Long Range Shooting and Accuracy with Mark Thompson. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast we talk with one of the original authorities in long range shooting, Mark Thompson, of Thompson Long Range Shooting School. We discuss long range shooting, accuracy, and many of the factors that can affect a good shot. If you’ve ever wanted to become a more confident shooter, Mark can help. Mark offers a long range shooting school and has helped thousands of people become more effective shooters.
Disclaimer: this podcast has been transcribed from the original audio and likely contains errors. This transcription does not reflect the views and opinions of Epic Outdoors LLC. Please consult the original audio with any concerns.
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So we’re reducing the wind drift. We’re, we’re reducing elevation change.
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It’s not necessarily the group at a hundred. It still may end up being the tightest group of 500,
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Fast and flat.
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Anything to do with Western Big Game.
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Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Hey everybody. Jason Carter here with the Epic Outdoors Podcast. It’s been a while. We’ve, we’ve been hunting our guts out ba basically the last 60 or 60 days, maybe 90 of 90. I don’t know. I’d have to go back and look. But anyway, back in the office today, I got a stack of mail and a stack of stuff to do, and Chris has cornered me to do a podcast. So here we are. I like doing these anyway, but of course we got a lot of cool guests and people that have a lot of experience in the industry. And so anyway, before we get to our next guest, we’d like to thank Under Armour for sponsoring these podcasts. They do a lot to support Epic Outdoors, and, you know, we’re the first to sign up for the podcast and whatnot. And so we’re super appreciative of them and their support.
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Of course, they’ve got a lot of great products, be coming out with new gear all the time. They’ve recently released, released their newest additions of, of what they’ve got going and all the different models of, of gear and clothing. And so anyway, you might check ’em out on under armour.com. You can search under Sports Hunting. You can go to ridge reaper.com. There’s, you know, a lot of different ways you can get on there and check out what they’ve got going and course and, and order some stuff. So anyway, today we’ve gonna, we’re gonna visit with Mark Thompson of Thompson Long Range. Of course, Mark Thompson is a wealth of information. He’s an entrepreneur of many sorts, done a lot of different businesses, so I can’t wait to speak to him. So let’s get him on the line.
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Hello, mark.
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Hey, what are you doing? You better have my number in your phone still, buddy.
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You’ve changed it since the last time we talked.
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Oh, you’ve changed phones anyway. So what, what are you doing today?
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Today is work on the new house a little bit.
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Are you?
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Yeah.
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Yeah. Well, good. What I heard it’s kind of small.
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It is small. It’s just got a big porch and a big garage. That’s all that’s important.
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If you say it’s big, it’s monstrous.
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I got what I wanted and my wife got half of what she wanted.
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All right. All right. Well, let’s see. I don’t even know how, where to start with you. I, I’ve, I’ve known you for many, many years. I don’t know how to get the, you know, I want people that are listening to kinda learn who you are. And I, I don’t really want you to be too modest. You’re a modest guy, but you’ve done a lot of crazy cool things that are pretty interesting. So maybe just kind of give us a background of who Mark is.
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Alright. I was born in a small town, Providence, Utah, just southeast of Logan. Grew up there with four brothers and a sister. They were all older than I was. I was the last of six way behind the rest, so obviously a mistake.
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The baby of the family, spoiled guy. Yeah.
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I think there was a seven or eight year gap between me and,
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Geez,
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The next one up. So
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Crazy,
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Like shooting BB guns, dark guns, pellet guns, whatever I could get my hands on. And my parents would let me shoot. I was always fascinated with guns. And for some reason, once I could hit the targets close, I, I always wanted to push the distance. I, I can remember sitting on the front lawn in a lawn chair next to my dad and I had a red rider BB gun, and I was shooting honeybees on dandelions, you know, right around our feet. And I’d just keep extending the distance out there to out as far as I could go to see if I could hit those things on the dandelions way out
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There. Geez,
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That was probably the start of it right there.
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Yeah,
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That and Grasshopper. So Grasshopper
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Grasshoppers, well, cool. And so would they that graduate to 20 twos and, and honeybees or
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On up to a 22. And then the west desert shooting rabbits grew up, spent a lot of rounds out there in the west desert around the Great Salt Lake. There was tons of rabbits. And while all my friends were interested in the stuff close by with shotguns, I was using a 22 and then advanced to two 20 Swift. I’ve always been a big fan of high velocity.
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Yeah.
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My my opinion of that is, is when you can deliver it as fast and as flat as possible, and I learned this through a lot of shooting, it just helps you be more accurate. So yeah, I always, I always leaned toward the calibers that were fast and flat.
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Yeah. Yeah. Well that makes total sense. So you probably were pushing the envelope like the two 20 Swift. How fast were you getting it going?
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We run that one, or I run that one right around 3,800 feet per second with a 55 green bullet. When I was, I mean, this is when I was 15, 17, that age there,
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That would’ve been before chronographs.
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Yeah.
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You were counting seconds.
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I was, I was strictly going by the book there. If it says this many grains of powder, that’s how fast it was gonna go, then I’d add some more.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Like everybody else.
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Oh yeah, for sure. Well, you know, going back a little bit, you were talking about a lot of your guys were, you know, buddies were shotgunning and whatnot, and I don’t know, you know, a lot of people don’t know, but that Providence Logan area is just super well known for waterfowl and just a lot of wetlands in Marsh country. And so anyway, did you get into that too? Or
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A little bit of the, the water stuff? I, for some reason I was always scared of water. You know, I liked to fish a little bit, but man, wade in the rivers, if it got above my knees, it’d just kind of take my breath away. I ended up, you know, I’d probe around with the end of my fishing pole to see how deep it was before I’d walk out across it.
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Yeah.
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So the waterfowl didn’t wind me up too much unless I was standing on the bank and then, you know, a few pheasants and doves and, you know, upland upland game a little bit.
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So does that bring us to 18 years old? I mean, what’d you do when you graduated high school or
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Right outta high school? I went to work for a warehouse company. I was driving a forklift, obviously that was through high school too. While I was driving the forklift, I, I noticed a need for wooden pallets. There was none in the valley in Logan area, and nobody was doing pallets. They were all being shipped outta Salt Lake. And yeah,
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I had a friend ask me if I, I had an in on some pallets of a certain size, and so I told him I’d throw him some together. He was working for another company and purchasing department, and I put those together and he called a little while later and needed a couple hundred more. And then they needed 400, then they needed a thousand. It wasn’t long. I was working full-time after my full-time job to, to keep up with him and eventually just split off and started my own company. It’s called Pallets of Utah. And he’s, today we do, we do about 20,000 pallets a week and run the company with about 40 employees. That’s
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Crazy.
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I just, I don’t know what it was that, that, that drive drove me to do things, but it just seemed like if there was a need, I wanted to fill it. And, you know, that was a situation where there was, there were no pallets in the valley and it was a, it was a need and I was willing to give it a go. So it turned out good.
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It’s not like you were, you know, you, it wasn’t your love of pallets that drove you to the pallet business. It’s just a ma just the love of business. Entrepreneurial, just cranking. You’re a busy guy. You
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Don’t, you can get right to the bottom there, Jason. It’s the love of money.
