0:11

Welcome back to Cutting the Distance.

0:12

I met today's guest in my booth at the Pacific Northwest

0:15

Sportsman Show probably eight nine

0:17

years ago. He was a quiet guy. He didn't

0:19

say a whole lot. He was kind of sitting in the corner,

0:21

and I knew he was good at long range hunting

0:24

and I was kind of getting into it, so I kind of forced him

0:26

to talk to men.

0:27

That's not exactly how it goes.

0:28

He's a great guy, just very very quiet,

0:31

and I was getting more into my rifles, you

0:33

know, my loads, figuring out how to get all my equipment

0:35

dialed, and he was a great resource. So John

0:37

Pinch is my guest today. I

0:39

don't know, he's too humble to probably tell you how

0:42

many, but I know he's won hundreds of shooting events between

0:44

the nrl PRS and other shooting events.

0:46

When he's not shooting, it seems to be

0:48

traveling on some pretty pretty kick

0:50

ass big game hunts across the country.

0:53

He'd want to be better known as a family

0:55

man. I know he's got two kids, you know, a wife that

0:57

they spend a lot of time with.

0:58

And so welcome to the show.

1:00

John, thanks for having me.

1:01

Jason, good talking me. I

1:09

don't know if I spend a lot of time at home because I've

1:11

gone so much, but yeah, my wife and kids are awesome.

1:13

Yeah, how's everything

1:15

going.

1:16

Yeah, No, it's been going good.

1:18

Been pretty busy, traveling a lot

1:20

the last like November December was real

1:22

busy.

1:23

So it's actually been really laid back.

1:25

Just past New Year's here, had

1:28

a pretty fun Christmas, been hanging out with the boys

1:30

and just landlow working on some stuff at the house.

1:32

It feels pretty good.

1:33

So kind of revamp and getting ready for this

1:35

next year, making some plans for business

1:38

and shooting. And I've done landscaping for a long

1:41

time, kind of phasing out of that slowly,

1:44

but I think this year is looking pretty good to hopefully

1:46

wrap that up and focus continue

1:49

to focus more on the shooting side of things.

1:51

So it's going good.

1:52

So that's a great segue, John, like, what does a

1:54

typical year for you look like as far as hunting

1:56

versus shooting? Like, what's what's

1:58

a year in your life look like?

2:00

Yeah? I fly by the.

2:01

Seat of my pants a little bit more than some of my buddies

2:03

where they playing out their whole year starting

2:05

in.

2:06

Probably let's see into this

2:08

month.

2:08

January, the shoots start kicking off Interill

2:11

Hunter and PRS, which is the Precision

2:13

Rifle League for Precision Rifle.

2:14

Series, and.

2:18

There's shoots all over US, Canada,

2:21

you know, went to South Africa

2:23

this year to shoot one, There's something Norway. They're all over

2:25

so pretty much you could shoot almost every

2:28

weekend, especially through the spring and early

2:30

summer. The heat of the summer kind

2:32

of moved some of the matches around, Like generally there's

2:34

not a lot of Arizona matches in the middle

2:36

of the summer and stuff like that. So I usually

2:39

am kind of if I have an open weekend,

2:43

you know, there's not a fan a big family

2:45

event, or you know, I.

2:47

Try to get to the kids baseball.

2:48

Tournaments and stuff as much as possible. But

2:50

as long as I got an open weekend, I'm usually

2:52

booking a flight somewhere and hitting the shoot

2:54

somewhere. So I try to shoot as much as I can.

2:57

Hunting Trump's competent.

3:00

So the last couple of years we

3:03

had hunts booked over the Precision Rifle Series

3:05

finale, I took a little wind out

3:07

of my sales for really hitting the season hard.

3:09

Knowing I couldn't shoot the championship, so

3:11

I shot.

3:12

Three four matches instead of you know, eight

3:14

to twelve or some guys are shooting fifteen

3:16

eighteen.

3:17

Matches a year, which which is a lot.

3:18

That's a lot of flights, a lot of travel, getting

3:21

guns ready and everything. So I try

3:23

to shoot as mini shoots as I can, schedule

3:26

permitting, and hopefully I'm doing more in the

3:28

next few years the way some of my schedules changing.

3:30

But then hunting trump's all that.

3:32

So some of our hunts we've got dates

3:34

booked and planning for next year. Other ones

3:36

we try to keep a pretty loose schedule, and we've hit multiple

3:39

cancelation hunts the last few years. Just

3:41

went up to Kodiak last minute, just on a DII

3:44

thing a few weeks ago. That's when you, I think you

3:46

initially texted me view podcasts is like I'm

3:48

heading out on a planing tomorrow to a little drop

3:51

camp. So I was trying to kill a sick of b locktails. But

3:54

yeah, kind of some of that stuff's just like I

3:57

said, last minute, But that's kind of the way schedule

3:59

looks. I'm so we're got family kids, we got

4:01

baseball, we got you know, fun stuff going on

4:03

like that.

4:03

Too, so gotcha so so real

4:05

busy. You could shoot as much as you want, Then do

4:07

you do you tend to focus on PRS

4:10

more so or NRL or do you have to hit like a

4:12

certain amount of events to qualify? Like how

4:14

how do you juggle that as well? Like there's all these different

4:16

events or maybe just like you know, single

4:19

events, like how do you how do you

4:21

how do you play the game?

4:22

I mean it's kind of kind

4:25

of personal preference. I've done Interall

4:27

Hunter, probably a little

4:29

more I wanted to.

4:32

There's a an interal Hunter. There's there's

4:35

an open class, which you're done. Can weigh sixteen

4:37

pounds or less, so you can run whatever

4:39

you want up to sixteen pounds.

4:41

There's Light class, which is twelve pounds or less.

4:43

There's factory which they have a list of

4:45

factory rifles you can't modem at all. You take

4:47

it out of the box at Tica Brigar or whatever

4:49

their list is. And then there's teams

4:52

when two guys can sign up and shoot teams. And I wanted

4:54

to be the first one that

4:56

won every class.

4:58

So take an open gun and when the overall

5:01

shoot not just first in that class take

5:03

a light gun and when the entire shoot, and

5:05

then take a factory gun and beat all the

5:07

custom rifle guys for the entire shoot, and

5:10

then do it in the teams. And so I actually shot

5:12

in a hunter fair bit because I did. I did

5:14

that, So that was kind of just an internal

5:16

goal of mine, and so that's

5:18

what I did. More so, I probably I think I shot

5:21

four PRS matches last

5:24

year five and ended up shooting.

5:26

I was able to shoot the finale this year.

5:28

Dude, I got six of the finale, so it

5:30

was good. It's the top two hundred and fifty guys and so

5:32

I shot. I had a good match, but I

5:35

had one bad stage that you

5:37

know, he takes nothing to drop

5:39

to drop a few spots.

5:41

So it's, uh, there's some killers there.

5:43

There's a bunch of really good I have a really good friends

5:45

in that in that in that group, and some

5:47

guys that are super dedicated to it. So it's

5:50

yeah, just kind of I kind of ebb and flow,

5:52

like this year I want to hit perrs a little bit more.

5:54

It's it's uh, it's heavy,

5:56

more purpose.

5:57

Built guns, where in or all Hunter is more hunting

6:00

type of guns where the PRS

6:02

is you know, it's a you're shooting a twenty

6:04

pounds you know, six sixty

6:06

five twenty five cal gun, not much

6:09

recoil, lots of movement, real

6:11

fast shooting, which I'm I'm

6:13

real good at. But it's

6:15

the pinnacle shooting, like it is the best shooters

6:17

in the world. Yeah, and I want

6:20

to shoot that more just because it makes me better.

6:22

Yeah.

6:22

Interial Hunter is a different It combines

6:24

glassing, u position

6:27

building, it combines a lot of different

6:29

elements that I love.

6:31

But just purely shooting PRS.

6:32

Is Yeah, is difficult because

6:35

there's target acquisition in NRAL, Like you

6:37

have to spot your target, get your own, you know, all

6:39

of that, which adds into the game.

6:41

The game.

6:42

So I want to I want to rewind this a little bit. You would never

6:44

say this, but it was internally in your head.

6:46

You basically took a gun that you could buy off

6:48

of a shelf and then went and beat the some

6:51

shooters shooting the best, most fancy guns

6:53

that you could build.

6:55

Yeah, so I did barely

6:57

by idea.

6:59

So I mean you would, like I said, you're you're very

7:01

you know, modest, humble, But but

7:03

that just kind of for all the listeners. Lets

7:05

you in the kind of how good John is and

7:07

he'll never say it, but I mean to take a gun that's

7:10

that's literally a stock gun

7:12

and beating you know, custom rifles. It

7:15

kind of just hints to to how good you

7:17

are behind a gun and you know, your your

7:19

dedication, your time. You know you're always

7:21

shooting, always reload, and always tinkering, and so

7:23

it goes along ways to to kind of just

7:25

explain, you know, the level that you're

7:27

at. And so I think that's that's worth

7:30

stating. So we're gonna we're gonna jump into some into

7:32

some listener questions now like we always do, because

7:35

you are a couple question answers we've we've

7:38

pulled from social media. If you

7:40

have questions for me or my guests, please

7:42

email them to us at c T D at

7:44

Phelps game Calls dot com, or hit us

7:47

up on a social media message

7:49

or a social post. So our first

7:51

question today comes from Tyson. I

7:53

screwed that all up, Tyson Lundahl,

7:57

how do you go about judging for win

7:59

down range and over terrain features?

8:01

And I know this is probably like the trickiest part

8:03

of everything. We're going to talk about later. You

8:06

know, like, there isn't wind on your ridge. What are

8:08

the science or what are you picking out out there

8:11

to make your wind call? Which which I

8:14

I don't know your answer, but I'm going to assume that

8:16

that up and down is pretty easy

8:19

for the most part. But left and right is where the

8:21

whole game and the art comes in. But go ahead

8:23

and explain, like what you can use to

8:26

figure out when?

8:27

Yeah, So, I

8:30

mean, so there's there's the art

8:34

and the science of long range shooting, and

8:37

wind is the art. Right, there's it's

8:39

never fixed, it's you're never on a flat plane.

8:41

There's ups, there's downs, there's left, there's

8:43

rights, there's eddies, there's box canyons

8:46

that swirl. So so there's

8:48

the science.

8:49

You know, there's a lot of data,

8:52

there's a lot of blissed calculators, there's a lot of things that

8:54

do a really good job with cross wind, jump and every

8:56

variable you can imagine. And

8:59

then there's the art of it. And so there isn't

9:01

a hard and fast answer. You pretty much

9:03

you look at anything you can get. You if there's

9:05

grass, if there's trees, if there's anything

9:07

in the air, if there's rain, if there's fog, anything

9:10

that you can see you take

9:12

into account obviously. I mean it's kind of a kind

9:15

of a no brainer. Some people say, oh, you watch

9:17

train when water rolls, and yeah, that's that's

9:20

good, But that doesn't also cover water

9:22

doesn't roll uphill.

9:23

And so if there's a big.

9:24

Updraft, like I don't

9:26

know, Like so I've had some big up drafts.

9:28

If I'm say I'm

9:31

on.

9:31

A valley, I'm up here, I'm shooting

9:33

over here more it's actually

9:35

more if I'm up here and this is a long valley

9:37

running out and there's like kind

9:40

of hills on this you know, here and here,

9:42

and there's a valley coming at you, and the wind's coming at

9:44

you. If I'm shooting across

9:46

to those with a strong wind in your face, you'll

9:48

get a bit. I'll get a big updraft.

9:50

On this hill.

9:50

That wind's ripping up this hill, and

9:53

it'll hold my bullet up. And so those

9:55

are all things that are so hard to take into

9:57

account. It

10:02

kind of leads into another I think

10:04

the most important thing that you can do as a shooter,

10:06

and it's it

10:09

changed a lot of my I

10:11

don't know philosophy is the right.

