Banned in Canada: Why Suppressors Are Safer Than You Think

Canada bans suppressors. But in the U.S. and Europe, they’re considered essential safety tools. In this episode, Travis Bader sits down with Kyle Grob of KGM Technologies, a leading U.S. suppressor manufacturer, to dismantle the myths, politics, and science behind silencers.

Kyle shares how suppressors became wrongly vilified, how health and safety data is driving legal reform in the U.S., and what Canadians are missing due to outdated, emotion-driven laws. From engineering accuracy to military adoption, Travis and Kyle dive into real-world implications, regulatory nightmares, and what it would take to make change in Canada.

This is not about stealth. It’s about safety, hearing protection, and common sense.

🔗 Share this episode. Tag Silvercore. Let’s elevate the conversation.

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Go to silver court.ca/club. You can learn all about how to join. I would highly, highly recommend it. Now, today's episode is about suppressors or silencers or sound moderators or cans or whatever you want to use to term the devices that you put on the end of a muzzle that reduces the decibel level. In Canada, these devices were named as prohibited many years ago for reasons we'll talk about in this episode.

If this conversation resonates with you, if suppressors are something that you would like to see legalized, we're gonna have to elevate the conversation past the podcast level up to the regulatory level. And this is where I'm gonna lean on you for your help. Share this episode on [00:02:00] Instagram, on Facebook, on all other social media platforms.

Tag your friends in it. Tag other groups that you think could help propel the conversation forward. Tag Silver Core and myself, and we'll repost as well. If we want to have some common sense rules and regulations surrounding these important safety devices, we have to start having a conversation about it based in fact and reality.

Now, without further ado, let's get on with this episode. I'm joined today by someone pushing the boundaries of what suppressors can do. And how we think about them in the United States. He's helped turn these tools from misunderstood and restricted to common sense safety devices. If Canada's gonna have that conversation, it starts with understanding what we're missing.

Welcome to the Silver Corp podcast, Kyle Grove. How you doing, sir? I'm doing good, Kyle. I'm doing good. I'm glad we're able to make this thing happen, so, yeah, yeah, for sure. So KGMI take it, that's gonna be your [00:03:00] initials? 

Kyle Grob: Uh, yeah. It's originally was, uh, Kyle Grove Maid. Um, back in previous life when I started the company, uh, I was, uh, building race cars.

So it was all fabrication and machining and stuff like that. So that's where it came from. 

Travis Bader: Okay. So you went from a market that's, uh, way less restricted and um, uh, high dollar value, and you decided to get into developing manufacturing suppressors. Yeah, I just went completely in the other direction. Yes.

How's that treating you? 

Kyle Grob: Uh, it's fine, man. Cannot complain. 

Travis Bader: Good. Okay. Well, I figured, you know, I'm, I'm looking at some of the, uh, the chatter that's happening in the United States about suppressors, or people call them silencers. Actually, I think it was hiring maxim that, uh, coined the term silencer, wasn't it, back in the day.

He, with his, he did, yeah. He came up and, which is really a misnomer. Yeah. Because it doesn't make him silent. Like if you're getting, no, no, [00:04:00] 20 to 35 decibel reduction on a firearm, you're doing pretty darn good. Uh, that's, that, that, that's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, okay. Tell me, I, I wanna learn about suppressors.

I've got a little bit of background. I've, um, played around with commercial suppressors. I've, uh, uh, developed and made suppressors here in Canada under strict rules and business licenses, and under my own business license and under other business licenses. And I have no business in making suppressors.

Really. It was, uh, look at a design and, uh, try and copy it. And it was, it was more an exercise of, um, learning the old cold Chester, uh, uh, lathe and single point threading and putting these things together. But it was, it was an interesting experience. I, I wanna know more from a professional about. What they're all about, uh, why they're so [00:05:00] evil and why that perception's changing.

Like in Europe and in certain states, there seems to be a change towards occupational health and safety and looking at the legitimate benefits for not losing your hearing. 

Kyle Grob: Yeah. So, um, probably the best way is to go backwards a little bit and kind of, you know, why did suppressors go from, you know, hiring maxim's patent where it was a nuisance kind of reduction device was, you know, for, uh, you know, hunting or plinking or stuff like that to all of a sudden it's one of the most highly restricted items in the US and that's the NFA act.

So if you go back in time, really what a lot of the NFA was, was to try to catch gangsters so. Your Al Capones, you're trying, they were trying to catch machine guns, short bail rifles, and at the very last minute, suppressors were added. Um, to just try to, you know, give a, a fell swoop of being able to create a, a felony, um, [00:06:00] pathway so that, you know, essentially they could arrest, uh, arrest gangsters.

So, you know, fa it was $200, so your house costs what, a thousand bucks back then? So a $200 tax stamp was extremely expensive. So they thought that if they, Hey, let's just make it so obscenely expensive that no one's ever gonna get it. Okay, cool. It's not gonna be a problem. Well, fast forward, uh, almost a hundred years, 90 years, and, you know, it, it's one of those, the health and safety side has become, uh, really the forefront.

So you mentioned Europe. So in Europe, they're, they're not regulated per se, like they would the US now they're regulated like a firearm in Europe now. It is a lot harder to get a firearm in Europe. But suppressors are treated as an off the shelf kind of item. And there's actually a lot of areas in Europe that you can be fined for not hunting with a suppressor.

Travis Bader: Right? So it's a 

Kyle Grob: very, very different mentality. 

Travis Bader: I remember I was 19, 20 years old and I was [00:07:00] touring around through Europe doing the backpacking thing, and I came across a farm and I could see there's a, uh, a little bit of a home built, uh, cover where the guy had specifically made for shooting and he had shooting his rifle Plinking away, and he had a suppressor on it.

And I said, holy crow. That's neat. I walked into his farm, totally not allowed to, but I figured I don't know where he's gonna say as I leave. And, and, um. Anyways, he was more than happy to show me what he was doing. And he says, you know, I have to have a suppressor here because I was telling him, Canada, we can't have 'em.

They're looked at as completely prohibited, illegal evil. He says, no, I got you. I, I'm within a certain proximity of my neighbor and noise pollution bylaws dictate that I have to use this. I thought, oh, that's, that's really interesting and it's a bit of a different approach. And when, when I look at, yeah, so the, the NFA National Firearms Act, that was back to like 1934.

Right. And that was, uh mm-hmm. Targeting [00:08:00] capone and the gangsters and everything else. Yeah. My understanding of it always was that, um, they threw suppressors on not so much as a gangster thing, because there was no evidence to say gangsters are using suppressors and. And bad guys are using them, but because they thought they would make for an effective poaching tool and they wanted to be able to curb poaching because people were hungry and they're trying to get food.

So they, I think they put, um, a short bale shotguns in there and suppressors and a few other devices and they're like, oh, we'll just throw all of this stuff in together under a little bit different guise. But if we're gonna make laws, let's just, you know, in for a penny in for a pound and throw it all in.

And, and then Canada looks and says they're Canada's even lazier about it. And it says, ah, yeah, what they did, we're just gonna do what they did. And there is no logic behind it. There is no. [00:09:00] Uh, it was no crime based statistics that would, uh, support it. And today it, it absolutely wouldn't hold up. 'cause our, our legislation, it doesn't say you pay a tax stamp and you can get it.

It just outright prohibits it. There's no path towards ownership. Uh, it doesn't give a decibel reduction level. So anything that's inti intended or designed to, uh, muffle or silence the, the sound of a, uh, the report of a firearm, so that, that's pretty broad and open and it makes intent, it specifically a, uh, an intent based crime.

I, I would say it would have a real snowballs chance in, in hell of passing today. I don't know why people aren't looking at it in Canada, but people are looking at it in the states, aren't they? 

Kyle Grob: Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of stuff's changing here in the States. Um, again, a lot of stuff's moving around health and safety, especially.

Uh, on the [00:10:00] military side, military and law enforcement is really pushing it. I think DOD put out last year, uh, a report about, uh, large caliber, so your three 30 eights, your fifties, stuff like that, mortars, um, uh, you know, any kinda large canon fire about TBI and the, the causes of TBI and, and relating directly to munitions and armament and stuff like that.

