Full Transcript for How Good Is The 22 Creedmoor Really? With The Founder Of Horizon Firearms (Derrick Ratliff)

off as a very selfish thing for me. I ⁓ was shooting coyote competitions with a good friend of mine in Wyoming, and we had shot a coyote and like I think we were using 2250s and it, you know, ran off. We ⁓ found it. It did a little sp spin thing and we ran off, we found it, and we were late to weigh in by about, you know, thirty minutes. And it cost us about four or five grand worth of winnings. We'd been like third in the contest. And it kind of left there like, man, I need to shoot something bigger, faster, heavier, more knockdown. ⁓ you know, and the twenty-two T T H A was popular. We tried to do the twenty-two two forty-three, ⁓ and it was just wasn't feeding really well. And I had a customer say, Man, well, what about this six five? You know, everybody's doing this thing. Why don't we why don't we do just neck that down? And we did, and it was awesome. And I I remember specifically telling my wife said, My goal now is I I wanna create something that I can take my grandkid into Academy and buy a box off a shelf. But that's like my goal for the industry. You know, we see ourselves very much, you know, as horizons kind of stewards of the industry. And so it's like this is what I want to do. And I remember a a lady that works with me a marketing and named Kat Rice. Her and I would sit down and we'd map out the trade shows we were gonna go to and we would guess what time Jason Hornady was gonna be in his booth and where their booth was at every show. And I would go l you know, like a little peasant and sit in their booth and just wait for 30 seconds to be like, hey, you know, I'm with Horizon. Have you heard of 22 Kremoor? And you know, it was just like this will never work. and, you know, we were at Dallas Safari Club show. I've told the story a million times, but we at Dallas Safari Club show and go in there and wash my hands in the bathroom and Neil Davies, who who I w one of the guys I really respect in the industry and like from a marketing and sales guy in the space, just like one of the best, right? And so he's always somebody I kind of looked up to in the industry and he came in and said, Hey Derek, how's it going? And I don't respond because I'm thinking, there's no chance he actually knows who I am. And ⁓ you know, he was like, No, dude, you're like the only person in here. Like, what are doing? And ⁓ I said, Well, y you know, have you heard what we're doing with the twenty two Creed Moore? And ⁓ he said, Well, you know, how much y'all really doing with it? And that time we were, you know, working with Peterson and and doing ammo on our own and and he was like, You know what? Let's let's go have drinks tonight and shoot, we're gonna do this thing. The next thing I know, from that period to about two weeks at Shot Show meeting with Jason, and then, you know, quickly after that, boom, we're off to Sammy and it's a whole new world. ⁓ and we were set up, you know, like I said, blessed, set up in a situation where we made custom parts for a

lot of people. And so we kind of set around and I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you a deep dark secret. I'm gonna th that's probably get me in trouble, but I'm gonna tell it anyway. We didn't know if we wanted to be a gun company. And so we said, you know what? I knew some guys at Bergera and I'm gonna this gonna burn ⁓ a little bit here, but ⁓ we called them and said, Hey, look, we just wanna make the stocks and maybe the actions and they got this twenty two Creamore thing going and why don't y'all make the guns and we'll make the stocks and stuff for it. Y'all be the gun company, we'll be the component company. And they basically told me it would never work. And I left that call completely crushed and ⁓ that Tark, that mentor kind of of mine, he was in the call with me and he called me immediately afterwards and said, We gotta have a gun company tomorrow. And ⁓ and so that's literally what happened. speaker-0: That's awesome. speaker-1: And so here we are, off to the races, right? speaker-0: So you I mean you've pioneered the the twenty two Creed. Obviously a lot of people, you know, played with ⁓ any kind of Creedmore Wildcat, a lot of people play with all at once. But you've really been the the the driving force between twenty two Creedmore all along. Yep. ⁓ been sh shooting it for way before it was ever ever got Sammy approval that you got. But by the way, you didn't violate the man code, right? Like