10:12

Word, but.

10:16

Gun build choice weights calibers,

10:18

so I can spot my own shot. You have to

10:21

see where your bullet lands. And

10:23

a lot of guys don't. A lot of guys shoot

10:25

the recoils gone. They rely on their buddy,

10:27

and if they're solo, they're out of lock. They

10:29

shoot and they hope they hit it. And if

10:32

you can spot your shots, stuff

10:35

happens. You can make a bad wind call, you

10:37

can do anything. But if you can spot your shot,

10:39

generally you can measure

10:41

that and make a quick correction and get a second round

10:44

impact.

10:44

That's not ideal.

10:46

I'm just saying there's stuff happens,

10:48

and no one's ever right one hundred percent of time on

10:50

wind. And so if I'm on the canyon

10:52

and it's calm where I'm at, generally you can hear wind,

10:54

or you can see wind, you know something's going on.

10:58

If it's that far, if it's if you're

11:00

two canyons away, generally

11:03

you're talking like thousand

11:05

plus yards depending on

11:07

the train. I'm gonna recommend

11:09

cutting the distance. I'm not the long range

11:12

guy. I've shot as much as anybody or

11:14

more, and I'm not I'm never

11:16

the guy that backs up to another

11:19

one hundred yards so I shoot a thousand instead of

11:21

nine hundred, and I'm not going to post that on social We

11:23

made a lot of long shots.

11:24

I'm never gonna people ask how far. I

11:26

just don't say I don't.

11:28

There's elements of long range shooting that I love

11:31

it, but I also I hate the social

11:33

media. I killed this at fourteen hundred yards of one shot.

11:35

I was like, well, you couldn't do that. If we went out and on steel,

11:37

you'd missed that steel a lot. I know you would because

11:39

I've shot more than you.

11:41

Not to sound arrogant, but yeah, it's hard,

11:44

and so you take anything. I mean, generally,

11:47

you can hear wind.

11:48

You can see it, especially evergreen

11:50

trees are real easy to read, big fir trees. You

11:53

can see the directs

11:55

and the winds hitting the backside of the trees relatively

11:57

calm the front the branches are kind of

11:59

peeling around, and then it's just experience.

12:01

Hey, is that a seven over?

12:03

There? Is that a fifteen mile an hour?

12:04

And then if it's dead for three hundred yards,

12:08

you don't have wind until you hit four and five hundred

12:10

yards, so you can We're getting a little deep

12:13

here for a podcast, but you can you can

12:15

run your brackets out.

12:16

Like when you shoot. When you

12:18

shoot a.

12:19

Bullet, the biggest

12:21

deflections right out of your gun. If you take a bullet

12:23

off course out of the muzzle, it's going to

12:25

be way off course down range.

12:27

If it doesn't go off course till.

12:28

Three or four hundred yards, if you're protected

12:30

along a clear cut tree line,

12:32

or it's just you're in this some sort

12:35

of you're in the bottom and it doesn't get into the wind

12:37

until you shoot out the top.

12:39

Then you're cutting your wind drift down.

12:41

The first four hundred yards don't see wind and maybe the

12:43

last three hundred yards see a fifteen mile an hour.

12:45

So you can kind of break that down into brackets of what it's

12:48

going to do.

12:48

All that comes from experience. I wish I had

12:50

like this really good answer. You do this, this, and this. It

12:52

doesn't exist. It's an art. It comes from

12:55

a lot of practice and taking everything

12:57

into account. What I see a lot of

12:59

guys do is the moment happens.

13:01

It's quick. Half the times they forget

13:03

to dial something or what just they don't level

13:06

their gun. Go through your checklist,

13:09

make sure your range is perfect. These are

13:11

no brainer things. Make sure your levels perfect.

13:13

Take a second to slow down and make

13:15

a really good thought process on wind.

13:17

Study the trees, study the cobwebs,

13:20

floating anything you can see, and

13:22

don't be afraid to hold wind. In the comp world,

13:24

we talk about like missing on the

13:26

pro side. So beginners always

13:29

miss downwind. They never hold enough wind,

13:31

and so missing on the pro side would be missing

13:33

upwind. If you're gonna if I'm gonna miss a plan, I want

13:35

to miss upwind because you rarely overjudge

13:38

wind. It's just like a natural tendency. People

13:40

will get scared.

13:41

To hold down much hold that far.

13:42

So yeah, I mean there's a lot of

13:44

things we could go.

13:45

You know, we could talk about this forever, but I

13:48

think just slow down and be very aware if you're

13:50

not comfortable.

13:51

Cut distance.

13:52

Generally, if you're looking over a couple of canyons, you

13:54

can get to the next ridge. Yeah, just

13:56

cut the distance, get to six hundred seven hundrey

13:58

yards.

13:58

Yeah.

13:59

And one of the things you know, especially on

14:01

wind, that I like to do is in my ballistic

14:03

calculator, if I if I think it could be a

14:05

five, but then it could be a ten, I want to go

14:07

look at the difference like how much error is in

14:09

my my calculation? And if it's

14:12

more than what's acceptable at that range,

14:14

then I need to get closer, you know. And so it's like, how

14:16

confident am I that this is a five or a

14:18

ten or if it's only

14:20

five hundred yards, it's not gonna matter, right, But

14:23

if if I'm taking a shot at seven or eight hundred

14:25

and it starts to move that bullet an extra you

14:27

know, whatever it might be, I'm like, well, that's not that's

14:29

not ethical, you know, in my opinion, then I need

14:31

to get closer or not take the shot. And so I do

14:33

a lot of that, Like here's my envelope. I think it could

14:36

be as low as three, it could be as high as ten.

14:39

And then like where does that move my bullet?

14:41

And can I compensate for that? Am I still going

14:43

to hit vitals if I'm at either end? And can

14:46

I you know, split that? Like

14:48

you say, it's all in art what you're comfortable with, And

14:52

I'm gonna go This kind of a good segue to our

14:54

next question from Charlie Smith, who's my buddy

14:56

of my good time hunting partner.

14:59

You guys, is this banter online?

15:01

As always gone, oh yeah, and this this

15:03

this banner kind of comes into this question where

15:05

it's stuff that we all talk about behind the scenes,

15:07

but when you you don't want to necessarily

15:10

knock long range hunting. But so Charlie Smith's question

15:12

is do you think long range rifles are ruining

15:14

hunting? Which is is a fair question. And

15:17

when you say ruining hunting, is it ruining our

15:19

season? Shortening them? Is it taking too many

15:21

animals? But like, what's your opinion on that? Because

15:23

it is something that I feel like we should have to be able to

15:25

answer if you're gonna shoot. And then the

15:27

other thing is what is long range hunting

15:29

defined as, which I don't even want to get into

15:31

right now, but like in your opinion.

15:33

Is this whole long range movement? Is it? Is

15:35

it affecting hunting? And to what degree?

15:39

Yeah?

15:39

I mean I don't I don't understand how you

15:41

you could say it's not. How is technology not? I

15:43

mean when I started archery, I mean I shot

15:45

archer for years, years ago, a forty fifty

15:48

yard shot was a tough shot. Now now

15:50

my bow's got a slider and I can you can stackers

15:53

at a hundred yards like it's it's

15:55

and you look at muzzleloaders, right, you look at these

15:58

crazy muzzleloaders that are shooting smoke powder

16:00

some of the states. I mean, I think those rules are changing.

16:02

But there's buzzle there's five six, seven hundred

16:04

yards, you know, and so yeah, absolutely.

16:07

More animals are dying. People are getting better at hunting.

16:09

There's so much information like this podcast

16:11

and many others and internet

16:14

forums.

16:14

So yeah, I think it is. I

16:16

think states.

16:18

I think I worry about a lot hunting.

16:23

I've had the opportunity to go on some

16:26

high end hunts that are out of my budget

16:29

that because of the buddy

16:31

I have and experienced both

16:33

sides the thing. I mean, I grew up over the counter hunting

16:35

and I live in western Oregon, grew up in western Washington.

16:38

So we're hunting roses and blacktails

16:41

parked in the trailhead which used to be three

16:43

or four trucks now it's ten or twenty,

16:45

and so we all see the same thing.

16:47

I see how money is affecting

16:50

opportunity big time. It's

16:52

not a good thing or a bad thing. It just is what it is. And

16:56

hunting is, yeah, killing

16:58

stuff with the rifles easy than it used to

17:00

be. I think unfortunately

17:03

fish you know, fish and game departments

17:05

get funding from tag sales, and they're not

17:07

going to cut numbers, and I wish they would. I

17:09

think there needs to be less opportunity. I mean, you look at Arizona

17:12

and the way they look at hunting. I got a lot of buddies down

17:15

there. They apply it their whole life,

17:17

and they hunt with other people because they draw

17:19

every five, ten, fifteen years, but

17:22

they hunt every year with the group just

17:24

because tags are so hard to get. I don't like that, but

17:27

there's the reality of supplying

17:29

demand quality

17:31

I don't and it's also a different value.

17:33

Some guys like to go into to fkinhorn. I want to,

17:35

like.

17:36

I love the idea of finding a big buck, so

17:38

I wish there were you know, I

17:40

wish there needs to be less tags in

17:42

some areas.

17:43

I mean, it's a sticky people are going to get fired

17:45

up. But yeah, I think it does.

17:47

It makes it easier in

17:49

some ways. I don't like the

17:51

guys.

17:52

Already mentioned this that are like puffing their chest up

17:54

because they shot so far.

17:56

The brag adocious of that kind.

17:58

Of stuff bugs me, but

18:01

it happens in every everything I shot. This

18:03

at fifty five yards with my trad and ball. I shot

18:05

this at one twenty with my compound. I shot this at five hundred

18:07

with a muzzleoader, and I show this at fifteen hundred

18:09

with the center fire. It's the same thing across the board.

18:12

Everyone's getting better, everyone's getting dead deadler

18:14

in technologies.

18:15

Yeah, incredible.

18:16

We we're Oh, I mean, I don't I don't know what

18:18

the answer is.

18:19

Yeah, yeah, No, I think I think we

18:21

both know. And and I'm I'm on the side where yeah, we've

18:23

got and I would I say we, I I

18:26

should be careful to put myself on the same boat

18:28

as you, but like we have the ability to shoot

18:31

to shoot like long range, but I take more

18:33

pride. And then I snuck into that bucket one hundred

18:35

and fifty, you know, or one hundred. Yeah, I had a long

18:37

range rifle, but I was still

18:39

hunting, you know. And and I just it seems

18:42

like you just have the skills necessary to

18:44

take the long range shot if you need to, or a follow

18:46

up shot. But you know, I just assume see

18:48

a trad guy kill at five yards, you know,

18:51

or or a compound guy kill at ten,

18:53

you know, whether they can shoot at a hundred

18:55

or not is a different story.

18:56

But to me, that's the challenge one

18:59

percent.

19:00

I mean, we all want to be ethical and competent.

19:02

I loved archery hunting. I shot

19:04

more balls and deer with my deer.

19:06

I shot more elk with both than I have with a gun,

19:09

and shot quite a few deer. And I liked

19:11

it because it was challenging. When I back in

19:13

the day, I had sided my whatever

19:15

I was shooting with my thirty six or three

19:18

hundred wind bag or whatever, and.

19:19

Then I was done. I was like, it's not fun to shoot that gun

19:21

at two hundred yards.

19:22

And so I was geeking

19:25

out on the archery side, and

19:27

then found out about long range a

19:29

long time ago, and it

19:32

just was interesting.

19:32

It was fun.

19:33

It was challenging again. It was fun to make wind calls.

