Ryan Pierce – From Hobby to Mastery – Long Distance Shooter and Master Gunsmith

I'm convinced that Ryan is one of the best gunsmiths in the

country. On our second date, I took her

out shooting. She shot a group like two or

three inches at 900 yards. I think you're the first person

I've ever heard talk about the ignition characteristics and

that role in accuracy. Hey there and welcome to From

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We are super honored to have Ryan Pierce joining us.

Ryan is a renowned gunsmith and an acclaimed competitive

shooter, recently taking second place at the Long Range National

Championships. He is an accomplished hunter and

outdoor enthusiast, a husband and a father.

I got connected to Ryan a few years ago.

I set out to build a just absolute top end rifle, one that

I was going to use the rest of my life.

I wanted super long range, super accurate rifle in a lightweight

package. And I was considering some newer

cutting edge calibers. And as I called around, asked

around research, the same name just kept coming up.

There's a lot of great gunsmiths out there building some office,

some rifles, but that package of, of long range accuracy,

lightweight and especially being right on the cutting edge of the

the best technology out there with different calibers and

different equipment. Ryan's name kept coming up again

and again and again. I did have him build a rifle for

me and it is awesome. I've never seen a rifle with

that quality that fit. It's been working wonderfully

for me for many years and I'm convinced that Ryan is one of,

if not the best gunsmiths in the country.

So Ryan, we are super excited to have you join us.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me on

the show. It's a honored to be here.

It'll be a good time and get to discuss a big variety of topics

I guess. Yeah, awesome.

Well, I know throughout your career and especially in the

field that you're in, that you spend a lot of time traveling.

I know you've been on some pretty exciting hunts and

outdoor adventures in Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, and other

places throughout the United States.

Have you had any recent adventures that you'd like to

tell us about? Recent, recent one would have

been we went out to Montana with my kids and my wife and my buddy

Mike and had a a customer out there that invited us out to his

place to fill some cow elk tags. And yeah, it was a great time.

The the weather was beautiful. There was a pile of elk and

yeah, we were able to fill our tags.

The wife, she shot hers at like 200 yards with a 25 Sherman Max,

which is like a Psalm improved. And a lot of guys, you know,

think you need something huge for elk.

And it's all really just, you know, knowing the limits of each

each set up, seeing as it's a 25, you know, it's we're not

going to shoot something way out there with it.

And Sean had said, you know, realistically everything's going

to be inside 400 yards. So I'm like 0 recoil off a

tripod. And for her, you know, if you

don't shoot a whole lot, you know something with no recoil

it's kind of nice. So that 25 Psalm with those 133

burgers, it's like 2 steps and fell over dead.

So that worked worked worked out great for her.

And my buddy Mike, he was using AA300 WFM.

I built him and 2:15 burgers and Ken ringed it, it was like 220

yards, nothing hard at all. And in fact, we, me and him both

did the old on three, you know, we'll shoot at the same time.

So he had one picked out. I had one picked out.

And so I shot 1 and he shot the same time.

And then Sean grabbed 1 and got one too.

So it was it was a good time. Yeah.

We all tagged out and got a pile of meat in the freezer and got

to enjoy some, some beautiful scenery in Montana.

You know, it's out West is a lot different than Iowa.

It's, I love it out West. I really wish I could move out

there, but family back home really wouldn't allow that.

So yeah, we we enjoy our trips out West with the family, so.

That's great. It is beautiful out here.

I love it here, but I know what you mentioned in that story.

Your wife has gone on a few of these adventures with you.

She enjoys hunting as well. Is that something she enjoyed

before you got married or is that something that you kind of

introduced her to? Yeah, that was something she'd

always enjoyed, which is kind of something that kind of drew me

towards her and kind of hit it off right off the bat.

We met and we're talking about hunting and and shooting and all

that stuff. And then our second date I took

her out shooting and she shot a group like it was like 2 or 3

inches at 900 yards of the six 547 I had.

I'm like Dang, she can shoot too.

So. I had her shoot a match like a

month or two later with some of my F my F class rifle I had at

the time. I needed some brass that needed

formed anyways at the time. So I'm like, oh hell, this

letter formed brass for me. And she actually won the match.

Foreman Press with a backup to her.

So yeah, that was kind of cool. Cool way to get into a

relationship. So yeah.

Yeah, that's probably the moment you knew she was the one, huh?

When she shot that 2 inch group at 900 yards.

Yep Yep. Also realized I better not piss

her off either. You got to get a long ways away

to be safe from her. Yep.

Yeah, well, I like to dive in and learn about where you came

from. Can you tell us a little bit

about your childhood and growing up?

Yeah, grew up, I played a lot of sports, hunting or soccer, golf

and football, mostly soccer and then got a little older and I

got into hunting and stuff with my my grandparents, like my

grandpa and then my dad. We, we'd go out hunting all the

time and then enjoyed hunting a lot more.

So I didn't really even go out for sports my senior year.

I just went hunting every single day and, and loved it and

started getting into some competitive shooting as well.

And it kind of just progressed from there.

I started getting a little more serious into the F class

shooting and figured it's, you know, it's maybe go to school

and learn how to do some of this stuff.

And so I'm an, I'm a hands on person.

I, I went to local Community College for like a semester and

did a bunch of business classes. I'd already taken a lot of

business classes in, in high school that were college credit

and all that. Quickly realized I didn't want

to be an accountant or something like that stuck in an office all

day every day. That's just not, not for me.

I'm just real hands on. So figured learn how to do some

machining and, and you know, gunsmithing and all that and

kind of just go from there. So went off to Colorado and

Colorado School of Trades gunsmithing and it's like a 18

month program or something like that and came back and applied

for my FFL and realized I wouldn't be, you know, going

full time right off the bat. So I got a job at Brooks Barrels

and worked there for a while and and learned a lot from them.

You know the barrel making business.

Norm Brock's the owner, one of the owners, extremely

knowledgeable machinist, makes all his tools from from scratch

for the most part and machines are pretty old, but they've, you

know, redone them to where they're hold amazing tolerances.

All that. And the guy was just a wealth of

knowledge. Got to see him for the for the

first time in a long time when I went to the nationals this year,

I'd take him like a nine year break.

And then last year I decided to shoot a match, get back into it.

And this year I shot 2 warm up matches for nationals.

And like you said earlier as a as a nationals I ended up

getting 2nd place. So I was really happy.

The rifles shot absolutely insane.

Both of them are tuned just unbelievably like it's crazy.

Like I, I shot AA20 shot group at 900 a few weeks ago and it

was like 3.2 inches of vertical. I think it was the the 1st 19

shots, it was like 3.0 inches or something for the group.

And then the last shot kind of the wind took it, opened it up a

little bit to a A4 inch total group.

But it was, there was a little bit of a breeze out there.

But yeah, it was, it was great to see norms catch up, see, you

know what's all new with them. I also got to work with Jim C

center shot rifles back in the day right after I graduated

schooling out in Colorado. He had me work for him for a

while and we made a bunch of rifles for one Backus at long

range hunting. But the website Jim was making

all of 1's rifles at the time. So I kind of got to see, you

know, how, how Jim did things kind of from a one man

production standpoint. That's what I am.

I'm a one man shop essentially. I don't have anybody else

working on rifles. So Jim was really efficient at

doing things. And so I learned a lot from

there on how to do things, you know, as efficient as possible

without cutting corners. So I, I got to see how he does

it. I there was a few other guys

that showed me how they did things as well, some pretty well

known guys. And so I was really thankful to

be, you know, getting to be taken out of their wing, showing

how to do things and kind of just form my own techniques

after seeing all their techniques, you know, kind of

work what works for me, so. Yeah.

Is there quite a bit of variation and different

techniques and guys do things differently or you guys all kind

of doing the same thing but just with your own touch there's.

Definitely a lot of different techniques on how to do things.

I mean, some people post pictures on how they indicate

barrels or how they hold barrels and stuff like that in the

lathe. There's a lot of different ways

to hold it. Very few that actually are

perfect and don't induce stress on the barrel while you're

holding it. So like you got to get the

barrel in the lathe and you'll get it.

The internal, the rifling and the bore indicated in perfectly

so there's no run out. A lot of setup chucks don't

allow it to be stress free because you'll have the outboard

and that you'll be trying to indicate in as well.

And if it's not stress free, you're bending the barrel to get

it to read what you want. And so when you take it out of

the lathe, it goes back to its relaxed state and your machine

is crooked. So getting everything perfectly

indicated in while not stressing anything is, is, is really,

really important if you want to have absolute Max accuracy and

then having the reamer go in absolutely dead straight as

well. So yeah, there's, there's

definitely a lot of different ways to do it, but there's only

a few ways to hold it correctly and, and do everything right.

Same, same with about really every other aspect of building

the rifle as far as betting and all that.

There's, there's a lot of stuff that goes into it that most

people don't do, you know, going through the ignition system and

ensuring that everything is, you know, up to snuff, nothing's

dragging, you know, you have enough firing pin travel, enough

protrusion, enough spring pressure.

You know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot more things to

it than what most people realize.

So I mean, I could go into the really depths of it, but most

people probably wouldn't understand it.

So, and it'd be a huge long conversation on that, so most

people wouldn't understand it. So I'll just kind of probably

just leave it there for now because you don't want to spend

an hour talking about something. Nobody would, really.

Understand. OK, so all.

Right. But yeah.

You mentioned you took second place at nationals this year.

I remember seeing the results when those came out.

You were like really close to 1st place, weren't you?

Just a couple points off. Yeah, after the first day, so,

so you get relays, you get drawn relays.

And so there was five, I think 5 relays, four or five relays for

nationals. So there was 50, I think 50

targets, so roughly 250 shooters if there's five relays.

