RSWC #167 CloverTac – Riding Shotgun With Charlie

Riding Shotgun With Charlie
#167
Chris Dover
CloverTac

CloverTac is one of those creators that’s everywhere. He’s got gun reviews, podcasts, YouTube channels, he does a ‘lawn chair pop’ (which he had to explain to me), and his wife lets him take the car only to let me drive it! (Shhh…I’m not sure she knows yet!) He’s also got another YouTube channel where he helps others, both in and out of the 2A community, with their challenges. I’m not sure where or how I met Clover. But at GRPC in 2019 in Phoenix as I was pulling in to drop someone off, he got in front of the hood-cam and I had him hop in for the shortest episode of RSWC! You can check out episode #058 with CloverTac here. https://youtu.be/Xeb3VKyzU5o

We were finally able to film another show in Dallas at Gun Rights Policy Conference last year for a ‘real’ episode. Besides being the Tactical Leprechaun, he’s a YouTube wizard! But he’s not just a YouTube wizard, he’s building relationships with local gun stores and with manufacturers who love what he’s doing and support what he’s doing. These folks are getting him firearms to use for content, which isn’t something I’d know how to do. One of his sponsors is Trailblazer Firearms. Clover was carrying a Lifecard. I will admit, I didn’t know what that was by name, but I knew what it was. Of course, living in ‘occupied territory’, it’s not something I could own.

Besides doing all the reviews and lawn chair pops, Clover really enjoys putting the folks that are in the industry side of things and connecting them with the community side. One that that is important to Clover more than making the connections and friends, is being able to help someone who is looking for or needs a hand up. And if he isn’t able to help, then he wants to know someone who can and he wants to connect those two people. He talks about talking to someone about a product and wanting an answer. Then Clover will call or text someone at the company and get the answer right there. This is how relationships are built and solidified between the industry and the community.

Over the years, Clover has made some connections at YouTube. He’s been able to use these connections to help people get some issues resolved. But he ended up getting an old video taken down as well. It was a video of his daughter auditioning for the Texas 4 H Shooting Sports Ambassador. She needed to submit a video and everything was fine, but when YouTube changed their policy on youth doing some shooting, he got a strike on the community standards. In the end, he was able to work things out with YouTube.

We recorded this in October 2022 and YouTube was changing the policy on monetization. Clover got into that for us. And at the time YouTube Shorts were relatively new. He shares some thoughts on what YouTubers should be doing at various levels of subscribers. Another big project that Clover had was GunTuber Academy, which you should check out.

It’s always great to get some wisdom from CloverTac. He’s always giving everyone advice on how to do things better and helping everyone out. He’s got patches, stickers, cards he’s used as targets, and a Patreon account that you need to support. I’ve got to revisit this show (again) and take more notes.

Favorite quotes:

“Bringing together the industry and the community.”

“It’s a totally separate thing when you hit it off and you figure out you’ve got something in common.You genuinely have a friendship with people at those companies.”

“I’ve been told I’m an apologist for YouTube. And that’s really not what it is.”

“YouTube can be wrong in over-enforcing a policy, but they can’t be wrong in under-enforcing a policy. It’s a two way street.”

CloverTac Website