Cody Osborn of Q Talks 8.6 BLK, The Fix & Boombox

Cody Osborn does not really need an introduction, but we’re going to give him one anyway.

He’s the VP of Sales and Marketing at Q, a Texas Aggie, a former ag teacher, a competitive shooter, a cowboy hat loyalist, and one of those rare industry guys who can talk cattle, culture, marketing strategy, and suppressed hunting rifles without ever sounding like he’s trying too hard.

We sat down with Cody at SHOT Show 2026 for another episode of First Last Next, and the conversation went exactly where you’d hope it would. We got his first gun, his last gun, and what he wants next, but we also got the bigger story behind the mustache: East Texas ranch life, teaching agriculture, building relationships in the firearms industry, and why Cody sees marketing less like selling and more like educating people.

Also, yes, there is a story about buying an interview suit, tucking the tags in, landing the job, and returning it immediately after.

Respect.

From East Texas Cattle to the Gun Industry

Before Cody was helping build one of the coolest brands in the suppressor world, he was an ag kid.

His family moved to East Texas when he was young; his family bought 100 acres, started running cattle, and got into the world of show cattle, sale barns, county extension agents, and long days on the land. By the time he was a teenager, Cody was already speaking in front of rooms full of adults, sometimes 300, 400, or 500 people at a time, giving presentations on agricultural topics he had just researched well enough to explain.

That early experience stuck with him.

Cody did not come from a formal marketing background. He came from teaching. He went to Texas A&M, taught agriculture, worked toward the next steps in his career, and eventually found himself in San Antonio at a gun shop called Alamo Tactical. It was supposed to be a temporary job. Just something to hold him over.

Instead, he helped grow the online side of the business, got deeper into the firearms world, and realized he really liked the work.

The funny part is that Cody will openly admit he was not some world-class shooter when he started. His dad used to give him grief about how bad of a shot he was. So, Cody and a buddy decided that if they were going to get into competitive shooting, they were going all in.

No half-sending allowed.

That led him into 3-Gun, dealer visits, weekend matches, and eventually a job at Walther. The job was entry level, the pay was not glamorous, and the interview outfit was apparently borrowed from Express on an extremely temporary basis, but it got him in the door.

From there, Cody found himself surrounded by a group of people who would go on to become major names across the firearms industry. At the time, they were just a bunch of young guys in a hallway trying to figure it out, working hard, shooting matches, and having a blast.

Looking back, Cody calls those the good days.

The Cowboy Code Still Works

A big theme throughout the conversation was something Cody kept coming back to: treat people right.

That may sound simple, but it explains a lot about why people in this industry respect him.

Cody talked about growing up around Western culture, where everybody knows everybody, handshakes matter, and you do not turn small problems into big ones just because you can. His view of the business is pretty straightforward: this is still a relationship business. You shoot together, shake hands, make deals, and build trust over time.

That perspective has followed him from Walther to Taurus, back to Walther, and now to Q.

And Q, according to Cody, is a different kind of grind. He said he used to consider himself the hardest worker in the room. Then he got to Q and realized everybody there works that way. Engineers, sales, marketing, leadership, the whole crew.

For Cody, that has been energizing. It is the first place in his career where he feels like he has full rein to go make cool stuff and have fun doing it.

That sounds exactly like Q.

First Gun: A Winchester .30-30 and a Kimber Desert Warrior

Cody’s first gun story starts the way a lot of great first gun stories do: with a lever action and a confused kid.

His first gun was a Winchester lever-action .30-30. He remembers his dad taking him out to shoot it, but Cody could not figure out the safety built into the lever. He thought the gun was broken. His dad would grab it, naturally squeeze the lever the right way, and fire it just fine.

Classic dad move.

But the first gun Cody really considers his first gun was a Kimber Desert Warrior. He was in junior college at the time, and his grandfather bought it for him.

Even better, Cody still has it.

