An Interview with Hickok45
Interview by Gila Hayes
I recently enjoyed a heart-warming and just-plain-fun video chat with the granddaddy of internet shooting personalities, Hickok45. I am a fan and regular follower of the gun reviews, shooting demos, and opinion videos he and his son publish on Rumble, YouTube, and Patreon. Alarmingly, just days after I chatted with him, YouTube banned a number of his videos, alleging violations of their newly expanded policies against gun advertising, so let us say right up front, the great wealth of 15 years video archives about guns, shooting and the armed lifestyle are readily available at https://rumble.com/hickok45 and because we like to support our own, we recommend his work on https://www.patreon.com/hickok45 .
The summer’s unpleasantness over YouTube came as a surprise. I know Hickok45 and his son, having enjoyed meeting them at an NRA Annual Meeting several years ago. It was hard to believe that they had violated their agreement. Over the weeks that followed, it was a relief to see new videos on their YouTube channels, but it was deeply disheartening to see many of the older videos removed. Fortunately, most of the videos archived over Hickok45’s 15-year run on YouTube were moved to Rumble, where 111 pages of titles let fans view videos going back 15 years.
It is no surprise that Hickok45’s videos are also popular on Rumble, a preferred access point for many armed citizens and conservatives who are concerned about politically-opinionated censorship. Losing YouTube’s reach into the general public is distressing because it is a larger audience encompassing viewers from many walks of life, some of whom haven’t yet become gun owners who want to learn how guns work.
Hickok45’s videos showing responsible, safe, and fun shooting experiences make him a tremendous ambassador for armed citizens. We switch now, to Q&A, and for those who prefer streaming video, there’s a longer, casual version of our visit at https://youtu.be/iNWTNzIzPfA .
eJournal: It’s trite to introduce today’s interviewee by saying, “The man for whom no introduction is needed,” but seriously, Hickok45’s influence is so much greater than ours that it fits. On the outside chance you don’t know him, readers, and viewers, meet Hickok45.
Hickok45: Hi, good to meet you; good to see everybody.
eJournal: I’m interested in how you became an armed citizen and when and why you started making videos about guns.
Hickok45: When I was a young fellow, my dad had a rifle, but he wasn’t an avid shooter like I am. He had been in World War II and had only been back from the war for five years when I was born. My uncle was the firearms enthusiast in the family. Back then, people were more likely to have their firearms displayed in a beautiful wooden case. I remember as a little guy looking into that case when we would go to his place up in northern Kentucky and seeing those big cowboy guns – the big Colt single actions with steers engraved on the grips and his lever action long guns. Unfortunately, he was killed on a tractor when I was 16, otherwise, he and I would have had a long, long relationship shooting. That is where I got my start.
We bought a farm when I was about 10, so we moved out to Grant County, KY, where we had about 50 acres. It was rural; very rural, to say the least. That’s where my dad got his first pistol, a little Sentinel Revelation .22 revolver my mother bought him for Christmas. We already had a Ward’s Western Field rifle. I still have both firearms.
When I was 11 or 12, I was able to go out on those 50 acres with some .22s in my pocket and just carry and shoot the revolver and rifle. I would walk around in those woods just like I do now and fire at dead trees or whatever. I didn’t do much hunting. Can you imagine me at 11 or 12? By today’s standards it would be quite unusual to just walk around and shoot. When we moved back to the city, I lost that capability, but I never forgot it.
When I was a college senior, I got a little bit of a windfall, and I went to a gun store in Clarksville, Tennessee, because I’d always wanted a Colt .45. [grins] That was my uncle in me. I didn’t know what gun I wanted. I just knew I wanted a Colt .45 which I’d seen in the cowboy shows. The clerk asked what I was interested in, and I said something in .45 Colt. He said, “Well, that don’t tell me anything! You looking for a Colt? A Ruger? Something else?” I didn’t know! I remember being intimidated and I’ve never forgotten that.
A lot of people tell me they felt the same. Young people, ladies and others tell me how intimidated they are in gun shops, and sometimes for very good reason. It’s not just because of their ignorance at that point about firearms! It’s because some crusty old guy is impatient with them. That’s exactly what happened to me.
