Guidefitter Spotlight Episode 10: Justin Rasmussen, Founder/CEO at RAZCO

Transcript

Bryan Koontz (00:15) Hey everyone. The following conversation is with Justin Rasmussen. He's the founder and owner of a company based here in the Bozeman Montana area where Guidefitter is based called Razco And Justin likes describing Razco as a bear defense company. Now most of the people who know Razco know them from their Kydex pistol holsters, both chest carry, pack carry and quite a number quite a few other different ways to carry their holsters. But in this conversation, we talk a lot about just typical practices for bear defense and bear awareness, when to use a pistol versus bear spray, and some things like that. And Justin also gets into a little bit about where Razco is heading as a company. So join me in this conversation, and welcome once again to the Guidefitter Spotlight.

Bryan Koontz (00:34) Are you from Alaska or where are you originally from?

Justin (02:56) Yeah. No, I was born in Nebraska. I spent the first, I don't know, 14 years living, you know, living there. And then, um, when I was 15, we moved to Alaska and lived there until I joined the army, um, in 2006. So 99 to 2006, we lived in Juneau and then, um, then went off to the army for like eight years, then got to the army, uh, in 2013 and moved back to Juneau.

Bryan Koontz (03:24) Okay.

Justin (03:36) and lived up there till 2017 when we moved to Bozeman and got Razco going.

Bryan Koontz (03:42) that's cool. you were growing up and you first moved to Alaska, was it like a family job situation or?

Justin (03:50) yeah, a little bit, basically just adventure. my parents wanted to try something new and, we'd been looking all over the Rocky Mountain West, really, Colorado and Wyoming. We'd always go to vacations in the summertime. We would just load up our K5 Blazer and head west and, stay at campgrounds out in the Rockies somewhere, whether that was, you know, Colorado or Wyoming or, we never did make it to Montana, South Dakota.

Bryan Koontz (04:05) Ahem.

Justin (04:19) You know, we just pick some, pick someplace out there every summer and go. and then, and then, one of my dad's good friends got a job at, mine in Alaska or oil rig oil field job. can't remember one of the two anyway, rough neck job in Alaska and kept coming home and telling my dad's stories of the adventures he's been having in Alaska doing the hunting and fishing and, Finally, one year my parents just came to me and my brother and said, hey, next couple of weeks we're gonna gather up all our crap and sell it on a garage sale and move to Alaska. Okay.

Bryan Koontz (04:58) mean, that is a huge step. like, that's not, you know, a lot of people move from the Midwest of these coasts to come to the Rocky Mountains. But when you, that's like next level, we're going to go to Alaska.

Justin (05:07) Yeah, it was, it was, it was a big, big difference. Big, you know, culture shock learning experience. Yeah. We grew up in the Midwest, which is its own thing. And then Alaska, everybody's, you know, really a lot more, like, know, independent type and, and, subsistence hunting and fishing and, you know, tons of outdoor, like all outdoor stuff. And, yeah, it was quite the, it was quite the culture shock moved up there and, in Nebraska, our weatherman, you know, he's in a suit and tie doing the weather and we get up to Alaska and the weatherman's got like a tie dyed shirt on and he's just an old hippie. what is this? Yeah. So it was quite the thing.

Bryan Koontz (05:47) my God. She's probably strapped, you know, like it's, yeah. Holy cow. Now was that was the, I would assume, but I don't want to assume is that move that time in Alaska kind of when you, you know, first got your real exposure to bears and bear country and, and being a being, you know, having to get your wits about you and know what the heck's going on in bear country and all that kind of

Justin (06:15) Yeah, that's definitely one of the first things you learn when you start getting into the wood stuff in Alaska, especially coastal anywhere in Alaska really. we hunted a lot on Admiralty and Baranof and Chichagof Islands, the ABC Islands in southeast Alaska. And those have a very high bear density, very comparable to like Kodiak. Everybody knows the Kodiak, but that island chain in southeast is very similar. both terrain and bear density wise. So yeah, got to instantly, you know, you got a bear education as soon as you start getting into that country.

Bryan Koontz (06:56) Well, yeah, I mean, I've even read stories about this story. And I forget the magazine or whatever I was reading it last year, but it was like someone like people woke up in the middle of the night and hear a bear had like bashed in through their front door and was like in the house. And the neighbor came and shot it through the door with a, with a gun. mean, they had a baby in the house. was like, my God, there's no joke up

Justin (07:18) Yeah. Yeah. There. Yeah, that's definitely that I, that was probably interior Alaska somewhere. I don't, I don't, haven't heard of anything like that in Southeast, but definitely, you know, in town, we'd have black bears running around all over the place, getting into your garbage. I can remember sitting in my living room one morning and looking like my front window looked down one of the streets and,

Justin (07:44) I just see this guy in his bathrobe and flip-flops chasing a bear that's got a bag of trash in his hand, in his mouth. Yeah. Well, trying to get his trash back. So he didn't get a fine. I'm sure. but yeah, there's it's just endless bear bear adventures.

Bryan Koontz (07:51) He's like shooing it out of the yard or trying to get the trash back or whatever.

Bryan Koontz (07:51) Right, right, right. Things you see in Alaska. Now when you joined the Army, what was your specialty in the Army?

