#914 - Ryan Callaghan & Kenton Carruth

Joe Rogan (0:00)

That's why you have a producer. Jamie's on the ball.

Yeah, get that sucker right up to you. Just pull it.

Ryan Callaghan (0:06)

Me too.

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Move it around, bring it to you. You don't want to feel uncomfortable. These chairs are shit, aren't they?

Ryan Callaghan (0:11)

They're very nice.

Joe Rogan (0:12)

They're cool.

We're live? Oh, we're live, live. Oh. I'm here with my good pal Ryan Callaghan. How are you, buddy?

Ryan Callaghan (0:19)

I'm doing swell, how are you doing?

Joe Rogan (0:21)

And his good pal Kenton Carruth met you before at the FirstLite booth at the Shot Show. That was the first time I met you, right?

Kenton Carruth (0:27)

I think so.

Joe Rogan (0:27)

I think that's it.

And I wanted to have you guys on, first of all, because I love your company. You guys have got a great company. FirstLite makes really cool hunting clothes, outdoor clothes made out of, you started out with Merino wool, which I think, before I went with Ryan and Steve Rinella, I really had no idea about the properties of Merino wool. I didn't know that it keeps you from stinking, that it really retains heat while you're wet. So it's got so many awesome properties to it. Like if you go out, for people that don't know, that don't go in the outdoors, but if you go out and you walk and it's cold out, and you hike like a long distance and you get sweaty, if you're wearing cotton, you're kind of fucked. If it's really cold out, once you start getting sweaty, your body starts shivering and you get in a real bad place. Wool has this really weird quality, and maybe you can help me explain that, where when it gets wet, it somehow or another still retains heat.

So if you sweat in it, you still feel okay. Like, how, what's going on there?

Kenton Carruth (1:28)

Well, you know, it just naturally moves the sweat off of your skin and kind of tries to get it to the outermost layer, and at which point then it can evaporate fast.

But, you know, sheep have to live in crazy environments. You know, it'll be hotter than shit in the summertime and then, you know, super cold in the winter. So, you know, over the course of evolution, they've got, you know, a coat that will deal with a massive amount of variance, you know. And wool is pretty much the same. It's like you can wear it when it's... When you're sweating bolts, it pulls the sweat off and then dries pretty quickly. But even when it's wet, it retains 80% of its heat.

Joe Rogan (2:06)

Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing stuff. And is there a synthetic material that does the same thing?

Ryan Callaghan (2:12)

Well, every synthetic is trying to, A, mimic down or B, mimic merino wool, because those are the two most efficient, you know, temperature-regulating fabrics or materials out there. And that's how you got into your PrimalOfts and all your military testing, and that's where you saw synthetics really take off.

So, yeah, so like PrimalOft, for example, or some of your fleeces, they basically combine something that loves water and something that hates water. So the thing that loves water is gonna pull moisture off, and the thing that hates it is gonna repel it and try to push it to the outside.

Joe Rogan (2:55)

That's interesting. So it's like sort of a two-layer process where something's trying to keep you dry and something's trying to like literally suck up the wet like a sponge.

Ryan Callaghan (3:04)

Yes.

Joe Rogan (3:04)

And then somehow or another, your body heat then can regulate it because your body heat, you're staying warm because the dry is close to your skin, and then the heat comes off your skin and can dry out that stuff better.

Ryan Callaghan (3:16)

Yeah, exactly. And your body heat, you're like your natural zone, how much heat and how much moisture you push out is a major factor.

And especially when you get into like some of your waterproof, breathable membranes and things like that.

Joe Rogan (3:37)

That's something that I think really would surprise a lot of people when it comes to hunting clothing. They really would have no idea like how much, how much, how technical the stuff is and how much thought is put into it and how like involve the processes of creating this stuff.

Kenton Carruth (3:55)

You know, it's funny, cause we all kind of came from the traditional like ski, snowboard, snowmobile world, you know, grew up whatever skiing. And so we've been, you know, involved in having super, you know, technical clothes since I was, I don't know, eight years old, right?