So you're really seeing a shift of, oh, it's not this movie quiet, or we're not trying to, you know, prevent gangsters and this and like that. You're not seeing that anymore. You're seeing a lot more, oh, like this is an actual health and safety thing. Um, so interesting statistic that I've heard from multiple different sheriff's office is essentially a officer involved shooting.

So, um, a, you know, single shot from a 16 inch ar permanent hearing damage. Mm-hmm. So you look at it from the insurance side of things of now that officer is on disability for the rest of his life probably is gonna require hearing aids or some, some point in his life. You look at the cost benefit of, you could have outfitted the [00:11:00] entire agency for what the insurance and or the agency is gonna pay for that one officer for that one time.

And that's just one. And 

Travis Bader: certain multiplying that, that's 

Kyle Grob: just one. And then, and then imagine if you multiplied that across the Army or the Navy or the Marine Corps or any like that, or the several hundred thousand cops that are in the us. So, you know, even from the health and safety side, um, it just gets, it, it gets, the numbers get insane so quickly about how much impact you can actually have just by having suppressors.

Um, and then you look at, you know, the hunting side of being able to, to hunt, you know, more and more urban areas is, uh, you know, encroaching on, on farmland or hunting land. And so what, what if you could, you know, tune the, you know, turn the sound down a little bit and, and be able to like a European kind of mindset where, hey, you know, they still wanna be able to hunt.

But if you're two miles or three miles from a subdivision, it's gonna be really hard to mm-hmm. Um, so I [00:12:00] think the mentality's really changing. Again, the whole silencer silent thing, the only thing that's even close to that is suppress 22, if you've ever shot that. Sure. Uh, super, super quiet and that's it.

But, you know, supersonic bullet crack is still in the one twenties, so you're never gonna get about like that. You know, uh, ars and, and other semi-auto rifles, you know, have a certain amount of, uh, ejection noise or, or cycling, uh, noise is only gonna be so quiet. You can get a supersonic projectile. So they're not the movie Hollywood Quiet that, that everyone thought they were for so many years.

And that's what a lot of, um, US politics kind of. Ha hung their hat on of like, oh, it's silencers. Oh, you know, you're gonna be able to stealth. They're only made, they're only made for assassins. You're only need a silencer if you're gonna go out and, and hunt people. Right. And it's just, it's just the furthest thing from the truth.

Um, so there's been a lot of legislature, um, that's really evolved, I'd say even the last 20 years. And then suppressor ownership has grown, um, even the [00:13:00] last five years. I mean, it is not doubling every year, but I think there was over 800,000 suppressors registered last year. Wow. So the numbers just keep growing every single year.

Um, and then there's a, there's a bill, um, attached to, um, the most recent funding bill. Uh, the big beautiful Bill, I think is what it's called. That's right. Yep. Um, there's h Yeah. HPA, which is here in Protection Act Now. It's evolved a little bit over the years, but essentially it would allow suppressors to move from a, a class three kind of NFA item down to a, what's called a Title one or GCA.

So it'd go on a 44 73, so a over the counter, still the same background check, still the same kind of scrutiny with a weapon. Um, but it's not all the extra fingerprints and all the extra stuff and you have to go through. So if that, if that passes, that, that is an absolute game changer for the industry as a whole.

Travis Bader: And it would also remove that $200 tax stamp [00:14:00] on it as well, wouldn't it? It would, 

Kyle Grob: right? It 

Travis Bader: would, yes, it would. So that's, uh, next step I guess is senate consideration. And, uh, if Yep. Pass a sign, it'll completely deregulate suppressors in the United States. Federally. 

Kyle Grob: Yep. Federally now it, it's still gonna be state regulated 'cause there's still.

Five, seven states, I think seven or eight states that do not allow them at the state level. So your California, your, uh, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, New York. Yeah. So, um, you're still gonna have a state's rights kind of thing, and they're still gonna be regulated at a state level, but the federal deregulation will really, really push things along and put pressure on the states, I think, to go, well, if it's federally deregulated, why are you doing it at a state level kind of thing.

Travis Bader: Have, have you heard of, I was doing a little bit of research, I'm not up on, on politics generally, but American politics, uh, but the Shush Act, have you heard of that [00:15:00] one? 

Kyle Grob: Yep. So shush act is around short bear rifles. Uh, is that what it is? And short bear shotguns, I think. 

Travis Bader: Yeah. Yep. Okay. I, I thought it would remove suppressors from both the NFA, the GCA and it would bar state level taxes and registrations and simplify transfers.

I thought that was a part of the shush, but, uh, maybe I'm, uh, 

Kyle Grob: um, I may be, I might be mistaken, but I thought it got pulled out. HPA got rewritten. Um, and then the, that one was more focused around the SBR sbss. 

Travis Bader: Got it. Okay. Yeah, that's something we can have in Canada. It's funny, everyone looks at the United States and they say, oh, you guys can have everything Canada, we can have nothing.

Well, it depends on what state you live in, number one. 'cause Canada, it's all federal. It doesn't matter what province you live in, it's gonna have the same rules more or less, unless it comes down to like transport kinda rules and carry permits. Uh, those geographical extent is looked at provincially. But [00:16:00] you know, it doesn't matter where you look.

We all got our goofy rules that are rooted more in emotion than it ever Yeah. Seems to be rooted in some sort of, uh, common sense, pragmatic approach that's backed up by, I don't know, stats, some figures and science, 

Kyle Grob: uh, common sense is not common. So, 

Travis Bader: yeah. Isn't that Mark Twain's big one of his quotes there, Samuel Clements.

I, and I agree a thousand percent common sense is not that common. So, alright. For people listening to this, um, I. For a suppressor to work. 'cause you can go on YouTube and you can see people building suppressors from pot bottles, from oil cans. Sorry, I'm gonna put my air bracket so you can get your oil can, uh, solvent catchers.

So you can thread your solvent trap. Solvent trap. That's what it is. A solvent trap. That's right. Yeah. And they work for a few shots. They're not crazy good. They're not crazy accurate. But, uh, for noise [00:17:00] attenuation, they'll, uh, they'll work a bit, a little bit. Um, let's, can you tell me a little bit about the science behind noise suppression on a firearm?

Kyle Grob: Yeah, so I guess I'll back up a little bit of why we got into suppressors. Uh, yeah. So my background's mechanical engineering. I grew up a shooter, long range, like more precision interest shooting, um, lot of, uh, sporting plays and a little bit of um, uh, like 1911 and handgun stuff growing up. So I grew up reloading, grew up.

Shooting my whole life. Um, and so really it, it came down to, you know, in our machine shop, one of my employees had a couple suppressors and I was like, Hey, let's, let's go, you know, let's go try these. I've, I've heard about 'em for years, but, you know, I've always had issues with, with accuracy with them. And so we, we took 'em out and put 'em on, uh, you know, pretty, pretty dialed in rifle that I had.

Um, and it took, you know, an absolute, you [00:18:00] know, tack driving rifle and made it into, like, it took a sub quarter minute rifle and made it about a minute and a half. Oh, wow. And I said, okay, there, there's, there's a problem here. Like, what's, what's going on? So I go back from the mechanical engineering fluid, fluid, dynamic fluid mechanics of how gas and how, uh, essentially energy flows through a system.

And you look at a lot of the suppressors on the market. And it was, you know, very, the conventional cone baffle with a clipped cone. And I looked like, you know, hey, this is causing high pressure over here, low pressure over here. I know that that's probably not good for projectile stability. And, you know, and I asked him, I was like, Hey, do you see a lot of POI shift?

Do you see a lot of accuracy assistance? He's like, yeah, it's just part of suppressed shooting now. No, that's not every can. It may be just the ones we were shooting, but it became kind of an engineering, um, exercise. Mm of, Hey, how do we treat gas flowing through a, a cylinder and object [00:19:00] differently? And that's really what drove us into it was like looking at it from a, a very, uh, data-driven kind of very, um, fluid mechanics based approach.

And that's where some of our patents have come from. That's where a lot of our technology has come from, is. You know, number one is accuracy. If you, if, if we, everything we do is accuracy is our number one kind of, uh, um, bullet point. And if it's not accurate, as accurate as a gun or more makes the gun more accurate, we start over.

Mm. Um, and that's just something we do. And, you know, so the whole goal around what we do on the suppression side is, you know, accuracy and consistency and, um, you know, alignment. We, we do, you know, post, post-secondary, uh, you know, EDM to keep the bores perfectly straight. Mm. There's just a lot of things that go into, well, how we build cans and how we do stuff that more centers run accuracy and then gas flow, uh, on the, on the like gas gun side.

