to airsoft, and the community he has found within, are not just personal tales, but a testament to the sport's growth and the camaraderie that binds players together. Our dialogue takes us through the fields of Action Sports Wisconsin, the innovative strides by Index Productions, and the unexpected origins of our very own podcast channel, all while celebrating the shared passion that fuels every match and project.

From the cultural tapestry woven through travels to Saudi Arabia and China, to the intricate craftsmanship behind airsoft mods and DIY gun building, this episode is a mosaic of experiences both on and off the field. We traverse the journey of one man's leap from airsoft to pharmaceuticals, the evolution of our audio endeavors, and the eclectic stories that have colored our lives. Whether it's the anticipation of testing new launchers at milsim events or the meticulous care that goes into creating 3D-printed gear, Alex's passion mirrors the diverse facets of the airsoft world.

Get ready to feel the rush as we gear up for the upcoming Minnesota Airsoft Convention, where community spirit and the thrill of tactical gameplay take center stage. Memories of past giveaways and the pride in crafting unique airsoft modifications are woven through our conversation, just as the bonds of friendship and cooperation are woven through the heart of the airsoft community. Join us for this episode, where every anecdote is loaded with insights, and every shared experience is aimed at celebrating the sport that has brought us all together.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076335675320
https://www.facebook.com/EndExProductions
https://www.facebook.com/ActionSportsWisconsin
https://www.facebook.com/events/1336124023755336

Transcript

Erock: 0:22

I like your background. You got uh, you got a pelican box over there or something where a couple boxes back there nice welcome, dude thanks, man.

Alex: 0:37

Yeah, I just started listening to your show and I was like it's kind of cool.

Erock: 0:40

So you know, I don't know, here I am yeah, I, I um, so the last probably month or whatever, I've been talking like I'll mention on here while I'm talking with somebody, I'll mention like I have a sign-up form on my website or whatever, and so I think over the last month I've had probably four or five people, you included, that signed up on there, probably four or five people, you included, that signed up on there, people that I never had seen their pages or profiles or that kind of thing, and I really actually like that because I like the mystery and the intrigue of who am I meeting, you know. So, yeah, man, it's cool, I appreciate you signing up?

Alex: 1:26

Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me yeah, absolutely.

Erock: 1:29

Why don't you uh, introduce yourself and uh, uh real quick, and then we'll, uh, we'll get into the good stuff cool, yeah, I guess.

Alex: 1:37

Uh, you know my name is alex, uh, been in the airsoft for probably 13 or 14 years and uh, you know, know, I just you know I've been playing and doing the thing. You know I started off as a paintball player and you know how all the paintball players go oh, airsoft's stupid.

Erock: 1:54

Shout out paintball.

Alex: 1:56

Paintball's dumb, no, airsoft's dumb, right Before you know it. You know I can get into it later, how I got into it. But yeah, before you know, you start playing airsoft and you're like man, why did I play paintball? It is messy, it is messy. So yeah, for sure, yeah, I start out that way as well, yeah, I think I think a lot of us old schoolers, I mean, I'm 42, okay, I think you know a lot of us started out that way and then slowly grew into Airsoft.

Erock: 2:27

Uh-huh, yeah, I think there's kind of a slow shift going on between paintball and Airsoft. Paintball is in the general public. I think it's a little more. It's still more popular than Airsoft. But as far as if you just walk down the street or go to a shopping mall and ask people as they're walking by, have you ever heard of paintball? Oh, yeah, yeah. And then ask you know a thousand people, have you ever heard of airsoft? You know they're like it's going to be more people have heard of paintball.

Alex: 3:01

They just think of BB guns.

Erock: 3:03

Yeah, right, yeah, true, so it's, but I think it's one of these. Somebody said on here one time it's the. It's the biggest sport that no one's ever heard of. And it seems that way because some of these events have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, sometimes thousands. You know the events that a Ballahack puts on, bro. That's crazy, like 12, 1500 people at a zombie event.

Alex: 3:37

That must be an East coast event.

Erock: 3:39

Yeah.

Alex: 3:41

It's hard for me to get out to the East coast, being so so deep in the Midwest.

Erock: 3:46

Yeah, you in uh minnesota, yep yeah, nice okay I think I don't. I'm not sure, but I think you're the first one that I've talked with or had on here from minnesota cool.

Alex: 3:59

yeah, well, we're pretty fortunate in minnesota. I mean, you know we have three fields within minneapolis, so we have three fields that are pretty close by. You know, we also got another field in Wisconsin, like Wisconsin-Dallas is probably about three hours away, and that's probably the best field in the Midwest. It's called Action Sports Wisconsin. Yeah, that's probably one of the best fields, I think, in the Midwest. Yeah, so if that's anything you guys want to check out, I'll definitely check that out in sports, wisconsin.

Erock: 4:31

Y'all have to look this up. This is one of the things I love about meeting new people on here is finding out about other teams or other fields or other field owners, like all these different you know things I've never heard, teams and fields I've never heard of before. Even when I do like a search like um, like on Instagram or Facebook, whatever, like just airsoft, right, I just type in airsoft and I go looking for different profiles or whatever, um, I still, you know I find a lot of them that way, but when I have people on here, I'm I'm still like, surprised at how many more new ones I'm finding out about.

Erock: 5:14

And I'm like Holy cow, dude that's crazy.

Alex: 5:15

Okay, I kind of do the same thing you do, like I travel for work. So like just like this, like I don't know, I was in Indiana like two hours ago.

Erock: 5:23

Oh shit Okay.

Alex: 5:29

So I just flew in and did all the zoom stuff to get it all working, whoa bro, oh my gosh, you know, usually when I go out to these different states and stuff, I try to hit, you know, the local airsoft stores and just to check them out. Or you know, uh, you know, like I had to like the pleasure, I don't know if you have you heard of uh index productions? No, oh, so he does a lot of uh, uh like tagging their rockets, or tagging rockets, he makes them and you know he made me a law so he converted. He takes like the m72 laws and he converts them. Oh yeah. So yeah, that's index productions. And you know I, you know I talked to that guy and you know I was in north carolina and I went and met that guy and that guy is cool, he's good stuff. So yeah, index Productions.

Erock: 6:14

Yeah, I'm looking it up now.

Alex: 6:18

Anyways, yeah, he built an M72 rocket for me. He built another one for another buddy of mine here in Minnesota, so there's two of them floating here. I think he's got an AT-4 too. Yeah, he's got an AT-4. He let me shoot his AT-4. So he takes, you know, like the shells, because you know, you know they're throwaways. Right and then you know, he finds them and he converts them.

Erock: 6:38

Yeah. That's wild dude Okay.

Alex: 6:51

That's pretty cool, yeah, so it's pretty pretty good stuff. But yeah, you know, like I said, I met him and you know he's hooked me up. He gave me some prototype rounds that he's you know making and yeah, so good stuff, man.

Erock: 6:59

I really I really enjoyed meeting him and talking to him shout out index productions I I haven't found their website yet Index Because there's a couple of them that the first two are Index Video Productions and it's definitely not it's more like photography and Index Production LLC, maybe yeah. I'll have to scroll through this and see.

Alex: 7:26

Definitely. He's definitely got a Facebook page.

Erock: 7:29

Oh, maybe I'll look on there. Yeah, that's cool. So how did you, uh, how did you find um our podcast?

Alex: 7:40

and actually on uh one of the facebook like on our minnesota airsoft association, our facebook page, I I think we got like 3,000 members, 3,000 or 4,000 members on there.

Erock: 7:50

What.

Alex: 7:51

Yeah, we got a nice amount of people, yeah, and somebody threw that on there and I was like, oh cool, nice. Especially when I travel, it's like oh cool, throw that on there while I'm sitting in the airport or wherever I am.

Erock: 8:07

Right.

Alex: 8:08

And that's what I did, and I started listening to you.

Erock: 8:48

I was like oh, you know you know, as I liked it.

Alex: 8:51

He had like a lot of interesting characters and you know from all, from all walks of airsoft.

Erock: 8:55

Right.

Alex: 8:56

You know, so I enjoyed listening just here, and you know everyone's got their story, and you know Right.

Erock: 9:07

Oh, dude, I'm so glad that's what I want to do, man, yeah, for sure.

Alex: 9:12

Okay, so yeah, yeah, that's pretty much how I wound up.

Erock: 9:16

Yeah, I'm going to see if I can get on and talk about.

Alex: 9:18

Minnesota and everything.

Erock: 9:20

Right, oh, that's perfect, perfect, yeah, I, um, I, uh, I was recently going through some of the the original uh podcasts or whatever.

Erock: 9:32

When I first started the podcast I didn't actually plan on starting a podcast and if you've heard some, you know you might've heard me say that on your on how it started. It was kind of spontaneous, but, uh, it was it. There was not a real definite like in the beginning. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to do a podcast, right. It kind of grew into it and so when I was looking back at the original, like the first 50, um, I was trying to match up the audio, so my audio listings to my YouTube video listings. Cause when, um, like about six, eight months ago, whatever, within the last year, youtube made a specific section for podcasts If you're a content creator, right, and so they never used to have that. So there wasn't like you had to create your own playlist and kind of make it separate if you wanted to do that or whatever. So they've got this whole separate thing, podcast thing, and if you go to someone's channel and they have a podcast, you click on it and it'll show like a big tile with how many episodes they have and whatever, and you can sort it from oldest to newest or vice versa, whatever.

Erock: 10:44

Um, so I was checking my channel, like I haven't really looked at this in a while. I want to see how it's set up, you know, and I'm looking and I'm going wait a minute, that wasn't number one. That wasn't number two because I'm going by the audio, where I posted on all the audio, you know, the spotify and all that and um, and then I remembered I was like dude, never really, I didn't decide right away. And the other thing too was there were some audio podcasts that I put on the audio version that I did not put on YouTube, Because what I did was I just took the audio from a video I'd already released, audio from a video I'd already released. So, like, we did a review, like a hangout and a review on, I don't know, an AAP01 or something like that. So that was a part of our channel. You know we were doing unboxing and reviews. Well, what I did was I took the audio from that and made it one of the podcasts on the audio side but not on the YouTube side. So the numbers don't line up like if you go through the youtube side, it's like, and then you go through to spotify and look at them and I was like so I would, I'm the one that set this up.

Erock: 11:53

And I was confused. Okay, I'm going what the hell? So? And then I was trying to remember back. Oh yeah, I didn't really decide this is going to be a podcast, so uh. Anyway, if you've gone back, you know if somebody's new to the channel, uh, and new to the podcast, if you go in the very beginning, you're gonna there's gonna be some that are like they don't follow this format.

Erock: 12:14

What we're doing now that didn't come until a little bit later on, you know you got like 300 episodes or 300 yeah you know where do you begin, you know I can't, I cannot believe it.

Erock: 12:25

I really I feel like it hasn't been that long, but for a year and a half I'm gonna tell you where it jumped was. For a year and a half Once I decided, okay, I'm going to do it, this is going to be a cool podcast, whatever I'm cool for me, uh, for me to do. You know, I'll have fun with it. I was doing three a week. I was releasing three a week, was releasing three a week.

Erock: 12:47

so that's a lot yeah okay, I mean, it's 12 a month, uh. And so our numbers went up so fast as far as the how many episodes we had, and before I knew it I was coming up to episode 300 and I was like, dude, oh what? No, that's, I was kind of going back through the beginning like are there really 300? Anyway, so it's yeah, but it's been fun, man, it's been fun, like I said you can't really go over the beginning.

Alex: 13:16

You just kind of just scroll down like oh, this looks interesting. Just kind of like, yeah, you just pick that one and go with it.

Erock: 13:31

Well, there was a time too where I thought about kind of once I had decided, making a podcast, to kind of go back and kind of delete all these other ones you know that weren't really like what we're doing now and and then just start fresh, uh, with whatever number one was and uh, and so uh. But I said, nah, it's, it's, people can see the progression right Of kind of how it changed over time and that's cool, it's whatever. So but yeah, man, I appreciate you being on here. It's we. One of the guys I had on like a month ago, this teenager. He says I want to tell you how I find your podcast. I said, okay, he goes.

