Episode 80: Hunter Constantine, Firearms Instructor, USPSA GM

0:00:00.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Welcome to the Reticle Up Podcast where I, 3 Gun Kenzie will be interviewing competitive shooters, hunters, fishermen, archers, entrepreneurs, and outdoorsmen. Come learn with me as I interview people from all walks of life in different disciplines, all across the world from novices to professionals of all ages. No matter what, everyone has something they can teach you. So come join me on the journey.

0:00:27.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: The Reticle Up podcast is produced in partnership with americanfirearms.org. American firearms mission is to recommend what works. We believe everyone deserves access to unbiased, helpful information about firearms. And our buying guides, product reviews and learning resources are designed to help real people find the stuff that will work best for them. Check us out at www.americanfirearms.org.

0:00:53.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Reticle Up podcast. I’m here with my friend Hunter Constantine. So he’s a competitive shooter, a firearms instructor, but most importantly, he’s a content creator working with some of the biggest name brands out there, which we’ll talk about today. And I’ll just call him the most interesting Man-child alive. So Hunter, thanks for coming.

0:01:15.9 Hunter Constantine: Well, ain’t that fun.

0:01:16.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:01:17.3 Hunter Constantine: Thank you for having me Kenzie. I’m excited to be one of the first guests on this podcast, super excited for what you’re doing and what this can turn into. So, I think it’s great having outlets for like-minded people to speak their mind and to listen to, because I love putting on podcasts when I’m driving cruising different matches, practice, whatever and it’s pretty limited. There’s not… There’s some out there, but I think it’s always good to have more and just have some more variety, different people.

0:01:50.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Thanks yeah I know I used to listen to a 3Gun Show a lot, and I know he’s still creating some episodes here and there, but like not at the scale he was, where it was every flight.

0:01:58.6 Hunter Constantine: I used to listen to like Eric and Tim on they changed the name, like halfway through, but I don’t even remember the name, I think the one…

0:02:08.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: We like shooting. Oh God.

0:02:11.0 Hunter Constantine: No, I don’t know. But like…

0:02:12.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: All the podcast.

0:02:13.2 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. And anyways, but I used to love, listening, especially when I was first getting started competition shooting ’cause I was like, I wanna learn everything I need to know everything, what do we got and there’s no outlet to learn.

0:02:24.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: For sure. So I actually don’t know your background. This will be really fun.

0:02:27.7 Hunter Constantine: Oh.

0:02:29.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So, first of all, actually we can skip what do you do for a living, but I wanna know about that at some point, but let’s talk about shooting. When did firearms like even come into the picture?

0:02:37.3 Hunter Constantine: Alright. We’ll go back to when I fired my very first shot in my life.

0:02:43.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

0:02:44.5 Hunter Constantine: That was when I was 18 years old, which is a lot later than most people think. I took a class at gun site up in Prescott, which is pretty cool that like that’s the first place I got to shoot a gun. And I had a pistol class, so the first time I ever shot a gun, I was in a class with this CHP dude named Ed Stock. And I remember it was a cult commander, 1911 with like factory 230 grand 45 [laughter] line up my site trigger, press, Weaver stance, whatever. And I smack dead center on the X, the silhouette target. I was like, “Pretty good, Ed, what do you think? Huh.” And he’s like, “Do it again.” And the entire rest of the weekend, I never hit that X you know what I’m like wow. Anyways so, I bought a 1911 when I got home, bought an AR went to school and we basically shot, let’s just say like 500 rounds a year at stumps in farm fields in Ohio. No targets, no timer. I think I bought a timer when I was in graduate school.

0:03:47.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Hold on you have a master’s degree, did I not know that?

0:03:50.7 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. I have an MBA in marketing.

0:03:52.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I have a master’s degree in marketing, that’s really weird to think about high five.

0:03:56.9 Hunter Constantine: Right, well…

0:03:57.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Of course you do, we’re like the best online.

0:04:01.9 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, so.

0:04:03.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh, my God.

0:04:03.9 Hunter Constantine: It wasn’t until I got into cycling, like bicycles pretty hard when I was in college and when I moved to Tucson, I was like, I’m gonna become a professional shooter or a professional cyclist. I just don’t know which one with no experience shooting. And I literally literally Googled like how to shoot competition and then it pulled up a local match or a local club emailed the match director. I was like, “Hey, no idea what I’m doing. Love to shoot. It sounds cool.” He’s like “Show up, whatever.” I had a… Right before I moved to Arizona, I bought a Zev 34 with like a gold barrel. An armor, a comp so this gun’s like seven inches long [laughter] it was terrible. I thought it was really cool at the time though. And I shot IDPA with it and he’s like, “You can’t shoot this.” I’m like, “It’s the only gun I have.” They were cool about it but I literally finished like dead last on the leaderboards and I have a screenshot buried somewhere in my phone, but it was my very first IDPA match. It was five or six stages and I went 100 points down. [laughter] So like you think about that, like you almost have to try to do that, you know?

0:05:12.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:05:14.0 Hunter Constantine: But I always shot fast. I just never hit and everyone’s like, “You got to slow down and get your hits.” Can I swear on this, is this still adult?

0:05:21.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:05:22.1 Hunter Constantine: So, I’m like, “Fuck that.” I’m like, “I’m gonna keep going fast until like my brain catches up. And I can hit the target”

0:05:27.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Sure.

0:05:28.6 Hunter Constantine: And that’s what I recommend for people now, too, regardless if people wanna fight me on that or whatever, but I think it’s better to train your processing power rather than trying to slow down what you can do. But anyways caught the bug. I decided USPSA was a lot more fun than IDPA after shooting both. When I decided that USPSA was gonna be my discipline, the match director stepped down from our club.

0:05:54.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Really?

0:05:54.6 Hunter Constantine: So I, brand new shooter, like three months into it took over the match, directing roles for USPSA without even being a USPSA member.

0:06:04.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What could go wrong.

0:06:04.1 Hunter Constantine: And then, yeah, I ended up making GM in like 14 months.

0:06:09.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What?

0:06:09.5 Hunter Constantine: And then started shooting majors and stuff, winning some of them, at least podium finishes at most. And then it just started going uphill from there and I basically shoot full time or do marketing full time in the industry.

0:06:26.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. So, okay, going back to GM, was that with Ironsides, DOL, like what division?

0:06:32.0 Hunter Constantine: Oh, Carry Optics.

0:06:33.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay. Okay.

0:06:35.1 Hunter Constantine: It’s really the only division I shot. Right when I started USPSA, I bought like a 2011 and 40 and being like, “I’m gonna shoot limited.” No reason why, just spending money. I was working in commercial real estate and that sucked [laughter] and so I was like, “This is dumb.” I’m like, “I want I a polymer gun. I want a red dot. I want something that’s easy, reliable. I don’t have to take care of that much.” And so, I settled on, actually, I settled on a Glock 34 and then I switched to a Smith & Wesson after I won a slide cut at an IDPA match.

0:07:10.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

0:07:10.6 Hunter Constantine: Then cut a Smith & Wesson. And now I have like six or seven of these things.

0:07:15.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Just six or seven. I feel like there’s a lot more. [laughter]

0:07:17.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, no, that’s it. I’m actually making another one tomorrow though.

0:07:20.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I love it.

0:07:21.7 Hunter Constantine: On a trade, ’cause people on Armslist just know my sweet, sweet spot, so like whatever, but anyways, yeah. I just, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. Frankly, I think it’s just cool. Like just badass shooting guns, right?

0:07:41.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh yeah.

0:07:41.9 Hunter Constantine: It’s just fun. And I’ve introduced a lot of new people to competition shooting. And that’s priceless, when they like, you see they have that eureka moment, where like, “Dang, I understand why you do this all the time.” And I’m like, “Yeah, dude, let’s get it.”

0:07:56.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, there’s nothing like it.

0:07:58.9 Hunter Constantine: And so, stayed in Carry Optics pretty much the whole time. I’m dead set on at least getting top 10 at Nationals before I switch division. I haven’t had a single Nationals where my gear has worked yet. So rooting for that this year.

0:08:14.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You’re like me.

0:08:14.7 Hunter Constantine: Just got, just got in. Yeah, last year I shot five stages at CO Nats with a loose optic.

0:08:21.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh.

0:08:22.6 Hunter Constantine: Like a quarter inch of movement up and down.

0:08:24.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s fun.

0:08:25.9 Hunter Constantine: Completely locked out. So I threw like four, five mics the first day. And I think I finished like 89%, like 24th last year at Nationals. So I’ll take it for a shit first day. The year before that, first year reloading, didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t ask for help, just ignorant on this press that I bought used off another member of my club. Didn’t know about primer depth. So I had like 22 light strikes on 11 stages.

0:08:54.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oof.

0:08:55.1 Hunter Constantine: Out of like the 18 or whatever that was at Nats. And then the year before that, I shot with a Smith & Wesson with a shot out barrel. So I was grouping like 3 inches at 12 yards.

0:09:04.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Hunter, why did you do everything the hard way? [laughter]

0:09:06.8 Hunter Constantine: I don’t know. But still finished decently at each one of them, considering, and a lot of top 10 stages when my shit worked. So I was like, “I can do it.”

0:09:17.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. I believe it. Okay. So when did the cycling just fall by the wayside? Like, were you trying to do both and figuring out what you were better at?

0:09:26.8 Hunter Constantine: No, it literally was like night and day. As soon as I started shooting, I was like, “Fuck biking.” [laughter] I’m like, “It’s too fucking hot here.”

0:09:32.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It is.

0:09:32.8 Hunter Constantine: “I’m not dealing with the heat.” I live in Tucson, Arizona, for those of you who don’t know, gets really hot here. This weekend I had some classes and it was a 118 degrees on the range.

0:09:45.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Pass. Are you from there?

0:09:47.7 Hunter Constantine: No, I’m from Detroit.

0:09:49.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s so weird. Detroit, went to school in Ohio, moved to Tucson. Why Tucson?

0:09:53.9 Hunter Constantine: Job. Commercial real estate.

0:09:55.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s right.

0:09:55.9 Hunter Constantine: So it seemed interesting. I was like, “Ohh.” I’m like “That’s sexy. I can wear a suit and stuff.” And it was… Honestly, I just, it taught me a lot, but it was not, it was not for me.

0:10:08.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So let me ask you this too, going back to other than Vegas, when have you put on a suit ever again?

0:10:15.9 Hunter Constantine: Funerals.

0:10:16.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, okay, that was sad.

0:10:18.7 Hunter Constantine: That’s sad, but it’s true.

0:10:22.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: The reason I bring that up is I haven’t worn real pants in like four or five years since I started working for myself.

0:10:28.0 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. There’s like a banquet dinner I had to go to. I don’t know, it’s very few and far between, you know what I mean?

0:10:34.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:10:34.7 Hunter Constantine: I can just get away, I can get away with dress shoes, dress pants and a sweater, and I’m good to go for most occasions.

0:10:40.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. For sure.

0:10:42.0 Hunter Constantine: No ironing required, no ties. It’s just easy.

0:10:47.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: People listening to us are like, “What the hell?” Okay. So moving on from that, I wanna know what happened first. So, ’cause I know you’re working with a ton of brands and all of that. Were you just active on social media and posting a lot, your shooting? Okay, did you DM companies, they approached you? Did you meet people? Like how did all this spiral?

0:11:05.0 Hunter Constantine: I swore off social media all throughout college, up until I started competition shooting. I did an independent study during my undergrad looking at the psychology of social media and it’s like, this probably doesn’t help us right now as content creators and marketers, but it’s so bad for the brain. It’s just like gambling or smoking or drinking or anything. That’s like an endorphin release and something completely…

0:11:30.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Or shooting competitively.

0:11:32.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, anything. It’s just like, it’s an addiction and it’ll change your brain chemistry over time. But then I realized, I was noticing people were getting more deals from having a social media following than actually winning. And I’m like, “That’s bullshit.” But it’s true.

0:11:47.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s true.

0:11:48.5 Hunter Constantine: And so I was like, “I’d much prefer to have a large following, get podium finishes, maybe not win, number one, all the time, but just steady, competitive, sporty finishes, podium finishes.” I think I’ve won four out of the six majors I’ve shot this year.

0:12:06.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

0:12:06.7 Hunter Constantine: Or five out of the seven. I don’t know. Something like that. But majority of them. And like losses would be to nails or something like that. It was sort of fun. Besides Alaska, but that was a whole other thing and I was like, “You need to have both. You need to have social media following and you need to win.” And the MBA in marketing helps too when I’m talking with brands. They just take us more seriously, probably. So I…

0:12:33.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I don’t know why we’re both children.

[laughter]

0:12:36.0 Hunter Constantine: I know. I think that’s why people go to marketing though, right?

0:12:41.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. I don’t really work for a living at all.

0:12:43.3 Hunter Constantine: I literally treat it like a part-time job where I was posting three to five times a day. I was doing the 10 by 10 strategy where it’s like, you follow 10 hashtags, you comment 10 comments on 10 posts from that hashtag. And I set timers on my phone to do this throughout the day. And it was like clockwork and I was probably spending like 20 to 30 hours a week on Instagram.

0:13:03.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Holy cow.

0:13:03.7 Hunter Constantine: Just like engaging. And I went from zero followers to 10K in nine months.

0:13:09.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

0:13:10.4 Hunter Constantine: And then IG found my page and censored me.

0:13:13.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:13:14.8 Hunter Constantine: And then it took a year and a half to gain the next 12,000 followers.

0:13:18.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:13:18.6 Hunter Constantine: And I was like, well maybe more than that now.

0:13:22.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Our whole entire content is suppressed across the board. Videos are less viewed. Yeah. We’re not showing new feeds, yeah. Hashtag, yeah.

0:13:28.4 Hunter Constantine: And so it was hard but… Once I started gaining some traction on some, I realized that if the content is good enough, it will break through that barrier. And it’s so fucking annoying because sometimes you just… It is a lot of effort to produce the better content or I could post a stage win at Nationals or area two or some major match against hundreds of other shooters, skilled world-class shooters. People don’t give a fuck.

0:14:01.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:14:02.6 Hunter Constantine: And then I literally just post like a no look, machine gun magnum in the rocks and they’re like, “Wow, this is great.”

0:14:08.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s the greatest, I know I’ve seen your videos. I know what would do well, the dumb shit that you do. [chuckle]

0:14:13.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. And honestly, I really enjoy the dumb shit.

0:14:17.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Right. It’s easy. [laughter]

0:14:20.1 Hunter Constantine: But I think it is important to still back that skill up because a lot of people just do the dumb shit and then I’m like, “What’s your build drill time?” Or like whatever. And just challenge them to something because… Or like a Firepower Unlimited post that meme where it’s like, what people think a competition gun looks like, what a competition gun actually looks like. And the top picture is like a Gucci doll clock, the bottom picture is a Factory 34. I got so many DMs of people arguing with me of like, that’s not a competition gun. And at first, I’ll entertain people and give them a reasonable response. Then I’ll… Enough come in where I just don’t care anymore. And I’m like, “Send me the last video you have in your camera roll of you shooting.”

0:15:08.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: They don’t respond.

0:15:10.2 Hunter Constantine: No. Someone would send it and I would literally just send that GIF for the Kardashians going, you’re trash. And then block them after they saw it. They’d have to see it and then block them.