So very, very high flow. That's where the health and safety side comes in [00:20:00] to this is, you know, how do you not have a super high back pressure suppressor that still performs well on the sound level. 

Travis Bader: So, so you say EDM, that's what electrostatic discharge machine, that's that little zap, zap, zap in the kerosene bath.

Uh, it gives ultra precise, uh, well. 

Kyle Grob: Well, yeah, we, we, we actually do it in water. Uh, okay. So our water, our EDM is, is it, it's wi Yeah, it's wire EDM. It's in Denis Deiss water. We essentially sand the suppressor up vertically, how it would mount to the weapon system, and we essentially undersize the bore a little bit when we make it.

And, you know, so we laser weld everything. There's a couple different ways you can build suppressors. We do, uh, high volume production, so we laser weld everything. We undersize the bore and we come in essentially clean it up. Um, so it is perfectly true to how it would mount on the weapon system. Again, chasing accuracy, chasing tents, all that kind of stuff like that.

Yes. Oh, 

Travis Bader: that's light years above what I was doing. That's, um, yeah, I. I would [00:21:00] find, like, I, I first started, I was like, what do, what do I look at? How do I learn about this stuff? Well, there's this pallet and press, and they've got all these, like how to build backyard suppressors. I'm like, all right, I'll, I'll start learning a little bit.

You gotta have wipes. They say, so as the bullet goes through, it goes through all these wipes. You gotta have, uh, uh, they're using that, uh, copper curly q scrub pad stuff for, uh, heat dissipation. And, and the more I learned, and then Ellen Paulson wrote a couple of books on, uh, kind of the Bibles back in the day.

Anyways, there's probably other stuff now on history and design of Yep. Suppressors. And so started reading through that and learning, okay. Wipes, they're not the ticket. Um, that curly cue stuff, you don't necessarily need it. Uh, the material that you make it out of makes a difference. Right. If it's, uh, 

Kyle Grob: it does.

I. 

Travis Bader: Yeah, different materials will absorb heat faster, which can heat up a lot faster, but it can be quieter for a bit less durable. So we started playing with blast plates. I was, [00:22:00] I was kind of all over the board with it, but I never got to a point where I ever understood fluid dynamics. Everything was trial by air and, uh, uh, um, how, how do you judge fluid dynamics on a suppressor?

How, how is that done? 

Kyle Grob: So we, we start out again chasing, um, we do a lot of caliber specific things. So, you know, we have a 22, so we have suppressors from 22 to belted 50, so M two suppressors. So we have a wide, wide gamut of product that we build. Um, and we really do chase a lot more application specific stuff.

So we don't build a lot of. Uh, generic, kind of do all cans. Um, and there's a lot of companies that do that. And there's, there's, uh, there's a lot of good successful product out there that, that does that, that's just not really our niche. That's not really kind of what we chase. Uh, we chase very data-driven, very, very specific application stuff.

So, you know, if I'm going for, Hey, I wanna build a [00:23:00] six five can, okay, well what's my gamut of six five calibers? You know, you go down all the way from six five grindle all the way up to, you know, your creed mows, and then you get into your Psalms and now you got PRC and some of your other 2 62 64 level stuff.

So, okay, I know my pressure range of exit pressure based on barrel length and I know. Uh, general, my volume of gas is gonna flow through the can. Okay, let's start there. So, you know, how thick do the walls have to be? What's my internal pressure? It's called, uh, essentially hoop stress, my internal pressure on a round object.

So we look at that kind of stuff and go, okay, well, um, you know, I need this much volume. I need to flow this much gas, I need to do this and this and this. Um, and so we kind of start baseline really just from a mathematical side. Is it a semi-auto application or is it a bolt gun? How much back pressure can you have?

Um, you know, are you chasing sound versus flash versus flow? [00:24:00] And so they're all levers. And I always tell people this, like, you can't have, I want the quietest thing with all the flow and none of the flash. Like right, it's, it's, there always is kind of a, a give and take on stuff. Now the goal is to always optimize as much as possible so that you can get the best of both, of most of those worlds.

But, um, what we try to do is a mathematical approach. We have a, a full test lab in our building. Um, it's all soundproofed. We, you know, we have a fully instrumented sled and lab essentially where we can shoot indoors and we gather all the data from recoil to kinematics to high speed video, uh, sound, uh, gas box flash, all that kind of stuff you would test at a military level.

That's how we develop product. 'cause I want, at the end of the day, I wanna develop based on data, not how you felt that day. Do you 

Travis Bader: have a fancy camera at the, at your 

Kyle Grob: I don't have a, I don't have a phantom, but I do have, uh, I have kind of the next level down, uh, high speed camera, so I can still [00:25:00] shoot 30, 40,000 frames a second.

Wow. Um, yeah, so we, we do a lot of development on, uh, with high speed on semi-auto guns with carrier speed, uh, how much, uh, back pressure we're producing. Uh, and then bolt guns, we look at from the kinematic side and we look at flash and we look at, uh, essentially visual signature as well. So, so it's all very data driven though, 

Travis Bader: so, and the one thing I point from there, which I'm gonna have to pull out next time, I, uh, eat at Taco Bell hoop stress, that's the scientific term.

Gotcha. Um, so, um, flow through, I've seen stuff about flow through suppressors. Can you talk about that? The pros, cons, ideas, what's. 

Kyle Grob: Y Yeah, so it's, it's definitely a, um, you know, when we got into the, I, we started out as building more bolt gun products. So precision hunting, precision rifle, you know, uh, not necessarily higher back pressure, but a little more restrictive product.

Uh, because for a bolt gun you can essentially make it a little more restrictive 'cause you don't have to worry about [00:26:00] action. Um, the reciprocating action. So when we got into kind of the high, you know, semi-auto world, um, and gas guns, we definitely wanted to be on the end of the spectrum that was higher flow based on the military and law enforcement customers that we had, because that was a very big requirement for them.

Um, hey, like we can't change how the gun operates by adding suppressors. So suppressors of the past were usually higher back pressure 'cause they were chasing sound, you know, we said, Hey, let's see if we can get good sound, but also not. Overdrive the carrier speed by 30%, which there are a lot of suppressors that overdrive carrier speed over 30% that are on the market today.

Um, so, you know, we, we essentially said, Hey, here's the direction we're gonna head. We're gonna chase, you know, flow as a priority and then, you know, go with sound and essentially, um, flash after that. Okay? Mm. So that's kind of where it got us down the path. So like our baffle stack that's in our bolt gun [00:27:00] suppressors is not completely 180 degrees different than our, our gas gun product, but it is noticeably different because I'm chasing different metrics.

Travis Bader: Mm. 

Kyle Grob: But, but most of our high flow stuff, higher flow stuff, our semi-auto stuff, we're in single digit on carrier speed. We're, we're usually sub 5%. So most of our product that we put out, it's one thing we really chase is the goal is to put the suppressor on the gun and it do nothing but enhance the weapon system.

It does not. Essentially give you detriment. 

Travis Bader: How much of a, uh, how much are you compromising in decibel reduction to have a flow state like that? 

Kyle Grob: Uh, it really depends on the baffle design. I can say if I build two identical cans with both different versions of my baffle design in like a 3 0 8 application, there's probably five to six DB difference.

So not a ton, [00:28:00] but noticeable. Sure. Yeah. And what about noticeable? So that's, that's the balance though. 

Travis Bader: What about POI shift your point of impact shift. Uh, I know some people really like to, I think surefire, that's their big thing. Hey, they're not that quiet, but their, uh, point of impact shift's gonna be, uh, none minimal to none is what they claim.

Kyle Grob: Yeah, so that, that's one thing that we chase as well is minimal impact to the gun, minimal impact to the barrel and the harmonics. And therefore that leads to minimal impact to, um, the projectile. Now we've had instances where we've had zero POI shift. I will say the number one thing is barrel harmonics.

That is what we've seen. Now granted, there are a lot of suppressors that have really high back pressure that cause very large amounts of POI shift, I've seen five and six inches at a hundred yards. On a 3 0 8. So, you know, we, we definitely chase for as low as possible, but we also chase more [00:29:00] consistency.