Erock: 14:06

I was kind of bored one night and I was looking for a podcast to listen to and I was. You know, I've been at Airsoft for a couple of years. You know he plays Speedsoft like indoor and he's like I said, alexa, play Airsoft podcast. And then mine was the first one that came up and I was blown away. I was shocked. I I didn't. I mean, I know I'm listed on a lot of different things, but I was like that is a cool. I didn't even know that I don't have one of those, you know, echo things or whatever.

Alex: 14:36

So I can. I can be honest, I did the same thing. Oh really, yeah, yeah, actually, when I'm like working in my office yeah, this is actually my office I would be like player, you like. When I first heard about you, I just said Airsoft podcast and yours actually came up, oh shit.

Erock: 14:54

Shout out Echo or Alexa or whatever. Man, that's the same thing. Free advertising, man, that's awesome. Okay, well, I just found that we got what the hell is this website called? I don't know, I'll have to look it up later, but I just got an email from a guy that runs this website that does like podcast indexing, so all the different genres and categories or whatever and he reached out to me because he has a paid service through his website if you want to advertise and whatever through there.

Erock: 15:25

But I'm at, there's a bunch of Airsoft podcasts on there. You know, rgk, defro, call your Hits. You know, a bunch of different Airsoft podcasts are on there. The guys that I first started out listening to in Cali, oh, my God, gorilla, gorilla Airsoft Radio, they're listed on there. And so I was on this site and I was like, oh, that's kind of cool man, you know that. So, yeah, we're uh, I didn't do a whole lot with that Like trying to get the the, you know, trying to get it listed. Um, anyway, I just like I'm going to do what I love to do, which is this talk with people and uh, and I'm going to see where it goes.

Alex: 16:14

So, nice, nice.

Erock: 16:15

It's going good. Yeah, that's cool dude, but uh, so you're in. You're in Minnesota. Did you grow up there?

Alex: 16:22

Yep Born and raised.

Erock: 16:23

Okay, do you like the cold? You ever think about getting away from it yeah, all the time I think about it.

Alex: 16:29

You know it's, but it's home, man, I can't you know I know I don't know, it's hard, you know yeah, it is. You got family around there uh, sort of, I got one brother okay so I got one brother that lives in minnesota, I got another brother that lives in Mexico and my mom lives in the Philippines. Oh, okay.

Erock: 16:48

Do you ever visit those different countries?

Alex: 16:52

Yes, I actually was in Mexico where my brother was for actually a month for my job, so that was actually pretty cool that I got to be down there and see him.

Erock: 17:01

Yeah, nice, I went to. I have a friend that's from Chihuahua, mexico, I think that's how you say it, and and then me, my buddies had gone. The farthest we had gone into Mexico was Rosarito, so we went down to Rosarito, just stayed a weekend down there and it was like six hour drive drive for us from Camp Pendleton down through Tijuana and into Rosarito and hung out down there for a while. So it was cool, it was a good time.

Alex: 17:37

It's always fun down there, it's nice, it's hot, everything's a little cheaper.

Erock: 17:41

Yes, oh, yeah.

Alex: 17:43

Dude, this was 1992.

Erock: 17:44

Oh way different then.

Alex: 17:45

this was 1992, so shit was cheap. Oh way different then.

Erock: 17:48

It was cheap, okay, yeah, man, we were still getting quarter beers in Tijuana back then, tj Right.

Alex: 18:01

Was it a revolving door when you went there?

Erock: 18:04

I think so.

Alex: 18:05

Because I remember going down there probably like six or seven years ago, and you got off the train right there in TJ.

Erock: 18:11

Okay.

Alex: 18:11

And it was literally like a big revolving door Just click, clink, you're in Mexico.

Erock: 18:16

Oh yeah, well, we parked, so we would drive our car down there. My buddy had a pickup truck. We would drive the pickup down there and park park in a in a lot like less than a mile, and we'd walk. We would walk over the walkover bridge and, uh, or you know, the walk right through.

Erock: 18:35

So I think that's what you're talking about yeah, yeah, I remember the first time we went I do remember this the um, where there's, you know, chain link fence on this side as we're walking through into mexico, into tijuana, and it was, there was, uh, one of the mexican police vehicles that looked, you know, like a decked out suburban. That was like, I mean decked out in in fallout style, okay, like they had welded like wheel covers on it, you know, steel plates over the wheels, uh, mesh over the, the windshield. I mean it looked like a riot vehicle and the two guys are standing there with the shotgun slung over their shoulder and we were like boys, don't get in trouble in mexico.

Alex: 19:20

We ain't coming back. It was the same way in guadalajara. They would have squatted cars, three of them 250 cals and a Mark 19 in the middle.

Erock: 19:32

Whoa.

Alex: 19:34

That was the first time I'd ever seen a Mark 19.

Erock: 19:37

It was cruising around on the top of a.

Alex: 19:38

Holy shit On the top of a truck. I was like, oh my god, these guys are ready to take down a city block.

Erock: 19:44

They're not messing around, bro. We ain't dealing with that bar fight, but just a couple of thumpers Okay.

Alex: 19:57

But yeah, that was pretty wild when I saw that stuff down there.

Erock: 20:02

Now, what kind of work do you do, that you travel so much?

Alex: 20:04

Just a mechanic, a mechanic, traveling mechanic. So I work on a lot of pharmaceutical machines. So whatever, it is okay, pharmaceutical stuff, I'm going out there yeah, getting like in the manufacturing yes, part of it.

Erock: 20:15

Yeah, production, oh yeah, that's what I used to do yep, so I'll get in a clean suit and okay you know, I never had to do that. I wasn't. Uh. Yeah, I didn't work on food grade stuff or whatever, but yeah but yeah, that's pretty much what I do daily, yeah, mostly so I started out.

Erock: 20:35

My first factory I started out in was, uh, back in 94 I started out packing parts. Never worked in a factory before okay, it was right after I got in the military and um, so I was packing parts for about six months. They put up a job bid. I bid on that. It was quality, it was worked in quality. For about six months. They put up a job bid for a machine operator. I bid on that, did that, did that for probably about five years and then I bid on a process job and then a setup job, like where I was pulling out molds and you know the dyes and whatever yeah, change outs uh-huh, yep, so doing that and I worked, and then I worked, pretty much stayed in like process, the process side of it, for quite a few years and that's what I was doing.

Erock: 21:23

And then I would, I would, I would go depending on which plant I was at. I would either do maintenance or process, you know, because it kind of worked together you know, um, as far as the uh setting up the recipes, you know it was all plastics, most of us plastic. My first, my first one, was aluminum die casting, but the other ones were mostly plastic stuff and um, so, yeah, we did uh. Now I did work for uh for about six months at this one, you know, gojo, you know the hand cleaner.

Alex: 21:55

the hand cleaner, yep.

Erock: 21:56

Yeah, I worked in that place that was in Northeast Ohio. We mixed all the batches and that kind of thing. I was like I was the staging so just drove a forklift, set up all the staging on a pallet for them to dump in the big bins and mix everything.

Alex: 22:13

Little big vats.

Erock: 22:14

Yeah, 33,000 gallons or whatever, and yeah, so interesting, interesting stuff. I always loved seeing how things work and how things are made, so I enjoyed it. I mean I didn't plan on getting into factories after the military stuff. I always loved seeing how things work and how things are made, so I enjoyed it. I mean I didn't plan on getting into factories after the military, it just kind of came up.

Erock: 22:32

My wife and I were already married for about two years when, after I got out, we had our first kid already. He was like six weeks old when we moved back from Cali to Northeast Ohio, cleveland, ohio, and my mom goes hey, there's a job fair, like in two days over here, there's all these factories going to be here. I was like, all right, let me go check it out. So I went over there and filled out applications, you know, for like two hours at all these, you know different tables. Somebody called me the next day. They said hey, come in for a test. Uh, like the next, like within a week after doing that, I was already starting to work there. So that's pretty nice.

Erock: 23:12

Yeah, I was like okay yeah, eight bucks an hour man packing parts, that is. Yeah, it was fine. We made it work, you know.

Alex: 23:19

But things were a lot cheaper back in 94 okay, I, I, I didn't have to worry about it.

Erock: 23:29

Yeah, I would say, you're probably a 94. You're probably not yet. Oh, you're okay. Oh yeah. Yeah, you're 10 years younger than me. So yeah, it makes sense.

Alex: 23:41

But yeah.

Erock: 23:42

Okay. So how'd you end up doing that? This kind of work?

Alex: 23:45

I uh, I was doing flooring for about 10 years and uh, it was. It was a good job. I enjoyed it. You know the people were great and you know, like everybody, I always hear that Everyone's like oh, your knees, your back.

Alex: 24:00

Yeah, that's what I was. That that crossed my mind and, coincidentally, I you know I was playing airsoft at the time and you know like I had made all this. You know like, you know like I'd make stuff for my guns you know like out of like you know machine lathes or you know of a you know bridge port. So all my parts were all like handmade and hand-built. And people you know had a guy. I was like how do you do that stuff? I don't know, I just do it. You know, like know, and I didn't have the equipment at my house, like I was literally like filing stuff down and you know like drilling holes and hoping it was going to be straight and stuff, yeah. And so I would get to a point where I was like all right, this works. And then I would make it work.

Alex: 24:41

And the guy noticed that and he's like, man, you'd be really good at our company. And I was like, okay, tell me about it. And he told me about it and it turns out it was an apprenticeship. So he's like, in order for me to get in this company, I had to do this apprenticeship. So here I am again, like I think I was like 28 years old. You know, and it's like if you do this apprenticeship, you pretty much start over yeah but and you're with a bunch of like young kids, exactly.

Alex: 25:03

So I'm this 28 year, so I applied and I got it. So here, I'm this 28 year, so I applied and I got it. So here I am, this 28 year old dude uh, it's pretty much starting over. So I was, I think I would. I think I was making like 30 bucks an hour at the time doing flooring.

Erock: 25:15

Okay.

Alex: 25:16

And uh, they dropped me down to $12 an hour.

Erock: 25:20

Woo buddy.

Alex: 25:21

So you know like, here I am talking to my wife, I'm like, hey, this is a you know like. You know like, let me try this opportunity. You know they pay for my school. Yeah, they, that was the whole, the whole kicker. They paid for your school, sure. So you go there, they do your apprenticeship.

Alex: 25:40

They pay for your I. You know, I was like, you know, as soon as you know three years and then you know I'll be back to where we am and you know, we're all, you know, we're all good, yeah. And she said, yeah, do it, you know. And then at that time, what? Actually I think one of the saving points of us was that my wife actually like enlisted that day, like you know, like while I was in there. So she enlisted, it's like that money coming in from her enlistment or from her going through basic training and the HSA and all that stuff.

Erock: 26:09

Oh, she went in the military, okay, yeah.

Alex: 26:11

So I was getting out, I was like, all right, this is all right. Yeah, we got a nice income flow coming in.

Erock: 26:17

Yeah, it worked out good, good timing.

Alex: 26:19

Yeah, and it worked out good and I went through it. I finished up the apprenticeship program and that's how I pretty much got into manufacturing, yeah, so where it was. So when I got done with my apprenticeship, which was three years long, they put me into a factory startups. So you would go to a factory and you would push the start button and whatever went broken or didn't go the right direction or whatever, we would go in there and troubleshoot it and fix it until it works.

Alex: 26:51

And like that brought me all over the world, like I'm really thankful for that job. Like I got to see places that, like a lot of people, never got, never got to see. I had to go to Saudi Arabia by myself. That's crazy so they sent me to Saudi Arabia once, and here I am freaking out. This is when they were cutting people's heads off and stuff over there.

Erock: 27:09

Oh my God, they sent me out there.

Alex: 27:14

Well, the crazy part is I'm completely lost. I had to send my passport to the embassy and it's this thick thing saying that I would oblige by all Saudi laws I wouldn't bring a Bible in there.

Erock: 27:28

Oh my gosh, I uh.

