Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and this week on the show, we're covering
Speaker 1: everything you need to know to become a more accurate
Speaker 1: and effective white tail hunter with a gun and helping
Speaker 1: me do that or die hard firearm deer hunters, Jordan's
Speaker 1: Sillers and Spencer new Heart. All right, welcome to the
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light
Speaker 1: Tannis Show. We are continuing shooting month, but this time
Speaker 1: we're stepping away from the archery thing and instead I
Speaker 1: am joined by two serious gun guys who are also
Speaker 1: white tail guys, and we're gonna be diving into a
Speaker 1: whole host of different topics related to becoming a better
Speaker 1: shot with a firearm while you're out there deer hunting.
Speaker 1: How to become a more effective gun deer hunter. We
Speaker 1: discuss criteria for picking the right firearm, optics AMMO, and
Speaker 1: accessories for deer hunting. We talk about ideas for how
Speaker 1: to better practice with your gun in the off season,
Speaker 1: uh stuff like proper trigger pull and breathing and shot
Speaker 1: process determining your max range with a firearm for deer.
Speaker 1: How accurate is accurate enough with a gun for deer?
Speaker 1: Is this super hardcore long range, super accurate? You know
Speaker 1: range nut kind of thing? Is that necessary? What about
Speaker 1: dealing with target panic? We talked about that, shooting an
Speaker 1: adverse conditions, and a whole lot more so. In short,
Speaker 1: if you plan on using a firearm for any of
Speaker 1: your deer hunts, is coming year and you're ready to
Speaker 1: invest a little extra time and energy into doing this
Speaker 1: better than you have before, this episode is for you.
Speaker 1: So about further Ado, Let's get to week two of
Speaker 1: shooting month. We're talking guns for deer hunting and all
Speaker 1: things in between. Let's get into it all right with
Speaker 1: me on the show today to talk guns. We've got
Speaker 1: Spencer new Heart and Jordan's Sellers. Welcome, Welcome to show, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks, thank you Mark. Mark.
Speaker 1: When is the last time you killed the deer with
Speaker 1: a gun? You killed one in one But before that,
Speaker 1: when the last time deer died because you had a
Speaker 1: gun in your hands? Oh man, You see you were
Speaker 1: so busy this past year, Spencer, you you totally blaked
Speaker 1: on what I did in one because I killed all
Speaker 1: four of my deer with a gun last year. Oh man,
Speaker 1: you believe? Can you believe? In new Mark Canyon? I
Speaker 1: know you've You've inspired me. After one week in November
Speaker 1: and you trounced and every deer in town with your gun,
Speaker 1: I said, throwing the stick, stick and string out the
Speaker 1: door and picking up the boomstick. So so are you
Speaker 1: Are you doing more gun hunting in two now? You know,
Speaker 1: I don't have any gun hunt it's like traveling gun
Speaker 1: hunts planned. I'll gun hunt in Michigan. That's all I
Speaker 1: have planned right now. Um, but I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not opposed to It just kind of depends on
Speaker 1: the situation and where I'm going in times of year
Speaker 1: and stuff. So yeah, I've got a lot to learn though.
Speaker 1: Like I definitely am the deer hunting or the gun
Speaker 1: hunting deer hunter who grew up in the world where
Speaker 1: you know, we would go up like opening day of
Speaker 1: guns season in Michigan was November, and we go up
Speaker 1: to camp on November four with our rifles. There was
Speaker 1: an old gravel pit down the road on some public land.
Speaker 1: We drive out there the evening of the fourteen, We
Speaker 1: shoot at a pie plate at forty yards and if
Speaker 1: you hit the pie plate, you're good to go for
Speaker 1: the season. That was it. That was my gun hunting experience.
Speaker 1: That's what I learned to do, and I kind of
Speaker 1: taking that into a delthhood. So so you know, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a good conversation for me today to
Speaker 1: hopefully dive deeper into it and become become a little
Speaker 1: bit more effective. Because you guys supposedly know you Spencer,
Speaker 1: have been preaching this forever. Jordan's I think you're probably
Speaker 1: in the same boat. You've been preaching the whole gun
Speaker 1: hunting for deer thing for a while. Spencer. Can you
Speaker 1: give me let's start with you, Spence. Can you for
Speaker 1: people that haven't heard your stories in the past here
Speaker 1: on the show, which probably have, but if they haven't,
Speaker 1: can you give me a quick rundown of your gun
Speaker 1: hunting for deer, you know, experience or background, and why
Speaker 1: it is that you like to do that so much
Speaker 1: more maybe than the stick and string. Yeah, like many
Speaker 1: deer hunters, I I feel like they killed their first
Speaker 1: year with the gun. There was a case with me
Speaker 1: it was too forty three old Remington's seven hundred. I
Speaker 1: think that's probably twelve years old or something. And since then,
Speaker 1: I've killed white tails and I don't know eight different
Speaker 1: states from Kentucky to Montana to Texas with a rifle. Um,
Speaker 1: and white tailed gun hunting has probably been like my
Speaker 1: number one pursuit for the last five years or so.
Speaker 1: And I think, like mini hunters, my style of hunting
Speaker 1: is is sort of a pendulum. And my first five
Speaker 1: years of deer hunting, we're basically exclusively with rifles, uh,
Speaker 1: and it was probably a product of it being the
Speaker 1: easiest entry for the world of white tails. Then my
Speaker 1: next five years I did way more white tail archery
Speaker 1: hunting than I did gun hunting because I yearned for
Speaker 1: a greater challenge. UM. There was more opportunity with seasons
Speaker 1: being longer, in tags being easier to draw, UM. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to get white to get to know white
Speaker 1: tails more intimately and try to kill them in like
Speaker 1: ten yards instead of three yards. And now my last
Speaker 1: five years, the pendulum is like swung pretty far back
Speaker 1: the other way where I don't know, but maybe like
Speaker 1: eighty or nine percent of my white tail hunting and
Speaker 1: given fall now is with a rifle, and I think
Speaker 1: it's more of the adventure part of it at this point.
Speaker 1: Like if I only have twenty days a year to
Speaker 1: deer hunt, and on average it takes me three or
Speaker 1: four days to be successful with the rifle versus six
Speaker 1: or seven to be successful with a bow, then I'm rifle.
Speaker 1: Then if I'm rifle hunting, I can travel to like
Speaker 1: five or six different states to deer hunt, versus only
Speaker 1: two or three if I'm archery hunting. Right now, that's
Speaker 1: more valuable. That that's more valuable to me, and I'm
Speaker 1: able to fit in like more unique counts. Now. I
Speaker 1: don't think that will last forever. I'm sure at some
Speaker 1: point the pendulum like swing way back the other direction
Speaker 1: and I'll spend sixteen or seventeen of those twenty days
Speaker 1: archery hunting and only a couple rifle hunting. But for
Speaker 1: now it's it's the other way around. So, uh, white
Speaker 1: tail rifle hunting is my jam right now. I get that.
Speaker 1: That's a fair a fair explanation. Jordan, What's what's your story?
Speaker 1: How did you how did you get into gun hunting
Speaker 1: for deer and what's your background with that? And an
Speaker 1: interest in him yeah. Uh. So I actually didn't get
Speaker 1: started deer hunting really until I was an adult. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm one of those adult onset hunters you may have
Speaker 1: heard of. Yeah, but but I've been deer hunting now
Speaker 1: for about ten years, um, mostly here in Texas. And
Speaker 1: I know when when people think about hunting in Texas,
Speaker 1: they think about the kind of high fence, private ranch
Speaker 1: operation big bucks. I had someone just recently who heard
Speaker 1: I was from Texas and and kind of assumed that, oh,
Speaker 1: you must have shot some big bucks. Um. I've never
Speaker 1: hunted on one of those ranches. Uh. Everything I've done
Speaker 1: has been low fence UM, small properties, maybe like forty
Speaker 1: acres um. So that's really kind of where I got
Speaker 1: my start, and that's kind of what what I've been doing. Um.
Speaker 1: But I actually was interested in firearms before I became
Speaker 1: interested in hunting. Really. I kind of got into it
Speaker 1: through my my in laws. My brother in law was
Speaker 1: a big, big gun nut, um, and he got me
Speaker 1: into that, and then I thought, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: have these guns, I should probably do something useful with them. Right,
Speaker 1: So I h I that's kind of how I dip
Speaker 1: my toe in into the hunting world. Um. But I've
Speaker 1: also been a gun writer for about eight years now,
Speaker 1: so I've had lots of experience testing shooting all kinds
Speaker 1: of different guns. Um, so that's been that's been a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. And and tell me this then, what, Well,
Speaker 1: let me, I guess I'm gonna take a step back.
Speaker 1: This is this is shooting month on the Wires Hunt podcast. Right,
Speaker 1: so we're we're really focusing all about the tool you're
Speaker 1: using to hunt deer and how to be more effective
Speaker 1: with it. The first step in being more effective as
Speaker 1: a gun hunter for deer, I gotta believe is choosing
Speaker 1: the right tool for the job. Right. I think that
Speaker 1: probably what I grew up doing is maybe not the
Speaker 1: best idea for new hunters today or adult onset hunters
Speaker 1: who are picking up right now. In my case, I
Speaker 1: just took my grandpa's all gun and I showed up
Speaker 1: the day before and shot a pipe play. Right, if
Speaker 1: we were talking, we were trying to do this in
Speaker 1: a more you know, thoughtful way. Let's start at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of this discussion, and Jordan's being the gun writer.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've had many questions about this. I even
Speaker 1: think you might have written an article for mediator about this,
Speaker 1: But what would be the things you're thinking about when
Speaker 1: choosing the right firearm for white tail hunting? There's a
Speaker 1: lot of debate about this, Spencer. I'm sure you've got
Speaker 1: an opinion, but Jordan, can you kick me off with
Speaker 1: what criteria you're thinking about when try and make that decision?