At the time, I didn’t even know there was anything else chambered in .45 Colt. I was very ignorant; [chuckling] probably still am. So anyway, I bought a Ruger Blackhawk in .45 Colt. That was the old model in 1973. I didn’t know what the Ruger company was, but I had a .45 Colt; I had a nice Ruger Blackhawk. That was my first really nice gun in a large, centerfire caliber. I was hooked.
I went on to buy more firearms while I was teaching at my first job. That was in the early ‘70s and was when I really got into shooting. I wasn’t rich but I was able to save up and buy a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29.
eJournal: When you were teaching, did you keep your love of guns under wraps? Was it okay in the workplace to talk about guns and shooting?
Hickok45: I didn’t have to keep it too much under wraps. When I was graduating in the spring of ‘73, I put my résumé out in Northern Tennessee and Southern Kentucky and had an offer from a private academy in Franklin, TN. I interviewed and was really impressed with the private school. It was conservative, so I wasn’t afraid to talk about shooting. It was an all-boys school at the time, and I even took some of them out shooting and hunting. It was an ideal situation for me. I left and was in medical publishing for about 10 years, and in 1990, I came back to another private school in Nashville. It was a pretty conservative school, too. Although I didn’t promote it or anything, if I mentioned a gun, nobody dropped over or anything.
I started the video channel about 2007-8, about five years before I left teaching. I was fortunate. I never did catch any flak for it mainly because of where I was teaching. If I had been teaching in the metro system or a less gun-friendly city, I might have caught a lot of flak and it might have been fired just for talking about a firearm, but I was blessed.
eJournal: It is fascinating to watch you cover both self-defense guns and the purely fun side of shooting, too. How do you view the cross over or possible conflicts between plinking or competitive shooting with the very serious side of what we do for self defense?
Hickok45: It’s really two different worlds in a lot of ways. Of course, they do overlap and for the videos my son John and I make, our forte is mainly the fun side. If you go through the videos and watch a lot of them, you’re going to see more just having fun. That is the main drive of the channel because I’m not ex-military or really even an ex-cop. I was a reserve deputy for 10 years, a volunteer, but I’ve never been a sworn deputy. I’ve had the in-service training, and I learned a lot with the deputies in the county here, but I can’t claim to be an expert, a cop, or a soldier. I’ve always avoided veering into training or even pretending to be an expert. My only expertise is that I have a lot of experience shooting. I enjoy firearms from almost every genre.
Because I was teaching for the first five years doing these videos, I did have limits. I knew parents were seeing the videos and didn’t want to scare them into thinking I was probably packing a gun in school. I didn’t have any trouble with parents but I’m still a little reluctant to do too much in the way of self defense. I waited a long time before we finally did a series on concealed carry a few years back. Even then, I used the title legal carry to make it clear that I don’t do anything that’s not legal.
I talk about firearms that are good defense firearms, in terms of size or maybe convenience, and then I talk about holsters and the ways that I carry. I’m well-known, I guess, for pocket carry part of the time and belt carry. Holsters and how to carry is something people need help with. I did a little video recently on the Hickok45 Talks YouTube channel about carrying with a round in the chamber. That question always comes up. One thing I like to do is make it clear to people what a serious issue it is to carry a firearm. We have fun in every video and I’m shooting two-liter bottles and clay pots and we’re just having a good time shooting firearms for 99 percent of the activity, but I encourage people not to be too cavalier about carrying a gun. It is, as you know, a serious, serious business, especially having the mindset, the competence, and the confidence. That’s the serious thing.
eJournal: While enjoying a clip titled Hickok45 Teaches You to Shoot, I was impressed with your demonstration of follow through, high, firm grip, getting a grip in the holster and how you took us through drawing safely, shooting stances, trigger control – it was all in there. I recognize so much doctrine in that program. Who were your leading influences?
Hickok45: Jeff Cooper and Massad Ayoob. I’ve read everything, probably every book and at least a lot of the articles that Mas Ayoob has written; I’ve read a lot of Jeff Cooper. When I got into competition shooting back in the late eighties and early nineties, I studied videos of people like Rob Leatham.
I use a modified Weaver stance. I read about Weaver and then I experimented and found quickly what feels best and makes sense to me. I don’t use an isosceles stance like a lot of people do, which is probably better for competition, but I’ve always been more interested in the practical side of firearms and carrying. When I was competing, I carried a cocked and locked .45 inside the waistband in an Alessi holster.