So what is the repeatability? Can you do that over and over and over again and does your, can walk in? So is your cold board different from your second shot or your third shot or your fourth shot? So we actually chase that more than, you know, essentially absolute POI shift because there's so many other factors that, that change.

POI shift. Um, and you know, so like a lot of our stuff is based around accuracy. How consistent is the suppressor on the gun day in and day out? 

Travis Bader: So you're making attachments as well, are you not just a suppressor, but ways for it to, to attach to the, to the firearm and index and lock in nicely. 

Kyle Grob: Yep. So we got a couple different things.

I'm sure you've heard of Hub, which is kind of that. Inch in three eights, 24 generic kind of thread. So we make some cans that take that. Um, a lot of our really high precision stuff, we do our own proprietary muzzle system. Uh, so it's a very large taper surface, big course thread. So your engagement is based on a taper [00:30:00] not shoulder.

So that is the most consistent way to do it. You'll, you'll see a lot of other precision based companies, your thunder beasts and some of your other guys that are really chasing absolute repeatability and precision. Everything's based on, on taper engagement. So your alignment every time you put the can on and off the gun, your effective change in how the, the suppressor interacts with the weapon system does not change.

Travis Bader: Hmm. I, uh, I was doing a course number of years ago in Alberta, and uh, part of our business license is for design development modification, all the rest of prohibited devices of which a suppressor is a prohibited device in Canada. So I thought, well, let's, let's test this thing out, see how it can work. It was out of, it was Rob Furlongs Academy there.

He's, uh, at one point held the, uh, the record for the longest distance kill over in Afghanistan and it was Oh yeah. Passed by the Brits at, uh, a couple years after that and. And then Canada took it back. And recently, I [00:31:00] think there's another, possibly an in dispute, but someone who beat, uh, JTF two on it. But anyways, I was, I was running this thing and it, I think it was a b and t and um, had a, uh, lockable indexing system on it.

It was running great for me. And, uh, what I didn't have proper was I didn't have the, uh, the locking device properly secured on the firearm secure enough. So it started to unthread on me and I ended up getting baffle strike and that, uh, all I knew is that I'm shooting and why aren't my rounds landing where I thought they'd be landing, what's going on?

And, uh, I realized, holy crow, like this looks tight, but the device wasn't tightened on there. So I tightened it all back up, but I still wasn't getting, uh, the accuracy that I was earlier in the week out of it. So I ended up running the rest of the course with the can off, and I got in there and I inspected, and the baffle strike wasn't.

Crazy. It really wasn't that much. So either I was [00:32:00] having a bad day and blaming it on the baffle strike or a, a little bit of the, a little bit of baffle strike can make a heck of a difference. What, what are your thoughts? 

Kyle Grob: Yeah, so, uh, most people think that there's a big, huge ginormous hole in that. Now, most of the time the clearances are a lot smaller than you would think.

That's why suppressor alignment is so, so critical to maintain good sound, uh, sound reduction. So, you know, on average, I. You know, if you're shooting a 30 cow projectile, most suppressors have less than a three eighths hole through them. 

Travis Bader: Mm. So if 

Kyle Grob: you do the math, that's 30 thousandths of an inch per side.

Yeah. So you don't need to move much or you don't need to be a little bit off. Or, you know, if you had a baffle strike and you bent one of the baffles in a little bit, it does not take a lot to, um, uh, to cause an issue. And if you've got one baffle that's really close to the projectile and then a bunch that aren't, you're gonna have accuracy issues.

It it a hundred percent. Um, uh, it [00:33:00] can happen. And that's why we, we do pay a lot of attention to mounting systems. All of our hard use product is still a course thread with a taper, but it has a secondary latch that's a spring loaded latch. So when you tighten it on, it essentially keeps it from backing off.

Um, is, is one thing. And there's a bunch of other companies that. They have all kinds of secondary retention systems, and on gas operated guns, whether they're di or piston, you have a lot of vibration in the weapon system. Mm. So you really do kind of need something else to kind of hold 'em on. Um, and so we, we have the full gamut from basic direct thread to precision taper mounting to taper plus secondary retention.

And then like we also do some integral rifles where the actual suppressor is built into the upper, built in to the barrel itself. 

Travis Bader: So I, I played around a little bit with, uh, integral systems as well. And I mean, when you mentioned 22 before, yeah, 22 can be quiet, quiet, but supersonic crack with around 1,100 feet per second, [00:34:00] depending on elevation, humidity, temperature, all those other, other things.

I built one up, I'm shooting it. I'm like, man, this's not quiet. What's going on? I'm expecting quiet. And I pointed down into the ground and I pull the trigger and it's just. Super quiet, pop, pop, pop, pop. I'm like, oh, okay. So it's breaking the sound barrier. So I started, uh, porting on an integral, and I worked my way back on porting to be able to use, um, high velocity ammunition.

But when it comes out, it's not breaking that, um, supersonic. I don't know if that's how people are supposed to do it or if that's what people do, but, uh, no. So 

Kyle Grob: funny story. Um, that's how a lot of stuff is done. You if you know, uh, you know, the, the, the kind of the, the super famous mp five sd, it's an every video game out there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, how they achieve that is the barrel is ported. And so I actually did, I had a product probably eight years ago I think, um, that I [00:35:00] did with an AR manufacturer here in here in the US where I did a, uh, integrally suppressed nine millimeter ar I. And we had a ported barrel so that you could take 115 grain supersonic and drop it down to subsonic.

Travis Bader: Um, 

Kyle Grob: and I see it a lot in 20 twos. Um, you don't see it as much in center fire rifles, um, just 'cause you want as much velocity as possible, but your nine millimeter, 45, uh, 22, all that kind of stuff like that, porting is a very good way to bleed off extra gas. So you essentially limit the pressure on time of the projectile so you can keep it below that subsonic level.

Travis Bader: So since I wasn't a, uh, mechanical engineer and I'm playing around with like, uh, zed baffles, conical baffles, straight baffles, I think when I first started it was washers trying this out. Right. And, uh, um, uh, what is more important volume or baffle system 

Kyle Grob: for sound reduction? That's interesting [00:36:00] for sound reduction alone.

Baffle baffle is part of it, but also at the end of the day, volume will always help or always win. Mm-hmm. So hence why you can put a, you know, two liter Coke bottle in the end of a 22. It's not, it's not bad. It's actually pretty quiet for enough shots until you either blow out the end of it or something like that.

But, uh, volume is al it. It always helps because you have a fixed amount of volume coming out of your cartridge. Um, so if you can always either supersede that or like now, and then you get into the baffle design of how efficiently are you using that volume? Are you scavenging gas? Are you, you moving gas into another chamber?

We do a lot of multi chamber technology, and so you can have a ton of volume with a bunch of fender washers and, uh, it'll be okay, but you're not effectively using the baffle design to essentially take advantage of the extra volume. Mm-hmm. And then you could also have a really good [00:37:00] baffle design that if you don't have enough volume, you'll overdrive the baffle stack.

Mm-hmm. So it, it is a, it is kind of a give and take. It's a, it's a game, a game of balances. Um, but a good baffle design with lots of volume will 

Travis Bader: always perform well. I think it was, uh, Steven Al on Deadly Ground, if I'm remembering right back in the day I put that little pop bottle on the end of his Beretta.

And, uh, I think that, uh, really helped popularize the whole, uh, the pop bottle technique for, uh, getting things quiet. Yep. Yep. Um, so you are in Atlanta, right? 

Kyle Grob: Yep. Yeah, so we're just North Atlanta. We're about 30 minutes outside the city, but effectively, yes, we're, we're in Atlanta. Okay. 

Travis Bader: And, and, and you're in a Class three state, is it?

Kyle Grob: Yeah, so well, uh, not really a class three state. Um, so Georgia is suppressor friendly as most kind of southeast states are. Um, but we're still federally regulated by the A TF. 

Travis Bader: Okay. [00:38:00] Uh, what sort of hoops do you have to jump through? In your state, and then if you're selling another state, what kind of, what kind of obstacles and hoops do you have to look at it?

Like? I'd just like to get a little bit of a sense of what it looks like to be you and the stresses and pressures and, and bureaucracy that you have to deal with. 

Kyle Grob: So, because we are federally regulated, we, we have, uh, we have two things. One is a federal firearms license. So we ha we essentially, uh, allows us to get into the federal firearms kind of commerce.

