Quick answer: FPSRussia’s (Kyle Myers’) net worth is most commonly estimated between $1 million and $2 million today, down from higher figures cited before his channel went dormant. His money now comes mainly from Patreon and ad revenue on the “Painkiller Already” (PKA) podcast rather than active YouTube uploads.
Key takeaways
- Kyle Lamar Myers was born May 9, 1986, in Hart County, Georgia, and launched the FPSRussia channel in April 2010.
- The channel passed 1 million subscribers by mid-2011 on the strength of Myers’ “Dimitri Potapov” character firing exotic and fully automatic weapons.
- Keith Ratliff, Myers’ business partner and the man who sourced weapons for the channel, was found shot to death in January 2013. The case remains unsolved.
- Myers was never charged over Ratliff’s death, but he pleaded guilty in 2019 to a separate federal drug case tied to a 2017 raid and served time in federal prison.
- FPSRussia hasn’t posted a new video since April 2016 and its ads are largely demonetized, so most of Myers’ current income comes from co-hosting the PKA podcast.
Intro
If you remember 2011 and 2012, there’s a good chance you remember a heavily accented “Russian” guy shooting a minigun, a rocket launcher, or whatever else people mailed him, then blowing something up for good measure. That was FPSRussia, and for a while it was one of the biggest channels on YouTube. Then the story took a much darker turn, the channel went quiet, and most casual fans lost track of what happened next.
Here’s the short version. Most financial trackers put Kyle Myers’ net worth somewhere between $1 million and $2 million today. Older estimates from when the channel was active and monetized ran as high as $3 million, but FPSRussia hasn’t uploaded since 2016 and its ad revenue has largely dried up, so the more recent, lower figures are the more defensible ones.
The full story is a lot heavier than a typical internet-fame arc. It involves a still-unsolved killing, a 40-plus-agent federal raid, and a separate criminal case that sent Myers to prison for a couple of months. This article walks through all of it: how the channel started, how it blew up, what happened to Keith Ratliff, the legal trouble that followed, and where Myers’ money comes from today.
Early Life
Kyle Lamar Myers was born on May 9, 1986, in Hart County, Georgia, and grew up in and around Lavonia, a small town in the northeastern part of the state. His father owns a farm in the Lavonia area that Myers would later use as a filming location for his firearms videos.
Public details about his childhood and schooling are limited. Before he was an internet personality, Myers worked as a car salesman, and it was reportedly during that stretch — combined with an uncle’s habit of prank-calling people using a similar exaggerated accent — that Myers developed the thick, comic Russian voice he’d later turn into “Dimitri Potapov,” the character at the center of FPSRussia.
Beginning of Career
Myers didn’t start out making gun videos. His first channel, “klm5986,” was built around Call of Duty gameplay, which put him in the same online orbit as other gaming creators years before FPSRussia existed. He also co-founded the podcast “Painkiller Already” (PKA) in 2010 alongside WoodysGamertag and, initially, WingsOfRedemption — a show that would end up outlasting FPSRussia itself.
The character-driven gun channel arrived in April 2010. Myers began posting videos in character as a Russian arms dealer demonstrating firearms, explosives, and increasingly outlandish weaponry — everything from AA-12 automatic shotguns to homemade explosives. The format clicked fast. By June 2011, FPSRussia had crossed 1 million subscribers, an enormous number for the platform at that time.
Behind the camera, Myers wasn’t doing this alone. He co-founded FPS Industries, a custom firearms fabrication and testing company, with Keith Ratliff as co-owner. Ratliff held the Federal Firearms License (FFL) that let the operation legally acquire the weapons featured in the videos, and he worked as the channel’s producer, sourcing guns and gear for each shoot.
Shot to Fame
FPSRussia’s rise wasn’t just about gun videos in isolation — it was also about riding the wider YouTube wave of that era. A July 2011 collaboration with the comedy cooking channel Epic Meal Time pulled in more than 8.8 million views and introduced Myers to an audience well outside the gun-enthusiast niche. In October 2012, he landed a cameo in the live-action trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and he also hosted “The Controller,” a web series produced by Machinima Prime.
At its peak, FPSRussia was one of YouTube’s most-subscribed channels. Today the channel still shows roughly 6.8 million subscribers and just under a billion total views, a number built almost entirely on videos posted before 2016 — the channel’s last upload came in April of that year.
The most consequential event in the FPSRussia story, though, wasn’t a viral collaboration. It was what happened to Keith Ratliff.
The Keith Ratliff Case and the ATF Raids
On January 3, 2013, Keith Ratliff was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head at the FPS Industries warehouse on Hayes Road in Carnesville, Georgia, where he lived in an attached apartment. There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle, and while several firearms and surveillance equipment were reportedly missing from the property, the weapon used in the killing was never recovered.