I never really studied with folks like I probably should have. I’m that way with almost everything, whether it’s how to tie a necktie or other things. I just kind of teach myself and do what feels comfortable and seems to make sense to me. Ironically, if the balloon goes up, it’s going to happen really fast, and you may not be in or able to get into a proper stance. I think people obsess a little too much about that and way too much about the grain of the bullet we’re carrying and all those sorts of things. As you know, there are just so many more important factors.
eJournal: Instructors often stress accuracy and speed, telling us to have something riding on each shot or use a timer to measure and track our skill. That’s hard to reconcile against going out to have fun shooting, which I think you do so very well, yet another thing you demonstrate is the joy of the perfect shot. You’re on video saying, “Let me see if I can hit that pig,” and the camera pans to a metal silhouette 100 meters away. A few seconds later we hear “Ding!” and let out a collective breath like we were rooting for you at a match. What flavor of competitive shooting did you do?
Hickok45: I got into International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association shooting matches back in the ‘70s. My very first competition was with my Model 29 .44 Magnum. I did some IDPA, and I did some cowboy action shooting for about 10 years in the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS).
Some of the TV shows back in the early- to mid-1980s were cowboy shooting shows. That looked interesting, and some of the USPSA matches looked interesting, too. You saw these guys crawling through and shooting out of barrels and I thought, “That looks like fun.”
There were some matches going on up around Clarksville, TN, and then about six or seven of us started the first USPSA chapter here in middle Tennessee. We went to the state section match and got into it in big way, but I kind of exhausted myself after a few years. I was shooting three different guns in every match: revolver, open class, plus limited class. I was the stats person and an officer in the club. I’d win matches and I placed high enough at larger matches to win a gun several times, but I never did get to grand master class. I didn’t take it seriously enough.
I’d stand around at a match all day and it was fun, but I wanted to be home shooting my lever gun or something else. I just missed my other firearms so I got away from going to matches because you’re so focused with match-specific guns. I never was like a lot of people, working really hard between matches at reducing split times or taking a tenth of a second off their draw stroke. I just never could be that serious about it. I’d rather be home shooting my 45-70 lever gun instead of trying to get another tenth of a second off my draw.
I did the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation (GSSF) matches, too. I’d go up to Lexington, KY and shoot every year. I enjoyed those and was determined to win the subcompact class. I carried a Glock 26 for a period, and I thought, “Surely, I can place higher than third or fourth.” If you’ve ever shot in those matches, you know, they’re really great. There’s a wide range of folks. You’ve got a lot of people who’ve never shot a match and they’re scared to death. There’s a great grandma who might go shoot for the first time and then, in each class, you’ve got maybe seven or eight people that are USPSA competitors so it’s really tough at the top level. That’s who I was trying to win against. I finally won in the early 2000s I think it was. I didn’t go back after that. I just wanted to win with my subcompact.
I’ve had a lot of fun in various types of competition, but the most fun was just grabbing my favorite firearm and going out here to my own range or walking through the woods and plinking. That’s where I have the most fun.
eJournal: Do you have a favorite? Are you partial to your revolvers? I know if somebody told me I had to say what gun I love the most, myself, I’d probably say my shotgun. What about you? What’s your favorite?
Hickok45: That’s like asking which of your kids you like the most, but I really, really like lever guns and I love the old Colt single action revolvers. I’ve got a bit of a collection the Colt Single Actions. To me, lever guns are probably the most fun although I really like double action revolvers, too. I like the functionality of the new modern polymer 9mm or .40s – the polymer pistols. Those are great because they’re just so reliable and easy to shoot well. It’s a lot of fun to shoot the Glock 19, but if I was stranded on an island with some ammo and three or four guns, I’m more likely going to want maybe a good double action Smith revolver and a Colt single action revolver and a lever gun, you know. I’d be happier with them.
eJournal: When you mentioned the Glock subcompacts, I remembered a video you made about pocket pistols. What’s not apparent for our viewers is your height; you are very, very tall. I just had to chuckle when I saw the pocket pistol video because in your hands the Glock 26 or 27 looked like it was half sized. It is challenging to apply what works for one shooter to the needs of another. I know that viewers ask you for advice, and I know that you’re very generous in sharing your time and experience; you’re a wonderful mentor to people. When people ask for advice, how do you bridge such differences in size, or differences in skill level and experience as affects choices of, for example, a viewer’s first gun?
