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Once upon a time, YouTube gunnies could make a living at their craft. Then, without warning, the don’t-be-evil subsidiary slashed their cut of the ad bucks by well over 50 percent. Recently, they cut it some more. Tim Harmsen of the Military Arms Channel and his video compatriots have decided that they’ve enough and they formed a new platform for their creative content. full30.com launches with an all-star team: The Military Arms Channel, 22Plinkster, IraqVeteran8888, and InRange TV form the basis of this new venture, promising “family friendly content.” It works like this . . .

The Full30 user subscription system notifies subscribers via email immediately when one of their favorite channels uploads a new video, and the site delivers video seamlessly across all mobile and desktop browsers.

More importantly, at least for the ballistic content creators . . .

The Full30 platform also offers very unique video advertising opportunities for the firearms industry, who have been blocked from valuable pre-roll advertising on YouTube, and Facebook. The pre-roll and banner ad server on Full30 now opens the door to firearm brands looking to capitalize on the extraordinarily high click through rates, and unmatched brand exposure video advertising provides.

Geiselle Automatics and Aguila Ammunition have signed on. (For more info on ad sales contact [email protected].)

For the moment, the firearms-flavored YouTubers will still post material on YT as well, gradually shifting to shorter “teaser” videos that link their tens of thousands of followers over to full30.c0m. How long the internet giant will allow that to go down – without killing their channels – is anyone’s guess.

The new site doesn’t offer embed codes for blogs like TTAG now, so we can only grab stills for heads-ups as and when. Which sucks. But that will be fixed in the fullness of time. Until then, and anyway, you can subscribe for email updates. We suggest you support MAC and his team by doing so.

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65 COMMENTS

    • He’d probably be a good addition, but I don’t know if I’d put him in the “mandatory” category.

      Besides, ya gotta give them a chance to get the bugs worked out and everything running smoothly before you bury the servers with that kind of load, right? 🙂

  3. I’ve been watching Forgotten Weapons on there for the last couple of months. I think this has the potential to turn into something great.

    • Me too! Forgotten weapons is the bomb! I love history and weird guns. I signed up the first vid Ian put on there.
      Everybody needs to support this! There is no reason to allow Google to keep sucking up all the money just because they bought up YT. It’s hard now to remember when Google was good, back in the day before they went public and got bought out by the banksters. Let’s just make them irrelevant…

  4. Awesome. Yeah, now the YT has gotten too big for its britches, it’s really short-changing content makers like MAC, MrGunsnGear, Hickok45, ColionNoir, PolenarTactical, etc. It’s still an important social media medium (share video), but I like that there’s a new option for my online gun video viewing.

  6. I want nutnfancy and yeager over there before I commit as well. might as well get the yankee marshall too.

    • you just listed three terrible youtube channels, with yeager being close to OK. why not throw in FPS Russia and Cory and Erika in the list of suck too.

        • Yup. Nutn’Fancy understands one essential truth about marketing: You either want people to love you or hate you. And both work equally well. The worst thing that could happen is that people are disinterested in you…they neither like nor hate you, and thus don’t talk about you at all. Nutn’Fancy doesn’t have that problem. Neither does Gabe Suarez. Every time a person even mentions either of their names…they win.

  7. Eventually YouTube will totally ban gun-related vids “in the name of the children.”

    It wont happen administratively, but after the next media-hyped US spree shooting it’ll happen.

    • Probably over half of the YouTube videos that get embedded on TTAG get blocked with a “This video is not available in Safe mode.” And I’m not talking about that Utah National Guard soft-core flick, I’m talking about gun reviews and equivalent.

      Demanding Mommies and fellow travelers sail right through. You don’t need to draw me a map.

      May full30.com’s tribe increase.

  8. Why MAC doesn’t support RSS feeds, I dont know. I would visit his various sites more often, helping to drive up ad revenue. It’s the only way I know TTAG has new content. I watch 100+ sites this way. I don’t have time to go with other methods.

    • Hmmm, weird, because it actually does support RSS News, that’s how I do it. I’m using NetNewsWire on OSX, no problem.

      MAC is also on guns.alltop.com (like TTAG), which makes it also easier to follow news about guns from several websites we don’t necessarely follow.

      If it helps…

      • I actually LOLed at this, I would mind a few less philosophies of use though, since were being honest 🙂

    • No gun video website would be complete without Tom at Weapons Education. A grammatical aside–I cringe every time I hear the “S” in ‘Weapons.’ It should be “Weapon Education.” Oh, and I can’t wait to hear about his shiny, restored Colt 10mm Delta Elite for the 18th time.

      • “A grammatical aside–I cringe every time I hear the “S” in ‘Weapons.’ It should be “Weapon Education.” ‘

        I dunno, are you sure it’s not supposed to be “Weapon’s Education”?
        I mean, maybe if they get good educational opportunities these evil guns won’t go off on their murderous rampages?