Justin (08:07) I went in as an infantryman in the army and did a couple of deployments as an infantryman. And then our last duty station before I got out, I ended up at a gear development company inside of a training battalion. So every, every company that's trying to sell stuff to the army, we would, we would work with them and try and test it out in as realistic scenarios as possible to really get an idea of whether it was going to work first or not. So I did that. For the last few years of my army career, I was part of that.

Bryan Koontz (08:40) That's cool. So you would, I didn't know the military did that, I probably should have known, but so you would like work very closely with their engineers and like coordinate with actual military personnel to go out and beat the heck out of the gear and tell them what doesn't work, what does work.

Justin (09:00) Yes, that was, that was us. We would, we would do the testing, but yeah, we'd be with their, whoever their company's rep, you know, anywhere from Raytheon all the way down to small mom and pop companies. If you, if they were trying to sell the army, some piece of gear, camera or drone or, some weight carrying exoskeleton stuff, like the whole gamut of stuff you would think people would try and sell the military. That's unproven. They would have to work through us and we would set, you know, week-long event where we're doing lots of mock raids and patrols and all the things that infantry does to really hammer out whether these technologies and pieces of gear are worthwhile or not.

Bryan Koontz (09:45) Well, that's pretty cool, though, that there's a collaboration between the private sector and military to make sure that, you know, crap's really going to work. I mean, I'm sure it helps both sides. And you guys are probably kind of that that group was probably sort of a gatekeeper as well, where you can go back and be like, like, there's no way like all the all the claims they're making ain't true, you know. You seem like it would be.

Justin (09:53) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. That was pretty ruthless. Well, had, you know, course server and you see the dumb crap that why did we buy this and not the thing that actually works? And so I, I tried my hardest not to make sure I didn't send junk down the line to the next guys, you know.

Bryan Koontz (10:24) Right, right, right, right. Now, do you think that experience kind of had something to do with you later stepping into the entrepreneurial waters where you're designing things and kind of trying to do your own private sector kind of thing? And I guess that kind of leads into what was the spark that led to, I should maybe create my own company, which is,

Justin (10:41) Yeah, a little bit.

Bryan Koontz (10:50) Some entrepreneurs look back and be like, why in the world did I ever decide to do that? I would have had more hair. Sure, I do too. Do too, brother. Trust me.

Justin (10:54) Well, I feel that way sometimes too. I'm busy all summer long and through hunting season. Like, what was I thinking? But really when I was a kid, I would be making gear for my GI Joes. My grandma taught me to sew when I was like eight years old or something. And I would sew backpacks and stuff for my GI Joes. And so really it started there.

Bryan Koontz (11:02) Yep, I understand.

Justin (11:22) What really kicked off Razco was the hunting in Alaska when I got out of the army, in, Southeast Alaska, it's super thick and, you know, a chest rig is perfect for a holster. But then I started doing other hunts and I, then I needed binos on top of that. And I was struggling with carrying both at the same time. So I tried a lot of different variations of either pack holsters or, holster strapped to a bino harness of some sort, just so I could carry both. I eventually came down here to Montana to hook up with an army buddy of mine that was designing gear for the military. And he had a lot of cool materials and technologies that I didn't have access to. Had a sewing machine basically and some basic kydex making materials. And we got hooked up with him and he had, of course, materials and tools galore, a laser cutter, and this material called Tegris, which almost everybody that's making gear uses now. He was one of the... Tegris. Yeah, Tegris. It's that the backer material for all our bino rigs and pack mounts. That's called Tegris. He was one of the first guys using it as far as gear design. This was back in 2016. So we made, I don't know, 10, 15 different bino mounts that sucked. And then finally we landed on one that worked pretty good.

Bryan Koontz (12:24) Gotcha. Okay.

Justin (12:52) And, and, Paul at FHF, kind of helped tweak that last final piece of that design. So it cool. I got to meet him then and then, sent, sent some off to different people that were associated with Paul that his contacts and the under and the outdoor industry. Cause I had none at that point. Tesla mountain. Cool. This thing works good. And I basically did to my wife, what, My parents did to me, I'm like, hey, we're moving all our crap. We're going to Montana to start this business. What? Okay, I guess. So here we are. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (13:27) Nice nice. Goes around comes around. Yeah, that's awesome. And what was the so the first holster that actually worked what firearm did you make that.

Justin (13:44) Glock 20, it was the original Bino harness holster. I wouldn't even call it the Gen 1. We tweaked it a little bit after that, but you know, the basis of our Gen 1 FHF Bino harness holster was the first really good example of that. I made a bunch of stuff prior to, and I tried hooking the gun to the back of the Bino harness and inside on, I tried a ton of stuff. That one that we sent down to Dustin at MTN TOUGH was our first real usable model. Then he tested it for us and gave us a thumbs up and ran from there.

Bryan Koontz (14:25) Got it. Very cool. Do you know, I'm trying to remember his name. Do you know Caleb Stillins? He's a bear guide up in Alaska. And Tyler, shoot, what's Tyler's last name? I'm having a brain fart. But they were like hardcore bear guides. Tyler mentioned he went for like, I don't know, nine months without seeing a vehicle one time up there or something.

Justin (14:52) You can do that in Alaska for sure. yeah.