Hickok45: In most videos where we’re looking at a firearm, especially a small one, or if there’s an issue with the grip, I mention that I have large hands. I’m 6 foot 8. Sometimes people don’t like it if I put a slip-on stock extender on a nice Mauser. They think it adulterates the gun, but I have to for it to feel right. With small guns and pocket guns, I remind people that I have really large hands.
You’ve got to try a gun yourself, feel it, and decide for yourself. On the other hand, I try to be encouraging to people who think that many little firearms are too small to shoot well. Once you get to a point where you can shoot pretty well, you’ll be surprised at how well you can hit with even a J-frame revolver. We thought it would be fun to demonstrate some long shots at a large gong with a Glock 27 and several revolvers at 230 yards. I shot and John was behind me with the camera, and we made sure that everybody knew we did it unedited. We don’t do any hocus pocus, you know? I hope someone puts me out of my misery if I ever try to fool people in a video!
We did those long shots just to show that you could hit with a Glock 27 at 230 yards something like seven out of ten times. I feel that’s contributing to dispelling myths about little guns. It’s amazing how well you can shoot even with pocket guns, like my little S&W Model 642, my J-frame .38 Special. I could list a lot of pocket guns that you could pull out and you can bang those same targets if you just work with them a little bit.
I just try to be real and never try to put anything over on people. I’m transparent about how we’re different. There are guns I really like that you may not like, or guns that I don’t like at all. There are a few that I’ve reviewed that I just don’t like and I’ll admit, I’m a traditionalist at my age. You’re not going to find a lot of people who grew up with a Smith & Wesson or Colt revolver back in the 1970s and ‘80s and ‘90s, but they’re going to get excited about a Chiappa revolver, it’s just that simple. I admit in a video that yeah, the Chiappa design does seem to dampen recoil, but it’s an ugly animal and I can’t like it.
We’re not beholden to any gun companies and never will be, so we’re able to be honest. We love all the gun companies and don’t bash them but we’re totally honest about what we think about a firearm. That’s the beauty of the way we’ve always done it. We’ve got some wonderful sponsors, but we’ve turned down sponsorship from gun companies who have been after us for years. I don’t know how we’d review guns if we were getting paid by a gun company.
eJournal: I’m so curious how you manage the interaction with your, thousands, if not millions of subscribers who enjoy asking questions and commenting on what you say. Do you limit the time that you spend? It gets pretty extreme, doesn’t it?
Hickok45: I’m so appreciative of all the viewers and people that have given me this opportunity to shoot for a living. I joke that it’s like the Jimmy Stewart movie, It’s Wonderful Life. There must have been some angel, or somebody up there looked down on me and said, “That poor Schmo, he’s been teaching middle school 29 years out of his career, you know, high school and middle school. He loves to shoot. Let’s do him a favor. He deserves one. So, let’s just let him shoot for the rest of his life and get paid to do it.” I express appreciation all the time and boy, it’s heartfelt.
I run into viewers when I’m out in public, and I tell them on videos, “Make sure you say hi; don’t ever feel like you can’t come up and say hi to me. Now, we may not have an hour’s chat, but I will talk to you.” I genuinely appreciate them. There are just two things: we can’t have them come to the house – that’s a security issue – and I can’t answer every question.
I skim comments on Facebook, and I’ll answer some that apply to a lot of people – I can get to more people that way. We just started the Hickok45 Talks channel that is largely comprised of questions that people have, I’ll do a short video – I try to make them short – answering or just talking about the question. I recently did one about carrying a gun with a round in the chamber. I take a license on that channel and talk about anything I want to: I did a video on grammar recently.
The main channel is mostly about guns. On the Hickok45 Clips channel my son John pulls out clips from old videos, which is interesting because sometimes people don’t realize it is an old clip and they ask, “Why are you talking about this now?”
eJournal: [Chuckling] You are the timeless Hickok45. I am glad you mentioned Hickok Talks because it’s interesting and I’ve been enjoying it. Sometimes you’re philosophical and in those videos, I feel like you’re giving more of yourself away, making me think about a balancing act that I think that many of us work around: the balance between personal security and wanting society to know armed citizens are normal people. To borrow sociology professor David Yamane’s words, “Gun ownership is normal and normal people own guns.” You’re a very recognizable figure who happily will speak to people when they approach you in public. Do you feel at-risk for being so public? Do you monitor what you say?