0:15:22.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I love that.

0:15:23.8 Hunter Constantine: I don’t really care. I’m like, people are gonna get the same people. Like my mom’s gonna get the same Hunter. You’re gonna get the same Hunter. People listening to this are gonna get the same Hunter. Brands are gonna get the same Hunter.

0:15:34.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I love it.

0:15:34.9 Hunter Constantine: Everybody gets the same Hunter across the board and I don’t censor myself for anybody. It’s a lot easier to live life that way.

0:15:41.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m gonna reset. Oh my God, it cracks me up. Okay, what are their DMs? What’s the weirdest DM that you’ve ever gotten? Now I have to know. [chuckle]

0:15:48.7 Hunter Constantine: Honestly, the running joke too is like, you shoot fast enough and there’s the hashtag, splits gets chicks. But it’s really just a bunch of dudes asking what components you’re running on your gun. So it’s just like, I used to track everything on Excel. Like how many DMS I’d answer a day? How my engagement was doing on post? How many posts I would outbound reach to, everything. And track it all, just ’cause I’m a nerd. Right?

0:16:17.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, Well, I’ve done that though. [chuckle]

0:16:19.9 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, but I’ll get anywhere from like 40 to 60 DMs on average a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. The weirdest ones are people who… There’s some guys I’ve never responded to and they just send me reels every day, all day long. And it’s usually like super hard, two-way stuff or conspiracy series stuff. Like, “Dude, you have to watch this.” And I’m just like.

0:16:43.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Do you watch them? Do you secretly watch them?

0:16:46.5 Hunter Constantine: No and I probably should block them, but like, I just let them. I don’t know, maybe it’s entertaining for them.

0:16:51.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Had to ask you about that.

0:16:53.2 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. Or I like the bots where it’s like a sugar mama. Sometimes I post my responses with it and that’s always pretty fun, especially ’cause it’s probably some scammer on the other end you just don’t know what’s going on…

0:17:05.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Or like promoted. You get the comments promoted on blah, blah, blah.

0:17:10.2 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. Like no photos required. I just want companionship and I would just respond like the moon isn’t real and they’d be like, “Do you have PayPal?” [laughter] And it always makes me laugh thinking if I had that conversation in real life, like I’m talking face to face with somebody they’re like, “No pictures, it’s fine. Nothing sexual, just platonic.” And I’m like, “The moon isn’t real.” And they’re like, “Do you have PayPal?”

0:17:38.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Some weird…

0:17:38.9 Hunter Constantine: Those come in a lot. And then… Yeah. Not too many weird ones. Just a lot of questions about gun parts, gun advice, drills. How to get in the competition of shooting, things like that. And I will answer every single one of them.

0:17:56.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s awesome.

0:17:57.8 Hunter Constantine: Just ’cause I had one of those questions answered when I was a new shooter coming up and if I’ve amassed that knowledge now, I think it’s part of your duty into the community to share that.

0:18:12.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So I’ve started screenshoting the creepy ones and sending them to my friends every single time it happens. So I kept a folder of that, but yeah, I’ll answer them as long as it’s not bullshit or really creepy. Especially dudes are like, “Do you live here? Where do you live?” I’m like, “Why would I answer that?” [chuckle]

0:18:27.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. It’s quite a way to cold start a conversation.

0:18:31.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Or stalker situation. Okay. So we still didn’t answer the question. What came first with your social media? Did you reach out to a company? Did a company approach you? Where did the trajectory start?

0:18:42.6 Hunter Constantine: I think I was pretty aggressive at first with reaching out to companies.

0:18:46.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I can see that. [chuckle]

0:18:48.2 Hunter Constantine: And just to like see, and it was like, it was kind of crazy too. ‘Cause this is like before I even hit GM, I was in like that 14 month span and I was like, “Hey, I’m taking shooting really seriously. I’m gonna be a professional shooter. I really care about this.” And a lot of companies were like, “Yeah, whatever.” Because everybody talks a lot and nobody really backs up with actions.

0:19:10.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:19:13.2 Hunter Constantine: And there was a handful of companies that were like, “You know what, we’ll take a shot we like you. Let’s try it out.”

0:19:19.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Who’s the first?

0:19:25.9 Hunter Constantine: I think Gerber Holsters.

0:19:27.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

0:19:28.7 Hunter Constantine: And he’s like, “Dude, please” Wait, he’s got to be 27 or 28. He’s right around my age, and lives in Colorado, just a single dude making holsters out of his property.

0:19:39.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Awesome.

0:19:40.4 Hunter Constantine: When I met him, he was only making a couple of holsters, now he has a backlog of a few hundred.

0:19:45.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s awesome. Cool.

0:19:47.0 Hunter Constantine: And he makes my signature holster now, the Constantine competition pro holster. And I still…

0:19:53.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Named after it.

0:19:54.3 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, and I’ve had a holster too for a little while. And that’s the number one holster I recommend for people, obviously, just because it’s what I use, if they want a competition holster. There’s a lot of great other… There’s a lot of great options out there. But made that through trial and error. He’s like, “Hey, dude, I’m making a holster company.” I’m like, “Hey, dude, I’m getting into competition shooting.”

[laughter]

0:20:15.4 Hunter Constantine: And I was like, “Listen, if you take care of me, I’ll just… I’ll run your holsters, forever, basically.” And it was just one of those things where he was hungry getting started, I was hungry getting started and I still run his competition holsters to this day.

0:20:31.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s awesome. Does it have your name on it?

0:20:33.6 Hunter Constantine: No, no branding or anything like that.

0:20:35.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s disappointing.

0:20:35.8 Hunter Constantine: It’s okay. I’d rather just stay incognito like that.

0:20:39.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:20:41.5 Hunter Constantine: I think he was probably the first and that was kinda cool. Because he’s like, “Yeah, I’m down.” And I think I bought a holster from him at first. Then he sold me a couple at cost and he started hooking me up with couple of free ones. And I started referring people to him and stuff like that. And then, but it was interesting to see when it was a larger company. And I’m like, “Hey, I’m gonna do this thing.” And they’re like, “Yeah, we don’t know. We’re like, we’ll give you industry pricing right now. If it works out cool.” And then it’d be like, a year later, and they’re like, “Wow, you got really good. And I’m like, “I told you. I’m not bullshiting.” I’m like, “This is real. It’s happening.”

0:21:22.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: They hear that a lot from so many people though, right?

0:21:25.2 Hunter Constantine: So many people.

0:21:25.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Like, how many people have you seen come and go or not do it? Yeah, I’m never gonna be there. I’m gonna tell you that now. I know that.

0:21:31.9 Hunter Constantine: I’m shooting guns for life.

0:21:33.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m shooting guns for life. I’m never gonna be at the top is what I’m saying. But I like to shoot every single division every single score. Yeah, I’m gonna be in the industry forever.

0:21:42.3 Hunter Constantine: Honestly, what looks pretty cool is that horseback cowboy stuff with the black powder blanks. I was like, “Hmmm.” But Hunter is not buying a horse anytime soon. So we’ll wait on that. But so that was kind of hard. It wasn’t until let’s just like use rough terms here. But let’s just say once I hit 10k, and I started, finish placing, let’s just say top 5% at majors for my division and then companies started being like, okay, so he’s a shooter and then helped. I was a match director too. So I’ll host a charity match every year. At our club, which is cool, we’d donate it to a less fortunate children’s home something like that. And it was like $5 no shoot if you hit it and stuff like that. I always like quirky rules. We had one guy in mag dump into a no shoot. I’m like, “Dude, you just make a donation if you want not to take your match score.”

0:22:39.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh my God.

0:22:39.6 Hunter Constantine: But we just want to make a statement. And the biggest thing too is just trying to figure out what that company’s marketing goals were to help them with it. Because frankly, there’s a lot of shooters out there. And if you want something instead of the other, there’s a lot of people that can fulfill that same need of, “Oh, I can produce X, Y & Z content for you,” a lot of other people can but, you gotta identify what’s going to differentiate you from others. In that sense.

0:23:09.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What was that thing for you? What did you pitch people to?

0:23:13.6 Hunter Constantine: Plan B-A. No, but it was a… I wasn’t just strictly staying in that competition shooting lane. I love collecting guns. So I’ve got a pretty solid collection of unique things. Doing other things that aren’t competition related, maybe like EDC stuff, or random long-range stuff, or just things that tackle a lot of the demographics on social media. Where it’s just more entertainment’s sake rather than Instagram sake. And I have some more long-form content coming out. It’ll probably be out by the time this podcast is out too. So shout out to Trigger Press on YouTube.

[laughter]

0:24:04.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I can’t wait. So one thing I did and not a lot of shooters do it I guess, I created an actual shooting resume like, did you do that?

0:24:13.1 Hunter Constantine: Oh, yeah. I did do that. I forgot about that.

0:24:13.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Do you still do that, or no? [chuckle]

0:24:15.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, I do something similar. It’s definitely a lot more in-depth and a lot more visually pleasing.

0:24:22.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Mine’s very colorful. Opposite to you. But like even now I put my little 3 Gun Kenzie patch on there. But no, I think that’s valuable because you and I probably both, we go all over the country. But then at the end of the year, we put it together. Like where all we were, how many classes have we taught, and we’re like, “Oh, there’s a bigger picture that… ” All that process stuff we don’t think about ’cause we just do it. And then it adds up to this total sum where you’re like, “Yeah.”

0:24:45.1 Hunter Constantine: Charts. Charts are great.

0:24:48.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:24:48.8 Hunter Constantine: Like in 20… I don’t know, maybe it was 2019, or no 2020. One of the… No, it had to be 2019. I think I shot 156 local matches.

0:25:00.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Ew, that’s a lot. [laughter]

0:25:01.0 Hunter Constantine: Isn’t that crazy?

0:25:01.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s two per weeked-ish.

0:25:04.5 Hunter Constantine: Well, yeah. In Phoenix, you can shoot six days a week if you want.

0:25:07.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh, that’s right. Okay, that’s a hotbed ’cause it’s during the week, nights shoots all that stuff, right?

0:25:11.4 Hunter Constantine: All of it. Any local match, any and every local match. And that helped a lot. But one like… But that’s still around people having that conversation. So people like seeing you run that stuff, run the gear, have the gear, whatever. That’s a lot of interactions. Even if it’s like, let’s just say 40 people a match.

0:25:30.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Sure.

0:25:31.1 Hunter Constantine: Or 50 people a match, 20 people a match, whatever. That’s a lot of individuals that you’re touching that, people are getting FaceTime with the products of that company.

0:25:39.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Please don’t touch them. But yes.

0:25:42.6 Hunter Constantine: Yep.

[laughter]

0:25:46.2 Hunter Constantine: What if they touched me?

0:25:48.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: [laughter] Then it’s fair, fair game.

0:25:49.7 Hunter Constantine: [0:25:50.5] ____.

0:25:52.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Fair game. Yeah.

0:25:52.6 Hunter Constantine: Okay. They’ll meet Martha and Stewart here. And for those of you just listening that’s my left and right fist.

[laughter]

0:25:57.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m glad you clarified that. No. So like, what do you think? Yeah, we know a lot of people listening right now, alright, are dreaming of sponsors or dreaming of being in the industry or whatever that looks like, but they don’t see the work. So if you could give just one little recap on everything that you’ve done or that you see that shooters should do to get those things, what does that look like?

0:26:22.9 Hunter Constantine: My first thought was I identified two things: I needed to win and I needed to have a large presence on social media. So I identified two larger goals and I dedicated all my free time and disposal income to reaching those goals. And that was it, which is crazy and might not be realistic for a lot of people, but that’s literally what I did. That was my entire life for that year basically. Up until I got GM. But I would… Like my daily routine is like, I’d wake up an hour before work just to dry fire.

0:26:56.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:26:57.6 Hunter Constantine: And then go to work, go work out, eat dinner, dry fire. Saturday, how it worked locally, I’d shoot IDPA, stay after and I’d set up USPSA and it was just me and one other buddy, my buddy Cody. And we’d set up the entire USPSA match for Sunday, then shoot all day Sunday, then tear it down and then restart the week. And then the off weekends I’d drive up to Phoenix and shoot matches up there, and that was it. That’s all I cared about. And then the free time in between there was dealt with social media, building that following, and working on engagement and really that outbound engagement as well.

0:27:43.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:45.5 Hunter Constantine: And it was like… I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t have a social life and do anything. My social life was the range and like that was it. Or colleagues at work and stuff like that. But like no partying, no bars, nothing. It was just shooting, that’s it. And it was just like laser focused discipline. And then I took like… I decided I was done with commercial real estate, I was gonna go back into marketing, consulting. And I got like my first kinda like sponsor/job, because a lot of it gets very muddy where like, I end up doing work for the company, even though they’re sponsoring me as well. I’m fine with that too. I’d actually prefer that because I get to learn more about the company and really support the brand or figure out if that brand’s not a good fit for me. But I was like, before that, I got my bonus check, whatever from that year. And I was “I’m just gonna take like three months off and give myself like a summer break,” because “When am I gonna be able to do that?” And I remember it was when federal was doing rebates on their ammo and nine, was like 12.9 cents around for factory.

0:28:57.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh, I miss that. Yeah.

0:28:58.7 Hunter Constantine: And it was like unlimited. I’m like I’m shipping it to my aunt and uncle’s house. I’m shipping it to friends who don’t shoot. I’m shipping it… I managed half a million squared feet of retail office. I remember shipping ammo to these buildings, okay? Because they needed different addresses for the rebates. And I bought 28,000 rounds. And then… And I’m like, “Perfect, this is enough ammo to get me through the whole season.” But now Hunter doesn’t have to go to work for three months and all I did, I would go to the range and I would live fire, go to the gym and then I’d go do like yoga and just like meditate, whatever. And again, laser focused still, but now three months and it was only shooting. I didn’t even have to worry about work. And I shot all 28,000 rounds in three months.

0:29:43.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Holy cow.

0:29:45.1 Hunter Constantine: And I went from a high B class, low A class to a 100% GM.

0:29:49.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Wow. That’s the best…

0:29:49.8 Hunter Constantine: And for those of you who know the USPSA scoreboards on the website, it’s got the top 10 or 20 people for each classification division.

0:30:00.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Ten. Yeah.

0:30:01.5 Hunter Constantine: I think 10. Anyways, there’s like a hot minute I was up there, like a 100%. I was like, “Oh, I made it.” And then I realized it means nothing.

0:30:07.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s not true. That’s an accomplishment at that time, for sure.

0:30:10.8 Hunter Constantine: It is. And honestly, it was cool to send my mom and be like, “Mom, look at this.” I’m like…

0:30:17.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s not BS. I made it.

0:30:18.5 Hunter Constantine: On paper. ‘Cause she didn’t really understand at first. Yeah, and then I’m like, “On paper, this is cool.” And she’s like, “Oh, congrats. I’m proud of you.” You know, whatever. But again, all it is setting the goals, having laser focus on what you wanna accomplish. And I think that…

0:30:35.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: And then sacrifice still. I mean, you are sacrificing time, money…

0:30:37.5 Hunter Constantine: And sacrifice.

0:30:38.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. And energy, ’cause I didn’t realize that you did the same thing I did. It was like two years of this is what I’m gonna do. So I was borrowing and I was going to matches and I was spending, like you said, every single penny on whatever it took to get to the matches. And that’s why I would volunteer, ’cause I could pay for ammo, but like the match fees were $300.

