Sportsman of Colorado delivers a packed episode from the Mile High Hunt & Fish Expo featuring practical advice and standout Colorado organizations. Dr. Melissa Fling of Custom Ear Solutions explains why hearing protection matters for hunters and shooters, how hearing loss often starts unnoticed, and why getting tested early can preserve long-term quality of life.
The show also features Seekins Precision, where listeners hear how the company builds premium rifles through in-house manufacturing, constant innovation, and a customer-first philosophy that has earned loyal fans nationwide.
Scott also highlights Outdoor Buddies, a nonprofit helping veterans, youth, and people with disabilities reconnect with
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Watley.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to the show. We are glad you are with us. We have been playing over the last couple of weeks, recent interviews from the 2026 Mile High Hunt and Fish Expo. It was an excellent time. We were at a brand new venue. We had been out at the Gaylord Hotel the last couple of years. We were at the National Western Expo. building now all the new facilities they built back over here we had a couple of great banquets at the legacy building over that weekend and it was absolutely awesome and one of our terrific uh partners dr melissa fling with custom air solutions has been Coming to these shows over the last few years. And, man, got a booth right up close by the front door. And I’ve seen a lot of people stopping by. So, Dr. Fling, welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. We may even play this on Just Try It. But, hey, we have a segment. Let me mention that. Every Wednesday at 1230 with Dr. Fling Call. You listen up. Listen up. See, I looked over at Randy’s e-bike, and it’s just try it, and I do that. So, hey, just try it. What, I’m waiting for that? Protect your hearing. That’s what we want you to do, protect your hearing. But seriously, this is one of our segments we call Listen Up with Dr. Melissa Fling. You walk away from these each time with learning just things about people. What are a few things that have… Hey, you have learned this trip.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, yes. Let me open my notes. Well, one, it’s hard to convince hunters to use hearing protection.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s because we can’t hear you when you talk to us.
SPEAKER 10 :
So that’s what I’m always trying to… learn more about just in talking to everybody what their perception of their noise exposure is, whether they think it will cause damage or not, if they’re worried about it, if it’s even on their radar. So I’m here to learn just as much as I am to try to educate people about things. So in talking to the gentleman at the booth next to me, and a couple of people that stopped by my booth. One guy was telling me that he used to hunt with his dad. He used to go elk hunting with his dad and his dad could no longer hear the elk bugling. So that was a sign for him to go, okay, i don’t want that to happen to me anytime soon so i’m going to start using hearing protection so he has a little bit more awareness about it so he started at a much younger age but i thought oh that’s a that’s a good point to think about just noticing other people that are no longer hearing those animal sounds as well anymore when they’re hunting and that’s definitely something to try to preserve, right, an ability to try to preserve if you’re an avid hunter.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
So that was one interesting thing.
SPEAKER 04 :
And as you’ve looked around here and you see some of these large guns on these stands, I mean, you think about that day we went to the range and, you know, just a pistol and you can imagine what –
SPEAKER 10 :
I know, a larger one.
SPEAKER 04 :
Some of these others would be to your hearing.
SPEAKER 10 :
To me, it’s killer. But I know, you know, over time, you know, maybe if you start shooting in the beginning, you might feel a little sensitive to it. But over time, if you’re not wearing hearing protection and you have some damage to your hearing, you might not be as sensitive to it because now you’ve got some hearing loss that’s muffling it a little bit. So I find that that might be the case, too, for people that… are like, oh, no, it’s fine. It’s barely anything. It’s like, well, it’s not, but you probably have some hearing loss, so it’s muffling it now.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Dr. Melissa Fling, it is Custom Air Solutions, customairsolutions.com. Now, were you running, like, some show deals here a little bit? Would you be kind enough to, let’s say, what is it, 22nd? Could we – I’m asking you on the spot, so you can’t say no. Would you honor – could we do this, like – Let’s say just say through the month of April, if they call you and mention.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, sure. Sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
KLZ and Sportsman of Colorado or Haystack. Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
I mean, these are more lower cost product specials, but I can I can still offer them outside of the show. So I’m so I am doing a ten dollar discount on impressions. Usually there’s 60 for both years, but I’ve knocked it down to 50 for people at the show. I am offering some different bundles for ear wax removal kits, ear drops for people that have dry and itchy ears. So usually that’d be about 25 bucks for both, but it’s 20 at the show. Okay. I am offering something really cool that I think most people aren’t aware of, which is a Bluetooth video otoscope. An otoscope is what I use to look into people’s ears. And this one is smaller, and it’s Bluetooth capable, so you pair it to your phone, and then you can look in your ears, look in your kids’ ears. If you feel like something’s wrong and you can’t take them to the doctor, you can just take a look in there, and the video screen will show up on your phone.
SPEAKER 04 :
Man, I would think that would sell like crazy.
SPEAKER 10 :
I know, I’m So far, people are like, oh, I would love that. So basically, everything that I’m offering is like earwax kits, eardrops, otoscope, earplugs for people that aren’t ready for the investment in custom. So I’m just taking like $5 or $10 off of those different bundles if you purchase two or more of those different products. And then a little bit of a discount on the ear impressions.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, right. What is that? I’ve never asked this, I think, on all the shows. What is that ear impression stuff? Like when you make those solid plugs, what is that made of?
