Ryan Pierce – From Hobby to Mastery – 2nd Place National Long Distance Shooter and Master Gunsmith

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Today, 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, an outdoor enthusiast, a husband, and a father.

And 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 a super long range, super accurate rifle in a lightweight package.

And ah I was considering some newer cutting edge calibers.

And as I called around, asked around, researched, 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

long range, accuracy, lightweight, and especially being right on the cutting edge of 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.

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

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for having me on the show.

It's an honor 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 uh throughout your career and especially in the field that you're in, 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, went out to Montana, with my kids and my wife and my buddy, Mike, and, uh, had a customer out there that, um, invited us out to his place to fill some

cow elk tags.

And, uh, yeah, it was a great time.

The weather was beautiful.

There was a pile of elk and, uh, 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 think you need something huge for Elk and it's all really just knowing the limits of each setup.

Seeing as it's a 25, we're not going to shoot something away out there with it.

And Sean had said, realistically, everything's going to be inside 400 yards.

like, zero recoil off a tripod.

And for her, if you don't shoot a whole lot, something with no recoil is kind of nice.

So that 25 SOM with those 133 burgers, it took like two steps and fell over dead.

So yeah, it worked out great for her and my buddy Mike, was using a 300 WSM.

built him and two 15 burgers and 10 ring that it was like 220 yards, nothing hard at all.

And in fact, 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 one and he shot the same time.

And then Sean,

grabbed one, uh, got one too.

So was, was a good time.

Yeah.

We all tagged out and got a pile of meat in the freezer and got to enjoy 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, uh,

family back home really wouldn't, uh, allow that.

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

So.

That's great.

It is beautiful out here.

I love it here.

uh I know 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've kind of introduced her to?

Yeah, that was something she'd always enjoyed, which is kind of something that um kind of drew me towards her and um kind of hit it off right off the bat.

We met and we're talking about hunting 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 two or three inches at 900 yards

of the six by 47 I had.

And 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 class rifle I had at the time.

I needed some brass that needed formed anyways at the time.

I'm like, hell, just let her form brass for me.

And she actually won the match forming brass with a backup.

So yeah, that was kind of 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 two inch group at 900 yards.

Yep.

Also realized I better not piss her off either.

You gotta get a long ways away to be safe from her.

Yep.

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, 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 grandparents, my grandpa, and then my dad.

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.

just went hunting every single day 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, ah, let's, you know, let's maybe go to school and learn how to do some of this stuff.

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

I went to local community college for like, uh, a semester and did a bunch of business classes.

I'd already taken a lot of business classes 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, uh, learn how to do some machining and, and, you know, gunsmithing and all that, and kind of just go from there.

So went out to Colorado and, uh, Colorado school of trades gunsmithing.

um, was like an 18 month program or something like that.

And, came back and, uh,

applied for my FFL and realized I wouldn't be going full time right off the bat.

So um I got a job at Brucks Barrels and worked there for a while and learned a lot from them, the barrel making business.

uh Norm Brucks, the owner, one of the owners, uh extremely knowledgeable machinist, um makes all his tools from scratch for the most part and machines are

pretty old, they've redone them to where they're hold amazing tolerances, all that.

And the guy was just a wealth of knowledge.

ah Got to see him for the first time in a long time.

When I went to the Nationals this year, I'd taken like a nine year break.

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

And ah this year I shot two warmup matches for Nationals and

Like you said earlier, as a national, I ended up getting second place.

So I was really happy.

The rifles shot absolutely insane.

Both of them are tuned just unbelievably.

Like it's crazy.

Like I shot a 20 shot group at 900 a few weeks ago and it was like 3.2 inches of vertical.

I think it was the first 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 four inch total group, but there was a little bit of a breeze out there.

But yeah, it was great to see Norm catch up, see 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 Len Bacchus at Long Range Hunting, the website.

Jim was making all of Lens rifles at the time.

So I kind of got to see, you know, 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 got to.

see how he does it.

There was a few other guys that showed me how they did things as well.

um Some pretty well known guys.

So I was really thankful to be, know, getting to be taken under their wing, showing how to do things and kind of just form my own techniques after seeing all their techniques, you

know, kind of what worked for me.

Yeah, is there quite a bit of variation in 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.

ah 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 um 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 end 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 machining's crooked.

So getting everything

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

um if you want to have absolute max accuracy and then having the reamer go in absolutely dead straight as well.

So yeah, there's definitely a lot of different ways to do it, but there's only a few ways to hold it correctly and do everything right.

Same with about really every other aspect of um building the rifle as far as bedding.

um and all that.

There's a lot of stuff that goes into it that most people don't do.

um Going through the ignition system and ensuring that everything is up to snuff, nothing's dragging, you have enough firing pin travel, enough protrusion, enough spring

pressure.

uh There's a lot more things to it than what most people realize.

I mean, could go into the really

depths of it, but most people probably wouldn't understand it.

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.

Cause you don't want to spend an hour talking about something nobody would really understand.

So, but yeah.

um

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 first place, weren't you?

Just a couple points off.

Yeah, after the first day, so you get relays, get drawn relays.

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

So there was 50, think 50 targets.

So roughly 250 shooters if there's five relays.

So I was third relay.

So generally you want first relay because 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.

was absolutely dead calm.

Um, at beginning of the day, uh, they do 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 gonna be some really high score shot on this one.