19:35

It was fun to learn that art of it, and so

19:40

and then I started hunting that way, and.

19:42

It is fun. I mean, this year, pretty short

19:44

kills. I got shot.

19:46

I killed the big white, my biggest white tail at

19:49

sixty five yards.

19:50

I was working it was working these doughs and it was in

19:52

this thick stuff.

19:53

I just worked in on it and then you know, shot my

19:55

sidkat a couple hundred, I don't two fifty.

19:58

Just a lot of closer arrange stuff this year. It's

20:02

is it easy? I think it's easier to shoot

20:04

an animal four to six hundred yards than

20:07

it is at fifty to one hundred most of the time

20:09

because it's calm. I'm prone, like

20:12

I'm not going to miss that shot, yeap, And so

20:16

yeah, I don't know.

20:16

I mean, it's

20:18

a it is a debate, and I totally get

20:20

it.

20:20

I'm not one that's going to defend it.

20:22

I don't like when guys pick sides like compound

20:24

guys or muzzle or guys.

20:26

We're all We're all doing the same thing. The

20:30

game is. It's the sports change.

20:32

And it's been weird the last three years watching

20:34

watching the money and everything change.

20:37

And it's a lot of it's all of it, it's all over, it's

20:40

social media, it's everything. But it's it is changing

20:42

quick. I don't know. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

20:45

I think that if if we're going to be

20:47

willing to do it, we just have to accept

20:50

or like you said, make change like Arizona,

20:52

that our seasons may shorten because our take's

20:54

going to be higher. We're going to, you know, because of some of these

20:56

things and technology advancements. But

20:58

then I don't want to be a hypocrite and say that we shouldn't

21:00

have them because I'm also using them, because otherwise,

21:03

if you're not, if you don't have the ability year behind

21:05

everybody. And so I I think it's just a personal

21:07

decision. I like the

21:09

the art and the science and the nerdiness

21:12

behind it and getting the setup that you're just

21:14

like, you know, super confident, and

21:16

you know, for me, like five hundred yards, like I'm

21:18

gonna put this bullet inside of a two inch circle at five hundred

21:20

like no question where before you know, growing

21:22

up, I had a three by nine loopol Very X

21:25

two where you're like.

21:25

Oh, just aim at the post.

21:26

You know, that's all you ever heard on those duplexes like fire

21:29

no matter what, gun, no matter what.

21:32

And then put on the back, put

21:35

on the back to one thousand yards.

21:37

And then the one thing that really drives me nuts, and I'm gonna

21:39

throw some of my own family under the bus, you know, because they had

21:42

custom guns built because we were out doing it and

21:44

maybe taking longer shots. And you

21:46

know, I can like my Dad, you

21:48

get like ten bolts down the barrel and be like all right, build

21:50

my dope chart and showed me how to dial this thing, you know, And

21:52

I'm like, well, I don't know if

21:55

like you don't have a coach there or like understanding

21:57

all this. And like my uncle going on a deer hunh

22:00

it this year, like he

22:02

never chronoled it. He went off of like somebody

22:04

else's load data for a different gun, and then like,

22:07

oh, I should be good.

22:07

He's He's like I should be good like eight hundred

22:10

right with this.

22:10

I'm like, no, you don't, like you haven't confirmed

22:13

anything besides a starting

22:15

point, you know.

22:16

And it's the same.

22:17

It's the same guys that get their gun boar sided

22:19

Sportsman the night before season and think they're ready to

22:21

go hunt. It's the same guys that buy a bow the week

22:23

before season.

22:24

So it's the same. It's the same mentality.

22:26

There's

22:28

uh yeah, it's yeah,

22:30

I know.

22:31

What it is. There were guys outside care we don't

22:33

geek out like we do.

22:34

Yeah, and they think that just buying the equipment gets

22:36

him there, you know, and it's like, no, there's a lot more to

22:38

this, and so all diverge

22:41

I know Charlie brought that up more as

22:43

a joke, but it's something that we talk about. When

22:45

when I said, when we say ruining hunting, I wouldn't

22:48

say it's ruining it, but it's definitely affecting

22:50

it in.

22:50

A change way.

22:51

Yep.

22:52

I mean, but what isn't like how has ONYX not changed

22:55

it?

22:55

How is everything we do like

22:58

the application served us

23:00

and mapping and everything.

23:02

I mean, yeah, I

23:04

mean you could throw you could throw us under

23:06

the bus, like easier to use calls now you have more people

23:08

that can use and so yeah, I mean I'd

23:11

be hypocritical to say this, but it's just something I

23:13

think is as a as a

23:15

general group of people, you know, hunters,

23:17

we just have to think about and make good decisions

23:20

moving forward.

23:21

I think.

23:22

I think just being aware of it, having a discussion.

23:24

Everyone's using technology. The better trucks are farther,

23:27

cutting gears lighter, you can go in deeper, you

23:29

stay drier, you stay warmer.

23:31

Everything we do.

23:32

Nutrition is lighter, peak

23:34

put forty grams of protein instead of ten like

23:37

Mountain.

23:38

Everything's better, right, so you can you

23:40

can do I

23:43

think the discussion and just to beware you can't get

23:45

mad.

23:45

About it, but I think you've got to be open to potential

23:48

tag cut numbers and being not drawn

23:50

as much.

23:52

I think that's ultimately where we need to go. I don't know that when

23:54

we do that.

23:54

Because fishing games were lying on the sales, we'll

23:57

see it's and then now

23:59

we got wolves.

24:00

Yeah, yeah, we won't get into that one range.

24:05

There's no ethical distance for a wolf, so take

24:07

that.

24:22

So this is this one may just pertain

24:24

the long range, and I'll let you put the parameters

24:26

on it. So when do you take and this comes

24:28

from my buddy Cody Wilson, not a whoming when do you

24:30

look at things like asthmuth and and

24:33

bullets like spin drift, Like when do

24:35

those things come into play? Is that only when you're looking at

24:37

like really long range and maybe explain asthmuth for

24:39

people that you know don't understand.

24:41

For coriolis, yeah, you take a heading

24:43

that generally referring to coriols a fact

24:45

the rotation of the earth. I mean, that's I

24:48

would say, I don't want to say

24:50

never, but pretty much never.

24:52

That's not going to affect anything.

24:54

Spin drift absolutely, I mean, you'll

24:56

get for sure, have

24:58

your spind drift on in your calculators.

25:00

If you're zeroed almost all barrels

25:02

or right twist, which means if you're your

25:04

zero is.

25:05

Dead on left right, you're gonna hit

25:07

right at distance because your bullet's rolling

25:09

to the right. So yes, absolutely

25:12

use that spin drift is going to be.

25:14

It's going to be. It depends on the caliber

25:16

and the twist.

25:16

You know, it can be four or five six inches of a thousand

25:20

plus or minus, and it's definitely moving

25:22

your bullets.

25:22

So yes, do spin drift Coreyolis.

25:26

Or your asthmuth not near as important,

25:29

I'd say in hunting distances, it's nearly it's

25:32

irrelevant relevant.

25:34

That would be my opinion. Some people may argue

25:36

that, but I don't really know anybody

25:38

that would argue that.

25:39

A whole lot, and I might misquote

25:41

you. I know at one time you

25:43

had actually told me to cite my gun into one hundred

25:46

a little bit to the left to kind of account for

25:48

that out to what I would consider my hunting

25:50

distance is right, and it kind of just now

25:52

you just said keep it on your calculator, which I don't want

25:54

to discredit that at all, but for a guy like

25:56

me, that's not going to shoot it an animal unless

25:58

it's a follow up shot. Ever passed the thousand, Like I

26:01

want to say, we were like an inch maybe inch and a quarter

26:03

left at a hundred, which doesn't hurt me at one hundred,

26:06

But then a lot.

26:08

I wouldn't. I wouldn't.

26:09

I would never say that much. I'm usually if

26:11

I'm left, I'm shooting

26:13

Mills now. I shot in the way forever bolt grade.

26:15

I'm not going to go into it in Mills. M a discussion,

26:17

but I shoot Mills now because it's in the comp world,

26:19

and I do like a lot of aspects of it.

26:21

For I think there's some benefits to it in the hunting

26:23

world as well.

26:24

But uh so,

26:26

each click in a mill is roughly point

26:28

three to three four three six whatever.

26:33

If if I can't land on

26:35

my zero if

26:37

I if I'm going to be either left or right on my

26:39

zero point, I'm gonna I'm gonna choose the left

26:42

to little left. Yeah, it's I'm not. I'm never

26:44

going to go on an inch left. That's a lot.

26:47

I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that.

26:49

But if I'm gonna choose either left or right, I'm gonna

26:51

choose left and just kind of have a mental note of

26:53

that when I'm calculating spin drift and we're talking

26:55

in the hunting world, You're right, it's not near

26:57

as important. I mean, five six inches of

26:59

a thousand, that's a chunk of But you know, in your

27:02

three four, five, six seven hundred yard range,

27:04

you're talking a few inches, you're still in the vitals.

27:07

It's going to be more of an issue judging the wind

27:10

than spin drift. But if you're dead calm

27:12

and like I'm trying to shoot a like

27:15

a two inch steel target at six seven hundred

27:17

yards, if it's dead calm,

27:19

you are going to miss right.

27:20

You're going to mis right. So you have to take that into

27:22

account on tiny, little skinny targets.

27:24

Yeah, and then I actually ended up avoiding

27:27

that going left at all plans, which has probably saved

27:29

me. It sounds like, because that would have been too much, I just went back to

27:31

zero and then like, you have my spin drift calculator

27:33

on.

27:34

Yeah, I think that's the smartest.

27:35

Yeah.

27:35

Yeah, back in the day, I mean, when I started,

27:38

I'm kind of getting old now, I guess, But there wasn't spin

27:40

drifting calculators.

27:41

There's everybody just new, like all these bolts kind

27:43

of go right, so I'm going to zero a little left, I mean,

27:45

and then you just kind of have that mental note. So it's

27:47

progressing, like you get the new

27:49

like the Kestrel fifty seven hundred with appliaballistics,

27:52

like they've got cross wind jump and spin

27:54

drip, you got every.

27:55

Calculation at Coriolis,

27:57

they got everything in there.

27:58

I mean, it's a you know, and those apps

28:00

are on on your.

28:02

Phone as well and different things like that.

28:03

So okay, well, well that was that's

28:06

going to kind of wrap it up for the listener

28:09

questions. Once again, you have questions for us

28:11

here at Cutting the Distance, please email them to us

28:13

at CTD at Phelpsgamecalls

28:15

dot com or send us a message and we'll do our best to

28:18

Again. So now we're gonna kind of jump into my discussion,

28:21

you know, on on the guns and the equipment.

28:24

But before we jump into those conversations about

28:27

the guns and components, which everybody loves

28:29

to talk about, right because you can control that with money,

28:31

but you can't. But let's talk about what, in

28:33

my opinion, really matters and we'll see if you agree

28:36

is the things that you can't buy with money, you know, whether

28:38

it's reading the wind, you know, the art of it, a

28:40

bunch of trigger time, you know, hundreds of thousands rounds.

28:43

Like what defines a good long

28:45

range hunter versus a guy that goes out and buys a ten

28:47

thousand dollars rifle That

28:50

that equipment's no good if you don't have this other stuff?

28:52

So what what do people really need to know

28:54

in order to start pulling the trigger at long

28:56

ranges or be effective when they do.

28:59

Yeah, I mean, I obviously

29:01

the list is super long. I think I

29:03

think you need to be interested

29:05

in it. It's got to be kind, it's got to be somewhat

29:08

of a hobby. I think you

29:10

could make the argument. And

29:13

we and I do do this. We train people and stuff.