you were in the bathroom. This wasn't like burning urinal, right? speaker-1: No, no, no, no, no, no. ⁓ I was drying my hands, he was washing his. We w we like it wasn't like one of those kind of deals. speaker-0: Okay, yeah, because man, I just I might have to drop the cartridge if that's what happened. speaker-1: Well it's funny we were seedy began. Well we were talking about it. We were talking about that the other day. We're like, man, we got this new idea for you know some wildcats we're playing with now and somebody made the comment in one of our meetings like, Doug, can you just go hang out in the bathroom for a while and see if we can get this thing done? speaker-0: So for the the consumer that's l that's looking at twenty two Creed has been hearing about twenty two Creed. you know, so the Creed Moore cartridge is really ⁓ i it it's so ubiquitous, it's cheap to get now because everyb every company makes it now, so Anything in the Creed Moore family kinda ends up being a good idea a at this point. ⁓ so you got the Six Five Creed, you got the Twenty Five Creed, the Six Creed, and the Twenty Two Creed. What does the Twenty Two Creed ov have over its siblings? Especially the Six. speaker-1: Yeah, and that's an interesting one. ⁓ you know, it's hard, and I'm I'm gonna give you kind a long ⁓ longish answer to this. What's hard about the six? When the six came out, I was like, ⁓ this really neat, you know, and and we built some and I went back and looked, and I bet you that we have built ten or fifteen. Like it it's just so small and like nobody wanted it. In fact, the first one I built I couldn't sell and I'm ended up giving it to my mom and dad as a present. My mom uses it and shot mule deer with and everything, and we're like, Why is this never really worked? And and you know, I I think what really hurt the six is, you know, the the PRS world was it like took it for a little while and and then it kinda g it wasn't as cool and something else, you know, the GT was more cool and so it kind of had like a little flash there. And I think so many people had two forty threes that they were just like, Meh, I got a two forty three. I don't I don't have anything that I need to replace it with. The twenty two Cree was so much faster than the twenty two two fifty and it was built around fast twist with high BC bullets. And so now I'm looking at it going, well, I can shoot the 80 grain projectile really fast with a solid BC. And my dope compared to the six and the, you know, 108s or the 103s is really pretty darn close. And I can do it in less recoil. And so now I can kind of validate getting a new predator gun. Maybe I can validate it by, well, my wife could shoot this, my kid could shoot this. And what we saw was it just it the the 22250 guy and the predator guy just saw it so much faster than the guy around the six. And that that's the way I would you know, from a from a nuts and bolts perspective, very close. It's definitely less recoil. ⁓ you know, and and what was really interesting when we first started selling them, we had a couple dealers specifically call me and said, I don't I don't quite understand what's going on with the twenty two. We're averaging two cases of ammo per gun sold. And which is really bizarre. Like you thought thinking about cartridges, most of the time a guy goes and buys a couple boxes of ammo, uses it for the year and You know, it does its hunting with it, sights it in and that's pretty much the life of that gun. Like these twenty twos were just really getting shot a lot. ⁓ and it's just fun to shoot. And so it it just stuck a lot stronger than what you saw with the six. speaker-0: I missed something. You said two boxes of ammo per twenty two creeds sold. That doesn't sound like that's a lot. speaker-1: Case. Two cases. Twenty bucks. Twenty bucks. Yeah. And almost for that f whole first year we were looking at what we were doing through Texas ammo and it was dang close to that average. speaker-0: That's so cool. You know, the Garrett and I were just talking w about we were going on a caribou hunt in a few weeks and talking about which rifle we'd pick to to go on it. And I was thinking about 22 Creed and the number one reason that I would go to it over everything else that could be suitable for that hunt is I want to see the bullet hit the animal. And the twenty two creed, the recoil is so low, you're always going to see the impact. Yep. And i i it especially in lightweight hunting rifles. even a 6-5 Creed more, it's not guaranteed you're gonna see your impact.