Cause there's no wind and there was some high scores.

was like.

I think the highest was a 200 with 17 Xs or 16 Xs.

So the X ring at thousand is five inches and the 10 ring is 10 inches.

So people were getting, you know, 17 out of 20 shots at a thousand into a five inch circle with all of them going into 10 inch circles.

So when I saw those scores, I'm like, yeah, I'm on third really, this is going to be kind of tough to, to do this one.

So I knew I wouldn't get an 18 X, but I was able to clean it.

I got a 200 with like 12 or something like that, which for that relay was one of the highest scores because 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 lead.

So I was really happy with that considering having hardly shot in the last decade.

So I was able to hold on to first 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.

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.

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 in that.

It was.

Very switchy, there was, so to kind of give um listeners an idea of what we were dealing with.

So like I said, the 10 ring is 10 inches.

ah The nine ring is 15 inches, eight ring is 20 inches.

So throughout those relays, you might aim 10 inches to the right and 10 inches to the left, depending on what the wind is doing or more, it just depends on what those.

wind is doing and you've got to be able to look at those flags and know with certainty.

ah You have to have the confidence to know, hey, the flag just moved to the Mirage, just move X amount.

need to aim 10 to 15 inches over to hit the 10 ring and X string.

it was, uh yeah, I was really happy with my performance.

The rifle shot phenomenal and the bullet combo I was using definitely helped.

um But the

the accuracy over extended strings with that combo is insane.

Like the SD, the standard deviation in both those rifles is four for 50 shots.

it's insane.

It's one of the most consistent combos I've ever seen.

I did spin two 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 gonna go shoot.

Yep.

I was going 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.

um I do have a 900 yard range at the house, at the shop here.

um 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 5,000 million different load combinations and all that stuff.

Granted, after doing this long enough, you have an idea of what it's gonna like to be shot, but still takes a lot of time.

got lucky with the house that we bought that I had the land to uh be able to do that.

We got the steel of a century on a place.

it was, yeah, I can shoot way out there.

So, yeah.

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 knew right where to put me to get started.

Yep.

Yeah, 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 at the

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

um And so depending on what bullet the guy's going to use, um I know what length they're going to want to be shot off the lands generally.

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, not many people have a range at their house.

Most people got to drive an hour or two to the range.

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 uh 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.

ah What does that education look like?

How much time do you spend on different things and what kind of things did they teach you?

Um, at that time, um, lot of it was more general gunsmithing, which I didn't want to do really.

Um, and when I got out of school, I quickly realized that, uh, 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.

um Business insurance, just anything to keep the lights on is 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.

custom rifles um is what I'm specializing in the lightweight custom rifles, long range hunting rifles.

And then uh I have all the stuff on the shelf as well.

So I'll sell the parts to um regular, you know,

retail customers as well as other rifle builders across the country.

um They'll shoot me a text and, you got this on a shelf?

Yep.

So they'll have it a couple of days later, give them bit of a discount on it.

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.

Yeah.

So yeah.

So you mentioned that there wasn't a lot of money in general gunsmithing, but I think ah every gun nut 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?

Um, I generally wake up about four 30 and I'm in here shortly after.

Um, 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.

Um, so in the shop, what I do is I have a bunch of benches lined up and so I can have, uh, like 24 rifles lined up in a row.

And so what I'll generally do is, um, I'll do them.

all at the same time.

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 code them all and then clean everything up 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 had the space to do it if I want to, if I want to just do a pile of one thing or the other.

ah But yeah, 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 not going to work.

um So I had a pile of bench space made and line everything up and get it as efficient as possible.

then once those are done, I got a walk-in vault um that has

parts bins with barrels, actions, stocks, all that stuff in each bin.

And I'll just, 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 uh watching you on social media and my experience with you building my rifle.

seems like for a one man shop, you turn out a lot of rifles.

You are busy.

Other than the 24 Bay bench or the 24 bench shop.

um Is there a secret to the efficiency and the amount of product you're putting out?

Um, lot of hours pretty much work every day.

Um, 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.

Um, weekends all, you know, come in early, putz around, they wake up, I'll go have breakfast with them.

Um, if we're, if we're going to do something for the day, we'll go off and do something for the day.

Otherwise all, you know, maybe come back out, putz around for a few more hours and then go spend the rest of 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 gonna do, you know so Yep, yep, 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 eventually if

something didn't work out, then I'd just do machine,

open

up a machine shop and just contract stuff out, stuff like that.

But right now there's no other option, so that's what I'm doing.

I'm fortunate enough that I have enough of a demand from people 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, them in stock.

A lot of guys 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 uh most guys will be fine with a slightly different color pattern.

So that's what a lot of what I do is just build a lot of stuff to have on the shelf ready to ship.

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've really thought about it.

And I have had a guy, well, right now 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 Norma

improved.

uh have the brass is neck turned.

So he'll come in uh once in a while and I have a little mini lathe, it's called a auto-dod.

uh

It turns the inside and outside of the neck.

like he'll come in and ah turn the brass for me.

Cause I don't want to get off my actual lathe or 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.

he'll just come over and do that.

Or em if, if, know, some guys want to pay for a barrel to be broken, you know, that takes a hundred rounds.

ah So it's that's time consuming.

I'm not going to.

uh

stay off the lathe to do that.

So I'll have him come over and, know, shucks, he gets to come over and shoot some guns.