So I was third relay. So generally you want first

relay cuz you're shooting right off the bat early in the

morning. It's really calm.

And that morning, the first day of nationals, it was the calmest

I'd ever seen that range. It was absolutely dead calm.

At the beginning of the day they do the the national anthem and

they light off a cannon and the smoke from the cannon did not

move for like 10 minutes. There was like no wind and I'm

like wow, there's going to be some really high score shot on

this one because there's no wind and there was some high scores.

There was like I think the highest was a 200 with 17 XS or

16 XS. So the X string at 1000 is 5

inches and the the tendering is 10 inches.

So people were getting, you know, 17 out of 20 shots at 1000

into a 5 inch circle with all of them going in the 10 inch

circle. So when I saw those scores, I'm

like, yeah, I'm on 3rd relay. This is going to be kind of

tough to to do this one. So I knew I wouldn't get an 18X,

but I was able to clean it. I got a 200 like 12 or something

like that, which for that relay was one of the highest scores

because it the wind definitely picked up.

But over the next few relays, I managed to hardly drop any

points. And at the end of the first day

I was in the in the lead. So I was really happy with that

considering having hardly shot in the last decade.

So was able to hold on to 1st till the very last relay of the

last day. Ryan Mitchell shot phenomenal in

those conditions. It was the windiest it had been

for that match the whole time. It, it was just, it was very

switchy and windy and you were shooting very fast just to kind

of shoot as many as you can in the same condition.

And he only dropped like one or two points on that relay.

And he was shooting next to me and I looked over at him when he

was done. I'm like, how'd you do?

And he's like, I dropped one or two.

I'm like, holy crap, dude, like, congratulations, you just won.

But holy crap, congratulations on shooting that well.

And that it was very switchy. There was so to kind of give

listeners an idea of what it, what we're dealing with.

So like I said, the 10 ring is 10 inches, the 9 ring is 15

inches, 8 ring is 20 inches. So throughout those relays, you

know, you might aim 10 inches to the right and 10 inches to the

left depending on what the wind is doing or more, you know, it

just depends on what those wind is doing.

And you got to be able to look at those flags and know with

certainty. You know, you have to have the

confidence to know, hey, the flag just moved to The Mirage.

Just move X amount. I need to aim 10 to 15 inches

over to, you know, hit the 10 ring and X string.

So it was yeah, I, I, I was really happy with my

performance. The rifle shot phenomenal and

the, the bullet combo I was using definitely helped, but

the, the accuracy over extended strings with that combo is

insane. Like the, the SD, the standard

deviation in both those rifles is 4 for 50 shots.

So it's, it's, it's insane. It's one of the most consistent

combos I've ever seen. So I did.

I did spin A2 barrels up for some other shooters and I told

them what I was using and they're like, Yep, this is

legit. So, but I'm not telling who and

I'm not telling what the exact combo is and all that.

But it's yeah, it's a hammer. So going to go shoot.

Yep. I was going to say, just to

clarify, you're shooting F class competitions, not like PRS or

something else, correct? Yeah, F.

Class is what I've always shot competitively whenever I've shot

in a competition. I do have a a 900 yard range at

the at the house at the shop here.

I got a shooting room and then right next to it is my reloading

room. So I can go back and forth

really quick and find loads, test loads.

It's the only way that I could actually do all this because

there's no way that a guy could take off the time unless you're

retired to go break barrels and go test 5000 million different

load combinations and all that stuff.

Granted, after doing this long enough, you have an idea of what

it's going to like to be shot, but still takes a lot of time.

So got lucky with the house that we bought that I have the the

land to be able to do that. We got the steal of this entry

on a on a place. So it was yeah, I can shoot way

out there. So that's.

Great. Yeah, that was something I was

really impressed with when you built my rifle was you sent me a

kind of a recipe as a starting point for the bullet I wanted to

use. And man, even after quite a bit

of testing, I ended up coming back really close to your

recommendation. You, you knew right where to put

me to get started so. Yep.

Yeah, that's, that's one thing I really, that is a big benefit to

a lot of the customers is, you know, I send them a dummy round

with the bullet seated right at the lands, right, right at the

rifling for guys that aren't familiar with what the lands

are. And so depending on what bullet

the guy's going to use, I know what length they're going to

want to be shot off the lands generally.

And I'll give them a use this powder start at X grain, end at

X grain and somewhere in there it's going to, you know, shoot

lights out. So that time savings because not

not many people have a range at their house, most people got to

drive an hour or two to the range.

So you know, any time savings, you know, if you can save guys

several trips, that's worth a pile of time and money right

there, you know, away from his family on a weekend or something

like that. So that helps guys out a lot

being able to, you know, streamline it for him.

So. It's a big deal, Yeah.

I've got a short range in the basement of my office, so I can

do some velocity testing and stuff down there, but I can't

really put it on paper and stretch the legs to see what

it'll do. So Yep.

You mentioned you went to school for 18 months, kind of a trade

school. What does that education look

like? How much time do you spend on

different things and what kind of things did they teach you?

At that time, a lot of it was more general gunsmithing, which

I didn't want to do really. And when I got out of school, I

quickly realized that it would be very tough, if not impossible

to make any money full time general gunsmithing, especially

in, you know, today's day and age where everything is so

expensive, as you know, you know, cost of businesses

skyrocketed, business insurance, just anything to keep the lights

on has skyrocketed. And so I realized right away

that that wasn't going to be feasible.

You know, it's a full time thing to support a family and all

that. So custom rifles is what I'm

specializing in, the lightweight custom rifle, long range hunting

rifles. And then I have all the stuff on

the shelf as well. So I'll sell the parts to

regular, you know, retail customers as well as other rifle

builders across the country. They'll shoot me a text and hey,

do you got this on the shelf? Yep.

You know, so they'll have it a couple days later, give them a

bit of a discount on it. So they don't, you know, so they

get a discount and they get it in two days.

They don't have to wait 10 months for the part from the

manufacturer. So yeah.

So yeah. So you mentioned that there

wasn't a lot of money in general gunsmithing, but I think every

gun not in the world probably dreams about being a gunsmith.

Is it as fun as we all think it is?

What does a typical day in your shop look like?

I generally wake up about 4:30, and I'm in here shortly after.

When I wake up, I, you know, spend about 15 minutes figuring

out what I'm going to do for the day, you know, thinking about,

you know, just planning the day out in my head.

So in the shop, what I do is I have a bunch of benches lined up

and so I can have like 24 rifles lined up in a row.

And So what I'll generally do is I'll do them all at the same

time. So like I'll chamber all of them

and then once that's done, I'll go ahead and put all the brakes

on and then I'll bet them all and then I'll go ahead and share

a code them all and then clean everything up and, and final

assemble them. Sometimes I don't a lot of times

it's not a 24 rifle assembly line.

A lot of times it's a little smaller than that, but I have

the space to do it if I want to, if I want to just do a pile of

one thing or the other. But yeah, that that was able

that that enabled me to have it very efficient rather than

having a bench with only enough space to do one at a time.

That's it's not going to work. So I had a pile of bench space

made and line everything up and get it as efficient as possible.

And then once those are done, I'll go.

I got a walk in vault that has parts bins with barrels, action

stocks, all that stuff in each bin.

And I'll just, you know, if, if a customer's already spoken for

one, I'll take his invoice off with the parts, put it on the

bench and just line the benches up with parts again and start

all over, go through it again. So.

That was going to be one of my other questions is just watching

you on social media and and my experience with you building my

rifle. It seems like for a one man

shop, you turn out a lot of rifles, you are busy other than

the the 24 Bay bench or the 24 bench shop.

Is there a secret to the efficiency in the amount of

product you're putting out? A lot of hours, pretty much work

every day. But you know, now that I've got

a family, kids and all that stuff, it it's not seven days a

week, all day, every day, weekends all, you know, come in

early, putts around, they wake up, I'll go have breakfast with

them. If we're if we're going to do

something for the day, we'll go off and do something for the

day. Otherwise I'll, you know, maybe

come back out putts around for a few more hours and then go spend

the rest of the day with them. But yeah, it's just a lot of

hours and just consistently grind.

And that's, I mean that as you know, that's what it takes.

It's just that mindset of there's no other option.

That's what you're going to do, you know.

When it's all up to you, it's all up to you.

Yep, Yep. Nothing else to fall back on.

So that's yeah, I don't have any other degrees in anything else.

So it's building rifles or if you know, if that was, if

eventually, if something didn't work out, then I'd probably just

do machine open, you know, open up a machine shop and just, you

know, contract stuff out, stuff like that.

But right now there's no other option.

So that's what I'm doing. So I, I'm fortunate enough that

I have enough of a demand from people to to do this full time.

So a lot of what I've been doing is also just building stuff to

have in stock. The most popular combo, most

popular combos that I do just build them, have them in stock.

A lot of guys you know, will well, I was really looking for

this color of stock. Well, I got this one in stock

ready to ship. Or if you want to get that

particular combo from the stock maker, it's 10 to 12 months.

OK, I'll take the one that's on the shelf.

So most guys will be fine with the slightly different color

pattern. So that's, that's what a lot of

what I do is just build a lot of stuff to have on the shelf ready

to ship. So.

Do you foresee a day where you have somebody else in the shop

or oversee A-Team, or are you pretty committed to doing

everything yourself? I.

Really thought about it and I, I have had a guy I well right now

I have a guy that will help me out with like little stuff like

neck turning brass, certain combinations that I do for guys

like a 300 Norman improved. I have, I have the brass is neck

turned so he'll come in once in a while and I have a little mini

lathe that's in it's called the auto Dodd.

It's it turns the inside and outside of the neck.

So like he'll come in and turn the brass for me because I don't

want to get off my actual lathe or you know, something like that

just to go neck turn brass that's not very efficient.

