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6 Ranch Podcast
6 Ranch Podcast
Whitetail Country with Nosler
NOSLER made a new bullet. This is their first new bullet since the accubond. It’s a premium projectile specifically designed for hunting whitetail deer. I drove across the state to watch the first of these bullets get made, got to be the first non employee to shoot them, and recorded this podcast with John Nason and Madi Woodward to get into the nitty gritty details of what this bullet actually is capable of doing. Tune in to find out.
Check out Nosler WHITETAIL AMMO.
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but also our customers that loved it back then. It's a little different now. We're on a fifth generation jacket, so we've improved the Boltz jacket over time, but it's really the deer hunter's bullet.
Speaker 2:These are stories of outdoor adventure and expert advice from folks with calloused hands. I'm James Nash and this is the Six Ranch Podcast. For those of you out there that are truck guys like me. I want to talk to you about one of our newest sponsors, dect. If you don't know DECT?
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Speaker 3:I'm glad that you made it. What a drive. A drive to get a like a dine store tour sit in my dirty office. You do get to choose dinner tonight, but we feel really stoked that um, especially from our home state. There's a lot of podcasters but very few of your caliber from our stompa ground, so it's nice to have you here maddie, did you grow up in oregon?
Speaker 3:I did john, you grew up in oregon yeah, once I was army brat until I was, and then my mom moved to Bend since 83, so quite a long time People listen to this show all over the world.
Speaker 2:All over the world like over 100 countries every week, which is just crazy to me. So people listen to the show all over the world lots and lots of countries. I think that even within our own country there's a misconception about what oregon is, and certainly outside of the country, like if oregon's making the news to a foreign country, it isn't going to be at all representative of the oregon that we know no so how would you describe oregon as it is outside of the city centers?
Speaker 2:like, what is an oregonian? What are the traits of the people who live here?
Speaker 1:oregon gets a bad rap because we're associated with portland and eugene, which is obviously not the oregon we live in or love. The thing that's neat to me about oregon is it has all the seasons, it has all the species of animals, it has all different terrains. It's like everything you could ever want wrapped up into one state yeah, and even to that statement about the people.
Speaker 3:Like I've been to the country fair. It's pretty awesome like it is a unique crowd, but I feel like it just adds to the country fair. It's pretty awesome Like it is a unique crowd, but I feel like it just adds to the flavor of Oregon and we've done a pretty good job of, as a state, leaving stuff alone. I know we always you know that's what politics is we argue about. Everyone wants it their way and if everyone's just a little bit unhappy, then we're doing okay, cause we're right in the middle and no one can have their way all the way. And that's why Oregon is so beautiful, I think is because of certain politics and that's why we live on this side of the mountain. Because of certain politics. But, like Maddie said, it's a hodgepodge of everything, like every season, every climate. You can find every type of person. There's so many incredible species here and it's really there's not that many people here either. It's kind of nice, yeah yeah, and our population hasn't changed that much.
Speaker 2:Like it was four and a half million people when I graduated high school, it's four and a half million people now and, uh, that's the last 20 years I think too, regardless of your views, a lot of Oregon is outdoorsy people.
Speaker 1:For sure you know from like skiing, hiking, biking, camping, hunting, you know, it's all outdoor recreation.
Speaker 2:And I think to your earlier point, the venues for that recreation are so variable. Here, you know, we have desert, we have rainforest, we have volcanoes, that have, you know, snow that's left over from the last ice age and deep crevasses on them. We've got the deepest canyon on the continent. You know we have these massive wilderness areas and you know closed basins where water flows in and doesn't flow out like that's. That alone is insane. Um, there's so much that's cool and interesting about this, about this place, and I mean the steens are incredible. Right, you have a huge, huge fault line, a massive fault line there, and you know we've got this crazy cascadia fault line that's sitting off the edge of the coast that's getting ready to kill all of us at any point. Um, and all these volcanoes, and I mean it's, it's really truly incredible. Um, the columbia gorge is amazing. The snake river canyon is, you know, freaking incredible.
Speaker 2:People are probably tired of hearing me talk about hell's canyon, but, like, dig in, because I'm not going to stop, you know. Uh, it's a special place and I I think it's. It's also a tough place to live. It's. It's quite a bit easier to live in other places, but people live here on purpose, and there's a certain type of person who makes a choice to do that, and I think that that's that at its core is what an Oregonian is is somebody who lives here on purpose, and there's some, there's some work ethic that goes along with that and that's very much embodied, uh, here at nosler yeah, definitely yeah, 76 years.
Speaker 3:I mean you took the tour today. You found out how our tooling used to be made and how bullets used to be made. I mean, and that wasn't that long ago, right, guys on lathes with essentially eyeballing stuff and then holding it up to its predecessor in the tooling line, I mean they got so good at it that those guys were making one every time. They would never have a mistake, and I can't imagine the work ethic that went into that. Now that we have machines and robots that make it, and they make it perfect almost every time, they're still not perfect, right, those guys were perfect. It just speaks to that, that work ethic in this town.
Speaker 3:Being a logging town, I mean, I grew up here and there was no like the river that people float. You wouldn't be, you would not have been caught dead in that part of the river and I wasn't allowed to go down there. Why it was dirt? Well, it was dirty, yeah, and you still had tons of debris from logging in there because that's where they used to float the logs to the, the rei building, which people think the old mill that used to be where the it would intake the, the lumber.
Speaker 3:You had the train bridge across where we walk every day. That was torn down. You had the crane shed, you just. It was just so much industry down here and the water was filthy, it was gross and it had metal in it and it had old logging machines in it. It was treated like an industrial waterway, not the river that it is. So I mean, I remember being run out of there by mill rights and guys that worked at the mill trying to go jump off the bridge. Yeah, now there's kids in bathing suits jumping on the rafts it's true that's super sad.
Speaker 2:I grew up right next to it yeah, my dad worked the pond at the boise cascade mill and joseph and I loved going to work and seeing him.
Speaker 2:I loved the mill and getting to go around and see the machines and see the care that everybody was taking in their stations, um, whether it was pulling green chain or the filers who were out there keeping everything sharp, or the electrician who was keeping that miracle of a of a mill running.
Speaker 2:And you, you know, my dad's job is, when the logs came in they would go into this pond and he had this, uh, this pike pole and, um, it was basically a spear with like a twisted tip on it and if logs got jammed up and weren't moving through there then he would throw that thing out, stab the log. It had a rope on the end of it and then he could get the logs moving again and all the dirt and a lot of the bark and stuff would come out in that pond. And you know that was one of the one of the first processes at the mill and I just thought it was so cool as a little kid to go down there and see my dad heaving out this big pike pole and moving these giant logs around like that's's a, that's a manly job.
Speaker 3:That is a manly job, that's impressive and dangerous yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, but that's a lot of what Oregon is about too. Um, I don't know if we still do. I haven't seen one in a while, but for the longest time the tree was on our license plate Like this this is a place of timber, and you know now that that industry has changed. Changed. Other industries have picked up right. So where we had mills, now we have breweries.
Speaker 3:But here y'all are making bullets a pile of them yeah, yeah, right in the middle of town we, like you said, a pile of them. Yeah, I don't even know how many, and I'm sure I'm supposed to say it's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot. I saw a machine today that was built in the 1930s. That's chugging along like a train producing bullets Really cool. So who are you guys? What do you do here? What would you say you do here?
Speaker 1:I am the marketing manager. I feel like we run pretty small departments here, so we all wear a lot of hats, but I have a team that runs e-commerce, apparel all the marketing and advertising.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about a bunch of things today, but the first thing that we need to talk about is the whitetail deer. What does whitetail mean to the United States of America?
Speaker 3:Can I ask you a question first about whitetail? Sure, because I feel like you're much more of an expert on that field than we are and really it's localized to your region. Okay, because we don't have whitetail here in Central Oregon. Yeah, we do. I have never seen any whitetail here in Central Oregon.
Speaker 2:You don't have a lot of it.
Speaker 3:You're going to you have them out at the ranch. Mm-hmm. Maddie has whitetail. Okay, I have never seen a whitetail in Central Oregon. I mean, I've seen photos, but you have quite a few we have lots.
Speaker 2:So I counted in the field next to my house. I counted 70 deer. Two nights ago Before it got dark, there were 23 bucks out there. Wow, none of them are big and even when they get old they're not big by like countrywide standards. You know, Some of the deer that we've previously thought were like, you know, three and a half, four and a half year old deer turn out to be seven and it's like oh, you're just our deer, don't get big, don't get big. They don't get big body, don't get big antlered. And a lot of them die young, you know, because they live, live in the valley and they're pretty available to people. So unless they're only going to come out at night, there's a good chance they're going to get shot during season.