Hickok45: My wife and I were talking about what people talk about when they’re in a restaurant or wherever after Stephanopoulos said something about the president and the big question was whether he really meant for that to go public. I have a filter that came out of teaching youngsters for so many years in school classrooms where you can’t back up and edit what you say. I think I developed a pretty good filter in my head. You think of a joke, and you stop and think, “Oh, I can’t tell that joke. These kids are 13.”
I think I’m pretty good about not getting into something I shouldn’t. Of course, I’m bad sometimes about just saying crazy things, but I’m not going to ever say anything bad about somebody. I never talk about other YouTubers. When I’m talking, I am aware that you could make a compliment about another YouTuber and say how well they shoot or something about how they hold the gun, but by time it’s put online or repeated, it would be misinterpreted so I just avoid that. Because we have a pretty big audience, there were people that used to come on our channel to bash someone else. We just don’t allow that. I don’t do it and if I can avoid it, I don’t let anybody else do it on our stage.
eJournal: How much of what you do is researched or scripted out in advance? Once you’ve chosen topics, is your on-camera presentation extemporaneous, or have you worked it all out ahead of time?
Hickok45: [Laughing] Can’t you tell by the way I ramble? I’ll make some bullet points sometimes, but not always. When I research a firearm, a historic one or a new firearm I don’t know much about, I will look up what basic information I can find about it, and I’ll make some notes. If it’s a historical firearm, there will be a lot of information, but we’re not famous for going as in-depth as, for example, Ian on Forgotten Weapons. That’s not my forte and I don’t want to necessarily do that, but I want to give basic information. I try not to have to read it but I just study and I get the things in my head I want to share. I’ll have a couple or three bullet points I might want to mention or in those Hickok45 Talks I might make a couple notes I want to remember to talk about, but I don’t like to script something, that’s really annoying to me.
We’ve done a few we called the Deep Woods Thoughts, and we just say something semi profound in the woods. Some of those were scripted just because it needs to be said exactly that way, but I tell you, I don’t like memorizing a script at all. If it’s more than just a sentence or two, it’s no fun for me. The only reason we’ve been able to do this so long is because I could grab any number of firearms right now and if you said, “Tell us a little about it and shoot it,” we could set up a couple of targets and shoot a video. Well, I like to let people think that’s hard, but it’s just having fun at the range for the most part. [chuckling] We get a lot of compliments for being able to do a 20-minute video without no edits.
eJournal: I think we’re benefiting from something that you’ve probably forgotten you do. As a teacher, you know how to present information. Many viewers forget that we’re seeing a professional educator presenting a technical topic without making it seem complex. That’s such a wonderful talent.
I’d like to return to what you mentioned as blind spots, when you talked about getting obsessed about technique. Will I be better if I shoot Weaver stance or Isosceles? Should I insist on a Smith & Wesson or a Glock or do I have to have a 1911? It’s got to be frustrating when we ask you such boneheaded questions! What do you think we armed citizens obsess about too much.
Hickok45: Well, speaking of boneheaded questions, I taught seventh grade for about 25 years. [laughs] We all obsess too much the mechanics of things, and we argue what’s the best tennis racket or the best car or the best engine oil. I’ve been involved in enough different sports, played basketball, shot lots of different firearms, and I chop wood with an axe, so I know the most important thing is not the axe you’re using, or the firearm or the basketball. Obsessing about the exact firearm or the exact bullet, is like Michael Jordan complaining that one basketball is not as accurate as another or saying a football is not accurate. “Tom Brady could never throw this thing!”
We’re just too obsessed about mechanical things when so much, I think, comes down to just practice and training; the mindset, as you know, is everything. It is like the argument about carrying with a round in the chamber. I don’t know that we’re professionals, but if we call ourselves avid firearms carriers, we generally carry a round in a chamber, right? I have to keep in mind, too, that I am talking to a lot of people who are just getting into it, they may not even own a gun yet or may never get one. I try to make things a little bit more elementary. I hear from enough of them that I know they just don’t know what they don’t know. There are questions and comments from people who have never held a gun, or they’ll get mad at me for not telling them that the Glock 19 is chambered in 9mm.