He does not shoot it as much these days. A .45 1911 is not exactly his main pistol setup anymore, but it still comes out every now and then for nostalgia. And honestly, that is exactly how a first gun should be.

Some guns are tools. Some are milestones.

That Kimber is both.

Last Gun: Q Fix 8.6 BLK, 12-Inch Barrel, No Regrets

When Elliot asked Cody about the last gun he got, his answer was very Q.

A 12-inch Q Fix in 8.6 BLK.

Cody called it his favorite gun right now, especially from a hunting standpoint. His exact review was pretty simple: it is a body dropper.

He told the story of buying his first Fix years ago before a trip to Africa. He had been texting Jason Vincent from Field Ethos, asking whether he should get one, and somehow ended up getting a video from Kevin Brittingham basically saying, “Cody, I don’t know who you are, but just buy the thing.”

Apparently, that was persuasive enough.

Years later, Cody is fully bought in on the 8.6 BLK Fix, especially suppressed. He talked about hunting in West Texas with Terry Houin and Donnie Vincent, where he used subs on an audad at roughly 150 to 180 yards. The animal dropped, there was no big chase, and Cody had one of those “this thing is awesome” moments.

That is the kind of story that sells a rifle better than any spec sheet.

And yes, obviously he runs it suppressed.

This is First Last Next, not amateur hour.

Next Gun: The Boombox

Cody’s next gun answer was easy: the Q Boombox.

And you could tell this was the one that really had him fired up.

Q had just wrapped a Boombox documentary, and Cody had spent so much time listening to the engineering story behind it that he joked he was getting tired of hearing Mitch’s voice. But the reason he is excited is not just because it is a new Q project. It is because, in Cody’s view, the Boombox is one of those rare firearms that is actually doing something different.

A lot of the industry, as Cody put it, is repurposed stuff with a different skin. That does not mean it is easy. It still takes a ton of work to bring a product to market. But the Boombox is different because Q built a semi-auto gun around ammunition that did not really exist in that role yet.

That matters.

You are not just designing a gun. You are thinking through the cartridge, the bullet, the barrel, the magazine, the feed ramps, the gas system, the recoil system, and everything that happens after ignition. Cody put it in hunting terms: he watched Kevin shoot a Cape buffalo with subsonic 8.6 BLK, and that same round can also run in a compact semi-auto gun under six pounds.

That is a wild sentence.

Cody’s point was simple: there is nothing else quite like it.

So yes, the Boombox is next.

Faith, Family, Friends

Near the end of the conversation, Elliot asked Cody what he is working on that has him excited, either professionally or personally.

His answer was not a product.

It was perspective.

Cody talked about applying the same mindset he used in competitive shooting to the rest of his life. In shooting, if you want to get faster, you isolate skills. You do not just say, “I need to draw faster.” You break it down. Clearing cover. Grip. Presentation. Trigger press. Transitions. You find the weak spot and work on it.

Now he is trying to apply that same approach to work, family, leadership, and life.

His priorities are faith, family, and friends, in that order. And the reason he works hard for the people at Q is because he considers them friends.

That part matters. Cody talked about burnout, company culture, passion, and how people cannot perform at their best forever if the culture around them is draining them. For him, the goal is to keep getting better, help the people around him get better, and build something that lasts.

That might be the most Cody answer possible.

No grandstanding. No corporate slogan. Just do the work, treat people right, and don’t forget what order things belong in.

Watch the Full Cody Osborn Episode of First Last Next

Cody’s episode is part gun story, part career story, part cowboy-code business lesson.

We covered his Winchester .30-30, the Kimber Desert Warrior he still owns, his 12-inch 8.6 BLK Fix, why the Boombox has him fired up, and how a kid from East Texas cattle country ended up helping lead sales and marketing at Q.

If you like Q, suppressed hunting rifles, 8.6 BLK, or just hearing from people who actually care about the culture of this industry, this one is worth watching.