We are an what's called an oh seven, so we are a manufacturer. And then to manufacture suppressors and NFA items, we have what's called an sot Special Occupational Occupational Tax. And we are an O2, which is a manufacturer of NFA products. So our licensing is oh 7 0 2. So we can make machine guns, we can make suppressors, we can make silencers, short bear rifles, all that kind of stuff.

Essentially anything below the, I [00:39:00] think, uh, ammunition and explosives. So I think explosives is type 10. The, our limitation is, um, you know, we don't sell direct to consumers. Mm-hmm. Uh, we have dealers, we have, uh, distributors, all that kinda stuff like that. Um, but even down to the paperwork side is, um, we cannot actually transfer or we cannot sell directly to a person in another state.

So when you look at the 44 73 and the tax stamp and all that stuff, currently we're, if, if we sold directly to an end user, we're not allowed to do that outside of our state. And that's a federal regulation actually. It's not a, it's not a safe thing. So we can only, if we sell direct, we don't, but if we sold direct, we could only sell to Georgia residents in terms of transferring all the way to their ownership.

So, so all the other states, it has to go through a dealer program. 

Travis Bader: Got it. And is this something you have to renew on an annual basis? Do people come in for [00:40:00] inspections? I mean, in Canada? Yep. Uh, we've have controlled goods and then we've got our federal business license and everyone's got their finger in and different people looking at it used to be the suppressors I'm was registered under controlled goods for them, and then they became a gray area and they're like, ah, we think the, uh, RCP firearms program should be dealing with this.

And, uh, now it's kind of outside of controlled goods. So what does it look like for you? 

Kyle Grob: Yeah, so, um, a again, we're, we're federally regulated, so, um, you know, we have every three years is our FFL renewal. Um, that's our kind of our firearms manufacturing license. And then the special license on top of that, which is our SOT is every year.

Um, so we file every single year to have that renewed. Um, and then every three years for the FFL. Um, you know, we're, we're supposed to get, you know, eligible for random inspection. Um, so we, we've had a TF come through. Um, they've done, they've done some training in our [00:41:00] building as well from a large scale manufacturing standpoint.

Um, and so the local office has actually been in and done some training. Um, we've, we've done some sample work with the, with the head office and stuff like that. So, you know, it's kind of one of those, uh, you know, we're regulated by 'em, so we, you know, we, we have to abide by 'em. But it's a, uh, you keep your friends close, enemies closer, and your regulatory agencies closer.

Oh, yeah. Um, yeah, so, you know, you, uh, because they can come in at any point in time and shut our business down. Um, we take, we take compliance very seriously. We've got several people on our staff that their full-time job is just maintaining our compliance between our bound books, between our licensing, how we file forms.

How we keep up with the paperwork. Now we're a fully digital system. Um, so everything we do from the compliance side is fully digital. Um, but it takes a lot of maintenance because of the volume we do. I mean, keep in mind we're doing thousands and thousands of cans a month. So there's a lot of compliance, a lot of paperwork, a lot of [00:42:00] serial numbers and stuff to keep up with.

'cause we have to track it all the way through our process and then all the way out the door and who it goes to and maintain those records and keep track of who it goes to. 

Travis Bader: Do you ever, ever have instances where maybe one of the serial numbered suppressors ends up in a crime somewhere and then you're asked to help and paper trail find this thing out?

Yeah. 

Kyle Grob: So yeah, so they're called, uh, skip traces. Trace Checks. Okay. So we get, maybe a lot of 'em aren't, because they're used in crimes, a lot of 'em, 'cause something will go missing down the road or, um, you know, they get stolen out of the mail. We, we get suppressors stolen every single year. Um, UPS, FedEx Postal Service, all of them, they steal stuff out of the mail all the time.

Travis Bader: Yep. 

Kyle Grob: Um, I, I would say, uh. Yeah, it, it's kind of one of those, like we, we, we have to, we have to keep an eye on it. We, we, we always, we [00:43:00] always pay attention to it, but it's a, uh, uh, it's, it's something that we just have to deal with and we just, we have to keep track all that stuff. But it happens all the time and we get trace requests and we have 48 hours to respond to them.

So we have 48 hours from when at TF sends us an email going, I need to know when this was made. Uh, you know, uh, where, where did it get logged into your system and where did it go out to? And we have 48 hours to provide that information no matter what. 

Travis Bader: Wow. I know. We, uh, a Canadian fellow, he's got a firearms business, does manufacturing and repair and maintenance on guns.

And he and his wife flew down to shot show a number of years ago and. Plane lands in Vegas and Intercom comes up, says everyone just stay in your seats. Right? Okay. Police come on board, they come up to his seat and they take him and his wife and throw him in handcuffs, haul him off to a federal prison [00:44:00] down at uh, Vegas and what's going on.

Right. And I find out about this 'cause I drove by their, uh, their business location and their light was on. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have to pop my head in there 'cause I know this guy's supposed to be in Vegas right now. And sure enough it was his wife was in there. She was obviously distraught and she was going through paperwork, trying to find some stuff and, and, uh, I said, what's going on?

She's like, I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it out. Any help you can have, just let me know. Right. Turns out, uh, I guess he had purchased, I think it was seven Barrels for, uh, uh, a handgun. I. Like 20 years prior. And in Canada, we don't serial number and itemize barrels. You don't track barrels. It's not a regulated item.

But he'd purchased seven from a, uh, a wholesaler and, um, somebody of importance of some senator or some individual in Washington was shot in their backyard. And they say [00:45:00] it looks like the ballistics on this match, a batch of, I think it was 300 barrels that were made between a certain period of time, these aftermarket barrels.

And they had sent them out a request through the RCMP over here. The RCMP never forwarded that request onto him for information. And he was held in a federal prison and then transferred to another prison. I think it was two or three weeks, they ended up holding onto him and said, we're not letting you go until we can find out this information.

And his wife's like, we don't like, what do you mean? This is like 20 years ago that we got this, uh, uh, these barrels, we don't track him. We don't know, like if you're gonna sell a barrel, it's not a regulated item. Who gets it? Right. And so, yeah, that, to me, that was like, holy crap. Eventually everything worked out.

Um, he's back and forth in the states, but pretty traumatic experience for the individual. And it strikes me that there is a, a heck of a lot of [00:46:00] authority that's entrusted into the regulatory officials and the a TF in the United States would, I don't know if they'd treat a citizen of the United States in a similar fashion, uh, or if they felt like we've gotta hold onto him to get this information until, uh, 'cause if he's in Canada, we're stuck.

But, um, it sounds kind of crazy, 

Kyle Grob: kind of scary. Uh, I, I would say that's probably a little bit of, uh, government overreach on that one. It was, yes. And, uh, it, it, it's, that's definitely, uh, the MO sometimes, um, I would say they're probably getting better. Um, I think. This administration definitely is probably gonna chase some of that.

But, um, it's happened in the past and it, it happened with other, I mean, you know, other government agencies, uh, you know, your EPAs and your fda, it's like there's always gonna be overreach in some way, shape, or form. And unfortunately, a lot of times good people pay for it. And it's, uh, it's a sad situation.

And it is, uh, part of, [00:47:00] I don't know, it's, it's, it's part of the, the, you, you're, you're joining the club when you're getting into this high of regulation. Mm. Um, that there is always that possibility, not saying it's right. I'm not, I'm not advocate, you know, I'm not saying it's, it's the right thing to do, or, or you know, it, it never happens.

But, um, it is part of getting into this as you are entering into a much higher regulated space, that they have a little more autonomy to be able to do stuff like that. And you're kind of guilty until proven innocent, unfortunately. 

Travis Bader: Yeah, well that's definitely what, what happened there and eventually proved innocent and I mean, it, it, it really struck me that one.

Um, so if Canada wants to har start having the conversation, and this might not be something we're having with our current, uh, government that was recently elected in, but maybe a government that's more sympathetic towards, um, common sense firearms, [00:48:00] legislation, licensing, all the rest. Um, what advice would you have for a Canadian to try and start that conversation in Canada to have suppressors looked at as a health and safety device as they ought to be?

Kyle Grob: Um, I, I think a lot of that is look at the statistics and try to make more of a common sense approach to it. Um, even from, you know, your Canadian citizen side of like. Try to figure out why the government, again, there's probably not logic to it, but try to figure out why, why did they get regulated in the first place?