So I have a...

are you taking applications?

Yeah.

So, um, and I've kind of streamlined that too in the shooting room, have airlines hooked up with dryer units throughout them coming from the air compressor.

like, you know, every few shots, he'll put the airline in the chamber and it'll cool the barrel back down instantly.

Um, so, you know, if, if, I have like a suppressed, like my suppressed rifles, um, 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 in fairly fast that way.

So he'll come over and break barrels in once in a while and do that too.

So other than that, I've thought about it and I got a guy that could, Jim, 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, okay, 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 then at the same time, it's not me building every single rifle.

uh So right now I'm in control of everything.

I'm the only one that touches a rifle.

for at the time being, I really don't want to expand just to do, well, then there's also the economic uncertainties right now.

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 six 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.

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 ah I looked up the top finishes from uh F-Class competitions over the last

five or six years.

And a lot of the shooters will name their builder and...

your name was on like half of the rifles.

It seemed like you owned the majority of that market.

So that kind of took away any question for me of who I wanted to have building my rifle.

I was really fortunate.

had some friends and customers that were

really good shooters.

um So I used to shoot all the time and I quickly realized that, okay, you're going to spend two days prepping brass, loading ammo and two days shooting.

Okay, that's four days out of the week that you're not making any money.

That's not going to work.

So fortunately I had some customers that were really good shooters as well.

So they kind of...

were the advertisement for, ah 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 stuff like that.

So that helped out a lot.

ah And then it 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

ah hourly overhead with new shop, new machines and all that stuff.

I can't make the math math on doing F class rifles full time ah in support of family and all that.

I'll do it for like two people, two, three people.

um That's it.

Cause they're really, really good shooters.

I don't make any money on them, 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 oh a long range hunting rifle?

ah Stock finishing is a killer um as far as clear coating and all that stuff.

Just everything about it is a lot more time consuming.

Having to wear gloves the whole time you ever touch 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.

um

constraints and all that stuff.

with the hunting rifles, I can just line them all up and be very efficient at it.

ah So yeah, that's what I focus on right now.

So I enjoy the F class.

just can't.

And I got back into shooting, but I'm only going to shoot like three matches a year, three or four a year.

It'll be just big matches, nationals.

That's it.

Cause 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 Berger Southwest Nationals.

I'm going to bring the kids and wife down, have a little mini vacation out of it.

And then there'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 in 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 definitely makes it so it's possible.

Because otherwise, just leaving the kids behind with the wife, that's not really fair.

So if we can make a vacation out of it and stop along the way, stop at national parks, enjoy some scenery, and then once we're out there, throw them in the pack and go antelope

hunting or something with us.

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, 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 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 younger daughter, I had her out in one of the packs with all bundled up in her snow suit with headphones on mule deer hunting.

I think she was like five or six months old.

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

I hope she sticks with it.

That's awesome.

So something I was wondering about, and I imagine there might be a different answer for F-class shooting versus ah long range hunting, but do you have a favorite rifle platform

that you like to use?

Uh, for hunting, um, it really depends on, um, what I'm going after in the terrain.

Um, if it's going to be close shots, you don't need a big Uber Magnum.

Um, but if, you know, it's a lot of open country and it's going to be out there a bit for like elk or something like that, um, or just big game in general, I'm probably going to

take my 300 Norma improved.

Um, with I'm using the, two 45 LRHT burgers and the BC on them's eight 46.

So like, can't ignore that.

It's guy high BC.

Essentially, um, with, with that high of BC, it's like, it'd be like shooting a 300 grain, three 38 burger, a hundred feet per second faster than the two 45, which if you're using

the same cartridge,

Um, is not possible.

You would have to up the, the, cartridge and you know, the size of the cartridge substantially to do that.

So in a lightweight, um, setup where you can still spot your hits and have pretty much the ultimate, um, 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 nozzle is definitely a laser.

just has a lot less barrel life.

um As you know, the Nosler is straight up laser.

Once you get into those big Magnum shooting, heavy for caliber bullets really fast, it opens up a huge, it's just a huge step up in performance.

With those two 45s, for example, um guys should really just go punch the numbers in for themselves to see how much of an increase.

in performance it is with a 195 7 mil or a 30 cal 245 going really fast over, you know, the six five grade more or six five PRC or whatever.

It's a massive difference.

ah Even in like my 22 inch barrel for my Norma improved, you know, some guys were like, you neutered the cartridge.

It's like, no, I really didn't.

I still have enough energy and

velocity to take an elk at like 1400 yards, which I'm not going to do anyways.

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 went with a shorter barrel for hunting.

But if it's something that's close, if it's going to be inside 500 yards, I'll use a 25 cal or something like that that has no recoil off a tripod.

I'd have no problem shooting a cow elk or something like that up to 5600 with a 25 cal.

They're more than sufficient.

Yeah, I know when I ordered yours, the 28 Nozzler was really hot and uh you were kind of on the cutting edge of, you know, cutting custom chambers to load the 195s.

And so that's what we settled on.

was shortly after that, you started building a lot of those 300 Norma improved and it's been tempting.

I've wanted to switch over for a long time, but that 28 is doing really well for me for now.

So.

Yep.

Yeah, it's got less recoil than the 30 cal 245s.

And those 195 burgers are just straight up lasers.

The only downfall to it is barrel life.