Bryan Koontz (14:54) Is that right? Yeah. I mean, telling me stories about like crawling under the brush, like trying to find a wounded bear that his client shot and like all this crazy. I mean, those guys are like young and seen like seemingly fearless, you know, bear guides up there. But anyway, they were here at Guidefitter hanging out a couple of years ago. we were talking about outfitting and some other things going on. I had just bought a 1911 10 mils, my first 10 mil. I was like, I live in Montana now I need to get a 10 mil. So I bought this Springfield and it was like a TRP operator and a little whatever, know, fancy. And I was like, Oh, hey guys. You know, I got this new gun. me, let me bring it in and show you, you know, and this is one of those humbling moments where you should just talk to guides before you do anything. You just should, you know. And so I was like, I went out the truck and I brought it all in and open up the box and I'm all proud to show them this 10 mil TRP, which is a, it is a great

Justin (15:40) Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (15:50) Yeah, beautiful gun.

Justin (15:51) they're fantastic. I love those TRPs. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (15:53) Yeah, and it had the has the rail and you know, whole thing it would not it would not. It would not cycle Buffalo Boar like those big heavy, you know, that was one

Justin (16:06) That's fairly common, especially the 220s. A few guns have issues with those big 220 grain and 10 mil. Yeah, if you're going to go those, I'd go the 200 grain versus the 220. You'll have less issue.

Bryan Koontz (16:14) huh. Yeah. Well, I guess we can talk about rounds too, but you and I were just at the Scout Arms PhD shooting course, what I would not almost a week, week and a half ago. And I think all the discussion there was about the G9 round seemed to be like the bear round. But I will get to, I want to get your professional opinions about, you know, what's the good round. So anyway, I get this gun out and I'm like, yeah. And Tyler takes the pistol and he kind of, you know, after I checked clear and all that and he cycles it he's like, well, uh huh. Okay, well, to 1911, which means it's got a very tight slide, you get any grit in there, you're going to be screwed. Second, let's talk mag capacity. How many rounds can you fit? You know, if you deploy your weapon on a bear, you're going to want all 15 plus one, you know, one round you get out of a Glock 20. And he went through this whole thing, you know, and I was just like getting smaller and smaller in my, you know, in my manhood as he's describing this. And then Caleb seemingly feeling sorry for me just look and says, well, but it's a really pretty gun. Anyway, that was just such a lightning moment in my brain. Like, why didn't I talk to an actual bear guide before buying this? So anyway, I went out and then sold that and bought a Glock 20.

Justin (17:39) Yeah, yeah. I mean, Americans have had long had a love affair with the 1911 for good reasons. It's a beautiful gun that fits your hand well. The triggers are great. The issue with most of the modern stuff is they are, like you said, built to much tighter tolerances so they can have an acceptable level of accuracy, which then makes them less reliable in field conditions. I wouldn't. A 1911 would never be my first or second pick of firearm for those reasons. Other than that, own 1911s and I love them. I just would not carry them for woodseed.

Bryan Koontz (18:15) Yeah, I have a couple 45 1911s and I'm you know, I like them a lot and and I think one of the things that obviously came out of the shooting class the other weekend was one of you know, one of the I guess the best thing to index on with your bear pistol would be the pistol you are most comfortable most accurate with most you know, all of that that that trumps almost everything else. Tyler, Tyler, Tyler Kuhn.

Justin (18:21) Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. We saw a couple of those drills.

Bryan Koontz (18:40) I'm sorry, Tyler Kuhn was the guy with A -Team Outfitters up in Alaska. He's a great dude. Anyway, You were saying I...

Justin (18:44) Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we saw in some of those drills with, with Rick that, you know, you need to be intimately familiar with a pistol and that needs to be the one that you can shoot fast and accurately. Cause you'll have in a charge scenario, you're to have two seconds, right? Can you, can you get your firearm out and draw and, and fire a couple of effective shots in two seconds? Have you tried that? Right? So

Bryan Koontz (19:01) That.

Justin (19:10) really the most important factor of the gun you choose. Can you do that? Can you get a couple hits very quickly? If you can't, that's not the gun for you or you need more practice. Probably both. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (19:22) That was, I would say there was a couple moments in that whole three days that we spent, obviously a lot of solid long range knowledge. Man, I could talk for a long time about what I learned there, but with the bare defense piece that you taught in the classroom and then which led to the actual pistol range stuff. Yeah, and I talked to other folks that were at the class. Yeah, the fact that if a bear is charging, someone shouts bear. We did those exercises that and with the little device that beeps. Yeah, you've got two, two and a half seconds to deploy your pistol. So now that means like make sure that your holster and all that, cause I carry mine under Alaska guide creations. Bino baby, I use your chest holster, just the one that the real thin one. And then I stack cause it's so thin. And then I stack the Alaska Guide Creations over. But when I heard that, know, stat and I, and I saw the example of, uh, you know, deploying the pistol, shooting 10 rounds and what, what did he shoot him? 2 .3 seconds. And they were all on point. I mean, that was, that was crazy.

Justin (20:27) Yeah, yeah, I Think yeah, it was like two and a half seconds and that's Rick and he is a ridiculously good shooter So yeah, realistically, you know your average average Hunter you're probably gonna get two or three rounds in that in the time it takes for a bear to charge you if you know if it's if you have any warning, right if it's not just on you and you when you notice and

Bryan Koontz (20:35) Rick's world class.