So he's pretty much retired, so he's pretty much open whenever.

So he'll just come over and do that.

Or if if you know, some guys want to pay for a barrel to be

broken, you know, that takes 100 rounds.

So it's that's time consuming. I'm not going to stay off the

lathe to do that. So I'll have him come over and

you know, oh shucks, he gets to come over and shoot some guns,

so I have. Are you taking applications?

Yeah, so. And I've kind of streamlined

that too in the shooting room. I have airlines hooked up with

dryer units throughout them coming from the air compressor.

So like, you know, every few shots he'll put the the airline

in the chamber and it'll cool the barrel back down instantly.

So you know, if, if I have like a suppressed, like my suppressed

rifles with a carbon barrel, they're they're going to heat up

rather quickly with that can on the end.

So like you shoot three or five shots, it's back to room temp in

like a minute tops. So that takes all the wait time

of cooling out of the equation. So you can shoot fairly fast,

break a barrel and fairly fast that way.

So he'll come over and, you know, break barrels and once in

a while and do that too. So other than that, I, I've

thought about it and I got a guy that could Jim that I actually

apprenticed under a long time ago.

He actually ended up moving not too far away from me and I

thought about, you know, if I was to have him come on and help

me, it's like, OK, well, me and him could knock out like 500

rifles a year easily as a two man operation.

But now I got to go to shows, a lot of shows to pick up that

extra business. And it's like all that time away

from a show and shows aren't cheap to go to.

Some of those shows are really expensive to go through.

It's like, I don't want to do that because, you know, then at

the same time, it's not me building every single rifle.

So right now I'm in control of everything.

I'm the only one that touches a rifle.

So for at the time being, I really don't want to expand just

to do well. Then there's also the, you know,

economic uncertainties right now, You know, nobody knows

what's going to happen six months from now.

I don't want to go and buy a bunch more machines and hire a

bunch of people. It's like kind of just want to

let things see what happens in the next 6 to 12 months.

But for right now I'm perfectly happy doing it as a one man

shop, being in control of everything.

That way customer gets their rifle, I can guarantee that

everything's perfect on it because I am the only one that

touched it so. Yeah, I appreciate that as a

customer knowing that you do it all start to finish yourself.

And like you said, when I was looking for somebody to build my

rifle, I did a lot of research and I looked up the the top

finishes from F class competitions over the last five

or six years and a lot of the shooters will name their their

builder. And.

Your name, your name was on like half of the rifles, like it

seemed like you owned the majority of that market.

So that that kind of took away any question for me of who I

wanted to have building my rifle.

I was, I was really fortunate. I had some friends and customers

that were really good shooters. So I, I used to shoot all the

time and I quickly realized that, OK, you're going to spend

2 days prepping brass, loading ammo and two days shooting.

OK, that's four days out of the week that you're not making any

money. That's not going to work.

So I had, I had, fortunately I had some customers that were

really good shooters as well. So they kind of were the

advertisement for once I went full time, they were the

advertisement for me. They'd go to matches all the

time and they'd shoot and fortunately they won a pile of

matches, nationals and and stuff like that.

So that helped out a lot. And then I got to the point

where I just had such a demand for the hunting rifles that I

couldn't do the F class rifles anymore.

And it was also, you know, a few other things.

The F class rifles are just so time consuming that with my

current hourly overhead with, you know, new shop, new machines

and all that stuff, I, I can't make the math math on doing F

class rifles full time in support of family and all that.

So I, I'll do it for like 2 people, 2-3 people, that's it.

Because they're really, really good shooters.

You know, I don't make any money on it, but they're still

advertising for me, so. Yeah.

So what is the difference there? What takes more time on an F

class rifle versus a long range hunting rifle?

Stock finishing is a killer as far as like clear coating and

all and all that stuff. Just everything about it is a

lot more time consuming, having to wear gloves the whole time

you ever touched the stock before it's finished because you

don't want to get oil on it or anything like that.

Yeah, it's just not something I'm able to do with my current

setup, constraints and all that stuff.

So with the hunting rifles, I can just line them all up and be

very efficient at it. So yeah, that's what I focus on

right now. So I enjoy the F class.

I just can't. And I, I got back into shooting,

but I'm only going to shoot like three matches a year, 3 or 4 a

year. It'll be just big matches,

nationals, that's it. Because I can shoot behind the

house, you know, so it's not like I'm not shooting at all.

So like next year in February we're going to go to Phoenix for

the Burger Southwest Nationals. I'm going to bring the the kids

and wife down, have a little mini vacation out of it and then

they'll be a few other big matches throughout the year.

But it's just so time consuming that I'm not retired.

So a lot of the F class shooters that are really serious about

it, they're pretty much retired. So, you know, they can take off

whenever they want and they can spend two days a week loading

ammo. It doesn't matter for them so.

Gotcha. I love that your wife and your

kids travel with you. That's something I've been

watching on social media and it seems like, man, you got a

toddler in tow and a baby and a baby carrier out there chasing

elk or antelope or wherever you're at.

That's cool that you guys do it as a family.

Yeah, it it definitely makes it so it's possible because

otherwise, you know, just leaving the kids behind with the

wife, that's not really fair. So if we can make a vacation out

of it, you know, and stop along the way, stop at national parks,

enjoy some scenery. And then once we're out there,

you know, throw them in the pack and go antelope hunting or

something with us. Like our, our Clayton, our

three-year old. He was, he wasn't even a year

old and we had him out antelope hunting with us in the pack and

it was cold, but I mean, we had them bundled up and stuff.

And it was, it was a lot of fun being able to have your kids

involved that, you know, enables you to do a lot of things if you

involve them in, in your activities.

So and yeah, it's just great making memories with them.

So we try and involve them in everything we do.

So you can't exactly, you know, throw them at grandma for a week

either. That's not really fair.

Yeah, my wife is not a big hunter.

She doesn't necessarily enjoy it, but my youngest two kids do.

And my middle child, my young, my younger daughter, I had her

out in one of the packs with all bundled up in her snowsuit with

headphones on, mule deer hunting.

I think she was like 5 or 6 months old.

So she's she's literally been doing it her whole life, I hope.

She's Yep, that's awesome. So something I was wondering

about, and I imagine there might be a different answer for F

class shooting versus long range hunting, but do you have a

favorite rifle platform that you like to use?

For hunting it really depends on what I'm going after and the

terrain. If it's going to be close shots

you don't need a big Uber magnum.

But if you know it's a lot of open country and it's going to

be out there best for like elk or something like that or just

big game in general. I'm probably going to take my

300 Norma improved with. I'm using the the 245 LRHT

burgers and the BC on them is 846.

So like you can't ignore that it's guy high BC essentially

with with that high of BC, it's like it'd be like shooting a 300

grain 338 burger 100 feet per second faster than the 245,

which if you're using the same cartridge is not possible.

You would have to up the the the cartridge and you know the size

of the cartridge substantially to do that.

So in a lightweight set up where you can still spot your hits and

have pretty much the ultimate and long range performance in

something that doesn't kick the snot out of you, that 245 burger

is really the way to go. The the 28 nozzler is definitely

a laser. It just has a lot less barrel

life. As you know, the nozzler is

straight up laser. Once you get into those big

magnum shooting heavy for caliber bullets really fast, it

it opens up a huge it it's just a huge step up in performance

with with those 240 fives, for example, guys should really just

go punch the numbers in to for themselves to see how much of an

increase in performance it is with A1957 bill or a 30 Cal 245

going really fast over, you know, the six, five degree mores

or 65 PRC or whatever. It's it's a massive difference

even in like my 22 inch barrel for my Norma improved.

You know, some guys were like, oh, you neutered the cartridge.

It's like, no, I really didn't. I still have enough energy and

velocity to, you know, take an elk at like 1400 yards, which

I'm not going to do anyway. So why do I need a 26 inch

barrel with a suppressor on the end of it?

I don't. So that's why I wanted a shorter

barrel for hunting. So, but if it, if it's something

that's close, you know, if it's going to be inside 500 yards,

I'll use, you know, a 25 Cal or, you know, something like that

that has no recoil off a tripod. I'd have no problem shooting,

you know, a cow elk or something like that.

Up to 5-6 hundred with a 25 Cal. They're more than sufficient.

So. Yeah, I know.

When I ordered yours, the the 28 nozzler was really hot and you

were kind of on the cutting edge of, you know, cutting custom

chambers to load the 190 fives. And so that's when we settled

on, it was shortly after that you started building a lot of

those 300 Norma improved and it's been tempting.

I've I've wanted to switch over for a long time, but that 28th

is doing really well for me for now.

So Yep. Yeah, it's it's got less recoil

than than the 30 Cal 240 fives and those those 195 burgers are

just straight up lasers. The only the only downfall to it

is barrel life. A lot of a lot of guys with the

nozzlers are running N 570 vitivori N 570, which isn't

barrel friendly. So a lot of the time I've done

I've done hundreds of 28 nozzles and a lot of them end up getting

rebarrel about 5-6 hundred rounds.

If you're using N 570, it might go a little further than that,

you know, barrel life wise, but most of the time it starts

dropping off around there. So versus like the Norma is if

you're using N 570 and keep the barrel cool, you know, you're

right around 1000 rounds. So it's pretty pretty

significant amount more barrel life.

But it just depends, you know, if if a guy's never going to be

plinking and all that stuff, then you know, 5600 rounds of

barrel life is a really long time.

That's a lot of dead animals. You know, that's a lot of

freezers filled so. Yeah, I think I'm closing in on

2300 rounds on mine and I, I try to limit it to just a few shots

every year unless there's an animal in front of me.

So hopefully we got a few years left, but Yep.

And a lot of times guys will like a lot of what I've been

doing too is switch barrel set up.