A lot of guys with the nozzlers are running an N570, VitaVory N570, which isn't barrel friendly.

a lot of the time, I've done hundreds of 28 nozzlers and a lot of them

ah end up getting re-barreled about 500-600 rounds if you're using N570.

It might go a little further than that, 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 N570 and you keep the barrel cool, you know, you're right around a thousand rounds.

So it's pretty, pretty significant amount more barrel life, but it just depends.

You know, if a guy's never

gonna be planking and all that stuff, it's, you five, 600 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 two, 300 rounds on mine and 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.

Yep.

And a lot of times, guys will like a lot of what I've been doing too is switch barrel setups.

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 2,500 rounds.

And for practicing, you know, it'll you can shoot past a thousand 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 keeps you from having to buy another rifle to practice with as well.

So if a guy has a barrel vice, you know, changing a barrel is a 10 minute affair.

You just pop the scope off, take the barrel action 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 been a popular option for guys.

Yeah.

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

I have one of the 22s 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 matches everything that I see in the field.

So

Yep.

yeah.

you definitely need something that you can shoot with a lot just to 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 diving into other components, ah is there uh an action platform or uh 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?

uh I used a lot of the defiance actions for anything that is not a Norma uh improved.

uh The defiance actions are dead straight and the ignition system on them is awesome.

I don't have to remachine anything.

um 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.

Okay.

Let me go grab that barrel.

That's already seracoded 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.

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-Ax is like 24 ounces ah for a long action, steel action.

That's pretty hard to beat.

uh 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 six ounces heavier.

Maybe not even, it might not even be that much heavier.

I think it's like 27 or

28 ounces actually.

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

Ignition's great on it.

I don't have to fix anything.

The Vespa's got bigger threads, which is nice for the Norma.

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.

ah 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 uh bolt clicks or anything like that because of it, uh due to insufficient amount of wall thickness.

So those are the two main actions I use.

Otherwise, if a guy's not concerned about weight for the Norma's, I use a lot of Borden Bigfoots.

They're a few ounces heavier than the Bat.

They're a super straight action.

But Borden, he builds a pile of stuff for the F-class community.

One of my rifles is on a Borden.

It's insanely accurate.

Um, both my F class rifles, one's one's on a bat, one's on a board and they shoot the same load.

Um, identical.

the only difference is seating depth is like four thousand difference in that that's because one barrel has a few more hundred rounds than the other on it.

Otherwise they're identical.

Um, which is nice, but those, um, those are primarily what I use.

Uh, other than that, it would be, uh, Pierce engineering there 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.

use a lot of those.

That would be primarily what I use the most of.

I've had a lot of issues with some of the other manufacturers having to remachine 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.

it's time savings on each rifle.

So.

I still go through the defiance actions and stuff to make sure everything's good, but like I don't have to remachine anything.

Yeah, those are all Remington 700 footprints, correct?

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

Well, what drove you to start from a relatively young age and pursue kind of an unconventional career?

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

So was there uh an impetus or something that really pushed you that direction?

Probably would have been when I started ah 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 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.

uh I was working two to three jobs

which was including um building the rifles.

And it got to the point where I um working like 120 hours a week, every week.

And I'm like, okay, I have enough business built up to where I can go full time now, or so I thought.

um 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 full time, you need a pile of work lined up to stay busy.

um But I was just always involved in the outdoors and in my hands-on person.

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

So I just kind of just took off from there.

I'm not one to kind of half-ass something.

If I 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 is pretty much

been my motto for a really long time.

So ah went full time and just really took off from there, fortunately.

Fortunately, I'm able to do this full time.

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 a CNC lathe a lot sooner.

um I didn't go to school for, I never took any actual CNC courses, but I had a guy come out and write some programs for me.

I told him exactly what I wanted.

oh So I had the CNC lathe and he came out and 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, when 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.

um 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 see, it will have turned down the barrel and threaded it and I'll check the orientation 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 in, it doesn't matter what the muzzle is doing.

But in doing so, having it straight here, you're 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 o'clock 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 gonna get maximum elevation out of your scope.

um So the way they'll do it's operation is turn it down, 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'll offset it and walk away, come back, it's done and then it'll go from there.

um

for the other processes of chambering the barrel.

And then 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.

ah fortunately, I've only had a couple mistakes on the CNC.

I think I've only ruined one.

One or two barrels in eight, seven 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.

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 the one thing I wish I would have done sooner 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?

ah It would be extremely difficult um in today's climate, think personally, given the fact that there's so many um people out there building rifles, my advice to someone would be to

go to school um for um welding machine shop or something like that.

And obviously if you want to build rifles, you're going to need a machining background.

So take some classes in that, but don't rely on it as your full-time gig because the insurance for a rifle builder has gone up like 400 % for me in the last four years.

So it's insane.

And actually, I have some buddies that own welding businesses out in California, which cost a business in California is insane.

They're doing pipelines and stuff.

I'm paying more in business insurance than they are.

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.

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

than they used to be.

And everybody's kind of realizing trades are where it's at because AI is not going to replace that anytime soon.

um 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 um that's what I would recommend to someone in high school um trying to decide on what you're going to do.

do a trade um and take a few gen ed classes, take some business classes, um stuff like that, but try and pick out a trade that you think you might enjoy.

And a lot of high schools are doing that as well.

Like back in high school, we had um shop classes and stuff like that, but at that time they really didn't push it that hard.