Alex: 27:28

you can't have alcohol or something too nope, alcohol like any kind of anything, like pornography alcohol. Yeah, and I was there for about my first time there. I was there for about a month and, uh, I was like terrified to go there.

Alex: 27:40

I'm like, oh my god you know like I had all these my co-workers like, oh, don't, you know, like it's not, like that, it's just so propaganda. I'm like, okay, here we go. I boarded the airplane and went there and got off. And you know, here I am like, okay, I'm trying to find my contact, and there's this guy with a cardboard box with my like company's name on it and I'm like oh my god, yeah, that's me.

Erock: 28:12

He's like okay, follow me. And I'm like, oh my god, oh, he's taking you to a dungeon, bro, okay and uh.

Alex: 28:14

Well, you know, like after I got over that you know I was like oh, this is actually pretty. You know, this wasn't that bad right. You know, like I got the experience that I went to like um domestic china, so I flew into shanghai and then from shang I took a three-hour flight into China. There were things on the back of the seat that said you were being watched.

Erock: 28:33

I didn't know.

Alex: 28:35

I wanted to take a picture so bad because nobody would believe me. Let's check this out.

Erock: 28:41

Oh my God, that's funny. Nowadays we're used to it. Everyone's being watched everywhere. There's not usually a sign somewhere. Oh my God, that's funny.

Alex: 28:47

I mean, nowadays we're used to it, right Like everyone's being watched everywhere we, just there's not usually a sign somewhere, rather than gas stations, right, oh, but it's China.

Erock: 28:57

you know, here I am a foreigner in China, you know like. So watch dude you better watch it again.

Alex: 29:00

You know, like I said, like I got to see a lot of the world because of that job and then you know it's just I had friends move on, move on to different careers, and you know they were trying to you know pretty much poach me in this direction and that direction and one of them one of them poached me in the pharmaceuticals and you know they gave me a number I couldn't say no to. And here I am.

Erock: 29:23

Yeah, that's just how it works, man that's. Yeah, I never really cared. I was kind of the same, I guess, as far as my attitude towards it. I never really had this idea for a career path, right. I just like I don't really. I never cared what my title was. I didn't care about the title, I cared more about the bottom line, what I was getting at the end, because it was kind of necessity. My wife and I, we had the first one in 94. Our first son was born in 94. And then every two years was another one was born until we had five. So diapers and baby food and all that shit adds up.

Alex: 30:07

It never stopped for you.

Erock: 30:09

We never. My wife was pregnant for like seven years, bro, okay, it's crazy. So I was always looking for the okay. It was just like an easy. I was good with mechanical aptitude kind of thing, so I understood how machines work. I could learn really fast in that environment.

Alex: 30:28

so I like to take pride in myself being able to fix anything yeah you know like.

Erock: 30:33

So, like you know, as long as you got like support or any some, some type of support or some type of manual, yeah, like, I'll figure it out right, there was a couple times I was working on my jeep and I couldn't it just, I mean, if I would have kept at it, I could have figured, figured it out. You know, it's just, whenever I worked on a car, if I couldn't figure it out, bro, it was like a knock on my ego. I'm like no, I'm going to, I'm going to get this thing fixed Eventually, okay, eventually.

Alex: 31:02

Well, you know, we're lucky, we have YouTube. Yeah, oh my gosh, I don't know how people did it 20 years ago. Oh, you had to call a friend or a family member you had to call a friend, look in the Chiltons, or whatever it was.

Erock: 31:15

Yeah, look in Chiltons, I had a stack of Chiltons at home growing up. My dad, he had old manuals and stuff like the original manuals. He was a mechanic on the side. Uh, he worked in a factory and then he was a mechanic and so, uh, and he actually he actually had like a big shop in his garage so he had like a lathe and a bridge port and a drill press you know big press and all the stuff all the stuff, um, and then he had just toolbox full, the big stack toolbox full of all the automotive tools and stuff.

Erock: 31:49

So, and we were working on I grew up working on 67 bonneville, uh, 77 monte carlo, um, old station wagons, the old pontiac station wagons or chevy station wagons, or Chevy station wagons. It was, um, yeah, the, the old style cars with the hood that was as long as your house and you, you know, open it up and this giant engine in there.

Erock: 32:14

That's like you can stand in the engine bay you can stand in. Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yep, very simple. Uh, before all the electronic stuff. So, but, um, but, um, yeah, I grew up doing that, so it a lot of that stuff came natural to me. But, yeah, so how did you, uh, you grew up in minnesota, uh, your, you start this kind of work after after school and stuff, what, um, what brought you to airsoft?

Alex: 32:44

oh well, uh, like I said, I played paintball for a while and you know like that was like my, you know. Yeah, I was playing paintball and like the woods ball, that's what it was called, you know like, so you know woods bar, cause it was cool.

Alex: 32:55

You know, like nobody liked the speedball stuff, you know like so no, and um, and anyways, I did that for a while. And then me and my brother we were a pretty good match when we played paintball. We could flank guys really good, cover and flank and all that stuff. My oldest brother was a corpsman and when he got out that's pretty much what him and I did and yeah, we did that for the longest time. And then we all got older and you know and uh, anyways, he had a, a foster kid, and the foster kid was talking about airsoft and again I hear an airsoft. So dumb, you know.

Alex: 33:38

Yeah, once you play paintball, you know like we'll rock you, dude, if you know you and your buddies, you're like I don't care how old we are, like we'll, totally, we'll, rock you tell you right now yeah, and uh, anyways, well, he did do that, you know he's like fine, you know it's like go get an airsoft gun, okay, so I go to.

Alex: 33:57

well, thankfully, we had an airsoft store in minnesota. We still do so. It's a pretty good. You know, it's god. Yeah, it's been there for over 14 years, I guess, or 10. But I buy, I buy this a hundred dollar gun. I think what was it? D-boys gun M16. That's what? Yeah, I bought that. So I bought that and you know I was like okay, and it's like hi caps. I don't, that's stupid, you, that's stupid. I want something that's semi-real. So I bought a bunch of mid-cap magazines. Here I am, me and my brother both bought $100 guns. We didn't rock the shit out of them, but it was hard to tell if we were hit. We were used to this .68 caliber huge paintball, that's heavy, yeah, yes, and splats everywhere.

Alex: 34:47

Yes, yes, because you know you're, you're like oh god, yep, yep, I'm it, oh it freaking hurts, bro. Yeah and uh. So you know, like who knows, you know that was our first. You know we were running around in the backyard. You know we had this big woods and we were running around back there so who knows, maybe I was cheating, I you know who knows, you know like I probably got hit a million times and didn't realize it.

Alex: 35:06

Now that you know in the, you know as you get in in the future, you know like you.

Alex: 35:10

You know that that, whatever that sound is, you know like, oh yeah, I got hit in the gear you know like you know, you know what you know, you know when you got hit yeah uh, but yeah, so anyways, I was like man, that was kind of fun man, and here I am researching like fields and stuff and uh, um, coincidentally, there was a field that I found that, uh, the guy, he still has the field too the guy was a world war ii, like you know, like a. What do you call those guys? The no, like the reenactors? Oh yeah, right right so he was a world war ii reenactor and he had built a little german village in his backyard.

Alex: 35:46

Whoa, he had like 50 acres and so he started building like little houses and stuff. Uh, big lake tactical is what it's called so I'm gonna write that down, look it up later. But yeah yeah, he built these german houses and he built a whole german like a trench system and his whole dude and I'm I'm talking this trench system is huge.

Alex: 36:06

Yeah, like you can get lost in it. And you know like, and you are, you're actually having like a trench, you know like world war one style warfare yes, trench warfare dude, that's cool uh, anyways, like he was putting on games on like once every, like twice a month maybe, and you know, I started playing there and I was like, man, this is awesome.

Alex: 36:25

And then, you know, further along the line, I started, you know, I started playing there and I was like, man, this is awesome. And then, you know, further along the line, I started, you know, digging in more and more into airsoft. And then I realized that there's a, you know, minnesota airsoft association, you know, and I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. And you know, the more I dug into it, like they were hosting games, you know, like their, you know their events and and man, they were the, they were the greatest events I'd ever, ever done. I was like, oh, this is so awesome. You get in squads of five and you do these missions, you know like. You know, like, throughout this, this guy's whole compounded you know field, and oh, man, I had a great time, you know, and you know, like the shot, you know, like the Minnesota Airsoft Association, they, I think they were founded in like 2000. So these guys are old schoolers, whoa. So, yeah, way, old school man.

Alex: 37:12

Like and they, they would they would tell stories about you know, like, if you had two mags, like you were the shit.

Erock: 37:18

If you had two magazines.

Alex: 37:19

Man, you were the shit. Because you couldn't you know, and they were talking, they would tell stories how they would get, like they would go in on like pallets, you know like, just because it was so hard to get stuff, yeah and but yeah, so I started, you know like, doing more research and I found those guys and you know I started following their, you know, whenever they would host a game and and. I started playing all their games and I got into a position where I started being one of the role players.

Alex: 37:51

So I started becoming a role player for them and I really enjoy that aspect of Airsoft is just being a role player for making somebody else's experience that much better. Right, because it's the experience and fun you know like for for everybody. For me, you know, like you know, that's what I enjoy about it. But yeah, and then I just kept doing stuff and, like you know, I would make things for myself and that's where I ran into the one guy who hooked me up with the career I'm into now and you know and then you know.

Alex: 38:23

Then I continued to make stuff. I don't mean mean, you know I'm yeah. I'm not sure if. Did you go through my Facebook page? Like yeah.

Erock: 38:29

I did actually the I did see the Bok Bok Labs. Yeah, bok Bok Labs. How'd you come up with that name?

Alex: 38:36

So one of my, so I had always make stuff, you know, like I was always building things and making things, and one of my, you know, one of the Minnesota Airsoft guy, one of my, one of my friends, was always like hey, man, you should really start, you know, like you know, posting the stuff you make and I'm like I don't really care. You know, and and since I'm half Filipino and one day we were making jokes about, like you know, philip, you like Filipino stuff.

Erock: 39:00

And.

Alex: 39:00

I don't know if you know any Filipinos or heard their language or anything. Yeah, yeah, but I do like.

Erock: 39:05

Well, I spent a year in okinawa, japan, and there's 90 of the people. I, all the girls I met out there were for filipino so so I learned a little bit of tagalog here and there.

Alex: 39:15

But well, the way I described, you know like how people, the filipinos talk, is like it's like I was like. There's like chickens talking like and you know like they all got a kick out of that. I was like, it's true, go listen to filipinos and then you know, and then uh, game, uh, it was like you got to start. It's like there it is, you know, and that's pretty funny.

Alex: 39:42

So oh, my god, that's funny so I just started to go with bach bach labs and you know like it's like an inside joke between you know, like me and everybody who knows you know about it, and you know now that I said, like any filipino listener will be like yeah, they totally sound like chickens talking my, uh, one of my son-in-laws is.

Erock: 40:04

His mom is Filipino, so she talks. She still speaks. You know Tagalog when she gets mad? Yeah, you know, Sounds like chickens man. It's funny man, yeah.

Alex: 40:16

Now, now, now, when you hear it, you're going to always think oh yep, you can't.

Erock: 40:20

It's one of those things. You can't go back. That's how you're going to. You're going to hear it all the time.

Alex: 40:26

Well, yeah, that's how you're gonna. You're gonna hear it all the time. Well, yeah, so go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say so, yeah that's how bach, bach labs got started. You know, and that's just like my, that's like my half page, because when I played airsoft, you know like I would meet tons of people and you know I'd make a lot of friends. And next you know they're tagging you and all these pictures and you're like, oh man, don't tag me. You know like.

Alex: 40:40

You know like I got my regular, like you know my regular name you know, facebook page and then they would tag me doing some, you know, crazy, you know I don't know airsoft game where I'm all decked out, or you know, like, we had a game that was, uh, like a post-apocalyptic game. So, like you know, it was only shock. You couldn't use any m4s or anything, it was only shotguns and pistols yeah so it's a post-apocalyptic. So you had to like find you know stuff. And here I am with like football gear and you know like no shirt on.