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Speaker 1:Is it true this is going into a little bit of just conservation talk, but is it true that they're more aggressive breeders? Is that? I keep hearing? You know some talk about them pushing out our mule deer?
Speaker 2:They certainly are pushing out mule deer, but I think they're doing it in a couple ways in my area that I think people aren't considering. They are a more aggressive breeder. The white tail rut is later as far as when the does are actually cycling into heat. So the mule deer does are going to cycle into heat earlier and the white tail bucks can breed them. There is debate about whether their offspring is sterile or not and there's for sure hybrid deer around that people have seen and documented and that's a thing I don't know whether it's actually been determined if they're sterile or not like a mule. Basically, one of the really interesting ways to me that whitetail are hurting the mule deer is a way that they're actually hurting the bighorn sheep population. This is something that people don't consider.
Speaker 2:Okay, so whitetail live in the valley all year long winter, spring, summer, fall. They live on the ag land. You know I call them welfare deer because they're just living off the agriculture. They're not going out and working for a living like the mule deer are. But the mule deer come down in winter in the valley in winter on other winter range that the whitetail are occupying, the mountain lions come out of the mountains and follow those mule deer down right. So instead of having a limited mule deer population in the winter the cougars have whitetail well, so the lions have lots and lots of food.
Speaker 2:Now in the spring, as the mule deer start to go back up the mountain, this mountain lion population that's bigger than it should be goes with them and the mule deer go into rougher and rougher terrain to try to escape that predator pressure and end up in the same habitat as the bighorn sheep, and the lions are right there with them. So now the lions kill those bighorns and evidence of this is clear enough. In Oregon, where you know, one of those units in the eagle caps got closed. There weren't enough bighorn sheep to sustain hunting anymore. So it's kind of an interesting thing, where white tail are an invasive species in in this region that I'm from, um, that it's actually affecting these other species that you wouldn't consider. You know the white tail and the bighorns are never really interacting, but in that way they are yeah, that's interesting ecosystems are complicated they are, yeah, and the people that run them are even more complicated.
Speaker 3:It's uh tough job, yeah, I Interesting. Ecosystems are complicated, they are, yeah, and the people?
Speaker 2:that run them are even more complicated. It's a tough job. Yeah, I can't imagine. No, our wildlife managers in Oregon don't own any of the habitat right. The state doesn't own very much ground so they can manage the species through managing, hunting, but they really can't do anything with the habitat. That's a tough thing. That'd be like running a restaurant, but you don't get to use the kitchen.
Speaker 3:That's a good way to put it Tough job. I wonder if Colorado is about to see that Cause if they ban cat hunting, that they won't be far behind us, right? And they have a pretty healthy sheep population and goat population, so it should be be.
Speaker 1:It'll be interesting just just a plug for all those hunters out there.
Speaker 2:In oregon, everyone should be carrying a cougar and bear tag it's 16.50 and lion season is open all year long and you can get two tags and if you're a non-resident it is also 60. Cents for you. Um toughest hunt in the country. Lowest success rate in the country is an oregon mountain lion.
Speaker 3:We're pushing out over 60 000 lion tags a year in this state and killing like 300 crazy yeah, I wonder how many of those are intentional and how many are like holy shit I think a like holy shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of them are probably opportunistic when you're hunting other species right I think a lot of it is incidental.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, but they're not doing that in the survey. I wish that they would be like were you mountain lion hunting at the time? That that'd be great to know. It would be great to know, yeah, yeah, because it would help them determine a plan so we could start hunting them again but at home our mule deer population is so low now that I've quit hunting mule deer and I hunt whitetail now, and they are an interesting animal that tastes very good yeah and they're fun to hunt.
Speaker 2:Yeah Uh, was doing some math before the show and there's something like 6 million white tail that get killed in the country every year. And if we take an average of 50 pounds of meat yield per deer and say that the average person is going to eat a third of a pound of meat in a meal, which is a lot, that's one billion meals of white-tailed deer that get consumed in America every year. That's wild, that is.
Speaker 3:It is, and I wish the USDA right. I wish they could figure out how to do something like they're doing with Maui Nui, where that could be sustainable food for the whole population, but especially for a population that can't go to the grocery store and pick out high-quality protein, because it would be such a game-changer for some of those families.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially in areas where there's a surplus of deer where they're over management objective. Yeah, and there's a lot of those, you know, I think there's places, lot of those. You know, I think there's places in tennessee where you can shoot a deer like every day of the season. So, yeah, a lot of people are hunting out there. So in the marine corps we made it pretty far into the show. Before I started talking about the marine corps, pat myself on the back here, uh you didn't tell me to start a timer.
Speaker 3:I would have. I'm going to on the next podcast 18 minutes.
Speaker 2:Okay, so in the Marine Corps, when we're doing tactical operations and movements, there's supporting efforts and one main effort and things tend to get broken down into threes. There's usually like three platoons in a company, stuff like that. So if my tank company is going to assault an objective, there's going to be two supporting efforts and one main effort, and the supporting efforts are probably going to like shoot at a target and keep it suppressed while the main effort maneuvers on it. I think about this in hunting a lot like Like what is the main effort? What is the thing that everything else is based around? And in rifle hunting the main effort is the projectile, it's the bullet. So your truck got you to the trailhead, your boots got you down the trail, your pack carried your stuff, your, your rifle stock holds your barreled action and the receiver is holding your scope. Your scope is showing you where you're holding the triggers, actuating the action right, and then the firing pin is sliding forward and hitting the primer and the brass is holding this propellant in there and then you have a conflagration and an expansion of gases that might turn into a plasma and the bullet ends up going down the barrel.
Speaker 2:A bullet has a complicated job. It's under a huge amount of pressure where it's not allowed to change shape in a way that it affects its flight once it exits the barrel. It is spinning at a quarter million RPMs real fast and has to travel in a predictable way and impact a target. And then it needs to deform in a way that it maintains its weight and energy and transfers that energy into an animal to kill that animal as quickly and ethically as possible. That's a lot to ask, yeah, of this little tiny amalgamation of copper and lead. So how do you guys make it all happen and what are you doing to change it for all these hunters who are putting a billion meals of white-tailed deer on the table every year?
Speaker 3:so 76 years ago and I think most people that know anything about nazar know the story. I'll give you the short version of a long story that john nazar senior was in canada, shot a moose, penciled through it, shot him again, penciled through it, shot him again, penciled through it. It was a terrible chase, a long haul out. I mean it was just something we've probably all done before, but he did not like it. He thought there's got to be a better way and he was an engineer by trade. So when he came back to Oregon he realized he got at his drafting table and, just like you said, he started with the most important thing, like what is the most important thing that I need to harvest this animal and do it efficiently and do it ethically. So that's when he essentially drafted the partition, which is still one of our best-selling bullets that we make. But from that bullet Nosler has grown, expanded, retracted.
Speaker 3:But we have always been moving forward and one of the best things that we do is and this comes from the owners from the Nosler family is that we're always innovating. We're always getting asked to put ideas on the table and there's nothing that is off-limits to put on the table. And when you ask a bunch of very smart engineers which that is not me the ideas I put out aren't that smart. But when you ask the guys downstairs how to develop more efficient, how to continue to build on the technology that came out 76 years ago, it's wild what they've come up with and over the years that's led to the ballistic tip, the Acubond, our RDF line, several different lines and then line extensions. It's also led to us manufacturing our own brass in the last several years. Inventions. It's also led to us manufacturing our own brass in the last several years, but as of recently it's led to a completely different model for us.
Speaker 3:So we've the way that new technology has worked with our press technology and the way that our engineers presented it was that they can develop a bullet that can be essentially made to our high standards but much more efficiently, which, to the customer, to the end user, what that equates is that it's going to be a lot more reasonably priced than a traditional box of acubons or partitions, which is a three to four step process to get that technology in that bullet.
Speaker 3:We did that because we know that there are guys that get to shoot a deer a week. We know. We know that there are people in this country that get 15 deer tags. And why in the world, if you're supporting a family of three making even the median income and have bills coming out all over the place, that you would go spend $70, $80 on a box of 20 bullets when you know that you're going to probably need 30 or 40. Where for us in the West a lot of times one box of bullets for a mule deer hunt is more than enough. I can use it for three years if I'm careful right.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't make sense of that economy and that that was like a big point of pride with with guys when I was growing up was how many years they were able to string out one box of ammo, yeah, and to be like one shot at the end of september and it was still on the target.
