Dwell Time Podcast Ep. 31 "MIL-SPEC: Does it matter as much as you think?"

[GRIFFIN_ARMAMENT]

The term "MIL-SPEC" is thrown around a lot in the firearms industry. Its mostly used as a marketing buzzword to imbue a sense of ruggedness and quality in a given product, but is largely misunderstood/misused in its application.

In this episode of The Dwell Time Podcast, Austin, Evan, and Sam talk about the term "MIL-SPEC", what it really means, how it applies the the commercial firearms market, as well as several interesting offshoots from the main conversation!



Griffin Armament's Dwell Time Podcast streams on all popular platforms (iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, etc.)

 

[LeftyJason]

Guessing this follows Betteridges law of headlines.
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no".

Betteridge's law of headlines - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[GRIFFIN_ARMAMENT]

Guessing this follows Betteridges law of headlines.
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no".

Of course, but that doesn't make the content any less relevant or the conversation any less enjoyable!

Thanks for checking out the show!

 

[HeavyAssault]

Okay...first 8:00...one definition from Wikipedia.....(yawn).....lots of opinion.......no real depth ....digresses into more firearms talk....some comment about contractual standards....digressing into how barrels are made...grouping shots....NOW we talk about Swiss ammo???.....OMG...Salt Lake City....Let's grade the ammo making 1950's machinery.... "My SPR...I could put down a 1.25" MOA group w/M855".....OH...using better ammo like Mark 262 that WILL increase your accuracy...."I'm not sure how accurate the standard is for mass produced military lot M855".....<<<<<HOLY FUCK the level of stupidity ....Now we discuss the Xm855 "reject ammo"....LOL.....12:00...now maybe we get to the meat......not yet......Carpenter 158 Alloy.....blah blah blah......Here we go...Start pimping our products....9310 bolt talk...our test bolts....20k rounds....15:50 some talk about Specs and testing...OH WAIT....16:20 DID they just admit that the Mil-Spec process CAN guarantee a high quality process?? WOW....The Mil-Spec guns RUN....LOL....digress into magazine BS.....PFCs loading mags off the table edge.....WAIT...I'm pretty sure these shits have never been to Vietnam to find 20 round mags....LMAO.....Here we go....more mag talk...Spec Ops....19:15 LATER let's make sure people know the topic we are talking about....cause we haven't said shit all up to this point.....Okay so MIL-SPEC should be the "baseline level of quality for a fighting level gun..."....IT IS DUMBASS.....Oh now....Beretta pistol talk....JEEEEZZZZZ.........22:00+ Pimping Glocks to the Pentagon.....The MILSPEC is the least expensive option.....That is a level of ignorance that is SO far off .....24:00 What's better than MILSPEC.....Well since you haven't discussed MILSPEC, let's ignore it....NATO Standards....COOL...we can talk about accessory rails now....LMAO.....more pistol talk?????...WTF.......OH SHIT.....Bring politics into the talk....2A talk.....I'm not sure where this is going.....Wasn't this supposed to be about MILSPEC......talk about granddad's military rifle.....lower enlisted talk....OMG.....30:00..to circle back to talk about MILSPEC....There's only 8:00 left....Let's sell brands to buy....good, better, best......poor, decent, expectable....brand talk...but we don't talk about brands....anything below is BCM is poor....Pimp their own brand....No one else but Knight's Armament .......WAIT.....MILSPEC rifles shoot 4" MOA?????....F-Me....now we talk about WWII......35:00 Let's overview what we talked about.....LMAO.....


These guys are a joke......I mean like a BAD joke....You know that joke you hear, then you have to physically hold yourself back from backhanding them in the mouth.

 

[GRIFFIN_ARMAMENT]

@HeavyAssault

thanks so much for the thorough recap, and for checking out the episode. It seems like you didn’t enjoy it, but we appreciate you listening nonetheless!