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s made out of silicone.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s the type of plastic.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. Some of them are made out of acrylic, which is a hard plastic. None of yours are, but that’s an option too.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. So silicone is soft and flexible. Acrylic is like a hard plastic. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, I do want to mention this because it all starts here. How long has it been since you’ve had a good hearing exam? That’s what you need to do first, all right? We want you to protect your hearing. But let’s get a baseline of where you’re at and what’s going on. Hey, it may surprise you one way or the other, but at least you get that baseline. So kind of tell us what’s going on with just an overall hearing exam and costs there.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so the cost is $200 for an exam, but it’s an extremely in-depth, thorough exam. And a couple things that I offer that other clinics don’t typically offer, especially the ones that bill insurance, which usually means they have to get through things a little faster, like at an ear, nose, and throat office. So basic things, I’ll take a look in your ears. I always want to see if there’s wax buildup, if there’s infections, see what the eardrum looks like. I do a pressure test on the ears. That will tell me how your eardrums are working, if they’re vibrating normally. That tells us if there’s a hole in the eardrum that I can’t see or if there’s fluid in the middle ear. Usually there’s not. The next thing is in-booth testing, where we test how soft of speech you can understand and how soft you can hear sounds. tones at different frequencies across almost the entire range of our hearing as humans. Most clinics typically test from 250 to 8,000 hertz, but as humans, we can hear from 20 hertz up to 20,000 hertz. Well, that whole, what I call the extended high frequency range between 9,000 and 20,000 is typically completely ignored. It’s not standard to test it. I do test it, which allows me to detect hearing loss in people earlier than would be detected if they just did the standard range of testing. So that’s very important. So those are kind of the main components of a hearing exam. Also I do Speech and noise testing, that’s important for a lot of people because even if you don’t feel like you have quote-unquote hearing loss, you might be starting to notice really subtle symptoms, having difficulty understanding speech, especially in the presence of background noise. So those speech and noise tests will be more sensitive to what your ability is to understand speech and noise. And for a lot of people, that’s usually the issue that comes up first with hearing loss, even if you don’t feel like you have hearing loss.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, one thing she does as well, earwax, okay? And she has an ear-a-gator, right? That’s right. You love that name. I know. I thought I thought of it one day, but I thought that’s what they’re called.
SPEAKER 10 :
You did think of it. You just didn’t know somebody else already had two.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, they’ve been out 30 years. But it’s not bad to have wax in your ear.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. Yeah. And I find myself having to explain that to people a lot because everybody thinks of wax as a gross thing, a dirty thing, a thing that needs to be taken out at all times.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it doesn’t look appetizing when you’re sticking that thing in my ear and I’m looking in there and I see all this stuff. I’m like, oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 10 :
I mean, most things that come out of the body don’t look appetizing. Well, that’s true. That’s true. Wax is no exception. But, yeah, no, it’s a healthy thing to have. It has vitamins. you know, many purposes. It moisturizes your ear canal. People that have dry, itchy ears tend to have no earwax. So it keeps your skin, you know, moisturized. So you, so it’s not itchy. Um, it’s a barrier for foreign objects to get in, including insects. Um, it can prevent ear infections. It has all types of important purposes. So, um, Yeah, you don’t always have to try to clean your ears out. Actually, your ears clean themselves. So it’s more important to just leave them alone, let them do their thing. In certain extreme cases, people have to get it taken out regularly, but I would say that’s not the average person.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. So all the money we spend on Q-tips, really not necessary, you’re saying? No.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I think it’s okay. And I have Q-tips.
SPEAKER 04 :
I use them. You just kind of take the outer canal and just kind of clean that? Yeah, just right in the opening. Because if what you say is true, but the wax can come out on its own a little bit. So there could be something around the outside of the ear that you do want to clean.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and that is where earwax is produced, just right in the opening. So when you use a Q-tip, Q-tips aren’t great at, like getting in and scooping it out usually people are pushing it further in which can be the problem then it can cause impaction of ear wax so if you’re going to use q-tips the safer way to use them is just swab right around the opening of the ear canal no need to go in your ears will take care of the rest of it i cannot believe how many hairs are inside your ear Yeah, we looked in your ears yesterday, didn’t we?
SPEAKER 04 :
I made my word.
SPEAKER 10 :
I know, everybody’s got them.
SPEAKER 04 :
I feel like I need to spray some hairspray through there to make it. Nope, nope. No, but I mean, seriously, there’s a lot. Yeah. And those are good to have.
SPEAKER 10 :
Mm-hmm. That’s another obstacle for foreign objects getting in. Between the wax and the hair, it’s not easy to get into the ear canal.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Which is a good thing, that those things are protecting our eardrums.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. Yeah. Very interesting.
SPEAKER 10 :
So if you have hairy ears, guys, it’s a good thing.
SPEAKER 04 :
You do hate that there are some hairs sometimes that grow on like the earlobe. That drives me crazy. Get rid of those. Dude, I can’t believe a hair grew there.
SPEAKER 10 :
You have a hairy earlobe.
SPEAKER 04 :
Or you have like a two-inch hair that’s hanging off and the guy doesn’t know it. Right, right. Do you do any tweezing for people with that?