If you're in a weird hunting s you know ⁓ position, you're not as stable, you know, you're not on a bench or you're zoomed in a little bit more on a super lightweight, you know, take a T3X or something, yeah, it's fifty-fifty if you're gonna be able to spot that impact or not. The 22 Creed, you're gonna see where that bullet goes. And that's it matters so much. speaker-1: I totally agree. Yesterday we were doing a training with ⁓ Shields and you know, we shot between it's funny. I was telling my wife, she's like, How'd it go? And I said, Well, I was a little disappointed and she goes, Well, what do you mean? And I said, Well, we showed up and they only had a five hundred yard range and I had four twenty-two cream wars that were already set up and dope and we dialed them out. There's you know, an IP stick target at five hundred, ten guys just smashed this thing and they were like, Okay, now what? I'm like, Well yeah, like so we go put one of our little thirteen inch guns, I slap a scope on it, guesstimate zero, and then we're like free handing at five hundred And you like you said, you can see it. ⁓ and then on the way home, ⁓ it's funny you mentioned on 'cause a lot of say, ⁓ it's too small for this or too small for that. On the way home, I got a text from a guy out in West Texas that said, Hey, I didn't believe you, so I went and did it. And I and he sent me a video of aw dad at four hundred and ten yards. One shot dumps it off the top of this cliff. speaker-0: Dang. That's awesome. It doesn't get enough credit for how t how tough an odd ad is. speaker-1: Yeah. I think a lot of times you're seeing them at twenty two though why it works so well 'cause like I said, people are gonna ⁓ be mad at condone it for this or that, but the RPMs, I think people overlook the rotations of these projectiles and then bullet construction, you know, when they impact what that bullet's actually doing. ⁓ you know, so these big slow bullets that aren't spinning as fast, you know, yeah, they get they punch through, but they don't leave as much damage. We're like, man, and you've seen it, when that twenty two hits something, it just plants it most of the time. speaker-0: Yeah, so I was hunting with you and my nephew shot a whitetail with a twenty two Creed. I think that was the well, the second bloodiest blood trail I have ever seen. It was that w there was it was dumping blood. like a lot from little from a little twenty two creed. It they they kill. So w is twenty two creed more for elk responsible? speaker-1: Yep, just brutal. So Man, here here's gonna say is like I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna answer in a couple different ways. Would I as much as I love a twenty two Korea more, would I do it with my current position in the industry? Probably not. Do I ha get constant texts from guys, especially in West Texas, right? Like anything goes, right? It's a it's a exotic. Do I get so much speaker-0: That gets the Psy. speaker-1: people text me, Hey, look at elk I shot, or hey, look at this Neil guy that I shot or hey, I've got a trade show, no joke. Show me, hey, look at this giraffe. Or here's a video of me shooting a giraffe with it. And, you know, a sable and whatever. And so like I've seen it done enough, but I don't for me personally, I probably would take something a little bigger, mainly because when my elk hunting experiences have been, you know, they're in a big herd, you zap it and if it doesn't just drop there, it it's Everything's running all over the place and so it's just more of a hassle to trying to figure out where it went. ⁓ and so I probably would take something bigger, as much as I would hate to admit that. Now if like I didn't think I was gonna get roasted on the industry side of things, I would probably take one. But speaker-0: So what is your pick for a Nalcon? speaker-1: man. You know, this is gonna sound crazy, but 6.5 PRC is my well, I'm gonna say I have a couple different things here. One, we've got ⁓ like guns that I own, 22 Creed, obviously I got a handful of those. 6-5 Creamore, and then before Hornady came out with the 7 PRC, I really thought I knew what was coming and I basically wildcatted the 6-5 to 7. So I have a 7 by 65 PRC and I Absolutely love that gun. It's twenty inch barrel, shoots the hundred and seventy-five grain ELDXs and it just pancakes elk. And I really, really like either ⁓ two of those. I mean, I've killed the farthest animals that I've harvested have been with the six five PRC and you know, and we that's what I did actually my caribou was a six five PRC. And so, you know, I that's that's usually my go to. Although, you know, troopers really interested in wildcatting and I could probably say this. While catting the seven five by fifty-five suede to twenty-five. ⁓ and one may say, why? Yeah, it's a different bolt face, which is fun. We get to play with that. ⁓ and the other thing about it is, you know, these twenty-five projectiles are really good, but you know, ⁓ the PRC probably won't get supported in the case that it's in. ⁓ it's a little difficult to reload with. ⁓ you know, the the 25 odd six. There's too many guns out there in slow twists, so it'll never get mainstream. So, you know, looking for some other way to get a little more juice behind the ⁓ the twenty five that's not in an RPM case. speaker-0: Well, our our conspiracy theory with the twenty five Creed is that Hornady ⁓ you know Nebraska isn't sitting complacent while Federal's making high pressure. You know Horny's not just gonna be like, nah. You know they're working on it. And so my thought is Hornady's like, nah, we don't wanna do twenty five PRC. It's not possible. Because behind the scenes they launched the twenty five Creed more and they're coming out with high pressure ammo for it. What do you think? speaker-1: I don't know. ⁓ you know, it's hard i I'm I'm gonna say what I can say and what I can't say. We really, really, really like those guys. And and I'm gonna tell you why I really like the