Speaker 1: And then maybe you can walk me through some of
Speaker 1: your you know, best options, most recommended options, personal favor
Speaker 1: anything like that. Yeah. Sure. Well, so I think the
Speaker 1: most important thing, or maybe not the most important thing,
Speaker 1: But the first thing to remember is to uh not
Speaker 1: get too anxious about about this decision. Right. I think
Speaker 1: you can go online, you can read you know, articles
Speaker 1: that I've written, you can read all kinds of debates
Speaker 1: about what's the best dear cartridge. Um, the the truth
Speaker 1: is that pretty much anything above uh two two three
Speaker 1: Remington's is gonna do a pretty good job, right. And
Speaker 1: I would hate and I would hate the thought that
Speaker 1: there's a new hunter out there who who just gets
Speaker 1: so anxious about the choice that they just don't choose
Speaker 1: anything and they never get out time. So that's I
Speaker 1: think the first thing to keep in mind. Um. Another
Speaker 1: thing that I think people kind of miss is that
Speaker 1: this this question of power, right, what's power? What? What
Speaker 1: cartridge is powerful enough to take down a deer? Again? Um,
Speaker 1: you know anything above two two three Remington's is going
Speaker 1: to really have enough power? So that shouldn't really be
Speaker 1: your primary consideration. I would say more important, especially for
Speaker 1: a new unter or or a young hunter, um, is
Speaker 1: going to be uh ammo cost and availability as well
Speaker 1: as comfort. We talk about this quite a bit in
Speaker 1: our caliber battles. Um. It's something that that you might
Speaker 1: forget about when you're when you're choosing what gun to pick,
Speaker 1: what what cartridge to go with? Um? But look at
Speaker 1: how much it costs to shoot it? Right, Look at
Speaker 1: how much a good hunting round is gonna cost, Look
Speaker 1: at how much practice rounds are gonna cost. And make
Speaker 1: sure that that you can afford to buy enough ammunition
Speaker 1: to go out and practice quite a bit with it, um,
Speaker 1: because because that's a really important thing, not only practice,
Speaker 1: but also um, you know, getting that rifle sighted in
Speaker 1: Uh maybe a little more precisely than a pipe plate
Speaker 1: mark would would probably be good. Yeah, yeah, you want
Speaker 1: enough ammo to do that. Um. Also, uh, you want
Speaker 1: enough ammo to be able to find the brand and
Speaker 1: and bullet weight of AMMO that your gun shoots really
Speaker 1: well UM, and that can take what a few boxes
Speaker 1: to figure that out. So so AMO cost and availability
Speaker 1: is big UM. And then also uh comfort of shooting
Speaker 1: right of of how much that gun is going to kick,
Speaker 1: that's big. If if you UM don't like shooting your gun,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna go practice with it. If it hurts
Speaker 1: to go shoot your gun, you're not gonna shoot it
Speaker 1: very much. And worst case scenario, you develop a flinch
Speaker 1: where you're anticipating that pain in your shoulder and you
Speaker 1: can't shoot that gun accurately. UM. So while you know
Speaker 1: obviously it's important to choose something that has enough juice
Speaker 1: to take down a white tail UM. I think demo
Speaker 1: cost and availability and recoil are are two really big
Speaker 1: factors to consider UM. And you can find some of
Speaker 1: that information online. Obviously, the demo cost and availability certainly UM,
Speaker 1: but there's really no substitute for experience. So if you
Speaker 1: have a friend who has a few of these cartridges
Speaker 1: that you might be interested in, asked them to take
Speaker 1: you to the range, and and your choice might be
Speaker 1: a little easier than you think it is after actually shooting, uh,
Speaker 1: some of those cartridges. So, Jordan, if you had to,
Speaker 1: if you had to recommend like your top two overall
Speaker 1: best options. I know there's a whole bunch of you know,
Speaker 1: specifics we could get into, but if you had to
Speaker 1: pick the top two most you know, most useful options
Speaker 1: across the board, what would those be as far as
Speaker 1: you know a cartridge or or type rifle. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: so I think the six five creed More is obviously
Speaker 1: very popular and there's a reason for that it um,
Speaker 1: it balances. I think the power you need to take
Speaker 1: down certainly a white tail. UM, many elk have been
Speaker 1: taken with with the six five as well as that
Speaker 1: comfort factor I was talking about out so it kicks
Speaker 1: a little less than some of the other thirty caliber cartridges. UM,
Speaker 1: I'm constantly recommending six five. I've had great luck with
Speaker 1: six fives out of factory rifles, shooting factory mm O
Speaker 1: very accurate. Um. So that's certainly a recommendation I would make. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the other probably is three way Winchester. The
Speaker 1: three way win was my first dear rifle. UM. You
Speaker 1: want to talk about AMMO availability, you can find it
Speaker 1: everywhere right, it's it's a NATO cartridge. So not only
Speaker 1: can you find really high quality, accurate hunting ammunition, you
Speaker 1: can also find bulk ammunition, you know, the cheap stuff
Speaker 1: that you can go out and shoot all day at
Speaker 1: the range and not feel like, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to take out a second mortgage when you get home. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the sick the six five creed in three waight win.
Speaker 1: Those are two two great options for for any new hunter, Yeah, George.
Speaker 1: And what if you were to own two cartridges for
Speaker 1: deer hunting, Like if if you were to have one
Speaker 1: that's on the smaller end of the spectrum and one
Speaker 1: of the big end of the spectrum, if you were
Speaker 1: just picking two to own, what what would those be then? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think you mentioned the two forty three.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of a lot of people say
Speaker 1: that that's the smallest kind of deer cartridge they're they're
Speaker 1: gonna go with. Um. I know, Federal makes some some
Speaker 1: two three remingtons, which is a bit smaller. They make
Speaker 1: some of those specifically for deer hunting, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people with the two two three, Um, but I
Speaker 1: think just to kind of stay on the safe side,
Speaker 1: the two forty three is a great option. Uh. That's
Speaker 1: not gonna kick very much at all. It's still gonna
Speaker 1: have um, you know, enough behind it too. You know,
Speaker 1: go out to two or three hundred yards, but it's
Speaker 1: gonna be very comfortable to shoot. UM. And then you know,
Speaker 1: if if you want to go longer range, uh, you
Speaker 1: can go up to the you know, the three way
Speaker 1: win is A is a great option for that. Six
Speaker 1: five is great option. UM. The seven millimeter Remington Magnum
Speaker 1: that's uh kind of your your classic long range. Lots
Speaker 1: of power behind that. UM. You know, you can shoot
Speaker 1: all day with with one of those. UM. So if
Speaker 1: you want to have to one kind of light recoiling,
Speaker 1: you can get it in a small rifle, easy to
Speaker 1: handle UM. And then if you want another for you're
Speaker 1: gonna go out, uh you know, out west and and
Speaker 1: maybe take a deer UM an open country. The seven
Speaker 1: millimeter Remington is is a good choice for that. Have
Speaker 1: either one of you guys had any experience with the
Speaker 1: straight wall cartridge rifles now that are getting pretty popular
Speaker 1: cross parts of the country. I've never haunted in a
Speaker 1: state that required straight row straight wall cartridgice, so that's
Speaker 1: that's pretty foreign to me. But Jordan has written about
Speaker 1: that subject or some guy. I think he's an article
Speaker 1: that was like the five best street walk cartridges for
Speaker 1: deer tell Us about those jobs. Yeah yeah, um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I I wrote up those those five. Um. The one
Speaker 1: I've had kind of the most personal experience with is
Speaker 1: the four fifty bush Master. Um. And that I mean
Speaker 1: that has enough power to you know, takedown a tank.
Speaker 1: It feels like, you know, I mean it's it's a
Speaker 1: that's a that's a big, powerful, powerful cartridge. Um. You
Speaker 1: don't have to worry at all about uh, you know
Speaker 1: about having enough power that that one. You might start
Speaker 1: running into some kind of comfort issues, some some recoil issues.
Speaker 1: I've got a scar between my eyes from getting scoped
Speaker 1: by four fifty that will frequently remind me of that. Yep,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. Um. But yeah, I mean, people seeing the
Speaker 1: praises of the three fifty legend, I think and I
Speaker 1: think that they have a point there. I think it's
Speaker 1: I believe it's marketed as the fastest straight wall cartridge.
Speaker 1: I may be getting that wrong, um, but yeah, a
Speaker 1: hundred sixty grain projectile, so you know, a three O
Speaker 1: eight is like you can shoot one. So it's the
Speaker 1: it's in the range of the three O eight in
Speaker 1: terms of bullet weight UM going twenty three hundred ft
Speaker 1: per second at the muzzle, it's supersonic past four yards. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, any any place where you're limited to a
Speaker 1: straight wall, the three fifty Legend is going to be
Speaker 1: a great choice for you. And it's getting you know,
Speaker 1: it's getting more popular, so it's a little easier to
Speaker 1: find there are more rifles chambered in that in that cartridge.
Speaker 1: That's always the kind of the thing you have to
Speaker 1: ask with the newer cartridges is how many rifles have
Speaker 1: been chambered in this? Am I gonna be able to
Speaker 1: find something that that fits my needs? Um? But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the three fifty Legend is a good choice
Speaker 1: for a straight wall. Yeah. I can speak to that
Speaker 1: personally too. Is that's that's the gun I bought um
Speaker 1: to hunt down southern Michigan, and it is. It's a
Speaker 1: sweet little shooter. I mean, it's it's compact, It does
Speaker 1: not have very much recoil at all. It shoots just
Speaker 1: fine out to the ranges that I can shoot in
Speaker 1: southern Michigan. You know, we're not taking four hundred shots,
Speaker 1: but it shoots great the ranges I'm comfortable at, and
Speaker 1: you know, just it's a really not even a very
Speaker 1: loud gun either, so it seems like a really good
Speaker 1: gun for newer hunters. Uh, I've been I've been really
Speaker 1: keen on that one um spencer spencer can you can
Speaker 1: you add or do you have anything you would add
Speaker 1: when it comes to back to you know, not straight walled,
Speaker 1: but firearms in general, rifles in general. Do you have
Speaker 1: any other criteria that you think about when choosing the
Speaker 1: right firearms, right rifle, right cartridge or do you want
Speaker 1: to weigh in on your favorites or recommended options? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think um Jordan was thrown around the example before
Speaker 1: about like being paralyzed by choices, because there are some
Speaker 1: choices and and he specifically talked about like if you
Speaker 1: had a two twenty three um and you were thinking
Speaker 1: about getting into hunting or whatever. To three is a
Speaker 1: great example for this hypothetical person who is flirting with
Speaker 1: the idea of deer hunting. Because we we had a
Speaker 1: tribute question once about what's the most sold um MMO
Speaker 1: in America and it's the two two three. And I
Speaker 1: think Jordan has written about before how like the most
Speaker 1: owned firearm cartridge is in the two two three? Do
Speaker 1: I have that right, Jordan? Is that specific to like
Speaker 1: a RS? Yeah? I mean I think the reason it's
Speaker 1: the most sold is because it's it's chambered in a RS,
Speaker 1: and that's the most common rifle. Yes. So if if
Speaker 1: you are that person who owns a two twenty three
Speaker 1: and you're thinking about getting into deer hunting, UM, just
Speaker 1: go use your two twenty three. That's that's like on
Speaker 1: the smallest end of the spectrum, um, but it's still
Speaker 1: you know, an ethical round that you can use to
Speaker 1: bring down a deer. And and say you then decide
Speaker 1: that's for you, Um, go I a bigger rifle that
Speaker 1: would be more you know, well equipped for your style
Speaker 1: of hunting. But if you have a two twenty three
Speaker 1: and you're thinking about it, um, just go ahead and
Speaker 1: do it. And you're asking Mark about like criteria. Um.