Mm-hmm. Was it an incident, was it something that triggered, I mean, 'cause clearly a lot of people had to vote for that, um, in, in, in your government to make that happen. So what spurred them to do that? Why, what, what was their, what was their pain points? Why, why did all of a sudden become so much of a big deal that they go, no one should have these, but [00:49:00] essentially military and law enforcement.

Is that right? Mm-hmm. So essentially military and law enforcement. The only ones, yeah. So what happened, what changed in their mindset at that time to drive them to do that? Clearly it was something big. So if you can understand that, you might can understand, okay, well how do I counter that? Or how do I provide data or information or statistics?

A lot of it's statistics driven. You look in the us I think there's been three or four crimes in like eight 70 years with suppressors. It's like, come on. Is that it? Like there's, yeah, it, it's some astronomically small amount. Wow. And I know, I think two of 'em that I know of, they were stolen out of, one of 'em was stolen out of a police armory, actually out in California.

And another one I think was stolen out of another guy's car. And so it's kind of one of those like by, uh, essentially law abbo citizens, I, I, there may be one, but I can't think of any like actual federal felonious crimes that were committed with a [00:50:00] suppressor that was essentially, um, uh, gathered or, or licensed legally.

Travis Bader: Hmm. 

Kyle Grob: So if you just look at that statistic alone, you're like, you know, if a bad guy has, you know, or a felon has, has a legal suppressor, is that the suppressor's fault or is that, you know, are, are you essentially gonna penalize every other civilian that that follows all the laws? Because of someone that doesn't care about the law anyway.

Travis Bader: Mm. 

Kyle Grob: So, uh, you know, my advice would be just go at it with data, go at it with, you know, common sense stuff and like, look, the health and safety side of this thing is becoming, there are more and more studies based off on it, and there's more and more. And then you could look at the health side, how much, how many insurance claims a year.

This will be a good one for them. How many insurance claims a year are for, uh, shooting involved hearing damage? Mm. And how much does that cost? The insurance agency or, you know, y'all have, uh, national insurance, right? 

Travis Bader: Yeah, we, we've got insurance. Yeah. 

Kyle Grob: Yeah, we've got insurance. Okay. So that data, I would be [00:51:00] interested to know if that's public data is, is if you could find out how many shooting related hearing loss claims.

Are, are there? I That might be a, a lot tough one 

Travis Bader: because, 'cause hearing loss is a cumulative thing built over time. And, you know, you do it once. It is you, you can have damage. But is a person gonna attribute that one event to, uh, uh, 

Kyle Grob: hearing, even if you did it just on one event, even if you did it on, Hey, this one time, uh, you know, I was near something or someone shot a gun off right by my head, or this and this, you know, you're at a private shooting range.

How many, how many of those instances could you find? 'cause I can tell you on the VA side of thing, it is billions of dollars a year in the us Billions. Um, and then, you know, could you find instances where law enforcement has had this issue? Now I know they're legal for them, but it's, it's the same, same kind of thing of how, you know, hearing aids are very expensive.

Mm-hmm. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:00] Uh, 

Kyle Grob: you know, hearing therapy is very expensive. I would try that route and see if there's a health and safety side angle that you could put on it to go, look, this is not this big, bad, scary thing. We need them, you know, uh, you know, Canada's a big, you know, hunt. There's a lot of hunting. Sure. It's a lot of stuff.

It's a lot of, a lot of sports shooting. 

Travis Bader: Yep. 

Kyle Grob: Why, you know, then it becomes a, well, why can't we have them? 

Travis Bader: Mm-hmm. Why, why are you denying something that's clearly beneficial for health and safety based on what, what are you basing that denial on? And you know, exactly. That's such a good point. I find a lot of times these, um, laws are enacted off of ignorance.

Or emotion. People who are ignorant, they just don't understand. It's gonna be just like on tv, it's gonna be pew, pew, right? It's all you're gonna hear. And, um, or, or emotion. If someone's negatively affected by firearms, well we better get rid of 'em all because, 'cause that works, right? It [00:53:00] worked with drugs.

Right. We'll just make drugs illegal and then we will never have a problem with drugs again. Right. Clearly that has, see how that worked 

Kyle Grob: out, right? 

Travis Bader: I mean, easiest place to get drugs is in the, is in the prisons. That's, um, yep. Not really working for you. Uh, and, and people switch their modalities too. Like I, I get the emotional side behind firearms regulation.

If someone's negatively affected by a firearm, it's a pretty traumatic event. And a firearm can cause catastrophic damage, but so can. A U-Haul vehicle, a rental vehicle, your truck. And we're seeing that more and more and it's getting driven into crowds, but I don't see the hue in cry to enact background checks, special taxes, security licensing for renting a large vehicle.

Um, nope. So some, sometimes I look at it and say, is, is attacking or is arguing an [00:54:00] emotional response with logic? Is that the best way? Well, if you're dealing with a logical person, maybe if you're dealing with an emotional person, you might be kinda lost. And sometimes I'd look at it and I think, um, what if, what if there's a way that you can allow them to save face, then them gonna be whomever it is that's gonna be responsible for making changes to the legislation.

And I think the easiest way to, to allow the save face is to arm them with all of those stats and statistics. But even easier than that is to point them over to some other place. That has already made the decision. So it's not us, we're not setting groundbreaking, uh, decisions here. We're just doing what these guys do 'cause it seems to work for them.

Um, sure. Are, are, are there places in the states that, uh, that you can think of that we could point over and say, look, it seems to be working for them. In fact, their, uh, health and safety, their hearing loss or tinnitus or hearing aid bills have gone down because of it [00:55:00] or, um, 

Kyle Grob: or anything like that? Um, I think it might be hard to find individual data sets on that.

Um, again, I think a lot of it you could point to really the, the crime rate conducted with legally obtained suppressors because I said there's crimes committed every day with illegal suppressors, no serial numbers. Sure. You know, like that. So I think that those crime statistics are pretty readily available.

Probably some Google searching you could get that. Mm-hmm. So it, you know, if they did it based on a emotion from the crime standpoint, then go, okay, here's data from the US that has three and a half million suppressors, over a hundred million firearms in circulation. Here's the crime statistics since 1934.

Travis Bader: Mm. What do you think? So, 

Kyle Grob: yeah. 

Travis Bader: No, no, go ahead. Sorry. I was gonna say, what do you think the right approach is with, um, with suppressors? Like should they just be, anyone can go and purchase 'em? Should there be [00:56:00] background checks? I mean, there's gonna be the, um, my, my personal side, there's gonna be the business side, and then there's gonna be the forward facing side.

But obviously there's gonna have to be some logic that's applied because this is a situation of give and take. And just because you're a hundred percent in the right doesn't necessarily allow the other side to feel Right, or to save face. 

Kyle Grob: Yeah. That you're, that will be ultimately become the game of politics.

And the, you know, the, the, the get everything you want is they're completely unregistered. You pick 'em up. Like an inanimate object that you buy ammunition and targets. Right? That's, that's completely one end of the spectrum. That's really what it should be because of what it is. Um, but the re the reality of the situation is okay, then what's the middle ground?

I. Well, the middle ground is what I think is about to happen in the US is okay, then they're [00:57:00] regulated like a firearm. So background check, you have to go through the same kind of stuff to essentially be able to purchase them. So therefore, your average, quote unquote criminal on the street can have access to them easily.

Travis Bader: Hmm. 

Kyle Grob: Um, I think that's your middle road and probably one that you could pitch, crawl, walk, run. I don't think they're gonna go from zero to a hundred and go, oh, they're completely deregulated. You, you know, they're not gonna do that because then it makes them look too bad. Right. Again, to your point of saving face.

So if the saving face is okay, we want them, you know, essentially regulated to X and then propose again, whether it's be standard firearm, standard rifle, shotgun. I'm not so up on y'all's laws. So is a rifle and a shotgun tree the same as a semi-automatic tree, the same as a handgun? 

Travis Bader: Uh, yes and no. So did handguns in Canada are typically considered what we call restricted.

Hey, you can own 'em, but there's some restrictions. Okay? Up until recently when they put a, I'm [00:58:00] doing air brackets here, a freeze on the handguns, uh, veritably, um, prohibiting handguns, new purchase and sale. But people can still go and use them. But there's workarounds if it's gonna be for work-related release reasons, or they're getting a TC.