Speaker 2:They hadn't touched the dial of their scope since the 1960s. They were still on target and they're like good enough. And the next day they go out they find their deer, they shoot it and there are two bullets down and it's like, yeah, this is a good box. We're going to roll for a decade like this, but there's guys that do that same thing.
Speaker 3:We go out and shoot 15 deer. Yeah, we're going to roll for a decade like this. But there's guys that do that same thing. We go out and shoot 15 deer? Yeah, totally. And if you're not even on a budget, if you just are looking for a bullet that is reasonably priced and does its job like, that's the market that they've been looking for, yeah, and we finally found it with this new offering.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to name names because I don't do that, but I have been very frustrated that what gets sold to whitetail hunters is not a bullet that is made to hunt whitetail deer. It is the cheapest bullet that a company can make and it's crap. They don't shoot well, they don't perform well and that terminal performance especially is problematic. And there are a lot of bullet and ammunition manufacturers that are completely focused on internal and external ballistics. So internal ballistics, what goes on between the primer strike and that bullet uncorking at the muzzle. External being, between the muzzle and the target. And if they can get those two things right, they're like good enough. Shot placement's everything. It's like no, it's not. No, it's not. Because shot placement doesn't work out all the time. People miss, they miss completely and they miss marginally. And if you have perfect shot placement you can get away with a pretty crappy bullet. But if you have marginal shot placement because something happened, and whether it was you or your gun, or the animal moved or the wind was blowing, there's a lot of things that can cause it. If you have a marginal shot, you need a bullet that has wonderful terminal performance, otherwise you're going to end up wounding that animal, potentially not even finding it, but certainly causing it to die more slowly than it needed to.
Speaker 2:So this is always one of my greatest concerns is animal welfare while they're dying after being shot. It is of the utmost importance to me, and to non-hunters that are listening, they might be like, what is this guy talking about? Like, if you care about them, don't shoot them. It's like. Well, it's complicated because I care about them more than anybody, right?
Speaker 2:I love these things and I spend a lot of my year just trying to protect them and trying to feed them and trying to make sure that there's enough habitat that they can live a good life. And then, when it's time for me to turn that living animal into meat, I want that to be as ethical as I possibly can get it to be, and that means killing it as quickly as I possibly can. I want that thing to die with grass hanging out of its mouth, right where it was standing, as instantly as possible, because that's how I would want to go to if the whitetail deer was hunting me. That's a fact, right? That's a good way to put it too. Yeah, so lethality is incredibly important to me, incredibly important to me. Accuracy is a big part of this. Now I get to brag on myself. I got to be the first non-nosler employee to shoot this bullet and I just went downstairs to the test lab and shot two of them.
Speaker 2:Um, that happened to be 0.3 inches apart, just two shot group. But like that's a third moa right, and this is out of a test barrel. This is not like a, a gun that gets treated nicely, it's. It's getting used all the time and the standard deviation was five feet per second, and so the accuracy is there, the velocity was there. The ballistic coefficient while you guys are still working it out at this stage it's looking really good. Like I'm amazed at what you're getting out of this bullet. And then looking at these projectiles that are on the table that you've shot into ballistic gel from different ranges, I mean it's incredible. You put it all together. And how much is this box of ammo going to cost?
Speaker 1:$34.95 at most. Msrp $34.95. I think you know kind of going back to being an ethical hunter and really taking care in how that animal dies. This bullet solves so many issues for the whitetail space. We've done our research. We've looked at complaints across our competitors and what's available what are the complaints?
Speaker 2:because you hear them right. What? What are people complaining about?
Speaker 1:misfires bullets that don't have good terminal performance. So they're hitting the skin and they're either blowing up or they're passing all the way through, like penciling through and not mushrooming to get that internal damage. People are not getting good blood trails, they're having deer runoff not being able to find them, and then they're also having severe accuracy issues. So all the bullets in the whitetail space right now are what we call a cup and core bullet, and just to explain that a little bit, let's explain it a lot, okay, so it's essentially a strip of copper that's flat and you take a die punch, you punch out, you know whatever, however much material you need for that diameter of bullet, but it's all the same thickness.
Speaker 1:So that die cut is going to become your bullet jacket and you're essentially just wrapping that around the lead so there's no taper to the jacket. Really hard to get them consistent in flight.
Speaker 3:But really easy to make.
Speaker 1:Really easy and cheap to make.
Speaker 2:I got to back you up a little bit because I think we ran you up a little bit, because I think we ran some people over, okay, okay. So we're starting out with this flat sheet of copper, yes. And then along comes, like this cookie cutter Yep, goes, chunk, makes a circle, and this piece of copper is going to become the jacket of the bullet.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, yep.
Speaker 3:This little pancake.
Speaker 1:So that thickness of your copper strip, whatever thickness that starts out as that's the thickness of your bullet jacket. There is no changing that through that process.
Speaker 2:Why would you want a tapered jacket?
Speaker 1:To help with expansion. So it's hard to explain without like a diagram or an example. But the bullet is the jacket is tapered thinner at the beginning, heavier at the base. So our boat tail bullet it's called a solid base bullet is the bullet in our whitetail country ammunition line and it has a tapered thinner jacket at the front. So when it impacts that animal that's what's going to help create that initial expansion and it folds back, creates your mushroom and then your heavily tapered base. And that heavy base where it has a thicker chunk of copper is what's helping push that bullet through the animal.
Speaker 3:It's going to fight that lead energy coming backwards Right when you've seen in a traditional coven core, where it just can explode into particles and that's where that back just gives out. So everything just shatters throughout the animal, which can cause some serious damage, but not as much as a three inch wound channel and this is.
Speaker 2:This is another thing we we want to. We want to kill this animal. We want to kill it quick, but I also don't want to ruin me in an 18 inch circle around the bullet. So if this bullet stays together, then it's going to be able to carry its energy farther into and through that animal right, because as it breaks up, then all those individual pieces don't have enough mass to carry good distance. Then, also, if it's frangible and fragmenting, we're putting little, tiny pieces of lead in a large area around the bullet hole, and that's meat that you can't safely consume, right? So now, where we could have maybe got 50 pounds out of this deer, we might have to cut five or six or eight or ten pounds out of that area. Not okay, right? So by creating a bullet that stays together, we get to bring more meat home.
Speaker 3:That's important it is important. I mean, it's really important to us up here in the west because we get the one animal a year. But I know lots of hunters in the midwest and in wisconsin. It's just as important to them. Like that deer, whether they get five or six, everyone has a purpose, like where we hunt in texas. Um, the deer that we kill go to the church and they are donated to the community around that town and they come and get it every single day and, quite frankly, if you know, we have a bad miss, which we all do and I've been. I'm guilty, we're blowing, ruin a shoulder and I've.
Speaker 3:You feel terrible that you've taken 20 of the animal and just messed it up because you didn't have a good shot placement. Yeah, but the bullet performance, that's on us. Yeah, so shot places on you, but how that bullet does. That's where it comes back to this company and the quality. And it starts from the very beginning, from the drafting table and every bullet you got to see today, james it's you could just tell they take their time, like every single portion of that process downstairs, no matter what offering it is from us, the testing and the time that goes into making sure that we send out a good product? Is it's impeccable? Have we sent out bad products absolutely? Has stuff fallen through the cracks over 76 years? If anyone says they haven't in 76 years, they're lying Right. We have. We have made some mistakes and but for the most part I would say 95%, like we do it right every time.
Speaker 2:Well, you've got a bunch of introvert all-stars downstairs that are getting real nerdy with this stuff and making sure everything's perfect.
Speaker 3:Like you got to meet a couple of them today it was awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are awesome, they are awesome. Okay, getting back to the back of the book, Cause we we started at the top on where the jackets thin, also like, the point of having a jacket is that the copper is harder than the lead, right? Yes, so if it was just led, this thing would moves into and through an animal. Yes, okay, so the front of it deforms and makes the bullet shaped like a mushroom, and then the back of it is still held together and is helping drive that shape forward.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so what I, what I want to talk about a little bit too, is the way that we get so. We don't make these by cup and core. That's what all the other bullets in the white tail space are made cup and core.