Hornady guys ⁓ in in industry. When I have conversations, it's just like with you, when I have conversations with other gun people, it's somewhat refreshing, right? Those guys are really i i give it w you know what you wanna say about factory ammo or whatever, those guys are bullet people first. They they and they understand projectiles or what they do and B C and man Ford off when you really understand Ford off is is amazing. And so y you know, they're always working on something. I don't know if it's a fast twenty five. ⁓ you know, I'd like to think that that would be a really good route. ⁓ but, you know, we'll see. speaker-0: See what happens. ⁓ Fordoff. I love Fordoff. The solutions I get from Fordoff are phenomenal. Sometimes I see gets a little bit of bugginess in the app, but I got the the loophold BX six mm the the range finding bundles that they have and they have Fordoff built in. ⁓ my gosh, is it good? Yeah. Holy cow is it good. speaker-1: Yes. It's so funny because when we I went to a loophole NRL ⁓ like Hunter training thing with some influencers and and they showed us and and and ⁓ Mitch there at Horn and D was there and he he literally said he said, Look, it's our tech, but their app's better. And he's not wrong. Like I use the control app. I don't have the BX sixes yet because I can't get my hands on a set yet. ⁓ but I use the control app and it's so much easier to use Ford off on it. The BX sixes are when they first came out, they're a little heavy. And ⁓ they're very expensive. And I thought, nah, there there's no way this is worth it. But ⁓ my gosh, after using them that week, and I don't know if you've done it yet, but their wind particulate estimator where you basically look at Mirage and you know use the digital dots to do that. We started using that for movers. And you should test that because if you've got a mover out on the range and you match it, you can immediately and y if you notice in the control app it has a mover solver on it. So you can pull those numbers, plug them in your mover solver, and it is dang accurate. speaker-0: Okay, so let me translate for people that maybe haven't seen this. So we're talking about Loophold's new rangefinding binos. They came out in early 2026. They announced them and they're just hitting stores now. Don't tell the wife, because it's four thousand dollars. I never ever thought I could invest that much into binoculars. But you use these things and you're like, ⁓ my if I like if I'm gonna splurge on any piece of my system, it's these. Yes. They're that good. The glass is phenomenal, which is really the first like truly alpha glass that we've seen in any range finding binoculars. Even the Suarrows and stuff like that, the glass is just not there in the range finding binoculars. Yeah, even the even the Burris ⁓ rangefinders that we have, they kind of have like this greenish yellow hue in one of the eyes in one of the eyes. Yeah. ⁓ with the laser in it and it does Yeah, i there's there's definitely a quality there. But having the rangefinder in the bino, ⁓ yeah once you have it, it's so hard to go back. speaker-1: I don't know if you have used the feature. So we, you know, I'm starting to try and get into more of the competition stuff and shot NRL and shot Mammoth. And the interesting thing on that, ⁓ there's a mode you can go in on those BX sixes and you can do multiple target acquisitions. So you basically say, Hey, I'm gonna range these targets, and you go, you know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and it basically creates a range card within the ⁓ I think it got I think it does ten or maybe fifteen targets at a time. ⁓ it's ridiculously fast. speaker-0: Yeah, that's way cool. speaker-1: I ranged a helicopter flying over so it's rid I was like, This won't work, no way. Arranged it and it was like fourteen seventy six and gave me the dope and I was like, This is insane. speaker-0: That is so cool. Yeah, so you mentioned the particulate thing that they have in there. So they have a it's just like little ⁓ an LED, just tiny little LED, you know, dots that are just kind of floating, you know. If the wind's from left to right, they're just kind of floating from high left to to bottom right. But you can see the pace that they're moving, and then when you look at, you know, leaves, pollen, whatever in the air that you're looking at, ⁓ to see how quickly it's moving to estimate the wind, you can kind of measure the angle of the of the drop. Of those little particulates that they have to what you're seeing in real life. And you know, you you can you can kind of memorize those, just kind of the the angles and stuff or to estimating the the miles per hour of the wind. But it's just it's a very cool animation. It looks awesome. So when I was there, I was talking to the main engineer that that had designed those binos. And you you kind of have to go into a certain mode to get those. And I'm like, what do we gotta do to get that on the home screen? And I was really pushing on because I love that little animation. I think it's speaker-1: Dude, it's so funny you mentioned that I said to have It was so funny you said that 'cause I was pushing on the same thing. And what I what I do appreciate about the guys at Lou Pub and how they've released this BX six, if you noticed, like they're taking feedback like that and they'll make a change and they'll push a new app thing, they'll push a new app thing. And so what's really interesting is you're getting all these updates on the fly while they're developing it. And it's not they're not stopping it and then creating a new one and charging you more for it. ⁓ they're actually just making it better and and I was like, How long is that gonna last? And they're Well We've we've got this kind of horizon where we wanna just cram everything we can. We wanna be the best at it and then we'll you know, then we'll stop. But ⁓ I just thought that was an interesting approach. speaker-0: So we're we're talking about