Justin (20:57) You know, most your, your average pew, your average shooter that practices a bit can definitely draw and shoot two rounds in under two seconds. once you get that closer to, you know, a second and half or one point two, then you're getting pretty good. if you can't do it in under two, you probably, you probably, a need to choose a different gun or different carry method. and B you need to practice a lot more or you need, yeah, the gun thing is, is the other, like, can you manage the recall of the gun? Right. That's, that's the other, the other thing that we talked about is, know, are you choosing a pistol that is so massive and says such recoil that you cannot fire more than around accurately? You know, can you manage that recoil? Can you get multiple shots? all the bear accounts you read almost all of them, not, not, not all of them, but almost all of them take, you know, many multiple shots to actually stop the bear completely. Unless you hit brain or spinal cord, you know, it's going to be many shots just for the nature of how long it takes them to asphyxiate.

Bryan Koontz (22:03) Sure, right, right, right. And meanwhile, now they're pissed and they're defending, they're going into super primal mode and they're just going to try to kill you before you try to stop making the pain stop on their side. Yeah, I guess that we got into that a little bit. A lot of folks still carry like a .44 Magnum revolver, wheel gun, strapped to them somewhere and it's like, well, you hope that first shot's solid because first of all, you're pulling a long barreled gun out of whatever your leather holster. And that recoil is going to be something to manage and then you only have six rounds.

Justin (22:38) Right? Yeah. Most of that's not good. You know, if you, if you will, if you are, I've seen some people shoot that 44, you know, generally a Smith in frame, shoot it really well and they're fast and accurate with it. But you know, that's not the norm and that's not what most people can do. You know, I can take most people and, you know, give them half a days of instruction and they can do with a nine mil, what needs to be done.

Bryan Koontz (22:51) Mm -hmm.

Justin (23:07) You know, they practice a bit and really work on it that you know, they could step up to a 10 mil and be just fine Not many people are going past that and being fast and accurate and having a gun that they're not gonna leave behind because it's

Bryan Koontz (23:19) Right, right, right. you, Razco makes a bunch of different style of holster, you know, what's, I mean, there's the million dollar question, which one is best, you know, for, if the goal is bear defense, you know, and we're just, we just mentioned, you got to, like the worst case scenario is, do you got a charging bear, you got, you know, two and a half seconds or whatever it is. What is the, is it a holster, is it a cross draw holster, is it a chest holster, pack holster?

Justin (23:48) That's, that's, it depends on the person and what's going to be comfortable for them. And for me, and you know, people that are probably, I don't know, five, eight or taller, generally a chest rig or one of our Bino rigs works really well. You have enough torso length. And if you adjust your Bino harness high enough, then it's not riding super low and pinching your gut in between the waist belt, your pack, and whatever you have for gut.

Some people that don't have quite the torso length can either go onto their pack mount or the pack waist belt, and that works okay for some people. And that, you know, it's a pretty intuitive draw going to your waist, and most people have at least trained somewhat with a holster there. You can also stack that chest rig underneath your Bino harness as long as you play with it and adjust it so you can get that grip.

Bryan Koontz (24:46) Right, exposed, yeah.

Justin (25:15) Get it adjusted so you have instant access to that firearm. And then of course, keep your trigger finger straight when you're drawing, right? That's super important. If you have to mush your trigger finger in like this, as you draw, you just up your chances of having a negligent discharge into yourself. So, even if you have to lift it and put it on the side of the Bino harness, keep that trigger finger straight. Those work. It's all in how you basically manage your straps and manage your gear.

Bryan Koontz (25:19) Well, that brings up the accidental discharge brings up another good point, which is I know a lot of people, especially when they carry, you know, an automatic, you know, with like a Glock that's, you know, there's one if there's one in the chamber, you've got some safety mechanisms, but it's rip and ready to go. A lot of folks don't like that, and therefore they won't carry one chambered even into bear country. But as we just discussed, boy, you got a chamber around now you're burning valuable seconds, you know, to...

Justin (25:50) Yeah. And that's not guaranteed you're going to get that round in the chamber. I would say to those people two things: train more and make sure you train that trigger finger straight and off the trigger till you're on target. And if you still can't get past that, get a SIG 320 or get something with a thumb safety. If that makes you more comfortable, you can draw and fire that just as fast, and you have that little extra layer of peace of mind if you can't get past carrying on a loaded chamber. But really, the answer is practice, practice, practice. Go take a class, go to a training class that will get you very comfortable with it.

Bryan Koontz (26:25) Right. Yeah, right, right, right, right. Got it. Sure.

Bryan Koontz (26:33) Yeah, I was shocked at, you know, I've shot my pistol. I'm probably pretty typical, which is I've shot my pistol quite a bit. I feel pretty confident. And then all of that goes out the window when you just do these really simple drills, right? What were we standing, what, like 20 yards, 15 yards in front of those little metal targets, something like that? Fifteen yards and you're drawn...

Justin (26:58) Yeah, it is. It's about 15, yeah.

Bryan Koontz (27:04) Positioned on the target and then with the... what was the device you had? What’s that thing called? The little beeper thing, I forget what that's called. The shot timer, or just a tap on the shoulder. You know, it's tap, shoot, and it's just... you can just... it's all up here in your brain, but like just those little exercises I think, which are so easy to do on your own if, especially if you have a shot timer or a buddy who could just randomly tap you on the shoulder.

Justin (27:11) I've got a shot timer, yeah.

Bryan Koontz (27:33) Boy, that exposes a lot of weakness in your pistol skills, for sure.