Speaker 1:It's a simple, easy process, um and that's where the jacket is uniform thickness and they have very little control over how it expands so we make these with a process called impact extrusion and so instead of starting with a copper strip, we're starting with a copper wire and we cut that to certain specs depending on the diameter of bullet we're making. And what happens is there's actually like a punch that punches the thickness of the jacket and it can make it so that it's thicker at the base than it is at the top and then we fit the core to that internal space. So we control how thick we want that jacket at the base. And to also mention, we're the only boat tail bullet design in the whitetail market which helps significantly with ballistic coefficient and then accuracy.
Speaker 1:And what's cool about this too is we launched the solid base bullet back in the 70s and it really took off. People loved it, raved about it, but at that time we didn't have the production capacity to continue making it when we came out with the ballistic tip. So the ballistic tip bullet kind of took over this bullet space in production and at that time polymer tips were and exciting and that's the direction we went. And so to bring this bullet back is not only really special to the Nasser family and everybody that's kind of been here through that process, but also our customers that loved it back then. It's a little different now. We're on a fifth-generation jacket, so we've improved the bullets jacket over time, but it's really the deer hunter's bullet. It's a deer deer killing machine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's gonna change a few things in the space have you had have you had a deer with it, I have not yeah we've done lots of testing yeah, we're waiting, like we are waiting as you can see, there's five rifles over there that are all chambered in our new offerings we are ready to go like, and we're not gonna, we're send them to guys like you. That's where all those rifles and all the first things, all the first offerings at AM are going to go to the guys.
Speaker 3:That right, nobody wants to take our word that it works because of course, we're going to say that we want people that are honest, that will also call us out to tell us if it works.
Speaker 2:I have a whitetail doe tag this year. Yeah, you pick your rifle buddy. Well, by the time this launches, we will probably both kill animals. Yeah, it's funny. It's so funny to try to explain to people in the midwest and back east, but it takes preference points like years of application for me to draw a whitetail doe tag for my own ranch insane, it's not crazy there's lots of them, there's not a shortage, uh, and they are a competitor for our native species.
Speaker 2:so but it's again, it's a really like low-key, laid-back fun hunt that I always do like special meat projects around. So if I'm going to make like a deer prosciutto or um, do some kind of crazy dry aging with, uh I don't know, like beeswax or mashed potatoes or you know who knows what, like do a whiskey soak, I'm going to do it with that whitetail dough and it's always like such a beautiful, amazing meat product at the end of it and it's been fun to showcase to people, like all the stuff you can do with venison outside of, like steaks, roast and grind, and the whitetail dill is perfect for that.
Speaker 1:so I can't wait, can't wait for that hunt I love seeing all of your, your, the things you make little meat projects I'm like I'll let him try this first, before I try it I'm gonna have to start.
Speaker 3:I don't look at anything like butter and yeah, have you ever gotten sick?
Speaker 1:no, okay, I didn't think so I mean from what well he does like crazy stuff with. I mean, I don't want to say that most people don't like age their game in ways that you do yeah, so I'll age stuff for like six or seven months outside and then eat it and it's good.
Speaker 3:That's sweet. Now I'm going to have to go down a rabbit hole today.
Speaker 2:I just watched a video that Dirk Durham sent me about a cave in Spain where they're aging beef hindquarters for two to three years and they're just salting them and then hanging them in this cave.
Speaker 1:Maybe that was the red door, maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tell me about Spain, you losers that I'm so jealous of Spain was awesome, spain was amazing.
Speaker 3:It looked good. It looked good. I tell you what the hunting was exceptional Like. It was really neat what were you hunting for? Ibex? Yeah, three different species. So the what's the species that is sick um, the one we couldn't get to? We'll have to figure it out we hunted the grados southeastern and the ronda.
Speaker 3:The one we didn't get was the b-set day the b-set day yeah, that I think it has a scabies outbreak. I don't know if that's the right word, but it was that we couldn't go hunt those and we wouldn't have anyway. We were guests of our company and doing product testing, um, but the people of that country were unbelievable. I've never been treated. I've never been treated like that traveling anywhere, not even the United States. No place in the world was I. How did they treat?
Speaker 3:you, like everyone was our friend. Yeah, like even people that we weren't in their establishment spending money. They had nothing to do with us, they weren't part of our hunt, like we weren't adding to their personal economy. They didn't know who we were the minute they saw us, but we were their friends, from Madrid to the southern part of the country, to the ocean, and it was all the same. They were just lovely human beings. It was awesome.
Speaker 1:It was so clean. Their country is so clean. There was no homeless people, there was no trash on the side of the road, like very clean. You go into a gas station and the attendants are nice and welcoming and there's fresh fruit and fresh meat and prosciutto and fresh bread and it's like not at all what you get here and everything's just like open air right yeah, it's not refrigerated?
Speaker 2:no, they don't even pristine.
Speaker 3:They didn't know what pasteurizing was. Our guy, who has lived in spain his whole life, had no idea what that meant. He was like what does that mean? Like you know where you heat the milk up to a high temperature to get rid of, like get rid of the what I'm like sorry, our guide.
Speaker 1:Our guide had a bread delivery service. Like they get delivered fresh to his house every morning, they don't buy bread packaged. He was like you guys eat that stuff no preservatives in the bread.
Speaker 3:Like the coffee was incredible and super so strong. I remember the first morning they brought little ones. I'm like I'm gonna need a few of those so I poured it into a big glass and everyone else is asleep and I'm vibrating against the window on the way out to the hunt. But maddie and clark did 15, was it 15?
Speaker 1:miles on the first, yeah, on the first day.
Speaker 3:Okay, first, it was impressive flat ground no it wasn't flat, they told us.
Speaker 1:They told us, bring a light day pack because you won't be hiking very far. I ended up. We were clark and I were both hunting in the great oaks and I ended up shooting mine pretty early on. But then we had to hike quite a ways. For Clark we hiked seven more miles in. So we worked a little harder for Clark's than we did for mine, but it was beautiful.
Speaker 3:It was unbelievable the countryside and it was very similar to what I think of Oregon's changes. All of a sudden we'd be in a different mountain range with huge, like almost fjords type canyons. Then three days later we'd be in these volcanic rock fields and then next thing you know we're in the ocean. Like we're right by the ocean there's giant caves. It was just. It was incredible.
Speaker 1:It was neat and the food was unbelievable.
Speaker 3:We didn't hike enough because the food was a lot. We had a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did you get to have suckling pig.
Speaker 3:Yes, I did. Maddie did not do it.
Speaker 1:I did it.
Speaker 3:But I did try it on the second to last night and it was pretty good. Holy moly. Yep, I mean, if you can just forget what you see on the plate and be like, okay, I'm just gonna pretend that that's not on the plate, yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah, it is. And the prices of everything meals, like food, gas was expensive.
Speaker 3:but there there's no big trucks there, not a one like the biggest vehicle we saw was when we were in, which was like a range rover, yeah, like, uh. What are those little trucks called the?
Speaker 1:oh, I can't remember the toyota's little version of diesel okay and then every like a hylex.
Speaker 2:Yes, there was tons of hylexes, but and then every car was diesel for we didn't see hardly any regime changes on a budget yeah, but their roads are really narrow right well, like not yeah, but they're windy because they're old wagon roads like the country's so old that the roads are older than vehicles by a lot, yeah, whereas a lot of our roads came after automobiles and the history is was unbelievable.
Speaker 3:our guides were really well versed on the history of that country, all the way back to the Islamic state, but the Muslims coming up and attacking Spain and then putting them out 700 years ago, the Moors. Thank you Very vocal about it, stuff that you couldn't say anyplace here. People are so politically correct here nowadays that everyone's feelings get hurt. At least once a conversation in there, they don't care.
Speaker 2:So that's where my cattle came from Corianis. The Moors brought them to Spain and then they were tough and didn't need much water, so they were perfect for voyages on ship. So the conquistadors used those cattle to come to the Americas, because they didn't drink much and they'd eat whatever, and that's how they got to Central and North America. And yeah, so the the Corianes that we have today can all be traced back to the Moorish invasion of Spain.
Speaker 3:That's incredible. Yeah, it was awesome. They all walk Everyone walks, I mean and they all smoke, which was also interesting because they'd walk up a mountain, turn around and he'd have a cigarette and I'd be dying. Like we need to stop. I need a few minutes Because your milk's been pasteurized Right Like we need to stop. I need a few minutes because your milk's been pasteurized Right and he's just this 75-year-old man with a walking stick and a cigarette looking at me like I am just so pathetic.