Ratliff and Myers were described as close friends and business partners who had worked together at FPS Industries. A multi-agency investigation involving the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the ATF, and the FBI looked into the killing. Investigators have suggested Ratliff was likely killed by someone he knew and trusted, given the lack of forced entry, but no suspect has ever been publicly named. More than a decade later, the case remains open and unsolved, and Myers has not been named as a suspect at any point in the investigation.
Two months after Ratliff’s death, in March 2013, more than 40 ATF and FBI agents searched Myers’ residence and his father’s nearby farm. That raid was tied to suspected unlicensed manufacturing and monetized use of explosives in the FPSRussia videos, not to the Ratliff case. It produced no charges against Myers.
A separate federal case did catch up with him a few years later. In August 2017, Myers was arrested after allegedly receiving roughly 25 grams of butane hash oil through the mail, and agents confiscated around 50 firearms from his property under a federal law barring drug users from possessing guns. In 2019, Myers pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and butane hash oil, with other charges dismissed. He was sentenced on June 19, 2019, to two years of probation, 56 days in federal prison (served at FCI Talladega), a $7,500 fine, and a ban on owning firearms.
Relationship
Public information about Kyle Myers’ romantic life is thin, and what does circulate mostly comes from unverified celebrity-dating trackers rather than anything Myers has confirmed himself. The most consistent claim across those sources is that he’s currently single. Given how private he’s kept this part of his life, that status should be treated as the best available information rather than a confirmed fact.
Major Source of Income and Net Worth
Because Myers has never published his finances, every net worth figure attached to his name is an outside estimate, and those estimates have moved a lot as his career has changed shape.
| Estimate source | Reported net worth | When |
|---|---|---|
| Net worth trackers (2018-era) | Around $3 million | While FPSRussia was still active |
| YouTube-earnings calculators | $365,000–$2.19 million (≈$1.18M midpoint) | Recent, based on channel’s current ad rate |
| General celebrity net worth sites | Around $1 million | Recent |
| Fan/entertainment trackers | Around $2 million (self-described as unverified) | 2021 estimate |
The wide spread exists for a simple reason: FPSRussia stopped being an active income engine years ago. The channel hasn’t posted since April 2016, and its videos are now largely demonetized, which is why current YouTube-earnings estimates for the channel itself run only in the low hundreds of dollars per month.
What’s more reliably documented is where Myers’ income comes from today:
- The FPSRussia YouTube channel (legacy revenue). The channel still pulls in views from its back catalog — roughly 150,000 views a day by some estimates — but with much of it demonetized, this is a shrinking, not growing, income source.
- Painkiller Already (PKA) podcast. Myers has co-hosted PKA since 2010, and it’s now his primary public platform. The show reportedly generates more than $14,700 a month through Patreon alone, on top of whatever ad and sponsorship revenue the podcast brings in.
- Historical FPS Industries revenue. Before Ratliff’s death and the subsequent legal troubles, FPS Industries’ custom firearms fabrication and testing business was a secondary revenue stream tied to the channel, though there’s no public accounting of what it earned.
Put together, the honest read is this: Myers built real wealth in the early 2010s when FPSRussia was one of YouTube’s biggest channels, but that peak-era money is old money now. His current income is smaller and comes mostly from podcasting, which is why most recent estimates cluster closer to $1 million to $2 million rather than the $3 million figures tied to his channel’s prime years.
FAQs
What is FPSRussia’s real name?
Kyle Lamar Myers. “FPSRussia” was the name of his YouTube channel and the character, “Dimitri Potapov,” he played in it — not his real identity, though it became public fairly early in the channel’s run.
What is FPSRussia’s net worth?
Most current estimates put Kyle Myers’ net worth between $1 million and $2 million. Older estimates from when his channel was active and heavily monetized ran as high as $3 million.
What happened to Keith Ratliff?
Keith Ratliff, Myers’ business partner at FPS Industries, was found shot to death in his Carnesville, Georgia home/warehouse on January 3, 2013. The case has never been solved, no suspect has been publicly named, and Myers has not been named a suspect in the investigation.
Did FPSRussia go to prison?
Yes, but not in connection with the Ratliff case. Myers was arrested in 2017 on federal drug charges after allegedly receiving hash oil by mail, and dozens of firearms were seized from his property. He pleaded guilty in 2019 and served 56 days in federal prison, plus probation and a fine, and is now barred from owning firearms.
Why did the ATF raid FPSRussia’s property?
There were two separate raids. The first, in March 2013, involved more than 40 ATF and FBI agents investigating suspected unlicensed use of explosives in his videos; it produced no charges. The second, in August 2017, led directly to his 2019 drug conviction.
Is FPSRussia still active on YouTube?
Not really. The channel’s last upload was in April 2016, and it remains largely demonetized. Myers stays publicly active mainly through the PKA podcast rather than through new FPSRussia content.