29:15

We take guys out that have more

29:17

money than time, you know, some of these

29:20

some of these bigger some

29:22

of these guys that go on pretty big hunts, or they're

29:24

business guys that make a pretty good income, so they

29:26

don't have a lot of time to go shoot on the weekends and they're

29:28

not going to travel around to comps. They're times more valuable

29:30

than that. So it's not there it's not their deal.

29:33

So you can

29:35

make the argument that.

29:36

In that generally what was what

29:38

was rapid shooting three hundred yards and end

29:40

type of a thing four hundred was a long shot.

29:42

You could make the argument that three to six

29:45

hundred yards with a good

29:47

set up gun and limited knowledge is

29:50

nearly automatic. And so I talk with a

29:52

lot of guys as like, man, I'd really like your limit

29:54

to be in that six six fifty range, unless

29:56

the wind is howling and maybe less.

29:58

I think when you get as that five

30:01

six hundred yard range, you

30:03

really you need to It's got to be a hobby.

30:05

You got to be interested. You got to shoot.

30:07

You can't go out and shoot four or five rounds a year. Your

30:11

form, your follow through, your trigger

30:13

pull, everything is.

30:16

Not is not going to be adequate to

30:18

do in my opinion.

30:20

To be ethical, you know, to make a seven hundred

30:22

yard shot, even have the wherewithal to

30:24

think about, Okay, the thermals are

30:26

coming down this hill a little bit left

30:28

to right. I'm going to you know, just all

30:30

the basics to stay calm

30:33

in a situation. I see guys get so keyed

30:36

up when they get in and they're getting ready to take a shot

30:38

that all the thought process

30:40

of the small things go away. And I think you can

30:42

get that by shooting more. You go up, You

30:44

go up in a clear cut and shoot. I tell guys to go up, take

30:46

five rounds or ten rounds and go shoot in a clearcut, shoot

30:48

some rocks at you know, five hundred two thousand

30:51

yards and.

30:51

Don't just shoot shoot shoot, Oh I hit it.

30:54

See if you can hit.

30:54

On a first round, or see if you can get real, real

30:57

close, because that's all that matters. If you hit

30:59

on your fifth round, it's relevant. Like the guys that

31:01

shoot new world record at

31:03

forty two hundred yards and you shot seventeen

31:05

rounds. To me, it's it's I

31:07

guess the equipment's interesting to get a you

31:10

know whatever. I don't want to it seems dumb

31:12

to me. Yeah, and I don't have close

31:14

first round impacts.

31:15

I don't want to throw the L word around on

31:17

that. You know, like you said one shot finally hit at

31:19

seventeen, but like I don't want to say,

31:22

and this is gonna. I don't know if we have any extra

31:24

you know, extreme long range people here, but like

31:27

at some point I already hit it one out of seventeen.

31:29

Yeah, it's still a feat and you still accomplish

31:31

something. But was there a little bit of luck involved finally that

31:33

you did hit at the last sixteen you know, And so I

31:37

just like.

31:37

You, Yeah, as a disclaimer,

31:40

uh, there are they're doing the world records

31:42

are now they're doing like three consecutive

31:44

shots Cold War plus two at

31:46

twenty five hundred and thirty two. Like that's impressive.

31:49

Like I'm not going to discredit that, we you

31:51

know, so anyway, disclaimer, Yeah, the

31:53

whole world record thing is to me is stupid, but

31:55

whatever.

31:56

Yeah, and then like growing up around here what we considered

31:58

long range growing up, you know, we have a pretty good range

32:00

here where I grew up. You know a lot of guys

32:02

that were bench tress shooters here at the at

32:04

the PO range.

32:06

They would always do.

32:07

They would shoot at a

32:09

at a target maybe a hundred yards

32:11

off the deer or the elk that they wanted

32:14

to shoot in a clear cut, get the wind right,

32:16

and then they would bring their gun back over, which just

32:18

like you said, like you want to make that first shot

32:20

kill. But maybe I don't want

32:22

to bring up ethical or moral either, because if they're

32:24

shooting seven they know what they're drift is based

32:26

on this spot shot, and then a lot of times

32:28

those deer elk wouldn't even get bothered

32:30

by it, you know, with the muzzle break or

32:33

a can or whatever they may have. And so that's kind of how

32:35

we grew up. That's what I thought long

32:37

range shooting was. And then as I got into it,

32:39

I'm like, no, I want to make the right corrections

32:41

up front, and then I'll take my shot at the animal

32:43

and then have a spotter and then make a correction if

32:46

I need to.

32:46

But yeah, I go.

32:48

It's that's not a bad

32:51

as funny as that may sound to some people, that's

32:53

not If you're shooting a long range and you can't

32:56

cut the distance and you trust

32:58

your deer and stuff, it's not bad idea

33:01

to take a shot like that. If you can

33:03

swing over, you've got a rock face or something,

33:05

you can shoot one hundred two hundred yards of left right,

33:07

that's I don't want to discredit that at all. If

33:10

you've got something funky, you're like, hey, I'm going to take

33:12

a test shot, all right, you win calls

33:14

on or it's off. My correction to kill the animal like

33:16

that is a decent, a decent idea

33:19

to keep in your head if the conditions

33:21

are real.

33:21

Sporty yeap, yep.

33:23

That's how we know what you're saying.

33:25

Yeah, yeah, there's an art to it where you want to like

33:27

you don't want to. It's almost like you're using a cheat

33:29

code like on an old video game, right, Like I don't want

33:31

I don't want that information. I just want to try to do.

33:33

But I also feel we owe

33:35

it to the animals that if if there's any

33:37

doubt in your mind, you know that this this

33:39

might not work out how you think it will, then then

33:42

that might be a good option, is to you know,

33:44

and you had mentioned and maybe you've changed,

33:46

but like on a windy shoot or even a competition,

33:49

you maybe not waste one, but you

33:51

may test to see what the wind is so you can clear the stage

33:53

after that first shot. Is that I thought

33:55

i'd heard you once like you may you used

33:58

to do that, Maybe that you would know

34:00

I maybe misunderstanding.

34:02

So the only the

34:04

only time any of

34:07

the top guys will

34:09

do anything is if and

34:11

this is rare, I.

34:12

Can I don't.

34:13

I might have done it once ever, but

34:15

I'm always trying to hit the target. The idea

34:17

is to hit the target, read where you hit the target,

34:20

move your impact of the center so you can stay in

34:22

there as the wind changes. But every

34:25

once in a while there's a couple stages

34:27

I wish I would have done this. You'll get maybe

34:29

a skyline target at eight hundred nine hundred

34:31

yards where if you miss, you see nothing, nothing,

34:34

and so you'll see guys go up there. They think they've

34:36

got it. Boom miss, boom miss. Now

34:38

there are three four misses deep. Where so

34:40

sometimes on a stage like that, you could

34:42

put one in the dirt, like at the base of the t post

34:45

and then go to the target, so you're dropping

34:47

one shot instead of two, three or four. So

34:49

on a skyline target, generally targets

34:52

were usually somewhere where you can either see trace

34:54

or you can you see bullet trays only left or

34:57

right, or you can see where the bullet actually lands.

34:59

But it's it's a pretty rare it's a pretty

35:01

rare currence when you would

35:04

burn one in the dirt, but you could there's

35:06

been I.

35:07

Think I've done it once.

35:08

I gotcha.

35:08

Yeah, misunderstanding there, but yeah, that makes sense.

35:11

Just you know, try to spot your shot on the target

35:13

and then make your adjustments if you

35:15

you know, micro adjustments at that point to

35:18

stay on or be center. Yeah,

35:20

yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So let's get into

35:22

the equipment because it's it's what everybody wants

35:24

to talk about.

35:26

Yeah, so like.

35:28

Gun selection, where for me, I

35:30

made the decision to hunt with multiple guns.

35:32

So I've got a big long range gun that I

35:34

don't like to pack around. I went with a kind

35:37

of a do it all mountain rifle and

35:39

seven short action ultramag and then just recently

35:41

got a six and a half PRC. As it seems like some of

35:43

these you know, So so that's kind of my my.

35:47

I either I have a three thirty eight edge, I've

35:49

got the seventh PSALM, or I've got the six and a half

35:51

pr C. Now, when people

35:53

are going in, you know, some random person

35:56

going in, they're gonna gonna get a long range gun

35:58

built. What factors do you think way

36:00

into that gun? And then how

36:02

do you go on about like starting with the

36:04

caliber and then going from there.

36:07

So I've always been, uh, component

36:10

first, I usually picked my bullet and

36:12

build the gun around that.

36:14

And I've been a big burger bullet fan for a

36:16

long long time.

36:17

I've recently actually shot some solids. I'm life

36:19

and we'll see playing with some different things.

36:22

But been a Burger bullet fan for a long long

36:24

time. So I'm the same

36:26

as you. I have a six five PRC.

36:29

I like a thirty cow and

36:31

a Big three thirty eight. I haven't shot by Big three thirty

36:33

eight years as much as I used to. Mostly I'm six

36:35

five and thirty. But

36:37

I kind of like the idea of, you know, a few different

36:40

golf clubs in your bag, so for different

36:42

different hunts, different weights.

36:43

Like, so I'm going to pick

36:45

my bullet.

36:46

If I want to shoot a two fifteen hybrid

36:49

Burger, I'm going to kind of see it's a thirty cow.

36:51

I'm going to see, do I what do I want to shoot?

36:53

Well, I want to shoot good brass. Generally that's

36:56

been Lapua the last handful

36:58

of years. Now we have a DG, we've

37:01

got Peterson, we've got Alpha, We've

37:03

got some pretty good brass selections

37:05

that aren't your typical Norman was consistent,

37:07

but it was soft.

37:10

You know.

37:10

Then you've got all your hornerity and federal stuff that's

37:12

not not to the quality

37:14

of some of the premium brass brands, So I'm gonna pick

37:17

my brass.

37:17

So I'm going to go.

37:18

Lately, it's been Lapua makes three hundred

37:20

Norma. Three hundred Norma has been really easy for me.

37:23

It's about my shots. Good

37:25

speeds are decent. I'm not a speed demon like

37:28

a lot of guys. Gosh,

37:30

a lot of guys are into horsepower. They're

37:32

into fast cars. I get it, it's

37:34

fun. But I am a slow and steady

37:36

wins the race in the gun world, and it took a lot of

37:38

shooting to get to that.

37:40

And every guy that gets into.

37:41

Camp shooting doesn't

37:43

understand it until you shoot a while and

37:45

you realize that the faster, crazier

37:47

guns tend to be a little bit more finicky.

37:50

So if I can run a two point

37:52

fifteen at twenty nine

37:54

to fifty to three thousand, thirty twenty,

37:57

like, I don't, really, I don't want to run at thirty one fifty

37:59

if it shoots, I mean you can. I'm not saying

38:01

don't, But man, the consistency

38:03

that I get out of twenty nine to fifty three.

38:05

Thousand, it's just day in and day

38:07

out.

38:07

It's not finicky, And so I use That's

38:10

how I picked my gun, So then I picked my barrel.

38:11

Twist around that.

38:12

If I want to have a midweight gun,

38:15

I like thirty cows and at ten to

38:17

eleven pound range, just because I want to spot

38:19

my shots. Like I talked about earlier, a good

38:21

muzzle break six five

38:23

PRC. I like the one fifty

38:25

six Burger a lot, And

38:28

then you know, eighty g makes good brass. Lapooa

38:30

makes brass for it. And

38:33

I'm going to run that gun and probably between

38:36

an eight to ten pound gun, probably

38:38

with a bipod with everything on it, and I run

38:40

a big scope. I don't not going to skimp on scope.

38:42

That's the last thing I'm going to skimp on. And

38:46

so those are kind of my weights in that eight to ten pounds.