Speaker 1:It was also so funny because they you know they're worried about wind, right, like any hunt you're on, you're worried about which direction the wind's blowing. If they're going to smell you, and then they're like smoking a, a cigarette, I'm like they can't smell that you know, I learned an interesting lesson about that when I was in Africa.
Speaker 2:Um, because I got to go to Tanzania uh gosh 10 years ago, and I would like sell an organ to go back, right, but I smoked, uh, the entire time that I was there, and I don't smoke, um, but everybody did. It's just what Africans do, I guess. And what I learned was it's a constant wind indicator and if they're downwind, they're going to smell you whether you're smoking or not, true? So at least there's a constant visual indication of which way the wind is going. That makes sense, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't need your little.
Speaker 2:You don't have to use a poofer if you're so nervous about getting chomped by a lion that your chain's smoking all day long.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you think Dawn will let me start smoking. I don't think so? I don't think it'll matter it's for hunting Dawn, I promise.
Speaker 2:It's just a wind indicator.
Speaker 3:It's just a wind indicator, but I need to do it all the time. I don't know why. I just feel like I need to. Are you I understood? We ask every person that we're on this podcast that I've been waiting to ask you. You have to tell me. You can tell me the long version, the short version. I know what your audience has heard, but I want to know what was like. What bucket list hunts have you been on? Or the one like what's the number one you've reached, and even if that one has now moved, but where's the like the best time you've ever been on, maybe species wise or adventure wise, and why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it changes with time. You know, I've hunted my whole life and I've, I've got to hunt a lot. So it's not just that, yeah, I've, I've, I've hunted for 38 years. It's not just that, yeah, I've hunted for 38 years. It's not just that, I hunt all year long, every year. So, like my best friend we were kind of tallying this stuff up the other day and he and I have been on over 3,000 hunts together. Right, it's a lot of hunting.
Speaker 2:So what you care about at one stage of your hunting career is going to change a little bit later on, and then that's going to change again. Where I'm at right now, I love being in interesting places with people that I care about and having those those intense emotional experiences that only come through hunting. And how you mix that cocktail up doesn't matter to me. It could be a chipmunk hunt in Ohio, it could be a Cape Buffalo hunt in Tanzania, but what has to be? There is somebody that I love and care about, and then the rest of it just comes together and that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So at different stages of my life I would have told you different things. You know, there are species that I really want to go after, because I think that the experience that will surround that will be amazing and informative and educational. That will surround that will be amazing and formative and educational. But yeah, I get really excited about cow elk hunts and white-tailed doe hunts and you know, if I got the opportunity to go back to Africa, you know I would be out of my mind, excited about that. I'm going to Australia this fall to hunt. I've never been there. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1:What are you hunting?
Speaker 2:Water buffalo and pigs and Bantang and hopefully getting to go out on the Great Barrier Reef and do some spearfishing.
Speaker 1:Wow, really neat yeah.
Speaker 3:Three weeks. I'm jealous of your spearfishing, I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 2:It's fun.
Speaker 3:Not bad, it's fun, I'm going to try it at some point. It's hunting underwater. If you were going to be let's say you were going you got picked to go to Mars and you're going to have an apartment on Mars and they said you get to take one of your mounts. You get to take one thing you've hunted with you. That's the question I'm looking at. What's the answer.
Speaker 2:Of the things you of all the 3,000 hunts you've been. Yeah, yeah, what's the one thing when you look at that gives you the eye yeah, uh, my cape buffalo, yeah, and. And that hunt was jacked up like it went wrong. It went wrong from the very beginning. You know, I I wounded this thing. We tracked it forever. We found it again. Um, I smoked a 375 h and h round right through his lungs and he turned and looked at me like I owed him money.
Speaker 2:And then ran straight towards me, which is a very not elk-like behavior. So I was like, oh, I know just what to do. You know, I'm going to John Wayne this thing and I tried to shoot him in the forehead and I missed because I was panicking and I almost blew his right horn off and then I shot him in the neck. And then I shot him in the neck and then I shot him in the guts and was running pretty low on ammo and the PH got involved and spined it when it was getting real close and I reloaded and shot him a bunch more times. It was a jacked up hunt. It didn't go the way I wanted it to go, but that thing sits in my house. It's one of the only shoulder mounts that I have. His horn is still broken. You can see where I ripped a 375 through it. The taxidermist was like I can fix that and I was like don't you dare, right, that is part of what happened. Yeah, but I want to go back. I want to go back and do it right.
Speaker 2:There's something that's really special about cape buffalo and they remind me uh, maddie, you might be able to relate to this of like old range bulls that get left out for a winner, um, but just with a click. Worse attitude. Yeah, not a lot, but you know how those range bulls get if they get left out like they. That's what a cape buffalo is. But then he's got this big boss on his forehead and he's curled out horns and, you know, part of his tail is missing because a lion ripped it off and they've just got scars from thorns all over their chest and they're just grumpy, just grumpy. Such an amazing thing. And the oxtail soup from cape buffalo, oh beautiful one of the best meals I had in africa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, when we walked, when we finally had this thing dead, we walked over to it and the first thing that the uh messiah did was swing around and make sure that he had a tail and that the lions hadn't ripped his tail off because the oxtail soup is so good, wow I would have never guessed me neither and the other crazy thing about that hunt is we were striking matches and throwing them on the ground everywhere.
Speaker 2:We went all day, every day, because they're just constantly burning the grass away. I love that I'm I'm a little fire bug from childhood. This is like I just get to throw matches on the ground. Life fires Like this is sweet. So when we finally got caught up with this Buffalo, we had like a fire fire coming towards us and we had to burn out around the Buffalo and then like huddle on top of them while our wildfire blew over the top of us in the jungle. It was cool.
Speaker 1:Wow but it was jacked up.
Speaker 2:I want to. I want to go back and have a nice, clean Cape Buffalo experience. Right.
Speaker 3:But that story, that's something else. It doesn't have to be the most, it doesn't have to be the biggest adventure, but sometimes the scariest stuff like that is just awesome.
Speaker 2:I mean it's so wild. There man, the crocodile I killed had three metal bracelets in its stomach. I mean it's just different. It's just different. You know no big deal.
Speaker 2:I didn't know why tail deer hunt. It's a different thing, different culture altogether. Totally, yeah, totally. There was a couple guys in the next concession over, so I don't know 20, 30 miles away, not one, but a couple guys that got killed by a lion while I was there. I was like so we go on lion hunting. They're like how are you gonna know which one killed him? Like that's, that's make-believe world. No, it happens. All that's a tuesday oh wow, like huh.
Speaker 2:Okay, it'd be like, if you know, you heard that, you know somebody got in a car accident here and you're like, well, we got to shut these vehicles down, like no, we're gonna move on with our lives, this is something that happens. Yeah, what road was it?
Speaker 3:it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, go around, yeah that's awesome, are you?
Speaker 3:so you've only been to africa once. Yeah, that's sweet. I've never been. I say it like I'd say like only once I can believe it but, I, still am just in awe of anyone that's been for two days even.
Speaker 2:But man, I think legitimately. A third of my decisions are at least considered by. Does this get me closer to Africa or not?
Speaker 1:Did you shoot anything else while you were there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I got a Lichtenstein heart of beast. I got a defosset water buck, a zebra, a warthog, a bush pig did you eat? The zebra yeah, was it good so good.
Speaker 3:We just talked about this so good is on my bucket list and I thought that like being a horse girl yeah I wouldn't be able to shoot a zebra and I want a zebra so bad yeah, they're.
Speaker 2:They're a tough animal and they rat you out on so many hunts Like he'll be sneaking up on something. And the zebras? They just rat you out. So by the time you roll around to the zebra portion of your hunt, you're like all right, it's like the dough that blows on your hunt.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, those in in the heart of bees, they call them Congoni. They'll bray at you all the time it's like can't meet. Yeah, no, I had an incredible experience there.
Speaker 2:Warthog is a really slept on species. They're so cool, they're so tough and kind of indignant the way they run and stick their tail in the air and they hide in the ground and run through the brush and you know everything is trying to kill them all the time. They're just tough and the meat is fantastic. Warthog empanadas are just fabulous table fare. Um, impala is really good, heart of beast incredibly good. But, yeah, zebra is great, great food. You see any snakes.