So that's what I would recommend to somebody is, 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.

It does seem like that's an industry that's kind of blown up and maybe I would just not in the loop, but it seemed like 15, 20 years ago, everybody owned a production rifle and

custom rifles were kind of like, 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 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, it's definitely

picked up in the last 15 years, I would say, is when long range hunting rifles and just long range rifles in general has really, really picked up mainstream.

I would say probably PRS style matches are a huge factor in that because a lot of guys want to dip their feet.

They don't want to go by, you know,

an F class rifle to dip their feet in long range shooting.

But a lot of people have a bolt action 243 or 308 or whatever.

They can go dip their feet in it.

And if they really like it, they'll go from there and they'll buy a long range rifle designed around whatever they want to shoot.

But I would say that was a big factor and as well as the long range hunting shows from the big name custom rifle builders, that was huge as well.

having those shows all over TV that really got people really interested in long range shooting as well.

Yeah.

So for 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 gonna 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.

um Your basic factory uh rifles, know, off the shelf $500 rifles, obviously they're not gonna have an action that's as high of quality as like a Defiance.

or something like that, just because time constraints for, you you can't put a $1,500 action in a $500 rifle.

just doesn't work that way.

the $500 rifle, um 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 two or 300 yards, um you know, you can have 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 that 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.

Um, you can't have a rifle that's been dressed accurate consistently, um, for, you know, say a thousand 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 scope's gonna slip over time, guaranteed, because you can't make, the rings are not gonna be an exact,

perfect fit for the scope.

Because 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 use release agent, so it's not permanently glued in there.

it's such a good fit that if I 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.

like that's never gonna slip due to recoil.

There's just a lot of things that I do um that bring it to that next level of accuracy.

And a lot of people don't realize also that ignition, um the ignition characteristics of a rifle is huge for accuracy.

And companies can't do that in a, um

more economical setup.

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 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, um where everything is perfect every single time, sure, give me a shout.

I'll hook you up.

have a pile of different options.

It just really comes down to what

what all a guy wants out of it.

um As with anything, what's your hobby?

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

But the other thing I tell guys, you know, that the guys realize too, like a lot of the guys that I build rifles for, um 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, my rifle will shoot three inches at 900 yards all the time, that's a huge boost of confidence.

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 it just increases your odds a little bit more and gives you that extra boost of confidence when you're out in the field.

um

Not everybody's going to shoot 900 yards and honestly, not everybody should shoot 900 yards at an animal.

mean, it takes, you got to practice a lot to be able to do it consistently and ethically.

mean, ethics is a whole nother can of worms, but like I look at, cause 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.

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, um, is going to go exactly where I aim.

That's, that's a huge confidence boost.

So.

It is, I can speak to that as well.

know 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 uh getting dialed in on the one that I wanted and even just switching powders, primer, bullet,

everything.

I adjust my zero by an inch or two and, uh,

I started with it unsuppressed and put a suppressor on it and I had to move my zero a half inch.

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 four 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 a hundred yards.

just a bipod, no rear rest, no nothing, and put five shots exactly where they were supposed to go in about a three eights group.

four years of never, I mean, 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.

um I don't understand that very well.

I'm sure someone a little more novice than myself certainly doesn't.

Can you give us an overview or a novice idea of what you're talking about 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 cox position to the fired position.

And you just need X amount of energy to hit that primer um for it to reliably go off in cold weather.

Now, the size of the cartridge also um comes in the

effect as well because say you're shooting a six-dash 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 knowledgeable machinist and all that.

And he used, 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 was like, Brian, hey, I'm getting hang fires.

and my 28 nozzler with this action and I go, okay, I've dealt with them before.

You need to have X amount of firing pin travel.

You need to go um take the spring out of the firing pin and make sure that nothing is binding because the tip of the firing pin would generally bind in those actions in the

hole of the bolt.

would um bind in there, so was dragging.

You need to put a heavier spring in there as well.

because they use too light of a spring because everybody's all about, my bolt opens 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 Nosler 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 degrees 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, ideally you need 250 thou firing pin travel and you need, I like to use at least a 24 pound spring and you can't have your cocking piece dragging 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 always check is if you have something that's not quite right, your gun is not gonna 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.

um And so I've had that before where I just wanted to try it and um turn it around, shoots like crap.

Turn it back around, it's one hole.

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

I mean, that's just one of the things, but ignition is a huge thing.

If that ain't right, you're gonna have issues.

It's not gonna shoot good groups and your ES is not gonna be great and all that.

yeah, all those factors are big.

Thank you.

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 a few guys um that I know of that are sticklers on that as well, um but people don't advertise.

You don't really tell people how you make a better product using the same exact parts.

like, it was kind of a brief overview on how it's all done, but like, ah yeah, there's some other guys out there that do it and their rifles shoot because of that.

That's one of the important things for.

a magnum in cold weather hunting is ignition.

You'd be surprised at how many action manufacturers out there have insufficient firing pin travel or weak springs or this is dragging, that's dragging.

ah There's quite a few of them out there.

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 average shooter probably doesn't even know how to check that so So speaking of the average shooter um for the the average

shooter uh Recreationally or hunter out there that wants to improve his skills um What would be your recommendation of the the one skill or the one thing that they could do to

improve their shooting?

ah 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 setup to where when you're shooting, you can spot your hits.