So like in these barrel burners, you can't exactly practice with

them. So a lot of times guys will have

me do a switch barrel so they'll have me spin up like a 300 WSM

is a really popular one because the barrel life is like 2500

rounds. And for practicing, you know,

it'll, you can shoot past 1000 yards with it no problem.

But just being able to go out and shoot and not worry about

barrel life, you know is nice. You know it it keeps you from

having to buy another rifle to practice with as well.

So if a guy has a barrel vise, you know, changing a barrel is a

10 minute affair. You just pop the scope off, take

the barrel of action out of this out of the stock and pop the

barrel off, put the other one on target 70 foot pounds and you're

good to go. So that's that's been a proper

popular option for guys so. Yeah, yeah.

I ended up going the other route and bought the second rifle.

I have one of the 20 twos that's on the Remington 700 platform

and I set it up identical to the one you built me with the same

stock and everything. So I can go down to my basement

range and practice with that and it it matches everything that I

see in the field so. Yep, Yep, you definitely, you

definitely need something that you can shoot with a lot just

to, you know, get good off a tripod, different shooting

positions and all that. And you don't want to exactly do

that with something that's going to burn the barrel up exactly

so. So diving into other components,

is there an action platform or a brand or anything like that that

you just absolutely love and are dead set on for building your

own rifles or that you would recommend to a customer?

I I used a lot of the defiance actions for anything that is not

a Norma improved. The defiance actions are dead

straight and the ignition system on them is awesome.

I don't have to re machine anything.

The nice thing is they time and headspace the same.

So like a lot of times what I'll do is I'll get a bunch of

barrels or a bunch of actions and stocks embedded and I have a

bunch of barrels on the shelf that are chambered in a whole

bunch of different stuff. So like I got all these rifles

that are done and then customer will be like I want this rifle.

OK, let me go grab that barrel that's already sera coated on

the shelf and I'll put it on there and the engraving and

everything lines up. Headspace is perfect and all

that. And then, you know, I'll bed

their scope into the rings and you know, few days later the gun

ships out to them. So that's one really nice thing

about the defiance actions is they time and headspace the

same. Not other action manufacturers

are able to do that. Some of them are, but I just the

other benefit to that defiance is it's super lightweight.

The anti axe is like 24 oz for a long action steel action, that's

pretty hard to beat. If a guy wants the Norma, then a

lot of the times I'm using the bat Vesper super lightweight

action. It's I think it's like 6 oz

heavier, maybe not even might not even be that much heavier.

I think it's like 27 or 28 oz actually.

So it's a light setup and it's super straight.

Ignition's great on it. I don't have to fix anything on

the on the the Vespers got bigger threads, which is nice

for the Norma. So the Norma is such a much

fatter case than your standard magnum cartridge that you need a

bigger Shank on it. Otherwise your wall between the

chamber and the bottom of the threads would be smaller.

So like the bat has bigger threads, so you need a bigger

Shank. So there's just a lot more meat

between the chamber and all that in the bottom of the thread.

So you don't get bolt clicks or anything like that because of it

because of due to a insufficient amount of wall thickness.

So those are the 2 main actions I use.

Otherwise, if a guy's not concerned about weight for the

Normas, I use a lot of board and Bigfoots.

They're a few oz heavier than the bat.

They're a super straight action. But Borden, he builds a pile of

stuff for the F class community. Like one of my rifles is on a

board and it's insanely accurate.

Both my F class rifles ones ones on a bat ones on a board and

they shoot the same load identical.

The only difference is seating depth is like 4000 difference

and that that's because 1 barrel has a few more 100 rounds than

the other on it. Otherwise they're identical

which is nice. But those those are primarily

what I use. Other than that it would be

they're out of Michigan. I use a lot of their shadow

actions. That's a fairly lightweight.

It's a skeletonized 700 footprint action as well.

I use a lot of those. That would be the primarily what

I use the most of. I've had a lot of issues with

some of the other manufacturers having to re machine a lot of

stuff with the ignition systems to get adequate firing pin

travel and just stuff like that. That I don't want to use

something that I have to spend, you know, a bunch of time on and

then end up charging the customer $300 more to fix

something. It's like, well, for the same

price, here's something that I don't have to fix and is perfect

right off the bat. So it's time savings on each

rifle. So yeah, I still go through the

Defiance. Actions and stuff to make.

Sure, everything's good, but like I don't have to re machine

anything. So yeah, those are all

Remington. 700 footprints, correct?

Yep. Yep, Yep.

OK. All right.

Well, what drove you to? Start from a relatively young

age and pursue kind of a unconventional career.

I don't know a lot of guys that came out of high school and dove

right into gunsmithing. So is there an impetus or

something that really pushed you that direction?

Probably. Would have been when I started.

Shooting competitively and wanted to just kind of figure

out how to do it myself and see if it was something that I would

enjoy doing. I figured I'd enjoy doing it as

you know, as a career, but there's not many guys that are

able to do it as full time and it took me several, it took

quite a few years to get to the point of full time.

I I was working, you know, two to three jobs, which was

including building the rifles and it got to the point where I

was working like 100 and. 20 hours a.

Week, every week, and I'm like, OK, I have enough business built

up to where I can go full time now.

Or so I thought. I had enough to go full time for

building rifles, but it definitely wasn't as much as I

had originally thought. I needed to stay busy going

going full time. You need a pile of work lined up

to stay busy. But I was just always involved

in the outdoors and and in my hands on person.

So it was just kind of a natural Ave. fit for me.

So I just kind of just took off from there and I'm I'm not one

to kind of half assed something. If I, you know, get my mind to

it, I'm just going to go all out and just all the way.

It's just go big or go home has pretty much been my, you know,

motto for a really long time. So went went full time and just

really took off from there. Fortunately, fortunately I'm

able to do this full time. So yeah, if you could go back.

And start over. Would you do it again?

I would, but I'd probably do things a little.

Differently, I would buy AC and C lathe a lot sooner.

I didn't go to school for I. I.

I never took any actual CNC courses but I I.

Had a guy come out. And write some programs for me.

I told him exactly what I wanted.

And so I had the CNC lathe and he came out.

He showed me how to run them and he wrote some programs for me.

And after watching the programs, watching the screen do what it

does as tools are moving and stuff, I got to figure out, OK,

when it these numbers are going, this means this tool is doing

this and all that. So like I got to the point where

after watching that enough you can modify programs, write new

programs and stuff like that. The CNC lathe was a big massive

time saver, especially for a one man shop.

I'll get the barrel indicated in and select the program I want,

push the green button to go and I'll walk away and go do

something else. I'll come back and you know, see

it. It will have turned down the

barrel and threaded it. And I'll, you know, check the

orientation for my for the high spot of the barrel compared to

the action. So like when you indicate a

barrel in, I indicate in at the throat and one inch past the

throat. So doing so, you're going to

have some run out on the muzzle end.

But as long as where the bullet enters and one inch forward of

that is perfectly indicated and it doesn't matter what the

muzzles doing. But in doing so having it

straight here, you're going to have a little bit of muzzle run

out at the end. And so I'll take the high spot

and I'll clock that to where it's 12:00 on the action.

That way it's the barrels going up for the curvature of the

board. Not off to the.

Side or down low. That way you're going to get

maximum elevation out of your scope.

So the lathe will do its operate.

First operation is turn it down, thread it, and so I'll go check

the orientation of the action to the high spot if need be, which

you almost always have to offset it to get it to time up.

You know, you'll offset it and walk away, come back, it's done.

And then it'll go from there for the other processes of chamber

in the barrel. And then I, I, I do the reamer

by hand. I don't have it set up to where

the reamer just goes in and I don't even look at it.

I want to be able to feel to make sure everything is going in

straight. And if it's not going in

straight and it's a setup that you're not touching, you really

don't know until the very end. So fortunately I've only had a

couple mistakes on the CNCI. Think I've only ruined one.

One or. Two barrels and eight 7.

Or eight years? Probably so.

I'm just really careful. I'm not super fast on it.

I'm just make sure that it does what I need it to and I'm not

super high production. So if it takes me.

A little longer for each barrel. It's not that big of a deal.

So that was that was the one thing I wish I would have done

sooner is is get the CNC. Other than that.

I can't really think of. Anything that I wish I would

have done sooner, yeah. Do you think it's still possible

for somebody? To do if there's a high school

kid that doesn't love school, is super into shooting, and wants

to do what you've done, is it still possible?

It would be extremely. Difficult in today's climate.

I think personally, given the fact that there's so many people

out there building rifles, I my advice to someone would be to go

to school for welding machine shop or something like that.

And obviously if you want to build rifles, you're going to

need a machine background. So take some classes in that,

but don't rely on it as your full time gig because like the

insurance on for a rifle builder has gone up like 400% for me in

the last four years. So it's insane.

And actually I like I have some buddies that own welding

businesses out in California, which cost of business in

California is insane. They're doing pipelines and

stuff. I'm paying more in business

insurance than they are. So like, I don't recommend.

Somebody. Jump in, try and do this full

time. You're going to have to do part

time for quite a long time and you're going to need a backup

plan in that time, something paying your bills because it's

not going to pay your bills for a very long time.

So do a trade. And I think, you know, as you,

you'd probably agree, trades are definitely a lot more in demand

than they used to be in that. And everybody's kind of

realizing trades are where it's at because AI is not going to

replace that anytime soon. You need people to Weld and you

know, electricians, plumbers and all that stuff.

Those are really high paying jobs and you don't need $150,000

in college tuition to do it. So that's what I would recommend

to someone in high school trying to decide on what you're going

to do, do a trade and take a few Gen.