There are 30 more episodes previous to this one if you’d like to check them out! Available here: https://www.griffinarmament.com/info/media/dwell-time-podcast/

 

[11B-B4]

@HeavyAssault That was a great synopsis.
My only complaint is It almost seemed like they were enjoying themselves too much.

 

[HeavyAssault]

I gave you 38+ minutes......You aren't getting any more of my time listening to that crap. When you can have an honest discussion about MILSPEC call me. I can give you the inside run on how GOV contracts work, how they are awarded, what GOV Quality Assurance Inspectors deal with on a daily basis. How those MILSPECS are decided upon, what other standards can be used, how to negotiate a contract....yea...then you see what an enlisted guy can do for your country. I've had more than quite a few college "engineers" so far beyond pissed off with my HS education. The worst part was....they just didn't read the contract. Hope you can get your podcasts a tad more filled with education then with the BS.

 

[THEIS]

thanks so much for the thorough recap, and for checking out the episode. It seems like you didn’t enjoy it, but we appreciate you listening nonetheless!

Hi,

What was your first clue in regards to the above bold statement, lolol?

@HeavyAssault thanks for the summary so that I did not have to click anything pertaining to MILSPEC....

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[Ravenworks]

Word of advice do not talk about SPERM mounts.

 

[308pirate]

How many people who toss the fucking phrase around have even ever seen, let alone read, a military specification or standard?

Hardly any

 

[THEIS]

How many people who toss the fucking phrase around have even ever seen, let alone read, a military specification or standard?

Hardly any

Hi,

Half of them will argue that "Mil-Spec" covers damn near everything yet cannot give you the number listed behind the Mil-Std they are attempting to tout.

Just as motivational pictures are USELESS without pictures...Mil-Std conversations are USELESS without a series of numbers.

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[308pirate]

Hi,

Half of them will argue that "Mil-Spec" covers damn near everything yet cannot give you the number listed behind the Mil-Std they are attempting to tout.

Just as motivational pictures are USELESS without pictures...Mil-Std conversations are USELESS without a series of numbers.

Sincerely,
Theis

Exactly

These are some of the key words I use to tune people out in gun forums: milspec, nitride, tolerances, chrome moly, stainless, billet, forging, alloy, aerospace/aircraft/military grade, coating, roundness, runout, concentricity. Unless it's a small number of posters that display their subject matter expertise, I mostly ignore people who talk about such things.

One of my favorites is the alloy = aluminum. Never mind that every steel known to man is an iron alloy............

 

[P-Squared]

MRE's are Mill Spec, mashed potatoes and pork chops with mom's pork gravy are not. If you had a choice...

 

[308pirate]

MRE's are Mill Spec, mashed potatoes and pork chops with mom's pork gravy are not. If you had a choice...

Perfect!

 

[THEIS]

Exactly

These are some of the key words I use to tune people out in gun forums: milspec, nitride, tolerances, chrome moly, stainless, billet, forging, alloy, aerospace/aircraft/military grade, coating, roundness, runout, concentricity. Unless it's a small number of posters that display their subject matter expertise, I mostly ignore people who talk about such things.

One of my favorites is the alloy = aluminum. Never mind that every steel known to man is an iron alloy............

Hi,

But I heard that if you nitride coat chrome moly then unless you are using spaceship grade chrome in that alloy the tolerances will be all screwed up after heat treatment; to the point the concentricity of the runout will not meet MilSpec....

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[308pirate]

Hi,

But I heard that if you nitride coat chrome moly then unless you are using spaceship grade chrome in that alloy the tolerances will be all screwed up after heat treatment; to the point the concentricity of the runout will not meet MilSpec....

Sincerely,
Theis

LOL

 

[LeftyJason]

Of course, but that doesn't make the content any less relevant or the conversation any less enjoyable!

Thanks for checking out the show!

Didn't listen cause I could answer the question as no. Not likely to either. My time is better spent doing other things.