You know, want to get it set up on the rifle, directly in line with the rifle, um 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, um 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.

ah But messing around with different um 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.

ah That would be something that I would recommend practicing on and being conscious of when you're shooting.

As far as 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, 15 to 20 pound 6.5 Creedmoor, not many scopes are going to fail on that because there's no recoil.

But if you go down to, say,

you know, an eight pound with optics, 28 Nosler 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 have a jig that measures it.

So it's a solid billet chunk with two pick rails on it.

So you can mount two 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 gonna do is you're gonna 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 $2,000 plus scopes.

that the reticle will move 3 1⁄8 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 1⁄8, 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 badmouth any particular companies.

But like the scopes that I do use that I will offer accuracy guarantees with would be Nightforce, Tangent, ZCO, March.

So ZCO would be Zero Compromise Optics, Tangent Theta, uh March Optics.

Those are primarily the ones that I use.

The most popular ones for hunting would be the Nightforce NX8.

um

That's 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 $2,000 on a scope, that scope is the scope for a lighter weight hunting setup that can take a

pounding and not lose zero.

um

out with that a couple months after I built my rifle.

Otherwise, that's what I would have.

I have my setup.

I like it.

I was happy with it.

I wasn't willing to change.

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, a four to 32 magnification range is huge and it's 28 ounces and they take abuse.

ah It's hard to beat for the price.

ah I have, I use the four to 20 ATAC R on all my hunting rifles.

I'm not worried about the extra seven ounces that ATAC R is absolutely bomb proof.

I've never had an issue with them and they've taken some massive beatings and not lost zero.

So.

I've had really good luck with those.

I've used some of the other scopes and there's other scopes out there that ah will hold a zero from recoil, but they are not a durable scope long-term.

ah I've had some scopes where over the course of a few years, 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, might not have tangent or ZCO glass on them, but they'll take a beating.

I'm not saying the ZCO or tangent are not durable scopes.

I'm just saying that for a hunting rifle, the NX8 and ATAC R-line, you can't beat for durability.

So 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 found it online and last time I checked the guy that was making them is no longer making them.

um And there's a few people ah that have posted their results as well on Accurate Shooter, the website, with that jig.

um was Field and Cave Outfitters was the name of the company that made it.

And a lot of people want to say, uh

well, 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 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.

m

You can't, um that jig does not lie.

Seeing it, that shows the results.

There's no lying.

um So use what you want, but I'll use what I know 100 % will take the recoil.

Now, like I said earlier, if you're 15 pound rifle, 6.5 Creedmoor, you don't need something that's absolutely bomb proof.

But if you're going in the back country,

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.

learned so much.

And I remember when you started putting out some of the tests with that jig, uh 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, well.

of time and I mean, there's always new scopes coming out and I've had some 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 out.

I'm going to go with what works.

and other guys will test it as well.

it shows promise and all that, then I'll test it, but I'm not gonna test every new thing that comes out.

Yeah, well feel free to give them my name.

I will happily receive some free stuff and test it out and send it back to them.

So

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 dove into scopes a little bit.

um Can we dive into some of the other accessories and maybe what some of your favorites are or the ones that you've tested and like?

We were talking about scope.

So what about rings?

What do you like for rings nowadays?

ah I would say primarily what I use would be the Nightforce Ultralight rings.

ah 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 the ah cartridge that I'm building the rifle in needs six screws, ah obviously you don't need a scope bedded in six screw rings if it's a uh 25 degree mark.

There's not much recoil on that.

ah

but I primarily used the Nightforce 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.

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 gonna slip due to recoil, guaranteed.

everything gets bedded.

I mean, I've even seen $400 one-piece mounts slip due to recoil that weren't bedded.

It doesn't matter what the scope rings are, they need bedded.

you want that peace of mind of knowing it's not gonna slip due to recoil, it's gotta be bedded.

And it also, besides slipping, it makes it to where there's no stress, because if it's bedded in there, it's 100 % stress-free, nothing's binding,

and all that.

that's just, yeah, that's primarily what I use for rings.

Occasionally, if I use like a ZCO scope, I'll use their rings and embed the scope in there, but Nightforce ultralight rings are primarily what I use.

And you mentioned bipods.

I know you like bipods with spike on the end, but what's your favorite?

I'm really a fan of the MDT, the SkyPod.

They're lightweight double pull.

I really like a lot.

You can use it from a lightweight magnum all the way up to a 20 pound rifle.

No problem.

I realize it's not cheap.

It's like $850, $900.

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, ah 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, huge for keeping it from hopping around, being able to spot your hits and all that versus just having the rubber feet on there.

ah 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 hits.

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 tightwad as well.

And he said, dude, this thing's legit.

And I'm like, okay, 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 okay, 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 um is nice because a lot of times, if you're in mountains and stuff, that tripod just does something that you can't do with a bipod um 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 use a lot of those Manders 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 ounces with an Arca rail, pick rail and flush cup.

So for a lightweight hunting setup, it's really hard to beat.

ah But having a good tripod is pretty invaluable in the field as well.

Because I would say in the last five years, would say at least 50 % of the shots that I've had are off a tripod.

Okay.

All right.

And I know you've recently started selling suppressors through your shop.

You've been shooting suppressed for a long time.

Do you have a favorite suppressor?

um I have the So it really depends on the setup, but if a guy's using a lighter weight hunting rifle, that's a magnum Having a suppressor with a break 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 um I think some Thunderbeast did some testing and they said it was

around,

50 % more recoil reduction compared to no break on the end.