Ed classes, take some business classes, stuff like that, but

try and pick out a trade that you know, you think you might

enjoy. And a lot of high schools are

doing that as well. Like back in high school, we had

shop classes and stuff like that, but at that time they

really didn't push it that hard. So that that's what I would

recommend to somebody is, you know, learn some trades, take

some machining classes and slowly get into it.

But right now there's no way that someone would be able to

just jump into it and do it full time.

There's too many people out there doing it.

So it does seem like that's an industry.

That's kind of blown up. And maybe I maybe I was just not

in the loop, but it seemed like 1520 years ago everybody owned a

production rifle and custom rifles were kind of like that

was that was a special thing. There weren't many people doing

it and there weren't many people that had them.

And in the last decade or so, it seems like that shifted and the

the semi custom or full custom rifle has really become

mainstream. There's a lot of people building

them and also a lot of people buying them.

Is that accurate? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, there it's. Definitely picked.

Up in the last 15 years I would say is when it it long range

hunting rifles and just long range long range rifles in

general has really really picked up mainstream.

I I would say probably PRS style matches are a huge factor in

that because you know a lot of guys want to dip their feet.

They don't want to go buy you know an F class rifle to dip

their feet in long range shooting.

But a lot of people have you know a bolt action 243 or three

O 8 or whatever they can go dip their feet in it and if they

really like it you know they'll go from there and they'll buy

it. You know, a long range rifle

designed around whatever they want to shoot.

But I would say that was a big factor in as as well as the the

long range hunting shows from, you know, the the big name

custom rifle builders. That was huge as well.

Haven't having those shows all over TV that really got people

really interested in long range shooting as well.

So yeah, so for. The the.

Novice that's listening, can you help us understand what are the

primary differences between a production rifle, maybe a semi

custom rifle and then a full custom rifle like you're

producing? Yeah.

It's going to. Pretty much come down to the

quality of components used as well as the amount of time that

the company is able to put into each one.

Your basic factory rifles, you know, off the shelf $500 rifles.

Obviously they're not going to. Have an.

Action that's as high of quality as like a Defiance or something

like that, just because time constraints for, you know, you,

you can't put a $1500 action in a $500 rifle.

It just doesn't work that way. But the $500 rifle, you know, it

allows you to, you know, dip your feet into it.

And for a lot of guys, that's all you ever need if you're

never going to shoot an animal past 2 or 300 yards, you know,

and, and you can have a a factory rifle that shoots much

further than that, obviously, but you know, the vast majority

of hunters out there aren't going to shoot something past

300 yards. So that's where the factory

rifles the is primarily used for.

If a guy. Wants to get serious about long

range hunting? You could take your factory

rifle and you can do hand loads and you can start to get her

dialed in even more. But it really comes down to how

accurate do you want that rifle? And the more accurate you want

it, the more expensive that's going to become just because

prices are going to get more expensive for the parts and also

the time involved in the labor. You can't have a rifle that's

been dressed accurate consistently for you.

Know say 1000. Dollars you might get lucky if

you were to buy a bunch of them and you might get some that do

shoot really, really good. But when you're going to the

custom rifles, if they're built properly, every single one is an

absolute hammer and that's because you're using quality

components put together properly.

So like for instance, I bet a scope into the rings.

Most people just lap rings and or some of them don't even lap

the rings and then they put the scope in there.

Well, in a lightweight magnum, your scopes going to slip over

time guaranteed because you can't make the the rings are not

going to be an exact perfect fit for the scope.

The scope diameters vary for the same model, same manufacturer,

they're going to vary slightly. So like betting it just takes it

out of the equation. It's a perfect fit in that set

of rings. It can't slip due to recoil.

It's a suction fit. I, I use release agent, so it's

not like permanently glued in there, but it's such a good fit

that like if I take take the top caps off the rings in a light

hunting rifle, I can pick the rifle up by the scope with the

top caps off. It's a suction fit.

So like that's never going to slip due to recoil.

There's just a lot of things that I do that bring it to that

next level of, of accuracy. And a lot of people don't

realize also that ignition, the ignition characteristics of a

rifle is huge for accuracy and companies can't do that in a

more economical set up they're. Just, you know.

They have time constraints, overhead constraints and all

that stuff. So it really comes down to what

a guy wants. If a guy you know is is fine

with you know a factory rifle and what its limitations are,

awesome. If you want a semi custom,

awesome. If you want top of the line

where everything is perfect every single time, sure, give me

a shout I'll hook you up. I have a pile of different

options. It just really comes down to

what what all a guy wants out of it.

As with anything. What's your hobby?

You know how much you want to spend on your hobby.

But the other thing I tell that you know.

That the guys realize too, like a lot of the guys that I build

rifles for, they go on a lot of hunts and a lot of those hunts

out West and, you know, going all over, that's not cheap.

And so if a guy goes on a lot of hunts having that Peace of Mind

knowing, hey, my rifle will shoot 3 inches at 900 yards all

the time, that's a huge boost of confidence that that cuts down

how well you have to read the wind.

As well if. You have a big magnum that's

shooting really tight, then you can misjudge the wind slightly

more so that it just increases your odds a little bit more and

gives you that extra boost of confidence when you're out in

the field. Not everybody's going to shoot

900 yards and honestly, not everybody should shoot 900 yards

in an animal. I mean, it takes you got to

practice a lot to be able to do it consistently and and

ethically. I mean, ethics is a whole nother

can of worms. But like I look at because I've

had guys ask me, what's your Max range on an animal?

Well, that depends. What gun I have, that depends on

how windy it is, what animal I'm shooting at.

There's just so many factors. You know, I've had it where 500

yards is my Max because it's 20 mile an hour winds, but I'm

shooting a big magnum so I'm fine.

But other days where it's, you know, dead calm, my Max range is

a lot further than that. But having a rifle that I know

is going to go exactly where I aim, that's, that's a huge

confidence boost though it is. I can speak.

To that as well, I know the the rifle you've built for me that's

something I've been amazed by is the consistency even changing

some pieces of that formula. I think I've cycled through

three different powder bullet combinations and getting dialed

in on the one that I wanted and even just switching powders,

primer, bullet, everything. I adjust my 0 by an inch or two.

And I, I started with it unsuppressed and put a

suppressor on it and I had to move my zero 1/2 inch it.

It was just nothing. And even this year I realized,

like I said, I try to limit the rounds that I put through it.

I'm trying to make that barrel last.

And so I realized it had been like 4 years since I put my

rifle on paper. I just pulled it out of the safe

every year and went out and shot animals and had never checked

it, and I just threw it down on the range, threw some paper up

at 100 yards, just a bipod, no rear rest, no nothing, and put

five shots exactly where they were supposed to go in about a

3/8 group. After four years of never, I

mean it, I've dropped it off at things.

I've thrown it in and out of the truck.

It's been in the field working and I haven't checked it and the

scope still doesn't need adjusted.

It is on every time, no matter what.

It gives you a lot of confidence, like you said, so

that's awesome. Yeah.

So. I think you're the first person.

I've ever heard talk about the ignition characteristics and

that role in accuracy. I, I don't understand that very

well. I'm sure it's someone a little

more novice than myself, certainly doesn't.

Can you give us an overview or a a novice idea of what you're

talking about and and how ignition characteristics affect

accuracy So. Essentially.

You have your firing pin and essentially your firing pin

needs to move X amount from the cocked positioned to the fired

position and you need you just. Need X.

Amount of energy to hit that primer for it to reliably go off

in cold weather now the size of the cartridge also comes into

effect as well because. Say you're shooting A6.

Dasher or something like that, that'll go off in cold weather a

lot easier than say a 28 nozzler burning, you know, 80 some

grains of powder. And I've had that before where I

had a buddy that built a rifle and he's a he's a knowledgeable

machinist and all that. And he used, I'm not going to

say the name of the action, but I don't use them anymore because

I had to fix all their stuff. But he called me up.

He's like Ryan, hey, I'm getting hang fires and my 28 nozzler

with this action and I go, OK, I've dealt with them before.

You need to have X amount of firing pin travel.

You need to go take the spring out of the firing pin and make

sure that nothing is binding because the the tip of the

firing pin would generally bind in those actions in the in the

hole of the bolt, it would bind in there.

So it was dragging. You need to put a a heavier.

Spring in there. As well because they used too

light of a spring because everybody's all about, Oh, my

bolt opened so easy. Well, yeah, because they use the

light spring. So they don't have enough firing

pin travel. Their firing pins are dragging

and they have a weak spring. So you're having issues in cold

weather with your 28 nozzler getting hang fires.

So I said go do this. And he calls me back a day

later. He's like, hey, it's shooting

bug holes and it's like 10° out. He's like I did what you told

me. To I'm like I figured.

That's probably what the issue was.

But so essentially you need, you know, ideally you need 250,000

firing pin travel and you need I like to use at least a 24 LB

spring. And you can't have your cocking

piece dragging on the on the shroud.

You can't have anything dragging.

You need a nice clean ignition. And so that's really important

for these big magnums, especially in cold weather.

And something that I'm, I always check because if it, if you have

something that's not quite right, your, your gun is not

going to shoot near what it should.

And some of these actions have like hangers.

And so if you turn the hanger around the trigger hanger,

you'll get a different amount of firing pin travel.

And so I've had that before where I just wanted to try it

and turn it around, shoots like crap.

Turn it back around. It's 1 hole.

So it makes a huge difference as far as consistent accuracy for a

rifle that I mean, that's just one of the things, but ignition

is a huge thing. If that ain't right, you're

going to have issues. I think it's not going to shoot,

you know, good groups and your. ES is not going to be great.

And all that. So that that's yeah, all those

factors are big. So thank you.

I appreciate that. Like I said, I think you're the

first person that's brought that up in a discussion of accuracy.

So I learned something new today.

There's there's a few guys. That I know of that that are

sticklers on that as well, but people don't advertise.