Speaker 1: For me, living where I do in the West, I
Speaker 1: really value versatility. Last year in Montana, I used the
Speaker 1: same rifle to kill a white tail, to kill an antelope,
Speaker 1: to kill an elk, and that gone was a six
Speaker 1: five creed More, And what I love about that cartridge
Speaker 1: is specifically how little of recoil it has and how
Speaker 1: flat that it shoots. I find that I often wind
Speaker 1: up in awkward shooting positions where I don't want to
Speaker 1: have to think about what's going to happen to my
Speaker 1: shoulder when I pull the trigger. And the six five,
Speaker 1: you know, has about half as much recoil as more
Speaker 1: popular to your cartridges like the thirty odds six Springfield
Speaker 1: or the two seventy Winchester UM. And and so the
Speaker 1: six five is my choice. Um, but I would also recommend,
Speaker 1: like the three O eight is a is a super
Speaker 1: versatile cart whig if you were just going to have
Speaker 1: one dear rifle. If I were to have to deer rifles,
Speaker 1: I think I would probably go with like my smaller
Speaker 1: caliber being a six five creed More, and my bigger
Speaker 1: caliber being like a thirty on six Springfield or a
Speaker 1: seven mm UM like Jordan had talked about. But again, um,
Speaker 1: with all of these choices, there are tradeoffs with whatever
Speaker 1: caliber you choose. It's just like with Broadhead's mark um
Speaker 1: when you guys, when you talk about guys having um
Speaker 1: like a single bevel broadhead that really penetrates um deeply
Speaker 1: and it can bust through bone um, but it maybe
Speaker 1: doesn't have as big of a cut or fly as
Speaker 1: well as like a mechanical which can you know, throw
Speaker 1: a huge two inch cut, but maybe it doesn't good
Speaker 1: as good at penetration, but it flies just like a
Speaker 1: field point. So with all these choices you're making, there's
Speaker 1: like no perfect answer or no perfect cartridge. You're just
Speaker 1: talking about trade offs at that point. So whatever, uh
Speaker 1: you know maximizes like value for you, Whether you hunt
Speaker 1: the big woods and wiscott in Um or if you
Speaker 1: hunt out west in in Idaho, or if you haunt
Speaker 1: in Texas, UM, you're gonna find a cartridge that you
Speaker 1: think is like ideal for your situation that may be
Speaker 1: different than the guy who haunts one property over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now what about you know people are increasingly finding ways
Speaker 1: to customize their rifles or accessorize them in different ways.
Speaker 1: Is there anything Spencer that I actually can think of
Speaker 1: one thing I know you use? Can you speak to
Speaker 1: any ways that you would recommend either modifying a rifle
Speaker 1: for deer hunting or any accessories you tack on it
Speaker 1: that are particularly helpful? One of the great things about
Speaker 1: most of the people that are listening to this who
Speaker 1: are white tail hunters is they don't need to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of money on it tries. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: having this conversation with like be Honest about hunting elk
Speaker 1: or Brodie Henderson about hunting mule deer, it would be
Speaker 1: totally different because those guys have to be really weight conscious.
Speaker 1: But most white tail hunters that are hearing this not
Speaker 1: so much, and so sort of something you don't have
Speaker 1: to factor into the equation as much as if you're
Speaker 1: just hunting out of a deer blind in Kentucky. Um,
Speaker 1: but my most important accessories the Swag your bipod. And
Speaker 1: now we're not partners or anything like that. So this
Speaker 1: is like a genuine endorsement of Swagger bipods. They allow
Speaker 1: you to shoot from whatever position you might end up in,
Speaker 1: like I said before, which which tends to be awkward,
Speaker 1: whether you're standing or kneeling, or prone or sitting or
Speaker 1: leaning off of a tree or shooting from a blind
Speaker 1: or a tree. Stand Uh, that thing can always like
Speaker 1: give you a sturdy rest. Now, again, if you were
Speaker 1: talking to Brody, you're you're honest about this. They would
Speaker 1: think you're absolutely crazy for carrying around a bipod that
Speaker 1: weighs like two pounds. But if I'm hunting in in
Speaker 1: the Midwest, that extra weight isn't really a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's it's absolutely worth the advantage of being able to
Speaker 1: shoot from whatever position you might find yourself. And so
Speaker 1: I think specifically for a white sail hunter, UM, just
Speaker 1: knowing that you have a good solid rest, whether that's
Speaker 1: off of a bipod that's connected to your gun or
Speaker 1: a tripod UM that also doubles as you know, holding
Speaker 1: your camera to take pictures. Uh, just really focus on
Speaker 1: that part of the hunt. Yeah, Jordan, would you would
Speaker 1: you add to that? Yeah, well I second that. On
Speaker 1: on the Swagger, the Swagger bipod spencer, can you kind
Speaker 1: of explain what those are just for people who haven't
Speaker 1: maybe seen them before, because they're they're a pretty unique
Speaker 1: UM tool. Yeah. Most bipods that you use UM, once
Speaker 1: you deploy them, they are like a very stiff bipod
Speaker 1: that they go out to like sixteen inches and they
Speaker 1: stay at sixteen inches and you have to basically try
Speaker 1: to shoot them prone. Swagger allows you to extend it
Speaker 1: like sort of ridiculous ranges UM where you can shoot.
Speaker 1: If you're just like of an average height of like
Speaker 1: five eleven, you can use this bipod and extend it
Speaker 1: long enough to shoot while you're standing. You just you know,
Speaker 1: fold the legs in a little bit tighter. Um. They
Speaker 1: also allow you to swivel around a bunch of directions,
Speaker 1: which is is really cool if you were hunting UM
Speaker 1: in an area like I was last year in Montana
Speaker 1: for one week in November. I was hunting a spot
Speaker 1: that didn't really have a specific funnel, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what the deer we're going to be doing. Having
Speaker 1: the ability to prop my gun up on a bipod
Speaker 1: and be you know, had very easily like shoot all
Speaker 1: the way to my right at like, uh, what would
Speaker 1: that be ninety degrees? Or go to my left at
Speaker 1: two seventy degrees. The Swagger bipod allows you to do that.
Speaker 1: They're not as stiff or or rugged as a traditional bipod.
Speaker 1: But if you're sitting on the ground leaning against a tree,
Speaker 1: UM and you want the ability to to make a
Speaker 1: variety of shots, that would be like my top recommendation. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're very cool. I've I've telt them a couple of times. UM.
Speaker 1: One thing I would add, and this really applies more
Speaker 1: if you're going to be shooting out you know, three
Speaker 1: D four hundred, five hundred yards UM is a bubble
Speaker 1: level that you put on your scope to make sure
Speaker 1: that you're shooting, that that your radical is level when
Speaker 1: you're shooting. UM. I wrote a piece on this a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago, and I was surprised. I talked
Speaker 1: with a guy at vortex UM and I was surprised
Speaker 1: at how much tilting your rifle to the right or
Speaker 1: to the left when you shoot can throw off your shot. UM.
Speaker 1: He did did some math for me and found that
Speaker 1: at three hundred yards UM, a two degree can't to
Speaker 1: the right or the or to the left can move
Speaker 1: your shot horizontally by almost nine inches UM. And that obviously,
Speaker 1: uh the the effect of that is even worse as
Speaker 1: you increased distance. Now, I don't want to kind of
Speaker 1: over overstate this too much. It's not going to be
Speaker 1: a huge deal if most of your shots are are
Speaker 1: within you know that that three yard range. But having
Speaker 1: that bubble level on your scope, uh is is gonna
Speaker 1: be able to tell you you can just glance at it,
Speaker 1: look and say, Okay, I'm shooting straight. I don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about this. I can you know, either just
Speaker 1: hold right on or I can dial and and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be good to go. Um. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1: And they're not expensive, you know, maybe thirty bucks and uh,
Speaker 1: and that will help make sure that you're shooting strade
Speaker 1: When it comes to white tail hunting, how how important
Speaker 1: is a good scope? I mean, you know, going back
Speaker 1: to my ill advised childhood, I mean, we had like
Speaker 1: thirty dollar scopes on our rifle. I didn't touch a
Speaker 1: higher end scope till I was in my twenties. For
Speaker 1: guys that are just hunting farm country in Michigan or
Speaker 1: Ohio or Georgia, they're shooting fifty yards, maybe a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty yards, you know, that kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: most you know, west or east of the Mississippi white
Speaker 1: tail guys are doing. How important is the scope? Do
Speaker 1: we really need to sink a bunch of money into it?
Speaker 1: Jordan's um or is it really that important? Oh? Man?
Speaker 1: I I really, I really have a special dislike for
Speaker 1: scope snobs. Um. It just kind of bothers me when
Speaker 1: when people say, oh, you really have to spend you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars, three thousand dollars on a scope. Why
Speaker 1: are you putting that cheap scope on that nice gun? Um?
Speaker 1: But I get it right. I think for people who
Speaker 1: are hunting at those longer distances, it makes a lot
Speaker 1: more sense. If you're not hunting at those longer distances,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, it could still be a good idea
Speaker 1: to invest at least some amount of money in a
Speaker 1: scope just for those low light conditions at Donner at
Speaker 1: dusk when you know, we hunt whitetail. You want to
Speaker 1: be able to see clearly and so. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't think you have to spend a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: on on your your scope for your dear gun. Uh,
Speaker 1: but but I think it is worth it to invest
Speaker 1: just to get that clarity in those low light conditions. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, at least a couple hundred dollars. I would say,
Speaker 1: what do you think, spencer, Yeah, I think scoops or
Speaker 1: I think scopes are super important. If I was building
Speaker 1: a white tail gun for like a thousand bucks, um,
Speaker 1: I'd spend half of that on a scope in the
Speaker 1: other half on the rifle. Itself. Jordan, I'm curious to
Speaker 1: hear like your thoughts on that. If you were spending
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars on a gun that's going to be
Speaker 1: your white tail gun, how would you break that down? Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I like that especially, I think especially because these days
Speaker 1: you don't have to spend a ton of money on
Speaker 1: a gun. You know, five hundred dollars is gonna get
Speaker 1: you there, Ah, for a gun that's gonna shoot as
Speaker 1: well as you needed to shoot, right, they talk about
Speaker 1: the gun shoots better than you do. Um, five dollars,
Speaker 1: that's that's gonna be enough to get you there. And
Speaker 1: so then yeah, you can spend the rest of that
Speaker 1: on a really nice scope and be sure that you
Speaker 1: know you're you're seeing clearly. Um. So yeah, i'd agree
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah. And the difference between like a four
Speaker 1: hundred dollar gun and an eight hun gun is noticeable.