Speaker 2:So one black mamba and warthog was the last animal, uh, that I got. And you know, I know a lot of people are like that's, that's crazy, it's so easy. Like it wasn't for me, like it took me weeks to find to find a big one and I I'd missed one, uh, and I uh, yeah, so that the ph's rifle was called, uh, mamagnati, that's what the tracker's called a buffalo's mother. I was like that's kind of cool and, uh, then I missed this warthog, one of the only shots that I, like, sure enough, missed there. And when they're picking my rifle up. Uh, the next day I heard him call it mama meaty. I was like, oh, I just had Maasai trackers name my rifle. This is kind of cool. I was like what's that mean? Ph goes tree's mother Because I missed this warthog and smacked a tree.
Speaker 2:That's funny, brutal.
Speaker 3:Brutal, yeah. How do you say some cuss words in their language?
Speaker 2:So then we're hunting and we see this great, big black mamba Rares up next to the truck, almost eye level with me, and then it takes off and the trackers bailed out of the truck and went to try to catch it, because they're crazy people.
Speaker 1:They tried to catch it, yeah.
Speaker 2:To kill it? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Show it to me, they're nuts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Aren't those pretty aggressive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, super aggressive, super aggressive, like it reared up against a truck.
Speaker 1:How big was it?
Speaker 2:Maybe 10 feet yeah.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:If it was maybe five feet, I'd still be.
Speaker 1:It was three feet. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I get real noodley around snakes of any caliber. But anyways, fortunately the snake escaped them. We got them back. Nobody got bit and they said this is good luck, we're going to find your warthog right now. I was like all right, that's cool. I don't believe you Go around the corner. Big warthog Cracked him, so they know stuff that I don't.
Speaker 3:That's sweet. Did you carry a sight on there? Are you allowed to?
Speaker 2:You can. It's pretty difficult, depending on the country that you're in, to get a license for one. Oh, okay, so I don't know that I would necessarily. I don't know that there'd be a good benefit to it. I think having a good bolt-action rifle is kind of the smart move. Having a good bolt action rifle is kind of the smart move. The ph is carried doubles, but they only need to shoot something that's very close and they need something that points really well. You know they don't need to make a hundred yard shot, even though they're capable of it.
Speaker 2:Um, I think the point of a double is to crack off two big bullets really close with like kind of a point and shoot gun stop whatever is going on and and then you know clients see their ph and want to be their ph, and then they come back with a double rifle and I think that their ph should probably rather that they showed up with a bolt action a little more precision, yeah, and more bullets, yeah.
Speaker 3:I've seen somebody shoot a double rifle, both barrels, in slow motion, and it was they double fired it. I don't mean any names, but it was pretty like, especially the slow motion video, like watching the ripple go down the body and then back up the body, like did his name rhyme with schmolschmamer?
Speaker 2:no, but I wish I wish that I had. I wish cole would shoot a double in slow motion.
Speaker 3:That'd be sweet I think right after he carried me to the top of the mountain I think he double fired one at.
Speaker 2:uh that, um, what's the ranch in texas where people do like the safari training? It's like the FH Ranch. I get confused by all these lettered ranches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are all lettered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like, oh you haven't heard of the ZY or the XW.
Speaker 3:No, we haven't.
Speaker 2:I'm too dyslexic to keep all that together, yeah.
Speaker 3:We were just in Texas at the south border, like really south border, at one pointizon said welcome to mexico. On my phone I'm like oops, terry, are we in mexico?
Speaker 3:honestly, that's probably one of my favorite hunts but we came around the corner and there was a west big bull elk and I'm like I mean, I know we're in texas. You always hear it, oh, everything's in texas. Yeah, but we're not buying that, we're not high. These elk are just running and we're in giant cactus, we're in like the desert. I love Texas Because right around the corner we saw a camel and it was just bananas, that state, that whole thing. I mean it was awesome.
Speaker 1:We saw so many different things.
Speaker 2:Dead kangaroo on the side of the road On the highway. I kind of want to fight a kangaroo.
Speaker 3:I kind of want to watch you fight a kangaroo.
Speaker 1:Well, you are going to yeah it might happen.
Speaker 2:Australia, it might happen, but we've all seen that video, right the guy.
Speaker 1:Doesn't fare well.
Speaker 2:Drowning that dog and that guy squares off with it Like I'm proud of that. Guy Saved his dog and now I'm kind of mad at kangaroos because it was trying to drown his dog.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm pro-dog.
Speaker 3:Oh 100%. Yeah. I was pro-where the hell are we? When we saw that kangaroo on the side of the road.
Speaker 2:though, dude you got to love Texas, though it's a pretty neat state.
Speaker 3:It's a pretty neat state. Breakfast tacos Food's good Barbecue beef ribs and the people on that last trip were just amazing. Beef ribs and the people on that last trip were just amazing. Like we just got to meet some really neat people down there that are just all in and that we stayed in a little town called marfa marfa's weird facts yep, yep, we uh.
Speaker 2:Marfa's a goofy place. Marfa does not feel very texas to me no, there.
Speaker 3:It is day like we saw some folks crossing the street and I'm like where are we? Where are we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's like nothing there. But then you can tell that people have money Because they're just by like what they're driving and the clothes that they're wearing. They're like very modest, rich people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the pictures of like stars all over, like wall, like taco shop restaurants, like the martha light. Is that matthew mcconaughey? Why is he in here? Yeah, he comes here all the time and she's right. There's like a dozen photos of him in there. Yeah, yeah, we didn't see the lights. I actually didn't look for the lights no I did look at them on youtube when I got home and I'm like that would have been awesome. We should have done that.
Speaker 1:But the mountains there, though I guess I didn't realize that texas had mountains like that.
Speaker 2:I had the same experience.
Speaker 2:I felt like I was in house canyon of texas yeah, it was so cool I thought I went to a different planet. Yeah, I got to go oddhead hunting out of alpine just north of marfa and when I got invited to go down there I was like man, I'm going sheep hunting in texas. This is gonna be like walking nine holes on a golf course maybe. And then got down there I was like looking up like, oh crap, like this is real, like that's, that's a big, big, steep, steep cliff. I also love audad, like I that they're. They're an invasive species in oregon that is increasing its range every year. I'm here for it. They are such a cool animal and they're so hardy they're so tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think once they get into hells they're going to be able to utilize that landscape and actually graze it where nothing is. Now, you know the bighorn sheep are not doing well. Um, you know, one rich guy and one lucky guy get to go in there and hunt Like it's. It's not really serving much in the role of, like, an ecosystem. Um, economically, the big horns just aren't doing it. The mule deer almost completely gone. There are whitetail in hells now, um, which is gotta be one of the most interesting and rugged whitetail hunts in the world. But, yeah, once the oddhead get in there, it's going to be cool and I want ibex in there too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those are tough too, but I've never seen a tougher animal than that oddhead. We were able to harvest several, but they were not easy to harvest. I mean, they are tough, they're tough animals, they're so neat.
Speaker 3:Their shafts are so cool just seeing them rut and yeah, I don't know, it's like my new appreciation because I have. I mean, I've really never even seen one until we went down there. I'd seen a couple like really long distances here in oregon, like on. I thought it was a sheep and nope, that's an odd, like crazy looking and 300 of them can blend into a hillside until they start to move.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, just the fact that you're up in cheap country, you can glass forever. It's like sheep, but without the sheep price tag.
Speaker 2:Yeah yes, thank you it's. It's the people's sheep. Yes, yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:And they're super neat.
Speaker 2:One of the I think it was the governor's tag sheep just got killed in hells and you know it was a nice ram. It's probably going to be an archery record.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was down there bear hunting this spring and Matt Harding was with me, who you're talking about. Yeah, uh, so I was down there bear hunting this spring and matt harding was with me and we saw these bighorn up on the hill and he's like man, that's the dream hunt. I was like those things are not hard to hunt, like that's the hard thing is getting the tag, and he's like, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I was like go up there and take a picture of me. He's like I don't have enough lens. I'm like just walk up to him, like just don't get above him and you can just walk up to him. So he does like this two hour long like elbows, knees, super sneak and gets over there next to him and weather rolls in. I'm like I want to go back to camp and eat snacks. I'm I'm done with this for today. So I pulled out my pistol and fired some rounds into a rock to get his attention. I was like let's go. And he hadn't gotten his picture yet. So he just stood up and walked over there and took pictures of him. He's like man, that's not what I thought bighorn sheep hunting was. I was like it kind of is.