SPEAKER 10 :
I could, but I don’t love to do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
You could do some ear waxing.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. You know, they do that at barbershops. Oh, no, no.
SPEAKER 04 :
I get it done because I have about three hairs on this one ear that grow, and it just bugs me. Especially when I’m sitting in the studio with the ear molds you make me for studio where I’m not wearing headphones. Sometimes, just while I’m talking, I’ll just sit there and put my finger on the ear, and I feel a little hair. It drives me crazy, you know. Got to get that waxed.
SPEAKER 05 :
For sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Dr. Flynn can help you out. It’s Custom Ear Solutions. And look. We laugh a lot. Dr. Fling laughs a lot on the show. She’s a fun doctor. But you know what? This is a serious topic. We’re talking about protecting your hearing. Once it’s gone, yeah, are there other things you can do with hearing aids and You get into all that, and again, that’s not her deal. She can help you if she feels like she needs to guide you to that particular provider. And she has some great partnerships there. But her deal, hey, let’s protect the hearing you have. Let’s find out where your hearing’s at. Again, that’s step number one to me. Get in for a good hearing exam. Hearing exam, folks, is $200, all right? For your hearing health, I think it’s all time we start investing in our health as we age into life, so to speak. So I hope you’ll give her a call at 720-839-7705.
SPEAKER 10 :
And you can text me on that phone number as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, okay. Yeah. Great. One more time.
SPEAKER 10 :
720-839-7705.
SPEAKER 1 :
7705.
SPEAKER 04 :
Customer Solutions. Dr. Melissa Fling. Let her know you heard her here on KLZ 560, and we’d appreciate that as well. So, Dr. Fling, as always, we appreciate it. And thanks for coming out to the expo and all. Yeah. And we’ll start planning for next year there, too. All right. Cool. Thanks for having me. We’ll talk to you next week. All right. We’ve got to take a quick break. We’ll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
haven’t been around that area you need to drive around back because there’s a lot of beautiful buildings kevin flushes with me kevin it’s crazy back here i didn’t even know all this was back here just and some of the other it’s a cool area yeah i mean because you drive over here and you’re like oh this is a little transitional with the river and everything and then you get here what they’ve redeveloped it’s awesome man i mean for these sorts of venues and for the ability I got to come back for the stock show because now I’m kind of curious what the stock show is. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we’ve got a couple of banquets over in the Legacy Building and brand new. So great venue. And, again, this has been our third annual Mile High Hunting Fish Expo. And one of the folks that have made it possible for us, a great sponsor, has just been a great sponsor. A friend of the Mile High Hunt and Fish Expo in many ways. And also on our shows, Kevin Jones with Seekin’s Precision. So, Kevin, good to see you. Hey, good to see you too, man. Yeah, absolutely. We’re happy to be here.
SPEAKER 11 :
So, man, you guys have been busy making guns. We got good problems. Wow. Yeah, we just, you know, last year we launched our PH3 model and all our new actions, the 60-degree throw, all the super great features that we’ve had. And from there, it’s just been, you know, like fire was on again. So we’ve been… Working on getting all the new guns out the door, and we’re hitting record numbers of shipping rifles and getting them out the door. Everyone’s always asking, are you guys even making guns? I’m like, oh, man, we’re making guns. There’s just a lot of people that want them. So we’re definitely in a good position to keep cranking them out.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, again, we kind of limit the number of gun manufacturers here where there’s not – but several gun manufacturers are here. So for those who haven’t heard you before, kind of give us a Seekins story and what you guys feel sets Seekins apart. And I can say personally, I know what, man, after shooting that 7 PRC, son. I mean, I had a great hunt last year with a mule deer, and I’m like, man, I’m going to shoot that deer with that guy. And boy, and I tell you, it was awesome. So thank you.
SPEAKER 11 :
But yeah, just give us this kind of the Seekins story. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, no. So we started making scope rings back in 2004. Glenn Seekins himself, you know, hadn’t started the company yet, but he missed a missed a shot on a trophy buck and tried to figure out what was going on, and he got back to the house and figured out that it was the scope rings. And so he said, well, I’ll start building my own. So he started with scope rings, and then he got into the AR market. And then in 2017, we came out with the Havoc line, which was our bolt guns. And then from there, it’s just been on. And so we’ve just been improving on our own design from the get-go. We manufacture everything on that rifle 100% in-house. And that’s rare. It is very rare. Like, if you… If you really know what it takes to manufacture and put a gun together with every single piece being made under one roof, most companies don’t do it. Most companies really don’t manufacture every single component under one roof. It’s usually outsourced and brought in and then You know, you hope that they have a good quality control process to put a gun together, make sure everything’s shooting straight and good. You know, we do that all in-house. So we get to control every step of that gun’s process, all the way from the thread protector down to the bolt knob down to the barrel. So we do all of that 100%, which is really what takes, like, where our pride comes in. And our attention to detail, our quality, and that’s really what we think sets us apart from anybody in the same space as us. And just building a good rifle, right? I mean, it’s just, you know, it doesn’t have to be hard, but, you know, just doing it right. And then we do that and we’re trying to, you know, increase our production but maintain that quality. We don’t want to… um fall short like some other manufacturers have done and then we back it by a lifetime warranty we that’s you know it’s just the right thing to do you know a customer invests his harder and harder money with you and you want to make sure he knows that we’ve got his back if something happens whether it’s his fault whether it’s his son’s fault or the wife drives it over with the truck or something stupid we you must know my wife we’ve heard some stories like i mean you can you know every you Every year somebody’s house burns up. It’s just sad, but they find the barreled action. They send it back to us. We build them a new gun. There’s nothing you can do to board our warranty. Satisfaction guarantee. If anything about our rifle doesn’t make you just completely shot it from the moon, then we’ll buy it back from you. We want you to be happy, and if you’re not, then that’s fine. We think that’s what sets us apart too is building a good product. but backing it with customer support and customer service.