Erock: 41:12

Oh, those are great. Yeah, it's fallout man You're. You're picking up scraps and making some out of it.

Alex: 41:17

So now you know, and people are like tagging, like my mom and my co-workers.

Erock: 41:23

What are you doing?

Alex: 41:24

I got co-workers looking at this stuff man.

Erock: 41:27

Like what kind of role play are you doing, bro? Like keep that shit in the bedroom or something. What are you?

Alex: 41:34

doing Well. Then I made a second Facebook page, which was Cobra Alex, because that was my take, that was my call sign for a while was Cobra Alex. And then, you know, I got to a point where I was like, yeah, just call me Alex.

Alex: 41:46

You know, I just thought it was a lot easier. And you know, I'm just, you know, just you know, airsoft Alex Cobra, you know like, because Cobra just got, you know like, everybody just started calling me that and I was like, uh, you know, I was like, uh, I kind of like my, my regular name yeah so so, um, but uh, yeah, I just like I try to you know then.

Alex: 42:07

You know, then bach bach labs came when I started inventing things or making pretty unique stuff, and you know I wanted to show that stuff off. You know, because a lot of people first have never seen it some of the stuff I've built and or even heard of it, and then, and then they want to know how I did it. You know, I'm more than happy to show people, and that was another thing I like about. You know, bach bach labs is like if anybody's into that game where they, hey, I like I want to make an hpa news, like how would you do it? You know, like I have the pictures. You can call me, text me like I'm more than happy to talk you through it. Yeah, you know, and and how to do it, you know everything, like everything like that you know.

Erock: 42:44

Like you know so Well, I've got your. I've got your the pic, the photos, part of your Facebook page pulled up. I was going to share it if you don't mind. Yeah, go ahead, because there's a couple of things I want to ask you about that are really interesting.

Alex: 43:02

I'm waiting to see what you're going to pull up. You're like, oh no.

Erock: 43:09

The mini guns bro.

Alex: 43:10

Oh yeah, Mini guns, these are badass. So the story with that one was like so is there a picture of me when I made like the turret, like with the shield and everything like a sink? I don't think there is.

Erock: 43:25

Oh wait, right here. So yeah, that was with the shield and everything like a sink.

Alex: 43:27

I don't think there is, oh wait, uh, right here. So yeah, that was with the shield, so I actually made one with the shield. So it was just a single with the shield because we were playing this game. Escape from tarkov yeah and uh, we're playing in at action sports in wisconsin and that's it actually. It's an awesome game, like everybody's into it. Everybody's role playing, every like everybody's into this game yeah and uh, anyways, I had, we, I had built one with just a single with the turn.

Alex: 43:54

And uh, I built it for a friend uh-huh and then I was like all this, you know, like I want to build one of those. So I I bought one and built it. So then, fast forward, I don't know, maybe two months later we're playing this big ass game. I can't read like, there's over 300 players at this game, local game and, anyways, the grand prize was this m132. And uh, it was funny because when I, when they read the ticket, like I held off to the last second to tell everybody Because we're all in this waiting. It was like wouldn't it be funny if we won that gun, we'd have three mini guns in our group of guys.

Alex: 44:38

And it'd be like, wouldn't that be funny if we won that gun? I was like yeah, it'd be real funny. And then they called the number and it was actually my number. So here I am, I'm trying to stomach it all, like oh my god, oh my god, oh my god and uh, they're like you know, like calling, you know seven, two, one, seven, two, one, going once, going twice.

Alex: 44:57

I was like, oh yeah, right here, and then like everybody like freak, you know, freaked out like, oh my god, you idiot, why didn't you say anything? And oh, that's funny. Now I got two mini guns and I'm like what the hell do I do with two mini guns, you know like? And so I just decided to, freaking, you know, made them together.

Erock: 45:16

So did you, uh, what'd you do? Build a like a mounting bracket for yes, so I just yep yep, I took a mounting bracket.

Alex: 45:23

You can kind of see on the top there I've got two metal bars there and then on the bottom I was able to, I think I put a big plastic, you know, like block and drilled into it and made it, and then I put the pintle on it. So, dude, that's cool, what a cool idea.

Erock: 45:48

So one of the guys that I've talked with I've had him on here a few times he did, uh, dual guns like this um a long time ago. Um, nepa airsoft don he's up in pa and um yeah he, he was real creative with that too. It looks like you are doing a lot of the same, like not the same thing, but you're very creative with a lot of stuff. So when you say you make a lot of these things, are you what are you doing? Buying parts? Are you making it out of just stuff?

Alex: 46:25

Do you get like real fallout style, like no, I just find the parts and I just I I make it. You know, like I'll see, I have a chunk of aluminum and I'll make the part, you know. Or like I'll recut the threads on something you know, like you know, like that was the end of a shotgun, you know, like my marui shotgun. Okay, so I made that for the NPS Marui shotgun. That's crazy what else.

Alex: 46:51

Yeah, if you see down here, I can see the yep, yep right there. See, that's what I first started out. Oh, okay yep.

Erock: 47:00

And then you won the other one.

Alex: 47:01

You're like and then I won the other one. I was like what the hell I do with this thing, so we all thought that would be pretty cool, just to do that uh-huh, now, do you do 3d printing too, because I saw some stuff I just just just just started 3D printing Like, literally like two weeks ago.

Erock: 47:22

Yeah.

Alex: 47:23

Like I have never 3D printed in my life and I was like I don't know.

Erock: 47:28

I'm too dumb to figure that stuff out, you know like I can machine a part.

Alex: 47:31

You know, like, why do I need 3D printing when I can machine a part? You know Right, and I just got to it. And then, yeah of, I'm surprised I didn't get into it many, many years ago. So now I just started 3d printing a whole bunch of stuff uh-huh, that's what my son did when he got a 3d printer.

Erock: 47:52

Uh, my oldest son he was still living here, actually, when he got it and he, um, he started printing some stuff. Once he figured out how like the system and how it worked and where he could get on all these different um, blueprints or whatever he was, he took off man, he was, it was non-stop.

Alex: 48:14

Yep, like the thing was running 24 7 yep. Yep, that's what it sounds like for me if you. You look at the Uzi there, the trigger right there. That's actually a real steel trigger that I've modified to work.

Erock: 48:29

Nice, so yep.

Alex: 48:31

I mean, this thing looks metal. No, that one's actually a plastic one. What so? What's crazy about that? I did it, the plastic, and that's a tokyo marui uzi. And if anybody, you know, if you got any old school listeners, uh like back in the day, you could get a, a z kit, which was an all metal uzi kit for that and like those things are like unicorns right now, and so I actually have, uh, a Z kit on my Uzi.

Alex: 49:01

So, it's an all-metal Uzi. I got it, except the wood stock and everything I don't know. You probably have pictures on there if you look hard enough. But yeah, I tried to like, and then you can kind of see in those pictures. I just hacked up the gearbox, yeah, right there. And then you can kind of see in those pictures I just hacked up the gearbox, yeah, right there. So, yeah, I hacked up the gearbox in order to, you know, make that.

Erock: 49:26

To make it a HPA.

Alex: 49:27

Yeah, because there's not a lot of those floating around, not a lot of. Hpa Uzis floating around.

Erock: 49:35

No, we got one Uzi in a mystery box and I don't remember what brand it was. It was cheap, it was an off brand, it wasn't like a main, you know, it wasn't tm or nothing, but uh, we took it out. It was a co2. Yep, we took it out when we went to test it. This was my first experience with a co2, uh, airsoft pistol, whatever. So, uh, when we first put it, the first like three rounds we put through the chrono was like 510, okay, with 0.2s. I was like whoa, like I was freaking out on the video. I was like what? This little gun, you know?

Erock: 50:13

and my boys were like no, it's, it's gonna go down because yeah, the first it shoots hot when it's, you know, CO2 or whatever, Like I was like, oh okay, but dude, it was. It was pretty crazy.

Alex: 50:26

But yeah, yeah, and then, if you like, I said I started just building whatever, you know, like, whatever comes to my mind and yeah. You know again, see, if you look at some of those pictures, like people ask like, hey, how did you get that trigger to work? And you know I'll take pictures. You know like I'll do anything to help somebody out, like sure. You know like I'll take my whole stuff apart, like, hey, you want to see that?

Erock: 50:45

yeah, I'll take that apart and do that. This is interesting looking yeah, that was what if you?

Alex: 50:49

look at. If you look at that suppressor it was. It was made during covid. What is this?

Erock: 50:55

cdc.

Alex: 50:59

CDC and that's only one off. There was a guy up here who was able to get one of those made. It was this prototype and he didn't know what to do with it and he sold it to me and I was like that's kind of cool, because it's for the Glock, because you can't really put a suppressor on a Glock Because it weighs the barrel down and it won't want to, it won't want to cycle.

Erock: 51:22

So that was like the. Cause it's a floating barrel or whatever. Yeah.

Alex: 51:29

So yeah, that was the, uh, the, what we did to counter that I mean that looks cool, dude, so you machine this this.

Erock: 51:37

No, no, I bought, I bought this, so this was all bought. Yeah, that's something he had, so you machined this piece here.

Alex: 51:40

No, no, I bought that, you bought this, okay, so this was all bought, yeah. He had contracted somebody in China or someone to make that Okay.

Erock: 51:46

And then this piece right here this is different.

Alex: 51:51

Yeah, that's the Airsoft stock thing for it.

Erock: 51:55

Huh, I don't think I've seen one of those before for a pistol so I've seen the uh conversion kits. You know for glocks that are people are. They're real popular now where people are 3d printing, where that makes it like a little smg yeah but the stock doesn't look like this piece right here, this little horseshoe nope that's why it's pretty nice.

Alex: 52:17

It's pretty nice.

Erock: 52:18

I like that thing yeah, it's very unique, looking for sure you know, let's see.

Alex: 52:21

And then I got some of the parts I made, like if you look like that raw piece of metal right there, uh-huh so like if you you know back out of there. Yeah, so I made it for the uzi, right there oh, okay you could, so you could put actually, so you could actually put like a suppressor on different front ends, uh-huh, you know.

Erock: 52:42

And then so you were milling all this stuff?

Alex: 52:45

yep okay, I milled that glock. That glock slide there. Your bottom left there yeah so I, you know, I milled all those in there and dude, that's cool. So now lately I'm getting into launchers.

Erock: 53:03

So is this the one that your buddy made? You said Yep, Converted.

Alex: 53:07

Yep Index Productions. Yeah, yep. So he got that M72 log, converted it and now it fires tagging rounds.

Erock: 53:19

That's awesome.

Alex: 53:22

So I'm hoping to blow up some technicals with that right so and then now these.

Erock: 53:29

Uh, this is what I was thinking, uh 3d printer, when I saw these. Are you know those?

Alex: 53:33

are, those are somebody else's, so those are different. Those are different like off-brand companies that make these different types of projectiles, rockets, and I was just testing them out just to see the difference between, because there's not a lot of information. No, you know, like all these rockets that are out there, and you know, and you know we can't play with tagging. You know the exploding rounds anymore.

Erock: 53:53

Yep.

Alex: 53:53

At least now, so everybody's you can but they're very expensive, they're hard.

Erock: 53:57

Now, so everybody's you can, but they're very expensive, they're hard.

Alex: 53:59

Yeah, Hard to get. So everybody's producing their own. You know style of rockets and I wanted to test them all out. So but yeah, that's pretty much what I did there. So this is what got me into 3D printing, so I had bought this. So I bought this and I had to contract the guy to make it for me, Because I don't have a 3d printer.

Alex: 54:18

Yeah, you know. So I'm like all right, here you go, man, you know, charge me, you know however much to print all these parts, and it literally came in that box that you just saw. Okay, and so, and then I just, you know, went to town and started building this thing. I don't know if you you know, I mean you know, if you ever heard of a China Lake. China Lake, yeah, yeah, it's right there. Top up to those. Those are three up. That's the completed version, right there.

Erock: 54:49

Oh, that's cool dude.

Alex: 54:52

What is that?