So they call those restricted. Uh, non-restricted was typically your hunting rifles and shotguns, but if it's, uh, too short or it looks too black or, uh, what, whatever they're gonna call it a, uh, restricted or prohibited. And then prohibited. We'd be like, eh, you can't have 'em completely illegal, uh, suppressors, full auto short barrel handguns that they would call Saturday night specials.

And unless of course you owned them before a certain date, in which case you're grandfathered and you can then have those certain things. So it's, it's an abso absolute mess. And really what we need is a complete overhaul and complete rewrite of our firearms Act. And I think of more favorable government here in Canada [00:59:00] would have that on their docket because a lot of our current laws are completely untenable.

And you'll see them quickly dropped in court. Somebody does something illegal. Yeah. And they have a firearm. The firearms ones are generally the first ones that get dropped off because they don't want the challenges on it. They don't want precedent set. And they're so, they're so vague and they're so obtuse.

Yeah. That, um. It, it weakens what we call our, uh, crown prosecutors, uh, case. So, yeah, we've, we've got a, we've got a mixture there, but rifles and shotguns have generally been looked at as a more non-restricted. You have a license, you do a course, uh, you don't have to have 'em registered to you. You can go out and purchase it as long as you can show your license.

Kyle Grob: Okay? So, you know, yes. If you look back, you know, your, your laws are probably a little archaic in terms of all the different, uh, you know, breakdowns. So [01:00:00] maybe the first stab of that would be, okay, then let's move them to a quote unquote, you know, not really unregulated, but under your licensing. So move them to your rifles and your shotguns and your stuff like that, and go, look, this is an ate object that cannot fire projectile.

I understand you still want to regulate it, so let's move them to X. Mm. And that's, that's, that's a middle ground that, because at the end of the day, you're gonna have to have bipartisan support. Mm-hmm. That's the only way you're, you're gonna have that change. Now, could you lob that in with more, um, essentially evolution of your firearms laws, possibly.

And you do a couple iterations at one time, or every, you know, uh, every time, uh, you know, stuff comes around, do you chip away at a little bit more? Taking big, huge scoops? Uh, we've seen it in the us It just, it's really, really, really difficult to, to change people's mentality in a very, very large scope. So it's Take a little bit here.

Take a little bit here. [01:01:00] Take a little bit here. Now, should you be able to go from zero to 100? I completely agree, but the reality of the situation is you have to work within the confines of what is possible, because a little few steps here and there, every time you do something will still get you to the end.

It just may, it may take a little longer, but if you can make progress, then at the end of the day, you know, the, the citizens are still benefiting. 

Travis Bader: Yeah. And I, I think that's been the same approach that I'll call the anti-gun. People take as well. They want to take the big bite, but they will still be the camel in the tent.

Oh, please sir. It's so cold outside. Can I just put my hoof inside the tent? Just my hoof. Right. Pretty soon. 

Kyle Grob: Yeah, 

Travis Bader: pretty soon. You're sleeping outside the tent and the camel's in there nice and warm. And it, it does, it works both ways. And I, I look at, um, uh, a number of years ago we had a, uh, government in, uh, I think it was Paul Martin.

And, uh. He says, [01:02:00] uh, not gonna do anything with your firearms. And all of a sudden he says, okay, we're gonna ban all handguns. And that went over like a lead balloon. Fast forward a few years past that, and they, uh, took a very similar kind of approach, but instead of kind of banning them, they'll, they said, well, we're just gonna put a freeze on them.

Well, a freeze implies something can be thawed. Uh, but for all intents and purposes, they've, uh, took a great big chunk into it. 

Kyle Grob: Um, okay. So, so how does, how does the ground swell start? That's where you start. So how, how does that start in Canada? 

Travis Bader: Hmm. Um, well, one thing that I see is the individuals, every individual.

And something that I advocate for is the amount of agency that every individual has. 'cause I, in Canada. And I don't know what it's like in the States, but um, we've got gun organizations and they [01:03:00] do different things. We don't have one big overarching one, kinda like the NFA, um, or sorry, the NRA that, uh, you guys have in the states that everybody knows about and hears about.

Um, but they're, uh, by and large, I don't think they're nearly as effective as all of the individuals together, uh, doing the same work. So I think the groundswell starts at the individual level and, uh, educating people on how to approach their, uh, politicians and their mps or MLAs and getting that conversation going in a respectful but targeted way.

Still work with your organizations. But I, if history is going to be any indicator of past performance is the best predictor of future performance. I think every individual in Canada has to start getting on a similar song sheet and pushing forward. What are your [01:04:00] thoughts? 

Kyle Grob: Yeah, no, I I, I completely agree.

Like, I, as I was kind of asking of, you know, do you know, can it be a groundswell from citizens? And does it move to where you have petitions that come out and we have hundreds of thousands of signatures, and you, you have this constant kind of like, Hey, like this is important to us, this is important to us, this is important to us.

And uh, again, I'm not as familiar with your government structure, but my guess is there's always a hierarchy path. Mm-hmm. So how do you start from the bottom? How do you move to the next level up? How do you start making it a part of the conversation? Because at the end of the day, that's what it's gonna take to get all the way to, um, your government structure.

I'm sorry, I'm not, that's okay. Do you have a par, you have a parliament. How, how does, what's your basic government structure? 

Travis Bader: Don't ask me. I'll, I'll get on Google or Wikipedia, but it's, it's not, um, it's not too dissimilar from what you guys have, right? You got, um, uh, so we have [01:05:00] state 

Kyle Grob: representatives Yes.

And we have senators and we have all that kind of stuff like that. So. You know, how we've been doing a lot of stuff is like, hey, there'll be, you know, websites that'll essentially allow you to, you know, sign petitions or do emails, like email your senator, email your state representative, have them, you know, bring this bill forward, have, uh, uh, you know, congress people in, in, in the States, it'll congress or have us bring a bill forward, um, you know, sponsor new legislation.

So if it's similar to, to, you know, kind of the way we are, have, have someone sponsor. A reg, a regulatory, um, you know, adaptation, make it a bill or do something like that, but started getting, whether it gets knocked out or not, at least it becomes, oh, someone's asking about this. Oh, people are asking about this and it's gonna be, that continued, uh, perseverance really, of the elected officials to listen to their constituents.

They have to listen to their people, but the people also have to speak up. They also have to [01:06:00] say, Hey, this is important to us. We want this. Hey, this is important to us. We want this. So when I go back to the groundswell, when, uh, elected official feels pressure, mm, they're gonna, they're gonna wanna listen.

So if there's enough provinces that are starting to really start and put pressure, it's gonna become a conversational topic. And I think at the end of the day, like you said, it's education, but it's also, you have to start the conversation somewhere. 

Travis Bader: Where do you see the future of suppressors in the, in the United States and abroad?

Kyle Grob: Um, I really think, and again, I, maybe it's, it's me personally, I think you're gonna see a lot more integrally based weapon systems. Mm. I think as suppressors become more and more commonplace, there's a lot of benefits to designing a weapon system around being suppressed from day one. A lot of the testing and r and d and stuff we do is to build a product that can fit on anything.

So we have a wide [01:07:00] operational range, well, like our integral, uh, five five. So we have an integral 5, 5, 6, upper. That I, I tuned the gas system, I tuned the port, I tuned everything about that gun and upper because it's gonna be suppressed all the time. So there's a lot of, um, I would say meat on the bone to building a purpose design system that allows you to actually get so much more performance out of the same size, because you can control all these variables.

Um, and so I see a lot of that stuff moving forward. Um, and we, so we, we've done very well in the law enforcement community with our integrals. We have many agents. We have hundreds and hundreds of mocking on thousands of integral weapons systems out there because from a patrolman aspect, they most, you know, starting police, I'd say maybe 50% or more have never fired a gun before they went to academy.

Travis Bader: Sure. 

Kyle Grob: So from the law enforcement aspect, I. Being able to go, Hey, this is not a [01:08:00] big, huge, loud bang for someone that knows no weapons handling skill or has no weapon handling skills. An integrity suppressed rifle is the easy button. It's the easiest thing for them to train. 'cause they don't have all the concussion, they don't have the, you know, we have recall reduction, all the benefits of shooting suppressed and a turnkey system.

And all you do is put, put a mag in it and go. 

Travis Bader: Right. 