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Come on. Do you idolize money? Nope. Tell us the truth. You idolize money. Don’t
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Kid anybody. You love money, way bad. So
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We’re not supposed to idolize money. Mark,
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You do anything you can to get it. So,
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So 20,000 pallets. I mean, we could do a week, we could do some math, but that’s a pretty good business.
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Yeah. That keeps us busy. Yeah.
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So when I went up and visited you, gosh, I may have even met you at the first time we walked into this warehouse that’s full of these chandeliers, which are, you know, fake antler chandeliers. And I, I saw some pallets. I mean, you guys had some gun stuff set up, but I didn’t realize, I mean, I had no idea where you were at on, maybe we were after hours and you’d send everybody home. I don’t know. Yeah, maybe it’s a different warehouse. I don’t, I don’t know. Do you remember?
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Ah, man, that was a lot of years ago. It had to have been 10 years maybe. Yeah. Or, or more. Yeah.
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Yeah. Anyway, you had a, oh, you had a shop on the way outta town as you head toward Brigham City, you know, it was on the left. And anyway,
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Still the same place, same operation, more buildings, but yeah, a little bit bigger. Wow. We’ll continue to grow.
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So your pallet business is cranking who’s, who’s running that? Have you got foreman over that, or, or
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I do. We have a foreman over all of the divisions. We got a, a different foreman over the pallet shop. We got a different foreman over the antler shop. We’ve got a shared combination responsibility over the critter lick thing, and then the long range thing. All of those foremans are up to speed on it. Okay. And I pretty much, I handle all the long range stuff myself.
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Okay. Just ’cause it could kill people, I guess it’s pretty important that the main guy’s there.
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I’m pretty fussy, pretty fussy about that. Yeah.
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So, so we got and you’re, you’re, you’re the the antler thing, it’s cranking still doing it. It’s going well. It
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Is. You know, it’s crazy. That whole thing started. I was trying to put an antler, chand chandelier together for my wife, for our living room out of drop antlers, natural antlers, and
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Realized there’s gonna be 4,000 pounds above your head up there. Yeah.
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By the time I’d drilled through trying to keep the, the wires inside, I just thought there’s gotta be a better way. And geez, that’s when I found a, a way to produce the Antlers Hollow. And then each one is hand finished. You know, they’re, they’re pretty good reproductions. It’s hard to tell.
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Yeah, it is. It’s hard to tell. Wow. My
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Wife’s my wife still don’t have a chandelier though, so.
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No, you sold that one. That love the love of money. Yeah. Oh. So let’s see. And, and so you’re cranking on that. And then, and all right, so let’s talk about critter. Look. So how does that come about? You just decide that salt wasn’t good enough or, I mean, how’d that come about?
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That’s a, that’s a long story in itself too. We were doing the salt thing trail cameras a long time ago. I mean, you should see some of the first cameras I bought, they’re like barnacles now.
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Well, I had 35 millimeters that were 36 exposure. You do the one hour at Walmart, and if you wanted to get the best of Walmart, you know, they only made you pay for the ones that turned out. And so you could say, well, this one didn’t turn out, that one didn’t turn out. And you pay for about three of those pictures. I don’t know. That was clear back in the day,
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That was a long time ago. We were using, we were using salt or using the cattleman salt, you know, wherever they had salt out. Yeah. And hanging pretty close to that. But we got hooked up with a guy that helped us with some amazing ingredients that, that are a hundred percent natural and, you know, no red flags in there. We didn’t caution flags were everywhere to make sure we were doing things the way we should do it. Yeah. Or the stuff just turned out amazing. It it works really well. Yeah.
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Well that’s awesome. We’re, we’ve got a great state you can try that in too. Of course. Baiting’s legal, you can do about what you want to do that wise. And then you guys are up in some crazy good country and you can test it out on moose and deer and elk and, and everything. Yeah. So, yeah. And so where, what’s the status? You’re you, how can people buy that? Or are you selling it direct through your website or how are you doing that?
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Yeah, it’s, we have a few distributors out there. Not very many, but anybody that comes to Thompson Long Range can hook up with the Critter Lick stuff on that website.
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Oh, okay.
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And they can call the office and place the order and we ship out daily. So it’s,
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And that’s only if they come to the shooting course or would you take sales today from anybody?
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No, no sales. Sales today from anybody. Okay.
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Okay.
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Yeah, we just tied it into the Thompson long range thing. ’cause it kind of went hand in hand there a little bit.
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Yeah. It’s hunting. People
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Started to associate it with it, so we just kept it under that flag.
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So are you, you got more products coming out that you’ve been testing? I mean, it seems like you do all kinds of cool feed stuff,
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You know, there all the time messing with stuff. The gun thing has, has stayed the way it has been from the beginning. I, I, you know, I’m still super satisfied with our system when I put that together in the beginning. And that was back before you even came up. Yeah, nothing’s changed. I mean, I feel like we’ve done it right and we’ve done it right the first time. Yeah. Still highly successful. It’s a simple system. So nothing’s changed on that end. We are carrying a few more calibers for the Weatherbee brand.
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Okay.
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We, we carry the seven M, the two 70, the 300, the new 6 5, 300, 2 57 most all the calibers that Weatherby offers.
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Yeah. So let’s, all right. So I’ve been holding off to dive into this because this is the guts of, of what I think the podcast will turn into. Course. I don’t really care which way, which direction it goes. If we end up storytelling and doing all kinds of crazy things, talking about cool, other cool things you’re doing. But, you know, of course it’s a craze, it’s long range stuff and it’s not almost, don’t even wanna call it long range anymore. It’s kind of like, kind of the standard is that people are, it’s people are able to shoot five to 700 yards. You’re guys that go to your course are walking away being able to shoot to, you know, a thousand and and beyond even. But, but confident, easy shot chip shots, five to 700 yards. And it’s almost like just commonplace if you can’t do that, you know, people almost feel like they’re not prepared to go rifle hunting anymore. It’s, it’s really gotten to that level.
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I agree a hundred percent. It’s, and we, and we don’t bring people here to this course, you know, and take ’em out to a thousand, 1200 yards so they can go start, you know, just trying to kill stuff that far. It’s just, like you said, it’s to build the confidence at 5, 6, 700 yards. And, and that’s more the norm when we get, when we get success results coming back from our clients, 90% of ’em are 700 yards or less.
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Geez.
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But like you say, it’s, boy, the norm is gone that that two to 300 yard long shot that you used to hear about in the coffee shop years ago is it’s, it’s a different story now.
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Well, in, in 2003, so in 2003, I shot my first, what I called giant deer. And I remember telling you the story and I was just amazed. And I don’t know if we came up to visit you in oh four or oh five, maybe oh 5, 0 6. But you know, that was a 400 yard shot on that deer. And I was a total guess lucky, lucky to end up wrapping my hands around him. Long story short and, you know, and then coming out and that was, you know, and I’d kind of heard things about long range and compensating and, but I didn’t really understand it. I come up to visit you and you just introduced us to a whole new style and everything. You know, I just want to kind of, maybe a little plug for you, but everything you said jived, like, like my initial long range experience was through you and, you know, you, you, you took, took us through taking a out of the box gun, a weatherby nice rifle, but it’s still an out of the box gun, setting it up and the proper setup, the lapping and the scope rings, the putting in the scope, the matching, the ballistics, you know, and we can talk about that as much as you want to talk about it.