Speaker 2:And then they killed that ram in that same exact spot. I was like gosh, it's almost like a little bit ouchy for me. I just wish those animals were more elusive it's the same with goats yeah, but you're going mountain goat hunting this year in a place that can be kind of tough on you yeah, yeah, I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Are you?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm so ready oh, I'm so glad that we recorded you saying that I really am a week from tomorrow, if you're listening, I'm ready.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's been like there's a whole group of us that have been huffing it like three miles every day at work.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, me and a co-worker have been doing 75 hard um and we're done on aren't you on like 250 hard at this point? Yeah, we're done on wednesday, but I mean I'm gonna keep going. I feel really good. I feel like I'm. You know, I haven't been like rucking mountains, but I feel really good you're tough though, so I'm not. I have, I think I have like mentally I can push through some of that, so I'm not too worried about it.
Speaker 3:I know that mentally she can push through stuff. She thinks I've seen it. It's incredible, like at the Mountain Tough Fitness Challenge this year, like six. Crossfit workouts after not doing anything for weeks just handles it. Yeah, like I was sore from watching her.
Speaker 2:I shot my mountain goat with an Acubond.
Speaker 1:Did you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 150 grain 277. Nice. With the old Sig Fury Yep.
Speaker 1:How far was your shot Like? What was your hunt like up there? I know you said you guys got.
Speaker 2:Had a really short weather window, so we charged up the mountain, glassed as many goats as we could. I found a billy that was up on this little craggy peak. We went up through an avalanche chute and I tried to scale up over the top and I was wearing an XO pack and I couldn't tip my head back because that pack was so high so I couldn't see where to put my hands and Jordan Budd was filming. I couldn't see where to put my hands and Jordan Budd was filming and she had to like tell me, like, walk me on to like where these ledges were that I could stick my fingers in, and eventually got like crabbed out of that spot and went over a slightly different place, got up in the rim and we had a nanny walk within just a few yards of us, got some beautiful shots of her looking out over the ocean, and then we waited for this, this Billy, to get up and he walked out onto the grass, so my shot was 40 yards.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, we probably spent half an hour within 20 yards of him and I made a banger shot. Uh, he ran like 20 yards and started to do like that fast running sideways thing and steep all around. So I shot him again and in the hide, my, my bullets are my bullet holes in the hide are about half an inch apart, um, and I was just trying to get him to stop, yeah, and he, he did slide about 100 yards, went off one rim. Um broke an eighth of an inch of horn off one side. Um, yeah, it's a habit for me, I guess. And uh, yeah, it was really cool. The, the steaks and the roasts were really good. Really enjoyed that. The hair on them, of course, is like such a prize, so wonderful. So that hide is in my podcast studio and I touch it almost every day. I think it's just amazing. The burger, however, is the toughest hamburger I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1:You can throw your back out trying to chew on that burger interesting well so my husband, clark, has a tag too yeah so we'll be going after two of them that's awesome. Which will be fun. Yeah, it'll be a good experience. I feel like once you.
Speaker 2:It's going to be so cool.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's hard for me to say, but I feel like once you've done Mountain Goat, then I probably won't be as worried about whether or not I draw in my lifetime in Oregon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does take the pressure off, for sure. Yeah, because we call it once in a lifetime in Oregon. But if you live to be a thousand, yeah, yeah, it's once in a lifetime, but I'm not gonna live to be a thousand so odds are I never draw it here.
Speaker 3:People still don't realize what the lottery pick that is. Lottery. Have no idea. Like that it's uh all, I'm all in. Why are 20 people going with you?
Speaker 4:because they right it's the only chance they're ever gonna get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seriously, but I don't screw it up uh yeah, one of my, one of my fishing clients uh named sanj pie, uh, little indian guy from uh chicago, hilarious, terrible steelhead fisherman, but he loves doing it. I love sanj uh he uh. He says that lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.
Speaker 3:I get it, I don't do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the odds aren't good, but you got to pay to have the chance and you know I'll keep throwing my $8 out there and hoping that eventually I'll get it.
Speaker 3:Have you gotten a premium tag yet? No, god, no. Do you put in for the premium tag yet? No, god, no. Have you been? Do you put in for the premium tag?
Speaker 1:the other lottery have you found one before?
Speaker 3:I know me either, but I put in for every, every single one me too, and I put my wife and my kids like a couple of my kids don't even know, I put them in, for I swear, I know someone every year that draws one yeah but, well not me, maybe someday maybe someday?
Speaker 2:yep, keep, I even try to.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I'm like let me put in for the worst unit that no one else is gonna want and it still doesn't draw yeah, I'm gonna draw a really bad unit one of these years just because my chances were higher yeah, it's a lot of pressure too on on those on those tags that you know.
Speaker 2:You know that the odds are against you to even have the chance. Like if you're not careful, that pressure can be a little bit overwhelming. Mm-hmm, you know, a friend of mine cashed in 23 preference points on his elk hunt this year and he's hunted enough and guided enough to really have the right approach to it and he doesn't have any crazy numerical expectations of the hunt. He's not bringing a posse of a thousand guys with him. He's doing his diligence, he's hanging cameras, he's he's doing the work and he's planning on just going out and having a good hunt in a good unit and I think that that's the way to go. But if you're not careful the pressure of of it can really ruin it for people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the pressure, as we all know, as the days go through, the season, by that last day Amps up. Shoot a cow with a 24-year-old tag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what bullet are you going to be using on your goat?
Speaker 1:160 Acubon Did my 28.
Speaker 2:Nice, good choice, good choice. I wish that I had a better system for keeping my scope waterproof. Okay, because it's so wet. Yeah, it's so wet, did you?
Speaker 1:have covers or anything, or what did you run?
Speaker 2:I think I ran some custom scope covers from a brand called Ziploc. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sandwich bags.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:My first thought was like they stole the sandwich bag name, but they were pissed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, real classy I have a scope cover from Marsupial Gear that it's.
Speaker 3:It's sweet.
Speaker 1:I want to say Cordura.
Speaker 2:Is that the one that covers the barrel too?
Speaker 1:The end. Yeah, because I'll be hunting suppressed too. So it'll be nice to have that covered.
Speaker 2:Because you're civilized.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:She's a sniper.
Speaker 1:Their scope cover has like the handle and snaps around your whole rifle.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like the big cushy one.
Speaker 1:Yes, we ran them in Texas for our audit hunt because it was so dusty and they worked really well. So I have high hopes that I'll do good in Alaska too.
Speaker 3:They're way much. They're easy, they're a little gaudy looking, but and you want to protect your scope?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's an important piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 2:It's a supporting effort, but it's an important one, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't want to go back to open sights, that's for sure, mm-mm 40 yards, though I might be able to point and shoot. You go sideways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, curve the bullet, gangster, just throw it Okay, throw it okay. So, uh, just in, in all transparency, we were recording this um in august but, folks are listening to it in october, that is, before the whitetail rut is really starting anywhere and before most of the country's rifle hunts are going on. Uh, are these? Do you feel confident that people can go out and find this Whitetail Country Bullet?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll have them at all the major online retailers, as well as seeding through all of our little mom and pop shops and brick and mortar dealers. Yeah. We're doing. We've we're already starting to run them. So we're done with the 6.5 Creed and the 270 Win and we're moving on. So we're done with the 6.5 Creed and the 270 Win and we're moving on. But yeah, we have a really good line of production and it's going well so far, and so we'll have these all in stock.
Speaker 2:What other calibers are you going to offer? So 6.5 Creed 270 Win, .30-06, .30-30 Win, .308 win and 7MM08. 7mm08 is a slept-on cartridge too. That's a dandy. Yeah, do you know what grain weight that one's going to be?
Speaker 1:That one is a 140. Perfect I think it's a 140. Perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 130 would be good too.
Speaker 1:The 270 is a 130.
Speaker 2:That's going to be a smoker. Yeah Well, I mean, my impression of this is that this is a premium bullet that's affordable because your engineers have come up with a more efficient way of making it.
Speaker 2:We just proved that it's very accurate. We just proved that it's very accurate. Your reputation for the cartridge itself is for precision, repeatability, reliability. The accuracy is outstanding and with the design, with that tapered jacket and getting away from the polymer tip that's in the ballistic tip, your knockdown power is going to be fantastic. And the way these things are mushrooming like you're there, you've got it. So I don't know. I I think it's pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool that you guys found a way to help people out and give them a good product for less money, because this is one of the only things I've come across in the past few years. That is getting cheaper. Everything else is more expensive. And you've gone the other way through engineering, and I would love to see that happen with more things, but like I just can't think of other examples where that's occurred yeah, I think it'll be really good to have a premium bullet in that space, that it doesn't have that, that premium price it'll be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'll be really good. Yeah, and I want to touch on your last point of whether it'll be available or not. We're going to do everything in our power to keep our part of the bargain up, which is we're going to provide what is ordered. Yeah, and if they sell out, which we have several products, the 160 we have several products on our line that we cannot keep. We still cannot keep on shelves, no matter how many they order, no matter how many we send, we still get those hateful messages every day that say, like I can't believe you guys are, you can't give me this bullet. And we have said this message since we started doing these podcasts and started talking to people two and a half years ago, that there are two, there's over.