0:30:55.7 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

0:30:56.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No social life, no dating life. No. None of that.

0:31:00.2 Hunter Constantine: Nothing.

0:31:00.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: But two years after that, now it’s like completely dream world. Right?

0:31:06.1 Hunter Constantine: Mm-hmm. Sometimes I wish I had that discipline and laser focus, but I have so many responsibilities now. I’m like, “Oh, working for myself, I’m gonna have all this free time.” And I’m sure as you know, it’s the exact opposite where I’m like, I could pull up all the tabs I had open on my computer and probably work until midnight tonight and still have more stuff to do. You know what I’m saying?

0:31:25.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Are you a… I have to ask this. Are you a morning productive person? Are you an evening productive entrepreneur?

0:31:31.0 Hunter Constantine: I’m just productive when I’m productive. There’s no time limit like…

0:31:35.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m not a morning person at all, so like I cannot function in the morning. Yeah.

0:31:38.6 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. I don’t know. There’s times where there’s definitely… There’s no rhyme or reason when it’s gonna happen.

0:31:46.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: For sure. Okay.

0:31:47.2 Hunter Constantine: ‘Cause there’s some mornings where I’m just like boom. And I’m like, “Wow.” I’m like, “You just knocked that out.” All you had to do today in three hours, and you’re like, “Dang, what am I gonna do the rest of the day?” There’s other times where I don’t even wanna touch my computer until like 8 o’clock at night.

0:32:04.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. And they’re like “But I have a deadline and I really need to do that, so I’m gonna have to now.” Yeah.

0:32:06.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. And so it’s… There’s definitely some juggling when it comes to managing that stuff, but we get it done.

0:32:15.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: For sure, 100%. Yeah, don’t miss deadline.

0:32:18.0 Hunter Constantine: ‘Cause you work with a handful of companies now too, doing official work, right?

0:32:22.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. So I’m writing pretty much full-time for USPSA. And then I got the deal with Apple and Outdoors, write with their publications which isn’t really cool. I changed, I won’t say changed, but I do marketing, but changing over into writing was something that I didn’t plan for, it just kind of happened.

0:32:37.3 Hunter Constantine: Did you write beforehand?

0:32:39.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Not really, the only writing I had done was in grad school. I was doing, I’m published in the e-book learning space, is really nerdy and I presented a paper at a conference and that was about it.

0:32:48.9 Hunter Constantine: Cool, nice.

0:32:51.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: But I’ve always loved to read, I read every day, like a nerd. So writing was just another…

0:32:55.8 Hunter Constantine: I used to read, I don’t anymore. I’ve been meaning to, I can’t get through books though.

0:33:00.4 Hunter Constantine: Terminal List, I mean, you could read that any day of the week. Come on.

0:33:02.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No, no, but I’ll start a book, I’ve got…

0:33:02.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I saw your post, I saw your post if you pull that book out you don’t actually read it, I’ll just call you out.

0:33:10.4 Hunter Constantine: No, no, no. My toxic trait is that I’ll read halfway through a book and be like, “Man, I just don’t wanna finish it.”

0:33:15.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No.

0:33:17.4 Hunter Constantine: I also don’t read… I read, I don’t know, it’s always like, things to help like mental… I can’t even think about it right now, I can’t think of the right word…

0:33:33.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You can’t even think of the word, then you probably you need to read more, no.

0:33:36.3 Hunter Constantine: I mean honestly though your brain’s just like any other muscle, right.

0:33:41.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:33:41.1 Hunter Constantine: And there’s been times where I have missed vocabulary and I was like, “Fuck, I gotta go reading again,” because during that super discipline time as well, I also blocked out a chunk of time for reading every single day.

0:33:51.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:33:52.1 Hunter Constantine: And I’d bust out books, even if it was super boring and I’d fall asleep, too bad.

0:33:56.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:33:57.3 Hunter Constantine: That’s why I fell asleep reading it.

0:34:00.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Do you study entrepreneurs though? And like the successful entrepreneurs, that do that? Like whenever they read.

0:34:04.0 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. And really like biographies, history.

0:34:10.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep, we are really [0:34:13.1] ____.

0:34:13.2 Hunter Constantine: But I don’t know. I think, I have three books sitting on my couch out there where I’m halfway through each one of them, and I haven’t finished.

0:34:19.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s disgusting, that gives me anxiety.

0:34:21.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

0:34:22.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I can’t not finish a book.

0:34:24.0 Hunter Constantine: And the worst part is I just don’t care.

0:34:25.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: See that, that would keep me up at night.

0:34:27.6 Hunter Constantine: I’m just like, I’m like, “I’m not interested doing this.” I’m like, “I have emails I need to write right now. And I’ve got newsletter copies I need to write and whatever.”

0:34:34.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:34:36.2 Hunter Constantine: I was like, “I don’t have time for reading this fucking book, okay?”

0:34:39.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

0:34:39.7 Hunter Constantine: I’ve so much time in the day.

0:34:40.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So I actually still don’t know, [laughter] what does Hunter do, for payment or job supports your life? Like what do you do?

0:34:49.3 Hunter Constantine: Well, see, there’s this website that got really popular over the last couple of years.

0:34:55.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh man.

0:34:58.1 Hunter Constantine: No, Fiverr, I’m just kidding.

0:34:58.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:34:58.2 Hunter Constantine: No, no. A lot of it is marketing work. And with some of your favorite brands in the industry. So when you see funny emails, I might be behind it. But I signed NDAs so I can’t talk about which companies they are. Firearms instructions. I usually teach like once a month, sometimes twice a month. Do a lot of private instruction, this past year, which has been cool, really like working individually with people.

0:35:27.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:35:28.6 Hunter Constantine: Just because like tracking out progress and watching them become a better shooter. And when they reach the point where they can self diagnose what they’re doing wrong is super cool.

0:35:39.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:35:41.7 Hunter Constantine: And just a whole bunch of other random stuff as well, that comes with some of the clients I work with. Where they’re like, “Hey, do you know this?” Or can you do this? Or whatever. And you always gotta keep an open mind to other opportunities, ’cause you never know where it’s gonna lead or anything like that.

0:35:57.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, for sure. Cool. Okay. So let’s talk about the life of influencing and ambassadorship online though too. So you get products or whatever. You review products or you’re posting content, you’re creating content. What does that look behind the scenes? I think a lot of people don’t realize the editing that’s involved, who films it.

0:36:17.1 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

0:36:17.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. All that stuff.

0:36:19.6 Hunter Constantine: It’s… Whatever you see posted, there’s probably five to 100 times more effort behind the scenes to make that happen. We’ve done… Me and my business partner Chase in the overland space, we started doing media production for different off-road companies and things like that. And so we went out and shot our trucks yesterday. And we probably spent an hour and a half taking pictures. And then we came back home and I was like, “Alright dude, we’re gonna knock it out.” We had a couple things we needed to finish up and then I’m like, “I’ll be out there by 11:00 PM.” And sure shit it’s like midnight by the time I leave. We didn’t get nearly everything we wanted to get done because it took four hours to edit the pictures and figure out how we wanted to make them look. Right?

0:37:14.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:37:14.7 Hunter Constantine: And that was just for the pictures. We didn’t even apply the pictures to anything yet. That was just post production, to get them looking how we want them to look.

0:37:21.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:37:22.7 Hunter Constantine: And it’s the same for Instagram reels where I’ve had companies reach out and they’d send me a reel and they’re like, “Hey, we want you to make a reel like this, for our brand.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know.” I’m like… ‘Cause a lot of it, some stuff I storyboard and things like that, but a lot of it’s just from the hip, it’s just organic.

0:37:43.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:37:43.8 Hunter Constantine: Where I’m just like, “Things just kind of fall into place.” I have the storyboard in my head from the clips that we took of like, “Oh, these will kind of fit. Figure out what’s a trending audio. What’s the vibe it’s gonna fit for that video, and what clips are gonna go where for it.” And for my personal shooting IG, a lot of it is just on my phone. And I do most editing, post-production on my phone, ’cause it’s easy and I can knock it out and forget about it. But starting to get where you’re using nicer cameras and Premiere Pro.

0:38:15.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

0:38:16.3 Hunter Constantine: And there’s a lot more effort that goes into it. For me that… I mean, obviously for anybody it’s a lot more effort, but that’s still somewhat a learning process for me, is understanding all intricacies of Premiere Pro. It’s like Photoshop for video. So there’s a million things that I still don’t know about it, that I’m still learning I’m like, “This looks good,” and then they’re like “Oh, well you could do like this, that. And the other thing,” I was like, “oh,” and then I’m sitting there learning about it to do it. Or Chase, he’s like a GM when it comes to videography and post production. So he’s just clicking away, already knows this stuff.

0:38:50.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s nice. It’s nice to have that.

0:38:53.0 Hunter Constantine: And I think where content’s going, is more towards the very high quality edited, produced content. Which could be detrimental for the average user on social media because now you’re looking at getting professional camera gear, professional editing afterwards. And the crazy part is it’s just the average person’s skill is just increasing.

0:39:18.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:39:18.6 Hunter Constantine: Where I see it, is like you’re going to have to have just better production quality, period.

0:39:26.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Mm-hmm. Now the other thing too, I struggle with, is getting my own content. Like how many people are taking photos of you or taking videos of you? Are you using a tripod? It’s a lot of leg work to do by yourself.

0:39:37.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. Matches are filmed by other people, obviously, and I can just ask somebody to hold the phone. Tripods or even like… People get anxiety when they come to the range with me because I’ll literally just duct tape my phone to the target and shoot towards my phone. And they’re like, “Aren’t you afraid you’re gonna hit it?” I’m like, “No, I just shoot better.” You know? Or like even just like on a barrel.

0:40:01.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. You duct tape your phone. [laughter]

0:40:04.6 Hunter Constantine: Whatever. You just make it work, you know?

0:40:07.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:40:07.3 Hunter Constantine: Like whatever, whatever you gotta do. I did get some like new cameras. I got the Osmo 2 little Gimbal, I’ve got like a POV, the OPKIX camera, I got a GoPro, some other things. And so I’ve started to like splice some other types of videography in. But a lot of the times it’s just me. Or it just kind of depends on what type of content is. Cause if we’re… If I’m with the Dylan Boys and we’re mag dumping machine guns, there’s somebody there to film it.

0:40:38.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: There’s a ton. Yeah.

0:40:39.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. If I’m at the range practicing, it’s probably gonna be solo. Match, someone else is filming it. So, it just kind of depends on what’s going on, but it was a struggle, a lot of tripod work though. You can get one off Amazon for 30, 40 bucks and that will be fine.

0:40:57.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:40:57.8 Hunter Constantine: It’s not gonna be great, but it’ll work.

[laughter]

0:41:00.2 Hunter Constantine: And you don’t really need, you don’t need some crazy tripod for that. So, that’s probably the easiest thing, but I started video recording myself shooting, just so I could have record of it and I could review it. And then I started kind of having the content mind of like, “This would be cool.” Or I don’t know, people just wanna build reels for like fast shots on steel or like a racking or something like that.

0:41:26.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Stuff that competitive shooters are like, “Really, we know what that looks like. It’s five yards.”

0:41:30.6 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. Or like “I posted that video at the [0:41:31.6] ____ range, it’s like D zone steel.”

[laughter]

0:41:34.1 Hunter Constantine: And I’m like, “I did, I did split a gun with a 12 split for the first time in that video, which is pretty cool.”

0:41:40.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh, that’s awesome. Awesome.

0:41:42.6 Hunter Constantine: On the Smith & Wesson’s, the fastest I’ve gotten is 14s.

0:41:46.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

0:41:46.7 Hunter Constantine: Some friends have gotten 13s. But anyways, I like super fast shooting, super fast transitions, but it’s like D zone steel. So to me and all my competitive shooting friends are like, “Yeah, so?” But then a lot of people online were like, “Damn, that is fast.” And I mean, frankly, it is fast and the transitions were there and there were some knockdowns and stuff. And it does require a high level of skill to do it, but would I shoot like that in a match? Probably not.

[laughter]

0:42:13.3 Hunter Constantine: Maybe.

0:42:15.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I guess.

0:42:15.6 Hunter Constantine: I don’t know. I haven’t shot opened yet. Right…

[laughter]

0:42:17.0 Hunter Constantine: Open is supposed to go fast. So maybe.

0:42:21.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Awesome. Cool, cool. I was wondering about all of that stuff too, like the…

0:42:26.3 Hunter Constantine: What do you do for your filming?

0:42:28.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So, I have a couple GoPros, I have a tripod, it’s kind of funny. I’ll say thank you Rob, thank you Steve, thank you Crystal. Shoutout to you guys. [laughter] Every time I go there, every time I go to the range, I feel bad. I’m like, “Hey guys, I have a laundry list of bullshit.” And some of it’s really hard, ’cause it’s like, “Can you get the clay exploding behind me with the shotgun?” I’m like, “I can’t time that right.”

0:42:49.2 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

0:42:49.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: But there is stuff, even with the range, I feel bad. I go to the range, I’m like, “I have 12 things to do, just so you know.” If you wanna go with me, there’s like a list before I’m allowed to shoot, which is kinda funny and not funny. So it just depends.

0:43:00.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. But you gotta hit those marks, if you’re producing that type of content.

0:43:06.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. It’ll be great, when I have a significant other that is going to be a full time photographer. [laughter]

0:43:11.6 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

0:43:12.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Videographer. They don’t know it yet.

0:43:15.6 Hunter Constantine: Honestly, I’m like that could just be a drone, you know?

0:43:19.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I can’t wait for those days. Yeah. [laughter]

0:43:21.1 Hunter Constantine: And just have that hovering, but it does help having some friends and stuff. Most of the time though I will go shoot in the morning here, because it’s so hot.

0:43:30.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:43:30.6 Hunter Constantine: And all my friends I shoot with have…

0:43:33.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Jobs.

0:43:33.2 Hunter Constantine: Normal 9:00 to 5:00 jobs.

0:43:36.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: [0:43:36.2] ____. [laughter]

0:43:36.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. How am I supposed to practice? I got one buddy who just retired from the Air Force. So we’ve been going out shooting and stuff like that. But…

0:43:45.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s awesome.

0:43:45.8 Hunter Constantine: Most of it’s few and far between for that.

0:43:50.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Okay. Let’s dive into the world of overlanding and overcompensation with your vehicle.

0:43:55.9 Hunter Constantine: Okay. [laughter]

0:43:57.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay so first of all, back me up to like, you got your stock truck, did you start working with the company that you’re working with now, and some of those guys to start building it? Okay. So you built it first?

0:44:10.1 Hunter Constantine: No, it just… Honestly I kept the truck, I put a bumper on it and a leveling kit.

0:44:15.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You did physically?

0:44:17.3 Hunter Constantine: For two years almost. I didn’t do it at that time.

0:44:22.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well that’s great.

0:44:24.9 Hunter Constantine: And then I was gonna make it like a PreRunner, like a fast truck.

0:44:28.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:44:29.4 Hunter Constantine: But my friend Chase started showing me overlanding stuff and I started exploring it through field craft. And then I was like, it’s pretty cool. It like takes you to a lot of cool places, and you get to experience some of the most remote parts of the country. And it’s breathtaking.

