#Youtube

On today’s episode of TFB’s Behind the Gun Podcast, we’ve brought on 3D printing YouTuber Print Shoot Repeat to talk about his DIY firearm profession. Print Shoot Repeat primarily specializes in showcasing, testing, and developing open-source 3D-printed firearms that everyone and anyone with a 3D printer can benefit from. While DIY firearms available to anyone on the planet are his bread and butter, Print Shoot Repeat also dabbles in making fun firearms-focused music videos, as well as motorcycle content on his second channel Print Shit Repeat. Print Shoot Repeat is a man of many talents and I am honored to have been able to meet and shoot with him at this year’s Finnish Brutality match. If you’d like to hear about our experiences at the match, stay tuned to TFB’s Behind The Gun Podcast for a recap of Print Shoot Repeat at Finnish Brutality 2023.

While I was out at Finnish Brutality 2023 I had a chance to talk a lot with both Mike Burns (Bloke on the Range) as well as Ian McCollum (Forgotten Weapons). Both of these guys have a passion for bringing the history of weapons and other wartime machinery to life and sharing them with all of us in a palatable format. While both of their channels are quite successful, YouTube has always done its best to make sure that the lion’s share of any profit always goes to the corporation rather than the creator. Ian and Mike have started a brand new Gun-Centric Streaming Service called  The History of Weapons and War. This is being done via a collaboration with seven other well-known historical firearm guntubers and their service will be available on tons of major streaming platforms like Apple TV, Roku, and a dedicated mobile application for your phone.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report. This ongoing series of rimfire-focused articles is about the rimfire firearm world and its many firearms, trends, ammunition types, and of course history. Last week fellow TFB writer and gunsmith savant Sam S. took a deep dive into the antiquated 30 Rimfire cartridge. Like many of its other rimfire cousins, 30 Rimfire just didn’t survive the wide acceptance of centerfire cartridges which proved to be superior in virtually every way. This week we’re going to be covering something that caught my attention quite recently. Around the start of the new year the YouTube channel Garand Thumb started a discussion with a guy in the comments of one of his recent videos saying he could consistently hit a soda can at 700 yards with a 22LR. Obviously, a lot of online drama has been drummed up about this and I’m not particularly interested in that portion of it, but rather the actual practicality of the claim. So today we’ll discuss whether or not I think this is possible based on what I know and have experienced with 22LR.

I like winning. Winning is for winners. I will dunk on an eight-year-old if it means I can go home a winner. But one of the oldest lessons I learned from my father is that there is no free lunch. That means it is almost impossible to have free stuff drop in your lap for doing nothing. So if you watch James’ beautiful face for 12-15 minutes on TFBTV and then decide to write a comment and someone replies that you have been ‘selected as part of the giveaways’. No, you did not win a gun.

Those interested in Precision Rifle Shooting will be happy to hear that Vortex Optics has begun a new show recently with the introduction of their “Go Long-Range” series. The show focuses on Mark and Jimmy as they embark on their first Precision Rifle Series Match where they learn how to tune their gear, their training and also features tips and tricks from pro shooters like Nick Laufenberg and Dave Preston who help Mark and Jimmy shore up their PRS game.

I was recently bumming around on YouTube when I came across an interesting video from May 26th featuring a supposedly 100% original design of a semi-automatic .22LR pistol. Coming from the YouTube channel Humphrey Wittinsworth IV, the so-called “Mega Pistol” features a 40-round fixed rotary magazine that would only really be possible to the common man via 3D printing technology.

This article was written by Albert L. and  originally published over on TFB’s sister site,  OvertDefense.com. Check out OVD for the latest defense news and updates.

Jeff Quinn of Gunblast.com has sadly passed away on July 27th, 2020 in a hospital in Nashville, TN. Jeff’s channel has been one of the staples of the YouTube firearms community for nearly a decade now with Jeff reviewing and shooting many of the most popular firearm releases over the years. Jeff’s videos often brought a lighthearted and down to earth perspective on each firearm he brought to the show.

YouTube… as firearm enthusiasts we have plenty of reasons to complain about how this video repository is run. Yet there’s still a lot of great content in it, which keeps us coming back for more. Sometimes their algorithms work even surprisingly well, suggesting videos we actually could really like. One of such cases brought yours truly to discover “The Archers Rifle” by the channel named The Idahoan Show.

Google and Facebook have now made it possible to find photos of firearms by simply typing a serial number into the search box.  Earlier today, the automotive website Jalopnik published a story showing how license plate numbers are evidently scanned using optical character recognition (OCR) on Google images, allowing them to be searchable using text queries. Using the OCR hypothesis, TFB wondered if this image data mining technique might be able to be used to search for firearm serial numbers. Using images posted previously on TFB with serial numbers displayed on firearms, we tested the serial number search technique.  As you can see from the results below, firearm serial numbers are in fact part of this apparent large-scale data mining operation by companies like Google and Facebook.

As an update to yesterday’s post regarding YouTube’s decision to permanently demonetize some smaller gun-related YouTube channels, now it seems YouTube will become the arbiter of what constitutes safe gun handling [from their offices in San Francisco].

Several guntubers woke up to unwelcome but possibly-not-unexpected emails from YouTube on Wednesday morning, wherein YouTube told these creators that their channels were going to be permanently demonetized.

As you may have already heard, firearms and parts retailer Brownells was removed from YouTube and later reinstated without a detailed explaination as to which community guidelines had been violated that landed them in social media jail. Although the channel’s return is a victory for both Brownells and consumers alike, the trend towards demonetizing videos and removing channels that feature firearm related content appears to be gaining steam.

For those of you who aren’t up to speed on the present state of YouTube: Subsequent to the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017, YouTube began semi-arbitrarily enforcing certain unwritten content guidelines relative to bumpstocks and other gun-related content that YouTube deemed to be “offensive”. I expressly use the term “offensive” because, at the time, there were no specific, firearm-related community/content guidelines in place at YouTube. Instead, content was policed under a general, nonspecific “offensive content” guideline, so there was very little in the way of actual guidance for gun channels on YouTube.

In a move that is both shocking and unsurprising at the same time, the video hosting powerhouse YouTube has terminated Brownells’ channel citing violations of their “community guidelines”. In the professional business of gunsmithing, tools, parts supply, accessories and more recently firearms sales, Brownells has been a pillar of the shooting community for nearly 100 years. While countless old-fashion catalog sales companies died off with the ecommerce revolution, Brownells adapted, embracing online sales and customers with an easy to navigate website and strong social media presence.