this product from Loopold. You you you have a new gun that you personally are gonna hunt with. What are your top three scope companies you're looking at? speaker-1: Man, right now ⁓ loophole for me personally is loophole not force loophole. The ⁓ I mean the interesting thing and this is what I we get asked that a lot. ⁓ and and I'll just like I said we go out there. Like love the nine force stuff, it's heavy and it's but it's built really well. They're they're my experience has just been they've been a little difficult to deal with and I think it's just you don't have that many issues with them and so like their company culture is just like, Yeah, we're we're nine force, there's no issues, right? And so it's a and it's a little different than speaker-0: More. speaker-1: You know, we relate really well to loophole. I mean, they're a fifth generation, you know, family company again, and they kind of have that sort of vibe, you know, lean manufacturing and you know, a lot of the same kind of vibes as us and they like take care of their customer really well. And I think it's fascinating to me, because people I say, Well well what what scope do you do you recommend? I'm gonna tell you a hundred percent. The Mark Four loophole, the new ones, the new Mark Fours that just re released, have got to be the best value. You you can so speaker-0: Are those the ones with the new tooless adjustment on the scope? speaker-1: No, those so that's the that's the that's the BX ⁓ sorry, that's the ⁓ VX sixes. That they've got the tools adjustment. The Mark the Mark Fours are they're more like military styles, got the push buttons and the locking turrets. The reason I say those is like so nothing wrong with the BX sixes with the tools. The tools is really smart. I wish they would do that in everything. You know, but that scope retail it's MOA, it retails, you know, in the probably twenty two hundred range, right? Well for like eighteen hundred you get the the you know what is it, the Six and a half twenty four, thirty four millimeter, Mark IV lock and turrets, windage and elevation, and a milling reticle, ⁓ it for less money. And it's the basically the military grade black ring stuff. And it it to me is the best price per what you get scope on the market. speaker-0: ⁓ that's yeah, that's cool. ⁓ th the they sh were showing me the the toolless turrets, which at first I thought, ⁓ yeah, this is handy for, you know, when you're zeroing the scope and stuff but, you know, ⁓ it's one time, you know, and then you should be good to go. But then they you know, we were shooting at at their range up in Oregon. ⁓ cool. And they had we ha they had two of the turrets. They had the one that had, you know, the MOA or mill markings on it and then another of their custom dial s ⁓ system that, you know, has you know, figured out the ballistics of that rifle so you're dialing to one hundred, two hundred, three hundred yards. Yep. And just as the environmentals change during the day, or we

wanted to stretch it past, you know, six, eight hundred yards, you just you just flip the thing off, you just take that turret off, you pop it off really quick and pop on your MOA or mill one when you need a little bit more complicated of a of a ballistic solution and you can just switch back and forth between ⁓ Nothing. And I that I thought, ⁓ I could get used to that. speaker-1: Yep. Were you a man? speaker-0: general dial for just at our range kind of conditions and then a custom one when I'm gonna really push things. speaker-1: Exactly. Were you in their at their shooting range in Madras, Oregon, Eastern Oregon? speaker-0: Yes. ⁓ yeah ⁓ where wherever is it near near their f ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. It was in Eastern Oregon. Yeah. speaker-1: That's where we did the training and stuff. They and they've got like six hundred and something pieces of steel targets out to like speaker-0: Like ridiculous. They they they went all out on the steel. Yeah, very, very cool, man. What's your least favorite cartridge? Or one that maybe is a little overrated in your mind? speaker-1: I know, that place is awesome. Man, ha ⁓ this is gonna be un unpopular. I can't stand the three ⁓ eight. ⁓ it's it's it's like speaker-0: Me and Jim were just talking, we were like we need to do more three O eight stuff. This is a it's a good car. speaker-1: I was like somebody asked me the other day and I was feeling a little spicy and I said, Look, man, just I could take a six five Creedmoor and draw a smiley face inside the three ⁓ eight at a thousand yards. Right. It's just it's like it's for me, it's interesting about it because you most of the times you're shooting 168 or or larger projectiles to get a BC that's worth it, but then you're putting it in a smaller case and so you don't quite have the velocity. So it's it's like frustrating where it's just almost not enough. I'm like, ⁓ well The same projectile on a 30.6 would be, you