0:44:45.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:44:46.5 Hunter Constantine: And then last year I started camping at matches, dry camping. And I… Number one, pet peeve at major matches is I just don’t get sleep, ’cause I stay up late. So I never shoot a major match, fully rested.

[laughter]

0:45:01.6 Hunter Constantine: And so I’m up till midnight or 1:00. And I’m like, “Oh, cool.” I’m like “I can camp at the match to cut out an hour of my morning of getting up, getting dressed, driving to the range, getting all my shit together.” I’m like, “Hey, guess what? You just get to wake up, and it’s here.” Reminds me of a… Was it Scary Movie, where the guys got the trailer right on campus, and just wakes up, goes to class? Same deal for the major matches. And then just started progressing where Chase and I, we created Two Track Nation, which is like our overlanding brand. And we started doing more planned trips, aligning ourselves with some industry leaders in the overland space. And we kinda had this idea of, “Let’s build matching trucks, and make them super capable for anything we wanna do.”

0:45:53.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Are you sure you don’t have a boyfriend? [chuckle]

0:45:56.1 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, I’m sure. You can ask his girlfriend, but she’s probably pretty mad ’cause I probably get more attention than her.

0:46:01.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: More time from him, yeah. [laughter]

0:46:04.2 Hunter Constantine: Taylor, I’m sorry if you’re listening to this, and Chase, I’m sure you’re laughing. Anyways. But I wanted to… He loves rock crawling in his truck and beats the shit out of it and smashes it everywhere. I don’t really wanna do that in my truck. We both have luxury vehicles, and I wanted to build a truck to be my main hub for major matches. So I put this massive camper on the back of it.

0:46:29.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Do you have one vehicle? I gotta ask you that. Like only…

0:46:31.6 Hunter Constantine: Just one.

0:46:32.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Me too. So that…

0:46:32.7 Hunter Constantine: Oh no, I actually I have a motorcycle, as well.

0:46:35.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay, well, I didn’t buy a motorcycle. I bought a 2011, so I apologize to those riders out there. Yeah, but I got my license. But I was gonna ask you that, because I would love to beat up my truck truly and people will go do this shit, I was like, “I’ll have to drive that the next day. I have to go places.”

0:46:50.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, this is my daily. So this is what leads into… We did all the suspension work on it. When we started… The only thing I haven’t installed so far is the camper itself, just because I used a company called Tiny Rig out of California that does an airtight, dust-tight seal on the back of it. So no dust gets in the back of it. And other than that we did all the work, so if something’s not sounding right, you better know how to fix it. [laughter] So I carry impact gun in my truck. I carry spare parts, wrenches, things like that, anything you need to fix your truck. Chase carries axles and tire rods and everything. And I probably should eventually carry that stuff, but I’m not worried about it just yet.

0:47:32.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. So okay, if someone’s actually trying to outfit their vehicle, what’s the… I would say the necessities that they should start with and then what’s some of the Guccier stuff?

0:47:42.0 Hunter Constantine: I would say… Let’s say they got an SUV, just to make… Let’s say they’ve got a 4Runner, okay?

0:47:48.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay, I’ll take a 4Runner. Yeah.

0:47:50.9 Hunter Constantine: Pretty common, alright? You can fold the seats down and put a mattress back there or something, or like a foam pad or an air mattress, whatever your flavor is, depending on space. If you’re going on trails, armor is super important. So like rock sliders, skin plates. That way, if you find yourself in some treacherous stuff, you can just get dragged out, so I’d probably say armor, suspension, wench.

0:48:19.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay, good.

0:48:21.3 Hunter Constantine: If you’re doing serious wheeling… If you’re not doing that serious, like no wench… I don’t have a wench on my truck, but that’s ’cause I bumped my bumper before I was doing this, so eventually I’ll need to get a new bumper with a wench. It’s just money. I’m just like, “I don’t wanna spend that type of money on it right now.”

0:48:37.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s just money. [laughter]

0:48:37.6 Hunter Constantine: Just money, some of that stuff. And then just figure out what your creature comforts are, like what’s important to you, right? So, where are you camping, is a good thing. We camped in Northern Arizona in January, and it was in the negatives, single-digit negatives, and it got super cold, so Chase built a diesel heater that we made like a wide split for so we could pump heat in the back of my truck.

0:49:07.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

0:49:08.6 Hunter Constantine: And I was just camping with a topper shell on the back of it, like a standard grandpa truck. But now I have a big pop-up tent on the top of my truck that is a pasture and stuff, super comfortable.

0:49:23.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice, that’s what I want to get.

0:49:24.8 Hunter Constantine: But it just comes with time, too. I think it’s important to get experience before you just go out and buy stuff. Same applies for shooting as well, where it’s like, “Go to the match and just shoot with what you have.” Shoot with your ZEV 34, with a comp, okay? In open, for IDPA.

[laughter]

0:49:44.9 Hunter Constantine: And then, figure out what you need. ‘Cause I went through a lot of stuff where I bought parts and guns or truck parts where I’m like, “I need this…

0:49:55.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: And you don’t.

0:49:55.9 Hunter Constantine: This is what’s gonna make me a better shooter.” And it’s just not the case. Then I’d beat plenty of 2011’s with a Smith & Wesson. You know what I mean?

0:50:07.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No. [laughter]

0:50:09.6 Hunter Constantine: It doesn’t matter, this gun… Before COVID and stuff, this was 350 bucks on sale on websites. And it feels great having a cheaper… It’s got SRO on it now and stuff, and a 8-pack trigger barrel.

0:50:22.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: The SRO is more than the pistol… Yeah, tell me what you’ve done to it.

0:50:28.0 Hunter Constantine: Not much. So we have an optic cut for the SRO. We have the Apex match grade barrel, Apex flat face enhanced kit, a tungsten guide rod, and a magazine release.

0:50:42.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Simple.

0:50:42.9 Hunter Constantine: That’s it. Oh, and then silicon carbide grip.

0:50:45.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Did you change any of the springs, weights, or anything?

0:50:49.6 Hunter Constantine: Everything except for the recoil guide rod. This is a 15 lbs… It’s weird, but I like 15 lbs springs with 10,000 rounds through them. So it’s probably like a 13. [laughter] But I just like the softer recoil and plus I shoot 147s. But I think I would argue that this is probably the best striker fire trigger you can ask for on a… Or best striker fire trigger, period, where it’s like just very minimal, it’s like millimeters of… And this is just under three pounds for the trigger pull, all factory springs.

0:51:24.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Awesome. Okay, yeah. I’ve seen Hunter’s name at the top with this gun.

0:51:28.8 Hunter Constantine: What’s that? Oh yeah.

0:51:29.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I said I’ve seen Hunter’s name at the top of this gun. There’s a lot, though, like that, mils with Canik US, Smith & Wesson. I meet a lot of people with SIGs, like plastic guns, it doesn’t matter the gun.

0:51:38.2 Hunter Constantine: The biggest thing is just consistency of using the same gun.

0:51:42.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, in all things, I think.

0:51:43.9 Hunter Constantine: That being said, I’m gonna be switching to something else for a little while.

0:51:48.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Can you say what that is?

0:51:50.8 Hunter Constantine: They’re gonna be Glock 34 Combat Masters, [0:51:55.1] ____ comp…

0:51:55.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice. [chuckle]

0:52:02.6 Hunter Constantine: And simply because Nikki Jensen is someone that I’ve helped train, and I was shooting her combat master and I was like, damn, this thing is fucking dialed. I like this thing, it’s shooting good, and I just want some change. I’ve been shooting these for… This is my fourth season shooting them.

0:52:17.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Yeah. I would get bored. That’s why I shoot so many different things ’cause it’s fun. [chuckle] Toys, shiny toys, but…

0:52:23.9 Hunter Constantine: And eventually, you open guys better watch out ’cause I’ll be joining the open crew, but got some time on that.

0:52:29.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh, nice, nice. Actually, okay, so Arizona, Utah, everything out there, like there’s just such a hotbed for shooting. Have you shot the PCSL league matches yet?

0:52:40.5 Hunter Constantine: It’s the best match.

0:52:42.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. I want you to talk about that, for people that don’t know.

0:52:44.5 Hunter Constantine: It is… So PCSL’s Practical Competition Shooting League, it was started by Max Leograndis, national PCC champion, and it is the most fun I’ve had in a shooting sports, period. Okay.

0:53:01.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, figure that.

0:53:04.2 Hunter Constantine: It’s multi-gun… It’s two-gun hit factor scoring. Okay?

0:53:08.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: On K-zone targets, K-zone.

0:53:10.4 Hunter Constantine: K-zone targets. Yeah. So it’s like a Classic IPSC combined, so it’s… Anyways, it’s 1kilo or 2 alphas equals max points, then there’s Charlie and Delta. But the biggest thing that I don’t like about three gun is that it’s two anywhere. I just feel like you’re not really honing in your skills, but so it’s hit factor, so your hits matter and you gotta paper up to like 50 yards, you gotta know what your holdover is, but they welcome all shooters. They welcome new shooters. They welcome tactical shooters. They welcome law enforcement. And they made it super simple for people. There’s just two divisions: It’s practical and competition. Competition is like open, anything goes, practical, you can have single action only, slide, mounted, optic pistols, like 2011s or I think even confluence too. So like my Nighthawk, Sand Hawk or like the Erebus and stuff, that also is considered practical. ‘Cause some people carry them. It’s just like not frame mounted and you’re limited to, I think, 140mm mags, like keratotic mags. But then on the rifle, it’s flash hiders, I think a short firework comp is the most aggressive you can have on it. Full mass BCGs, 30 round mags.

0:54:42.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

0:54:43.4 Hunter Constantine: You have two optic on it, you could have… Like, I shot my tactical guns with like IR lasers on it. Offset red dot, the whole deal, and it’s fine and they welcome it. And then they also… They have a night match too on a Carbine Championship. So, you can shoot white light or nods. I shot night vision, which is pretty cool. Never shot a rifle, hit factor match under night vision, which was awesome. But then, one of the most unique things is the range that it’s at right now is the cobalt kinetics range. So half the stages are flat base, half the stages are terrain courses. So you’re like running through tried out river beds, you’re shooting into cliff faces and stuff like that. And it makes for a very unique experience shooting that’s exciting because it’s not just your standard match where you’re on a flat range. There’s only so much you can do. They also brought a lot of vehicles out. There’s multiple stages with vehicles.

0:55:39.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

0:55:40.3 Hunter Constantine: I took some stuff from like three gun where you’re like crawling through drainage tunnels and things like that, there’s clays, you get to shoot with your rifle and it’s just very unique in how the stages are designed and the dynamic that comes with a hit factor two-gun match. The safety rules are a lot more lax than USPSA and IDPA.

0:56:02.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Big boy rule.

0:56:06.2 Hunter Constantine: You’ll get DQ’ed for egregious safety violations, which I totally agree with, which is breaking the 180 accidental discharge, pointing your gun at somebody, that type of stuff. But I remember I got yelled at at… I don’t know if it was an area match or what, but I was on deck with my PCC and I looked through my optic, looking up, pointed directly at the sky with a shoulder just to see what my brightness level was on. And he was going to DQ me, but it was my first major match shooting a PCC. And I had just bought the PCC like three weeks prior. So, I’m fresh. And I explained to him, he’s like, “Well, that’s just… You can’t do that.” And I was like, “My bad.” I’m like, “My barrel flag’s in, I’m pointing to the sky, my finger’s off the trigger, the gun’s unloaded. I just wanna look at my optic, my bad.”

0:57:03.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I think that’s one of the dumbest rules in there where it says, if you touch your optic and adjust it at all, that’s DQ, outside of the supervision of an RO, and I’m like, “Well, WTF, WTF.”

0:57:12.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. I mean, honestly, even if you’re at like… Yeah, just something I don’t agree with. And then, so like PCSL, you can just grab side [0:57:22.3] ____, and if you’re safe, you can do it. And then if you break the 180, then it’s a DQ because you’re just pointing a gun at people. But like, another cool element is they encourage coaching for new shooters.

0:57:36.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s fun.

0:57:37.6 Hunter Constantine: So, I remember on one of the squads that I shot with, I think I’ve shot three PCSL matches now, or four, new shooters blew by a whole position of targets. And we’re like, “Get back, you forgot those targets.” Like, the whole squad’s yelling at him. I did the exact same thing.

[laughter]

0:57:57.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nobody can yell at Hunter.

0:58:00.9 Hunter Constantine: And so just like, if they’re an experienced shooter, you don’t encourage coaching. And I just got the, “If you’re done,” and I was like, “Why’d they say it like that?” I was like, “Fuck.” And then I ran back and shot those targets. But if you’re competing for first place or a podium finish, like…

0:58:16.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:58:16.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, that five-second delay is gonna hurt your time.

0:58:19.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You’re done. Yeah. [laughter]

0:58:21.2 Hunter Constantine: So it’s a lot of fun. You call hits for steal.

0:58:25.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, and it’s harder complexity with rock walls or whatever, like if you’re missing and you’re stirring up dust and stuff. So I wanted to go to the match that they canceled in May and I was planning to RO that for sure. But hopefully, they’re gonna do that at the hardest hell, ’cause I like what he is doing. And I like true two gun. Like, it’s cool to shoot PVC pistol, but I have rifles that are not used in a real world.

0:58:45.7 Hunter Constantine: That’s another thing is that you can swap guns at any point without grabbing ROs.

0:58:49.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

0:58:51.9 Hunter Constantine: But a lot of the rifle guys would swap PCC for the short stages, the flat ranges and then 223 rifle for the long ones.

0:59:01.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Hey, that’s cool. That’s ammo [0:59:02.8] ____…

0:59:03.5 Hunter Constantine: And then they also allow braces, they also allow suppressors.

0:59:06.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

0:59:07.0 Hunter Constantine: So you can shoot your shorties and things like that. And I really appreciate that. It’s just like, it’s a shooter’s match. It’s literally four shooters. Not just competitive shooters, but just shooters in general, and…

0:59:19.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, I hope he has more affiliates or clubs across the country. ‘Cause it is hard…

0:59:23.9 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. I think there was one run in California in April. And I was talking with somebody here in Arizona about potentially running a match here. Again, it’s just the whole timing thing of planning a major match.

0:59:35.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. And we’re never home.

0:59:37.2 Hunter Constantine: Never. I was… Yeah. Speaking of that, I just got home on Friday and then I immediately left, went to Phoenix Saturday and Sunday. The whole week before that, I was in California and got home on Friday. The two weeks before that, I was in Alaska and I’m home for like one to seven days maybe and then I’m on the road again. Then I leave on Tuesday for Wyoming.

1:00:04.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. So I was supposed to be gone this weekend, I was like… I called it, ’cause it was a fun trip, and I was like, “I need to be home.” ‘Cause I left Tuesday and then I’ll be on 12 planes in 30 days and then I’m driving four different states in between that. Yeah, super fun.

1:00:17.4 Hunter Constantine: Where are you looking out of again?

1:00:21.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m in Knoxville, Tennessee. East Tennessee.

1:00:22.7 Hunter Constantine: Nice. East or central?