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But, but just overall, everything from start to finish, you know, the high rings be so you’re not, you know, you don’t have your head kinked down on the stock looking through the scope, there was just a couple of little basics that made total sense when you were explaining them on, you know, how an basically, I mean, anybody that hasn’t shot long range before you almost considered a novice. You know, just kind of a beginner is just, you know, this is how you should shoot. This is proper setup and, and the proper form and, and this is why we do it this way. And there was just a lot of cool things that I learned in about a day and a half from you that total made, totally made sense. I mean, you, you obviously must get a lot of that from, from people that are coming out to your course and willing to learn.
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Yeah. I think, you know, they come a little bit scared maybe that they personally can’t perform or can’t, you know, get, get the bullet on the target. But we simplify things so much that, I mean, anybody can do it. And it is realistically, long range is simple. If you can, if you can hold a cross hair on a hundred yards, there’s no reason why you can’t hold one on a thousand yards.
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Yeah.
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It’s no different. And, and it’s just understanding the trajectory of the bullet, you know, velocity and the drop, that kind of, that kind of stuff. And once you understand that and you put the package together right from the beginning, know what the load is that the rifle likes and the rifle is accurate with that load. The rest is way simple. Long range is nothing new. I’ve said this before, it’s, it’s been around for a long time. Back in the 1860s, 1870s, those buffalo hunters were, I mean, they had a reputation that was unbelievable for killing buffalo all day long. Seven through 1200 yards. Yeah. With a 40, with a 45, 1 10, 45, 1 20, you know,
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Crazy
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Open sight. So it’s nothing new. It’s just, just a reinterest of it, you know, it’s, and boy, when it come around this time, lucky for me, I was on the leading edge of it. You were maybe one of the, maybe one of the instigators of couldn’t have started. I don’t know.
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You were, you’re the, you’re the, you’re the people that everybody cuss when, when people don’t like long range, they automatically think of Mark Thompson and he’s the one that ruined our industry. Yeah. I’m just giving you a hard time. It’s not the truth, but, but you,
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Somebody had to do it.
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Somebody was gonna do it. It might as well be Mark. But yeah, it definitely, it definitely opened my eyes when, when we walk in and we go through everything, we make a load for that gun, we get a a, you know, imagine you’re still using Aons Yeah. And you’re getting that round going to match up the scope and, and everything. And so, you know, everything matches and jives and you spend that night doing it, and then the next day you go to the range. But what are, you know, what are some of the things, maybe just visit about some of the things, what I, what I really was impressed about is the simplicity of your system. So, like you said, it’s not rocket science. Even, even you’ve, you’ve told me before, you know, when I was worried about small groups at a, at a hundred yards, and then you, you came out with this, this article from Shooter times or something that basically explained that, you know, it’s like throwing a football and it’s not necessarily the group at a hundred, it’s, you may have a little bit of a scatter at a hundred, but then it, you know, you still may end up be the tightest group at 500.
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You know, so you need to shoot that same round, you know, at distance to really know what that round’s doing over the course of distance.
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Right.
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And yep.
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I learned that early in the game that, you know, we like everyone else a hundred yards is the, is the norm for setting up a target and looking for accuracy for a rifle. But I’m here to tell you that is not, it should not be the norm. It needs to get out there at three to 400 yards, then find the accuracy by that time the bullet has stabilized and you know what it’s gonna do from there on out. If you wanna come back to a hundred and see what it’s doing at a hundred, you know, you can always do that. But, but don’t freak out. Don’t be surprised. Yeah. Don’t
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Freak out. Don’t
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Be, you know, don’t be surprised if you’re shooting a two inch group at a hundred yards, yet you’re holding a six inch group at 700 yards.
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Yes. And that’s, and we found that on a couple of the rifles and it was shocking. And you’re like, you made the classic comment, which I’ve used it several times and I don’t give you any credit for it, but it was, we’re not hunting field mice. You know, and I love that comment because, ’cause everybody’s so freaked out if you’re not, you know, one hole in it at a hundred yards, you’ve got a crap gun and you’re this and that and the other and has nothing to do with it. You know? Yeah. Shoot that thing at five or 700 and see what, and then let’s start talking about it.
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I’ve literally seen rifles that will shoot a quarter inch group at a hundred yards and we’ll not hit a two foot steel plate at a thousand yards.
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That’s unbelievable.
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And yet I can have one that will shoot a two inch group at a hundred yards and it’ll hold a nine inch group at a thousand yards. Yeah. So crazy. Get that, get those targets out there. A little ways to look for accuracy. Don’t do it at a hundred yards.
00:22:00:18 –> 00:22:23:08
Yeah. Yep. So yeah, I I mean it’s still, you don’t really like people bringing their own rifles to the shooting course or anything like that. You like to just set ’em up with an easy, that your system an easy system. And it’s the, it’s the least expensive system I know of about there, but yet very friendly, very simple, and anybody can do it. Is that still
00:22:23:16 –> 00:22:47:25
Yeah. The simple, the simple reason we don’t allow any outside guns to come in is because obviously we don’t know what they’re bringing. We don’t know the danger side of it. Whether they’re hand loads that are way overloaded, we don’t know. Yeah. I mean, we just don’t know what they’re bringing. But everything they learn in this course is something that can be applied to their own rifle on their own time and they can, they can duplicate it if they want to take the time to do it.
00:22:48:06 –> 00:23:00:07
Yeah. Okay. What, give us a run rundown of what you’re offering. Tell me about Thomson Long Range and what you’re offering when they come in, when they leave, all that stuff.
00:23:01:02 –> 00:23:50:12
A couple different packages. We do a two day course, which is actually when it adds up, it’s basically a one day course. So it’s an evening in a morning. And the reason we do that two day course is because most guys are flying in from outta state. They gotta have time to get to the airport in Salt Lake, rent a car, come to Logan. By the time they do all that, we start at three o’clock in the afternoon. That first day with those type of groups, a a maximum of four people per group. Sometimes they know each other, sometimes they don’t. And that first afternoon we take, we spend about 20 minutes of classroom going over some of the things that we just talked about. And then they all open a brand new Weatherby rifle right out of the box, a brand new loophole, four and a half to 14 scope with our own custom radical in the scope.
00:23:51:10 –> 00:24:38:06
We go through a mounting process where they lap the scope in and square the scope on a rifle using a plumb string and some bubble levels, making sure that it’s on there. Correct. We then move to the reloading bench and, and fire rounds through that rifle. And what I’m looking for is a particular speed going down the barrel or a harmonic vibration that I know that that barrel likes. So once we, we find that speed and we do that by starting with a low powder charge, and then slowly adding powder until we hit that speed. Sometimes we’ll have rifles that are a little bit out of the norm. In other words, they’ll take a little less powder or a little more powder than the average. And that’s simply because the pressure going down the barrel might be a little tighter or a little bit looser.
00:24:38:06 –> 00:25:24:09
And we have to adjust the powder to hit the right vibration down the barrel. Once we hit that, they’re all accurate, those guys will then take the rifles. Well, we take ’em to dinner that night. I usually buy their dinner and we put ’em up in a motel, and then the next morning we start at 6:00 AM with the rifles they put together and the Amil or the loads that we diagnosed for the night before, we go right directly, directly to the range. And they start at 500 yards. And I’ve gone to a thousand yards in less than 30 minutes per shooter. So about three hours at the range. We’ve gone through the whole thing. Everybody’s put a group on the thousand yard target a couple times and it’s, it’s always sub minute. Everybody is sub minute by the time they leave there.