  10. Build it and the beards will come…. So sayeth J.M.B.

    Thanks for the heads up. I’d rather give my clicks to those who appreciate freedom than to those hiding behind the skirts of political correctness.

  11. Youtube will ultimately learn, probably the hard way, that they aren’t a network that can screw it’s talent. They are but a means to deliver a product, and they are others that would love to have the people that are producing that content.

  12. Not to rain on anybodies parade, but I just don’t see this taking off and being profitable. Perhaps if they make it a subscription based service, but so many of us are too cheap to pay for what’s been free. The bandwidth and storage issues alone will be a huge cost to the website. Unfortunately, YouTube is where the viewers are at. Does anybody care about Vimeo or any other video sharing service? Nope.

    • Vimeo does very well. It has great quality and a model that works for independent filmmakers who want to earn a buck from their work. Vimeo controls content and doesn’t allow the cancerous gaming videos. It’s also limits uploads for the free account, which keep the crap to a minimum while staying focused on the quality original content.

    • Yes, absolutely people care about Vimeo. Especially commercial (for-profit) video users. Many of them host their videos on Vimeo because its analytics are far, far superior to what Youtube provides. In this regard Vimeo is more a a niche video hosting service. Unlike Youtube, they aren’t targeting videos of grandma’s 89th birthday party. They’re targeting artists and business users. And doing quite well with it.

  14. subscription AND ads? Nope. Content creators should pick who they want to get paid by, either choose subscribers and go ad free but have fewer visitors, or choose ads and have more visitors. Choosing both is a great way to have both groups decide that your site isn’t worth the money.

    • Subscription doesn’t mean what you think it means. It means the same thing as it does on youtube. It just means you follow that channel

      You don’t even need an account to view the videos, just like with you tube.

      • ahh, thanks. I retract my statement then.

        I knew you could watch videos without an account. I just assumed there was some “extra” that they were charging for a subscription to the site over.

  15. It looks more like Hulu than YouTube, and I see the streaming is similarly more like Hulu.

    Things I would like to see (if they are reading)

    1. The ability to download videos. Frankly my connection is unreliable, and YT often forces me to watch at 144 (looks crappy) res just to stream. So I use downloadhelper to download a higher res version and watch it locally.

    I am assuming this is prevented the same way it is with Hulu, which also somewhat prevents ad blockers from blocking ads. If you use downloadhelper, you download the ad, not the vid

    Considering the content as far as I can tell is already downloadable from YT, maye have a separate link to download. I don’t mind being forced to watch the add before it allows it.

    2. Ability to change resolution.

    3. Playlists?

    Hopefully they get a few more sponsors. Ruger, S&W, NRA I am sure can help there

    • On point #1, I just used DownloadHelper to pull the Guardian suppressor video into my machine in .MP4 format, and it worked just fine.

      Wait for the ad to finish playing and for the second (content) video to load, and you should be good to go.

  17. I don’t think that YT will care about gun channels posting teaser videos that direct traffic to another site. Various video game channels already do this (usually directing viewers to Twitch), and there hasn’t been a problem. Hulu used to post clips and direct traffic to their site back when they were new.

  18. Like many other speciality niche video services before it, Full30 is destined to go down the 404 hole – and here’s why.

    YouTube is far and away the leader when it comes to video, it’s a giant with never ending pockets and disk space. YouTube has built a model for advertisers that gives phenomenal demographic data as well as ad campaign effectiveness metrics. The YouTube service is bullet proof, it’s always up and it’s always fast. The tools that have been built for the creator are hands down the best available right now, from the detailed analytics, to the promotion abilities, and the new 60fps and 4k resolution options.

    I wish the full30 the best, but they’re an invite only service for uploads and that means few content creators are using the service right now. Since we can’t get a peek into the tools for creators, that’s a mystery at this time. The Full30 has to constantly try and sell ads to targeted businesses, something YouTube doesn’t have to do except for the largest accounts (Like Ford and GM). The limited number of advertisers on the Full30 means that losing just one could doom the revenue model and service.

    There are other options out there for YouTube creators and the revenue model doesn’t just stop at creating videos. YouTube has a new fan funding feature that allows your fans to donate to your channel. A creator can also make a video pay only, so a teaser online would lead you to a video that costs $1 or so to watch. If you love a channel that much, why not fan fund it. There’s also merchandising, endorsements, product placement, and appearance fees.

    There are plenty of YouTube channels out there making a lot of money from the content they generate. I wish the full30 the best, but we’ve all seen video sites come and go. We’ve seen gun sites launch with full fanfare only to go 404 6 months later.

    • If YouTube wants to keep treating gun reviewers like kiddie porn purveyors, then they’ll drive them right into the arms of something else. EBay has created a host of gun sales web sites just because they didn’t want to deal in icky guns.