Speaker 1: But for a lot of white tail hunters, um, maybe
Speaker 1: not necessarily and it's not going to like kill them
Speaker 1: anymore dead, but the difference between a four scope and
Speaker 1: an eight hund scope is is pretty enormous. Um. So,
Speaker 1: if you're setting aside a budget to buy a new gun,
Speaker 1: like spend at the top of your budget for a scope,
Speaker 1: and and you won't regret that scope. We're probably like
Speaker 1: outlive the gun itself when you decide to move on
Speaker 1: and get a different cartridge or get a different gun,
Speaker 1: or or you know, change things up and go out
Speaker 1: west or get a straight wall cartridge or whatever. So again, UM,
Speaker 1: I put a lot of emphasis on like making sure
Speaker 1: you have the right scipe. Yeah, that's and that's a
Speaker 1: great point about being able to switch it to a
Speaker 1: different gun, because the gun's gonna where eventually. Um, but
Speaker 1: if you take care of the scope, you can you
Speaker 1: can move it over. Well, what what makes a good
Speaker 1: white tail scope? Then? If you know, if we're if
Speaker 1: we're agreeing that what a western hunter is different, what
Speaker 1: a western hunter needs is different than what a white
Speaker 1: tail hunter needs. But Spencer, you're saying we should still
Speaker 1: try to get as good of a white tail scope
Speaker 1: as we can. What does that mean? Um, what's the
Speaker 1: criteria we're looking at that's most important for these types
Speaker 1: of situations. Well, a lot of the stuff is going
Speaker 1: to be obvious, and that's like the amount of light
Speaker 1: that you're letting in and how crisp things look. And
Speaker 1: those are things that you'll notice, like the second you
Speaker 1: go from a crappy scope to a very nice scope,
Speaker 1: especially when it manas most which is like that first
Speaker 1: half hour shooting light or that last half hour shooting light.
Speaker 1: But I think more important to that is, um getting
Speaker 1: the right magnification for whatever your situation might be. Now,
Speaker 1: when I hunt in the West, I'm using like a
Speaker 1: three by fifteen power scope. UM. But maybe if you're
Speaker 1: hunting like the swamps of Mississippi or something, Um, you
Speaker 1: don't need anything that gives us beyond like six or
Speaker 1: something like that. I don't know what that number would
Speaker 1: be because I haven't been in that situation very much.
Speaker 1: But just making sure that you have the appropriate size
Speaker 1: of magnification because you can really hurt yourself if you're
Speaker 1: under magnified or overmagnified. UM. So getting that part right
Speaker 1: and then and then spending like a responsible amount of
Speaker 1: money and uh, you'll be happy with whatever you get. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the temptation is always to go for
Speaker 1: too much magnification, right, Like we want we want hubble
Speaker 1: telescopes on our rifles, even if we're only going to
Speaker 1: be shooting a fifty yards um, so yeah, I'll definitely
Speaker 1: agree with Spencer. All right. So let's say we've got
Speaker 1: our deer gun. Then we've got four rifle that shoots
Speaker 1: better than than we can shoot ourselves. We've got as
Speaker 1: good of a scope as we can afford. It's got
Speaker 1: good low light capabilities, not too much magpower and swagger
Speaker 1: bipod on there. And now I am you know, Let's
Speaker 1: say I'm like one of the millions of deer hunters
Speaker 1: out there who traditionally have done what I do, which
Speaker 1: is you go out for opening weekend, maybe you go
Speaker 1: out around Thanksgiving, um, but then the rest of the
Speaker 1: year your bow hunting or maybe the gunning is all
Speaker 1: you do. But let's say this year you say, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get better at this thing. I'm gonna pay
Speaker 1: more attention to my gun. I'm gonna actually invest in
Speaker 1: time and energy in doing this the right way because
Speaker 1: I don't want to have another miss or I don't
Speaker 1: want to whatever. When it comes to leading into the
Speaker 1: season kinds of work like tuning your rifle or checking
Speaker 1: the zero in your practice spencer, what what does that
Speaker 1: look like for you? As far as the preseason work
Speaker 1: with your dear gun, how you're practicing with it, tuning it,
Speaker 1: setting anything like that. What does that look like for you?
Speaker 1: And what should someone be think thinking about as they
Speaker 1: get you know, try and take things to the next
Speaker 1: level themselves. I'm not super intense, um about my practicing,
Speaker 1: and it's certainly requires I think less than someone who's
Speaker 1: trying to kill a deer with a bow. Right then
Speaker 1: you recommend their shooting year round and they're ramping up
Speaker 1: as a season gets closer and and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: the reality is would be awesome if you did that
Speaker 1: with your with your rifle. Um, But shells are expensive
Speaker 1: and it's not like you can everybody can just like
Speaker 1: go in their backyard and and uh, you know, let
Speaker 1: out twenty rounds or something like that. So if if
Speaker 1: you were going to practice like I think an appropriate
Speaker 1: amount and you just wanted to burn through one box
Speaker 1: of shells, which these days is kind of expensive, that
Speaker 1: could be you know, fifty depending on what you're shooting.
Speaker 1: I'd recommend trying to break that up into multiple sessions. Right,
Speaker 1: So rather than going out and shooting twenty shells, all
Speaker 1: that wants, uh, maybe go out like four times in
Speaker 1: the couple of months. Leading up and only shoot five
Speaker 1: rounds each or go out three times and only shoot
Speaker 1: like seven rounds each. UM. Now, the more shooting the
Speaker 1: better obviously, but again that's just like not practical for everybody.
Speaker 1: And just like with archery, it's it's fun to practice
Speaker 1: at ranges beyond um what would be a realistic yardage,
Speaker 1: and that will actually give you some confidence when you
Speaker 1: do come back to a short or distance. Right if
Speaker 1: if I take out my rifle and um, I can
Speaker 1: hit steal at five hundred yards, when I come back
Speaker 1: to two hundred, which is a more realistic range, that
Speaker 1: that feels like a piece of cake. Just like if
Speaker 1: you shoot your bow at sixty and then you come
Speaker 1: back to fifteen, UM, it makes that feel easier. And
Speaker 1: so I'd recommend a little bit of that too. But uh,
Speaker 1: just getting like really confident at whatever you think your
Speaker 1: your yardage is, whether it's a hunt or two hundred
Speaker 1: three hundred um, and and making sure you get out
Speaker 1: like three or four times, you know, in the months
Speaker 1: leading up to the season. UM, that's that's good enough
Speaker 1: to like make you a very effective rifle hunging, very
Speaker 1: effective rifle hunter. But I'd be curiously about Jordan's to say,
Speaker 1: is someone who you know shoots you round? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think I think you hit it when you
Speaker 1: said shoot at realistic distances. Um, I think you're you're overarching.
Speaker 1: Um kind of goal should be too. Try to replicate
Speaker 1: as close as possible the hunting situations you're likely to encounter.
Speaker 1: And obviously hunting is, um you know, unpredictable, so you
Speaker 1: won't be able to always do that. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's unlikely that you'll be able to take a shot
Speaker 1: from prone with your bipod totally calm and relaxed, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it's possible, but it's more likely you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to shoot over some grass, or you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to shoot leaning against a tree or resting your gun
Speaker 1: on a fence post. Um. So when you do actice,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's way more useful to practice those
Speaker 1: types of scenarios. Um. So you're not just we're shooting
Speaker 1: from the bench, right, I mean, I guess maybe if
Speaker 1: you're in a tree stand, it's somewhat like shooting from
Speaker 1: a bench. Um, But practice those field positions. So practice sitting,
Speaker 1: practice squatting. Um. I I heard a Special Forces sniper
Speaker 1: once who said that he took most of his shots
Speaker 1: squatting with his elbows rested on his knees. And that's
Speaker 1: how we took most of the shots. Because that's how
Speaker 1: if if you know you're you're in the field, that's
Speaker 1: that's what you gotta do. UM. So practicing those field
Speaker 1: positions is really important. UM. And Spencer mentioned kind of
Speaker 1: the cost of AMMO, which is pretty insane these days. UM.
Speaker 1: One way you can still get in some practice without
Speaker 1: spending any money on AMMO is dry fire. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you talk to guys who do do a lot of
Speaker 1: competition shooting, they'll tell you dry fire is uh invaluable UM,
Speaker 1: which you can do at home, you know, just you know,
Speaker 1: be safe. Of course, make sure your gun is totally unloaded.
Speaker 1: A lot of times guys will will dry fire, like
Speaker 1: at their guns safe just like you know, that added
Speaker 1: level of safety. But just make sure that that that's
Speaker 1: the case, and then practice those field positions. But you
Speaker 1: can do it, you know, in your basement or um,
Speaker 1: in your room, and it doesn't feel like it's helping,
Speaker 1: but it really is helping because it's it's teaching you
Speaker 1: that trigger control. It's teaching you how to keep those
Speaker 1: sites on your target and pull the trigger without just
Speaker 1: without disrupting those sites, which is when you're gonna miss. Right,
Speaker 1: you can hold sits on a target. The reason you
Speaker 1: miss is because when you pull that trigger, you move
Speaker 1: them a little bit. UM, So dry fire is great. UM.
Speaker 1: I also recommend like getting a training gun in twenty
Speaker 1: two long rifle or even like an air rifle. UM.
Speaker 1: Any any trigger time is going to be helpful for you.
Speaker 1: And again going to of those field positions, it's gonna
Speaker 1: make you a better shooter. Yeah. The field positions thing
Speaker 1: is is so important. And I consider myself like a
Speaker 1: a very experienced uh gun hunted for deer. And something
Speaker 1: I didn't pick up until recently when I started shooting
Speaker 1: with Garrett Long for meat eater who shoots probably more
Speaker 1: than anybody um that I know, was that if I
Speaker 1: were to go out to the range and I were
Speaker 1: to shoot like the six five creed More that I
Speaker 1: that I hunted with all of last year, UM, I
Speaker 1: would just shoot that off of a lead sled and
Speaker 1: then that's that's what I would do. That would be
Speaker 1: my routine. Garrett Long will absolutely not let me shoot
Speaker 1: off a lead sled unless like my rifle isn't zero
Speaker 1: or something like that. But assuming my rifle is zero,
Speaker 1: they we're gonna go out and shoot, you know, five
Speaker 1: to ten rounds. He will not let me shoot out
Speaker 1: a lad sludd. He's making sure that I'm shooting off
Speaker 1: of my bipod while I'm sitting or shooting off of
Speaker 1: my bipod will laying um. And I felt so dumb
Speaker 1: when I realized like that that was the correct course
Speaker 1: of action for practicing with your rifle, and that it's
Speaker 1: actually pretty silly to just like sit there on a
Speaker 1: life slid uh and pull the trigger. So those field
Speaker 1: positions like Jordan was talking about, um, everybody you know
Speaker 1: should take that tap away from this podcast. Jordan's you
Speaker 1: had talked about, you know, that trigger time being so
Speaker 1: important to really understand how to control that trigger. And
Speaker 1: that brought to mind something that's so simple that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of longtime gun hunters don't even think
Speaker 1: about it anymore. But that is the right way to
Speaker 1: pull the trigger and shoot your gun. You know, I
Speaker 1: think I've heard so many different people say different ways
Speaker 1: to do it. You know, some people say take a
Speaker 1: deep breath and then squeeze and then pull, you know,
Speaker 1: when you release the breath. Some people say hold the breath.