SPEAKER 06 :
So talking about growth and talking about making guns, how have you guys handled that growth and what is it that you’ve been doing to continue to keep in that sort of vein of quality versus quantity necessarily?
SPEAKER 11 :
So I’ve been working for Seekence for about four years. In the summer that I started, we added 10,000 square feet. And that addition on that building has already got new machines in it. Everything that we make money-wise, we invest right back into the company. So we’re an employee-owned company. So we could be selfish and take super sweet bonuses at the end of the year and be like, all right, well, we did good for 2025. We’re done. Let’s do that. But no, we roll most of all that back into the company. We’re buying new machines. We’re adding them. We’re improving processes. So we’re always looking inward. We’re always looking, how can we do better? How can we make our product better? How can we make it faster but maintain the quality? What does that look like? Does that mean a different process? Does that mean that we need to find a better way to make it? Something as simple as the fluting on our barrels. We were making the fluting and fluting our barrels and one of our engineers was like, why aren’t we using this tool bit? Now we don’t have to worry about these sharp edges. It’s cut. It’s done. And it looks better. Yeah. And something as simple as that cut down our machine time. The product quality went up. We didn’t have to spend nearly as much time, you know, sanding and blending and trying to make the barrels look, you know, the height of form.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Exactly. So it’s still simple stuff like that. But that little edge is what allows you to build another 50 rifles a week, whatever it may be. So it’s all about looking inward and going, what can we do better, whether it’s the product or the process? And we really take pride in that. And because we make it all in-house and we’re just investing in ourselves, we can be quick when we need to make those changes and apply them to, oh, man, we found a better way to make this. All right, boom, impact. It’s immediately impacting. our output and immediately impacting the quality in a positive manner and uh you know we have our tagline is unrivaled innovation and that’s that’s real deal holyfield so i mean we so it’s almost like you you guys are constantly thinking when you got a great rifle but you’re constantly thinking is there any one little thing we do to improve exactly and that’s it’s um It’s part of what we want or improve it or make it better or more consistent. We did the numbers for all the new guns that we built last year. PH3s, the Element M3s, new guns that we built and shipped last year. we had less than 1% of them come back for any sort of accuracy concerns or anything like that. And of that 1%, we found it wasn’t private related. It was something related to, you know, an optic or ammo or the shooter or something else in the thing, but we always help the customer. So when, you know, people say… You know, oh, you guys build more guns. Does that mean more problems? No, we’ve maintained a less than 1% error rate on our product and building a production gun, too. And so we say we build production guns. We build custom guns in a production fashion. And so that’s what we think really… where we find ourselves in the market is guys that, you know, just want to walk into their local store and pick out a rifle, pick out a box of ammo, get a scope mounted up, go out and blast away and know that they’ve got a good quality piece of equipment in their hands. Now, Shields is kind of probably the best place for folks to look here in Colorado. Yeah, Shields, you know, they’ve got two locations, the Johnstown and the Colorado Springs. They’re going to have a ton of our inventory on hand, so you can just walk in, check it out, talk to those guys. They They are one of our largest retailing partners, hands down. So they’re going to either have the inventory or they’ve got it coming. So, you know, a lot of guys walk in and they’re able to put their hands on the gun. And they may not have exactly the flavor ice cream that they want, but they’ve got it coming. So, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
What are you excited about for 2026? What’s really driving the line?
SPEAKER 11 :
I’d say for me, it’s not so much on the hunting side, but we’ve launched our SICK rifle at SHOT Show this year. And if you hadn’t had it, we didn’t bring one to the Hunting Fish Expo. It’s a little bit, it’s kind of a bigger unit. It’s a .338 Lapua. It’s a 15-pound gun. It’s built for the military. And so I’d say that that’s really been what I’ve been excited about. There’s a lot of new tech. that we put into that gun. And we just actually launched… We’ve kind of revealed some more, pulled some curtains back on how we’re going to be coming out with some new barrel technology. So, you know, that’s probably what my biggest excitement is, is, you know, we’re probably… pushing the envelope on new technology, especially with high pressure cartridges that are coming out. Like the seven back country, there’s more cartridges coming. We know it, we work really closely with a lot of other industry partners, you know, Federal and Hornady and everybody in between that’s making, they’re pushing their envelope on their side of the industry. And for us, we have to either be ahead of them or on par. And so we’ve got new barrel technology that we’re going to start implementing into some of our cartridges. And we’ve already started doing it with the SICK rifle. It was basically per the military. They wanted to shoot super high-pressure, like .338 Norma stuff, but they wanted better barrel life. And, of course, the military, we’ve got to have everything, right? And so we go, okay, well, how do we increase our barrel life for that cartridge that they’re going to be pushing those kind of speeds? They’re shooting a 300-grain bullet at, like… 2,900 feet per second, scooting. And so it’s like, well, what’s your barrel life? Probably six shots, you know?