And I would definitely agree.

It pretty much doubles the recoil reduction and makes spotting hits so much easier on these lightweight magnums off a bipod.

like my 300 Norma improved, you know, 245 burger, 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 break on the end of the suppressor.

Now yeah, it's a little louder, but 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 break on the end for the suppressor is awesome.

I did get one of the new unknown suppressors, unknown munitions, they're a Reaper.

um 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 um I really like it.

It's a super lightweight can with I did that so

I also did the they have the option to have it to where it'll mount to a Thunderbeast CB brake.

So I grabbed a CB titanium brake from Salmon River as well.

So the CB brake

The suppressor and the brake on the end is like 10.8 ounces.

So for a lightweight suppressor with a brake, it's really hard to beat.

ah they did ah a lot of testing from what I've seen as well as far as durability goes for that suppressor.

um They torture tested it.

They did like 40 rounds with a 20 inch 300 rum 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 Thunderbeast, 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 a 300 Norma look that was shot through it either.

It was a mild WSM load and a mild 25 PRC load.

up in 300 rounds.

And I've had other customers that have had that suppressor blow up.

several times for them as well.

ah those are the two suppressors so far that I would recommend um that are bombproof on short barrel setups.

Okay.

Yeah, it's not a pleasant experience when a suppressor blows up on you.

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 three days.

So I also, don't think I've any heard anybody refer to a 245 grain bullet going 3,900 feet per second as a mild load before.

2900.

Yeah, oh 2900 yeah Yeah, still that's a lot of energy

yeah, that setup's got a pile of energy.

That one, um I just realized it was too long with the suppressor on it, so I got a shorter barrel.

But yeah, that uh at 2900 plus feet per second, it had enough energy for elk, like typical elk hunting altitudes.

um

to like 15, 1600 yards, like it was insane, the amount of energy that combo carries.

So, but you don't need it for, I'm not gonna shoot that far out, so I won't know that 22 inch barrel, but that Norma is 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 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.

like, okay, it's not going to wear out.

Yeah, that seems like a sweet combination that I know you build a lot of those.

seem to be the guy that's kind of specializing in that.

So,

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 lathes for a pretty good price.

ah You just got to make sure that it's not absolutely beat to crap.

ah 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 ah get a good manual lathe.

and maybe go take 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.

um That would be another option as well.

ah There's a lot of videos out there as well.

You know how guys do things.

um

The internet's a pretty big source of information, but you definitely want to go just take, I would recommend taking a class at uh a community college uh and learning, also,

you know, learn how to use a mill and all that.

A manual mill isn't hard to use, but uh I would say a background and, you know, just a basic machining class would be uh 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.

uh

Okay.

Well, we've talked a lot about the technical side of things.

I wanted to dive a little bit more into 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, okay, I need to really step things up and get things rolling, up production if I'm gonna

support a family one day.

ah So that was like, okay, I need to build a new shop.

I need to get CNC lathe.

and I need to get everything set up to where it's optimized and as efficient as possible.

ah That was the biggest ah step I took and definitely the biggest.

ah

uh step I thought the most about taking because I mean that's a huge financial step and everything all around ah But it was definitely worth it.

It was definitely the route that I needed to take ah So that would yeah, that would be

Starting the business wasn't hard, that's not hard, but 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.

yeah, getting married can turn a hobby career into, we got to figure this out for real.

Yup, not much time to figure it out.

No, no, it's not hard to feed yourself, wives require like homes and stuff.

She's not gonna just sleep in the shop with you.

one room with a sofa and you know, like a guy in college would be.

Yeah.

um

My wife is really low maintenance, so I better make that statement.

She's very low maintenance, fortunately.

Because I wouldn't have married her otherwise, 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 in my wife.

oh

Good for you.

I can say the same.

My wife is pretty low maintenance and very hard worker, but it's still uh very different to provide for a wife and a family than like you said, just a single guy that can crash in

a one bedroom.

Yep.

At what point in journey of building your business were you most afraid?

Probably when I found out that my wife was due with our first child.

Now, fortunately, was still doing well with my business.

I was doing good and all that stuff, but finding that out, that's a whole nother, um and it was planned, it wasn't a surprise, but that just kind of wakes a guy's eyes up even

more.

It's like, okay, we're gonna do this.

Obviously I'm not gonna 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.

ah Yeah, that was, and then the second one wasn't a big deal because 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?

Um, sometimes, uh Clayton, likes to at the end of the day, once in while, he'll come out and he likes to help me ah 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.

ah You know, to rehome everything and get it shut off.

And he likes to sweep once in a while as well.

ah

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 uh 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 uh all the parts do and all that stuff.

He's really smart with that stuff, because he does it every day, because he goes there for daycare.

uh

But yeah, it's really nice having kids that are able to grow up on a farm.

I'm really blessed in that regard because they know how to work.

They're not afraid to get dirty.

ah Most kids these days don't know how, they don't have that experience.

ah So, 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 three or four years ago, I think, and they tried to determine the most determinative factor of success from childhood.

it was kids that grew up with chores and responsibilities was the primary determining factor.

Yep, don't doubt it.

That definitely makes sense.

We got a bunch of little chickens and stuff that Clayton and Vivian are raising so we get like three or four eggs a day.

they get home from grandma's and they got their chicken chores and uh they'll feed the cats and the dogs and all that stuff as well.