Speaker 1: Some people there's all this different stuff about breathing and
Speaker 1: squeezing and pulling and all that kind of stuff. Could
Speaker 1: you could you walk me through what you think the
Speaker 1: right way it is to do that so that someone
Speaker 1: who's either new or someone who wants to like check
Speaker 1: what their grandpa taught them and see if it's right.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us you're like the right way to
Speaker 1: do that, so that when we are dry firing and
Speaker 1: practicing or on the range and practicing, we're doing it
Speaker 1: the best possible way. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think UM,
Speaker 1: in terms of breathing, letting that breath all the way
Speaker 1: out is gonna be the best kind of option. I
Speaker 1: know there's there's some debate about that, but to me,
Speaker 1: that just makes the most sense. And that's what I've
Speaker 1: had the most success with UM. Because you don't want
Speaker 1: your body to be moving when you're trying to shoot
Speaker 1: a gun, right, You certainly don't want to pull that
Speaker 1: trigger as you're inhaling um or or as you're exhaling,
Speaker 1: because your your chest is moving with those motions. UM,
Speaker 1: So you wanna you want to let that breath all
Speaker 1: the way out. UM. And then in terms of your
Speaker 1: trigger pull, um, pulling it with that first finger pad
Speaker 1: on your trigger finger, UM is going to make sure
Speaker 1: again that you're not disrupting those sites. You're not uh
Speaker 1: you know, jerking that trigger and moving the sites off
Speaker 1: of the target. UM, You're you're you want to focus
Speaker 1: on you let that breath out, and then you put
Speaker 1: you give that trigger a even consistent pressure. Hopefully if
Speaker 1: you've gotten lots of trigger time, you've practiced a lot,
Speaker 1: you know exactly when that trigger is going to break
Speaker 1: even consistent pressure. Um with that breath out and you
Speaker 1: break your shot like that. UM. That's how I've done it,
Speaker 1: That's why I was taught to do it, and I've
Speaker 1: had success with that, uh that method spencer anything different
Speaker 1: for you, Yeah, I think, UM. One of the hardest
Speaker 1: thing to simulate, even at the range is just like
Speaker 1: being out of breath when you have to make a shot.
Speaker 1: And I experienced that a lot haunting left of the
Speaker 1: Missouri River where I will spot a deer at like
Speaker 1: a thousand yards and now I got to close that
Speaker 1: distance to three hundreds. So all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: know you've walked like a quarter mile or something, and
Speaker 1: you're going up and down ravines and you get there
Speaker 1: and that he's about to disappute over the next hill
Speaker 1: or something, or across the property line, whatever that might be,
Speaker 1: and then you had to make that shot after you
Speaker 1: know you're now out of breath. And so I think
Speaker 1: one thing that you could try to practice at the
Speaker 1: range is just like step away from your gone walk
Speaker 1: back to your pickup, um, walk around, they pick up
Speaker 1: a few times whatever, um, look at your phone, but
Speaker 1: just like walking while you're doing and then come back
Speaker 1: and try to make yourself shoot within like you know,
Speaker 1: the first twenty seconds of of getting behind your rifle.
Speaker 1: Because I think any of the deer that I have
Speaker 1: missed in recent years, it wasn't because I was nervous
Speaker 1: or because there was something wrong with the gun or
Speaker 1: my environment. Um, it was that like it got to
Speaker 1: the moment of truth and I had just, um like
Speaker 1: walked a long distance and now this dear is is
Speaker 1: about to hop a fancy or something. I have to
Speaker 1: make a shot in amount of breath. And so I
Speaker 1: think that is is one thing that I would recommend practicing.
Speaker 1: UM unless you're someone who you know hunts in Tennessee
Speaker 1: and you just sit in elevative blind all the time,
Speaker 1: that that won't really be an issue. But for anyone
Speaker 1: else who's not in the Midwest, that could be like
Speaker 1: something that you need to learn. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: I mean even even if you are hunting in the
Speaker 1: Midwest from a tree stand. Um, the sensation of target
Speaker 1: panic is similar to the sensation of you know, uh,
Speaker 1: like you're describing being physically out of breath. So I
Speaker 1: think if if you struggle with you know, your heart
Speaker 1: starts beating out of your chest when you see that dear, Um,
Speaker 1: that strategy that that spencer describing will help with that
Speaker 1: as well. It's just getting used to making good shots
Speaker 1: when your heart's beating, the adrenaline is going. Um. It's
Speaker 1: it's great, great practice for for those situations. Let's talk
Speaker 1: to something else that I think, something else that I
Speaker 1: think Jordan can speak too better because he knows the
Speaker 1: physics of it. Um is that you don't want to
Speaker 1: practice with a hot barrel. Um. It can be tempting
Speaker 1: to go out and like wrap up your whole you know,
Speaker 1: shooting process in like fifteen minutes or something and in
Speaker 1: that fifteen minutes you sent like seven to ten rounds
Speaker 1: down range. That's too much. Your gun barrel is going
Speaker 1: to be hot, and if you're new to to gun haunting,
Speaker 1: you might not realize like the effect that that can
Speaker 1: have on on your accuracy UM, and it might like
Speaker 1: make you tempted to then move your zero and you're
Speaker 1: making these adjustments and your barrel gets hotter and it
Speaker 1: only gets worse from there. So speak to that a
Speaker 1: little bit, Jordan, about why it's important, you know, to
Speaker 1: be shooting with a barrel that's not smoking hot, because
Speaker 1: that's not how it's going to be in the field,
Speaker 1: and that can affect your accuracy. Yeah. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: certainly don't want um two to zero your scope based
Speaker 1: on a hot barrel. Now, sometimes, you know, some guns
Speaker 1: do a great job with you know, your your point
Speaker 1: of impact doesn't shift much at all with with the
Speaker 1: hot barrel. UM. Some guns, especially a lot of hunting rifles,
Speaker 1: if it's a thin profile barrel, UM, you can have
Speaker 1: a significant point of impact shift when that barrel is hot.
Speaker 1: Uh So, what I always recommend is, if you're sitting
Speaker 1: in your gun, like you know, at the beginning, at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the season. UM, shoot your group right,
Speaker 1: shoot three to five shots, same point of aim, adjust
Speaker 1: your scope, and then wait until your barrel cools off
Speaker 1: before taking another shot. Because your first shot on that deer,
Speaker 1: your barrel is gonna be coold. Ideally you do this
Speaker 1: with UM you know, the same outside temperature and at
Speaker 1: the same elevation, because that can packed your shot as well. UM.
Speaker 1: If if that's not possible, you know it's you'll probably okay.
Speaker 1: But making that final shot where you confirm your rifles zero,
Speaker 1: you got to do that with the cold barrel. UM. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're practicing right, you're practicing those field positions,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't worry too much about making sure your barrel
Speaker 1: stays perfectly cold. Uh. You don't want to burn out
Speaker 1: your barrel. You don't want it to get you know,
Speaker 1: flaming hot and melt. Um. But if you're just practicing
Speaker 1: on steel or whatever, you know, it's not a huge
Speaker 1: deal if if your barrel gets gets hot. But once
Speaker 1: you are zeroing it, you know, the last shot before
Speaker 1: you go out to hunt, you want to do that
Speaker 1: with the cold barrel. UM to make sure you're replicating
Speaker 1: the in the field scenario. Interesting, Um, I want to
Speaker 1: go back to what you brought up Jordan's in regards
Speaker 1: to target panic, and you know, that's something we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about in the bow hunting world, maybe less
Speaker 1: so in the gun hunting world, but I mean there's
Speaker 1: a plenty of ways that it shows itself, right, whether
Speaker 1: it be in punching the trigger or flinching at the shot,
Speaker 1: or you know, in my case with my gun hunting experiences,
Speaker 1: it's it's just always been that I rushed the shot,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, as soon as the cross areas behind
Speaker 1: the shoulder, it's it's being sent like that's been something
Speaker 1: I fought for a long time. I can only think
Speaker 1: of like one shot ever with a gun that I
Speaker 1: can really tell you honestly that I like, really slow
Speaker 1: down and let the crossair just sit on the deer
Speaker 1: for a little bit of time before I squeeze the trigger. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: as my longest shot I've ever taken at a deer,
Speaker 1: and I got it. But I've I've had trouble with
Speaker 1: this is what I'm trying to say. UM So my
Speaker 1: question is for folks that have experienced that, for people
Speaker 1: that are experiencing that, how do you tackle that other
Speaker 1: than doing the you know, run around and train and
Speaker 1: get your heart right up and practice like that. UM.
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time learning about dealing with
Speaker 1: target panic with a bow. I gather there's probably a
Speaker 1: lot of things that are similar, but from a gun perspective,
Speaker 1: how do you help someone dealing with that with their firearm? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean a good question, right. UM. I think it
Speaker 1: goes back to practice and confidence, because the more you practice,
Speaker 1: the more confident you're gonna be in in your ability
Speaker 1: to make a shot. And so even when your heart
Speaker 1: is racing and you're shaking, you're you're gonna know and
Speaker 1: your body to make a good shot. UM. So you
Speaker 1: can still feel that confidence even though you know your
Speaker 1: your adrenaline is going um. And again that that goes
Speaker 1: back to practice. UM. Speaking of kind of uh mistakes
Speaker 1: or or bad shots. One time this this really affected
Speaker 1: me was when it wasn't a very long shot. I
Speaker 1: was I was do hunting, um, and I I but
Speaker 1: I still you know, got got that hit of adrenaline. UM.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a great rest and I had also
Speaker 1: been shooting earlier in the day with a different gun. Uh.
Speaker 1: That had a much heavier trigger. So when I went
Speaker 1: to pull the trigger on my deer hunting gun, I
Speaker 1: mean that thing went off when I did not expect
Speaker 1: it to. Um. So so I think another thing just
Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, get really dialed in right
Speaker 1: before that hunt is as you're going out, but before
Speaker 1: you leave, UH, do a little bit of dry fire
Speaker 1: just too again, remind your body of this is what
Speaker 1: the trigger feels like when it goes off. This is
Speaker 1: how much pressure you need to put on it, um
Speaker 1: and and that that will help you even uh in
Speaker 1: those moments of target panic. M Spencer about you have
Speaker 1: you have you ever dealt with it at all? Um
Speaker 1: a little bit. I experienced it far more UM using
Speaker 1: our treat equipment. And I think the same things mark
Speaker 1: um that makes somebody a good shot with a rifle
Speaker 1: would apply to making them a good shot with the bow.
Speaker 1: And I know you've talked about this a lot, um
Speaker 1: and what it takes to get rid of that target panic.