It’s just like teaching seventh grade. You get called back to reality quite often. If you start trying to explain something about subjunctive case in English class, you get way over people’s head in a hurry. If I bring out a Glock 19 and do a video with it, and I don’t mention it’s a 9mm, and someone’s going to complain. Okay, that’s my fault really. You don’t want to come back at them like, “Well, dummy, you don’t know what a Glock 19 is? Where have you been?” Well, they haven’t been into guns, you know.
I do think that a lot of people obsess way too much over things like guns: can’t be a Smith & Wesson, it’s got to be a Glock, or the gun can’t be bigger than this, or if you don’t use this holster, you’re not ready, you’re not professional, you don’t know what you’re doing. Or if you use a leather holster instead of a Kydex one or vice versa, or you’re using that hollow point instead of this one, man, where have you been? Don’t you know anything? There are so many more important issues, I think, like recognizing the threat before it gets to you, for one thing.
I’m not a trainer. I’m not certified. I have no real formal training and I probably ruffle trainers’ feathers occasionally but maybe not because I’ve had a lot of them contact me and say they appreciate what we do. I try not to assume anything or step on their toes.
eJournal: We’re blessed with Network members who take being armed seriously. They’ve thought through their self-defense decisions and aftermath issues, and they’ve deemed it worthwhile and still in their best interest to have guns. You have introduced us to a goodly number of those members. Thank you so much for that. It’s been amazing to bring those folks into the Network family.
What would you like Network members to take away from our time together today?
Hickok45: I think we all need that to be reminded of how serious it is to carry a gun, and how you really have to think through and walk through what situations might arise where you would even think about pulling a firearm because it’s so serious. People in the Network are very seriously thinking through those things right now as they’re watching the videos you send out to members. That’s the value, of course, of being exposed to people that know what they’re talking about, like Massad Ayoob. I’ve watched every minute of those videos. When I first joined, I think I went through them twice. I was just so impressed with all those presentations and those reminders are just so important that this is really, serious business.
I don’t consider myself an expert in any of these specific areas. I have read a lot and I’ve thought about it seriously. I think I have some common sense about most things. I worry sometimes about people who are new to firearms, and they have not been introduced to folks like Tom Givens, Massad Ayoob, Marty, and the others who’ve done training and been in courtrooms. Network members are carrying a firearm, and they already understand and appreciate the seriousness of it. They’re not cavalier about it.
I worry sometimes about people who are new to firearms, especially with constitutional carry, maybe they’ve not even gone through a permit course and been frightened a little bit. They used to show a tape in the Tennessee permit course you took before you got your carry permit. It was about 20 minutes of an attorney talking and by the time you’d watch that, you’d go, “Whoa! I’m not sure I want this permit or whether I want to carry this gun or not.” I think we all need to be that serious.
I read the In the Gravest Extreme when it came out. Thankfully, I ran across it in a gun shop in Nashville. I was so impressed with Massad’s approach. I think it was in that book that he talked about walking the streets of New York and keeping some money in his pocket. He had a gun, but he kept 50 bucks or something he’d pull out and say here just take this and go on your way. He was criticized for being a wimp for doing that, which is funny because if anyone has a right to act macho, he does, and besides, he was carrying a gun and could have killed them. That right there might be a smart approach. You’re avoiding serious confrontation perhaps for the price of 20 or 50 bucks. That might be worth it, you know.
eJournal: You’re right, avoiding a fight is a worthwhile option. I also find your foray into a little philosophizing on the Hickok45 Talks YouTube channel worthwhile. It shows a side of you that longtime fans may not know. Combined with your regular videos, the Talks highlight the wonderful ambassador you are and have been for many years, putting a normal face on what we do and why we’re gun owners. You also make us stop and think about what we do, so for that, sir, I thank you. It’s been great talking to you this morning. I appreciate your time today. If there’s anything the Network can ever do for Hickok45 or the channel, you have only to reach out to us because we’re fans, too.
Hickok45: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Good to talk to you. Hope to see you again at the NRA meeting or somewhere.