38:48

I'm a six five. Ten to twelve is a thirty and then

38:50

twelve or above twelve to sixteen is a three thirty

38:52

eight something big. So

38:55

I think a lot of guys are moving to that kind of thing.

38:57

It works really well. I've shot a lot of stuff in my six

38:59

five I probably and like I've shot a couple of moose with

39:01

it, and some bears, some bigger bears, like just

39:04

because I'm so confident. I shoot it so fast

39:06

and you can see your shots just so stick

39:08

and good.

39:08

Good, just as a kid.

39:09

Yeah.

39:10

And so at the point, at the point you're selecting

39:13

your round and your caliber, are you already you've already

39:16

decided whether you want to reload or whether you want to

39:18

shoot box ammo? Right, you you have to make

39:20

that decision reloading.

39:22

I'm reloading.

39:23

And just just because I

39:25

mean I'm saying I got I reload a lot, I

39:27

mean I've reloaded. I don't even want to figure how many

39:29

rounds I've reloaded. So I've got a bigger room

39:31

full of a billion presses

39:34

and just anyway.

39:34

I do all that. So yes, in

39:38

it's been awesome the last few years.

39:40

And I think the reason the six by PRC, the

39:43

seven PRC, the three hundred PRC has

39:45

done well is because Hornerty is doing a pretty good

39:47

job.

39:48

We've we've shot up set up a bunch.

39:50

Of guns with guys like, hey, I

39:52

want you to factor amazal, so we'll get a few different lots

39:54

of six by PRC or seven PRC

39:57

and they shoot pretty good. So that's

39:59

a good thing to bring up. I don't even it

40:02

doesn't really enter my head because I.

40:03

Just know I'm going to reload.

40:05

But yeah, if you're gonna reload, or if you're if

40:07

you're gonna buy factory, I would probably

40:09

lean towards those rounds right now because Hornet is

40:11

doing a pretty good job, pretty affordable, pretty

40:14

good bullet choice, high BC longer

40:16

range bullets, and.

40:17

They've been good. I mean six five PRC has

40:19

been been real accurate.

40:21

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's

40:23

that's kind of like I say, you know, and then

40:25

you also, I mean we've had some

40:27

discussions about three hundred PRC Ver seven and

40:29

what your target animal or like what the gun is primarily

40:31

going to be used for, So if you know, for

40:33

an elk guy or or a moose or elk

40:36

guy primarily versus if you're just gonna be a meal deer

40:38

hunter, Like, how do you like, is

40:40

there an energy ideas or just like your

40:42

experience on on terminal performance

40:44

on game, Like, how do you decide? Like, all right,

40:46

I want I want to be able to shoot this gun out to eight hundred

40:49

for elk or I want to be able to shoot this gun out to six hundred

40:51

for deer. Like how does that weigh in on your

40:53

final, you know, and maybe you don't

40:55

think of that as much as maybe the guy that's wanting to buy,

40:58

you know, a different guy wanting to buy a gun. Shit, think

41:00

about it.

41:03

Yeah, So there's one thousand pounds

41:05

of energy on impact. There's all kinds of different theories

41:07

out there.

41:10

I am a big fan of less

41:13

so now, but I think overkill is always better.

41:16

Some of them. My stuff is antidotal. I don't want

41:18

to talk bad about seven

41:21

mills, but I back in the day, I had a to

41:23

eighty actlete and I won't say what bullet. It

41:25

wasn't a burger, but I was using some

41:28

bullets and had some real

41:30

bad experience on how it's an accurate round.

41:32

Seven mills are awesome. I mean, there's there's

41:35

a lot of good seven mills out there. I

41:37

just had We had three different rosies, no

41:39

two rosies in one rocky that we

41:42

shot with that gun in one year, and

41:45

it was really really bad performance.

41:47

So that's pretty anecdotal. There's a lot of different

41:49

bullets. Some of the bullet placement was

41:51

most of those all bullet placement was good.

41:53

It should have been adequate, you could say,

41:55

not perfect. It wasn't a double one heart shot, but

41:57

it was in the vitals.

41:59

It broke ball and so

42:02

since then, like I shied away

42:04

from it.

42:05

So I if I'm going to go elkermose,

42:07

I'm gonna default to

42:09

the thirty almost always. I've had really good luck

42:11

with the two fifteen, a two thirty Burger,

42:14

and even the two forty five. You know,

42:16

the two twelve ELDX. Like, there's a lot of

42:18

bullets that guys have had really good luck with. So I

42:21

want a little bit more impact. That being

42:24

said, I shot at Shyris

42:26

this year with the six five PRC dropped

42:28

it. It was quick, it was a three yard shot

42:30

and it dropped it fast. So yeah,

42:33

I think more energy is better.

42:35

I like a bigger hole. I think it's not just

42:38

energy.

42:38

I feel like then three thirty

42:40

eights and thirty seem like they kill really

42:43

good. And I

42:45

don't maybe it's subjective,

42:47

but it seems like diameter and a lot of guys I talked to

42:49

the shoot a lot of Elk always seemed to like

42:51

thirties more than sevens, So personal

42:53

preference, but I like, I like thirties.

42:55

Yeah, and then like my three thirty eight, and I don't want

42:57

to get into the like the again nerd out on

42:59

it really like those big three hundred grain pills

43:02

and like just a sexual just a sexual density

43:04

of those they don't And it's my

43:06

family growing up, like, oh, you're gonna have no meat

43:09

left. And I'm like, I've killed elk with two forty

43:11

threes and I've I've skinned your guys

43:13

out to have two seventy holes in them, Like the sexual

43:15

density and the construction of those bullet, like you

43:17

can eat to the hole versus your guys'

43:19

little bullets that explode, like, don't give me the

43:22

two forty three to two seventy doesn't waste any meat,

43:24

like the sexual density the whole, Like

43:26

I always get an exit out of those three hundred grain burgers

43:28

because there's so much energy to go through and

43:31

so that that plays into it a lot in my opinion

43:33

as well.

43:33

I shot coups deer with my three thirty eight

43:35

three hundred gad bullets. Say it's three thirty eight in

43:38

and it's a quarter out and you're done. Where

43:40

I've shot them with some smaller guns and it's a

43:42

little hole in and six softball

43:44

out the other side.

43:45

So I mean, again, hitting bone,

43:47

things change you guys know that. But yeah,

43:50

I mean, yeah, three thirty eighths are awesome.

43:53

I just I can't spot the shot generally

43:55

in the way I want to carry.

43:56

On all these backpack counts we do, Like,

43:59

I'm just not willing to do that right now.

44:01

Wait wise, because I'm not good jat packing

44:03

camera. You're all my jeered ways to stinking Yeah.

44:06

I was trying to cut some ways somewhere and she seems

44:08

like I go down to that six five PRC or a thirty

44:10

cow.

44:11

Yeah, gotcha,

44:25

We've got I mean, you build your rifles. You've

44:27

had lots of rifles built for you over the years. Like

44:30

how important with with all the technology

44:32

out there and everybody building pretty good stuff? Like how

44:34

important are the triggers and barrels

44:36

and betting and stocks like all these things were

44:38

you know, when you go to build a gun, you pick the barrel,

44:40

you pick the stock you picked, you know, and then the betting.

44:43

The betting is a little.

44:43

Bit of of the the art and the gun builder

44:46

and making sure it's done right. But in your opinion,

44:48

like, how important is that stuff

44:50

when you go to build a gun or should you just go with what

44:52

your builder recommends? Or what you know, if I'm

44:54

coming to mountain.

44:55

For yeah, you

44:57

have a good builder. Trust what they say. You

44:59

know, we've done everything

45:02

from you know a lot of it.

45:04

Like a lot of the chassis say they're dropping ready Bolton

45:06

go, and I've had great luck with that.

45:08

I also like betting. I've also epoxied

45:10

them together like I I'll do that too.

45:13

I love that.

45:13

Now I know there's no variables, and so yeah,

45:16

triggers are important. Use the best trigger Like I

45:19

think the top triggers right now are Trigger Tech,

45:21

which is what I run, and Vix and Andy's making

45:23

some real good triggers.

45:24

Barrels I've had.

45:26

I've seen every company there is make

45:28

bad barrels.

45:31

And but there's the top.

45:33

There's you know, you've got Benchmark,

45:35

Kreeger, Bartlin Proof.

45:38

There's a whole bunch of good barrel makers. I don't I'm

45:41

leaving a bunch out. But if there's

45:43

an if they're a name in barrels, they're generally going

45:45

to be fine. And everyone has made a bad barrel.

45:47

It's the way it goes. There's all there's been. I've seen

45:49

every scope break there is.

45:51

I've never seen a single brand

45:53

not break you just want to pick stuff

45:56

that's got a pretty good reputation and

45:58

it's tough, and so yeah, I think all

46:00

those components play together. They're important to

46:03

me. I think there's probably

46:05

there's a lot of customer rifles out there. In

46:07

my opinion, I'll bet eighty to ninety

46:10

percent of them aren't being utilized. The load

46:12

development's not done. People don't. Their

46:14

chronos are different. They're switching lots of powder

46:17

and they're not rechecking their gun or re zero and

46:19

they're switching lots of bullets, lots of

46:21

brass. Their barrels wearing people. Some

46:23

people don't know the barrels speed up, Like a

46:25

barrel's going to speed up at fifty to one hundred hundred

46:28

and fifty rounds and it's going to speed up twenty

46:30

fifty seventy feet a second. And they

46:32

just get their load done in twenty rounds

46:34

and then they go hunting a year or two later

46:36

like why am I missing high or what's going on?

46:39

So stuff changes.

46:40

You got to check my guns all the time before

46:42

every single hunt, I chrono and

46:44

shoot it.

46:44

I shoot at least to six hundred. But

46:47

stuff changes.

46:48

But yeah, get the best components you can get, but

46:50

the setup. There's a lot of good guns out there

46:52

that aren't being utilized correctly.

46:54

So that comes from guys geeking

46:56

out on it, being a hobby, learning and getting their

46:58

guns set up correctly.

47:00

Gotcha.

47:00

Now, now we'll go into the optics, and we talked about

47:03

all the gun components. Now maybe

47:05

just as important, if not more important, or what you're

47:07

gonna you know, glue to the top of the gun

47:09

or stick to the top of the gun, you know, And yeah,

47:12

so what's what's your opinion how do you approach

47:14

optics? You know, you're mounting,

47:16

like, is there the best way to mount

47:18

or there multiple ways? And then and then ultimately what

47:20

are you looking for in an optic on top of your gun?

47:24

Yeah, So the

47:26

whole laughing of rings

47:28

and stuff, in my opinion,

47:30

shouldn't be necessary. I've never done it. If

47:32

you're using a good if you're using a good

47:34

action with a straight rail and good

47:37

rings, they better be straight.

47:40

So I've never laughed any rings. I've never had any problems

47:42

with the scope.

47:43

So I don't think that you can ignore some

47:45

of those things that used to be a lot more commonplace

47:47

when guys laughed rings, when receivers were

47:49

crooked and rails were out of spec and stuff

47:51

like that.

47:51

So I think that element is mostly

47:54

gone.

47:56

So I just I use good rings. I

47:59

Nightforce makes great rings. I like the Loophole Mark

48:01

four rings, Hocket. There's

48:03

a lot of good rings out there, guys, So use

48:06

use good rings. Don't skip on that. Don't

48:08

make sure you're if you're I love

48:10

actions with intego rails, you know, machined

48:12

into the action. It's your If they're not. Take

48:15

those screws out, clean them with alcohol.

48:18

Use lock tight. You do not want your

48:20

rail coming loose. I can't tell you how many guys,

48:22

Johan, I'm in the jam. Can you come check

48:25

my gun out before season? I got a hunt next week? And so

48:27

they run over the house.

48:28

We'll go up.