00:25:24:23 –> 00:25:49:17
Wow. All I know is when I went there, my dad was with us and he just was like, I don’t care. I’m taking this gun with me. Is that way most of your clients feel like when they shoot, they feel like there’s not another gun on that pallet that they could shoot what they just did with it. And I don’t, I don’t know what it is. It’s just, man, I, I took that rifle and I shot a thousand yards and it’s just like, be blows them away. You’re not gonna pry that gun out of their hands.
00:25:50:17 –> 00:26:32:23
I think that’s the mentality. They, you know, I don’t know how many come to actually purchase a rifle or how many just come to take the class and we don’t try and push a rifle onto ’em. I mean, if they’re interested in it, they’re welcome to buy it. If not, that’s, that’s fine too. But you’re right, they, they seem to get a little bit attached to it once they put it all together, their self. And we go obviously over ballistics and show ’em, you know, what kind of velocities we’re pushing, what kind of energies we’re pushing and how far we’re extending that velocity, that energy. And I think maybe in their mind they’re comparing to what they’re shooting, saying, wow, this thing’s got a lot more than what mine does. Yeah. And I don’t know if you recall, but the recoil on the 33 78 is very mild.
00:26:32:29 –> 00:26:34:27
Yeah. It’s so mild. Heavy, heavy. You
00:26:34:27 –> 00:26:39:27
Can actually, you can actually watch your bullet hit the target from 500 yards on out. It
00:26:39:27 –> 00:26:42:21
Just throws back through your own scope. Yeah. Through your scope. Yeah.
00:26:43:04 –> 00:26:44:06
No need for a spotter.
00:26:44:17 –> 00:26:47:06
Yeah. It’s pretty, it was pretty impressive. Are you,
00:26:48:13 –> 00:26:54:22
Let me remind you a little bit of when you and your dad and Adam were here. There’s some of this I think you forgot.
00:26:54:29 –> 00:26:57:17
I thought you couldn’t remember when I showed up or where I showed up at.
00:26:58:13 –> 00:27:26:20
So here’s what happened. You guys showed up, I run you through the course and they were like three doubting Thomases. So then we end up out at the range and all of a sudden I’ve lost control. It’s like major competition between the three of you. I couldn’t even keep up with you. You were running ammo through there so fast. Pretty soon. Jason is, you’re all over the map. You can’t even hit the thousand apart. Well,
00:27:26:20 –> 00:27:29:02
My barrel was too hot. My barrel is too hot.
00:27:29:21 –> 00:27:31:04
Wait a minute. Do you remember this?
00:27:31:16 –> 00:27:33:18
No, I don’t remember that part of it at all.
00:27:33:25 –> 00:27:47:10
So I said You’re too, it’s because everybody was shooting better than you and you’re all jacked up. Oh, I was go take pissed off. Go take a walk. So you went and took a walk and then you come back, you had cooled off a little bit, not your gun cooled off. Yeah. You had cooled
00:27:47:10 –> 00:27:47:22
Off. Yeah.
00:27:47:22 –> 00:27:51:28
Yeah. Then you sat down and shot the tightest group and you had bragging rights all the way home. Yeah, I remember that.
00:27:52:03 –> 00:28:03:24
Oh know, I know. No, I remember it all. I remember it all. And you were just laughing and we were wondering how much more we could reload and I mean, it was, it was crazy. But you
00:28:03:24 –> 00:28:08:17
Three shot a record number of ammunition when you couldn’t stop you.
00:28:09:11 –> 00:28:31:25
I know. Well, I mean, you know, my dad, he is very eccentric guy and he’s just, I mean, geez. And then pretty soon we were 1200 yards and, and you know, had you put, you know, a couple little gold dots on the, you know, anyway, I’m not gonna waste all your secrets, but a few other things to help us shoot further. And it was just, it’s an addiction. It’s just an addiction. Long ranges of
00:28:31:25 –> 00:28:50:23
Addiction. For those out there that know your dad, he talks a lot. He don’t ever shut up. But after he shot 1200 yards and about 20 miles all the way home, he never said a word. He was just, he was grinding on it in his head. And then finally says, I want that rifle. That’s, that was the first thing that come out of his mouth after about 20,
00:28:51:02 –> 00:29:11:15
Oh yeah, I want that rifle and make me 400 rounds. You know? I mean that’s just the way he does it. It’s all full bore. So it was impressive, I gotta tell you. And so I wanna talk a couple things that you mentioned real quick. I just want you to dive in just a little more. Like tell me about Harmonic Vibration. Just tell me what do you, what are you talking about?
00:29:12:11 –> 00:30:02:12
Okay, let’s make this real simple. So two guys, two brothers go buy identical rifles. Let’s just say they go buy a couple of seven mm Remington rifles. They buy a box of ammunition off the shelf, they head for the range and they’re gonna shoot these two rifles. They got their targets set up down there. One of them is just drill and knot holes, and the other one’s all over the place. The only difference between the one that’s shooting a tight group and the one that’s not shooting a tight group is the velocity of the bullet coming out at the end of that barrel. Okay. Or the harmonic vibration. So the one that’s inaccurate, if we were to chronograph those and we got a speed off the one that was accurate, and we could change the load on the other one down to, or up to that same velocity, more than likely that accuracy will come in.
00:30:02:28 –> 00:30:22:06
So even so you’re thinking, so your point is, is let’s just say for example, it’s a a hundred grounds of a hundred grains of tmbo, same bullet in rifle A might equal and gives a 3000 feet per second. The next rifle might take 102 grains of TBO to get to that 3000 feet per second.
00:30:22:26 –> 00:30:23:11
Exactly.
00:30:23:26 –> 00:30:40:11
And and because they’re both basically twin rifles from the same company out of the box, everything’s equal, generally speaking, when they both equal 3000 feet a second, they’re generally speaking, they’re both have the same accuracy or the potential for accuracy.
00:30:41:08 –> 00:30:56:15
Exactly. So on the Weatherby 33 78 with an ACU bond, 180 grain bullet, when I hit 33 70 muzzle velocity, I know for a fact that that rifle is gonna be submitted at the range,
00:30:57:24 –> 00:30:59:12
Every one of them on that pallet.
00:31:00:11 –> 00:31:16:20
I, I mean, I don’t know how many thousand rifles I’ve done. I think out of all of those, I’ve had two that there was a serious problem that I didn’t know what was, send ’em back to weather, but two out of, let’s say 3002 out 30, 3500 rifles right there. Wow.
00:31:18:11 –> 00:31:27:21
Well, I thought it was 33 50. It’s 33 70. You’re screwing with people. You’re not gonna give out your perfect, your perfect recipe.
00:31:28:25 –> 00:31:49:19
Yeah. It’s, once you find the, the happy velocity down a barrel accuracy is velocity related period. Okay. Once you find the velocity that that barrel likes, and if you wanna mess with different loads, different bullets, and can hover around that velocity, more than likely you’ll even find a little better accuracy or maybe a little worse, but Okay. It’s velocity related.