SPEAKER 04 :
So we had to find out. Today’s Monday, Friday. Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Like order 10 barrels with it. So we have to go, all right, well, how do we do that? So we’ve looked at different materials for barrels. We’ve looked at coatings on the inside of the barrels. And now we’re actually going to be attacking barrels Just even the manufacturing process. So one of the big things that we just kind of went loud with actually this week was basically an extreme gain twist. So do you guys know anything about that?
SPEAKER 01 :
No.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. So traditional twist inside of a barrel, right? It starts right at the throat, right? And the twist just starts immediately. Well, that puts a lot of torque. and a lot of pressure and a lot of heat on that round. And when it’s entering in, it immediately has to start torquing and spinning, right? Well, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to actually start out, instead of like a 1-in-8 twist on the whole barrel, it’ll start out at like 1-in-30 or 1-in-100 or 1-in-200, depending on the cartridge. So it’s almost straight. And so what that does is it takes a ton of pressure and a ton of… wear and tear on that barrel off from the get-go. And then as it goes down the rest of the barrel, we increase the twist rate. So by the time that round is ready to leave the barrel, it’s actually at its current twist rate that it should be to be stable for whatever the cartridge needs to be. So it’ll start out at like 1 in 50, 1 in 100. It just depends on the cartridge. And then by the time it gets to the end of the barrel, it’s at 1 in 800. And then that round is completely stable flying through the air as far as what the over twist rate needs to be. And so now your barrel life is going to be drastically increased. And especially with the high pressure stuff that’s coming, that’s what we got to do. So we’ve implemented some of that new technology into our SICK rifle, and that trickles down into everything else we do. So as we push ourselves, look inward, we’re able to then eventually move that down into all of our processes. So instead of doing button pull, we’re going to do cut rifling, and we’re doing that in-house.
SPEAKER 04 :
When you look at ammo, I mean, a lot of guys do their own bows. When you take factory ammo… I guess what we just call hand loaded him. Do you see, are you hearing much of a difference with people? I mean, are you always going to get better accurate out of a hand load or not necessarily?
SPEAKER 11 :
I think the biggest conversation is that we need to have when guys are talking about hand loads versus factory loads, is they say, oh, it’s way more accurate. And I think the conversation is not accurate. It’s consistency. Because I could buy a box of ammunition, and the seating depth and all of that round may be perfect for my rifle, right? And it shoots a quarter-inch group, and we’re good to go. But then I get a different lot of ammo, and now things change, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
And it can’t change. I mean, you can get that same— Absolutely. Brand, box. I mean, every word’s the same on the box, but it’s out of that different lot.
SPEAKER 11 :
Exactly. So where the benefit of hand loading is, is once you’ve found that recipe, you can repeat it, right? This bullet, this powder, this seating depth, these things is what makes my rifle shoot lights out and consistently. And so that’s where I would say is the edge. But, like, that takes time, right? That takes time, knowledge, you know, buying the components. Time and knowledge, two things I do not have when it comes to hand-loading. So for us, we see our rifles perform excellently well with factory ammunition, you know, off the wall. The ammo you told me is shot. great yep exactly and we we we shoot it like i mean and you know we work closely with a lot of brands um but we also want our customers to have a good experience so i’m you know i was straight up with you i was like hey this is what’s shooting good right now go get that right and get that uh that ammo that’s what we we know is being real consistent and um and then that’s where that way like you have a good experience because that’s my number one like goal right no no no man so it was all and i tell you what i love um i’ll let you give all the specs of what i got Yeah, you have an Element M3, a 7 PRC, and I couldn’t remember what color you got, but 22-inch barrel.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, but, I mean, first of all, it’s light. You know what, as you age, I mean, I shot a 300 Weatherby Mag my whole life, you know, and I love that gun. But, man, sometimes you’re just ready to pick up something a little lighter. Yeah. And if I put a can on it and stuff and different things, and, man, I tell you what, it has just been a game changer for me.
SPEAKER 11 :
I mean, I love it. It’s your next favorite rifle, and that’s what I always tell guys when they’re in the booth.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, now it’s going to be my favorite.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s what I say. Our rifles are going to be your next favorite rifle, and that’s a real thing. And a lot of our rifles we’ve heard over the years have become heirloom stuff. They hand them down to their kids, and then dad can go buy the new latest and greatest. But very rarely do you find our guns used on the shelf because, one, with the lifetime warranty and the satisfaction guarantee, but two, guys are like, I probably – 10, 15 guys yesterday say, well, I’ve got a PH2, and I’ve been looking at the PH3, and I was thinking about selling the PH2, but man, that gun still shoots so good.
SPEAKER 01 :
How could I get rid of it? And I go, I hear it, so you should buy another one.