48:29

I was like, Eh, everything good, Yeah, everything's tight. Everything's

48:31

tight. Like okay, we go up there and shoot four rounds.

48:33

It's all over the place, and

48:36

I was like, hey, your scope's you know, pull

48:38

the scope off, check the screws.

48:39

They're all loose. And so that happens a lot.

48:41

So just common sense, guys.

48:44

You can't assume you got to pull everything apart,

48:46

clean it, lock tight it and then redo it.

48:49

I don't.

48:49

You don't need to lock tight your cross bolts on your rings

48:51

toward those most of them are fifty five pounds

48:54

on the cross bolts fifty five inch pounds.

48:58

And then and then all your torch specs

49:00

for your caps. They're usually pretty good. You can

49:03

use blue locked out in your caps if you want, but just make

49:05

sure it doesn't move. The

49:07

biggest hang up I see with guys getting it, and

49:09

I don't know if hang ups right word, but they're

49:12

hesitant to spend the money they need to on a scope.

49:14

I would much rather see a guy shoot

49:16

a five hundred dollars gun with a two thousand dollars

49:19

scope than you know, a three

49:21

or four thousand dollars rifle with a five hundred dollars

49:23

scope. So all day

49:25

long, I mean, I've had broken

49:27

scopes. I've had scopes who don't track, and it is

49:29

you're not going to hit what you You're not going to hit anything,

49:32

You're not going to be consistent, you're not gonna really figure out your

49:34

drops.

49:34

Nothing's going to make sense. So spend the money

49:36

on a good.

49:37

Scope, I would say, if I

49:39

would say at least

49:43

it's at least fifteen hundred bucks

49:45

and scopes go up to forty five hundred

49:47

bucks or more.

49:49

I mean some of the CCOs and the tangents. I don't

49:51

know how much those are now, but they're a lot.

49:53

But if you're in that, you know that

49:55

that loophole. Mark five range,

49:59

Night four cent say night Force attacker.

50:02

I know, guys, some of the guys are lacking the trigger.

50:04

CA on the ten mile.

50:05

I think there's a lot of there's a lot of good

50:07

scopes out there, but spend

50:09

the money on a scope.

50:11

Yeah, don't camp on a scope, don't buy.

50:14

I don't well, I don't want to throw anyone into

50:16

the bus, but there's some scopes

50:18

out there that you need to spend more money on if

50:20

you can. I understand there's budgets and there's stuff,

50:22

but if you can afford a you know, if

50:24

you can afford a big truck payment,

50:27

buy a nice scoe.

50:28

Yeah.

50:29

And uh, with that said, I think we both

50:31

we both hunt with the same rifle, right, You're you're

50:33

a Mark five guy on

50:35

your hunting rifles and they are are they on

50:37

your competition guns as well?

50:39

Okay?

50:39

And then I've got Mark five's on

50:42

to my seven Palm and my three thirty

50:44

eight edge and then I, uh, I shoot the VX

50:46

six four to twenty four on my my

50:48

six and a half PRC.

50:50

Okay, so I did. I did switch shot those

50:53

enough if I.

50:53

Get questions about those, the VX five and six

50:55

hds and I just have a mess with them enough.

50:57

Yeah, I've heard.

50:58

I've heard some decent things about my other light.

51:01

I just I'm so reliant on

51:05

im, so I just want the most

51:07

durable scope.

51:08

I was. I had a hard time. I think I've said this before,

51:10

like I had shot

51:12

Loophold.

51:13

Years and years ago, and I had switched the Night Force

51:16

just because they were tanks and it

51:18

was the old Loophold Mark four and No zero stopped.

51:20

This is a long time ago.

51:21

But and then you know, I

51:23

was talking with Reza over at Loophol then she wanted

51:25

me to shoot for them.

51:26

They said, you know, the Mark five's coming out, and I

51:28

was pretty hesitant because.

51:29

I didn't love the Mark four, to be honest, And so I've

51:32

gained a lot of trust in the markive over the years. I beat

51:34

that first one up, like tried to break it.

51:37

Just I dented it. I've dented the objective.

51:40

I hit the I beat the crap out

51:42

of it, and it held up, and they've held up really good. I've had

51:44

some big drops on hunts, I've had big

51:46

drops on competitions, and I haven't had any issues

51:48

with them.

51:51

So yeah, I've grown to trust them a lot.

51:53

I'm a nerd, so I'm always doing research.

51:56

And that one thing the PRS does that it always

51:58

shows you, like what go were the top

52:00

one hundred shooters using what triggers, what

52:02

barrels and and so I went back I think it was

52:04

like twenty eighteen, and you go back and it's like

52:06

us off picks and and I don't

52:09

know if you get all the credit for this or if it's a group

52:11

of you guys, But you go back to like eighteen

52:13

nineteen before the Mark five

52:15

was released, and you're like, oh, loop Hold has

52:17

like two shooters.

52:18

Yeah, two shooters, and they might do in the fifty to

52:20

one hundred.

52:22

No, those two shooters were industry

52:24

partners that got a free invite to the finale.

52:27

That's who those people got you. They were running the March

52:29

the Mark eights back in the day.

52:30

Yeah, and nobody was running them. It was it

52:33

was And now it's it's crazy.

52:35

Yeah.

52:35

I pulled it up the other day.

52:36

I think it was, well, it was December one, I

52:39

remember because I was talking to Dirk and I

52:41

pulled it up. I said, what's everybody in twenty three used?

52:43

And then you go there and it's like seventy

52:45

percent of the shooters are now using the Mark five,

52:47

which it's it's kind of cool to see that change. So,

52:49

I mean, you know, the top shooters

52:51

in the world are now trusting that that

52:54

that Mark five is going to do what it's

52:56

supposed to do and what you've proven it can do. So that's pretty

52:58

cool. When you guys were lying on that to return

53:00

to zero perfectly and that every you

53:02

know that every click is as close to one

53:04

as you can get. It's probably never going to be one point zero

53:07

zero, you know, but it could be, but.

53:09

It could be one.

53:11

Yeah, go ahead, sorry, yeah,

53:14

I mean it's it's it's splitting hairs,

53:16

but you could be point nine ninety ninety seven, which is

53:18

all you know. And so I mean that that things is

53:21

dialed, as you know. I walked mine around

53:23

twenty m a at one hundred just to make sure it

53:25

shoots the square and comes back to zero and the thing's

53:27

been super repeatable and never off track.

53:30

Yeah.

53:31

Yeah, I do the same thing. I have a big, like

53:33

fourteen foot tall board I tracked

53:35

test. I put scopes on this

53:37

big fifty pounds steel thing with

53:40

a pickrail, and I've tracked tested a ton of scopes

53:42

and I've had them.

53:43

I've had them all. We God, I had.

53:44

Early prototype one that was

53:47

a little bit off, but that wasn't for sale, and

53:49

every production Mark five I had

53:51

this track really well.

53:52

I here's things on the eritor guys like, hey, are you

53:54

really do you really trust the Mark five? I read

53:56

this on the internet and I'm like, man, I haven't

53:58

seen it. I do trust it. That being

54:01

said, Nightforce makes an awesome scope. There's other

54:03

companies that make great scopes, but

54:05

I do like the Mark five. I think the balance

54:08

for the cost.

54:09

I don't want this to be a sales pitch whatever, but the cost

54:11

of the way and the performance is pretty it is pretty

54:13

good. It's pretty in the locking elevation

54:16

and then the I like the cap windage. Yeah, so

54:18

you're going to scabbard on the horse hunt or something like

54:21

it's it's it's a pretty durable scope.

54:22

Yeah, that was one thing that crept up and bid us on

54:25

my dad's tour entered ultramag. We were in Colorado

54:27

on a deer hunt and it doesn't have capped windage,

54:29

and somewhere along the way it got

54:32

off and he missed a shot at a great meal deer at

54:34

like three hundred not even a long range shot, but his windage

54:36

has got turned so much that

54:39

it put him off. And so yeah, that's another cap

54:41

windage. Yeah yeah, and then I'm

54:43

pretty excited. Maybe I don't want to sound

54:46

sound two sales pitchy, but I know the day

54:48

that this podcast launches, Loophole's kind of following

54:50

up their Mark five with a new Mark four HD, which

54:52

will be kind of in that that same realm prices.

54:55

I'm not going to even get into the prices I don't know per model,

54:58

but like really really attractive for you

55:01

might be able to change your your idea that you

55:03

need to spend X on a scope because it sounds like

55:05

we might get an option. Yeah

55:07

that's you know, we have to do some more testing, but

55:09

uh yeah.

55:10

Yeah, yeah, you don't know a

55:12

ton of what I can you know, talk about, but it's

55:14

gonna be you guys will see it's the Mark four.

55:16

It looks very very similar to a Mark five, a

55:19

little different tube size. I think we talked about

55:21

they're going to a thirty four on them instead of a thirty

55:23

five on a bunch of them, but it's gonna be cheaper.

55:26

They're taking a lot of the tech out of the Mark five. It's

55:30

gonna it's gonna From what I've seen when i'm

55:32

the ones i've played with, it's pretty impressive.

55:34

And again I'm not one to say I

55:37

never recommend something until I use it a lot.

55:40

But from what I've seen so far, it looks

55:43

pretty. It looks pretty impressive, So price

55:45

points are going to be really good. It's it's not a

55:47

replacement for a Mark five. It's gonna be

55:49

uh it's kind of the tier below.

55:52

And I think, you know, we'll see improvements to

55:54

the Mark five is probably due for a revamp at some point,

55:57

so I think it'll be the Mark four then, you

55:59

know, which keep getting progressing. So

56:01

it's it's cool. It's it

56:04

looks when you guys see it, you'll laugh. It looks

56:06

they did a little tiny subtle changes

56:08

to the turrets, but it looks like a Mark five. It's it's

56:11

it's a sexy little scope.

56:12

Yeah, I'm excited it changed it.

56:13

It set of like a five twenty five.

56:14

It's a six twenty four type of brain, so they changed

56:17

out a little bit to a four x.

56:19

But yeah, it's it's good, it's cool.

56:20

Yeah, you're excited about that. Now

56:23

let's go in the issues

56:26

you might So you've you've got your gun built.

56:28

Now, we've got our optics mounted, We're we're all

56:30

dialed in there. Like what issues could pop

56:32

up if the gun builders did, like what have

56:34

you found?

56:36

The first thing? Everything? Everything,

56:38

but like what are I guess what's the most probable issue?

56:40

And like where should you start?

56:43

I've I've seen

56:46

so many weird things that I

56:48

can't even I've

56:53

had I've had good brass

56:55

from companies that instead of testing

56:57

and measuring everything, I just trust but open it up as

57:00

it checked the necks and rock and roll and have

57:02

issues with internal volumes that throw

57:04

weird stuff off.

57:05

One of the weirdest ones lately is I.

57:07

Was fighting and fighting and fighting the carbon

57:09

barrel a carbon barrel gun, and

57:11

it was like I'd get some good groups and some bad

57:13

groups. It just wasn't as consistent, consistent

57:16

as I would like it to be. And I

57:18

fought and fought and fought. I took it out, I checked,

57:20

just redid it. I can't remember change the batting,

57:23

I changed stocks, I changed scopes, I

57:25

changed everything.

57:26

I went, changed bullets, I changed powders,

57:28

and I could not figure it out.

57:30

The last thing I did was

57:32

I pulled the muzzle brake off to just triple

57:34

check that it was clean. There was, it wasn't carbon dup,

57:37

and it wasn't, and I was like, screw, I'm going to put

57:39

on a different brake. So I had a really lightweight,

57:42

a titanium brake that was really light,

57:45

and I just threw on one of my comp brakes

57:47

and so I went from like a one ounce or

57:49

a sub one ounce break to like

57:52

an eight ounce break. I think it was just

57:55

because I was I was gonna throw the gun away,

57:57

and I put that out of the brake on and the gun just shot

58:00

like I don't know.