Speaker 1: But all the same things that you emphasize, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're you're shooting an arrow apply to when you're
Speaker 1: shooting a bullet. UM. I think if you take somebody
Speaker 1: like lead by Morgan. Whoever the best um archery hunter
Speaker 1: you know is, I'm sure they would. They would also
Speaker 1: excel sitting behind a bipod on a rifle. Um, all
Speaker 1: those same things seem to translate. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So so then here's the question. I guess it's kind
Speaker 1: of a two part question. Um, how do you know
Speaker 1: you're shooting well enough to go out there? Right? I
Speaker 1: mean I recognize that my childhood experience was probably not
Speaker 1: the right answer. Right, hit apply hit a pipe play
Speaker 1: at forty yards probably doesn't mean you're accurate enough these
Speaker 1: days to go out and shoot a deer of the
Speaker 1: gun at least not advisable. Uh, what would you guys
Speaker 1: say is accurate enough? You know? If I'm shooting two
Speaker 1: inch groups, that two of my good? If I'm shooting
Speaker 1: one inch groups a hundred of my good? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it something else? How? How do you guys measure that?
Speaker 1: How do you determine what's accurate enough and that I'm
Speaker 1: ready to go out there and do this thing well?
Speaker 1: And then secondly, part two of this is how do
Speaker 1: you determine what your max ranges? How would you go
Speaker 1: about that spencer? I think for determining your max range UM.
Speaker 1: For most white tail hunters, their environment will determine that. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's a lot of people hunting um,
Speaker 1: you know, like eastern Mississippi, eastern Missouri that would have
Speaker 1: many opportunities to like take a five hundred yard shot
Speaker 1: or six hundred yard shot or something like that. So
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of folks that's just predetermined
Speaker 1: basically by what they're hunting in. But if you do
Speaker 1: hunt in the west, you're where it's more open, or
Speaker 1: maybe your hunting an enormous egg field, um, where those
Speaker 1: kinds of shots exist. UM, Then I think it's I
Speaker 1: don't know if there is a good rule. UM. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like we often hear with our tree equipment
Speaker 1: that it's like a ten yards you should be shooting
Speaker 1: one inch groups or something like that. And and maybe
Speaker 1: Jordan is aware of like a good rule for that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. UM. But you'll recognize, like if you're
Speaker 1: accurate enough to go out and ethically kill a deer,
Speaker 1: and you have to think about usually you're you're aiming
Speaker 1: for their lungs, which are about the size of like
Speaker 1: a a pie plate. And so I've had a hundred
Speaker 1: yards you're throwing like two inch groups in it, you know,
Speaker 1: two hundred yards, you're throwing three or four inch groups. Um,
Speaker 1: that's that's plenty accurate to go out and kill a
Speaker 1: white tail, assuming you know, all other factors are not
Speaker 1: making you inaccurate. So you're telling me that when I'm
Speaker 1: reading in these like gun magazines and they're talking about
Speaker 1: how all their bullet holes are touching each other and
Speaker 1: they're within like one eighth of a millimeter and every
Speaker 1: single one stacking on top. I'm not supposed to do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, any rifle that we're shooting is probably capable
Speaker 1: of that. But when we're behind a bipod or you know,
Speaker 1: resting um on our knees or something like that, Now,
Speaker 1: if you can throw you know, a couple inch grouping
Speaker 1: at a few hundred yards, um, that's that's plenty accurate
Speaker 1: to like effectively and ethnically kill a white tail. Yeah, Jordan,
Speaker 1: what's your take? Yeah, Yeah, I agree with Spencer. I
Speaker 1: think we're more likely to be limited by our own
Speaker 1: skill as a hunter than by the limitations of the
Speaker 1: ammunition we're using. Right, because you you can you can
Speaker 1: determine how far your bullet is going to expand right
Speaker 1: and reliably dispatch an animal. The the AMMO maker can
Speaker 1: tell you how fast does that bullet have to be
Speaker 1: going uh to reliably expand and you can use that
Speaker 1: and calculate, Okay, the bullets still traveling at this speed
Speaker 1: at eight hundred yards, So that is my max effective range.
Speaker 1: The problem is that that's probably not your max range, right,
Speaker 1: unless you have extensive experience, unless you are very comfortable
Speaker 1: making wind calls, unless you UM are are very confident
Speaker 1: in your your range finder. UM, your max range is
Speaker 1: limited to what you can shoot in that specific situation. UM.
Speaker 1: I think the pipe plate thing, UH, it's not a
Speaker 1: bad like thing to think about, right because everyone knows
Speaker 1: how big a pipe plate is, and that's about as
Speaker 1: big as the vital area UM of a white tail.
Speaker 1: So if if you think you might make a three
Speaker 1: yard shot, UM, take a pie plate, put it at
Speaker 1: three yards and shoot from those field positions. Shoot from
Speaker 1: the positions you think you're likely to shoot from in
Speaker 1: the field. And if you can, if you can group
Speaker 1: those shots near the center of the pipe plate, I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna be good to go. UM. If you're
Speaker 1: shooting all over the pipe plate, right and one light
Speaker 1: kind of barely mixed the edge. Then maybe you want
Speaker 1: to bring it back a little bit because in the
Speaker 1: field again, um, you know, you're gonna deal with weird weather,
Speaker 1: You're gonna deal with your own adrenaline. Um, so you
Speaker 1: want to make sure in that controlled setting of the
Speaker 1: range you're you're hitting near the center. But yeah, like
Speaker 1: Spencer said, couple inches at two or three hundred yards,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be good to go with with most situations
Speaker 1: you're gonna encounter. Okay, how does how does all this
Speaker 1: look in the field? I mean, when I think about
Speaker 1: my archery shot process, I'm in the tree, I see
Speaker 1: a buck come in, he's moving into range. There's a
Speaker 1: whole series of things that I'm doing to prepare myself
Speaker 1: for the shot and to actually x acute, you know,
Speaker 1: all the way to firing that arrow down range. Jordan,
Speaker 1: can you walk me through what that process looks like
Speaker 1: for you with a firearm. I'm really curious about all
Speaker 1: the detailed things, like what you're thinking about, what you're
Speaker 1: checking at each different point. Um. You know, I'm curious
Speaker 1: if there's anything here that we can get better at.
Speaker 1: For me, it's always just been like an automatic thing
Speaker 1: I've done since I was a kid. I'm curious if
Speaker 1: there's a better way to do things when it comes
Speaker 1: to actually getting into position and executing the best possible
Speaker 1: shot on a deer with a gun in the field,
Speaker 1: What does that look like for you? Yeah? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm curious also to hear what Spencer has to say,
Speaker 1: just because of his extensive experience with this. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, the first question is how far
Speaker 1: away is the deer? Right? Am I gonna need to
Speaker 1: have any holdover? Am I gonna need to dial my
Speaker 1: scope at all? Um? You know in most white tail
Speaker 1: situations probably not, especially if you're sited in at two yards.
Speaker 1: You know, you're probably gonna be able to hold right
Speaker 1: on target. Um once I once, Once I am comfortable
Speaker 1: with the range, I'm comfortable that this is the animal
Speaker 1: that I want to take. Um, I'm gonna get behind
Speaker 1: the scope now. I think I struggled with this when
Speaker 1: I was a new hunter. Uh is getting a good
Speaker 1: site picture can be challenging in that scenario when you're
Speaker 1: when your adrenaline is pumping right you, you get down
Speaker 1: behind the scope and now all you see is black um.
Speaker 1: And I think if if you grew up with firearms,
Speaker 1: maybe that's not so much of a struggle for you.
Speaker 1: But if you didn't. UM, practicing getting that good site
Speaker 1: picture is important before the hunt, so that once you
Speaker 1: get there, you can immediately bam, you're behind the scope.
Speaker 1: You have a clear sight picture and the animal is
Speaker 1: in your scope. UM. That's another thing. Sometimes you see
Speaker 1: through the scope and now you're not sure where you are.
Speaker 1: You're kind of lost. UM. So so practicing that beforehand
Speaker 1: is good. Uh. One thing that I've found to be
Speaker 1: useful as having a good cheek riiser that's at the
Speaker 1: right height. UM. That way, my my cheek goes down
Speaker 1: and I'm automatically at the right height. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a better chance of getting that good site picture. UM.
Speaker 1: Once I have that good site picture, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's just kind of back to what we talked about before,
Speaker 1: controlling breathing, focusing on that trigger. UM. That's something that
Speaker 1: that I tell people all the time is is the
Speaker 1: most important thing when you're breaking a shot is that
Speaker 1: trigger control. UM. Is just focus on making sure that
Speaker 1: trigger press is consistent and that you're pulling all the
Speaker 1: way through, um, because because that's what's gonna really gonna
Speaker 1: make or break the shot, is that trigger. UM. So
Speaker 1: once you know, once you break that shot, that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of hopefully you've you've made a good one. M
Speaker 1: When are you addressing the safety? Do you do? You
Speaker 1: pop that safety off as soon as you've got the
Speaker 1: site picture, as soon as the crosshairs are on the vitals,
Speaker 1: as soon as as soon as when? Yeah? Good, good question. UM.
Speaker 1: I think probably as soon as I get the animal
Speaker 1: and the crosshairs, that's when the safety is coming off.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not putting my finger on the trigger until
Speaker 1: obviously the animals where I wanted to be and I'm
Speaker 1: lined up and ready to shoot. UM. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: clicking that safety off, and you know I I forgot
Speaker 1: that even as I was describing this process, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's happened to the best of us. I think where
Speaker 1: we forget to flip that safety off? H spencer, what's
Speaker 1: your process look like? I think one of the number
Speaker 1: one things you need to remind yourself if you're gun
Speaker 1: hunting um or deer is that you can take your time.
Speaker 1: If if you're an archery hunter, who is um getting
Speaker 1: into gun hunting. You're probably familiar with how it could be,
Speaker 1: you know, the middle of November and you're hunting a
Speaker 1: funnel during the rout, and an entire encounter with a
Speaker 1: deer can happen in like ten to fifteen seconds, and
Speaker 1: that's it, and that's your only chance. Um. With gun hunting,
Speaker 1: it's it's rarely that quickly. You can take your time
Speaker 1: and like calm yourself down, um and get a good,
Speaker 1: steady rest rather than a mediocre one, um, because a
Speaker 1: lot of times that deer probably doesn't even know that
Speaker 1: you exist, and and there isn't like a real threat
Speaker 1: of you moving your knees a little bit or bringing
Speaker 1: your gun up higher on your shoulder because the thing
Speaker 1: is a hunter and fifty yards away and doesn't know
Speaker 1: that you're there, which isn't like, uh, it's not something
Speaker 1: that really translates to archery. If you're familiar with you know,
Speaker 1: the intimate and counters that you have with deer. The
Speaker 1: other thing is um ahead of time, knowing the zoom
Speaker 1: of your scope. It can be common for you to
Speaker 1: like go out to the range right and the last
Speaker 1: shot you take is at six hundred yard and you
Speaker 1: hit steel and you're feeling real good, and that's the
Speaker 1: shot that you end on. And then you go hunting
Speaker 1: opening day and and you pull up your scope um
Speaker 1: like when it matters, and you realize that you have
Speaker 1: your zoom turned up to like fourteen or something, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you're dialing back and you're
Speaker 1: you're adjusting your clarity and and things like that. So
Speaker 1: ahead of time, whenever you sit down, we're like, you
Speaker 1: think you're hunting, and you have your your gun on
Speaker 1: safe um, sit down and look around through the scope
Speaker 1: and figure out, you know, what you want the zoom
Speaker 1: to be if the things that three fifty yards or
Speaker 1: if it's at seventy five yards UM. And then you
Speaker 1: should also, just like when you're our tree hunting range,
Speaker 1: things ahead of time. And so if you're sitting in
Speaker 1: a tree stand and you know that this uh trail
Speaker 1: is eight, you know ards in that trail is nineteen
Speaker 1: and this tree is twenty four, you should do the
Speaker 1: same thing. When you're gone hunting. You should know like roughly, okay,
Speaker 1: that tree is a hundred yards and uh, the top
Speaker 1: of that hill is two hundred um and things like that,
Speaker 1: you'll likely have enough time to range deer and get
Speaker 1: a precise range, because, like I said, the gun encounters
Speaker 1: aren't as quick or immediate um as our tree encounters are.