You don't really tell people how you make a better product using

the same exact parts. So like it was kind of a brief

overview on how it's all done. But like, yeah, there's,

there's, there's some other guys out there that do it and their

rifles shoot because of that, that that's one of the important

things for a magnum in cold weather hunting is is ignition.

So you'd be surprised at how. Many action.

Manufacturers out there have insufficient firing pin travel

or weak springs or This is Dragon.

That's Dragon. It's.

There's quite a few of them out there, so if you're not checking

it, you have no idea if it's right or wrong.

There you go. That's the reason you.

Need a great gunsmith because the the average shooter probably

doesn't even know how to check that.

So yeah, so speaking. Of the average.

Shooter for the the average shooter recreationally or hunter

out there that wants to improve his skills, what would be your

recommendation of the the one skill or the one thing that they

could do to improve their shooting?

I guess with the greatest value, the the biggest improvement,

with the least amount of effort or money.

Well, without. Spending any money, the one

thing that you'd want to do is get a consistent set up to where

when you're shooting you can spot your heads.

You know you want to get set up on the rifle directly in line

with the rifle, so it's recoiling straight with you.

If you're off to the side, more than likely it's going to recoil

off to the side if you're straight in line with it.

One thing that helps is having spikes on your bipod feet that

really digs into the ground and keeps it from hopping all over

the place. But messing around with

different ways to hold the rifle to where it recoils

consistently. If it's not recoiling

consistently, you're not going to shoot tiny groups

consistently. That would be something that I

would recommend practicing on and being, you know, conscious

of when you're when you're shooting as far as an A piece of

gear that would help shooting consistently.

Probably the biggest thing that I would tell guys is glass.

I'm a really big stickler on glass for the scopes that I put

on rifles because a lot of scopes out there can't handle

the recoil of lighter weight magnums.

Now a 15 to 26 Creed more a 15 to 20 lbs six five creed more.

Not many scopes are going to fail on that because there's no

recoil. But if you go down to say you

know, an 8 LB with optics 28 nozzler or 300 Norma, now all of

a sudden that's a lot more recoil and jolt on an optic

system and not many scopes can hold a zero with that setup.

And I I have a jig that measures it so it's a solid billet chunk

with two pick rails on it so you can mount 2 scopes on it and so.

You'll put the. Scopes on there and then you'll

mount the jig to your rifle and you'll line the crosshairs up at

100 so the scopes are at the same spot as each other and

you'll just start shooting. You don't care what the groups

are. What you're going to do is

you're going to look at the crosshairs if they move apart

from each other, one of those scopes is moving.

The reticle is literally moving due to recoil and.

There's a lot of. Scopes out there that I've

tested even $2000 plus scopes that the reticle will move 3/8

of an inch or more in 10 shots at 100 and.

Yeah. And so.

Guys expect. You know a tiny bug hole group

all the time? Well, if you're using a scope

that moves 3/8 of an inch, it's not happening.

You might get lucky once in a while but those scopes are

gradually moving due to recoil and I don't want to name names

because I don't want to bad mouth any particular companies.

But like the scopes that I do use that I will offer accuracy

guarantees with would be Night force Tangent, ZCO March.

So ZCO would be 0 compromise optics, tangent Theta March

optics. Those are primarily the ones

that I use. The most popular ones for

hunting would be the Night Force NX8.

That's the most popular one I use for hunting rifles by far.

Because it's lightweight. My personal rifles, Yeah, and

for the money. Like it's not cheap.

But like for guys willing to spend around $2000 on a scope,

that scope is the scope for a lighter weight hunting setup

that can take a pounding and not lose 0.

They came out with that a couple months.

After I built my rifle, Otherwise, that's what I would

have. I I have my setup.

I like it. I was happy with it.

I wasn't willing to change. But if they had had, if they had

come out with that scope a couple months earlier, that's

what I would have. Those things are awesome.

Yeah. You can't beat them for.

I mean A4 to 32 magnification range is huge and it's 28 oz and

they take abuse. It's hard to beat for the price

I have. I use the 4 to 20 a tac R on all

my hunting rifles. I'm not worried about the extra

7 oz that a tac R is absolutely bomb proof.

I've never had an issue with them and they've taken some

massive beatings and not lost at 0 so I've had really good luck

with those I've had. I've used some of the other

scopes and there's other scopes out there that will hold a 0

from recoil, but they are not a durable scope long term.

I've had some scopes where, you know, over the course of a few

years, I I would have like a 10% failure rate from customers

where like the Parallax or something like that would go

out. It's like, yeah, it'll shoot

tiny groups, but it won't take a beating.

So that's why I use the night force.

They might not have tangent or ZCO glass on them, but you can

they'll take a beating. I'm not saying the ZCO or

Tangent are are not durable scopes.

I'm just saying that. For a hunting rifle, the NX8 and

ATAC R line you can't be for for durability.

So that's that's primarily why I use them on all the rifles.

So that jig that you have is that.

Something that you manufactured or did you buy that somewhere?

I I found it online and last. Time I checked the guy that was

making them is no longer making them and there's a few people

that have posted their results as well on accurate shooter the

website with that jig. It was field and cave Outfitters

was the name of the company that made it and a lot of people a

lot of people want to say well my my rifle shoots tiny groups.

They wanted to refute the evidence of people that have

tested a pile of each brand of scope, and so it.

It gets to the point. Where I don't care what you use,

if you want to use this X brand scope on the rifle, I will build

it with that. I will not guarantee accuracy

with it. And other builders that have

done the testing as well have got to the point where they

don't care. They're not going to try and

sway your mind. You can't.

That jig does not lie. It, you know, seeing it that

shows the results. There's no lying, so use what

you want, but I'll use what I know 100% will take the recoil.

Now, if you know, like I said earlier, if you're 15 LB rifle,

65 degrees more, you don't need something that's absolutely bomb

proof. But if you're going in the

Backcountry on that once in a lifetime hunter, it doesn't even

have to be a once in a lifetime hunt.

You just want that Peace of Mind knowing that oh crap, I dropped

my rifle, that it's not broke, you know?

So yeah, that's I love talking. With you and following you on

social media, I learned so much and I remember when you started

putting out some of the tests with that jig, man, I was

fascinated. I watched every post, watched

every video. That's it's pretty cool that you

put the time and effort into that to do that kind of testing.

So yeah, it took a lot of time and.

I mean, there's always new scopes coming out and I've had

some cup scope companies want me to test and it's like and I've

had action companies want. Me to, you know, go.

Over their product and all that it's like guys I'm a one man

shop I don't want to go test every new product that comes out

because time is money you know not to make it always about

money but it's like I can't take the time to go and test all the

new products that are coming up I'm going to go with what works

and other guys will will test it as well if it you know shows

promise and all that then I'll test it but I'm not going to

test every new thing that comes out yeah well feel free to give

them my. Name I I will happily receive

some free stuff and test it out and send it back to them.

Well, they weren't going to like, they weren't going to like

give it to. Me for free but like, you know

hey we'll send you this for a while and you can use it it's

like I've had you know guys want to send me barrels it's like you

realize how much time it takes to camber up a barrel break a

barrel in do proper load development and all that stuff

like that's not a quick endeavor you know so well we we dove

into. Scopes a little bit.

Can we dive into some of the? Other accessories.

And maybe what some of your favorites are or the the ones

that you've tested and like we were talking about scopes, So

what about rings? What do you like for rings

nowadays? I would say.

Primarily what I use. Would be the night force

ultralight rings, either the four or six screw.

It just depends on if the scope base of the receiver allows for

six screw or not. And if if the cartridge that I'm

built, you know, building the rifle in needs 6 screws.

Obviously you don't need a scope bedded and six screw rings.

If it's a a 25 Creed mark, there's not much replay on that,

but I primarily use the Night Force ultralights and then I've

had the scopes and I've seen other scopes, scope rings out

there that will widen out as you torque them down and you keep

torquing. Them down like the.

Side bolt, you keep torquing it down, torquing it down and the

rings will. Widen out so.

Like you could put your scope in there and it's a snug fit as you

start torquing it down, all of a sudden since it widens out, your

scope becomes sloppy in there. Well, if you don't bet it, your

scope's going to slip due to recoil.

Guaranteed. So everything gets vetted.

I I mean I've even seen $400.00 one piece mounts slip due to

recoil that weren't vetted. It doesn't matter what the scope

rings are, they need vetted. If you don't, if you want that

Peace of Mind of knowing it's not going to slip due to recoil,

it's got to be vetted. And it also, besides slipping it

makes it to where there's no stress because if it's better

than there, it's 100% stress free.

Nothing's binding and, and, and all that.

So that's just, yeah, that's primarily what I use for rings.

Occasionally I'll, you know, if I use like a ZCO scope, I'll use

their rings and embed the scope in there.

But Night Force ultralight rings are primarily what I use.

So. And you mentioned bipods.

I know you. Like bipods with spike on the

end. What's your favorite?

I'm really a fan. Of.

The MDT, the Skypod, their lightweight double pole I really

like a lot. You can use it from a

lightweight magnum all the way up to a 20 LB rifle no problem.

I realize it's not cheap, it's like 859 hundred dollars.

Obviously that's not for everybody, but it's super

adjustable and you can go from super low to standing or not

standing, sorry, sitting with it and it doesn't weigh much and

it's bomb proof. So that's my favorite bipod.

But like if a guy doesn't want to spend that much, there's,

there's other options on the market that you know, you can

put the spikes on and all that. Having spikes on the feet is is

huge for keeping it from hopping around, being able to spot your

hits and all that versus just having the rubber feet on there.

If you have something that has no recoil, rubber feet are fine.

But you know, if there's recoil, those spikes make a world of

difference in being able to spot your heads.