SPEAKER 11 :
And they do, and they go, man, or I’ll pass that one down to my daughter or my son, or I’ll have one for my buddy to use. They have such an emotional attachment to our product because… They’ve had success with it. They know that we’ve got their back. They know that the hard-earned money that they’ve entrusted into our product has led to success. And they’re like, man, this thing’s killing a lot of stuff. I can’t get rid of it. I’m like, yeah, don’t blame me, man. But you should look at this three. I’m like, oh, man, I know. And so it’s always like what they end up getting into. And that’s the Seekin’s customer to a T is success. I don’t got one. I got five.
SPEAKER 01 :
I know.
SPEAKER 11 :
And I’ve got a few. And that’s how we’ve built our brand is we don’t go out and spend oodles and oodles of money on marketing expense, which we don’t spend in marketing. We spend in customer care. Right. And that’s what we think is what substantially sets us apart from other companies is we’re not going to go blow a giant marketing budget just for the fun of it. whether we’re backward or not, I’d much rather make sure that if somebody had an issue with our product, they were taken care of. I’d much rather build him a whole new gun from the ground up and be like, hey, man, let’s get you taken care of. And then he’ll go, oh, my gosh, they took care of me. Like, shocker in this day and age, right? How could that be so hard of a concept? But it’s so fresh because a lot of times they get left in the dust, right? And so they go, all right. shoot, I’m going to buy another one. And I’m going to tell my buddy and I’m going to, you know, everyone in my family’s got one now. And that’s how we’ve built. It’s kind of a gorilla style marketing. Yeah. But we’ve, that’s why we are as successful as we are now. And we continue to still like, you know, we’re at the mile high fish expo. And I had a guy on day one go, if you guys are so far back ordered, why are you here? And I go, hey, man, fair question. But we want to be a touch point. We come to these shows because we want to make sure that customers see us. They can come to us, ask us questions. Or new customers that have never had a chance to put their hands on a rifle because they are hard to get. They can put their hands on it, talk to us. They can get the rundown. They can get all the information, maybe the in-betweens that’s not on the website or the YouTube reviews or whatever, all that stuff. And so he’s like, I appreciate that. Like, that is a fair answer. Like, you are a touch point. You are engaging and connecting with customers. Oh, I’ll be honest, man.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so. When I started, I had never bought any kind of cool precision rock. Everything off the shelf. Yeah. I knew nothing better than, you know, probably a six or seven pound trigger. I mean, whatever. But then, man, when you finally get to just feel and touch and the trigger and you understand the barrel and you do all that, man, it is a world of difference.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, and we get this a lot. A lot of guys have done, you know, the only rifle they’ve ever known is the one that was handed down to them. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so we’re getting to that, like, change in the industry where the guy, he’s only ever had a Winchester 70. Yeah. Right? And 270. Guaranteed it’s 270, and it’s probably killed 1,800 elk. You know, and it’s… But… He wants to have the next latest and greatest. And with today’s manufacturing that we have today, that’s the Seekins Precision product. That’s us. So almost every guy, they may settle for something else because they couldn’t get our rifle, but we almost always still will capture that guy. It may not be this year. Because he’s got to have a rifle and we just couldn’t meet a timeline or something. But we’re not going to sacrifice our quality. And that’s the biggest thing. Guys come to the booth and they beat us up. Hey man, I’ve had a gun on order for X amount of time. We totally get it. Trust us. I would love to get you a gun. But… we will not sacrifice our quality because that’s how you fall into that trap you go down that route and a lot of companies have done that and they they’ve written the road map that we don’t want to go down and and so we and and being an employee-owned company and it’s led from the front glenn seacans like i will say like we’re employee-owned we just started that uh about four years ago so it’s freshly new but for us it’s, it’s led from the front, you know? And I think a lot of that is when your name is on the product, it means something. And, and that’s, it’s a, it’s a top down approach, right? Right. If, if that’s not something that he would have in his own hands, Glenn, then why would he get to sell it to a customer? Why would he build it? Right. If you’re going to do something, you do it right. Yeah. And, and so, and we just constantly have just reinvested in ourselves, you know, every, every time, you know, You know, we’re ahead or whatever. We’re just buying new machines, right? You know, we’ve added, man, we’re almost to equal number robots per person in the building. I mean, if you guys are ever up in the Idaho Loose scenario, you should make a trip. It is a hoot. You will see where we take raw material, like steel and aluminum right over there. We may have to go on assignment.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 11 :
It was a fact finding, right? Is that what they call it? They can write that off, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
But, no, go check it out. Anybody that’s ever swinging through and more than welcome to do a factory tour, there’s YouTube videos out there showing it. But, man, it is an experience.
SPEAKER 04 :
In person.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, it’s for sure. It’s a treat. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I haven’t mentioned this for a few seconds here, but you’re hearing all the background. We are replaying some interviews we did at the recent Mile High Hunting Fish Expo. We wrapped up our third year. And Seekins Precisions, I will say, has been a beyond key player. I can’t say enough things about them, but what they have done for us to help get started here and have just been terrific, terrific partners. And if you’re in the market for a gun, again, Shields is probably your best place to go to check them out. But go and ask for Seekins. Put your hands on one. All right. That’s all I ask you to do. Just put your hands on one. They know the rifles. They’ll be able to explain some things. But, hey, if you ever want to talk to Kevin personally, hey, get in touch with me at the studio and stuff. I’ll hook you up. Let’s talk to Kevin. But this is a great, great, great company building a superior firearm. And I’m telling you, great story behind it all. But this is why they’re going to be so successful of all the things they’re trying to do and just to completely staying on top of innovation. I mean, every year, but every week, every month, what can they do better? And I think that’s what they’re doing. And it’s going to be great. And I love mine. Kevin’s going to be picking up his next week.