Now if @THEIS did a podcast about milspec like @BLKWLFK9 was talking about working dogs on his podcast, that'd be entertaining.

 

[E. Bryant]

Exactly

These are some of the key words I use to tune people out in gun forums: milspec, nitride, tolerances, chrome moly, stainless, billet, forging, alloy, aerospace/aircraft/military grade, coating, roundness, runout, concentricity. Unless it's a small number of posters that display their subject matter expertise, I mostly ignore people who talk about such things.

One of my favorites is the alloy = aluminum. Never mind that every steel known to man is an iron alloy............

A quick question on the Snipers Hide style guide - are we using ASME or ISO standards for GD&T? Assuming that we're going to follow Y14.5, are we using the 1994, 2009, or 2018 versions?

 

[LeftyJason]

A quick question on the Snipers Hide style guide - are we using ASME or ISO standards for GD&T? Assuming that we're going to follow Y14.5, are we using the 1994, 2009, or 2018 versions?

Has to be ISO since the company is an ISO9000 rated company (I know cause they stated that they're working on and just got their ISO three times on their site).

 

[Redmanss]

What kind of ARFCOM fuckery is this? Nobody gives a flying fuck about MILSPEC on Sniper’s Hide, we actually like to hit what we aim at.

 

[hlee]

You go slaughtering people's sacred cows and you're not going to make any friends.

Mil-spec- A set of design criteria that allows a group of lowest-bidder contractors- possibly spread across the country- to build parts that all work together without hand fitting. The biggest part to remember about that is "Lowest bidder...".

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

ISO Cert yada yada....A term that gets slung around more than a 10 dollar hooker at Shot Show.....

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[E. Bryant]

Oh come on, Theis; next you're going to claim that all those "Supplier of the Year" awards in the lobby are also meaningless.

ISO/QS/IATF certs are primarily good at proving a company can cut a $50k check and feed lunch and snacks to an auditor for two days of on-site meetings.

 

[GRIFFIN_ARMAMENT]

Thanks for weighing in everyone! We produce this podcast fully in-house so obviously we're going to discuss our product lines and provide some insight to what we do that is not found elsewhere. The whole aim of the podcast is to not be a dry technical dirge, but instead a relaxed conversation without egos (hence the lower enlisted style talk originally mentioned). I'm not sure where the topic of ISO certifications came up, but it wasn't from our show.

In other episodes, we have great conversations with various guests, most of whom are respected firearms industry business people, or otherwise successful individuals. We also cover a lot of topics not talked about in the firearms industry in regards to the business of being a volume manufacturer in this space (Machine acquisition, material selection, sales promotions, trade shows, etc.). We've also done episodes helping to educate our growing customer base on silencer basics and in depth discussions on sound testing with a subject matter expert that has been designing, manufacturing, and testing silencers for over 15 years.

Regardless, if anyone reading this is interested in checking out the 30 other episodes of the podcast, they're available: HERE

 

[308pirate]

A quick question on the Snipers Hide style guide - are we using ASME or ISO standards for GD&T? Assuming that we're going to follow Y14.5, are we using the 1994, 2009, or 2018 versions?

I follow ASME Y14.5 and I use the latest revision. That's what my customers require.

 

[308pirate]

Has to be ISO since the company is an ISO9000 rated company

That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works.

 

[308pirate]

Hi,

ISO Cert yada yada....A term that gets slung around more than a 10 dollar hooker at Shot Show.....

Sincerely,
Theis

The audits can be a serious deep dive or a complete clown show. Depends who you pay to do your audits.

 

[hlee]

Fixed...

 

[Sean the Nailer]

Mil-Spec:

MIL-TFD41S

Which translates to:

Make It Like The Fucking Drawing For Once

 

[E. Bryant]

The audits can be a serious deep dive or a complete clown show. Depends who you pay to do your audits.

I'd like to see auditors "outed" as part of safety recall campaigns. Whomever signed off on the certs for, say, Takata needs to be publicly hanged.