Kyle Grob: So we've had a lot of really good luck. So I see a lot of that stuff and there's, there's so little maintenance, you just throw it in your car, you don't have to worry about the QD system coming loose or any of this other stuff. So on the military and law enforcement side, I really see integrals starting to, to, to do a lot like our 50 cal.

Uh, our M two isn't integral. It's built into the barrel and it's made to last as long as the barrel, 'cause you're gonna change, it's a consumable, you're gonna change it out anyway. Sure. I think that, I think hunting rifles, you're gonna see a lot of that stuff. But, uh, if our, this legislation patches in the us what you're gonna see is you're gonna see more of a bell curve in product.

Mm-hmm. You know, in, in the ars [01:09:00] there's $300 ars and there's 3000 and $10,000 ars. 

Travis Bader: Mm-hmm. Well, 

Kyle Grob: both of them still sell. They have different feature sets. I think you'll see suppressors do a lot of that where you may have your budget, can that like, hey, you know, buyer beware, it's a $200 suppressor. Like, you get, you get what you get.

And then you may have, you know, hey, this is a $2,000, like our 50 cow, uh, bolt gun suppressor is a $3,000 suppressor. But it's big, it's huge. It's all titanium weighs nothing. There's a lot of engineering in it does very, very well. But I, I think you're gonna see a larger proliferation of technology. Um, as, as the suppressor ownership grows because there's just gonna be more want and need for more things.

So you're just gonna see more and more and more technology dumped into the industry to make something for everyone. 

Travis Bader: Interesting. So, okay, your 50 cows gonna be burning a little faster through a barrel, but what about your, uh, your two, [01:10:00] two threes? Are you gonna be burning the suppressor out faster than you would your barrel or.

Kyle Grob: Um, no, we, no, we, we, we still, our integrals will, will still burn barrels out faster than the suppressor. Now granted that's because we, because we overbuild the suppressor though. That's just, that's us as a company. Sure. Like we overbuild, it has an all in canal core. We overbuild it. I always want the barrel or something else besides the suppressor to fail first.

Um, and so a lot of that's due to our testing and a lot of us do stuff like that. Now, if you look at the hunting world, okay, yeah. You, you know, if you're shooting, uh, 300 Norma or something like that or say, uh, you know, six creed more, you're your barrel's done in 1200 rounds, right? Okay. So what you do is you, you design the system so that you still can remove the suppressor and change it out and put it on a different barrel, but it still take, maybe you sleeve the whole barrel, like there's a bunch of different designs you could do that'll still allow you to change out the suppressor.

Uh, when you change out the barrel or you make it so cheap and consumable that you can change it out [01:11:00] when you change the barrel out, there's multiple different business models that, that you could do with that. 

Travis Bader: Yeah. It's really, aside from all the government regulation, it is kind of a sweet business model to be in because it is a consumable and it's something that it's consumable and you build it.

Right. And people, it's kinda like the coffee businesses and why there's so many of them because people keep needing coffee, they keep coming back and there's always different colors, different configurations, and then of course, end of lifespan when they've got to, uh, get another one. Uh, the only real downside would be that club that you spoke about joining when you get into the, uh, the high oversight and regulation required to Yep.

To actually design and build these things. 

Kyle Grob: Yeah. Yeah. So there, there is a barrier of entry. Um, now if the regulation, essentially, if they, if the regulation on the, the object itself changes. Uh, our regulation as a manufacturer technically could change. Now we still like having machine guns, so we're probably [01:12:00] gonna keep our higher regulation.

Sure. But our, our, our theoretical exposure is exponentially reduced because then we're only gonna be regulated by SBR or machine guns or, you know, a couple hundred items versus hundreds of thousands of items of which we've built over the years. Um, so yes, it would allow the barrier of entry to be lower, right, to get into the game.

Um. But it's still a quote unquote regulated game 'cause it's still a firearm. 

Travis Bader: Sure. Uh, I mean, for the end user, that buried entry being lowered is going to create more competitive options, more people coming out. Uh, from a business stand standpoint, it's going to be that double edged sword of now more people can purchase with less headache, but now you've got no more players in the game coming into it.

Is that, um, part of the business model? Yeah, no. Is that concern? 

Kyle Grob: It, it's not as really a concern. And, [01:13:00] and uh, you know, part of our business model is OEM. So we do a lot of OEM work for other people. So we build a lot of branded product. Um, you can go into a lot of stores and you're probably buying something that we made.

Um, that's kind of the whole backend of our business model. So we've, you know, a little statistic. So we've built, we just surpassed 380,000 suppressors in the last five and a half years. That's a lot of cans. 

Travis Bader: That's a lot of clear. 'cause we've That's impressive. That's a lot 

Kyle Grob: of cans. Yeah. So we've built a lot of product and that's kind of where our business model has evolved over the years is, you know, yes, we have a KGM brand, we have a very niche product, but we build product for a lot of other big brands.

So our manufacturing capacity is exponentially higher than we, we are as a brand. And to support that is, you know, we have multiple other brands. We build a lot of stuff for other people. We do fulfillment, we do packaging, we do full turnkey, like we have customers, we have [01:14:00] several customers that never touch their product.

We do all the way from building, sourcing parts, uh, assembly, packaging, managing their warehouse on all of their inventory and fulfilling to their, to their dealer. They never touch the product. 

Travis Bader: So here, here's a, uh, a loaded question. Um, if you were to have a non-resident come and want to take a tour of the factory, is that, uh, permissible under your, um, uh, business regulations?

The reason I ask is because a friend of mine, she works for Norma, which isn't too, too terribly far away from you and, uh, planning to go down there and visit, and I'd be thrilled to see kinda what you guys are all about. 

Kyle Grob: Yep. So, uh, you know, covered under, because we are an iar R regulated essentially Sure.

Uh, uh, a business, um, there just would be certain things that I couldn't show you certain manufacturing, uh, processes or essentially knowhow. Sure. [01:15:00] You know, it's kind of one of those, you, you, you just, I don't wanna violate ITAR, but no, there's just certain parts of the building or there's certain things I couldn't show you.

For the most part, I can give you a pretty overarching tour of, you know, how, how our facility's laid out the machines. Um, you know, some of the, some of the things we do, we do some of the contract manufacturing mean we have a whole medical division too. Like we have a whole separate thing that's in medical.

Right. So, uh, yes, yes, I could, I could do that as well. 

Travis Bader: Okay. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should be talking about? 

Kyle Grob: Um, I don't think so. I, uh, I said it's, it's been a, it's been a pleasure to hop on and, and we do have some product in Canada. Uh, Rampart was one of our distributors that Okay.

Uh, that, that brought some stuff up. So there's some agencies up there. I know we had talked to some of the, uh, GFT FTF two guys. Um, uh, I think RCMP has a couple of aans for testing. Um, and, [01:16:00] uh, you know, so I know suppressors are not a big, as big a thing, um, in, in Canada, but I do, I do see the law enforcement military side following with the us.

Um, they, they've come down to several of the military shoots that we have throughout the, uh, throughout the US and the Canadians are always there. So R CMPs always there. JTF two is always there. So they are very much following along with what. Um, a lot of us socom, big Army, big Marine Corps, um, all your SF groups, um, the Canadians are also following, uh, uh, you know, trying to ke make sure that they keep up with, um, uh, with what us is doing, what Europe's doing, five eyes, all that kind of stuff like that.

Beautiful. 

Travis Bader: Well, Kyle, it, it was a lot of fun. It was educational, and, uh, want to thank you for being on the Silver Court podcast. 

Kyle Grob: I appreciate you having me and, uh, again, happy to hop on, uh, anytime if you've got questions or, uh, you know, discussion on the, on the [01:17:00] politics. I'm not a huge political guy, but I, I try to, uh, I try to keep up with it as, as it's relates to, you know, myself and the industry and stuff like that.

So, uh, again, always have it on. If you're down in the States and you get near us, um. You are, you are always welcome to, uh, come by the facility. Uh, we have, again, we have a range in the building, so you know, if anything we, if anything we can shoot some, shoot some fun stuff. 

Travis Bader: Uh, it sounds amazing and I gotta make sure we got links in the description so people can find you on social, they can find your website and uh, if they needed to follow up, they know where to, they know where to go.

Kyle, thanks so much for being on the podcast. 

Kyle Grob: Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.