SPEAKER 01 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we’ve already booked a couple of hog hunts.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, heck, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Kevin got the 308, I think. So, hey, we’ve already booked that. So we’ll be talking more about that as well. Yeah, the 308. Yeah. Well, Kevin, we appreciate it, man. Of course. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. We’ll be getting you back on more. It is Seekins Precision, SeekinsPrecision.com. Yep, SeekinsPrecision.com, yeah. And check them all out. And, again, if you’ve got questions, call us. Hey, we’ll answer any questions we can. If you need to get in touch with Kevin, we will get you in touch with him as well. You’re listening to Sportsman Colorado. We’ve got to hit a quick break, and we’ll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
Here’s why you need personal injury attorney Kevin Flesch on your side. He understands the way the jury thinks. In the context of a personal injury case, you’ve been hurt by someone else’s negligence. The idea is that you’re going to try to recover so that you can get back to where you were just prior to that incident occurring. What that really means from a jurist’s perspective is that you’re going to be asking them to award you money. So when we talk about fairness, we’re talking about six people that you don’t know. Those six people view the evidence and make a unanimous decision that will decide what the fair value is. When you’re the one who’s hurt, you have a good idea of what you think it’s worth. The question is, can you persuade those other individuals whom you don’t know and were witnesses to believe that’s what the case is worth? Kevin Flesch understands the way the jury thinks. Call now for a free consultation. 303-806-8886.
SPEAKER 04 :
Here’s your Water Talk Minute with Paul the Waterman, brought to you by Water Pros.
SPEAKER 01 :
Folks, everybody needs to go to the EPA website and check out the contaminated candidate list. There’s unregulated contaminants that have been in our drinking water forever. And what that means is that municipalities don’t have to test for them. So we have 1,4-dioxin. It’s an unregulated contaminant that’s been in the water supply since the early 1900s. We have synthetic estrogen that’s in our water supply. We have pesticides, herbicides in our water supply. So this is something that educate yourself. This is why we need a point-of-use reverse osmosis system for our drinking water, because of all the contaminants that the EPA is not allowing our municipalities to tell us about.
SPEAKER 13 :
They’re the first on call and the first on scene. But did you know the suicide rate for first responders is one and a half times higher than the general public? At Hometown Hero Outdoors, we help to provide healing for veterans, law enforcement and first responders by creating memorable outdoor experiences designed to focus on camaraderie and mental health. Our mission is to serve those who have served us. Help us make a difference. To join Hometown Hero Outdoors or to help by donating, visit hometownherooutdoors.org.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sportsman of Colorado Radio is brought to you by the Colorado Wildlife Council. The Council works to educate the public on the importance of scientific wildlife management, conservation, and the benefits of wildlife-related recreational opportunities, specifically hunting and fishing. For the hunter and angler community, this educational mission is vital. It empowers us to become effective advocates for the wildlife and outdoor traditions we value. Their mission is to ensure that Colorado’s wildlife is preserved for future generations through public education. Learn more about their work and how it supports your role as an advocate at cowildlifecouncil.org. We thank the Colorado Wildlife Council for their support of Sportsman of Colorado Radio.
SPEAKER 14 :
This is KLZ 560 AM, your home station.
SPEAKER 04 :
As we have mentioned, we were at the 2026 Mile High Honey and Fishing Expo March 20th through the 22nd. It was awesome. There’s no way we could fit all the interviews in or just our one hour show over that weekend. So we are playing some of the interviews from the Expo. No stranger to our airways. Larry Sanford outdoor buddies. They have been with us for a number of years now. Great partnership. Larry, as we record this live here at the Expo, a pretty cool new venue.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my gosh. This venue is amazing. This is what a sports show should be. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, it is awesome. And, man, I tell you, you want to talk about quality booths, it’s unreal.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s real quality booths. And what’s amazing, it’s brought all these great vendors, great guns, great you name it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
from close around Wyoming, you know, Nebraska, you name it, and they’re here. We don’t get to see that at some of these other shows. So they’ve done a great job here.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, absolutely. Again, Outdoor Buddies, check them out, outdoorbuddies.org, and just a great organization. It’s been a while since we’ve kind of explained really what their mission and all about. So, Larry, help us out with this for those that haven’t heard you before.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, Scott, thanks for having us on again. Outdoor Buddies, our mission is to get folks back in the outdoors that have been deprived of that experience. So it’s pretty broad. Who come to us are a lot of folks with disabilities. We were started by Craig Hospital and the Division of Wildlife at that time. It’s now the CPW and the Hunter Safety Department. They needed, Craig Hospital needed a way to get the folks that have been rehabilitated back in the outdoors. And so we still continue to do that great service for everybody as well as Craig. All these folks that have injuries that have learned how to do, you know, just get back in life. We get them out. And so it’s broadened into youth and novice and veterans and, you know, just everybody. So, yeah, whatever it takes, whoever needs us, we’re there.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, you know, getting back in the swing of things after, you know, an injury and whether that be, you know, PTSD type deal or whether it be an actual physical injury, boy, it changes lives for folks. It does.