Erock: 54:53

two launchers.

Alex: 54:54

No, it's a. So back in the Vietnam war, the Navy SEALs developed this weapon. It's called a China Lake and it's pretty much a pump-action 203 grenade launcher.

Erock: 55:10

Yeah, I mean it sounded familiar, but I'm surprised I haven't, because I did a whole. I mean I was fascinated with the Vietnam War when I was a kid growing up. I was born in 70, so it was still fresh, you know, and by the time I was, even when I was 10, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10, my dad's buddies that were in the Korean War had sons that were in Vietnam, you know.

Alex: 55:38

So it was always talked about and I read tons of books about it and, um, yeah, this is cool man so, yeah, like I said, I built that and the way it was built it wasn't built for tagging rounds because, like I modify again here, I am modifying everything because as soon as I got that thing together it's a plastic gun, you know once you racked it, it sounded like you were gonna break it. Yeah, because it was just. It was just, it was horricious, dude. It was like like you would just like.

Alex: 56:11

It's like oh my god, something's gonna break in this thing yeah and so, as things started breaking in it because I knew it was gonna break I started machining my own parts again to get this thing to work. And then I finally got where I wanted it. I love it, but it's more of a plastic gun and there's very few scenarios where you get the chance to use it so kind of like the law, like the M72. There's very few times you get to use the gun.

Erock: 56:40

Right.

Alex: 56:43

But yeah, that's kind of like my launcher collection I have right now. That's cool man.

Erock: 56:48

You know it's wild that wood stock looks real too on both of those. Are those real wood?

Alex: 56:52

No, it's not On the sawed off the SOG one. That's a real wood. Okay, that's real wood.

Erock: 56:59

Okay.

Alex: 57:00

That's real wood, but that one is not that one's not.

Erock: 57:03

Yeah, that's cool man. You got a lot of stuff going on here. Yes, sort of that you're building and tweaking and working on. Now, what's this? Is this a 3D-printed?

Alex: 57:19

Is that, that kit, that kit? Oh, that's the kit. Okay, that's the gun yeah, yeah, yeah. All these tubes you had to screw together weld them actually oh, wow so they would come in two pieces and you put it, you'd butt them together and start, you would weld. You know, you'd pretty much melt the glue.

Erock: 57:36

Mm-hmm, that's wild. How's that thing run? Does it work good?

Alex: 57:43

Right now it's working great. I'm just waiting for it to blow up All right.

Erock: 57:51

This is fairly recent right.

Alex: 57:54

Yes, this is probably my recent contraption I've made.

Erock: 57:58

Explain this one.

Alex: 58:01

It was just a part I made. If you, if you scroll back, you can see right there to yep, right there. So that's you know. I went from the plastic piece to that metal, aluminum piece Gotcha. And see, and that's the kind of stuff I'm you like I make in my garage dude, that's cool well now, now that I'm older and more mature, you know growing up and actually have money you can.

Alex: 58:31

You can, you can start buying things, yeah well, I bought the tooling like I bought a. Uh, I've got a mini you mini lathe like a benchtop lathe.

Erock: 58:40

I thought I saw a picture on here of some of your.

Alex: 58:43

Yeah, right there, that's pretty much my tooling, that's my, that's how it was, and if you scroll over the next page, that's how it is now.

Erock: 58:53

Big difference. Man, you cleaned up.

Alex: 58:55

Yes, you drank an energy drink and then got all this done in 20 seconds. Yeah so, yeah. So, now that I got all that all set up, now that's you know pretty much you know and which sucks, you know, here in minnesota, you know it's like all right, get it all done quick because winter's coming, you know, because once winter hits, you're pretty much like how much do I want to freeze my ass outside.

Erock: 59:20

Exactly, yeah, what's the normal temp in like at night in the winter?

Alex: 59:29

You know 20 degrees. Yeah, 10, 20 degrees. This year was like a freak of nature.

Erock: 59:35

Really.

Alex: 59:36

Yeah, we didn't get any snow.

Erock: 59:41

I think it like snowed, likeed, like three times.

Alex: 59:43

What for the whole winter? Yeah, I mean I could be exaggerating, but it didn't seem like it snowed at all right and like if you kind of counted on how many times you're putting out the snowblower and I think. I think I only brought it out once or twice that's crazy dude.

Erock: 59:59

So I always joke down here we're in south carolina and I always joke with people that I meet. That uh, you know we had during the winter we had a week, a whole week that was like 13 degrees in the morning, you know, at night and in the morning, you know. At night and in the morning 17 degrees, like in the teens.

Alex: 1:00:19

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Erock: 1:00:20

Yeah, and I'm going. Everyone you know around here is like dude, what global warming? My ass. Okay, we're in South Carolina and it's fricking freezing, like this shouldn't be happening. So we got cold and you guys got a little warmer. I don't know.

Alex: 1:00:37

It's weird. So again, that's another real Uzi. You know real Uzi part I put on there.

Erock: 1:00:46

Yeah, Now do you take these. Have you ever used this launcher at a game yet?

Alex: 1:00:53

Not yet.

Erock: 1:00:53

The top one.

Alex: 1:00:54

Not yet, I just got it Like I wouldn't. I just got it Like I wouldn't say, I just got it. But you know, like in the winter time, you know we're pretty much, you know we're pretty much stuck here, unless we travel for a game. And I just haven't, you know, I'm pretty cautious, like if I was going to travel by air. I don't know if I would try to bring that with.

Erock: 1:01:13

So ship it to a friend, okay, you know even like, even like traveling in the car.

Alex: 1:01:19

You know like I can only imagine getting pulled over and they're like what the fuck do you have this for you?

Erock: 1:01:23

know and put just wrap everything up and put it in the trunk. They won't know shit. Okay, yes, officer, you know you pulled me over for speeding, do you?

Alex: 1:01:42

do you sir? Nope, not me. So you know it's like you got a lot of explaining to do, but no, yeah, I haven't done it yet. We're planning on this year, you know, like when the summer rolls around we've got a couple games we want to go to. Um, I think, uh god, I think end of may we're going to some some air base in michigan, northern michigan, will be an air base that we're going to play at.

Alex: 1:01:59

Oh, okay, so that'll be pretty cool, you know, but and we're hoping that we get to use, you know, launchers and take out technicals.

Erock: 1:02:08

Now what? What is? How'd you find out about this place in Michigan? What is?

Alex: 1:02:12

uh mere tactical. Oh okay, they host games at places and one of the places if you get an event close by, it's like you got to go to it. Yeah, it's like, hey, if it's kissing one of the states, you got to go to that event.

Erock: 1:02:31

So how far is that from you guys?

Alex: 1:02:34

I think it's about five hours.

Erock: 1:02:36

Okay, it's not terrible, it's Upper.

Alex: 1:02:37

Peninsula, so five or six hours so that's not a bad drive gotcha. So typically I'm driving three hours to play it. You know, at this the field that I'd like to play at, yeah, so the field that I like to play at, it's uh, again, it's called action sports wisconsin and they've got, like you know, class setups. So if you run with an smg, you know you get to go full auto, you know, like, whatever gun you're running, that's the class.

Alex: 1:03:01

There's no such thing as like you know there's no such thing as everybody's running an m4 and it's all fully automatic if you run it, if you're running a full rifle, you know like an m4, it's semi-auto, semi-auto, yep, you know. So then you can get a 308. So now you got a higher. You know velocity, you know you can bump up the velocity. Um, you know, if you, if you're carrying a heavy machine gun, you get that.

Alex: 1:03:23

You know, like there's perks between each guns that's pretty cool and so and that's the greatest you know, you know perk about that place. No other airsoft field in the area does that. It's all like oh, full auto, you can go full auto and everyone's they either do full auto or everything's just semi-locked, yep, so yeah.

Alex: 1:03:44

And we pretty much were like nah, so this field adapted those rules and those are the rules that stick, and man, it's a great time, yeah, so I really enjoy that going over there and yeah, but yeah, we got, like I said, the big games. If there's ever, like you know, a big, you know like like Lions class had a couple of games you know, close by you know, so it's like yeah we have to go to those games.

Erock: 1:04:06

Yeah. You know, cause we don't get, you know, we don't get the taste of that unless we're going to travel East coast.

Alex: 1:04:12

You know so.

Erock: 1:04:12

Yeah, we have the third coast airsoft. You know PCA events down here in South Carolina and close by like Georgia.

Alex: 1:04:20

Yep, and I'm trying to get to one of those games because, yeah, those rules are. You know how those rules are. Yeah, you know they've got those weapons classes.

Erock: 1:04:28

Oh yeah, yeah, you sign up for a class and that's what you, that's what you play as.

Alex: 1:04:33

So and yeah, and I really enjoy that.

Erock: 1:04:38

That's why I got all those like SMGs they were looking at. Yeah that's cool dude, yeah that's a. So my, my boys went, uh, they've been to mostly TCA events, you know third coast airsoft and um. They always played rifleman. And then my oldest son bought a um. I'm not sure what brand it was, but it was full metal 249 okay the 24, okay, 240, I was thinking I never 249.

Erock: 1:05:06

So he gets this thing probably like I don't know, a couple weeks before the next big mill sim they're going to and, uh, and we're, we're, we're checking it out, we're, you know, we did a video on it and everything. He did a really cool, really extensive video on this thing and he wants to take it to the Milsim and I was like you're going to carry that? This thing was like 12 1⁄2 pounds by itself.

Alex: 1:05:34

Yep a full-size 249?.

Erock: 1:05:36

Uh-huh.

Alex: 1:05:37

Okay.

Erock: 1:05:38

And it doesn't sound like a lot, but it's well. It was full-size, but the stock I'm not sure what you call it, but it twisted.

Alex: 1:05:49

Yeah, like the Para, like the Para, yeah the Para. Yes, yeah, the Para 249.

Erock: 1:05:53

And you could shorten it, you know. But anyway, I was like, are you sure you want to take this, bro? Because you're used to using a rifle with a sling and a freaking, you know. And he's like, yeah, it'll be fine. I was like he goes 12 pounds, ain't that much? And I was like, okay, okay, go ahead. You know, like you can't set it down, like you're carrying this thing for you thing for when you're walking, obviously, moving around, you're carrying it nonstop. I said your biceps are going to be burning, bro. So they did. But he got a great workout with it for those three, two and a half days at the TCA event and he was like, dude, I dude. On Sunday I could not lift it up to shoot, my arms were just hanging there. He had a big drum mag for it, yep.

Alex: 1:06:49

You don't buy that without getting a drum, mag For sure.

Erock: 1:06:52

It was nice too. It was electric, so it had the feeder that you didn't have to do anything to wind or nothing. Yeah, it was great so noise activated.

Alex: 1:07:02

I think, uh, yeah, so once it hears it shooting once, then it'll start.

Erock: 1:07:06

Yes, exactly yeah, because the first, the first big uh drum mag thing we had was mystery box. We had a tommy gun okay and um it had it was full. It was real wood stock, full metal thing was bad-ass and a metal drum mag Okay. But the drum mag you know you had to. It had a big like winding wheel on the back and you would spin it. You know don't wind it. But um thing was cool though.

Alex: 1:07:35

What do you do with all that stuff? When you were done with it, just give it away?

Erock: 1:07:38

So we did giveaways. We had there's a picture on my Instagram that let me see if I can pull it up real quick, bro we had. We laid out this wasn't even all of our guns, but we laid out. I'm going to have to scroll way down here on our Instagram. Um, I'm gonna have to scroll way down here on our instagram, but, um, we laid out all of our guns, or most of them, that we could fit into the living room. So we put all of our guns on the couch, on the uh floor, uh, leaning up everywhere, and it was a lot. So we had a ton of them.

Erock: 1:08:15

Because we were doing, when we did a mystery box, we would would buy the BOA from EVIC, okay, and there was four of us on our channel Me, jp, and then my two sons, colton and Christian. Each of us would get a BOA every time they released one. So that's four boxes. They each have two guns in them, okay, unless you get the mega winner, winner. And we added up some guns really quickly. So we started doing giveaways. We talked about it. We were like so my boys started trying to sell their their guns on their extra guns on hop up, okay, originally, and they were like man, this is crap, like they're not the app. The app was okay, but but it was. These guys would come on there like probably younger people, and they're like oh, I'll give you $20 for this gun, like stupid shit.