00:31:50:11 –> 00:32:06:11
So I wanna dive into another big subject is radicals versus turrets. And just gimme your quick take you, I don’t know if you’re even doing a, if you’re doing a turret option, I or not, but I I you were heavy into the radicals, so just tell me about that.
00:32:07:09 –> 00:33:11:28
Always been heavy into a fixed radical simply because, and this is the best way to explain it, I have been to the range, I don’t know how many times with a rifle, it’s hitting high left. I make a scope adjustment to the right and down. I shoot the second shot and it hits right next to that first bullet. I shoot the second shot and the movement made it go where I had adjusted it to. So, and I know there’s been a lot of people that has experienced that. So it was the jar or the shock of the second shot that let it move. So with that said, I just don’t like the idea of adjusting and turning things, mechanical things. I mean, even the finest machinist will take the slack out of his lathe or his mill when he makes a a fine tune adjustment, he’ll crank it a little too far and then crank it back in just a little bit to get the slack out of there. There’s, there’s no different, I, I mean, just moving parts, there’s a little bit of risk there.
00:33:14:16 –> 00:33:46:01
I, I a hundred percent agree with you. And then at times, and I’ve shot ’em both, but at times I feel like your system’s quicker. Like, well, you’ve got a animal, let’s say, let’s say he’s at seven 70, then he, he moves to eight 40 and nothing flat. I mean, there’s just times where then you gotta stop. You’re looking at your dial, you’re getting back on him, you’re looking at your dial, you’re getting back. Versus in your system, if somebody calls you a range, you can look, you, you can, you don’t have to look any, you don’t have to leave the scope. You can just keep Yeah. Staring through the scope.
00:33:46:21 –> 00:33:54:26
Keep the animal in the scope. And when you have to take your eye off that scope and say, look up at the turret to make an adjustment, I mean, you can easily lose track of where that animal’s at too.
00:33:55:03 –> 00:34:07:02
Yeah. Yep. So tell me, all right, I want to want another question I have, everybody’s a big fan of like 20 power scopes and 25 power scopes and you’re at a four and a half to 14. Just tell me a little bit about that.
00:34:08:14 –> 00:34:26:06
Like a large field of view as I have all these clients come through this course, the number one problem is target acquisition. In other words, they have a hard time finding the target in the scope. Sure. And the more the magnification, the tougher that becomes.
00:34:26:19 –> 00:34:28:00
Sure. Makes sense.
00:34:28:00 –> 00:34:51:29
That’s why you’ll, you’ll see guys, they’ll have the habit of reaching up and turning the power down so they can find the target and then they turn it back up to, to full power or a higher power. Okay. One more reason. Higher power is less light. I mean, everybody’s looking for that. Every bit of daylight they can get early morning, late evening and sure. Lower power scopes will give you more daylight for a longer period of time.
00:34:52:20 –> 00:34:57:02
Okay. That makes sense. And you’re using a one inch tube or a 30 millimeter tube it seems like.
00:34:57:23 –> 00:35:00:10
Yeah, 30 millimeter tube, but a short tube,
00:35:00:23 –> 00:35:01:01
Yeah.
00:35:02:26 –> 00:35:24:10
You see a lot of scopes that are extremely long. It’s more the length of the tube that will eliminate light than actually the objective out on the end. So the shorter the tube, the better off you are. And so the scope that I use is that four and a half to 14 has a very short, short tube, 30 millimeter tube. And we use a 40 millimeter objective.
00:35:24:20 –> 00:35:48:14
Okay. And then I want you to explain a couple things that, you know, like elevation, you know, and, and how it makes a slight difference. But like you were saying, it is so slight, sometimes it’s slight enough that people get wound up over it, but you can’t hold on a target tighter than, than what you’re trying to compensate for. So I just want you to talk about your theory on that.
00:35:49:19 –> 00:35:52:19
On elevation change or elevation Yeah.
00:35:52:25 –> 00:36:02:26
Elevation change and how it’s gonna adjust, how it’s gonna change the yardage that those lines your radicals come in at. Just, you know, what your theory, gimme your theory on it.
00:36:03:19 –> 00:36:39:06
Okay. Fast and flat. When you can deliver a bullet fast and flat, you reduce the effects of temperature, elevation, angle, all those things become, they aren’t eliminated, but they, but they’re reduced significantly. So let’s take a a 30 odd six and we go from 5,000 feet where we got it zero to 200 yards and we’ve got all of a sudden a 500 yard shot. And the difference going from 5,000 feet to 9,000 feet is significant. I mean, probably I’m gonna go by the seat of my pants here, 15 inches.
00:36:39:21 –> 00:36:40:00
Yeah.
00:36:41:05 –> 00:36:51:11
But if we take a, the very same bullet, not through a 30 T six, but say through a 33 78 at a much higher velocity and we’re talking four inches.
00:36:52:10 –> 00:36:52:19
Yeah.
00:36:53:07 –> 00:36:55:15
So the faster you move that
00:36:55:15 –> 00:36:57:28
Bullet, that’s the width, the theoretical at at a thousand.
00:36:58:16 –> 00:36:58:25
Yeah.
00:36:59:27 –> 00:37:00:15
I mean you can’t even,
00:37:00:20 –> 00:37:03:07
The faster you, most people can’t even hold four inches,
00:37:03:12 –> 00:37:16:01
So, right, right. So the faster and the flat, the faster you can move that bullet, the less issue you have, which is why you’re keeping a bullets, you’re shooting as fast as you can keep ’em, then you’re just not too worried about it.
00:37:16:23 –> 00:37:28:28
Yeah. I mean that was Roy Weatherby philosophy from the beginning. I wanna deliver energy and velocity as much as I can at whatever distance I’m shooting. And the whole time he was doing that, he was creating some of the best long range rifles.
00:37:29:11 –> 00:37:49:16
Yeah. So tell me about the calibers. When I, when clear back in the day, you know, I bought a 33 78 off you, and then we also set up the, the 2 57 Weatherby mag with the one 10. Yeah. But tell me what you, what you found, what you, what you’re going to and, and kind of the change there.
00:37:50:23 –> 00:38:34:24
Okay. With the Weatherby calibers, most people, I don’t know, maybe they don’t, but the weatherby calibers that are compared to other calibers are typically 200 plus feet per second faster at the muzzle. So this is one of the reasons we carry the Weatherbee line because that extra a hundred fifty, two hundred fifty feet per second is a huge bonus to any shooter just flattening the trajectory. So we, we’d done the 2 57 and the 33 78 just to keep it. So we only had two rifles that we really had to carry. But in working with Weatherbee and talking to Weatherby, we agreed to take on the other calibers. So we have the two 70, the seven mm, the new 6 5, 300. That, that’s a heck of a caliber. Geez.
00:38:34:25 –> 00:38:37:06
But I’ve heard, I’ve heard it burns barrels. Now
00:38:38:16 –> 00:38:41:25
We heard that with the 33 78 when it first came out too. Remember it
00:38:41:25 –> 00:38:42:01
Didn’t.
00:38:42:07 –> 00:38:43:19
Okay. Haven’t seen one yet.
00:38:44:18 –> 00:38:46:18
Geez. I’ll bet That’s an amazing caliber.