They got their little ducks in the chicken uh building as well.

And then they got chores at the farm as well.

yeah, it's definitely...

Um, 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, um, 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, um, sight a rifle in or, you know, hydro form 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 generation is in for a rude awakening, like the younger generation.

Getting everything handed to them and not having to work for it is gonna really bite them in the butt when they go into the real world.

And I'm sure it already has, but ah yeah.

man, when I was that age, if I could have made 25 bucks an hour to sight in rifles, that's what I would still be doing today.

yeah, yeah, I would have killed for $25 an hour in high school and just out of high school.

Cause I was making like 12, 13 bucks an hour doing hard work, know, manual labor outside and I would have killed for 25 bucks an hour.

ah What's something you wish you would have learned earlier?

How to run CNC, definitely kind of coming back to that.

um It's definitely a game changer for making everything more efficient.

um And if I could go back in time to like uh in college, I would have definitely taken some CNC classes um for mills and stuff like that.

um Cause there, I mean, there's a huge demand for that stuff outside of the firearms industry as well.

um

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 uh just because it's so saturated, everybody

making the same part and everything.

um But yeah, that'd probably be one of the things I'd do.

Okay.

What has been your biggest win?

There's been a lot of wins, fortunately.

And I guess it kind of goes back to a saying my grandpa always told me.

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, like I said, I used to work 120, 130 hours a week.

And...

So, 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, um everything working great for the business, um and all sorts of areas.

Also, know, blessed with a wonderful family as well.

So I couldn't say that I have one big win.

I'm just very blessed that I a lot of uh wins.

And 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, uh 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.

ah 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 source of influence resource on me growing up.

Well, when he was really young, he was literally dirt floor poor.

And through a lot of hard work, he became very successful in life.

And that taught me um 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 family didn't eat.

um So, his story and just overall his um influence on me has been huge in my life.

um It's...

Priceless so he's he's taught me countless things in life.

So that was definitely Biggest influence on me

Good.

Awesome.

A question I ask every guest, are you a person of a particular faith background?

And if so, how has that affected your business journey?

Um, yeah, I am definitely a person of faith.

I believe in God and I do pray all the time.

Wife probably doesn't see me pray all the time, but, uh, it's really guided me and to be a good person and treat everybody fairly, um, no matter their circumstances in life.

uh, yeah.

And I think it's just a good moral compass.

Um,

I wish they would bring that back more into school rather than trying to take God out of everything these days.

ah 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.

It's pretty important to, in my opinion, for people to...

agree with you there.

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?

Hmm.

I I had something pop to me off the top of my head.

get back to you on that one.

I might have to send you a uh message on that one later.

Well, we're always looking for interesting and unique stories.

uh yeah, if you think of anybody, please let me know.

I'd love to have an introduction.

Yeah, I'll,

I got one guy that I'd probably, uh I'll ask him if it would be okay, but he's definitely done a lot of things in life as well.

He started from nothing and made a huge success of himself.

uh Super cool guy.

I'll ask him.

That'd be the one guy I could think of off the top of my head.

I don't want to like name names without someone being fine with it so...

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 brand do you prefer?

Um

We got a few, I guess, 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.

Alright, another one on the board for DeWalt.

Hahaha!

ah 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?

oh We've been trying to get the wife's been trying to get a Antelope buck tag out in Wyoming ah 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'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.

was able to get, I drew a buck tag, I think seven years ago and I was fortunate enough to get a, I 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.

ah 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 back due to the winter kills and all that stuff.

Yeah.

for other tags and stuff as well.

uh Elk and mule deer and a few others, but um we just like the antelope hunt.

It's easy.

We can take the kids out and uh it's not hard to, you know, we don't have to go 10 miles backpacking in 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, uh we had both kids and uh 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 a thousand 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 one.

And he started throwing a fit and I'm like, okay, 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 the last time we were in Wyoming.

Hopefully we get some doe tags or a buck tag next year.

The antelope uh meat is one of my favorites.

And I think, you 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 whitetails.

So yeah, I'm a big fan of the antelope.

Yeah, I know in 2022 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 unit that we go in is not a highly sought after unit.

friend has enough land there that it's not a huge issue to find a few bands.

And also, he usually has us come later in the season too, so they're kind of wintering there.

So that helps too.

Hopefully she draws a tag for this coming year, so we'll see.

Yeah, fingers crossed for you.

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?

ah The best way to get a hold of me would be to shoot me an email or a Facebook message.

uh

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 gonna answer it.

If you leave a message, that helps, but like, shoot me an email or a Facebook message and I will get back to you that day.

That's definitely the easiest way.

ah The website, piercisionrifles.com or my email is piercisionrifles.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 ahold of me, but email I'll generally get back to you the same day as well.

Or Instagram, ah Pierce's and Rifle's, I'll get back to you on Instagram as well.

Okay, and if you're okay with it, we'll put all those links in the show notes so that they can get in touch with you.

Awesome.

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's show.

If you want to be a part of a future show, please reach out to me.

on our website fromthegroundupshow.com, on social media at fromthegroundupshow.

And again, if you've enjoyed the show, if you enjoy the content, please help us out.

Leave us a five star review, like, follow, share, subscribe.

Those are the big things that move us up in the algorithms and get it out so more people can hear the show.

Until next time, keep grinding.