Alex: 1:09:07

What's the cheapest, you'll go yeah.

Erock: 1:09:10

I'm sure a lot of people can relate to what I'm saying right now with this thing. So, anyway, yeah, we started doing giveaways because I talked to him. We all talked, and I was like you guys want to do giveaways because I'm I'm literally running out of room. We had them on the wall. So this room, uh, the pegboard I have here behind the computer actually wrapped all the way around here down to that end, okay, guns were hanging up there, guns were hanging up here. Then we had guns stacked in each of the boys closets, okay, uh, and then also some in the shed. So we were really running out of room.

Erock: 1:09:47

And then, of course, we have bb, you know all the accessories yeah, all the stuff that goes along with it yeah, we have mounds, you know bottles and bottles of bbs, because, uh, we were doing reviews on all these guns and, good Lord, I didn't realize how many Instagram posts I have. I was really scrolling forever. But so, anyway, yeah, we started doing giveaways and we would do a giveaway once a month and then at holidays we would do, we would give away one giveaway. We'd give away like three or four guns because we would draw three or four names.

Alex: 1:10:24

Yeah.

Erock: 1:10:26

So um we uh we got down. What's that?

Alex: 1:10:32

So that's nice. You know, I'll just given away guns open up open up all that free space.

Erock: 1:10:38

Okay, here it is, is right here. I'm going to share this. Yeah, it was. I mean, it was nice. You know what I mean. There was originally we weren't requiring like. The only requirement for it was to be a like sub to our YouTube channel, so you didn't have to buy anything. So when we'd have to ship them out, you know we're paying 30, 40, 50 bucks, whatever to box it up and you know ship it out yeah um, and I would put a ton of stuff in these boxes.

Erock: 1:11:11

Okay, I bet you there's a lot of people on this podcast that have been following us recently, like in the last year, that have never seen some of these old pictures on our instagram. All right, so you can see. So this is about maybe three quarters of our guns. And this was when did I post this? Uh, january of 22.

Alex: 1:11:37

January of 22. Like two years old then.

Erock: 1:11:40

Two years old, okay, so we had more than this. And then we were getting more, and actually that one at the bottom, that's the 249 that he had, that was full metal, so he bought that. And then every other gun in here is from a mystery box, bro. I'm looking at it now. I haven't seen this picture in forever and it's so anyway, and you can see all the pistols here as well.

Alex: 1:12:13

Yep, yep.

Erock: 1:12:15

So, yeah, we've got some really cool guns, man. This giant one here is an HKk replica, that's uh came with that, that uh suppressor on there. It's supposed to be like a sniper type of thing and um, uh, jp got it actually in a mystery box. He took it apart to try to upgrade it and couldn't get it working again, so he never got it.

Erock: 1:12:41

He was never able to use it, like literally never able to use it, and I used to ask him all the time like, dude, why are you never even tried it out like we would do? We would try it out for the videos, you know the review, but he would take it home and then break it open. And this happened so many times and I think, now that I've interviewed a lot of people on here, this is a common theme. A lot of people on here, this is a common theme. A lot of people break open their stuff to like upgrade and then they can't get it back together.

Alex: 1:13:08

Yeah, they can't get it back together. Yeah, so I've actually, I've actually never taken apart an AEG box.

Erock: 1:13:17

Like really.

Alex: 1:13:18

Like yep, I've never like for myself like I'm going to take an AEG box and upgrade it, put it back together. I've never done that, I've.

Erock: 1:13:32

I've opened AEG boxes and took the shells because I would instantaneously HPA.

Alex: 1:13:33

Like, ok, because I'm an HPA guy and I would buy a gun and I would literally pull the box out. Yeah, I would never even energize it. I've bought guns, I've never even energized and I just took the shells out and emptied everything out.

Erock: 1:13:45

That's crazy.

Alex: 1:13:51

So you never heard the winding of the gears on your own. The only AG I had was the very first one I bought was that D-Boy's ones.

Erock: 1:13:56

Okay.

Alex: 1:13:57

That was the only AG and I had that for about three months. And then HPA became a thing Like if you had an HPA man, only ag, and I had that for about you know three months, yeah, and that. And then you know, hpa became a thing like if you had an hpa man. You're like, oh man, this is tier one. You know airsoft stuff, you know and you know because it wasn't as big. You know, like at the time, like if you had an hpa you were.

Erock: 1:14:15

You know, like you were fucking rolling dude oh, you were the you, you were the shit.

Alex: 1:14:19

Yeah, that's like so so a guy had it and I was like man, I gotta, I gotta try this thing.

Erock: 1:14:24

So he let me try it and it was like the trigger pull was so crisp and instant I was like sold where do I buy one of these things for real, bro, and it's yeah, like you said, it's consistent and so yeah, then after that I bought a 416 you know elite force 416 and I.

Alex: 1:14:42

I threw that diffusion engine in it and that game over. That was it. And what's crazy is I actually did like a post not too long ago with my fusion engine. I still have the same one, so it's about it's over. Yeah, it's over 10 years old and all I've ever done with it is is lubed the nozzle what yep, that's all I've ever done, that's impressive what? Yep, that's all I've ever done, that's impressive.

Erock: 1:15:05

So I mean, I guess I think I lost a?

Alex: 1:15:07

uh, an fcu, sure, but still. But other than that, like other, no issues ever with. That's impressive so so, yeah, I think it's got. It has to have over a million rounds through it, so I actually still use the 416. So, like my 416 is my base gun that I've been using since you know, that's if I use a rifle class. So if I'm using a rifleman class it's that 416 yeah, so this one right here, we got my.

Erock: 1:15:33

Okay. So this one we didn't get out of a giveaway box, that was, I mean, a um boa, this uh vector my son bought and it was uh, he took it to just an open play like one day. And hey they came back and he was like, dude, it came, he bought, it came with one mag. He bought I don't know three extra mags with it. Okay, all in all I think it was like $600 for the gun, the extra mags, and he might have bought an optic with it Is that the AEG?

Alex: 1:16:04

or is that the gas blowback?

Erock: 1:16:06

No, the AEG. So it's a Chris Vector and the thing never fed right. So he just. We tried every single mag. It didn't feed right. We didn't know what was wrong with it. It would shoot so inconsistent, like half the mag would shoot great, but it might be the back half, it might be the front half, it was all over the place. I never wanted to take it apart. I was like I'm not taking this thing apart, bro, at this point. When we got this let's see this this was, uh, this february of 22, so we were almost three years into our channel and I'd already broken open a ton of gearboxes and you know, for them to to kind of fix, you know, fix stuff whatever and I would fix the basic issues and, um, but I was like I'm not taking that thing apart. No, not when it was that expensive. And he'd only had it.

Erock: 1:17:07

You know, like two weeks before he took it to the thing and it just didn't feed. So we did a review on it. But this is one of the so we would do giveaways like this, so we would give this gun was the gen 3. Um, the lancecer Tactical Gen 3 that came out. This sling was made by Gunfather Millsim If you look him up, he still makes slings. Actually, it's a bungee sling. It's the best sling I've ever tried out. The thing's the most comfortable, the most versatile, easiest to use, whatever.

Erock: 1:17:49

And then this is a charcuterie board custom made from one of our viewers that I had on the podcast a couple times, a young, uh, mr cactus jones. So we would. We gave all these things away, plus all the stickers and the, the patch and everything, and then I would hand write a letter so for the giveaway. So it was, it was a lot involved. I mean, I bought this charcuterie board, I bought the sling and of course, we pay. You know I bought the gun. Yep, um, this was actually one of the few giveaways that I that I actually bought a gun for a giveaway. Uh, I want to try out the gen 3, want to do a review on it when it came out. But um, so those we used to do that. That's how we got rid of 99 of the guns that we had. I was doing giveaways forever, but um, yeah, yeah, anyway, it's cool. There's a lot of people out there that have a Trifecta Airsoft patch that don't even follow our channel anymore, to be honest.

Erock: 1:18:53

Because I switched to the podcast. Do you go out to field still? So I haven't been for a while. I've been, well, I've only been with as a cameraman with these guys oh okay, yeah, when they started.

Erock: 1:19:11

So I've never played Airsoft. I run an Airsoft podcast and I've never played Airsoft. So, wow, I know, so I. So I started the. I didn't care about airsoft. I mean, I played paintball years ago.

Erock: 1:19:26

I was coming out of being paralyzed. I was paralyzed with an illness a handful of years ago and when I was able to start walking again, like just barely I could walk down here the hallway, get into this chair and and I was sitting here staring at the computer, like okay, I need to do something to stop me from going crazy. I was laying in bed staring at the ceiling. There was a point when I was first paralyzed. I couldn't talk, nothing worked except my bodily functions where I could breathe. My heart would still go, I didn't have to be on a respirator, but that was it. Uh, I couldn't. I could say about three words and then everything stopped working. So, uh, doing, going through that, uh, when I was very active and healthy and in shape and just, you know, constantly I was working 70 hours a week Plus I was, you know, my kids were into sports and my daughters were in dance. My youngest daughter was in a traveling dance team. We were always on the go and then it came to a screeching halt within a week's timeframe of my first symptom, and so, coming out of that, it was, I'm like and, by the way, I was on steroids. So I was just going nuts, man. I'd never been on steroids before. I was sleeping like two hours a day, I was scatterbrained as hell, just hyper, and I was looking for anything I could to do to keep my mind busy. So that's how the channel spawned, because I had started two other YouTube channels before this one, and the second one was a review channel, cnr Reviews that I still actually are actively post on.

Erock: 1:21:15

But when the boys got into Airsoft two of my older sons got into Airsoft and I saw what they were doing, I was like, dude, these are cool looking guns. What I didn't know, you know, it was like this. So I said, why don't we? Uh, let me film some of that stuff. I'll put it on the review channel, like for reviews. Well then, when they then their buddy came over jp that got him into airsoft, they said, oh, no, man, there's all kind of stuff like there's mil sims or speed soft, there's, there's these mystery boxes you can get and they make replicas for just about every real steel gun out there and I was like whoa, okay, that's enough to make a whole other channel like separate.

Erock: 1:21:53

So I said let's make a separate channel. So you guys, let's, let's brainstorm and come up with some ideas on names and blah, blah, blah. And I said I'm just going to be behind the scenes, I don't want to be in the videos. I, you guys, be in the videos and I'll film it and I'll I'll run the channel. They're like all right. So they came up with trifecta. Jp actually came up with trifecta airsoft, because it was the three boys, right, him and and my two sons, and I was just in the in the background. So, yeah, I didn't even care about airsoft. I thought the guns were cool. But as far as playing airsoft, I mean I played paintball, so I'm like whatever you know it's cool, but yeah, that's how it started. And then, once I got where I could walk around, I mean I could go to work, right, but I still can't run, I still can't jog, you know this kind of thing, whatever, and my hands are extremely weak, so holding a gun up for more than 15 seconds, my hands get shaky.

Erock: 1:22:54

I can't cock stuff and pull the trigger, you know. So I still have a lot of residual nerve damage or whatever, and so anyway, I wouldn't have fun to, anyway I wouldn't have fun. To be honest, I wouldn't have fun going out there.

Erock: 1:23:07

I've so many people trying to talk to me about oh, get in a wheelchair. There's these guys that go out there and we push them and they shoot. And I'm like look bro, I understand what you're saying. I understand the sentiment. Uh, to me that's not fun. Okay, if I can't go on my own and I can't rack my own stuff and switch mags on my own, which I couldn't do right now uh, that it's not fun, okay, not doing it. So I'll go and watch, I'll go and take pictures and uh, mosey around and shit, but, um, yeah, that's, you know, standing back sniping. Uh, uh, I can't really do. I can do a, I can rack the, the bolt on a, uh, real steel, uh, bolt action, because there's no tension when you pull it back. Um, but on a sniper rifle, that's a spring spring Yep, you're not, you're not, it's not happening.