Justin (27:36) Yeah. Yeah. If you think you're good with a pistol, put yourself on a shot timer, draw and fire two shots on a 10-inch target at 10 yards in under two seconds. If you can do that, okay. If you can do that every time, not just once and get lucky, then you're decent. If you get that closer to 1.2 seconds, then you're, you know, starting to be really good. If you can't get two shots on target from 10 yards, you've got work to do for sure.

Bryan Koontz (28:03) Mm-hmm. Yeah, if you can't do that, the gun that you're carrying is sort of an artificial safety. It's not really going to do a whole lot for you, maybe. Right. Well, let's talk about that. So, bear spray. I know a lot of folks carry bear spray and a pistol. I'm one of them, and there are some good reasons to do that. But again, this question came up, and I think a lot of people have this. It's like, well, look, I don't really want to harm a bear...

Justin (28:11) Yeah, you'd probably be better off with bear spray at that point.

Bryan Koontz (28:32) Especially a grizzly, which has all the legal implications and all that—the feds are going to show up. So maybe I should just spray it. You know, like a lot of people think about that before they're in the moment. How would you advise someone who's contemplating that decision before they go out? How should they think about it?

Justin (28:57) Yeah. Yeah. If you're not comfortable shooting a bear, definitely bear spray is the answer for you. And whatever you're going to do, figure out your plan and stick to that plan. In an attack scenario, you don't have the time to think, should I draw my bear spray? Should I draw my gun? You got to practice whatever you're going to do and do that. And then adjust as necessary once you've initiated your initial plan.

Like, so if spray is going to be your plan because you don't want the headache, okay, you better practice spraying. Get out your spray every time. That's your answer. And then switch to the gun if that doesn't work. So I would practice that. That way, if that's your plan, cool. No problems. And you're going to probably have a lot fewer headaches in the long run with that plan, but you better stick to it and train that.

Bryan Koontz (29:52) Right, right.

Justin (29:55) If your plan is the gun, okay, cool. Plan, you know, draw the gun and that's my plan. If I'm getting charged, I'm going to draw my gun and shoot that bear. But again, I also carry bear spray. Say that's either a curious bear or possibly a predatory bear. That bear spray is going to be effective on those just fine, and then I won't have the headache of the investigation.

Justin (30:15) And I don't have to give warning shots because those are 50/50 whether they work or not.

Bryan Koontz (30:27) You had a personal experience, I believe, with a warning shot in Alaska. Can you share a little bit more about that?

Justin (30:31) Yeah. Yeah. So we were bow hunting Sitka blacktail in Southeast Alaska on Chichagof Island. It was me, my dad, and another guy. We were on this kind of knob. My dad and I were on one side, and the other guy was halfway around the knob, watching the other direction from where I was calling. Out in front of me was my dad, and off to our right was this big muskeg pond. I'm calling...

Justin (31:00) All of a sudden, my dad says, "Bear." Oh, there it is. It just like appeared. It's just right—holy crap, it's right there. You know, this pond is maybe, I don't know, 20 yards across. It's just standing there broadside staring at us. If it had been an area where I could have hunted bears, I would have shot it because it was a big bear, just standing there broadside watching us. We were standing up, hollering at it a little bit, and getting our other buddy over to join us.

Bryan Koontz (31:09) Just out of thin air, like they...

Justin (31:36) And the three of us were waving our arms and shouting, but we couldn't get this thing to run off. Then it started walking around the pond. The way the pond and the hill were positioned, we were going to be cornered, so we backed out a little into a more open area, away from that hill and pond, avoiding the funnel it would have had us in. It walked around, sniffed where we were, and then turned and walked right towards us.

Justin (32:10) At this point, we had a thick blueberry thicket behind us and the pond and the bear in front. To go anywhere, we would have had to go through that thick blueberry brush. I had no desire to be in that with the bear because it was...

Bryan Koontz (32:20) Meanwhile, heart rates are continuing to go up a little bit and everything, you...

Justin (32:23) Yeah, I was doing pretty good, staying pretty calm. It was, of course, a little elevated, but I wasn't in panic mode at all. I just knew that wasn't what we needed to have happen. So I decided to give this bear a warning shot. As it was walking towards us, I picked a rock off to its right, looked at that rock, and started squeezing the trigger. Then I looked back at the bear, and my hands drifted back over as I was squeezing the trigger.

Justin (32:45) I almost shot that bear with a warning shot just because I didn't keep focused on what I was trying to shoot at. The bullet landed about that far from its foot, and it ran off. We boogied out of there, but yeah, it was interesting there for a minute.

Bryan Koontz (33:09) Wow. But your thought process is that warning shots are 50/50. It's either going to do what that bear did, or it's going to provoke it to charge, you think?

Justin (33:19) Yeah. Yeah. I would say in a tenser situation like this, the bear was either curious because it heard the deer call sounds, or it came because we were there and it didn't quite know what was going on. We had been hunting for a few days, and we'd already shot a few deer, so we probably had some of that scent on us. It was definitely in predator mode versus just a bear that we got too close to. It came to us, so we didn't bump into it with its food source. This was very predatory. I felt pretty confident in the warning shot at that point. If it was more of an aggressive thing, I wouldn't necessarily use a warning shot in those scenarios. You have to play it by ear and just feel what you should do. But in that scenario, I felt it was going to work.