      • I’d like to know the basis for your claim that YouTube is “treating gun reviewers like kiddie porn purveyors”. Ebay made a business decision, right or wrong it was Ebay’s decision to make. GunBroker is far less fun to deal with than Ebay. I like how GunBroker wants photo ID or utility bills for some users before they will open an account. No thanks. Now back to Ebay, it’s clear that the decision to eliminate gun auctions didn’t hurt Ebay at all. You can still buy most accessories on the site.

        • “Ebay made a business decision, right or wrong it was Ebay’s decision to make.”

          That statement is a thought-terminating cliché:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism#Thought-terminating_clich.C3.A9

          “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism popularized the term “thought-terminating cliché”. This refers to a cliché that is a commonly used phrase, or folk wisdom, sometimes used to quell cognitive dissonance. Though the clichéd phrase in and of itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it thought-terminating.

          Lifton said:[4][5]

          The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.

          In George Orwell’s 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the fictional constructed language Newspeak is designed to entirely eliminate the ability to express unorthodox thoughts.”

          The point is businesses of all sizes often make irrational, counter-productive and downright unethical decisions. If all business decisions were rational, productive and ethnically sound, then MBAs wouldn’t exist. 🙂

    • Though you have some good points, all hope may not be lost. I remember a time when Alta-Vista and HotBot were THE search engines and Google wasn’t even on the radar. There was also a time when Apple had no aspiration to build phones. Luck may play a part in the future of Full30 and I for one wish them all the luck they need.

      • But Google isn’t search. It’s an advertising company that has a search engine and other services. Unlike webobt or webcrawler, Google had a revenue model. I set up an account at Full30 months ago when endo wrote about it. I checked it out and never went back. I am a gun guy, and I didn’t bother to go back.

        As for apple building phones, that’s debatable. Did apple build a phone or did it update Newton and put a phone in the device? Furthermore, Full30 is neither of these two. While it’s a decent attempt at a video site, it doesn’t have many creators or advertisers signed up. We don’t know who is behind the funding of the site or how long that funding will run. A quick look shows that the creators on full30 are getting less than 1 view for ever 10 views on YouTube. It won’t be long until the creators leave and the advertisers follow. It’s cheaper for a gun company to sponsor it’s own YouTube channel or sponsor existing channels.

  23. Bookmarked! Sounds like a great idea. I’ll be watching gun videos there from now on. I find all these guys to be very entertaining as well as informative. If they can figure out a way to make a better living, I wish them all best!

  24. To me this is the key to their possible success in the venture…..

    The Full30 platform also offers very unique video advertising opportunities for the firearms industry, who have been blocked from valuable pre-roll advertising on YouTube, and Facebook

    If you were an AR manufacturer why would you advertise in dead tree magazine when you could use analytics to pinpoint target potential customers watching specific types of videos related to the products you sell. If you sell exotic ammo you could buy pre-roll ads just for for videos related to that specific caliber. Cerakote could pinpoint their ads to people watching videos related to paint jobs.

    The table scraps that YouTube scrapes off its plate is potentially millions for Full360.

  25. I both like this and hate it at the same time. I like this due to how they are supporting the makers of firearm related content. At the same time I think this sort of hurts us a bit in the long run. Whether or not we like it YT has a lot of users, which means content creators stand to get a lot more visibility. That visibility is very good for us because it can potentially turn some one with not much interest in firearms into some one who’s enthusiastic about them after watching some of the good firearms YT channels. By the good channels moving to a new service their YT channels will get less views which in turn means less recommendations by algorithm to new viewers, and less chance of converting new people to firearm enthusiasts. That’s the downside to things like this, we end up inadvertently doing what the anti’s for years now wish they could do, isolate us from the general public view.

  26. My marketing guys are going to love the ability to buy pre-roll space FINALLY! I freaking love this idea!

  27. I subscribe to a LOT of gun channels on YouTube, and I refuse to go elsewhere. The reason is simple: I can watch YouTube on my TV without having to sit at a computer screen, which is awful and something I would never do if it were the only option, and also because youtube aggregates everything for me, firearms related and non-firearms related all in one simple list of new videos each day which I can see on my iPad or TV whenever I want. I just don’t see how anyone can compete with that level of convenience.

  28. I could’ve sworn i saw a Hickok45 video on full30 several days ago but i went back to see more and his channel is gone from there.
    Did i dream that??!!! lol

  29. I don’t care for You Tube’s policies, or how they treat content producers, but as a simple viewer. I’m perplexed by Full30/ After making my third post there, I was beset by some “rapier wit” troll, who, as I could see from his post history, has made similar belittling responses to several others’ posts. At least, You Tube allows me to block posts from posters like that, and Full30 does not. Also, I could not delete my post, or even my account. Usually, I have no problems at any gun related channels or boards. I really do dislike not being able to get out from under a troll’s thumb. Full30 is interesting, but its software on the user side isn’t mature yet. Lets hope they fix these things, which are probably due to immature software.

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