Erock: 1:24:02

No, my, my fingers, I'll grab it and it'll just slip off. I can't, I can't pull it, so uh. So all it does is frustrate me, because it just amplifies my weakness, which pisses me off, and so I would not have fun on the airsoft field period.

Alex: 1:24:20

So you're the press guy, I'm the press guy. What's the camera?

Erock: 1:24:25

So, uh, I love the airsoft community. That's what I got in touch with when I started doing these. Uh, you know, I started getting feedback from these videos, uh, running the channel and stuff, so but yeah, that's uh I put on my, on my Twitter, I think on my profile, one of the socials we have I put I've never played airsoft and I run an airsoft podcast and people are always like what, that's so weird, like well, the way it happened okay.

Alex: 1:24:59

Well, you know, at least you're in it, you know you're doing this stuff, you know you're doing this stuff.

Erock: 1:25:04

So I've've handled all these weapons, I've shot them in the back, we've, you know, tried them out all kind of stuff, been to some mill sims, been to some indoor, uh fields, whatever. So I've been around every all of it I've shot. I just haven't actually carried my own gun and gone on the field and played. So you know it's whatever. But the indoor one I went around with a riot shield. They gave me a riot shield and I was holding my phone.

Erock: 1:25:29

I was filming with my phone behind the riot shield following these guys around and I would go right in the middle of I mean I wasn't trying to get in the middle of a firefight, but I would end up there because everyone's running so fast and I'd get shot in the back or whatever and no big deal. But yeah, it's probably when I started doing the podcast thing and talking with people, I was kind of fresh coming out of. I think I had just started going back to work where I could get out of the house, which is a huge milestone for me. So when I started at that time I started talking with people here and there before I even officially made it a podcast and, um, it was legit therapy for me.

Erock: 1:26:17

It was uh, it was really really refreshing, uh, to talk with people about something that they're passionate about. And I was passionate about it because I was running the channel and I was very enthusiastic about the mystery boxes. I mean, I was blown away, dude. I did not know anything about Airsoft so I didn't know they made replicas. So we'd open a box and I'm like whoa, what a p90.

Alex: 1:26:45

Did you ever get anything like any of the the big, anything like any of the big boxes? So we got we got.

Erock: 1:26:53

Uh, yes, uh, we got a couple of them. One of them was from um airsoft gi. From Airsoft GI, we got the RPG-7 with real wood furniture.

Alex: 1:27:05

Oh, cool, cool, cool, oh it's just badass.

Erock: 1:27:07

Okay, looks beautiful. Then we got the special edition P90 in a BOA. It was one of the special boxes, it wasn't the number one, but it was like I don't know five or something like that. It had the swordfish um attachment thing, what I forget, the kit or whatever.

Erock: 1:27:29

The thing looked badass and so it had the, uh, the, the checkered front right yeah, the mp5 the swordfish mp5 yeah yep, and then, uh, it had an adapter for I forget what they call it Terminator adapter or something like that to take M4 mags on the side so.

Alex: 1:27:50

Potato Masher that's what it's called right the front.

Erock: 1:27:56

So we got that. That was badass. And then we got a Demolition Ranch version of some rifle. I forget what it is. When I was scrolling through here, when I was sharing the screen, it was actually what is this? The Iron man. We called it the Iron man gun because of the paint job on it. So we got a handful of really cool guns. Out of all the BOAs we got, none of us had ever gotten the one winner box Number one. Yeah, yeah, it'd be cool though.

Alex: 1:28:35

Yeah, it would. It was kind of like me winning that minigun. I was like, oh my God Right, you don't know what to do.

Erock: 1:28:47

Well, you know, what was funny too is when we started doing all these, we were putting out a lot of videos in the beginning of our channel and, um, people would comment like, oh, you guys are, you guys must be, uh, you know, talking to uh, uh, evic, whatever. And they're sending you special boxes because your channel and I'm like bro, we got like 200 subs, like what, what we're? We're not even nobody knows us.

Erock: 1:29:07

I mean getting paid, so, but yeah, we had a good time those, so it's a. It's been a cool journey, yep, doing this and uh, I still enjoy it. It and this. This is one of the biggest things I enjoy about it. But yeah, I always get people inviting me out to uh different events and I love going the the ones I've been to. They're really fun.

Alex: 1:29:33

But, um, yeah, it's cool you're gonna, you're gonna try to make it up to our event uh up in michigan oh, minnesota, airsoft, our airsoft convention, what? When is that uh, may 11th.

Alex: 1:29:47

So we're minnesota, we're having this air airsoft convention, so the minnesota airsoft association yeah since, uh, 2007, they've been putting on a convention and our numbers keep growing and growing and growing. And so, uh, this is, you know, they've had over I got probably like 14 or 12 over 12 conventions over the years, yeah, and so this year, I mean we've got you just posted about it.

Erock: 1:30:12

I'm sorry.

Alex: 1:30:13

Yeah, that's right, okay, I was posted about it and uh, I mean we got some. You know we've got amp coming and this is the third time AMP Airsoft has been up there. We've got a representative for Veterans for Airsoft that's going to be talking about it.

Alex: 1:30:27

We put on just demos. We'll put on demos for stuff. Mere Tactical will be there. All the local fields will be there talking Tagging. We've got some tagging stuff coming up there. I don't know if you've ever seen that tagging mortar Tagging. We've got some tagging stuff coming up there. I don't know if you've ever seen that tagging mortar Tagging made of mortar?

Erock: 1:30:47

No, I don't think I've seen it.

Alex: 1:30:52

They've got a mortar floating around and I think we're going to get it to display it.

Erock: 1:30:59

Last year, I think we had over 500 people come.

Alex: 1:31:02

Dude, that's big man. This year we're hoping for a bigger thing. Yep, there, it is right there.

Erock: 1:31:07

Yeah, I wanted to pull up this post so you guys could see anyone watching the video. You could see this post Tons and tons of giveaways.

Alex: 1:31:16

I mean we've given away. We actually have two times for giveaways, so we have one giveaway at one time and another one at a.

Alex: 1:31:24

you know, halfway through okay so, yeah, that's, uh, it's a great time. I mean, there's tons of teams there. You know we pretty much put this thing on for you know people to you know to see what's out there. Uh, you know, make, you know, make people want to come and play airsoft, and sure, because you know people are, you know, shy and scared. They don't want to come and play airsoft. Sure, because you know people are, you know, shy and scared. They don't want to ask a guy like, hey, what kind of gun you got there?

Erock: 1:31:46

Yeah, exactly yeah.

Alex: 1:31:48

You know, and it's like we're trying to make it, you know, as easy as possible for kids to come and play and, you know, ask questions if they want to touch a gun or if they want to feel, or what equipment to what kind of radio. I mean, we're putting on demos for radios and just everything you can think of nice, you know, they make it just easier for the. You know somebody new or somebody who's a?

Erock: 1:32:07

you know who's been there a while right so yeah, it's a common thing, you know, they're like the being with the, the younger generation. You know well, even people that are adults, that are new to airsoft, they're afraid to, especially in a, you know, at the field or an environment like this. They're like, oh, I don't want to, I don't know this guy, I don't want to ask him, you know whatever, but go out.

Alex: 1:32:33

That's what this is for. Yeah, go ask.

Erock: 1:32:36

Yep Mingle.

Alex: 1:32:43

So you know, you know again. We're hoping that you know it turns, we have a good turnout and a lot of you know a lot of people. We're hoping yeah, we're hoping for a good turnout this year, because it grows. It grows every year, you know, and bigger names keep coming uh-huh, yeah, I see the amped booth right there.

Erock: 1:32:57

One of the guys I did a podcast with uh recently, og kg, is his uh call sign he.

Alex: 1:33:02

Um, yeah, I heard that guy old school guy? Oh, he's not old school, but he's old. He's older, he's I did a podcast with recently. Og KG is his call sign he yeah, I heard that guy old school guy.

Erock: 1:33:07

Oh, he's not old school, but he's old, he's older, he's older. Yeah, he and he just got into airsoft and he went to the. He went to the field had and same thing happened where you know, he wanted to, like one of the guys, like group of Group of kids, were like man, just go ask him, and so he went over and talked with them and they wanted to try out his gun and that kind of thing. So yeah, it's real common man. It's one of the best communities for inviting new players in that aren't standoffish to the newbies.

Alex: 1:33:45

So if you look at the poster up there, gabe Stitzel the the guy who put the post up, oh yeah, so that guy right there, uh, he is definitely og like over 20 years in. You know, he's the spearhead of this whole operation. Okay, so in terms of the guy you want to get on, you know, get on your show, it'd be probably that guy next like oh, he's the owner of minnesota airsoft association okay and so, yeah, he's great guy to talk to.

Alex: 1:34:09

I mean, you know, I would definitely talk. You know, like you know, I try to get you know. Like I said, old school, old g, dude 2000 yeah, that's crazy so you want to hear some crazy stuff.

Erock: 1:34:20

I mean, he's got the story yeah, I love hearing that stuff too, man, because you know being I feel like I'm fairly new into it right the last few years and um, I don't know. I mean, like me and you, we played paintball whatever 20 years ago. But this, um, this kind of stuff you know the guys I talked with that that were playing airsoft 20 some years ago I'm like holy cow dude, that's cool yeah, because it wasn't even a, it wasn't even on the radar of anything no, like, where did you even find uh, airsoft guns back then because you could go?

Erock: 1:34:53

I bought my first paintball gun in a walmart, you know like it was pretty popular yeah, like the eagles, the brass eagle.

Alex: 1:35:01

Is that what you got?

Erock: 1:35:03

I did. I got a golden eagle.

Alex: 1:35:04

It was a golden eagle, I couldn't think of what it was.

Erock: 1:35:07

You know what it was. It was a pump, yep.

Alex: 1:35:10

I remember it.

Erock: 1:35:11

Oh my God, I screwed it up so bad it was. It was a pump, and so I'm on the way to the game. This is the first game that my buddies that I worked with in this factory in northeast Ohio. They're all talking about this thing and I'm like they invited me out and I was like man, that sounds awesome. So all of us had kids, all of us were married for more than a couple years, and this is their getaway. This is the guy's getaway, because I remember one of the guys asking I'm gonna bring my girlfriend whenever and they're like no no, guys, only okay this is we, we need this getaway.

Erock: 1:35:47

uh, and we didn't have any rules because we were blown off steam and all of us were in decent shape. We were just like, uh, you know, and we worked a lot of overtime, okay, so we needed a break and we would go hard. We're very competitive. So, anyway, I stopped on the way to my first game and picked up this airsoft gun and I was like, oh, I'll just get the cheapest one, it should be fine, whatever.

Alex: 1:36:17

I know military tech. I know the end of this story.

Erock: 1:36:21

Yes, it's fine. Meanwhile I'm going before I can even pump the next round in. Luckily, hopefully I don't break in the barrel because I chop it in half, because I don't pump it all the way or whatever. I'm getting pelted mask in my neck. I'm just welted everywhere, bro, Just like the guy with the semi-auto.

Alex: 1:36:46

Yeah, it's like here you are with the crappy 68 okay and then you got the guys with the nice gun 98 or whatever it was.

Erock: 1:36:54

I'm getting shot by these dudes. I'm like what the? What gun is that? And I went and got a tip in 98 or whatever, like, like, very soon after that bro.

Alex: 1:37:03

I'm over here going poop. Not only that, it was. It was sealed too right.

Erock: 1:37:11

Yeah.

Alex: 1:37:13

So it would start. You know, you got your first hot shot and then it starts going down. It was so bad.

Erock: 1:37:18

It was so bad and I'm hiding behind a tree trying to change the CO2 canister and I'm like, uh, like, uh, okay, nope, not doing this again. It was fun, though being outgunned. Humble beginnings, I mean that's you know, it was a good, uh good progression. And then we had a guy that, uh, would he bought or he made a potato launcher, right, potato gun Yep, yep, yep.