Bryan Koontz (33:50) Sure. Mm-hmm, sure.

Bryan Koontz (34:00) Yeah, by the way, the bear book you recommended just showed up at my place last night from Amazon. I usually read off my Kindle, but I bought a paperback because after I'm done reading, I'm going to make sure my family reads it too.

Justin (34:17) Perfect. Yeah, absolutely. That book by Stephen Herrero, "Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance," is my number one recommended book if you're concerned with bears, especially grizzly bears. That's the book to buy for sure.

Bryan Koontz (34:35) Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. that book is Stephen Herrera is the author of Bear Attacks and their Causes and Avoidance. So that's my number one recommended book if you're concerned with bear, grizzly bear stuff, that's the book to buy for sure.

Bryan Koontz (34:35) Yeah.

Awesome. We'll see if we can drop a link in the notes on this when we publish this to Guidefitter. So back to Razco, first of all, the name. I always like asking people how they came up with the name. What's the name story? What does it mean? How did you come up with

Justin (34:47) Yeah, there you go. Yeah.

Yeah. So when I first started the whole Kydex thing, was, it was not outdoors oriented and it was a lot more of the, concealed carry and, tactical ish type stuff. And I had a different business name and I knew I was going to get out of that and move to the hunting industry. I, I, I kind of wanted to switch names and shorten it up. And one of my buddies, actually came up with Razco. It had a couple other things on the end of it, but I was like, wait, if we just take Razco.

And my last name is Rasmussen, so people call me Razz. So yeah, yeah. That's where it did come from. And, you know, a buddy of mine came up with a longer version of it. And I just saw that first part. was like, that's it right there. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (35:29) Sure. I was wondering if it was a play on your last name. I figured it was, yeah.

I like it. It's like when they shortened the company from The Facebook to Facebook a long time ago. And you describe Razco, I might have this wrong, so correct me, but I think you don't describe it as a holster company, but you describe Razco as a bear defense company. Do I have that right? so does that, sorry, go ahead

Justin (35:47) Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we are a burn.

Yeah, we are a bear defense company.

Bryan Koontz (36:09) Okay. And does that give us insight into kind of where you're headed as a company with, you know, new products and things that maybe holsters may not be holsters because there's a lot that goes into bear defense other than just holsters. Is that a good way to be thinking about it or? Yeah, tell us a little bit about the future, like where you guys are headed and what's, you know, like next couple years kind of thing, like what, you know, what do you envision?

Justin (36:25) Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So we got our, we got our product lineup pretty good. we definitely want to stay in the hunting space for now, as far as, know, the holster holster game. But, I think really what's next is broadening our, our bear defense knowledge base and possibly, I've got, I've got some things that I'm working on that, we definitely could get into the training.

side of things, both pistol and know, bear knowledge training. You know, and possibly either, either running a training center here or, you know, doing a kind of a road show, you know, getting with getting with outfitters and guides and getting them through the training and then their clients that are, you know, not well versed in Western, you know, Western stuff, you know, you're you're somebody from Illinois, you're coming out for your first out kind of like, Hey, I better figure out how to defend myself against bears and

just rely on my guide, right? offer that as a service to, some of the outfitting companies that are in bear country. So those are some of the things we're definitely looking

Bryan Koontz (37:40) Yeah, I that's pretty cool because there's a lot of folks from, like I mentioned, Midwest, East Coast that, you know, they're looking for any other excuse to make a trip out West, you know, outside of hunting season. It's like, well, let me go out and like hone my skills on the long range stuff, the bear stuff, this backcountry skills. And I think the point that you made there is a mindset to have for people, too many clients, too many hunters who book a guided hunt

Justin (37:49) Thanks for watching.

Yeah. yeah.

Bryan Koontz (38:09) blindly rely on their guide. it's not to say, look, most guides are awesome guides and so knowledgeable and very capable and all of that. But, know, as you know, out here and other places, when stuff goes down, there's a lot of unpredictability. And so you better be self -reliant as much as possible.

Justin (38:25) yeah.

Yeah, the phrase is "Getting Western" for a reason because sometimes stuff out here gets pretty western. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (38:35) That's right. That's right. That's yeah, I should have thought that's right. Just shit gets pretty Western. That's right. So I think I think that's just good advice for any anyone wanting to hunt out what anyone wanting to hunt anywhere. like if booking a guide doesn't just mean you can leave your brain at home, you know, it's like and your skills and everything else like you. And in fact, when you show up at camp, I've heard this so many times with guides, you know, when you show up at camp, as long as you're

Justin (38:52) Yeah, totally.

Bryan Koontz (39:03) pompous and trying to tell the guide how to do his job. That's why we made a t -shirt. We still have some t -shirts say don't guide the guide. That's like something we hear all the time. As long as you're not one of those guys. But if you show up in your, you know, your reasonably good shape, you're confident, like you're, you're well trained, like you've got the right mental outlook and all of that. That's a client that that, that the guide's going to want to take. They'll probably be fighting over you in the guy when they're talking about which client they're going to claim, you know, on the, after that first dinner you have when you go out and when you show up at camp and they're all like, who's going with who?

Justin (39:29) Yeah. Yeah. They're all drawn draws in the back room like, no, I don't want that guy. Come on.

Bryan Koontz (39:33) Everyone wants.

Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. The guy that shows up with his scope not yet mounted to his rifle. No one wants that guy. But no, that's super cool. so on the holster line, there other... I know you just... Tell us a little bit about the new product that you came out with, the detachable. Yeah, cool. Talk us through that because that looks pretty cool.

Justin (39:43) Yeah, so.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's our, that's our roamer line and that's the Razco outdoorsman's modular rig. And that was, that's been in the works for a while. Basically ever since meat eaters meat tree episode came out. Are you there with that? They, were up, they were up elk hunting on maybe raspberry Island, right outside Kodiak, whatever that Island, think that Afognak or Raspberry, one of those two.

Bryan Koontz (40:12) Okay? I don't think I've seen that

Justin (40:24) that has elk right, right near Kodiak. And they had an elk down and they went back and got everybody and all their stuff to pack the elk out and got back. And it was a big nasty hike to get back to the elk. And they were sitting down, taking a break, all had their packs off and know, crap's turned everywhere. And then the bear that had been on the carcass came back while they're there. And it turned into this big rodeo and none of, none of them were within reach of any of their protective equipment. So I'm like, how could I make something

Bryan Koontz (40:38) I've heard this story,

Justin (40:54) would have been helpful to that scenario. And so I was like, okay, well, if this is modular and you can take it off, whatever you have it on and you can just hook it in either on chest rig, you know, the three point chest rig harness is super light. That, know, it wouldn't be a problem to carry that. You could put that or on your pants belt or whatever. So you could, so you could always have that pistol on you, matter what you're doing. That kind of sparked the thought. And then it took me a few years to figure out how to make that functional.

And what I ended up doing is taking the G code RTI hanger and then integrating a whole pattern in our backers that will accept that. And what that did is make it super thin and light compared to any of the other quick detach systems that I found that I tried out there. And we finally got that tuned in. So now we have, course, all the vinyl harness mounts. We can hook a roamer to almost any of the vinyl harnesses out there. Most of the backs and then three point chest harnesses and your pants belt.

Bryan Koontz (41:49) So So that means I could come back to camp like detached from my pack waist belt attached to my chest rig or attached to my actual just belt belt, pants belt. And I still have it. It's just a little lock in thing. That's why I mean, that's super cool because that's why I like the way I carry with your chest rig under the Bino baby. Because when I come back to camp or whatever, a lot of times I just like to set my binos down on the table, but I'm still walking around camp strapped because you you should be.

Justin (42:03) Yep, absolutely.

Yep. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (42:22) And but that but I like that that's that's pretty cool. And that's the

Justin (42:25) Yeah. As long as, as long as you, you know, get everything adjusted where you can get that pistol out, it works fine. Right. It is. Yep. That is, that is the first option on the website and it is R O M R and it's pronounced romer Yep.

Bryan Koontz (42:31) Right, right, right. Okay, and that's available now from you guys.

Got it. Well, I also noticed on your LinkedIn profile picture and someone else at the guide for the office actually mentioned it before I saw this, that I think at one point, well, in your profile photo on LinkedIn, you're wearing a chest rig with a rifle in the chest rig, which looks pretty awesome. And so tell me about that. was that like just a one -off thing or is that something you're working on now too? And where would you need to use something like

Justin (43:06) Yeah.

So that is a very Alaska specific rig there. And what it is is a Marlin 45 70 lever action rifle and a ton of outdoors men and guides use that firearm for bears in Alaska. And I had a buddy, those are photographer. And so he needed, he liked carrying the, the rifle versus a pistol, just, just cause he could shoot it way better and all that and more powerful. But he's also a photographer. So got his hands busy all the time. So we wanted that rifle to be basically on his chest, just like his pistol was when I made him a chest rig for his pistol as well. So we got tinkering around and I basically designed a chest holster for that 4570 that worked okay. Kydex isn't the material that's gonna get that product over the finish line. I'll probably have to do some injection molding or some other idea. But yeah, it's pretty niche project product, but we're still tinkering with that idea as well. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (44:22) Yeah, well, I've never seen that before. it looks, it definitely can create a reaction.

Justin (44:29) It worked really well except for it. just because of the nature of the flexibility of the kydex, I needed to have a thumb snap over it. And, the real issue there is when you're reholstering, cause if you pull that, you know, pull that rifle out in the way the lever actions work, once you cock it now, now there's no, you know, no safety or anything. You can put that crossbar safety on most lever guys. either delete that or don't ever use it. So putting the gun back in without putting it back at half cock could cause issue with that snap that sticks into the possibly gets into the trigger guard. So I didn't, wanted to eliminate that. So I want some sort of, you know, lever or button versus a strap that could get into the trigger guard to really send that product home and make, and make that cup that sits in a lot more rigid is really the issue. those two issues before the product is good to go. I probably won't do like bolt guns or anything like that. That it doesn't really lend itself well to that. You know, there's already good sling options and stuff.

Bryan Koontz (45:26) Got it, got it, got it. Super cool. I was gonna say, there's some stuff with the slings. I was looking at that. it, somebody was a Kifaru somebody makes like a little thing that'll, like for the butt of your old gun that'll kind of keep it attached. And I think Mystery Ranch makes a thing too. Yeah.

Justin (45:55) yeah, FHF. Yeah, couple of cup. Yeah. Mystery Ranch makes one. FHF makes a good one. Faro makes a good one. Stone Glacier, I think makes one. I haven't used theirs. And then there's one other. my buddy Josh with. that makes the bow hangers that I use. He also makes a good rifle one that's just got a pull cord and it comes out.