So that would be my favorite bipod.

And I didn't just like randomly spend $900 on a bipod.

Like I had a buddy that is a pretty big tight wad as well.

And he said, dude, this thing's legit.

And I'm like, OK, well if you're going to spend it, obviously

it's not a piece of crap and is worth it.

He's like, yeah, you buy it, you'll never buy another bipod

again. I'm like, OK, I'll try it out.

And I'm like, it's definitely worth it.

So tested it out and you know, for guys that are willing to

spend the money, it's definitely something that I do recommend

so. But then having a tripod as

well. Is is nice because a lot of

times you know, if you're in mountains and stuff, that tripod

just does something that you can't do with a bipod as as far

as some of the angles go and all that plus you can just leave it

sitting there ready to go on the tripod.

So I I use a lot of those manners pro hunter stocks.

They got the arca rail right in front of the bottom metal.

So it's nice perfectly balanced that stocks only 25 oz with a

arca rail pick rail and flush cup.

So for a lightweight hunting setup it's really hard to beat,

but having a good tripod is pretty invaluable in the field

as well because. I would say in the last five

years. I would say at least. 50% of the

shots that I've had are off a tripod, so OK all.

Right. And I know you've recently

started selling suppressors through your shop.

You've been shooting suppress for a long time.

Do you have a favorite suppressor?

I have. The so it really depends on the

set up, but if a guy's using a lighter weight hunting rifle

that's a magnum, having a suppressor with a brake on the

end is huge in the recoil reduction department versus a

standard suppressor that does not have the brake on the end of

the can. I think Thunder Thunder beast

did some testing and they said it was around, you know, 50%

more recoil reduction compared to no brake on the end.

And I would definitely agree it it pretty much double S the

recoil reduction and makes spotting hit so much easier on

these lightweight magnums off of iPod.

So like my 300 Norma improved, you know, 245 burger.

I, I have two different barrels for it, but like my longer

barrel, 26 inch barrel, I got a 245 at 2900.

It's a mild load, but like I can watch the vapor trail, I can

watch the hit and then on my 22 inch barrel, same thing.

I can watch the vapor trail, I can watch the steel just get

smacked with that brake on the. End of the suppressor now.

Yeah, it's. A little louder, but you know,

for a hunting rifle it's one shot.

That's it. It's not high volume and when

I'm practicing I have plugs and muffs on and all that stuff

anyways, but anything with a a brake on the end for the

suppressor, it is awesome. I started I did get one of the

new unknown suppressors, unknown munitions.

They're a reefer that's really lightweight and I bought one of

the directional brakes for the end of it from Salmon River

Solutions and I threw that on my Norma and I really like it.

It's a super lightweight can with I did the so I also did the

they have the option to have it to where it'll mount to a

Thunder beast CD brake. So I grabbed ACB titanium brake

from Salmon River as well. So the CV brake, the suppressor

and the brake on the end is like 10.8 oz.

So for a lightweight suppressor with a brake, it's it's really

hard to beat and they did a lot of testing from what I've seen

as well as far as durability goes for that suppressor.

They torture tested it. They did like 40 rounds with a

20 inch 300 ROM and it didn't blow up.

Apparently the carbon on the barrel delaminated it got so

hot, but the suppressor was fine.

And I've had another brand of it's not Thunder Beast, but I

had another brand of suppressor in the shop that everybody was

all gung ho about because it's so lightweight and it blew up in

like 300 rounds and it was not 300 Norma look that when I was

shot through it either. It was a mild WSM load in a mild

25 PRC load blew up in 300 rounds.

And I've had other customers that have had that suppressor

blow up several times for them as well.

So those are the two suppressors so far that I would recommend

that are bomb proof on short barrel setups.

So, OK, yeah, it's not a pleasant.

Experience when a suppressor blows up on you it that is way

louder than an unsuppressed gunshot.

Yes, and it scares the crap out of you.

I've experienced that once. And I couldn't hear for about 3

days. So yeah, I also I.

Don't think I've. Any heard anybody refer to a 245

grain bullet going 3900 feet per second as a mild load before no

2900? Yeah, oh, 20. 900-2900.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still in that cartridge.

That's a lot of energy, yeah. That that setups got a.

Pile of energy that one I just realized there's too long with

the suppressor on it so I got a shorter barrel.

But yeah, that that at 2900 plus feet per second it had enough

energy for elk. It like typical elk hunting

altitudes to like 15-16 hundred yards like it was insane the

amount of energy that combo carries so.

But you don't. Need it for I'm not going to

shoot that far out, so I won't know that 22 inch barrel, but

that Norma's a pretty sweet cartridge.

The improved version because the brass will never wear out.

I got over 30 firings on some brass and the primer pockets are

still feel brand new. So I gave up trying to wear it

out. I I spent like a whole day

getting to 34 firings on one piece and I couldn't hardly tell

a difference in how tight the pockets were.

I'm like, OK, it's it's not going to wear out.

So yeah, that seems. Like a sweet.

Combination. That I I know you build a lot of

those. You seem to be the guy that's

kind of specializing in that. So yeah, each show we open.

Up an opportunity? For listeners to either call in

and chat with us or write in a question.

And I have a write in question here from Brighton.

If someone is starting from zero and wanted to get into

gunsmithing, even just as a bit of a hobby, and they want to use

their own equipment, where do they start and what equipment

would they need to just get started with the basics?

You can get some used lathes. On the market, some used manual

lays for a pretty good price. You just got to make sure that

it's not absolutely beat the crap, so I would.

Obviously you're. Going to want to start off with

a manual lathe because dipping your feet into it and going CNC

is not going to be in the same sentence so.

Get. A good manual lathe and maybe go

take some a few machining classes as well.

If you don't have that background with a lathe and all

that, go take a class at a Community College or if you know

somebody that would be willing to take you under their wing for

a bit, that would be another option as well.

There's a lot of videos out there as well.

You know how guys do things. The internet's a pretty big

source of information, but you definitely want to go just take

it. I would recommend taking a, a

class at A at a Community College and learning also, you

know, learn how to use a mill and all that.

A manual mill isn't hard to use, but I would say background and

you know just a basic machining class would be a a great step to

take. And then you.

Know, realize that you know, it's going to take a long time

for you to build up your business to where you could

eventually go full time, But yeah, yeah, OK.

Well, we've talked a lot. About the technical side of

things, I wanted to dive a little bit more into the the

story of building your business. What was the most difficult step

you faced building your business?

Probably taking the plunge. After.

I got engaged to my wife. That was the real moment of OK,

I need to really step things up and get things rolling, you

know, up production if I'm going to support a family one day.

So that was like, OK, I need to build a new shop.

I need to get CNC lays and I need to get everything set up to

where it's optimized and as as efficient as possible.

That was the biggest step I took and definitely the biggest.

Step I thought the most about taking.

Because I mean, that's a huge financial step and everything

all around, but it was definitely worth it.

It was definitely the the route that I needed to take.

So that would, yeah, that would be starting.

The business wasn't hard. That's not hard.

But you know, putting in the hours and all that stuff to get

to where you can go full time, but then going full time just to

support yourself to supporting a family, that's a whole other can

of worms. So, Oh yeah, getting married.

Can turn a hobby career into oh we got to figure this out for

real. Yep, and not much time to figure

it out. No, no, it's not hard to feed.

Yourself but wives require like homes and stuff.

She's not going to. Just sleep in the.

Shop with you anyone room with a sofa and.

You know, like a guy in college would be, Yeah.

My wife is really low maintenance so I better I

better. Make that statement.

She's very low maintenance, fortunately, because I I

wouldn't have married her otherwise, but yeah.

She grew up on a farm, a dairy. Farm so she knows how to work

she's not afraid of work so yeah I got really fortunate and and

my wife so good for you I I can say the same my.

Wife is pretty low maintenance and very hard worker but it's

still very different to provide for a wife and a family then

like you said just a single guy that can crash in a one bedroom

so Yep Yep. At what?

Point in your. Journey of building your

business, were you most afraid? Probably moving.

My I. I found out that.

My wife was due with her with our first child.

Now, fortunately I was I was still doing well with my

business. I would, you know, I was doing

good and all that stuff. But like finding that out,

that's a whole nother like and it was planned.

It wasn't a surprise, but like, that just kind of wakes the

guy's eyes up even more. It's like, OK, we're going to do

this, and obviously I'm not going to be able to spend as

much time in the shop as when I didn't have children.

So, like, getting even a little more efficient with things.

Yeah, that was. And then the second one wasn't.

A big deal because I we. Already had the first, but yeah,

I would say that was probably the biggest eye opening

experience. Because then.

It was like, Yep, this is really real, yeah.

Do your wife and your kids. Ever join you out in the shop?

Are they able to help with anything sometimes?

Clayton, he likes to at the end of the day, once in a while

he'll come out and he likes to help me shut things down.

You know, he'll flip the switch on the air compressor so it's

off or he'll I'll tell him what buttons to push on the CNC lathe

to shut it off, you know, to rehome everything and get it

shut off. And he likes to to sweep once in

a while as well. So I don't know, maybe down the

road when he's a little older, I might have him actually help me

out in the shop. If it's something that he wants

to do, that'd be awesome. But he likes working on my

wife's parents farm, the dairy farm and stuff.

He loves going in the tractors and all that stuff.

Even at three years old, he knows what all the tractors and

all the parts do and all that stuff.

Like he, he, he's really smart with that stuff because he does

it every day because he goes there for daycare.

So but yeah, it was, it's really nice having kids that are able

to grow up on a farm. I'm really blessed in that

regards because they know how to work.

They're not afraid to get dirty. Most kids these days don't know

how that they don't have that experience.

So they'll be, they'll definitely be a few steps ahead

when it comes to real life, you know, when they're older because

they won't be afraid to work. So yeah, Harvard did a study.