1:00:25.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So, that’s what I did. You know how you said you could quit your job for three months? For me, it was single, no kids, no dog, no whatever. Where it was like, “Why am I not moving to where I wanna be?” And I was in the panhandle of Florida where it’s a dead zone for three gun. Alabama’s nothing really. And I hate Florida ’cause it’s hot as balls. But I wanna move to Tennessee, and like you said, “Dude, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, you name it, Central. Central to shooting, at least on this side.”

1:00:52.7 Hunter Constantine: No.

1:00:53.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Can’t be everywhere in the country. [chuckle]

1:00:55.6 Hunter Constantine: No.

1:00:55.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I would love to be.

1:00:57.5 Hunter Constantine: Right. Yeah. And I think going to major matches and different shooting events definitely helps expand your perspective of where you kinda wanna be. I realize that Arizona competition is at the top of my list. And so, I think Phoenix is… Tucson too. Phoenix isn’t too far, but I have more family down here.

1:01:23.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:01:25.5 Hunter Constantine: It is probably one of the biggest hubs for competition shooting.

 

1:01:28.8 Hunter Constantine: And you can go shoot a local match and there’s seven national champions.

1:01:32.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

1:01:33.8 Hunter Constantine: Shoot in the local match and a lot of other heavy hitters, or you might have a local USPSA with 20 or 30 GMs.

1:01:40.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s awesome. Yeah.

1:01:42.6 Hunter Constantine: You know what I mean? Like, is this [1:01:43.1] ____ or is this a major? But it gets to let you stack up, figure out where you stack up against them.

1:01:50.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

1:01:50.7 Hunter Constantine: And that was a huge help coming up in the sport too. Just watching them shoot and being around them and saying like, “Oh,” I’m like, “I could do that.” I’m like, “They just did what I did just a lot more consistently and smoother.” [laughter] Which is typically the name of the game. I feel like everything up to… Or everything mastering above is all just mental, and if you can execute. But so watching these guys shoot is really nice to emulate and realize like, “Oh,” and like, “It’s not too far off.” I’m like, “Why am I being this aggressive on the stage when these guy… ” If you watch some of the top shooters shoot, they don’t even look like they’re pushing that hard at all.

1:02:32.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Because their match speed is different. I learned that from Mason Lane this weekend. It’s like, you could do 100% every single time, but their match speed might be 90, it might be 80, it might… And they know that. They know that…

1:02:43.7 Hunter Constantine: I always love watching Neils ’cause he’s just like taking big old gallopy steps.

1:02:47.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: And he doesn’t care. I shot with him at Area 6, not this year, but last year. And he’s just like, “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m gonna do yet,” like two minutes before the stage starts. I’m like, “What do you mean you’re not gonna do? You know.” He’s like, “No, I don’t know.”

1:02:55.7 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. But he’s been shooting for 20 years.

1:02:57.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I know. He just doesn’t… It’s cool. He cares. He’s focused, but he’s just like really mentally chill. Yeah.

1:03:04.0 Hunter Constantine: Well, that’s where I have to remind myself sometimes, is like, I’m only… This is going into year four of shooting. I’m still pretty new to it where I’m like, “Yeah.” Well, and I really like doing other things too, like I love overlanding. I was talking to somebody and I finished second to them and they’re a professional shooter and I was like beating up on myself and I was like, “Why… ” I’m like, “I should be at the range like you’re at the range, practicing day in, day out. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t.” I’m like, “I had this discipline before when I first got started, like we talked about.” I’m like, “I should have it now.” And I’m like, “I could win a national title or whatever. I’ve no reason why I shouldn’t have that discipline.” But he’s like, “Dude.” He’s like, “You were just in Alaska, in a glacier.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s true.” He’s like, “You just went fishing. You just… You did all these other things.” He’s like, “I would trade shooting on the range to go do those things in a heartbeat.” And then it’s just like, it’s always good to have perspective from other people of what’s going on. So that’s where…

1:04:10.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Not a lot of people do what we do.

1:04:11.6 Hunter Constantine: That’s like the balance of life. And so, I like traveling. I like going to stuff like the Gundies. That was super fun.

1:04:19.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I wanna talk about that. I wanted to get in the shot show in the Gundies. We can go into the Gundies. Where did the track suit mafia become born? Was that you?

1:04:29.9 Hunter Constantine: That was one of my initial ideas from Red October, like five months prior, four months prior. I was like, “Dude, I’m shooting this AK match. I wanna dress in Adidas jumpsuit, I wanted to be Dillon Precision, let’s make something happen. And we found like the perfect blue Adidas jumpsuit, it was almost on-brand color with Dillon, and then got it made and it was fantastic. And the amount of media response I got at Red October was insane, where, did a couple interviews for some YouTube channels, in a lot of people’s pictures and stuff like that. And the marketing director, Nico, over at Dillon, was like, “Woah.” [chuckle] And like, this is a lot of attention, especially in the group pictures, where it is a sea of brown, khaki, green, camo, and then highlighter blue.

1:05:26.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s why I wear pickles. I get it.

1:05:29.5 Hunter Constantine: Same deal, right? It’s just bright.

1:05:31.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:05:32.0 Hunter Constantine: It’s bright. And so, when we were brainstorming for what we were gonna do at the Gundies, we were like, tracksuits and machine guns, that’s it.

1:05:38.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, and I don’t think it was called the Gundies anymore, I just think it was Dillon Precision. [chuckle]

1:05:43.1 Hunter Constantine: Dillon Precision…

1:05:45.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Suit mafia.

1:05:45.7 Hunter Constantine: At the Gundies, featuring everybody else.

1:05:48.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So guys, picture this, like listening to this, it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, so like we had a guy in night vision, full tracksuit mafia with his… What was it? Like a cutout white?

1:06:00.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. Well, so the tracksuit mafia is an Adidas three-stripe jumpsuit that’s baby blue, the same color as Dillon Precision’s brand color. And we had eight people in these tracksuits, and then I bought white ski masks for everybody to wear throughout the day, eyes cut out…

1:06:18.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: And they did, they wore them all day.

1:06:20.3 Hunter Constantine: And then… And so we… That was our costume for the entire weekend, we didn’t change, we were like, “Oh are we gonna wear… ” Nope, blue tracksuits the whole time.

1:06:28.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: To think about.

1:06:29.4 Hunter Constantine: We had clothes underneath them, it wasn’t like just that, and…

1:06:33.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Disclaimer.

1:06:34.3 Hunter Constantine: But it was apparent that we were… We made a mark on the weekend, because everybody could see the blue from a mile away, and there’s seven of us, and we’re all walking around with slung machine guns for most of the days too.

1:06:50.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, and then there’s the one guy literally just sitting there, pulling the handle, loading the actual ammo, you’re shooting. [chuckle]

1:06:57.1 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. So we did something unique where we brought an RL1100 reloading press, a 10-stage progressive press, to this influencer event. And we were loading ammo for the guns we were letting influencers shoot.

1:07:11.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That was really cool.

1:07:12.0 Hunter Constantine: Which was super cool, because people for whatever reason, get scared about reloading, they think it’s some big, daunting task, and it’s simply not the case. I was in that boat for a long time basically until I got bullied by my friends to get a press. And it was the best decision I made shooting. So at the Gundies, we got to really enlighten people about reloading, that it’s not that crazy, it’s not that scary, it’s very easy. And once you understand the basic mechanics of the machine, anybody can do it. To the point where I’m… [chuckle] I complained to my mom one time…

1:07:47.3 Hunter Constantine: I’m like, “Ah,” I’m like, “I keep running out of ammo.” She’s like, “Just give me… Just teach me how to reload, and I’ll just let myself in and load ammo for you.” And I’m like, “Super sweet,” but I’m also like, “I don’t know.” I’m like, “I just, I’d rather just load it myself for QC reasons.” Not that my mom’s not capable of it, but I just prefer to load my own ammo. So the Gundies were super fun, we made a riot. I know some companies were a little distraught about the commotion we were bringing to ourselves, but that’s just what happens when you get seven people in tracksuits, having a good time, because we had, I’d argue, probably some of the coolest guns there. We had a full-auto Glock, full-auto Effector, full-auto MP5SD, full-auto MCX.

1:08:34.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Shot a couple of those, that was a lot of fun.

1:08:36.6 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. And then it was myself and Christian Sailer doing 1V1s for people, if they wanted to shoot against us, which…

1:08:44.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: All I will say is I saw a whole different side of Christian which I loved, ’cause I’ve always seen him in serious match mode. And he’s just such a good kid, but that was really fun to see him on a different level, chilling out.

1:08:55.0 Hunter Constantine: Yep.

1:08:55.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:08:56.2 Hunter Constantine: Fun times.

1:08:57.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, and you get to learn from… I don’t know, world national champion, whatever, 10 times over area champion, national champion, [1:09:04.3] ____ and he’s there. And the influencers, I don’t think they knew that, right? Like a lot of them just weren’t in our competitive shooting sport. But to have people like that at those events, I think is really important for education, hopefully more of them take advantage of that, ’cause that was really cool.

1:09:17.7 Hunter Constantine: Huge. I wouldn’t be where I’m at as a shooter if it wasn’t for competitive shooting. And when I’m teaching civilians on the range, if I’m doing field craft classes, if I’m doing privates, whatever, I emphasize how important it is to get into competition shootings, to be competent on your… Whatever gun you’re carrying. This is primarily the same gun that I carry. And it’s my match gun that I use for USPSA, and I’ve even taken this hog hunting, and there’s hogs on this gun as well.

[laughter]

1:09:48.7 Hunter Constantine: And like, I guarantee there’s a very small fraction of people in USPSA that carry their match gun and have used it hunting before. Do you know what I mean? But…

1:10:00.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I shot a snake with mine. Does that count? No. [chuckle]

1:10:02.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, whatever, I got a rattle snake on this one too.

1:10:04.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. [laughter] That’s a normal thing.

1:10:07.8 Hunter Constantine: And this is also controversial, but I carry my match ammo as well, just carry Blue Bullet 147s.

1:10:13.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, it is controversial, I’ll just not say anything. [laughter] Okay, so go back to reloading for a second.

1:10:20.9 Hunter Constantine: Shoutout, someone give me some free defensive ammo.

[chuckle]

1:10:24.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I think I know a company, like Super Vel, that’s not far from you at all. Maybe you’ve heard of her. [chuckle]

1:10:30.4 Hunter Constantine: It’s only six hours, I know Mike.

1:10:34.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay. Reloading presses. No, yeah, I’m still terrified, so I’m probably in that boat still, but just because…

1:10:39.9 Hunter Constantine: When did you get your press behind you and what press is that?

1:10:43.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s a 750 and I got it in February. I’ve loaded exactly like 20 rounds on it, ’cause I’m terrified.

1:10:48.8 Hunter Constantine: 20?

1:10:49.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Here is why, here is why. Terrified, but I am just now getting an open gun built, so I’m gonna have to reload, whereas before, I was like, “I could just buy 40 and I can buy nine.” I’m still nervous, I should be loading for PCC and having a… Like 20-power factor less than what I am shooting, something like 150 something, but I’m nervous, I’ve never done it, I don’t know how, I ask questions, I’m still feeling stupid. They are simple, I put it together myself, okay? Did good.

1:11:18.5 Hunter Constantine: So, I…

1:11:20.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m just nervous. [chuckle]

1:11:20.9 Hunter Constantine: I remember the first rounds I shot after I reloaded, I was so nervous. ‘Cause I’m like, “This gun’s gonna blow up and I’m gonna die.”

[laughter]

1:11:31.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s where I’m at.

1:11:33.3 Hunter Constantine: And this is crazy and you might not even believe me, but I didn’t die.

1:11:39.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I know.

1:11:39.9 Hunter Constantine: I know it was fine. Everything was okay. But worse that’s gonna happen is your rounds aren’t gonna group, which is also how I found out how my barrel was shot out of that first 7P, because I was going absolutely crazy. I spent 2000 rounds trying to figure out what my load was, and it would group out of every other one of my guns besides my competition M and P. And then I put an apex barrel in there and it grouped the same hole and I’m like, “You’re dumb.” But long story short, as long as you’re following, you get the reloading books are great or even better if you have a friend with load data, grab their load data and you just go step by step, station by station, set up that round to how you need it. You gotta think, especially if you’re loading minor power factor nine. I use 147s, I think I have 3.1 grains of powder in my rounds. It’s not that much when you consider people are shooting nine major at 10 or 11 grains.

1:12:34.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s full, yeah.

1:12:36.6 Hunter Constantine: Even if there’s a little extra in there, I’ll be fine. You know what I mean? I know people running, open Glocks and open Smith & Wessons with major nine. I’m just like, there’s not really much that could go wrong as far as that, even if I double charge and I’m at six grains.

1:12:55.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m gonna use a Glock when I go out to the range, I’m not using a 2011 or any fancy gun I have.

1:13:00.0 Hunter Constantine: Honestly, I feel like the 2011 would be better.

1:13:03.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: But then I might blow it up, anyways.

1:13:05.3 Hunter Constantine: But it’s tougher. Anyways, but it is very simple. I had friends help me out who have been reloading. Help me set up my press, Holden the guy with the night vision was one of them. He helped me set up my 1100.

1:13:17.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Did they come to your house?

1:13:17.8 Hunter Constantine: Other friend Zach helped me set up my 650. Dillon’s local to Phoenix and I tend to break everything I own. And I broke something on my press setting it up. So I needed to get a new part. And I was like, “You know what, we’re just taking the whole press with us.” And ’cause I was going up there. I was going to hang out at Dillon anyways. And I was like, “I’m just gonna bring it up and just ask questions there. Okay.” And so I just brought the press in and it was like, “I want you to run me through this, the whole thing right now.”

1:13:50.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Holy cow.

1:13:50.4 Hunter Constantine: And he was generous enough to do that. My other friend Zach Huff, he… When I got my 650, he had one. So he showed me how his machine worked and then he came over, and basically help me set up that machine. And made it work from there. But it is once you know the basics of whatever you’re loading or if you look up the reloading data, you’re fine. Absolutely.

1:14:14.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I have recipes of everything I need. I have all the recipes. It’s just nerve-wracking.

1:14:20.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. Hey, as long everything checks out, measure it twice and you’ll be good to go.

1:14:29.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:14:29.3 Hunter Constantine: But, Dillon Precision makes it as easy as possible.

1:14:33.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. It is simple to set up.

1:14:34.5 Hunter Constantine: Where you and I can set up machines.

1:14:36.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s what I was about to say. If I can figure that one out, we’re okay. I’ll understand, anyway.

1:14:41.9 Hunter Constantine: So I’m actually, I’m getting a 750 later this year.

1:14:45.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

1:14:46.4 Hunter Constantine: To add to my presses. I have a 650 that I started on. And then I bought a 1050 with my friend’s load 223.

1:14:53.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

1:14:54.8 Hunter Constantine: And then I got an 1100 this year to start loading nine ’cause I was shooting so much. And I’m getting a 750 for nine, that I’m putting in my truck.

1:15:05.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh, that’ll be sick.

1:15:08.1 Hunter Constantine: And so, this is gonna be the first mobile Dillon reloading station. I’ve seen some truck, I’ve seen some hitches with them, but, fuck all that wind.

1:15:19.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I think there is somebody that’s in my community and I gotta ask him, I know he shoots Blue Bullets, but he… Trailers and overlands. He doesn’t have a house that is truck and trailer.