 

[308pirate]

I'd like to see auditors "outed" as part of safety recall campaigns. Whomever signed off on the certs for, say, Takata needs to be publicly hanged.

If you mean certificates of compliance, the people who signed off on them are Takata employees. Unless you get put on punitive source inspection, even DQRs are employees of the suppliers.

 

[Ravenworks]

Hi,

Half of them will argue that "Mil-Spec" covers damn near everything yet cannot give you the number listed behind the Mil-Std they are attempting to tout.

Just as motivational pictures are USELESS without pictures...Mil-Std conversations are USELESS without a series of numbers.

Sincerely,
Theis

What's the use having numbers so longs as it meets a specification of some kind.
For example -

Next,
even though she has a mask on who's she think she's fooling?
We all know that's wifey behind that mask and those are certainly MILSPEC boobies.
Pay attention to size and craftmanship

Next,
These are some random natural commercial Boobies.
If you hadn't noticed the naturals are frumpy and well quite unappealing

I just feel MILSPEC will always give you the metric of durability and consistency.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

Hi,

...A term that gets slung around more than a 10 dollar hooker at Shot Show.....

Sincerely,
Theis

I never found ANY of those!!...did you have coupons, or did you have to sit through a time share seminar?

 

[E. Bryant]

If you mean certificates of compliance, the people who signed off on them are Takata employees. Unless you get put on punitive source inspection, even DQRs are employees of the suppliers.

I'm referring the the certificates of registration. Every one of those I've ever seen carries the signature of an accredited registrar. It's quite possible we're talking about two different things.

 

[Long Range 338]

Hi,

ISO Cert yada yada....A term that gets slung around more than a 10 dollar hooker at Shot Show.....

Sincerely,
Theis

Yeah, where the hell were all these hookers at? I've got to up my game...

 

[Lesch]

Just remember....milspec was thought up by the same people that have misplaced battle ships or have hundreds of billion dollars unaccountable.

 

[HeavyAssault]

Last I recall about running an audit, it's never about how the product comes out but how the system works on paper. Sure you can have a wired tight paper trail, get the cert, and screw up the product cause of faults in the production line.

 

[308pirate]

I'm referring the the certificates of registration. Every one of those I've ever seen carries the signature of an accredited registrar. It's quite possible we're talking about two different things.

We were, but I agree with you there too now that we're on the same wavelength. Like I told Theis, the audit can be a serious learning experience or a complete clown show depending on who your registrar is and who they send to audit.

 

[308pirate]

Last I recall about running an audit, it's never about how the product comes out but how the system works on paper. Sure you can have a wired tight paper trail, get the cert, and screw up the product cause of faults in the production line.

Correct.

That's why those quality registrations have become meaningless to those of us who know.

But you know what isn't meaningless, when customers like Collins Aerospace, Parker Hannifin, and Caterpillar give you supplier Gold and Silver. Product quality (real quality like defects per million) are a BIG part of that equation.

That's where the rubber meets the road.

 

[308pirate]

next you're going to claim that all those "Supplier of the Year" awards in the lobby are also meaningless.

Those are not meaningless.......

 

[E. Bryant]

Those are not meaningless.......

Depends from whom they are received. You mentioned some above that have great value. Not all carry that same weight.

 

[HeavyAssault]

Correct.

That's why those quality registrations have become meaningless to those of us who know.

But you know what isn't meaningless, when customers like Collins Aerospace, Parker Hannifin, and Caterpillar give you supplier Gold and Silver. Product quality (real quality like defects per million) are a BIG part of that equation.

That's where the rubber meets the road.

Oh I got it. I just wanted to see if there was some other secrets to share. We never had to hammer someone with a failed audit. Did we find issues, sure we did. Most often it was one area, maybe two at most. Things got fixed, we were happy.

There's nothing better than being a Lone Ranger against a room full of Lockheed Martin program managers showing them where they are failing in contract support. That's when the fun begins.....LOL