SPEAKER 03 :
It changes lives. It changes their lives, but it changes families. And you have to realize that sometimes organizations, you know, God bless us, we do the best we can with the resources that we have. But if we don’t get those families out with those folks, sometimes it just doesn’t work. And so we’re trying to get everybody out. So that’s why we have events all year long. Right. Speaking of events, what do we got coming up here spring and summer? So the spring, we’ve got one of our big things this year that’s brand new and is the Armed Forces Day. Armed Forces Day is going to be off the chain. It’s over at our venue there at Swift Ponds. And there’s gonna be four or five different veteran groups along with us that are gonna be part of that so that these veterans that come and we say thank you to their service, they’re gonna be able to go to these different organizations and say, Can you help me? What can you do? Instead of all of us being separate, Outdoor Buddies is going to take everything we got. We got a great foundation to give us a good grant to make this happen. We’ll stock $10,000 worth of great fish. that these folks can catch fly fishing, whatever type of fishing they want to do, and put it out there. We’ve got all that. We’ve got Revital with the first responders. They’re going to come and do a bunch of food and do what they do and also be a part of it. So I don’t know where this is going to go, but it’s going to be big. And it’s just going to end up being an annual deal because I didn’t realize that when we started this, we were just wanting to say thank you to veterans. But there’s a whole community that is just waiting to do this. And all we had to do was just have a place to do it. Sure. So you get a bunch of fish and people and food, you know, good things are going to happen. That works. Yeah. And then June 6th, we have our family days. That every family with any disability, anything that’s going on, we have folks out of respite, that these folks that have kids that are up to, I don’t know when they age out, but there’s, we’ll just call it 18. Right. These families need a place to go and take these kids that… They do what they can do. And so we’ll have fishing, archery, BB guns, sand piles, whatever it takes to let them out. The families will be able to do archery, you know, all of it. Trap shooting. Wow. We won’t have any shooting at the event for Armed Forces Day just because of PTSD. We want all those folks to be able to come. Sure. Whatever that is, so… We’re always looking for help to do that kind of stuff. We’re all volunteer group. Nobody gets paid to do this and just a bunch of great hearts.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, absolutely. Once again, you’re just joining us and you wonder what is all that background noise. We are actually recording this at the 2026. mile high and fish expo and larry sanford’s with us it’s outdoor buddies outdoorbuddies.org if you’re looking for an organization to help with uh hey donate to uh with time as a volunteer or money which is always helpful uh this is a great organization again we’ve been involved for for several years now together and uh just really believe in their mission and what they’ve got going on Now, is it later in August, your clay shoot? August 1st.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. That’s what I thought. August 1st is the sporting clay shoot. And that’s one of our fundraisers that we… Excuse me. This headphone. I guess I got a cone head, maybe. So… That’s one of our main fundraisers. And so anybody that wants to go out and shoot clays, get a team together. Corporate sponsors are great. Come out and just have a great time. Again, we always have great food, and everybody just has a blast.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
It was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. August 1st.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, you know, back in the day, pre-COVID, I guess, banquets were big. And now that changed the world a little bit. But, of course, in many ways. But that was one thing that, you know, we certainly enjoyed doing together. But I’m telling you, follow them on social media. You can find out all the different things they do. They do a great job there keeping you abreast of what’s going on. Once again, it’s outdoorbuddies.org. And again, great organization. Now, if somebody knows someone that they would like to maybe get them to go on an excursion with you or to do some activity, how do they go about that, nominating someone?
SPEAKER 03 :
So they can give any one of us a call on the board of directors. Get on outdoorbuddies.org. Our office number’s on there, and they can go to any one of the things. You can get a hold of me, Larry Sanford. I’m the president. You can get a hold of any one of our directors and just get it started. Say, hey, I need help. I would love to go do something. I have a friend. I have an uncle, whatever. And they need to get out. And so just give us a call. And my cell phone’s on there as well. Text me. Tell me who you are. And we’ll get you out. It’s as easy as that. It doesn’t cost anything. We are only, of course, the need always outweighs the resources. Sure. So we try to do everybody that we can. But if we can’t get you in this year, we’ll get you in next year.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Sounds good. Well, man, we appreciate it. Thanks for all you do. And love our partnership. And we’ll continue with that. So, once again, go to outdoorbuddies.org. Check out some of these events coming up. And, hey, go out and have some fun. And I tell you, these are great family events, so many of these. And so it is just a great time for all. Once again, outdoorbuddies.org. So, Larry, we appreciate it. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it. That’s the president of Outdoor Buddies, Larry Sanford. Quick reminder now, if you miss our live show on Saturdays 1 to 2, catch us twice on Sundays. That’s 8 to 9 a.m. and once again 7 to 8 p.m. on Sunday evening. And we thank you for being with us. Hope you have a great rest of your day and a great rest of your weekend.
SPEAKER 08 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