00:38:47:20 –> 00:39:28:22
So if we, if we compare that to say a six five creed more, that’s very popular now. I mean, people are lined up to buy six, five creed mowers. We got a big old rainbow arc going into 700 yards. And if we’ve got that rainbow arc and a a five mile an hour wind working on that bullet, it’s gonna move it a little waste. Oh yeah. ’cause it’s time of flight is slower where the 6 5 300 comes in so low, so flat and so fast the wind didn’t have as much time to work on it. So we’re reducing the wind drift. We’re, we’re reducing elevation change situations, we’re reducing temperature change situations, angle situations fast and flat. That’s okay. It, it helps every shooter.
00:39:29:03 –> 00:39:42:14
So tell me about the seven mm. I mean that was kind of the go-to, of course there’s variations of the seven mm. The, I mean, so just tell me like, I mean, is that as popular as it’s been or what’s your most popular,
00:39:43:24 –> 00:40:41:26
You know, it’s interesting. We have, we have all walks of life come through this course and call. We have a lot of people that just call and order a package from us and we ship it to ’em ready to walk out the door and use, we like to spend a half hour over the phone with them. I’m gonna say the guys that are 65 and older come from that era when the 2 57 was, was the go-to gun besides the 300 Weatherby. So we sell a lot of two 50 sevens with those guys. There’s a new group, a younger group that’s buying the two 50 sevens, seven mm There’s always, always interest in that. It’s just a matter of preference. Yeah. But when it comes to calibers, you know, we recommend that you have a minimum of 1200 foot pounds of energy and 1800 feet per second on the bullet at point of impact. So depending on the caliber you use and the bullet you’re using, that creeps back as we slip down in caliber, like the 2 57, we don’t recommend anything over about 675 yards with that e
00:40:41:26 –> 00:40:44:20
Even though you’ve killed elk at a, at 700 plus.
00:40:46:24 –> 00:40:50:05
Yeah. With the 2 57, I think there was a seven 10 ki Yeah.
00:40:50:09 –> 00:40:52:05
Yeah, I remember it. That’s,
00:40:52:13 –> 00:41:05:13
That’s a little bit out of the ethical or the recommended 1200 foot pounds, 1800 feet per second probably still had the velocity 1900 feet per second, but we were like 11 50, 11 75 on foot pounds.
00:41:05:13 –> 00:41:13:14
Well, yeah. And you were saying a thousand, I think I may be misquoting you, but a thousand foot pounds was your very, very bottom threshold.
00:41:14:08 –> 00:41:25:11
It is. Don’t even like to go there if we don’t have to, but, okay, I, I mean 1200, if we keep 1200 at the minimum that that’s true comfort there. Okay. You start getting down close to a thousand, then, you know, you gotta pay attention to what you’re doing.
00:41:25:19 –> 00:41:32:01
Okay. And so what’s your flattest, I mean, is this 6 5, 300 just smoking? Is it, is it your flattest or
00:41:32:12 –> 00:41:48:23
It’s, if, if we compare ’em out to a thousand yards, it’s six inches flatter than the 33 78 8 inches flatter than the 2 57. And that’s about it. The two 70 is right there with them too. So
00:41:49:01 –> 00:41:51:16
What grain of bullet are you talking on that six five?
00:41:51:23 –> 00:42:04:24
There’s a, a couple bullets that we use in the six five, actually three. The, the Barnes bullet that they offer the 1 27 bullet, a 1 27 grain bullet that’s a factory ammo. Yeah. And then they got a swift ci aqua bullet that they offer.
00:42:05:09 –> 00:42:10:11
Huh. Well, I’m just thinking if it’s only six inches, why wouldn’t I have 180 grainer smacking that tar?
00:42:10:26 –> 00:42:19:05
When you see it on paper, you see the energy and the velocity. You, you see what I’m talking about That 33 78 is the sledgehammer of sledgehammers. That thing’s nasty.
00:42:19:15 –> 00:42:28:28
I love it. Give me some advice, like just what you could tell a guy to be a more accurate shooter. Like what do you see? You’re seeing everything come through the course. Yeah,
00:42:29:03 –> 00:43:05:15
And I’m seeing the best of the best. I mean, I, I see hunters that hunt all over the world. And I mean, this isn’t a sad story. It’s, it’s a matter of fact story. I just had a client come through with his wife and he’s been to Tajikistan. He’s been, he’s been everywhere, hunted every species you can imagine. And we get to the range here and his wife’s bored with the whole thing, but she comes along, he shoots, shoots a, you know, a seven inch group at a thousand yards. And I talk his wife into coming over and shooting and she sits down and shoots three bullets that are touching each other at a thousand yards. Come on.
00:43:06:09 –> 00:43:48:18
It happens all the time. And I think what it is, and this, this sounds stupid as can be, but I think what it is, when we’re guys growing up, we, we always done the fake recoil thing. We literally done the fake recoil and we were running around playing pull the trigger like on a wooden stick or something. Yeah. We were all faking that recoil. Yeah. And there is no doubt in my mind that we’re, we carried that all the way into our hunting because you tell me, Carter, if this hasn’t happened to you, you in the heat of the moment, pulled the trigger on an animal and you didn’t have a, a round in there, or Oh, you too, you had an empty and you jerked. That triggered me. Oh,
00:43:48:18 –> 00:43:55:05
You jerked it. There’s no question. But I had to talk myself through every shot. Like literally like I talk myself through like you talking me through,
00:43:55:05 –> 00:44:23:01
That’s exactly where I was headed. Slow down, think about what you’re doing and just relax on that trigger a little bit. I I think something that helps our shooters too is where we have a very mild recoil on our calibers. They’re able to watch their bullet hit the target. That’s a whole new step in becoming more accurate because now they’re concentrating on touching that thing off and then watching the bullet hit the target. Yeah, that’s huge. That makes ’em a lot more accurate.
00:44:24:12 –> 00:44:43:24
Yeah. And I’ve, and I’m, you know, when I talk myself through it Yeah, you’ve got that. But then, and, but just letting it surprise you so you, you know, concentrate. Like let it surprise you. Let it kick you. Yeah. And, and it’ll hit the bull. It’ll hit there and you won’t be 14 shots into it trying to get an animal down and disgusted with yourself.
00:44:44:14 –> 00:44:45:20
One and done. Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:46:17 –> 00:45:15:08
So what I, I sent a guy to you to, to get a rifle this year and, and it was a relatively new shooter. He had a couple of tags in Oregon. But you know what I like about what you’ve got going, it’s, it’s affordable. I mean, in the realm of things, none of this stuff is truly inexpensive, but what you’re doing is affordable. It’s simple. Guys can walk away and make ethical shots at 5, 6, 700 yards ethical shots
00:45:16:02 –> 00:45:16:28
Without a doubt.
00:45:17:22 –> 00:45:39:07
And that’s one of my favorite things about what you’ve got going. It’s definitely gonna work. Tell me about, I mean obviously there’s a lot of guys with experience out there. You do. If I wanna, if I want a 6, 5, 300, I can tell you what I want. You will send it to me. Can I order rounds as well? Gimme 200 rounds, send me this gun and, and you’ll do that for me.
00:45:39:26 –> 00:45:41:20
Typically takes us a week at the most.