1:15:28.9 Hunter Constantine: Maybe it’s in his trailer.

1:15:29.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: He set up his trailer. Yeah. I’d have to ask. But yeah, that’s legit.

1:15:33.7 Hunter Constantine: I’d be interested to talk to him. ‘Cause I’ve got some questions about how I’m making all this happen.

[laughter]

1:15:37.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: He would just shot you and end up with 20,000 bullets. And he’s like the trailer was just way down. Yeah, dude, once you start putting lead in there…

1:15:45.2 Hunter Constantine: That’s a lot.

1:15:45.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:15:48.0 Hunter Constantine: I’m just gonna go the Nicolas Cage route from Lord of War and just have a Conex somewhere or maybe Conex is strategically placed around the country.

1:15:54.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Connexes. Yeah.

1:15:57.4 Hunter Constantine: And have the MP5SD up on the wall that I can just grab, but I’ve been really happy with Dillon, especially working with them in more of an official capacity as of late. And they’re just, they’re good people over there. It’s good products, it’s quality products. And I recommend Dillon for any reloading needs for anybody. If anybody wants to get into reloading, if they’re not getting a Dillon they’re wrong.

[chuckle]

1:16:28.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s fun. They sponsor a lot of events too. Okay. Swear to God they had only one changeover kits. They had the powder drop or the tool had everything that you needed to do another caliber. And I was an RO, we’re at the dinner. The only one they’re given out and I read off my ticket number to my buddies, like 4635, and then the guy did the ticket and he goes 4365, whatever. I was like, “Oh, I spoke it into existence.” [laughter]

1:16:49.2 Hunter Constantine: Nice.

1:16:49.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: And I need that. ‘Cause I bought 223 stuff to do heavies for 3Gun and stuff. But yeah. That was pretty cool.

1:16:56.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. And the 223, there’s a lot more that goes into the 223 than there is nines.

1:17:00.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I bought brass. I bought brass, but no. Yeah.

1:17:03.8 Hunter Constantine: I’ve actually, I stopped processing my nine mil brass as well. And I found a local brass processor who does it relatively cheap if you’re in that Arizona area and stuff like that. But he supplies to people like Super Vel or Badlands ammunition or HSL and stuff like that. So he’s moving thousands upon thousands of pounds of brass every month, sawing on it. Excuse me, can I have 10,000 rounds? He’s like, “Whatever, take it kid. Here you go.” But it’s really nice. I collect a bunch of brass for matches from instructing and stuff like that. And I was like, “Hey, can I just bring you all my brass and just basically just have a credit system and just make withdrawals?” And he’s like “Yeah, sure.” And I brought over literally 50 gallons of mixed brass.

1:17:51.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What the heck?

1:17:51.4 Hunter Constantine: And he’s like, “Whoa that’s a lot.” And I was like, “I told you.” But it’s really nice.

1:17:57.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You don’t do anything small. You don’t do anything… Yeah.

[laughter]

1:18:01.3 Hunter Constantine: No. I go all in whatever I’m doing.

1:18:05.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I like it.

1:18:09.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, but reloading helped a lot for competition shooting. I argue with people that it adds about 5% to your match score when you have tuned ammo for your gun.

1:18:19.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:18:20.1 Hunter Constantine: So when you’re shooting minimum power factor, super consistent, I’m sorry Blue Bullets, but you’re not the most accurate projectiles. There’s probably a better option if you wanna do it, but they’re super cheap, it’s like, six cents a round, or whatever it is and so I can buy a lot of them. And so I’ll buy like 50,000 at a time just to get those price breaks from them. Whatever it is, but you get used to shooting that ammo, you understand how your gun feels with that ammo. And you just get to be a lot more in tune with the whole system. And so I like going into major matches with 500-1000 rounds in this gun.

1:19:00.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, yeah.

1:19:02.2 Hunter Constantine: I’ll clean it and then I’ll go have like two practice sessions, and then go shoot the major.

1:19:06.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

1:19:08.6 Hunter Constantine: I don’t like going into majors with a squeaky clean gun, it’s like, it just doesn’t feel right ’cause I’m normally shooting it dirty. So I want to shoot in the match dirty.

1:19:15.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: The same way, yeah.

1:19:18.1 Hunter Constantine: But then the other thing, it’s just cheaper. Even with ammo prices right now, it’s still cheaper to reload. And I think I’m at… Let me do the math real quick. It’s probably 18-20 cents a round for reloaded nine right now, realistically, if you’re buying everything new. It’s still better than $300 or $400 per 1000.

1:19:38.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: For sure. Yeah. Absolutely.

1:19:39.3 Hunter Constantine: When you account for shipping and everything else like that. But I like to… I load 147s, so I have 18 or 20 suppressors now. I have nine mil machine guns and stuff like that. So I like having subsonic nine on hand because that was something I didn’t have before. And even if you’re buying Lawman 147s, it’s still 980 or 1000 feet per second. It’s like, we’re subsonic. For those of you listening, it’s like bunny ears. It’s barely subsonic. But I load mine to, it’s like 88, 90 is average between my guns which just gives me a little bit of extra room for power factor depending on where I’m shooting. Still quiet enough. And then I have my 650 setup for what I call my super quiet subsonic ammo. I just made up that name. I don’t call it anything but it’s 780 feet per second 147s.

1:20:38.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh my gosh, what’s wrong with you?

1:20:40.7 Hunter Constantine: And so you can run super duper light recoil springs in guns, and it slows down the cyclical rate of the submachine guns.

1:20:48.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s cool. Yeah.

1:20:50.1 Hunter Constantine: And it’s ridiculously quiet. Almost so quiet you may be able to get away with shooting it in your backyard if you live in the suburbs.

1:21:00.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: In this city or… Yeah, yeah. [laughter]

1:21:01.6 Hunter Constantine: I wouldn’t know though.

1:21:02.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: In this city, yeah, you wouldn’t know.

1:21:03.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, wouldn’t know. It’s not something I would do or recommend doing but it’s something you might be able to get away with.

1:21:09.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s like wink wink. [laughter] Okay. How did…

1:21:12.8 Hunter Constantine: Kenzie said that, Hunter did not say that, for the records.

[laughter]

1:21:17.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay. I wanted to ask you about the DQ that recently happened. Is that your only one that you’ve ever had?

1:21:25.6 Hunter Constantine: No, I’m on track to getting one DQ a year. So it’s kinda…

1:21:32.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Take me back.

1:21:33.6 Hunter Constantine: It’s like a joke. Well, it’s now a running joke. But I’m like, oh, yeah, I’m just granted one major match DQ a year [1:21:43.7] ____. This was probably… This is probably the most deserving of what happened. For those of you who don’t know, it was 2 Gun PCC nationals. And my gun decided it didn’t wanna stay in the barrel and so it flipped out and the barrel pointed at me.

1:22:04.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Hunter decided not to put it in the barrel correctly. And Hunter looked at it knowing it was not in the barrel correctly and still…

1:22:13.1 Hunter Constantine: It’s that thing where it’s happening and I’m already moving away. Honestly, the joke for that as well was that I said I was using a 31-round mag with a plus 10 extension. And Colorado recently had the magazine restrictions that if I was using a Colorado-compliant mag I wouldn’t have been DQ’ed. But yeah, my magazine base pad caught on the edge of the barrel and I thought there’d be enough momentum just to have it fall into the barrel at that point. And it was like, if you look at the video, it’s the most gentle set into a barrel you’ve ever seen. It’s not like I even spirited it in there or anything. But when I let go of the gun, I was already drawing my pistol, so I already had my pistol out as this gun is falling. And that’s another DQ is having I think two guns in your hand.

1:23:03.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: If you hold. Yeah.

1:23:05.7 Hunter Constantine: I think, right?

1:23:06.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:23:06.9 Hunter Constantine: Or no.

1:23:08.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: If you have…

1:23:08.4 Hunter Constantine: No, actually I don’t think that is because some guys dump the barrel as they’re grabbing it out of their holster.

1:23:14.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, but that’s time stuff that no RO is gonna be able to be like, “That happened at the exact same time.”

1:23:19.1 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, long story short, I was an idiot. I let my gun pull out of the barrel and got DQ’ed. That was my very first stage.

1:23:26.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Solid. But that wasn’t far for you, was it?

1:23:30.7 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, 11 hours isn’t that bad driving.

[laughter]

1:23:35.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Never mind. I didn’t think…

1:23:36.1 Hunter Constantine: No. Hop, skip, and a jump away.

1:23:37.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I did the same thing. I went 11 hours to Missouri. I was so excited, never shot this match, they don’t even do it anymore. And first stage after ripping nine shots of rifle I, of course, fall, trip, fall down the mountain and the pistol goes flying, DQ. And I even call it, you hear me in the video going, “DQ.” [laughter]

1:23:55.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. In my video, I’m just holding my head.

1:23:57.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I saw that.

1:23:58.1 Hunter Constantine: Both hands in my forehead just like, “You fucking idiot.”

[chuckle]

1:24:01.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It hurts.

1:24:02.4 Hunter Constantine: But I was with the TTI guys. I stayed, I grabbed their media guys’ secondary camera and just shot video of the rest of it.

1:24:10.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh, you just did a reset.

1:24:10.6 Hunter Constantine: And I think that’s also important, just being a good sport about it afterwards, immediately apologized to the ROs and everybody on my squad. And actually the RO who was running and he got DQ’ed the day prior for the exact same thing with his gun falling out.

1:24:25.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It happens. Barrels.

1:24:28.2 Hunter Constantine: Just because USPSA decided to use trash cans instead of dump boxes. And honestly…

1:24:35.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Same issues sometimes.

1:24:38.2 Hunter Constantine: I don’t think it’s as prone than a short… Dude, their dump buckets for pistols were five-gallon buckets on the ground.

1:24:47.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:24:48.7 Hunter Constantine: So we coined the name that the 2022 -Gun PCC Nationals is called trash can nationals.

1:24:56.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Just like Multigun Nationals was Mulligan nationals.

1:25:00.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, so many reshoots, but… And a lot… And there’s a lot of controversy with the mags, a lot of controversy with Infinity, and so a lot of heat just didn’t show up either, so it was a nationals match with like 140 people there, total.

1:25:14.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, and none of the people from the prior that want it. Like, “Yeah, I came back.”

1:25:20.3 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. But shoutout to Neil, shoutout to Zach for taking their division titles.

1:25:24.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Crushed it, crushed it. Okay, so… Go ahead.

1:25:29.9 Hunter Constantine: I was just gonna talk about some of the other DQs.

1:25:32.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s what I wanted to ask about. What about the other three?

1:25:34.8 Hunter Constantine: So that was at Cameo Shooting Complex in Colorado, and my 2021 DQ was also at Cameo Shooting Complex for IDPA Nationals, what a bullshit call as well, or… Sorry, not as well, but just for a bullshit call, but it is for the muzzle exemption zone, and it was just based off of the perspective that the RO had, had video evidence that I’m fine and everything, and I waited an hour and a half for the MD to come. For me to dispute it and rebuttal it and everything, never showed up.

1:26:08.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What?

1:26:08.3 Hunter Constantine: And my squad already finished three stages and I had other… I shot early and I had to leave the match early to go for another obligation, and I was already fed up, I also got… I think three people in my squad, DQ’ed at IP nationals in the first four stages, and they handed out seven procedurals or eight procedurals in the first amount of stages.

1:26:36.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Was that just the stage design? That sounds like a match issue.

1:26:40.6 Hunter Constantine: Match, it was the SOs or the safety officers in IDPA, and they ran everybody hot, but there’s two squads per bay. Two stages per bay and everybody’s hot. It blows my mind. They’re like, “How is this better?” And then there’s a lady from Tucson that ended up shooting her foot that match as well.

1:26:57.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay, so I had an issue with that. I went to one only IDPA match and we don’t need to go hot when it was like a class fire-ish looking stage and you’re standing in a box, you’re in a box and they’re like, “We are gonna make the next shooter ready and hot, even though we’re gonna reset and come down range, right?” And I was like, “Why? It’s gonna take me two seconds just to load this in PCC.” So like, “Oh just load your PCC and point it down.” I’m like, “I’m not pointing at my foot.”

1:27:20.2 Hunter Constantine: No.

1:27:20.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No, the answer is no. I think that’s stupid.

1:27:23.5 Hunter Constantine: It was ridiculous. Luckily she was okay. Miraculously, it didn’t, it missed all of her bones in her foot…

1:27:31.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: She got really lucky. I’d be pissed.

1:27:33.0 Hunter Constantine: Super lucky. This is pretty insensitive, but I found it a little bit comical, but there was one shooter there that was… He used to be like a pip hitter in the ’70s, doing some like high-speed shit and seeing a lot of… Seeing a lot of people do some shit, right? And she’s screaming, “I don’t wanna die.” And he was literally walking by going, “I don’t wanna die.” Mocking her, knowing she’s gonna be fine, we are like, “Dude, you’re a fucking asshole man.” Like, “She just shot herself.” This is her first large traumatic experience with a firearm or whatever, but she was okay. He didn’t apologize. And then the year before that was a 3-Gun match, ExCommunicado 3 Gun, and I got a DQ on my shotgun, it’s an AK variant from Dissident. And when I went to, you disengage the safety with your index knuckle, and me being the gamer I was, I was already prepping sites and finger on target, as soon as I click the safety I shot and the stock was like three… It was like two feet from my shoulder, so it shot and then shot back into my shoulder and in 3Gun… And correct me if I’m wrong since you’re Kenzie 3 Gun, the shot has to be three yards in front of the target for it not to be a DQ.

1:28:53.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, and even in the USPSA its 11 feet ’cause it… Yeah. To be safe or whatever. So you can’t have it right there, so I had a DQ in February though, because someone drew their pistol and shot literally right in front of the box at their foot, so they come with a measuring tape to measure the distance, and it’s like, this shooter was like, “No bro, there is the bullet.”

1:29:15.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. I was almost at… I was four yards away from the target where my impact was, so it was right on the cusp but is my buddy running me, and I didn’t wanna put him in a bad spot, and I shot, I stopped, I looked at him and then he just goes, “Stop.” Like, “Yeah.” Went home. And the year before that was a Yuma Charity Match. And I had an AD while reloading on a Glock.

1:29:47.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:29:48.9 Hunter Constantine: Now, I did argue this one, even though it was an AD, but I had an AD Alpha on a tuxedo target while moving away from it, so safe in the berm and I hit the target, and…

1:30:01.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s luck, that’s called luck, that’s when shooters get lucky.

1:30:04.7 Hunter Constantine: It’s called skill Kenzie, it’s called skill.

1:30:09.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No, to answer your question though, going back with the shot, so yeah, it’s a shot within 10 feet. So yeah, if you were shooting, unless it’s stuff that’s different, is frangible targets closer, but that’s not a frangible target that you were shooting at.

1:30:22.6 Hunter Constantine: It was a knock down steel down in this crevice.

1:30:26.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: But they’ll measure it, they’ll come out.

1:30:28.3 Hunter Constantine: Just like when… Yeah, when I came up, it was just that thing where it was like, we both know it was an AD, it just seemed like a little bit far, he just paced it out and walked it and he’s like, “It’s probably longer.” And I was like, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “I don’t wanna put you in a bad spot or anything like that.” I think it’s better to have that integrity shooting.