Erock: 1:37:46

This thing was like eight foot long, bro, this giant PVC tube or PVC pipe, and so we would shoot it. He wouldn't shoot it to us, but he would shoot it while the game's going on. He was shooting in this big bale of hay or whatever, just to add sound effects yeah it was pretty cool. He's like I'm going to shoot one up in the air like a mortar or whatever. I was like dude, that thing's flying, Don't hit one of us with that thing, Knock us out.

Alex: 1:38:18

You ever been to an Airsoft game where they actually fire the blanks?

Erock: 1:38:20

Yes.

Alex: 1:38:21

That's pretty fun. T you ever been to an airsoft game where they actually fire the blanks? Yes, that's pretty fun. Tca does that. That's always kind of cool to hear the guy in Minnesota who has? The World War II reenactors. He's got a MG42 that he'll belt up and he'll fire the MG42 blanks.

Erock: 1:38:38

That's so cool man.

Alex: 1:38:39

Just to hear that thing rip is just like oh my God. And it's just just to hear that thing rip.

Erock: 1:38:42

Yeah, it's just like oh my God. So the the uh first mills that I went with to these guys was a stone breaker. A few years ago it was, um, they had the blank firing 50 Cal on the Humvee Okay, this thing's awesome. And then they had mortars propane mortars so they didn't shoot anything, it was just for sound Sound effects.

Alex: 1:39:03

Yeah, and it sounded real Uh propane mortars.

Erock: 1:39:04

So they didn't shoot anything, it was just for sound, sound effects, yeah, and it sounded real, uh, and so they had those going off. They had the 50 cal um, I don't know if they had another blank firing going out there, but uh, then they had a little bird, little bird flying around. So you got a helicopter, you got got all these you know blank firing things going off and explosions. You know, it was just, it was crazy man, it was cool Very cool for my first one, you know.

Alex: 1:39:34

That's just cool to hear when you're just like oh cool, you know, it makes that experience that much crazier or fun.

Erock: 1:39:42

Absolutely.

Alex: 1:39:42

Like I've never seen the hell. I've seen the. You know, I've seen the videos of the helicopters. Like that's pretty cool. You know, like I don't want to buy a ticket to fly in that, but I know right yeah, I'll buy that ticket, but it's, you know, it's cool that you know somebody will do it and they'll fly around and, yeah, shoot at you.

Erock: 1:39:58

That's pretty sweet that's what I love. One of the things I love about it is the um, the, the variety that we have, right, the choices that you have. If you're willing to travel a little bit, you can have any kind of airsoft experience you want, I mean yep, absolutely from milson west. You know, milson west they use a lot of blank firing guns. Like they'll have some of their, a lot of their guys, I guess go around and and shoot blank firing guns aren't they the 40 hour game though?

Alex: 1:40:29

yeah, 40 hours yeah, you can have that game you could listen, bro, 40 hours non-stop.

Erock: 1:40:37

The uh. When mr ot came on for the first time he said he's like when I first into Airsoft I wanted to go to this Milsim, so I was getting into all this stuff. The first Milsim you went to was Milsim.

Alex: 1:40:49

Milsim went.

Erock: 1:40:50

Oh God, he didn't know he did not know any of the rules. He didn't know. It was like as involved and immersive as it was. So he gets there and he wasn't really feeling great when he left. He was like I was kind of like had a sour taste. He was like, well, yeah, he was just like I. I came out of work. I just wasn't feeling like he was almost like getting sick or something. You know he's run down, so he goes anyway. So when it started, uh, he was.

Erock: 1:41:17

He lasted nine hours he came off the field so and he was like man, I I couldn't do it, but he was like he said he was. He was feeling, you know, kind of sick or whatever, but um, I don't know if he's ever mr ot. Uh, if you're listening to this, let me know if you went to a milson west event after that and completed the whole thing.

Alex: 1:41:41

I can't remember if he did or not, but anyway, yeah I couldn't do it, I don't want to, I don't need to. No, I don't need to wear goggles for 40 hours can you imagine bro? Yeah, I don't want to wear goggles for 40 hours. I don't want to sleep in the mud you know like yeah, so that's not. I'd rather go play. Go to a hotel, yeah, sit in a hot tub.

Erock: 1:42:02

Do it all over again tomorrow yeah, that's uh, that's most people I've seen and talked with. I mean, when you know, stonebreaker had 700 people and it was uh, there was a lot of people, I don't know, maybe a third that hung out like after the, after the first game or the first section started on like they would play all of Saturday, right.

Alex: 1:42:27

And then hang out all night, and then hang out like they wouldn't play.

Erock: 1:42:30

You know a lot of the players wouldn't go play Saturday night for the night game. They would just do the camping. Yeah, we're, we're camping man, we got the fires going, they're smoking weed, you got beer, you got you know there I mean mean this is a huge camp, you know huge area. Um, they're just they're, they're in the hangout session. Yeah, fires going, campfires and stuff.

Alex: 1:42:51

I mean, yeah, it was cool man, that's that that's probably the best part, like for me, when I get. You know, when we do these bigger games. You know, like going back to the hotel and hanging out with your friends and having your hot tub, you know, having your hot tub party. You know that's pretty much what.

Erock: 1:43:07

No, it's fun yeah, it's a vacation, that's what. Uh, when these guys started going I thought you know, this is really cool, man I I was kind of skeptical at first, not skeptical of the mil sims, but of them going, because I was like you ain't gonna make. I didn't know what was involved in a mil sim. I was kind of taking it literal, like military simulation.

Alex: 1:43:29

Yeah.

Erock: 1:43:29

I was like y'all ain't going to have fun. Okay, I'm telling you right now, and the first one they ever went to was a 24 hour continuous and it was here, it was only about an hour away and uh, and it rained like a monsoon the whole time they were there and it was a vietnam event which was appropriate with the weather but they had to have real gear. You know the time period gear and that like authentic everything yep, yep, I know I know those games too, uh-huh.

Erock: 1:43:59

So the m16a1s they had, uh, all their uniform is right, but um it takes a special breed for that, those games yeah, they were like we. We did the 24 hour. We don't we like the breaks, you know. We like the two and a half hours of play, or whatever three hours and then a break and uh, but they're. They're the same way like the experience, the hotel experience they went to, like Airbnb or whatever before.

Alex: 1:44:25

Yep.

Erock: 1:44:26

But GTI actually has these like trailers you can rent. They have rooms in them. You know little bedrooms.

Alex: 1:44:34

Is GTI the place where they is, that the nuclear facility? Yep, yeah, we were invited. I was invited to go out out there and I'm still kind of contemplating it. It's hard, you know, for us. It's like it's hard for me, like, okay, how am I gonna you know, like that's a 20 hour drive yeah or if I fly in, you know, then now I gotta try to figure out how to get all my gear out there exactly so it's, you know, it's an ordeal yeah, it is yeah, that's a long trip.

Erock: 1:45:00

Now gti is only like two and a half hours for me yes, you east coast guys have everything within like within, like you know, five hours.

Alex: 1:45:09

Any game, any big name game, you guys got it within like five hours you know?

Erock: 1:45:13

what's weird, though, is it seems like the each coast has all the stuff right. We got east coast all up and down, new york, pennsylvania, uh, all the way down here, you know, florida has a bunch of stuff, georgia and then california has a bunch of stuff yep right, just california dollars, just california and then in the middle of the country, nothing, hardly anything.

Erock: 1:45:37

Yeah, when I talked to uh, one of the guys I had on is in Utah, k Factor 39. And he goes. I said so, how's your fields out there? He's like we don't really have any. I said, well, how do you play? He's like we, we get on this Facebook group and everyone's like, oh, we're going to meet over here at this person's property or whatever, and a set of a game. I was like holy shit, okay, that's what we did with paintball, you know yeah, but his grandparents had, I don't know, 11, 15 acres or something.

Erock: 1:46:10

We go out there and play in the woods and that's what I got.

Alex: 1:46:14

We're pretty fortunate being in minnesota, like we have three fields, yeah, within and each one of those fields gets about 100 players every day. You know like on a saturday saturday 100 players fields gets about 100 players every day. You know like on a Saturday, 100 players at this field 100 players at that field and 100 players at that field, so you got 300 players, you know, playing every weekend.

Erock: 1:46:32

That's awesome and that's only going to grow.

Alex: 1:46:35

Yes, exactly, and it has grown, which is awesome because you can watch you can physically watch our facebook page just keep growing in numbers and numbers and numbers when you were paintballing?

Erock: 1:46:46

did you ever, um, did you ever? Did you and your buddies ever try to go to like a regular field and and pay to play like on?

Alex: 1:46:53

oh yeah, I mean, we, we also had like, even with paintball we were lucky enough to have, we had two fields, I think. When you know, did you ever go? And there was nobody there.

Erock: 1:47:04

Yes, you guys, it'd be like three of us. It's like what the hell.

Alex: 1:47:09

So it's like, how are we doing this? You can't. And it was still $20. Yeah, it was still $20 a play.

Erock: 1:47:16

Oh, dude, that's what I was telling these guys, all these people I talk with and they're like, yeah, I go to the field. There's um, you know, there's 50 people there, there's a hundred people there, like every Saturday. I'm like, bro, y'all are spoiled. Okay, I'll tell you what. If you ever go and you ever, you know we would go. We went a couple of times and you show up and it was just like, like you, said like three of us.

Erock: 1:47:39

I'm like shit man that sucks Because you have it in your head Like this is what my time is spent for on this Saturday morning Yep.

Alex: 1:47:47

I just drove an hour to be here.

Erock: 1:47:49

Uh-huh, and then you don't even think of it, because I never thought of it Like, oh, that this could happen, because we always played together and we always planned like to each other at work, okay, there's going to be 10, 12, 15 of us out there, and then we go to this field and we're like shit, now what? We just sit here and wait and we get there at 10 o'clock or whatever and nobody starts showing up, we'd sit there and wait for two hours.

Alex: 1:48:15

Yeah, you'd wait and it sucks.

Erock: 1:48:17

Shit man that sucks ass.

Alex: 1:48:19

I've been there. It sucked.

Erock: 1:48:22

Hell yeah man. Well, listen, brother it's been great talking with you.

Alex: 1:48:26

I appreciate your story, Absolutely man.

Erock: 1:48:28

Thank you for hitting me up. Give a shout out to where everyone can find all your stuff.

Alex: 1:48:33

It's BokBokLabs on Facebook, you know, hit me up. You know you guys see anything interesting? You know, ask me anything. You know like I'm more than happy to tell you guys how I did it. I'll take pictures for you guys, you know, you know, it's just whatever it is man and I'm always trying to post something new. You know I hate trying to be stale, you know. So I always want to like post stuff new. But yeah, hit that, you know, hit us up. I mean, I guess other shout outs I'd like to shout out to, like you know, index productions. You know like they got the best tagging rockets. You know you guys check them out. Um, and then, uh, probably you know action sports, wisconsin, best field, I think, in the midwest. If you guys haven't looked that place up, look that place up, you guys would be amazed and how they have it all set up. I think they got like over like 100 connexes. They've got like a big connex city oh, that's cool, I love those and it's just like it's in its setup.

Alex: 1:49:23

Nice, like it's very, it's very well done.

Erock: 1:49:28

Yeah, that's so well, if you don't mind, uh, send me a link to um the action sports in the index one absolutely I'll put all those links on the um, on the description of the video perfect, perfect.

Alex: 1:49:39

And I was also sending you one for the our convention too.

Erock: 1:49:43

Great.

Alex: 1:49:44

There's airsoft convention, so awesome. But yeah, cool man.

Erock: 1:49:48

It was nice meeting you, man, you know, I hope to you know, I hope to get out to the East coast maybe see, uh, you know, walking around walking around some with a camera going you know talking to people and a microphone or whatever, but yelling at my son or whatever, you know. Awesome man, I appreciate you, brother.

Alex: 1:50:09

Yeah, thank you, man. Thanks for having me on here.

Erock: 1:50:11

Awesome. Have a good weekend.

Alex: 1:50:12

Yeah, absolutely, man Thanks Outro.

Erock: 1:50:28

Music.