00:45:42:21 –> 00:45:48:24
Geez, that’s retarded. I mean, a lot of these guys are a year, year and a half out on custom rifles.
00:45:49:14 –> 00:45:55:12
Yeah. And I don’t wanna talk numbers, but I’m gonna guess somewhere between seven to $9,000.
00:45:56:04 –> 00:45:58:29
Yeah, well, well you mean not you but other companies.
00:45:59:16 –> 00:45:59:26
Right.
00:46:00:12 –> 00:46:06:12
And so tell me what that would be. I wanna, I want a 33 78 or I want a 6 5, 300, probably the same price.
00:46:08:16 –> 00:46:14:19
So clients that have taken the course and paid for the course, their price on a rifle is $3,200.
00:46:15:01 –> 00:46:16:23
Okay. That includes the
00:46:16:23 –> 00:46:45:13
School. Since you took the course 15 years ago, you called me and ordered a 6, 5, 300 and you wanted it in five days. I could have that to you in five days. Your price is 3,200. If I have a client call me that has never been here before, his price is $3,900 all done. And we can ship that to him, spend an hour with him on the phone at the range and cover most of the high points that we cover in the class. But not all
00:46:45:13 –> 00:46:51:01
Of ’em. And that’s what that extra money’s for is basically you’re just a little bit more customer service just dealing with the guy a bit.
00:46:51:17 –> 00:46:58:26
There has to be a little more, when they just buy a rifle, you gotta spend a, a few minutes on the phone with them to help ’em understand the red and, and what all comes from the package.
00:46:59:07 –> 00:47:06:17
Okay. So I order this gun, it’s 3,200 bucks. Now I want a couple hundred rounds of ammo. Are you just giving me the recipe or can you have it built for me?
00:47:07:04 –> 00:47:10:05
We’ll have it built and delivered to you. Okay. Same time the gun shows up.
00:47:10:08 –> 00:47:12:11
And what do you charge for the rounds?
00:47:13:29 –> 00:47:23:05
All of the calibers are $85 a box of 20 except for the 33 78. And it’s $130 a box of 20.
00:47:23:16 –> 00:47:23:25
Okay.
00:47:24:26 –> 00:47:33:00
And you hear, you know, you hear people say, ouch, that’s a lot of money. But you know, it’s, it’s cheap When you say it takes one shot versus 15 shots.
00:47:35:09 –> 00:48:02:28
Well the bottom line is animal’s expensive anymore. You, it does feel like a lot go down and buy a box, then go buy five different boxes. ’cause ’cause you’re gonna need different brands. You’re gonna need to figure out what shoots the best. It’s, it’s a no brainer. Like you’re gonna, you’re gonna use those 20 rounds instead of using three or five of those rounds and realize you, you didn’t get a, you know, your gun don’t like that box. I mean, that’s just the way it is. And so to me it’s just the price of doing business anymore. It’s just the price of hunting. It’s crazy.
00:48:03:15 –> 00:48:12:11
We, we send a package outta here, you can be assured that it, it works and it’s accurate and it’s on target. You just couple shots at the range and you’ll know
00:48:12:17 –> 00:48:16:12
I had to test out the five day thing. Just order something like right now, try it,
00:48:18:12 –> 00:48:19:20
Just try it. Order five,
00:48:19:29 –> 00:48:25:00
Like five days, five working order, five working days. Or is it over a weekend? I mean, what do we
00:48:25:01 –> 00:48:28:21
Order five order five rifles. We’ll have them there in five days.
00:48:29:04 –> 00:49:04:12
Geez. That’s awesome. Tell me about some, some of your favorite hunting memories. I mean, not only have you done pallets, you’ve done cast antlers, you’re doing all of this crazy stuff. You’re racing snowmobiles, you’re, who knows what you’re up to right now, but, and then, but you’re a hunter. You’ve killed amazing animals. You’ve, you’ve excelled in about everything you do. Just tell us a little bit about some of the, some of the different hunting experiences you’ve had or something cool with long range or, I mean, there’s been some animals you’ve basically developed rifles to kill because you couldn’t get close. I mean, I know some of these inside stories,
00:49:07:24 –> 00:50:23:11
You know, my whole life I’ve just been spun up. I’m starting to spin down now. It’s, it, it’s just been a hell of a run. I mean, I, I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve done snowmobiles the businesses. I mean, I like a challenge. And when I can accomplish and, and do what I’ve set my goals out to do, I mean I’m satisfied and I can’t say I’m not satisfied with everything I’ve done some of the best memories, you know, hunting is probably watching my boys now. Those boys are taking this on. They’re understanding it. And I mean, I just watched Mike lay down and take a Wyoming antelope at 670 yards here. I mean, it was a one shot kill. I mean, it just so gratifying to see these kids pick up behind me and pick up the pieces and just keep moving with it. Scott, I’ve watched him make some great shots and take some great trophies. It’s, it’s just all been good. I can’t, I can’t think back of anything. We got our nine day Colorado, Colorado hunt, nine to eight day Colorado hunt that we do every year that’s coming up here in a couple weeks. Looking forward to that. It’s just us three and
00:50:23:22 –> 00:50:34:05
That’s awesome, man. Doesn’t get better than that. Well I know you’ve messed around with even, even long range muzz loaders and you were doing that clear back in the day when I first met you. Screwing around with muzz loaders. Yeah,
00:50:34:19 –> 00:50:35:28
Muzzle loaders have been a lot of fun.
00:50:36:29 –> 00:50:39:26
Have you got sellable packages of that stuff going on or?
00:50:40:21 –> 00:50:48:05
We, we do a few custom muzzle loader packages for guys, but we don’t do too many of them anymore. I’m so busy with the rifles and, you know,
00:50:49:29 –> 00:50:56:17
Stuff’s pretty intense. It’s pretty, it’s takes a client that really wants to work on that one a bit.
00:50:57:03 –> 00:51:03:17
Yeah. We got clients that are just bound to determine. They want us to do one for ’em, we’ll do one. But most everything we do at the rifle stuff.
00:51:04:04 –> 00:51:43:08
Yeah. You know, you were, you reminded me when you were saying you were talking to your kids and you watched your kid take a 670 yard shot and it was one shot kill. And and it’s the same thing with my kids. My, my, you know, Colton shot his first deer at nine years old, but I had him on a seven m m o eight. And if you look at the ballistics of a 70 M m o eight, you’re not, I mean, ethically you wouldn’t wanna take much more in a 300 yard shop. They Yeah, there’s nothing Exactly. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. So, you know, I’ve, I’ve got ’em, rifles and, and you know, kids can shoot 600 yards and they can do it. Well, it’s impressive.
00:51:44:04 –> 00:51:46:11
Yeah. Just like the women that come with these guys, you know?
00:51:46:17 –> 00:51:56:17
Yeah. It’s awesome. And so your course, I mean, do you, do you do anything, you know, for family wise? Like if a guy wanted to bring his kid or a couple of kids, you know,
00:51:56:25 –> 00:52:23:23
It’s ironic, you ask that. I’ve done, I’ve done several families, and another big thing is like date night, I, I’ve had guys fly in with their wives. I mean, we do a nice motel, a nice meal with them and bring them through the entire course. Their wives are involved in the whole thing all the way through, put a rifle together and then go to the range. And I mean, they’ve just literally en enjoy it. It’s, it’s been kind of a new thing. Geez. I’ve just watched it trend a little bit.