1:30:44.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I was about to say that, ’cause they’re…

1:30:45.5 Hunter Constantine: Okay, I got a question for you. Questions of integrity. Okay?

1:30:49.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Go on.

1:30:52.2 Hunter Constantine: Let’s say USPSA RO calls two Alpha and it’s like an Alpha Charlie for your squad-mate, do you shut up, or you tell the RO?

1:31:02.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I do. I kinda give people shit. I’m kind of like, “Oh can we look at that again?” And then they are all like, “Buddy that’s a Charlie.” But my thing, is ROs I know they make mistakes. Because I’m like, okay, you’re looking at 17,000 targets throughout the day and I had a really hard time with it, I’ll be honest, and I’m probably an asshole for it. At Multigun Nationals and 2 Gun Nationals, the 2-Gun until they get none of those pistol shooters, no scoring for Multigun. And I’m like, it was really painful, ’cause I was just trying to explain how things were wrong. But then shooters would get mad, like, “Why don’t you just give that to me?” And I’m like, “I don’t give scores, I give what you have.”

1:31:39.1 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, what’s different for Multigun, it’s just to anywhere?

1:31:43.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: To anywhere but the A zone can also be the neutralized target. So one on the A or to anywhere, but there’s also the frangible targets so if there’s even a crack, I know you’ve seen those shotgun clay targets or whatever. You have to go look at those or if they just fall you have to watch their shooting ’cause just falling doesn’t break it.

1:32:05.0 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:32:06.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I don’t know. It’s just… It’s a challenge. And then you have the thing with me, too, is 9 mil and 9 mil, and you have two different types of targets and one is supposed be PC and one is supposed to be a pistol, how are you tracking that?

1:32:16.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:32:17.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Same bullet diameter holes. And I’m like, “You have to have eyes on it?” Yeah.

1:32:20.7 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, I saw something. I was walking around during that 2 Gun Nationals match. And I saw some tasty shit where a guy definitely engaged a PCC target with his pistol. And then he’s like, he’d literally be like, the ROs be like, “You engaged that with the wrong gun.” And he’d be like, “Oops, my bad. I thought it was a pistol or whatever target.” Pistol or PCC target. I’m like, “Everybody knows that was blatant.”

1:32:46.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Except USPSA, yeah.

1:32:49.5 Hunter Constantine: But well, for the 2 Gun… Yeah, for the 2 Gun it was the… Yeah, the amoebas and the silhouettes.

1:32:57.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Amoebas. [laughter]

1:33:00.7 Hunter Constantine: It’s just like, “Dude you know what you’re doing.” ‘Cause he was only shooting one Alpha on everything. And he had a Charlie, and then he shot it with his pistol. And then they just gave him fully neutralized.

1:33:11.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So I don’t do that gave stuff. I know that’s probably an asshole thing, especially your buddy or a squadmate or whatever. ‘Cause I can be…

1:33:15.9 Hunter Constantine: I’ll be like, “Fuck it. Reshoot, do it again buddy.”

1:33:18.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I do both. If you ask any of my squadmates in Kentucky, dude. I’m like, “Check that again.” ‘Cause there was like a Delta edge hit or whatever. I’m like, “Why aren’t you walking your target?” So Kenzie, I guess the hero in me is always walking targets to be like, “No. Yes.” So I’ve helped in hurting both. [laughter]

1:33:37.9 Hunter Constantine: For sure. I’m always looking out for squadmates. So if it’s a better score, I’m just like, “Yeah, whatever.” Like, oh, they call it two Alpha and it’s pretty close and it could be a Charlie and I’m like, “I’m just gonna tape it.”

1:33:52.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, but so many know, so many don’t overlay it or ask for overlays or walk. I’m like, “Dude, that is a big difference at the top.” So yeah.

1:34:01.2 Hunter Constantine: I did have a match earlier this year where a guy would… It’d be a close call like that and maybe he’s wrong and he’d be like, “Hey, tip that.” I’m like, “Tell his squadmates to tape it fast.” And then he would argue the opposite for other people’s targets and be like, “Hey, RO come back here and check it.” I’m like, “Hey, at least be consistent.”

1:34:20.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:34:21.4 Hunter Constantine: But I always fair on the side of the shooter more than anything else. Especially if they’re shooting the same division and have a chance to beat me.

1:34:35.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Hunter. [laughter]

1:34:37.7 Hunter Constantine: Because I still wanna beat them even if they got a free Alpha.

1:34:42.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay, okay. It gives you a competitive edge. I could see that.

1:34:46.4 Hunter Constantine: It felt like the opposite. Like I’m giving myself a competitive disadvantage.

1:34:50.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No, but you want that. You wanna go better. You wanna push yourself better, you should.

1:34:53.2 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, exactly. I’m giving myself a disadvantage so I have to perform better.

1:34:56.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I like that. Okay, we’ve digressed. [laughter] We’ve digressed. I wanna talk about your daily carry. Honestly, there are so few of us I think that carry daily, publicly. I know you and I both make calls like, “Yo, why is this not on your pants?” Right?

1:35:15.2 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:35:15.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’ve seen a lot of your fun videos but why is that so important for people to take serious no matter their body type if they’re female, the male whatever, there’s a method to carry a gun?

1:35:25.1 Hunter Constantine: I think number one, carry the biggest gun you feel comfortable with ’cause it’s easier to shoot. I think subcompact guns and small guns are stupid. Time and a place I guess for small guns, but I’ve been going between a five-inch M&P 2.0 with a Streamlight or a five-inch 2011 Nighthawk with a Comp and a straight fire light. I’m not a big dude or anything but I like… I conceal it fine. I think it comes down to your belt, your placement, and your holster, then you can carry whatever gun you want. Shout out to the Constantine concealed carry belt but that’s a belt I’m coming out with, it will probably be released by the time this podcast’s out. But it is made for all body shapes and male and female and I wear it in the truck when I’m going like a 10-hour drive. I wear it at the gym. I wear it hiking. I wear it hunting. I wear it in all walks and it’s comfortable.

1:36:29.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What do you wear to the gym with belt loops?

1:36:32.0 Hunter Constantine: Like these shorts I’m wearing…

1:36:34.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You are gonna have to stand up.

1:36:36.6 Hunter Constantine: These are like athletic shorts with… You can’t really see.

[laughter]

1:36:40.0 Hunter Constantine: Without loops…

1:36:40.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: He’s gonna stand up guys, yeah, he stood up.

1:36:41.7 Hunter Constantine: And they’re stretchy. And I wore it to the gym and I did a leg day with my gun on just to see if I could do it.

1:36:47.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Are they Born Primitive? Those are the shorts that you should wear.

1:36:51.7 Hunter Constantine: No, these are… They from the Mayhem Syndicate, it doesn’t make them anymore, I’m pretty pissed, but…

1:36:55.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s sad, it’s sad when the good stuff goes away.

1:37:00.8 Hunter Constantine: I know. Anyways, so… But the number one thing is I wanna be comfortable with my gun, it shouldn’t be uncomfortable for you to wear that gun, and if it is uncomfortable…

1:37:11.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You’re not gonna wear it.

1:37:12.2 Hunter Constantine: Something’s off.

1:37:12.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Or you’re not gonna wear it.

1:37:14.2 Hunter Constantine: And so you gotta change your belt, change your holster, change the gun you’re carrying. The main reason I carry my Smith & Wesson primarily, is because I have so many rounds on it, I probably have close to 275,000 rounds on that platform.

1:37:28.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:37:29.4 Hunter Constantine: So I know that gun inside and out.

1:37:31.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

1:37:31.6 Hunter Constantine: I know exactly where my holds are, I’ve shot the gun up to 400 yards.

1:37:36.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: We’ve seen the video. How many takes did that take?

1:37:39.9 Hunter Constantine: Honestly, not as many as you’d think.

1:37:41.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Not, sure.

1:37:43.4 Hunter Constantine: We were having a hard time ID-ing hitting the target and base department media needed to get his zoom lens so we could actually see the target. So I shot like a mag and we could see the dust splash, and there was about like half the mag where we didn’t have any dust splash.

1:38:00.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

1:38:00.8 Hunter Constantine: So it was either really close to the target or I hit the target and we just didn’t know.

1:38:04.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:38:04.7 Hunter Constantine: And that’s why it’s so anti-climatic when I hit it, I’m like “Oh, I hit it.” Like, “Oh I hit hit.” Because we couldn’t tell, and we were just looking through the lens of the camera.

1:38:13.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Right.

1:38:16.8 Hunter Constantine: But it’s honestly not, I don’t think it’s as hard as people think it is.

1:38:22.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I shot 200 with iron sights and it had the barrel with the right hand twist, which was fun. ‘Cause the first shot, I didn’t have it on video, I actually hit it, and then it took me like five more tries to get it on video, but I was like, “Yeah… “

1:38:32.8 Hunter Constantine: There was a class that I took with Buck Doyle, he’s like this intermediate MARSOC sniper dude. And he was spouting off about how competition shooting doesn’t have a place in the tactical world, it’s like whatever dude. And I was shooting with a group of like more of a tactical-minded shooters, and we had to make 240 yard impacts with our pistol, we had to make two impacts on the target to pass. And we were in a single file line and he would literally make people go to their trucks and get more ammo if they ran outta ammo on their belt. I remember my first dude, Chris, he nailed his first shot and then it took him 16 more shots to get his second one.

1:39:13.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Oh.

1:39:14.4 Hunter Constantine: And then, so I remember it was specifically one guy had to go back to his truck and load mags to shoot and he wouldn’t let anybody else shoot.

1:39:23.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You could learn better.

1:39:23.4 Hunter Constantine: And then, it got to me and my boy who shoot USPSA and got my trustee M&P, 147s. And I took a shot, saw where the impact was adjusted, shot hit, second shot hit or third shot hit. It was…

1:39:39.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Three shots.

1:39:40.0 Hunter Constantine: Three shots, two hits.

1:39:41.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

1:39:41.7 Hunter Constantine: 240 yards silhouette. And then my buddy comes up behind me, it took him two shots to figure out where his hold was, then hit his third and fourth shot.

1:39:49.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

1:39:49.9 Hunter Constantine: And I was like so much for competition shooting, da, da da, da. I managed… He was like da da da da. And I was like, “Why don’t you do it?” I’m like, “Can do you do it in three shots?” And then he didn’t do it in three shots, and then I was kinda on a stink list but I think smack talking is also important.

1:40:06.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, instructors is why I do not teach high level, I cannot demo or do the things at the high level. I can teach the basics, but he should be able to demo whatever he’s requiring you guys to do. And if he’s gonna force you to shoot it…

1:40:17.4 Hunter Constantine: He did it, he did in like 10 rounds though.

1:40:19.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Still, he should be one, two or one, two, three, or whatever you guys did.

1:40:23.3 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. And I was like “Hmmm… ” But he definitely made me eat my lunch on the rifle stuff.

1:40:28.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Sure. Sure. Pistol shooters get a whole new world when they switch over to rifle, I’ll just say that.

1:40:34.0 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. I think it’s easier though, I think it’s easier for pistol to shoot rifle than rifle is to shoot pistol.

1:40:38.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: 100%.

1:40:38.3 Hunter Constantine: ‘Cause I have seen some rifle people shoot pistol. I’m like, [chuckle] “Oh buddy.”

1:40:41.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, pistols are hard.

1:40:44.4 Hunter Constantine: But with the concealed carry, I carry it every day, I carry… I don’t think I should say that on record.

1:40:52.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No don’t, I know what you’re going… [laughter]

1:40:55.3 Hunter Constantine: Yep, I travel a lot though.

1:40:57.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Fines, yeah. [laughter]

1:40:58.5 Hunter Constantine: But so yeah, I think it’s important to have something that’s gonna defend your life. The number one thing should be get yourself out of that situation.

1:41:09.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:41:10.1 Hunter Constantine: Number two should be deescalate and number three should take action. Or like Elisjsha Dicken, that just happened for those of you listening later on, but he landed eight out of 10 shots at 40 yards against an armed gunman in a mall. That’s huge and…

1:41:29.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: With a mall with a sign that said no guns.

1:41:32.2 Hunter Constantine: No guns, right. And so one guy carried a gun into that mall with the mindset of murdering people, and then the other one brought a gun into that mall with the mindset of protecting people, and that’s exactly what he did that day.

1:41:47.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

1:41:49.1 Hunter Constantine: And I think it’s important to train, if you look at the Uvalde shooting from Texas, they had 148 yard rifle shot on the attacker and they asked for a permission to make that shot when that should have just been an immediate shot.

1:42:05.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep.

1:42:06.0 Hunter Constantine: He has all the data he needs to do to back him up, maybe he wasn’t as confident with understanding the laws of the engagement, like the legal side of engaging him.

1:42:15.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Right.

1:42:16.3 Hunter Constantine: Which is probably the most common why he asked for permission, but the… And I’m not sure because there’s been a lot of stuff floating around about the Elisjsha Dicken shooting, but people were saying that he hasn’t had any training.

1:42:33.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. We’ve all heard speculation stuff, I’ve heard that he got his permit like three months ago or got the…

1:42:38.0 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, I don’t know, but…

1:42:38.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I don’t know either.

1:42:39.5 Hunter Constantine: At the end of the day to make a 40 yard shot you have to have some basic understanding of how to use that gun.

1:42:44.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: 100%.

1:42:44.5 Hunter Constantine: Period.

1:42:46.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Especially eight out of 10, you’re not just a beginner or someone that doesn’t use their firearm.

1:42:49.4 Hunter Constantine: Right. And to keep engaging too.

1:42:51.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: 100%, yeah.

1:42:52.3 Hunter Constantine: So, but so I know…

1:42:55.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What the signs… I’ll say this too. If you were ever in that situation. I know I commonly say that my 2A community would show up. I know we don’t love the NRA, but NRA, USCCA all these companies or organizations, if you are defending somebody’s life or your own in a zone that had that sign, of course the law is gonna come after that. But there’s so many companies that are gonna show up and support you and make sure that you have legal fees or you’re taken care of, ’cause you just saved someone’s life. I don’t think you’re gonna go to jail for that or be penalized for that.

1:43:27.3 Hunter Constantine: No, there is a lot of concealed carry cases throughout the country where people have gone bankrupt and they’ve found themselves in unfavorable positions. But I think something that gets this type of coverage definitely would do so, but even us being in the 2A community and the brands that we’re associated with.

1:43:46.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: They take care of us…

1:43:49.2 Hunter Constantine: And like let’s say I did use a Smith & Wesson and I have this Fieldcraft hat on. You know what I mean? I’d be like, “Hey, I’m in legal trouble right now because of this, I need help.” And I guarantee that they would find some sort of budget to help out with that because I mean, looking at it from a marketing standpoint, which is terrible it’s the society we live in today, it’s like, Yeah, it’s like… I guarantee they’ll probably sell more Smith & Wesson’s in some way, shape or form,” or if I’m an instructor for Fieldcraft and I have a Fieldcraft hat and I just stopped, an active shooter is probably gonna sell classes for Fieldcraft or whatever. And it’s like, whatever happens, there’s people that will support it. I know a lot of private individuals that are willing to support stuff like that as well.

1:44:37.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep, yep.