Speaker 3:Like there's hundreds of employees here that work around the clock, 24 hours a day, making bullets, we are making as many bullets as we can. I mean there's no other way to look at it. And until that work around the clock, 24 hours a day, making bullets, we are making as many bullets as we can. I mean there's no other way to look at it. And until we move facilities which is really soon, within the next five years and increase capacity. We are at absolute capacity and people are trying. I mean, you can see, we're trying to change technology so we can do things faster, more efficient, but keep the quality people are used to.
Speaker 3:But keeping up with demand like the hope is that we can't keep up with demand because demand is so high yeah, that is the, that's the end game, but we are going to do our part. You have a you've. Like I said, you have hundreds of people here that really are truly busting their ass every day, all through the night, three shifts, to get the bullets out. And that's all done in America and it's all done for the end user. But sometimes that's lost in translation. People just think why can't I get the bullet? And if you can't look around, come to our website.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's the one place, that place that, um, you sometimes can get stuff that you don't think about like go to the source, notlercom.
Speaker 1:yeah, we sell direct, direct to consumer call the pro shop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and yeah. I think that that's a good point and I I understand that frustration because you know we all want stuff when we want it, but you guys want to sell bullets as badly as people want to buy them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we hate saying no. It's terrible to say we don't have any. Why? Because we sold 600,000. Yeah, and that's all. That machine ran until it has to be switched over and run a 7 mil Like. We have to be able to keep up. We can't just make my two cents 76 on instagram. We can't keep him happy because he just doesn't understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's important to know too that you know don't wait right till right before hunting season to start thinking about hunting season. Like you know, stock up, go shoot your rifle, do your part as far as being prepared earlier on so that you're ready to Like it's only fair to the animal that you're prepared with your firearm and ammo and you've confirmed your zero. And you know you don't just pull it out of the safe the night before you're going to go hunt and go sling some lead at an animal. Like, do your due diligence and start thinking about that stuff earlier in the season too, because we're doing better about running shorter runs of things so that we can get it out the door. Like we've run every single acubon bullet this year before hunting season, which that's a record.
Speaker 1:It's amazing so we've changed some of the things we're doing to play more in favor of our customers and kind of spread those things out, spread out our products. But just everybody should be thinking ahead and making sure you're prepared.
Speaker 3:Especially on an election year. A hundred percent, because if quality products were to be off the shelves before, I mean anything, that's quality. But now it's quality and it's affordable. It's going to move and there's a good chance it won't be on the shelf. So if you see it, grab it. We're not going to say, oh, we sold out and raised the price 10 bucks. We are going to continue our promise to make this quality product and affordable price. And it's not because we're given a margin back, it's because we finally figured out how to do it better. Yeah, the only thing to do is to give that back to that white tail hunting population that we've had a really hard time communicating with for years and years, because we've never been able to get the technology cheap enough to where it's okay to shoot four boxes of bullets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and if you know this is a, this is a deer bullet. If you want a tipped bullet, then graduate up to the ballistic tip. If you want a bonded bullet, we have the acubon. If you want a long-range bullet, we have the acubon. Long range like this is a 400 500 yard and in deer bullet.
Speaker 2:Which is plenty.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's plenty. If you're more than 500 yards away from the deer, walk towards it.
Speaker 4:Or on some of the ranches we've hunted you're shooting three farms away.
Speaker 2:That's my advice as a guide Just walk over there. Think I can make that shot.
Speaker 1:Nope, everybody likes to think that they can shoot 400 yards yeah.
Speaker 3:Especially from a tree stand. I don't understand that at all With a tree wiggling around in the wind we hunted out a tree stand. Last year, for the first time, I was getting videos from Maddie, as I was sending her videos of the tree like swaying back and forth and I said how far is that tree set up? There's about 30 feet, I'm like 30 feet.
Speaker 1:Can you, ratchet, strap me to the tree?
Speaker 3:yeah, I only practiced like six feet above the ground because, I was just worried about it. I didn't have any idea the tree was going to sway that much.
Speaker 1:No kind of eerie.
Speaker 2:People get seasick sometimes, I can see that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was impressive. I mean, it was awesome. It was a really neat experience. We were in Alabama and I didn't know they had lolly pines, which was super cool too. Yeah, those are little trees. Yeah, lolly pines, which was super cool too. Yeah, those are little trees. Yeah, it's just, you know, strapped to the tiny part of it up top.
Speaker 2:So I was in the last story and then we're gonna shut it off here. But uh, I was bear hunting in north carolina last year in a lolly pine and a double tree stand. So sitting in there with a, with a buddy, and uh I don't know what the weight limit was of this stand. I've never seen a double tree stand.
Speaker 3:Pretty safe to say we were over it.
Speaker 2:And we were hunting over bait and watching this bear eat the bait and then this bear, like, picked his head up, took off. It's like, all right, something's coming. And then from behind me I hear it's like Darth Vader's coming, coming across the you know, coming through the pines, and this huffing gets closer. And then I hear some scratching sounds and this bear reared up on this little lop-lolly pine and started pushing on it the one that you're sitting in. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Both of you are sitting yeah.
Speaker 2:And you want to talk about locked in. So I don't want to like turn around and like scare it off, but I'm also like very interested in what in the hell is going on right underneath and behind me. And then it walked around and it like shoulder bumped the ladder and shook the whole ladder again. And it was not the target bear, but I was at a duck club where they'd had some problems with bears and the guys were concerned about them. I was like this is exactly the kind of bear they don't want to have around here. And it was still a six and a half foot bear. It was a great, big bear. It just wasn't North Carolina big. And uh, yeah, I, I was shook, um, yeah, literally and mentally. When that bear came around in front of me, I smoked him at, like you know, eight yards, uh. But yeah, little little trees and big dudes is a is a funny combination and it's even funnier when the bear is pushing on that tree.
Speaker 3:Can't wait to Google double tree stand after this. I don't even know what that looks like. Does it just wrap?
Speaker 2:all the way around. No, it's just a wider bench, just a wider bench, so you have more out in the air.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so there's a ladder stand.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How high off the ground were you?
Speaker 2:12, 15 feet Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, two bears. Yeah, those guys are crazy. Like the guides that we were with like wouldn't hook up, they'd just climb up there. No safety harness. Some of the ladders were like they'd get to it, like look down at us like to check, are they watching? Not like I'm here, guys, like I hope they're not watching us. He like straps this thing. Oh it was.
Speaker 2:And that's the stuff that we're like man, these white tail guys are nuts. And then they come out here and see where we hike and they're like man, these Western guys are nuts. And it's just what you're, what you're used to. But well, thank you guys. So you for for creating this product for people genuinely like you. You done something good for the hunting community and I think that they're going to respond well to it and, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to shooting it myself can't wait to see.
Speaker 1:Put some white tail on the ground me.
Speaker 3:Neither. I want to give a shout out to all those people that we get to work with every day, that on that production floor that don't get to be on podcasts, that are working in 90 degree heat, measuring, testing, shooting, carrying hot stuff around, like they are the real heart that drives this company and we would not be able to do all these neat things if it wasn't for not just one of them, but every single one of them. So pretty, pretty neat company that we get to work with.
Speaker 3:And I want to thank you for making the trip and being our friend from the minute we both started here. It's been awesome and having your knowledge to call on sometimes is pretty awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you I appreciate it very much. All right, bye everybody. I just want to take a second and thank everyone who's written a review, who has sent mail, who's sent emails, who's sent messages. Your support is incredible, and I also love running into you at trade shows and events and just out on the hillside when we're hunting. I think that that's fantastic. I hope you guys keep adventuring as hard and as often as you can. Art for the Six Ranch Podcast was created by John Chatelain and was digitized by Celia Harlander. Original music was written and performed by Justin Hay, and the Six Ranch Podcast is now produced by Six Ranch Media. Thank you all so much for your continued support of the show and I look forward to next week when we can bring you a brand new episode.