Speaker 1: But it's it's something else that you should be doing
Speaker 1: out of time, just like when you're hunting with the bow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So does your process look any different though as far
Speaker 1: as like the actual steps are taken than Jordan described, No,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's pretty well the same. Um.
Speaker 1: Like you acquire your target, like you you bring your
Speaker 1: eye to the scalpe. That's when I flip flick off
Speaker 1: the safety. Um. So I think it sounded very similar
Speaker 1: to you know, what Jordan does when he's gone hunting deer.
Speaker 1: Do either one of you guys have any kind of
Speaker 1: internal monologue or mantra or words that you're repeating yourself
Speaker 1: to try to help focus on these important things? You
Speaker 1: know that's a big thing in the archery world. Um.
Speaker 1: Is that something that's ever played into firearms for you,
Speaker 1: Spencer or Jordan's for me? Um? Not very much? Um.
Speaker 1: But but I also kind of choose to haunt with
Speaker 1: a caliber that doesn't have as much recoil for that reason,
Speaker 1: and I think people it probably happens to and they're
Speaker 1: not even aware of it that they're like bracing themselves
Speaker 1: if they're shooting a two seventy um that they're they're
Speaker 1: shooting a large bullet out of um, that they have
Speaker 1: to like kind of choose to think about the recoil
Speaker 1: that's about to happen. That's one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: love to shoot with a gun like a six five
Speaker 1: creed More is that never crosses my mind as far
Speaker 1: as like what's going to happen to my shoulder after
Speaker 1: I pull a trigger. I think some people do have
Speaker 1: to think about that if they're shooting a thirty ot
Speaker 1: six or seven mm um. But as far as it
Speaker 1: goes um pulling the trigger. I don't have any mantras
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but I wouldn't be surprised if people,
Speaker 1: you know, have that without even realizing it when they're
Speaker 1: shooting a gun, that that really kicks them. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have anything specific. I think just I try
Speaker 1: to breathe and control my breathing and then just focus
Speaker 1: on that trigger. I mean I might I might even
Speaker 1: think that in my head focus on the trigger, uh,
Speaker 1: just because that's that's what I That's all I tried
Speaker 1: to think about as hard as that is when I'm
Speaker 1: when I'm in that situation. M Yeah, I think new
Speaker 1: shooters um probably wouldn't even recognize like what a good
Speaker 1: trigger pole feels like. And I'm specifically talking about the
Speaker 1: weight of the trigger poole. I've only had one rifle
Speaker 1: in my life that I considered to like be inaccurate,
Speaker 1: and it was because the trigger pole was wildly be
Speaker 1: And I even took it to like a gunsmith to
Speaker 1: to get it addressed because I couldn't get it taken
Speaker 1: care of UM and he ran into the same issues
Speaker 1: where he couldn't get it any lass. But I'd be
Speaker 1: curious to wordy to hear your thoughts on on like
Speaker 1: the weight of a trigger. I think ideally you're in
Speaker 1: like the four pound range or five pound range. UM,
Speaker 1: a really heavy trigger pole could be like almost double digits,
Speaker 1: and it's like replicating a handgun at that point. That's
Speaker 1: not ideal. You you want a trigger pole it's not
Speaker 1: so light that it's gonna go off if you bump it.
Speaker 1: But also UM like light enough that you don't have
Speaker 1: a long trigger pole where you're really thinking about it
Speaker 1: or you're unsure when it's gonna go off, or you
Speaker 1: have to think about how much emphasis you're putting on
Speaker 1: on your finger pulling the trigger. And it's probably like
Speaker 1: one of the cheapest, cheapest ways to just make it
Speaker 1: a rifle more accurate is getting a trigger pole that's
Speaker 1: right for you. It's something you can probably address after
Speaker 1: watching like a YouTube video or just taking to a
Speaker 1: gunsmith and they'd probably do it for free and just
Speaker 1: ask you to like next time you got a more
Speaker 1: serious matter you're bringing your business. Yeah, yeah, no, Uh,
Speaker 1: A trigger is is one of the easiest things and
Speaker 1: a lot of rifles one of the easiest things you
Speaker 1: can swap out. UM. A lot of aftermarket trigger companies
Speaker 1: make drop in triggers for the most popular uh, you know,
Speaker 1: both action hunting rifles. So it's just a matter of
Speaker 1: taking that action apart, you know, UM, taking out a
Speaker 1: couple of screws and putting the new trigger in UM
Speaker 1: and it can make a world of difference. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's not gonna make the gun more mechanically accurate,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna make you more accurate with the gun
Speaker 1: without question, especially if you're going from a trigger like
Speaker 1: Spencer's describing to a really nice trigger. Um. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are also adjustable, so uh, pretty common. It's
Speaker 1: pretty common to be able to adjust them between two
Speaker 1: and a half and five pounds. And I would say
Speaker 1: any anything in there that you're comfortable with is going
Speaker 1: to be a great trigger. And it it's really about
Speaker 1: it's about the trigger weight, right. You don't want it
Speaker 1: to be too heavy, but you also want that break
Speaker 1: to be really consistent, so it's breaking at the same
Speaker 1: weight every time. Uh. And then you also want the
Speaker 1: break to be Uh. It's described in a number of ways,
Speaker 1: but usually it's like you describe it as a crisp break. Right.
Speaker 1: It's not mushy, it's not gritty. It's like you're just
Speaker 1: pulling back, applying that consistent pressure and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden bang. Right, it's like kind of like glass breaking. Um.
Speaker 1: That's a really good trigger that you're going to have
Speaker 1: success with. And the nice thing is that a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, if you're buying a new gun that
Speaker 1: was manufactured within the last few years by one of
Speaker 1: the big gun companies, it's probably going to have a
Speaker 1: really good trigger in it, and it's probably going to
Speaker 1: be adjustable. Um. And that's great. I mean, you may
Speaker 1: not need an aftermarket trigger, but if you have an
Speaker 1: old gun, um, that's definitely a great upgrade you can make.
Speaker 1: So would you spectrum, George, what's the spectrum of like
Speaker 1: weights that you're pulling on your triggers, even for guns
Speaker 1: that you're not using to hunt with? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: so I think the like the military, that's the mill
Speaker 1: spec weight for like an a r I think is
Speaker 1: like eight pounds UM. And that's you know that's a
Speaker 1: decently heavy trigger is eight pounds um double digits is
Speaker 1: incredibly heavy and incredibly long. Uh that you're gonna find
Speaker 1: maybe in like um, like a revolver, right, like a
Speaker 1: like a double action revolver, where it's just super long
Speaker 1: and super heavy. Um. For for handguns, I mean even
Speaker 1: handguns these days, you can you know, uh, five six
Speaker 1: pounds is pretty common for for a new handgun. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you're looking at at at a new
Speaker 1: hunting rifle, three and a half to five pounds is
Speaker 1: is probably what you're gonna be looking at. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: guess that my nineteen seventy two semi auto Winchester does
Speaker 1: not have a good trigger. Poll that was. That was
Speaker 1: the first rifle I used in I remember I tried
Speaker 1: to site that in at long ranges to take to
Speaker 1: Mexico for cou'se deer hunt, and I could not understand
Speaker 1: why the lead was flying all over the place and
Speaker 1: couldn't group well. It. Uh, it was pretty obvious once
Speaker 1: I started thinking about that. Um, speaking of the bullets
Speaker 1: going all over the place, the last thing I want
Speaker 1: to cover is shooting the elements and how that stuff
Speaker 1: can affect your accuracy. Um in a white tail scenario
Speaker 1: at least. So Jordan, what about the wind you talked
Speaker 1: about earlier? How you know maybe you need to count
Speaker 1: for wind in certain situations and what ranges? What I
Speaker 1: actually have to think about wind at all? Knowing that
Speaker 1: in a lot of white tail scenarios now I'm not
Speaker 1: shooting that far out. Do I need to care about wind?
Speaker 1: How do I count for wind? Should that factor in it? All? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think within about three hundred yards unless
Speaker 1: you're talking about like a gale and you're shooting a
Speaker 1: very slow round. UM, probably not uh past three yards,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to be thinking about it. And the
Speaker 1: problem with making wind calls is that it's very difficult. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's tough to judge if if you are in
Speaker 1: a stationary position, what the wind is doing four hundred
Speaker 1: yards away. Um. And that really goes back to just
Speaker 1: having experience with that rifle and with that caliber and knowing, um,
Speaker 1: what you want to do. And I mean me personally,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to take a shot if I feel
Speaker 1: like the wind is so strong and I'm making a
Speaker 1: very you know, a longer distance shot, um, just because
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know enough about the situation to
Speaker 1: to make what I think is is ethical shot. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say, what
Speaker 1: do you consider a gale force wind? Like, what's that
Speaker 1: number for you? Yeah, I mean obviously it's not actually
Speaker 1: gale force, um, but anything above and and it depends
Speaker 1: to on the direction of the wind. Right, Like if
Speaker 1: it's a tail wind coming from straight behind you, or
Speaker 1: if it's a wind coming from straight in front of you, Um,
Speaker 1: that's not going to affect the bullet whole lot. But
Speaker 1: if it's coming from ninety degrees you're on your left
Speaker 1: or you're right, Uh, that's gonna push it quite a
Speaker 1: bit more. Um. If you want, like uh uh more
Speaker 1: of a range of a lot of the well, all
Speaker 1: of the um like ballistics calculator apps will make those
Speaker 1: calculations for you, so you just plug in. Here's here's
Speaker 1: my my cartridge. Uh, here's how fast it's going, and
Speaker 1: you can see and you can play with those wind
Speaker 1: numbers to see. Okay, at three yards the wind is
Speaker 1: coming from directly on my right. Here's how much it's
Speaker 1: gonna push the bullet um and that could be revealing,
Speaker 1: but again it's gonna affect you a lot more if
Speaker 1: you're making long distance shots within a couple hundred yards,
Speaker 1: you know, it's probably not going to matter a whole lot. Okay,
Speaker 1: Spencer year out there on the Great Plains a lot
Speaker 1: South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, it's windy as hell out there,
Speaker 1: has this factory in at all for you in the field.