1:44:39.3 Hunter Constantine: And I think that’s huge on the 2A community. And I wish we got together more to change other things as well because people will rally around memes about donkeys and… For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s a guy who shot a donkey under a thermal optic and said he thought it was a coyote and he got in trouble because it was an endangered species and everybody made memes over the next 48 hours but we can’t write our legislation to change our laws and policies and things like that.

1:45:08.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:45:08.8 Hunter Constantine: I would really like to see a change where people take it a lot more seriously.

1:45:12.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I’d like to see a little bit of less memes and more people that are making the memes take action or do something about it instead of making memes, it doesn’t help.

1:45:22.1 Hunter Constantine: I don’t know, I think it’s important that we all find a way to influence the community in one way, shape or form, to make it better…

1:45:28.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:45:30.4 Hunter Constantine: And have people understand a little bit better… Mine’s through instructing with people, I get to reach a handful of civilians every single month or law enforcement officers and remind them the importance of speaking out, of their actions, being trained, being prepared, etcetera. So that’s huge. And so I carry a gun every single day, I don’t care where I’m at, the gun will be on me every single day.

1:45:57.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yep, same.

1:46:00.1 Hunter Constantine: Sometimes it’s more basic. I don’t do a full appendix side car thing, I do carry appendix, but it’s just single holster for the gun, I’ve got I guess 19 plus one with the base pad that I have, or maybe 18, I don’t know. But in my mind, I’m like, if 18 rounds doesn’t get me out of that situation, then there’s probably something more serious going on that I gotta worry about.

1:46:25.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:46:27.5 Hunter Constantine: And so I think it’s just important to go and test your skill, like right now, I’m working on Bill drills at 25 yards for all As, my goal is to go sub two.

1:46:37.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay, I can see you doing that.

1:46:43.3 Hunter Constantine: Again, I just like… I wanna be able to have that type of accuracy at that distance…

1:46:48.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:46:48.9 Hunter Constantine: Or like, I was doing… This was like the end of last year, I think, I was doing 50 yard plate racks on 8-inch plates, and I think I was getting into the low 3s…

1:47:02.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Nice.

1:47:02.9 Hunter Constantine: So like the mid-3s or something…

1:47:04.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:47:05.8 Hunter Constantine: That’s pretty spicy for 50 yards…

1:47:06.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: That’s a lot, yeah. ‘Cause basically you’re confirming when your dot lifts or whatever, and you’re not listening or looking at the target, you’re just… Next one, you know where it’s at, yeah.

1:47:15.6 Hunter Constantine: Yep, that’s it. But I think pricing the distance stuff helps a lot because when you get up really close, like big A zone targets it’s like side of a barn and you can just rip into it.

1:47:26.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, yeah, this past week I ended five in 25 yards and… The same issues that are gonna be at five or…

1:47:32.0 Hunter Constantine: What do you think about truck guns, truck riffles?

1:47:35.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: You have to have one, you have to have one. You should have one. I built a couple of pistols. Well, if I’m in a vehicle and I can have a lot more rounds and maneuver a lot easily, I mean…

1:47:46.7 Hunter Constantine: Boy, are you building like an AR?

1:47:49.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, like an AR pistol.

1:47:50.9 Hunter Constantine: What are you using it for?

1:47:51.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I have a 300 block out in the 556. What do you mean?

1:47:55.9 Hunter Constantine: What are you using the truck gun for? What’s the situation where you have time to take out that rifle and engage somebody instead of…

1:48:02.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m not taking out the rifles. Well, pistol’s always on me, I don’t take it off, I don’t have a…

1:48:07.2 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, same here but there has been like a heated debate lately of like, if your number one goal is to get yourself out of that situation, why aren’t you just leaving in your vehicle instead of taking you’re riffle out?

1:48:17.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What if you’re using your vehicle as a weapon to take something out to get into a position and then you have a larger caliber gun and with more rounds. And what if it’s like a hunting situation? What if it’s like an animal problem?

1:48:28.5 Hunter Constantine: So that’s the only scenario where I’m like this makes sense now…

1:48:31.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: ‘Cause I’ll be in the middle of nowhere else. Yeah, yeah.

1:48:33.0 Hunter Constantine: Or like a bear, like I’m about to go wrestle a bear.

1:48:38.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: [laughter] Please don’t do that. But I’m in some really weird remote places and then like…

1:48:44.6 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:48:48.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I don’t know.

1:48:48.4 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, I’m going back and forth. I have a truck PCC in my truck.

1:48:54.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, but I mean like traveling. If someone else is in your vehicle with you and they know how to use the fire arm and they don’t carry, there’s that right there.

1:49:02.1 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:49:02.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I don’t know.

1:49:03.1 Hunter Constantine: It’s been a hot debate. ‘Cause I know some people with fully kitted out ARs, and it’s like, “Yeah, if there’s a shooter at the mall, I’m gonna grab the gun and go into the mall with my AR,” and it’s like, “I probably wouldn’t, dude.” ‘Cause frankly if the cops show up, they don’t know that you’re a good guy. You’re not in uniform, all they see is you with a rifle. Now, there’s two guys with a riffle inside the mall.

1:49:28.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s not funny. [laughter]

1:49:30.3 Hunter Constantine: It’s not funny? Why are you laughing?

1:49:31.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: It’s not funny. I’m trying not to laugh but the way you’re saying it. Yeah, I know, I know.

1:49:37.1 Hunter Constantine: But and so I just… We had a long talk about that this past weekend, the class that I was teaching and…

1:49:44.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m just gonna say more is not bad, having extra [1:49:48.4] ____…

1:49:48.4 Hunter Constantine: Sure. No, no.

1:49:50.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Is not bad. So if I have to get there, we’re in a different…

1:49:52.1 Hunter Constantine: Do you have your gun locked?

1:49:54.2 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No. What do you mean locked?

1:49:58.6 Hunter Constantine: Like in your vehicle, is it in a locked compartment?

1:50:02.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: No. And I don’t… No, no, everything would be on my body or in hands reach. And I don’t ever…

1:50:07.1 Hunter Constantine: So you just keep a rifle just like next to your chair?

1:50:11.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Not next to mine, passenger seat. But I don’t actually leave guns in my truck ever. Period.

1:50:16.1 Hunter Constantine: Okay. So when you’re traveling, you just got an AR riding shotgun with you?

1:50:20.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Not a shotgun, but like down there, where you can…

1:50:23.0 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, yeah. Real shotguns.

1:50:25.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Or behind the scene. But it’s not something where it’s gonna take three or four or five different movements to go get it. And a lock gun, useless, an unloaded gun, useless. What’s the point?

1:50:34.4 Hunter Constantine: What do you do when you get gas?

1:50:37.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m standing outside of my vehicle.

1:50:40.3 Hunter Constantine: But if you have to go in to use the bathroom or something? The gun just stays there?

1:50:44.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay, we are in a whole different place.

1:50:47.9 Hunter Constantine: I’m just curious, because I don’t know… I keep my gun under my back seat in my truck, so it’s out of view.

1:50:56.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: My tint is illegal.

1:51:00.0 Hunter Constantine: Dang. You’re breaking laws?

1:51:00.7 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: The minute I bought that truck, I drove it straight to the place the very next day, dropped that money, went back, I don’t… I’ve never had a problem with it, but…

1:51:09.5 Hunter Constantine: I was just curious. I would just like to ask…

1:51:12.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:51:12.1 Hunter Constantine: Just because…

1:51:14.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. [laughter]

1:51:15.1 Hunter Constantine: Just to see how people are carrying it.

1:51:19.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well… Anyways, I digressed again. Few more questions. [laughter]

1:51:22.9 Hunter Constantine: Okay.

1:51:23.8 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What’s the coolest thing that you’ve done working? Or in this industry, period? Like what’s something for the record books?

1:51:31.9 Hunter Constantine: Hmm…

1:51:36.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Have you flown on a jet?

1:51:39.6 Hunter Constantine: What’s that?

1:51:40.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Have you flown on the private airplane?

1:51:43.0 Hunter Constantine: Which one?

1:51:44.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Which one? [laughter]

1:51:47.1 Hunter Constantine: No, I’ve flown on some jets, but it’s… The mini gun’s pretty cool from Dylan, that’s like a bucket list item for sure. I think just the exposure. Honestly, probably just the machine guns, period.

1:52:08.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

1:52:08.4 Hunter Constantine: It’s like getting my own, but getting an SOT and having machine guns, is probably the coolest shit.

1:52:13.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I agree. I agree.

1:52:14.1 Hunter Constantine: It’s ’cause it’s the most fun, ’cause I get to go… I brought my Uzi out the other day to practice with one magazine for the sole reason of mag dumping from my hip. No sides, it’s just in the target, ’cause on my Insta it’s gonna be fun.

1:52:27.8 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:52:28.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: And that’s good.

1:52:28.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, I like that.

1:52:29.4 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Well, that sounds fun. And it’s just consistent. Or pistol snipes. Really like pistol snipes.

[laughter]

1:52:37.0 Hunter Constantine: It’s pretty cool. I don’t know, it depends on what type of cool, ’cause I think competing around the country is pretty cool, like shooting the Alaska match last three years, the Alaskan sectional.

1:52:47.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:52:48.1 Hunter Constantine: It’s pretty unique. Or every single year, I’ve been in USPSA, I have shot Nationals. It’s not as unique thing. There’s a lot of cool elements, or even just reaching hundreds of people every year teaching them.

1:53:00.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. For sure.

1:53:01.4 Hunter Constantine: It just depends on what type of cool you’re talking about. Cool in the humanitary sense? Yeah, teaching people, that’s awesome. Cool in a USPSA sense, shooting every Nationals or shooting the amount of majors that I have? Or just cool in the shooting realm was just like mag dumping machines guns.

1:53:18.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. That’s awesome. Okay, going back by the way of the truck thing, I have another thing for you.

1:53:23.1 Hunter Constantine: Okay.

1:53:23.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: How often are you traveling? And you don’t have 17 different firearms in your car anyways. Everywhere that I’m going somewhere, I have my PC, my back-up PC, I have my hand gun that I carry.

1:53:32.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah, there’s a lot of guns.

1:53:34.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: So you’re talking about like, “What do you do if you have to go pee?” I go pee, but I lock my doors.

1:53:39.6 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:53:40.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I can’t carry in all of them.

1:53:41.1 Hunter Constantine: Most of my guns are put away, besides whatever I’m carrying.

1:53:45.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Oh, yeah, there are in zip bags or lock bags, or boxes or whatever. But…

1:53:49.1 Hunter Constantine: Yeah.

1:53:49.5 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I’m just saying. Not my…

1:53:51.6 Hunter Constantine: Or if I do have a rifle. I’ve locked the rifle on the passenger seat, sandwiched in between there, and I usually just put a jacket over it.

1:54:00.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

1:54:01.0 Hunter Constantine: Even when I’m driving too, ’cause I can just take the jacket off and shoot.

1:54:03.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: What have you, Hunter. Are there any sponsors that you wanna give a shoutout to?

1:54:09.0 Hunter Constantine: We’re just gonna read down the list.

1:54:11.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

1:54:12.0 Hunter Constantine: I’m just gonna knock it out. Well, I think… Is that how we got connected originally, was Hunter’s HD Gold?

1:54:19.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I honestly don’t know anymore. [laughter] It could have been social media, it could have been the match.

1:54:25.1 Hunter Constantine: Hunter’s HD Gold was actually one of my first sponsors ever.

1:54:28.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: I believe it.

1:54:28.9 Hunter Constantine: And I reached out to Brian, and it was the most arrogant DM I could have sent, but it was silly and I think he appreciated it. But I was like, “Hey, Hunter’s HD Gold.” I’m like, “My name’s Hunter, and I win gold.” And Hunter’s HD… I’m like, “This needs to work.” He’s like, “Yeah, whatever, I’ll send you a pair of glasses.”

[laughter]

1:54:47.1 Hunter Constantine: I’m just kidding, he was way more enthusiastic about that. But I’ve known Brian for almost the entirety of my competition or shooting career, so he’s got to see me progress which is pretty cool. And pretty much the exclusive glasses I wear while I’m competing, unless it’s at night, I like clears at night.

1:55:05.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Progress and shooting, and digress in adulting. [chuckle]

1:55:10.1 Hunter Constantine: Yes. Fieldcraft Survival training, they’ve been with me since the very early stage of my shooting career, Taran Tactical, Base Pads Guns, bunch of cool stuff. Apex Tackle, Hunter’s Gold HD, Gerber Holsters, Dillon Precision, AMF Defense, Monsoon Tactical, SureFire, Magpul, Dominate Defense and my mom.

1:55:38.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: There we go. I like the shoutout.

1:55:40.1 Hunter Constantine: And I’m gonna give Kenzie this entire list to put in the description of this. Okay?

[laughter]

1:55:45.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Love it. Hunter, how can people follow your crazy ass on social media, and connect with you? And do you have a website yet?

1:55:53.3 Hunter Constantine: Oh, it is, but it’s not released.

1:55:56.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

1:55:56.5 Hunter Constantine: Okay.

1:55:57.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Fair enough. OnlyFans? Do you have that link? No.

1:56:00.7 Hunter Constantine: I’ll have it to you by the time this releases. Okay?

1:56:02.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Okay.

[laughter]

1:56:03.6 Hunter Constantine: Not my OnlyFans, my Competitive Website. But best way is just hit me on Instagram. It’s Hunter_Constantine, H-U-N-T-E-R underscore C-O-N-S-T-A-N-T-I-N-E. And follow Tow Track Nation as well for a bunch of overland stuff, T-O-W-T-R-A-C-K-N-A-T-I-O-N.

1:56:25.3 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Love it.

1:56:27.0 Hunter Constantine: Catch me on Major Match, slide in my DMs. Let’s chit chat about guns.

[laughter]

1:56:32.1 Hunter Constantine: Let’s talk about things. Whatever you guys want, just hit my line.

1:56:36.6 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Yeah, so now we’ve got some controversial things you can go and talk to Hunter about. Holster wear, rifle and the truck gun, all sorts of things. Sounds good.

1:56:45.5 Hunter Constantine: Yeah. One step to unpack.

1:56:47.9 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Dude, thanks for joining me on the podcast and dropping knowledge, and I love your social media presence so much. I’ve loved it, yeah, since Hunter’s HD Gold. I was like, “Who is this cat?” [laughter] Your social media, like this guy’s a gooer. No, but it’s been a pleasure to hang out with you and see you do everything that you do. So it’s cool.

1:57:06.0 Hunter Constantine: Sure. Thanks, Kenzie. Thank you for having me.

1:57:08.1 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Heck yeah. Listeners, stay tuned for next episode of Reticle Up Podcast, and see you guys somewhere on the range.

[music]

1:57:14.0 Kenzie Fitzpatrick: Thanks for listening to the Reticle Up Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube. Follow along on social media at Reticle Up or 3 Gun Kenzie.

The Reticle Up Podcast is where our resident competitive shooting expert, 3 Gun Kenzie, interviews competitive shooters, hunters, fisherman, archers, entrepreneurs, and outdoorsmen.

Come learn as she interviews people from all walks of life, in different shooting disciplines, all across the world, from novices to professionals of all ages.

No matter what, everyone has something they can teach you, so join us on the journey.

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