58:01

I don't want to say quarter age because that's whatever.

58:03

But I had three eighths consistently,

58:06

and I went from I'm talking, I went from an inch and a

58:08

half to just sub half inch,

58:10

just like just switching the brake and it

58:12

stacked at a one hundred and I was like, okay, this is I'm running

58:14

the heavy break on this gun. And it just whatever that

58:17

barrel, whatever the deal was with the HARMONICX

58:19

and that barrel, the weight off the end of it just settled

58:21

it down. And that's a lot of guys. The weight

58:23

of a suppress or a way of a break will change things.

58:25

So that's just one

58:27

example of things I've seen. I've seen so

58:31

many different things, but I can't

58:33

really say it, you know, pick

58:36

one, but generally, if you're going to work on

58:38

a gun, I do

58:40

try I shot Hodge and powders a lot. I like the

58:42

extreme lines. I like, you know, forty three fifty,

58:47

H one thousand, I like a lot. Retumble

58:49

went away for a long time. I haven't shot Retumble in

58:52

years, and I didn't like it as much. I did get

58:54

some weird pressure spice with a tumble back in the day

58:56

that I didn't with H one.

58:57

Thousand, forty eight thirty one varget.

58:59

All those powders are great.

59:01

There's a lot of good powder, So go with trusted

59:03

components, good brass, good bullets. Go

59:07

try to eliminate as many variables as

59:09

you can so you don't question things

59:11

if there's an issue. But there's all there's always.

59:13

Stuff going on.

59:14

Like I said, bullets barrow speeding up,

59:16

lots lots of powder change, and I've seen a

59:18

lot of speed differences in powders

59:20

the last handful of years since COVID. I don't

59:23

know if everyone's manufacturing is stress

59:25

and everything, And I feel like the lots a lot VARIANTCE

59:27

was bigger than used to be. So if you guys,

59:29

are you got three pounds of this and

59:32

you run out and you go buy an eight pound of.

59:33

This, it's the same powder.

59:35

Check your speeds, pressures most likely will be

59:37

different some real basic stuff, but

59:39

a lot of things people overlook and

59:42

even do some measurements when you switch lots

59:44

on bullets. So I try to buy big

59:46

lots of stuff so I don't have to do that. Like if I can buy

59:48

like forty or fifty pounds at a time of powder,

59:51

don't worry about that as much.

59:52

YEP.

59:53

I try to do that, But I need you also

59:55

going through a lot.

59:56

I need you to explain that to my wife why

59:58

I needed thirty two pounds of eight L

1:00:00

twenty six at the same time. Was

1:00:03

that was to make sure that there wasn't any lot,

1:00:05

you know, variation, and yeah.

1:00:07

And you got to protect her when the world ends, you gotta.

1:00:09

Have Yeah, yeah, there you go.

1:00:11

But like you talked about good,

1:00:13

good powders like my H one thousand, like my

1:00:15

ees my my spread on three

1:00:18

thirty eight edge is like single digits

1:00:20

on the edge and whether it's hot or cold.

1:00:22

Where we tried to chase a little

1:00:24

bit more performance with the r L twenty six, But I

1:00:26

tell you what, if I go out and shoot that gun of eighty degrees

1:00:28

here and then go out and shoot it at thirty, I'm

1:00:30

like this, it wasn't worth chasing

1:00:33

the speed and and uh, you know, I don't know if

1:00:35

you've messed with bit of or bit of ore seems

1:00:37

to have like a little more of that performance edge but a

1:00:39

lot more temp stable And so we're

1:00:41

we're doing some switching around, even in my own loads.

1:00:43

But yeah, that was one thing. My r L

1:00:45

twenty six did switch lots in between

1:00:48

like my first load versus like this new

1:00:50

load, and I could not the gun was you

1:00:52

know, literally dropping primers

1:00:54

out the back, not even just like ejector

1:00:56

marks and sticky bolts, like dropping primers

1:00:58

when I I'm oh that primary and

1:01:01

like when I was here, like it was, it was shooting

1:01:03

well, and then we had to go back and like move

1:01:05

everything on that load, like the powder changed

1:01:08

the you know, how how deep you were seat

1:01:10

in the bullet to get the pressures to get in the right spot, and then

1:01:12

now the gun shoots lights out again. But one

1:01:14

thing we didn't talk about, which we don't even

1:01:16

have that much time, is like when you get a good rifle

1:01:19

built, you know, and you've built it backwards

1:01:21

from a bullet, because that's going to have to you know, getting

1:01:23

way into the deep end, like where you're

1:01:25

gonna chamber the gun, how far out you're gonna push

1:01:27

that bullet and try to be you know, out of

1:01:30

the lands and all of that.

1:01:31

I was, I've been amazed.

1:01:32

Like one thing that really kind of you

1:01:34

made me like open my eyes is just how

1:01:37

finnicky it is with tentsive

1:01:39

grains of powder and bullet seating and the

1:01:42

balance of that. Because you might have a gun that shoots

1:01:45

you know, quarter moa as long as you're doing

1:01:47

your job, but if you don't get that node just perfectly

1:01:49

and get your bullet seated right, or get the right

1:01:51

amount of powder and get that all to match. And you might have a gun that's

1:01:53

shooting, you know, three quarters do one m

1:01:56

away on the same gun that you just bump things a little

1:01:58

bit and it just seems to dial it in. Was

1:02:00

one thing that's like, Wow, I didn't realize it mattered that much.

1:02:04

Yeah, I think I

1:02:06

don't. Honestly, I don't know if

1:02:08

it does.

1:02:11

If you take a three thirty eight and you're running or

1:02:13

whatever, If I take my NORMA and I'm running whatever,

1:02:16

eighty five, eighty four grains, whatever happens

1:02:18

to be if.

1:02:19

You drop if you go to if I'm shooting eighty.

1:02:21

Four grains and I go to

1:02:24

eighty three point eight, so two tenths

1:02:26

less and you go shoot a three

1:02:28

shot group. Maybe that group looks tighter

1:02:30

on that group, but it's not going to look tighter over over

1:02:32

a sample of fifty. Yeah, it's just it's too

1:02:34

small of a percentage. So what

1:02:37

I don't think it does.

1:02:38

What percentage do you think matters are If you start

1:02:40

to move a half a grain of powder, does it start.

1:02:42

To so in the bigger guns, I generally

1:02:44

do bigger jumps, and if I'm having problems,

1:02:46

I will shrink down.

1:02:48

But I don't think it matters as much.

1:02:50

I think what I've been doing more lately is

1:02:53

is I try to stay anywhere away from pressure

1:02:55

because they can get finicky. And like when you said about dropping

1:02:58

primers out the bottom, you guys need to be careful

1:03:00

when you're on really Like I live in western Oregon,

1:03:02

you grow up western Washington. It gets really wet

1:03:05

and water causes pressure. So this is like I disclaimer

1:03:07

outside your question, but if you're anywhere close

1:03:09

to pressure under good conditions and you're pouring

1:03:11

down rain and everything's soaking wet,

1:03:14

you're going to pressure out really hard.

1:03:15

So you guys can do water tests.

1:03:17

You can pour out water on your animal feed it, shoot

1:03:19

a couple of rounds, get that chamber wet, and see

1:03:21

if you still are pressure free. So that's just

1:03:24

a tip that you got to be pressure

1:03:26

safe with water. So going

1:03:28

back to the other thing, what I do I've

1:03:31

been doing more lately is

1:03:33

I generally will know there's

1:03:36

enough information or I've shot enough calibers

1:03:38

where I know there's a speed node

1:03:40

for different calibers. For whatever reason, like

1:03:43

my six five prcs. Depending on barrel

1:03:46

light, it seems like twenty nine nine

1:03:48

thirty twenty nine forty with the one fifty

1:03:50

six is a really really good speed accuracy

1:03:53

wise, and so I generally what I've

1:03:55

been doing lately it's been working pretty

1:03:58

good, is all experimental, a little bit

1:04:00

with powder and maybe half grain increments, some bigger.

1:04:02

Jumps, and then I'll hit

1:04:04

that speed. I'll just load to.

1:04:05

Twenty nine to twenty and then I'll do seating

1:04:08

jumps. I'll go twenty fifty eighty

1:04:11

one twenty like, I'll do big seating

1:04:13

depth tests and kind

1:04:16

of make some corrections off of that. That will change your speed

1:04:18

a little bit. The bigger the

1:04:20

the closer end of the lands, you're

1:04:22

two with your bullet loaded, your pressure is gonna spike

1:04:24

real quick.

1:04:25

And that's like back in the day, would weather be you got all

1:04:27

that speed. They just have massive freeboard

1:04:29

built into their guns, so they get a bigger run

1:04:31

and start with that bullet, slam it into the lands and you

1:04:33

can get more speed that way.

1:04:35

You can load more powder all that stuff, So your

1:04:38

speeds will change as you get closer

1:04:40

and further way from the lands. But I've been doing some testing

1:04:42

that way. It's been working pretty good,

1:04:44

kind of tuning a load with seating depth and

1:04:48

so. But yeah, I don't in the small guns,

1:04:50

like when I'm shooting my dashes a lot, when you're loading

1:04:52

thirty grains and twenty nine and

1:04:54

a half or thirty.

1:04:55

One grains, like, I'll do the point two point three

1:04:57

grain increments.

1:04:59

But but if your gun is going to change,

1:05:02

like I don't want my gun to change if

1:05:04

I load a tenth

1:05:06

or two either way, I

1:05:09

don't think it's going to. I think over a big

1:05:11

sample side, it's not going to If you go shoot a twenty

1:05:13

round string or a ten round group, you shoot

1:05:15

a five shots and five shots and five shots,

1:05:17

let your arycle whatever.

1:05:19

I don't think your group's going to be that much different.

1:05:20

I think they're all kind of kind of cluster into you either a

1:05:23

half inch or a three quarter the whole

1:05:25

quarter minute gun idea, God,

1:05:27

that's interest territory. Everyone wants to all

1:05:29

the gun that seems to do that. But that's when

1:05:32

people say quarter minute. If I do my

1:05:34

part, I just called BS.

1:05:36

Like the time. It's

1:05:38

just a real rare gun to do

1:05:40

that.

1:05:41

Yeah, and it's just in a light magnum.

1:05:44

I just don't the shoot ability

1:05:46

those is difficult. If you're in a interrst gun, I

1:05:48

get it. I'm not arguing with interrest guys. The guys

1:05:50

that shoot the you know, the PPCs

1:05:53

and the hundred yard interest and then different

1:05:55

things like that, Like those guys are shooting tiny, tiny

1:05:57

groups. But that's a different thing than we're talking about. We're talking about

1:06:00

and we're talking about field. We're talking about positioning

1:06:02

the field. That's not ideal. You know, if you

1:06:04

can shoot half inch half mla

1:06:06

all day, you're killing everything everywhere.

1:06:08

You're not missing anything.

1:06:10

So I mean, if you can extrapolate that all

1:06:12

the way out, you're shooting two and a half inches of five

1:06:14

hundred and five inches of a thousand, you're not missing

1:06:16

anything anywhere. And so I want it's

1:06:19

slow and steady, consistent, day in and day

1:06:21

out. I don't want big flyers. I don't want pressure

1:06:23

spikes. I don't want to be anywhere near my

1:06:25

pressure limit, which if guys are shooting

1:06:28

reloader powders have been really really accurate

1:06:30

for me, but generally those are the guys

1:06:32

chasing speed. They're grabbing sixteen twenty

1:06:35

six thirty three, and even

1:06:37

the bit powders are the same thing. The five sixty fives

1:06:39

and the five seventies and the big magnums. Those

1:06:42

guys are chasing speed and I'm just I'm

1:06:44

not that guy anymore. Like I'll

1:06:46

test them and if they shoot, great, great,

1:06:48

but they have been more finicky. I feel

1:06:50

like the bit powder's carbon up more than hodged

1:06:52

in their way dirty or same as reloader.