Oh, probably 3 or 4 years ago I think.

And they tried to determine the the most determinative factor of

success from childhood and it was kids that grew up with

chores and responsibilities was the the primary determining

factor. So I don't.

I don't doubt it. That, yeah, that definitely.

Makes sense. We got a, we got a bunch of

little chickens and stuff that Clayton and Vivian are Raisin.

So we get like 3 or 4 eggs a day.

But they get home from grandma's and they got their chicken

chores and you know, they'll feed the cats and the dogs and,

and all that stuff as well. They got their little ducks in

the chicken building as well. So yeah, it and then they got

chores at the, at the farm as well.

So yeah, it's definitely kids that are able to work and not

afraid to work. They have a huge step up in

today's environment 'cause I had, I've had it before where I

had some like part time work that I needed done for guys.

Like I needed someone to come help me with and like younger

kids. Cider rifle in or you know,

hydroform brass or you know something that's easy and they

didn't want to do it for 25 bucks an hour and it's like.

This this generation is in for a rude.

Awakening like the the younger generation getting everything.

Handed to them and not. Having to work for it is going

to really bite them in the butt when they go into the real

world, and I'm sure it already has, but yeah, oh man, when?

When I was that age, if I could have made 25 bucks an hour to

cite in rifles, that's what I would still be doing today.

Yeah, yeah, I would have killed. For $25.00 an hour in high

school and just out of high school because I was making like

1213 bucks an hour doing hard work, you know, manual labor

outside and I would have killed for 25 bucks an hour.

What's something you? Wish you would have learned.

Earlier. How to run CNC?

Definitely kind of coming. Back to that, it's definitely a

game changer for, for making everything more efficient.

And if I could go back in time to like in college, I, I would

have definitely taken some CNC classes for, for mills and stuff

like that. Because there, I mean, there's a

huge. Demand for that.

Stuff outside of the firearms industry as well.

The firearms industry is. Really saturated with.

Parts getting made by CNC and stuff like that.

So like if I was to buy a bunch of mills and stuff like.

That I'm not sure if I would. Really aim towards the firearms

industry just because it's so saturated, everybody making the

same part and everything, but yeah.

That'd probably be 1. Of the things I do OK.

What has been your biggest win? There's been, there's been a lot

of wins. Fortunately, and I guess it kind

of goes back. To a saying my.

Grandpa always told me it was. He always said the harder you

work, the luckier you get, and it's about the truest statement

a guy could ever get. So obviously I, you know, like I

said, I used to work 120 a 130 hours a week and so I, and I

still work a lot of hours. So the harder you work, the

luckier you get. So I've just been very blessed

with great customers, everything working great for the business

in all sorts of area. Also, you know, blessed with a

wonderful family as well. So I, I couldn't say that I have

one big win. I'm just very blessed that I

have a lot of, a lot of. A lot of.

Wins and it just I guess it just comes from working hard,

grinding away. I love that.

That's one of my. Favorite quotes as.

Well. I actually still have that.

He had it put into like a poster.

I still have that in my office. Just so you never forget to keep

grinding, you know, Don't get complacent.

What? Has been your.

Best resource to grow as a gunsmith, grow as a businessman

or grow as a person I would say. My grandfather was the biggest

source of influence. Resource on me.

Growing up, well when he was really young, he was literally

dirt floor poor and threw a lot of hard work.

If he became very successful in life.

And that taught me that if you work hard you can do whatever

you want. If failure isn't an option, then

you can do a lot of things. And failure for him wasn't an

option because he didn't have anything to fall back on.

If he failed his, his family didn't eat.

So him, his story and just overall his influence on me has

been huge in my life. It's priceless.

So he's he's taught me countless things in life.

So that was definitely biggest influence on me.

Good. Awesome.

Question I ask every guest. Are you a person of a particular

faith background? And if so, how has that affected

your business journey? Yeah, I.

I am definitely a person of. Faith, I believe in God and and

I do pray all the time. Wife probably doesn't see me

pray all the time, but it's it's really guided me and to be a

good person and treat everybody fairly no matter their

circumstances in life. Yeah.

And I think. It's just a good moral compass,

you know, I, I, I wish they would bring that back more into

school rather than trying to take God out of everything these

days. I'm not saying a person has to

be super religious, one religion or the other, but most of them

are just a pretty good moral compass for somebody to live by,

you know, So it's, it's. Pretty important to in in.

My opinion, yeah. For people, I would agree.

With you there so. Couple questions as we kind of

wrap. Things up, Is there anybody that

you would like to see on the show?

Do you know of somebody that has a cool story, a cool background,

or is involved in a really unique industry that you'd like

to hear their story? Dang, I wish I.

Had something popped to me and off the top of my head.

I might have to get back to you on that one.

I might have. To send you a message, a message

on that one later we're we're always.

Looking for interesting and unique stories so yeah, if you

think of anybody, please let me know.

I'd love to have an introduction, so yeah, I'll.

I got. AI got I got 1.

Guy that I'd probably I'll ask him if if it would be OK, but

he's definitely done a lot of things in life as well starting

he he's started, you know, from nothing and.

Made. A huge success of himself.

Super cool guy. I'll I'll ask him.

That'd be the one guy I could think.

Of off the top of my head. So I I don't want to like name

names without someone being fine with.

Understandable. Well, we ask every guest to

either fuel or settle the debate.

If you have to do a job with a cordless tool, which brands do

you prefer? I got a few I guess, but we got

DeWalt. I don't have a pile of cordless

tools I guess, but DeWalt would probably be.

What we got? Most of but.

All. Right.

Another one on the board for DeWalt.

I know you've been out to Wyoming.

Here where I'm from quite a few times hunting.

Do you have any trips coming up in the near future we've been

trying to get? The wife's been trying to get a

Antelope Buck tag out in Wyoming for a few years now, but they're

they've definitely cut back on tags in the last few years out

there and made it really difficult.

I got a friend out there that he, he's gracious enough to let

us go out on his, on his ranch whenever we get tags or anything

like that. And so we've been trying to get

her a buck tag. I was able to get I, I drew a

buck tag I think 7 years ago and I was fortunate enough to get,

and it was 82 and change for the animal buck.

So I was really happy with that. It was one of the bigger ones

that he's ever had at his place. So it's not like I'm expecting

her to get something like that. Like we're not going after

Goliath. We just want her to get

something decent. And she just hasn't been able to

draw A tag because they cut cut back due to the winter kills and

all that stuff. We're applying for other tags

and stuff as well, elk and and mule deer and a few others.

But we just like the antelope and it's easy.

We can take the kids out and it's, it's not hard to, you

know, we don't have to go 10 miles backpacking in for, for

the antelope. So it's easy to throw the kids

on the pack and go out and get one.

The last time we went out, we had both kids and my son

Clayton, he had never shot a gun before at the time, but we saw

the antelope and he was under the impression that he was going

to shoot one and they were 1000 yards away.

And I'm like, nobody, you can't shoot it.

You've never shot a gun and it's way too far for you to shoot 1.

And he started throwing a fit and I'm like, OK, well, I'm not

getting within 500 yards of these things with a little kid

throwing a fit. So I said just be quiet for two

seconds. So I popped my head up on the

hill and I shot a doe at 960 yards.

And then we went up up to it and all that.

And he was super excited. That was that was the last time

we were in Wyoming. Hopefully we get.

Some doe tags or a buck tag next year on the Antelope meat is one

of my favorites. And I think, you know, you

always hear people saying, oh, antelope is garbage.

Well, I don't think it's garbage, but we also skin it and

it's on ice instantly. It's not in the back of the

truck. It is instantly on ice, you

know, skin off and everything cooled down.

And I would rate it as good as the Iowa corn fed white tails.

So yeah, I'm a big fan of the. Of the.

Antelope. Yeah, I know in. 2020.

Two, we had a really rough winter and wiped out a lot of

the antelope population, so they've really turned the tags

back since then so yeah, yeah. And the.

The unit that we go in is not. A highly sought after unit.

We are just friend has enough land there that you know, it's

not a huge issue to find, you know, a few bands of you know,

and also he usually has us come later in the season too.

So like they're kind of wintering there so that that

helps too. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully

she draws a A tag for this coming year.

So we'll see. Yeah, fingers crossed for you.

Yeah. So.

If our. Listeners.

Want to get in touch with you? If they're interested in

purchasing a rifle or some of your other products, What's the

best way to find you and get in touch The.

Best way to? Get a hold of me would be to

shoot me an e-mail or a Facebook message lately.

There's been so many. Spam phone calls, literally 15

to 20 a day. So like if I don't recognize the

number, 75% of the time it's spam.

So like, I'm not going to answer it.

If you leave a message that helps, but like shoot me an

e-mail or a Facebook message and I will get back to you that day.

That's definitely the easiest way.

The website peerseasonrifles.com or my e-mail is

peerseasonrifles@yahoo.com and then Facebook is just name of

the company or my personal page. Ryan Pierce Facebook Messenger

is the quickest way to get a hold of me, but e-mail I'll

generally get back to you the same day as well.

So or Instagram peer season rifles.

I'll I'll get back to you on Instagram as well, OK and if

you're. OK with it we'll.

Put all those links in the show notes so that they can get in

touch with you. Well, Ryan, thank you.

So much for joining us. It has been a pleasure.

I've really enjoyed hearing more about what you do and how you do

it and your background. So I really appreciate you

taking the time and thank you guys all for being part of From

the Ground Up show. If you want to be a part of a

future show, please reach out to me on our website from the

ground up, show.com, on social media at From the Ground Up

show. And again, if you've enjoyed the

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Leave us a five star review, like follow, share, subscribe.

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Until next time, keep grinding.