Speaker 1: Um now, and when you're talking about heavy winds, it's
Speaker 1: not so bad if it's like a consistent heavy wind.
Speaker 1: But as like more experienced shooters than me I pointed
Speaker 1: out to me, if you're hunting in a Western state
Speaker 1: and you're shooting across like three or four different coolies
Speaker 1: um to your target, all those coolies can have different
Speaker 1: like different thermals, and one can have the wind just
Speaker 1: ripping through it and the next one may not have
Speaker 1: much winded. On the other one, UM may have like
Speaker 1: a medium amount of winded and just having inconsistent winds.
Speaker 1: I think UM is like even a bigger problem than
Speaker 1: having just a nine d degree wind that's like fifteen
Speaker 1: or twenty miles an hour, but it's still not enough.
Speaker 1: That's going to affect UM most shooters, I think the
Speaker 1: bigger thing in in nasty conditions, whether it's like wind
Speaker 1: or rain or snow, UM are your optics and you
Speaker 1: can have it's really cheaped by scope covers, UM, and
Speaker 1: you don't need them for every hunt, and not every
Speaker 1: hunter needs them either if they're like shooting from an
Speaker 1: elevated blind or something like that. UM. But if you
Speaker 1: are just sitting on the ground a lot or leaning
Speaker 1: against a fence post and you hunt in an area,
Speaker 1: UM that's going to get rain or snow, get yourself
Speaker 1: some scope covers, because you can have snow that totally
Speaker 1: like fills up the front of your rifle scope and
Speaker 1: you not even realize it, and then when it comes
Speaker 1: time to shoot, you're trying to clean it out. And
Speaker 1: then you're just smearing it um. And that's an idea,
Speaker 1: So some cheap scope covers, uh could prevent that. Also,
Speaker 1: just like putting a piece of tape over your rifle barrel,
Speaker 1: I think Jordan could speak to the specifics of that.
Speaker 1: But that will keep moisture out of your rifle barrel.
Speaker 1: I think it's been proven that that doesn't affect accuracy
Speaker 1: at all. It's not going to change the ballistics of
Speaker 1: your bullet um. But it's just like a good practice
Speaker 1: to to keep your barrel from you know, rusting out
Speaker 1: or or getting moisture in there. But I think like
Speaker 1: the biggest thing when we're talking about the wind and
Speaker 1: rain and snow is just making sure that you're comfortable.
Speaker 1: If if you can't like feel your fingers um or
Speaker 1: you're distracted because sleet is hitting you in the face,
Speaker 1: and uh, you can't like focus on your trigger pole
Speaker 1: or acquiring um, you know, the target in your scope.
Speaker 1: That's a way bigger problem than it actually like affecting
Speaker 1: the performance of your gun. So just make sure that
Speaker 1: you know you're dressed for the conditions and you don't
Speaker 1: get swear be on the walk in um or that
Speaker 1: your toes aren't freezing, and you're thinking about those things
Speaker 1: because again, like Jordan said earlier, uh, your rifles are
Speaker 1: gonna outshoot you. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's a great
Speaker 1: point about making sure you are comfortable in the weather. Um.
Speaker 1: And yes, I I believe that, I've I've I've seen
Speaker 1: guys use electrical tape, um, the black electrical tape for
Speaker 1: to cover your your barrel and that's not gonna that's
Speaker 1: not gonna do anything. Um in terms of your shot.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't worry about that, but it could affect your
Speaker 1: shot if you get rain in there or or dirt
Speaker 1: or something. Um. So yeah, the tapes a good strategy, Jordan.
Speaker 1: Is there anything with snow or rain that would impact
Speaker 1: or that would influence accuracy so much so that you know,
Speaker 1: you would say, well, because of this, you know, all
Speaker 1: the snow coming down and because of this cold rain,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to shoot as long of a shot
Speaker 1: as that would or wise, is there any kind of
Speaker 1: ballistic impact that we should think about, you know, outside
Speaker 1: of just wind. Yeah, now that's a great question. I
Speaker 1: I feel that probably, Um, the rain is the rain
Speaker 1: your visibility before they're gonna affect the bullet um. So
Speaker 1: you know, if it's if it's pouring down rain or
Speaker 1: the snow is really coming down hard, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to see that far out anyway, And so
Speaker 1: it's not really going to be a question. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't know specifically how much, like you know, a moderate rain,
Speaker 1: it's going to impact the flight of a bullet. I
Speaker 1: I would suspect very little. Um. But again, like with
Speaker 1: everything else, it's gonna impact it more at longer distances
Speaker 1: because that and everything affects it more when it's going slower.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that that's probably not a situation
Speaker 1: you should worry too much about in terms of your bullet,
Speaker 1: but just make sure you can you can see your target. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fair enough. I guess I got one final question, and
Speaker 1: maybe you know your answer. You can repeat something we've
Speaker 1: already talked about. But let's just say we have a
Speaker 1: listener here who is a long time hunter, a good hunter.
Speaker 1: He or she feels comfortable and confident out there. They've
Speaker 1: killed a lot of deer with the bow, they've killed
Speaker 1: plenty of deer with a gun, but they've always put
Speaker 1: more of their time and emphasis and energy and getting
Speaker 1: better at the bow hunting side. But this year, they
Speaker 1: really they really want to give that extra love to
Speaker 1: firearm season. If you could give them just one thing
Speaker 1: out of the million things we talked about today, or
Speaker 1: or something else entirely, if you want to give them
Speaker 1: just one marching order, one takeaway, one action you want
Speaker 1: them to take this year that's going to help them
Speaker 1: be a more accurate, effective shooter of their firearm when hunting.
Speaker 1: What would that one thing be that you want to
Speaker 1: leave that person with a Jordan, I'll make you go first. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, um, pick three field positions and just
Speaker 1: get really good at it. Uh, get get really good
Speaker 1: at at shooting from those three positions. UM. Do more
Speaker 1: dry fire and shooting with you know, a bolt action
Speaker 1: twenty two than with your actual hunting rifle. But certainly
Speaker 1: don't ignore shooting with your hunting rifle. UM. But just
Speaker 1: every time you go to the range, work on those
Speaker 1: three positions and get really confident. Start at a hundred
Speaker 1: yards or fifty yards and work your way out to
Speaker 1: three or four yards. Um. And it's it's it's gonna
Speaker 1: make you a better hunter. But it's also just kind
Speaker 1: of personally fulfilling to to develop a skill like that. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just a lot of fun. Yeah, Spencer, about you.
Speaker 1: I think about this a lot with one of my
Speaker 1: my buddies who was like the best archery deer hunter
Speaker 1: I know, UM, and he is incredible at killing deer
Speaker 1: at fifteen yards away, and a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: I convince him to pick up a rifle and start hunting,
Speaker 1: just because they game more opportunities and can travel more
Speaker 1: and things like that. And he did that, and it
Speaker 1: was super hard for him to turn off that archery
Speaker 1: part of his brain that made him want to be
Speaker 1: within fifteen yards and to perfectly play the wind and
Speaker 1: um to like really limit your sight lines because we
Speaker 1: talked about it a lot more. But when your bow hunting,
Speaker 1: you want to be in a position to kill deer,
Speaker 1: not not just see deer. Um. And if you're coming
Speaker 1: from the bow hunting world and going to gun hunting,
Speaker 1: you really have to think about how different your rifle
Speaker 1: setups should be UM, which often means like giving yourself
Speaker 1: the opportunity to see six hundred yards and and just
Speaker 1: needing to like close the distance from that six hundred
Speaker 1: to three hundred UM to make a shot. And so
Speaker 1: really like, think about when you're scouting and when you're
Speaker 1: looking at on X and when you're walking to your
Speaker 1: tree stand to do a bow hunt, Like how you
Speaker 1: would do this differently to kill one of these deer
Speaker 1: with a gun, Because if you want to be like
Speaker 1: a good gun hunter, it needs to be different. You
Speaker 1: can't be haunting the same sort of setups and and
Speaker 1: have that same mindset. Um, gun hunting is much easier
Speaker 1: than archery hunting, but that doesn't mean that it's like
Speaker 1: such a smooth transition that, um, you just take all
Speaker 1: of your knowledge from this thing and apply to this
Speaker 1: thing and you're going to kill more dear. Um. A
Speaker 1: lot of it is just like trial and error. But again,
Speaker 1: be thinking about how every gun hunt would be different
Speaker 1: than a bow hunt when you're in those situations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. Alright, guys, uh Spencer,
Speaker 1: you're you're particularly good at this last thing, which is
Speaker 1: plugging articles on the site. We've got a whole lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. We've got a lot of stuff on this topic. Right,
Speaker 1: Is there any plug you want to give for specific
Speaker 1: articles or just you want to send them to the
Speaker 1: menIt or what do you want to plug here? When
Speaker 1: it comes to helping people learn more on this topic.
Speaker 1: I was gonna bring this up whether or not you
Speaker 1: prompted me, Mark, So I'm glad that you you threw
Speaker 1: it out there for me. Our best content on choosing
Speaker 1: a rifle and uh, customizing a rival and just being
Speaker 1: a better, more accurate shot comes from Jordan's and so
Speaker 1: the best content that we have. If you go to
Speaker 1: the meat Eator dot com and you look at our
Speaker 1: crew page, which has everybody like Steve Johannese, Mark yal
Speaker 1: those folks, you're also gonna see Jordan's name there. Click
Speaker 1: on Jordan's name and scroll back. He's been writing for us,
Speaker 1: I think since twenty nineteen or something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're whether you're choosing a cartridge or you're trying
Speaker 1: to be more accurate, Jordan rights the best stuff we
Speaker 1: have on those topics. So Jordan's sellers on the Metator
Speaker 1: dot com. Uh, you're gonna get more info than you
Speaker 1: even need on this awesome Well. Uh, gentlemen, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the time. This is good stuff, stuff that I needed,
Speaker 1: and hopefully a lot of other people to thank you.
Speaker 1: I like this new mark that is given John Hunters
Speaker 1: some love and and killing four year year with a rival.
Speaker 1: That's that's a lot of fun. I like it. We
Speaker 1: gotta we gotta do a Western white tail gun hunt, Spencer.
Speaker 1: I gotta join you in one of these and get
Speaker 1: it done together. I'm into it, alright, guys. Cool, Thanks Park,
Speaker 1: appreciate it all right, and that is a rap. Thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning in. Like Spencer mentioned, be sure to
Speaker 1: check out all the different stuff we've got going on
Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt website. Lots of great articles about
Speaker 1: firearm hunting for deer and plenty others too, so I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy this one. Stay tuned. Next week we
Speaker 1: will continue this discussion more bohoning focus, but all things
Speaker 1: shooting and making sure we are more accurate in the field,
Speaker 1: getting ready for our best season ever. Thanks for tuning in,
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.