1:06:55

I just haven't had it as good as experience with them,

1:06:58

gotcha?

1:06:58

So yeah, no, you

1:07:01

like I said there, it's obviously this podcast

1:07:03

you've got some topics. We could go down some giant

1:07:05

rabbit holes.

1:07:05

We just don't.

1:07:06

We could do it.

1:07:06

We could do a series because there's so

1:07:08

much to it. There's so much to it, and you know, even

1:07:11

some info that I thought I had. You know, you've

1:07:13

got different You know where we're we're doing these litt ladder

1:07:15

tests that you know, point three jumps on a ninety

1:07:18

three grain load. In my edge, you're saying didn't

1:07:20

matter as much as we thought. It might have just been me shooting

1:07:22

that group versus I do.

1:07:25

There's man, I don't want to like

1:07:28

rock the low Bow, but no, dude, if you're

1:07:30

doing one shot ladder tests,

1:07:33

I think if you do a bunch of them, if you do the same

1:07:36

tests three times in a row and

1:07:38

check those flat spot I do, there are nodes,

1:07:40

barrels whip, there are speeds that shoot

1:07:42

better. Like I said earlier, it seems like I've like twenty

1:07:45

ninety with a six PC. I

1:07:47

like they it seems like they shoot there a lot. There

1:07:50

are different nodes, so I'm not arguing that. And

1:07:53

in theory, the ladder's supposed to show

1:07:55

those nodes, right, But I've also

1:07:57

you've got extreme spreads, You've got your

1:07:59

brass prepped.

1:08:00

Your consistency. If you shoot that

1:08:02

same test three four times and

1:08:04

so it's thirty or forty rounds and overlay

1:08:07

all that data, I'm okay with that. But

1:08:09

when guys go out and shoot one round once

1:08:11

and like there's a flat spot, I

1:08:14

call bs on that, Like I've tried it,

1:08:16

I just don't do it.

1:08:17

Yeah, I.

1:08:20

It's it's it's it's it's good

1:08:22

info. It's good to have.

1:08:24

I just think that the statistical relevance

1:08:26

of it isn't near as significant as people think

1:08:29

unless you have bigger data samples. So

1:08:31

some of the best shooters, one of my buddy

1:08:33

like Jake and Morgan, those guys are like,

1:08:36

Morgan's top of the game right now.

1:08:38

He's one of the He's a great shooter.

1:08:39

I travel with him a lot, and he's like, he

1:08:42

just goes and shoots ten and twenty round groups and he goes,

1:08:44

if it's five eighths whatever,

1:08:47

he goes, I'm gonna win a match.

1:08:48

He goes, you're gonna you're gonna

1:08:51

you know, so he just he doesn't even hardly do load development

1:08:53

anymore.

1:08:54

Sixty five creed with a one to fifty class bullet

1:08:56

running at twenty six

1:08:58

eighty to twenty seven hundred feet a second,

1:09:01

it's going to shoot there, you know.

1:09:02

If it doesn't, it's the barrel's problem. That's kind

1:09:04

of his mentality. I geek out a little

1:09:06

more than that, but.

1:09:09

It's when you shoot a lot of

1:09:12

big data sets, your little

1:09:15

one and two tenths tweaks start to

1:09:17

go away, and it gets frustrated. You're like, oh, wait,

1:09:19

this is kind of meaningless because I shot

1:09:21

one three shot group here and I shot another series show

1:09:23

group.

1:09:24

You know you need big data samples.

1:09:25

Yeah, yeah,

1:09:29

no, no, no, it's great information and

1:09:31

you know, it's like same thing on the archery side where

1:09:33

we used to all pay per tune and now I'm to the

1:09:35

point where, you know, depending on the bow, you get

1:09:37

it set and I'm just going to get my broad heads and field

1:09:39

points to match in. And I you know, we used to get

1:09:41

paper sometimes, so there's different ways to get

1:09:43

there where you're you're just focusing on that

1:09:45

speed that you know from so many you know, trigger

1:09:48

polls and chrono checks that You're like, I'm gonna

1:09:50

get the gun there and then mess with seating and we should be

1:09:52

good, which sounds like it worked

1:09:54

a lot. Yeah, yeah, no, no, And that's where

1:09:56

I don't.

1:09:56

Want to I changed power. The guys

1:09:58

are like, oh my gosh, you know, but you know you

1:10:00

do tweak powder.

1:10:01

But just if I get to know a gun a lot, like

1:10:03

I've shot a lot of six Dashers, six

1:10:05

five creeds, twenty five creeds,

1:10:08

six five prcs, three d enormous, there's a lot

1:10:10

of guns I've shot a lot, and

1:10:12

it just seems like I started all

1:10:14

that with you know, three tents and half grain

1:10:16

increments and up and down and seeing depth, and it

1:10:18

just seemed like every gun tept coming back to a general

1:10:20

bar ballpark. And that's why I'm saying that

1:10:23

I started with the powder thing, you know,

1:10:25

but I haven't changed a little.

1:10:26

Bit over the years. Some a little less time too.

1:10:28

It's like, hey, I know it's going to get here. Let's get here as fast

1:10:30

as we can.

1:10:31

Do a big seating depth test and try

1:10:33

to do bigger sample sizes. You know, I'll shoot

1:10:35

a three shot group with magnums.

1:10:37

I don't want to shoot a ten round screen, right, I'll do that with

1:10:39

my camp guns and shoot like a ten round group

1:10:42

and just see how it goes.

1:10:44

Both magnums. I'll shoot three, let it cool, shoot

1:10:46

three, Let it cool, shoot three. So I'll have nine shots

1:10:49

in a group or something like that.

1:10:51

And I wanted to stay in there. You know, I don't

1:10:53

want big flowers.

1:10:54

But if you're shooting half inch like, I'm pretty happy with that, especially

1:10:56

in the light guns.

1:10:57

Gotcha. So yeah, thanks

1:10:59

for coming on and John. We really appreciate having your

1:11:01

your wealth and knowledge. You you know,

1:11:03

you shoot great. Your your knowledge is goes

1:11:06

deep into the end of the topic of long

1:11:08

range guns shooting really well. And I

1:11:11

love more so that you're not just

1:11:13

a steel puncher that you you did all this because

1:11:15

you love to hunt and then you like to go take what you know

1:11:18

and into.

1:11:19

You put it in animals.

1:11:20

So do you have any big plans for twenty four that you're

1:11:22

putting together?

1:11:24

Huh Yeah, I mean we're working

1:11:26

on it. Got

1:11:29

there's a bunch of connections.

1:11:30

Probably gonna go back up to the territories this year,

1:11:33

kind of finalizing that for doll sheet,

1:11:36

maybe Terribou.

1:11:37

On a trophy fee.

1:11:38

Trying to finish my North American twenty nine. I was

1:11:40

up at Kodiak was

1:11:42

number twenty seven. In

1:11:45

December. I went up there and killed a pretty good block

1:11:47

tailt there and so that was number twenty

1:11:49

seven. So I have got a polar Bear left and

1:11:51

a Rocky Mountain bighorn and so kind

1:11:53

of working through that, maybe polar Bear this spring.

1:11:56

There's a lot of stuff that's not in concrete that we're

1:11:59

working on. So yeah, there's some hunts coming up,

1:12:01

so we'll see kind of how things

1:12:03

work out. Some of it comes down to raffle

1:12:05

drawings and some luck and some other

1:12:07

things.

1:12:08

So yeah, so we'll see. And then black

1:12:11

I love black Tai hunt around here when time time

1:12:13

permits. It was fun. This year was fun.

1:12:15

They bumped the.

1:12:16

Oregon season dates back this year to like

1:12:18

it ran to November tenth, and

1:12:20

so I got back from the finale and I had five days

1:12:23

to hunt.

1:12:23

Which was awesome. So I was running out

1:12:25

with my rifle and passed on more big blacktails

1:12:28

than I've ever passed looking for a giant, but

1:12:30

didn't shoot one of.

1:12:31

I had a blast saw some big box

1:12:33

at two three hundred yards that you normally wouldn't

1:12:35

see because of the dates.

1:12:36

So that was a lot of fun. So cool, cool, Yeah,

1:12:38

we'll see, we'll fink, we'll fit something in. And there

1:12:40

was always hunts that come up last week.

1:12:42

So you're going to bring that six and a FPRC up there

1:12:44

for the polar Bear. You're going to pick up a bigger

1:12:46

gun, you think.

1:12:47

So maybe bring the six, Maybe bring the sixth dasher

1:12:49

up there there. I'll

1:12:51

probably just bring a thirty.

1:12:53

I was assuming probably just the three hundred normal,

1:12:55

so I was actually gonna soccer with a guy we might

1:12:57

actually shoot with solid just a test generally

1:13:00

up there, it's I've been up there once before for

1:13:03

bins for my buddy Ben's hunt

1:13:05

in November and it's

1:13:08

generally not long it's not a really long range

1:13:10

uh hunt. The way it lays out, it's

1:13:13

it's interesting. It's interesting deal. So I might take solid

1:13:16

up there as a test, so we'll.

1:13:17

See cool cool? Well, how can how

1:13:20

can all my listeners follow along?

1:13:22

I know you're not you know you're You're all

1:13:24

over the p r S and the n r L

1:13:26

stuff and there's articles and then you know all the all

1:13:28

the shooting support that you get.

1:13:30

But don't seem to be

1:13:32

huge on social but it

1:13:35

is there.

1:13:36

I I just on my mostly just Instagram.

1:13:39

I so far behind, didn't post on

1:13:41

half my stuff this year. I love hate, mostly

1:13:44

a hate relationship with social but I

1:13:46

do need to.

1:13:46

I like to see other.

1:13:47

People and stuff, so I need to post more. So

1:13:49

I'll be posting stuff on there, but just it's just John

1:13:52

pinch It on Instagram j O N

1:13:54

P y n c H. And I'm blocked, so

1:13:56

you got to search.

1:13:57

Me to find me that.

1:13:58

I guess I'm a whatever I posted

1:14:00

last, I posted this picture of I was up in Alaska

1:14:03

and that we were on a bear hunt this year, and I show a harlequin.

1:14:06

I posted a picture of that with a like

1:14:09

an over under and my

1:14:11

profile is banned for nudity

1:14:14

because of that duck picture.

1:14:17

I was like, what anyway,

1:14:19

So aya, that's where I'm at.

1:14:21

But yeah, follow on post pictures

1:14:23

of mostly hunting stuff, a little bit

1:14:25

of calm stuff, but reach out, shoot me

1:14:27

a message if I can help you well, generally

1:14:30

respond on Instagram relatively quickly, but

1:14:33

yeah, if you have any questions.

1:14:34

More than happy to help you guys with what I can.

1:14:37

But yeah, yeah, I appreciate.

1:14:39

I appreciate chatting with you. Usually our

1:14:42

conversations or John, I got

1:14:44

something's not going right with this

1:14:46

this load or this gun or so

1:14:48

it's nice to sit down and have a chat about,

1:14:50

you know, for sure everything shooting and not

1:14:53

even everything like barely scratch the surface on

1:14:55

everything shooting. You know, you could probably talk for

1:14:58

days, but I appreciate having you. Good

1:15:00

luck on all your hunts is here, John, and we'll stay in touch.

1:15:02

Thanks you too, Thanks for having me all about.

1:15:07

M m.

1:15:12

M h

1:15:19

M hmmmmmmm