00:52:24:29 –> 00:52:33:00
Date night flying in and, and having a date. It’s, I mean, that’s a little deeper in my pockets, but Yeah,
00:52:33:25 –> 00:52:34:04
I’m sure.
00:52:35:09 –> 00:52:39:18
But guys like you I guess, but I just, that’s crazy. But it’s way cool.
00:52:40:07 –> 00:53:05:22
Even local, you know, we’ll have a local family. I just have a local family. Well aired down in Salt Lake, so a hundred miles out. But he called and wanted to do the long range thing and he says, I’m coming up with my family. And I says, you know what? Let’s just do the whole family. He says, really? And he, can you do that? And I says, yeah, we’ll just, we’ll just take care of the whole family and they’ll all have a good time. They had three kids, I’m gonna guess at the ages. One was 19, one was 16, and the other one was 14.
00:53:06:20 –> 00:53:06:29
Geez.
00:53:07:13 –> 00:53:15:04
And the wife, and they all sat down, shot three separate rifles. And you should have seen that Thousand yard target
00:53:15:19 –> 00:53:16:06
Hammered.
00:53:16:24 –> 00:53:18:23
Yeah. They had to pay extra for paint. Cover
00:53:18:23 –> 00:53:35:18
Up the ball. Paint. Yeah. I need 14 cans of white paint, please. Do you still use that lacquer based or what, what is, I can’t even remember. Some kind of special paint. No, nothing you do is normal. The, like, I go down and get paint, like I’m, I don’t care what it is. You, you have to give the certain kind of paint the chips off just right.
00:53:37:02 –> 00:53:40:01
Cheaper the paint, the cheaper the paint, the better it comes out. All
00:53:40:01 –> 00:53:47:26
Right. All right. Well, well, so how, how can people get ahold of you? Just give us the hard plug here.
00:53:48:25 –> 00:54:10:11
Best way is just visit the website, Thompson long range. There’s ask the expert there. I think that comes directly to me and I answer a lot of questions on that. They can call the office. Scott’s there, Ben is there, Stephanie. All those can answer most of the questions. If it gets real detailed, then they’ll send them my way. But
00:54:10:26 –> 00:54:13:23
Are you running one or two courses a week or how are you doing it?
00:54:14:16 –> 00:54:45:01
We start April 15th and go until August 15th and literally almost daily, you know, we, we have groups coming through so somebody gets worried about booking the course a six months or a year in advance. Probably not necessary. You wanna be about 45 days to 60 days in advance. Yeah. You know, if you want an exclusive date, you want to call early enough that you can lock that data, but we don’t require a deposit. And you know, if somebody has to cancel or something comes up, they gotta change. No big deal for us. Yeah,
00:54:45:01 –> 00:54:46:16
You’re gonna be at the range no matter what.
00:54:47:07 –> 00:54:55:15
Yep. So four a time. Corporate groups have been a big thing lately too. We’ve taken a lot of corporate groups through 12 is probably the biggest group that we took.
00:54:57:02 –> 00:54:57:17
Awesome.
00:54:58:25 –> 00:55:00:28
It’s all been good. A lot of fun for everybody.
00:55:01:00 –> 00:55:51:08
That’s awesome. Well, everybody that’s listening out there, there’s just, you know, in my opinion with this day and age and the price of tags and the, you know, the availability of tags and trying to get drawn and as much time as it takes, there’s just nothing. There’s just no reason guys shouldn’t be able to ethically take 500 plus yard shots. And, and some guys are into the, you know, to the intense, expensive custom rifles. And some guys wanna do it as, as cost effective as they can. And if, if that’s you, then give Mark a call. I’ve known Mark for many, many years and appreciate you, mark. Of course, I’ll be forever indebted for my initial, my initial long range experience with you. It taught me a ton. Stuff that I’ve, you know, like I’ve spewed off a few things. Probably surprised you that I even remember remembered that stuff. But it’s
00:55:51:08 –> 00:55:58:17
Helped me. You only remember what you wanna remember. So anybody that’s out there listening wants real detail on Jason, call me directly. Yeah,
00:55:58:20 –> 00:56:24:17
Yeah. You’re such a liar too. There’s something you just conjure up. But anyway. All right. Well I appreciate you spending the time. You and your family have been an integral part of the hunting industry. You know, especially the last 10, 15 plus years. You guys are going crazy. We wish you the best of luck and we appreciate your support of Epic. And, and of course it’s easy for us to, to represent quality people and companies like your own. So
00:56:25:12 –> 00:56:26:13
I appreciate you guys too.
00:56:26:25 –> 00:56:30:01
All right, well good luck on the rest of your hunts and then we’ll go from there.
00:56:30:17 –> 00:56:31:01
Alright,
00:56:31:01 –> 00:56:32:02
Thank you. Thanks Mark.
00:56:32:25 –> 00:56:33:13
Bye bye.
00:56:33:24 –> 00:57:07:00
Here at Epic Outdoors, we produce a hunting magazine, nine issues of the year. The first six issues are state by state research driven issues, breaking down the states, the drawing odds, kill percentages, best places to go, whatever your goals are for that state, whether you should even apply for that state or not. Coming from January through June, we break those down the rest of the year. We go every other month. Very informative magazine, a hundred dollars a year. Get you that magazine as well as the ability to call and consult with us consultants, develop a strategy, bounce ideas off us, things like that.
00:57:07:07 –> 00:57:25:00
Yeah, so, so with this magazine, you know, it just is covers Western big game hunting. That’s what we specialize in. That’s what we stick to. So the western states, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, from a big game hunting perspective. So a hundred bucks a year and, and it should be everything to do with Western big game hunting.
00:57:25:07 –> 00:58:14:20
We also offer a full service license application service. If you’re too busy, you find yourself missing deadlines or you travel a lot with your work, missing deadlines. In some cases we’ll put you years behind drawing a certain tag that you’re after. We offer for a maximum of $500. We’ll handle all of your Western State applications. We’ll incorporate the information you give us. You can be as in interactive with us in picking your units as you want, or you give us a criteria. We can pick your units, match the weapon type species, states, all those types of things that you’re looking for. We do that for a lot of guys. We help them draw a lot of tags. If you find yourself, like I said, too much going on in your life, whether it be business or travel or whatever, you miss deadlines. Consider calling us for your license, application, service needs and be glad to help you out
00:58:15:07 –> 00:59:08:24
With our license application service. Of course, one of the big things besides just applying and and submitting your, your license applications is the people doing it. So Adam and I, we touch all the applications and we actually choose the units for you depending on what you’re looking for. And that’s a big deal. We’ve done this for many, many years as well as for ourselves. And we’ve hunted all the western states. We have quite a bit of experience with e everybody here in the office, and this is what we’ve done for a living for a lot of years. And so anyway, we feel like we offer some of the most knowledgeable consultants and, and the ability to really choose accurately what you’re looking for so you don’t, you know, waste your points or waste your money and especially waste your time in places that don’t really suit you. And so anyway, for, like Adam said, for a maximum 500, we, we can do anything and everything that pertains to applying for Western big game.
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