Bryan Koontz (46:24) Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn't seem like that would fit with what you're up for. So that's kind of back to the bear defense company that feels a little outside of that direction that you were talking about where you're headed. Yeah, Very cool. Well, listen, Justin, it's been fun talking to you. I feel like the direction you're going with trying to educate more people, I feel like I could sit here

Justin (46:28) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (46:52) ask you questions for a couple of hours about, know, now that I've had multiple years of experience being out here and certain places at camp and my head's on a swivel. like, always thinking like, what, what, how will I react if that goes down and God forbid it ever does go down. I'm still surprised at the people that I run into on the trails during the summer around Montana. I took my Jeep or my truck around and occasionally, like I met this guy. He was a professor on a sabbatical from like Washington state or somebody flagged me down on his mountain bike.

Justin (47:01) Mm -hmm.

Bryan Koontz (47:22) You know, asked me some questions about, you know, the day or where I'm going. He's like, have you seen any grizzly bears? like, no, I haven't. And he's like, man, I really want to see one out here. And I was just thinking, why, why? Like I never want to see one, but you have to be prepared. And I, and I constantly think about that. And I, and I just, again, from talking to you, listened to you the other week and even now again, and I just, I'm so not prepared. And I thought I was, and I bet.

Justin (47:35) Sure.

Bryan Koontz (47:52) most people are just not prepared. From the knowledge to the equipment to the practice, practice, practice and having the right, know, way, holster to deploy and all of that stuff kind of has to come together without even thinking about it. This has got to be like second nature because you don't have time to think.

Justin (48:07) Yeah. And really the light bulbs, which is when you see a bear moving at full speed, you know, most everybody sees the bears and they're just do do do. They're just lumber around the hills. They don't ever see it. The freight train coming at them. And once once you see that once your whole mindset will change for sure.

Bryan Koontz (48:26) How fast is a grizzly bear black bear? How fast is a bear run?

Justin (48:29) Through the woods 30, 35, I think they've clocked them up to 40. They're moving fast and they can be up to full speed in like two steps. it's like I said, it's a freight train coming through the brush. It's crazy.

Bryan Koontz (48:38) Good grief.

Friggin 800 pound freight train potentially or whatever coming through the brush. Yeah, right, right, right. Oh, terrifying. Well, that should be a good motivation for everyone to get out there and take a class, talk to someone like Justin who knows what's up. You've done a lot or I think you've done also a lot of just studying like sort of case studies about survivors and bear attacks and how do they behave and what happened in situations where bear attacks didn't end up well, situations where they

Justin (48:46) Yeah, potentially for sure. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (49:12) there were survivors and what did they do and advice, right? mean, so there's a lot of knowledge there that you've kind of gone through.

Justin (49:18) Yeah, I find myself, well, I went through Amazon and found every bear attack book I could find and just bought them and read them. And then if I can't sleep at night, sometimes I'll scroll the internet and look through bear attacks stats. yeah, I don't know. I'm weird, I guess. I just end up going down that path and yeah, just start filling my noggin with bear knowledge.

Bryan Koontz (49:37) Hahaha You may say weird, others would find it interesting. I find super interesting. Usually people who think they're weird are the most interesting anyway.

Justin (49:49) Yeah. So if people do want to get a little bear knowledge, we did put together the bear bear defense fundamental YouTube video on our YouTube channel. probably like halfway down our little video list. I would recommend that if you if you have not done anything with bear stuff, definitely.

Bryan Koontz (50:09) Sweet.

Cool. Well, we'll try to, I'll get with you. We'll get that link to make sure you have it and put it on the Razco brand page or somewhere. We'll make it available through everyone on Guidefitter. And if you're listening to this, you're a Guidefitter member, definitely check out Razco's brand page on Guidefitter. Check out their products. You can always ask us questions or contact Justin and his crew directly. And I have, let's see, I have...

Justin (50:19) Correct. Yeah. Totally.

Bryan Koontz (50:44) I have the Alaska Guide Creations, attachment that came out to your shop and we got it. We got it on there. I've got the chest also that we talked about. then I have, carry a Mystery Ranch Metcalf pack when I'm out and about. And I really do like that, that pack belt holster. That's kind of, if I'm all, if I got all my gear and I'm out there, you know, I'm not just like jumping out of the truck, running around Montana. If I got all my I'd rather it feels more comfortable to me carrying on that that 10 mil that scout arms modified clock 20 on my my Metcalf belt. but Yeah It's not

Justin (51:21) Yeah, it's definitely comfortable there. As long as it's not hitting your arm, you know, if you can position it where your arm doesn't hit it, it is pretty comfortable riding there.

Bryan Koontz (51:29) Yeah, easy to attach. It's firm. It stays on there securely even with a little bit of a heavier pistol. anyway, I have personal experience with Radco or Razco. If you guys who are listening to this have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer it as best as I can as well. But hey, man, thanks for jumping on and talking to us. This has been fun. And next time we do this, hopefully we'll have the studio set up. The studio.

Set up a little bit more. can come out and hang out at Guidefitter. We can do this again some point. Maybe once you get some more of your training stuff up, we can talk more about that. Awesome. Justin, thanks again, man. I appreciate it. Yep.

Justin (51:58) Sure. Yep. Thank