know, more compelling. ⁓ and so you see it a lot of times in a in a shorter barrel ⁓ as well, too. So you get like less performance. So we were actually it's it's it's and and then you get the bigger recoil because you get a larger bullet. And so it's sort of like this weird mishmash that for me personally it's just never, never been something that I've just loved. Like I would rather take a 708, right? But we were looking at our we call it the riff. We've got a 13-inch 22 Kareem more. And I can run the twenty two Kree more now again, not delivered energy, so it may cool it before we get there. But if I look at velocity and drop at a thousand, I would I would tell people go compare a one sixty eight three ⁓ eight in a twenty four inch barrel to a thirteen inch twenty two Kree more and you're gonna be shocked. ⁓ you know, just for material so you're running like call it twenty seven fifty, twenty eight hundred. With a and speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. speaker-1: eighty grain projectile with a B C of four three, right? And then you're gonna run, you know, you're gonna run in that twenty four hundred range with a twenty four inch three ⁓ eight and ⁓ you know, one sixty eight, right? To get a B C that's in a in a range that you're gonna be somewhat interested. And then actually run the run the ballistics on it, you'll be surprised. I think you would take the twenty two over to three ⁓ eight. speaker-0: That's pretty fun. Man, that for a for a first deer gun would be so fun. Just a little package. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. I mean I shot a pig last night and a coyote two nights before that. But ⁓ just kinda fun to do. But anyway, that's that's my biggest deal with I just you see so much of ⁓ and I think a lot of people I mean, nothing wrong with it. I think a lot of people started with them. They're easy to get their your hands on and, you know, cheap ammo and and all those kind of things that that kinda go against what I'm, you know, used to doing on the precision side. speaker-0: Okay, so without any more information, if if I if you're going hunting, you're hand loading your ammo so you can do whatever bullet you want, which bullet do you probably pick? speaker-1: Me personally, it's I I and I know people aren't gonna like this, I like the ELD X's. I I think you have to know what you're getting, right? And so ⁓ well, that and I use a lot of match grade stuff, but we won't we won't do that ⁓ there. But you know, the interesting thing about the X's is they're they're hardened, but they're also maybe soft ish, like they're not like a partition, right? They're not like a nozzle or accubant, but they're designed kind of around like the twenty five hundred feet per second in terms of when it likes to open up. And so for me, most of the stuff like and you know we talk long range stuff and we're, you know, rooted in a long range company, but I I don't like condone going out and just sh shooting stuff far for fun, right? To me, I'm like if you can be really, really good from four to seven hundred yards, I guarantee you'll feel more tags, right? ⁓ and so, you know, that's kind of what I look at as like, well that ELDX, you're you know, you're coming into those speed ranges with most of the cartridges you're gonna run in you know, those kind of yardages and you get real solid predictable performances what, you know, my exp you know, experience has been. I mean, we had a little YouTube reel, I was going through some old videos that we're gonna put out on ⁓ YouTube this week where I had like an egg ⁓ entrance and exit with an ELDX eighty at a white tail dough at like four ten. You could see it perform like it's supposed to. and that's just been a really just generically good projectile for me. ⁓ you know, whether you're shooting bone or you're shooting lightweight stuff. ⁓ I you know. I'll wait on that one. That's my good speaker-0: I don't think I don't think there's another bullet that gets more hate than the E L D X in the industry. Like it man Which I find strange because a lot of times when we reload for for guns,

the ELDX a lot of times is the one it yeah is the most accurate. Yes. speaker-1: You know, and and you know what I think it is? And this is ⁓ you know, the whole bleedmore thing, the twenty-three readmore, ⁓ six five's not any good. I think what you're seeing is that people like the concept of hunting longer range, but they actually kill most of their stuff, you know, inside of two hundred, two hundred and fifty yards, right? So go if you ran like the one hundred three ELDX in a six five Creedmore in those closer ranges, that bullet is not slow enough to perform like it should as a long range bullet, right? That's like the weird thing about d you know, bullet design. It's like you're saying, hey guys at Hornedy, I want you to I want you to make a bullet that performs perfect at all distances. But you know, but at the same time like a man, if it doesn't open up when I shoot something at long range, I'm gonna be mad at you. And if it explodes, you know, at something too close, I'm gonna be mad at you. Right. And so it's a weird problem to have to solve. And I think the ELX is just generally decent at both ends of it. speaker-0: Yeah, I I agree with you. I just did ⁓ John McAdams podcast. I don't think the episodes come out, but I know there's gonna be a lot of hate for it. Because he he went through all you know, all the major big game species and asked me what cartridge and bullet I'd pick for each. ⁓ nice. And ELDX was definitely th the the mode, you know, the most often ⁓ one that I talked about there. I've just had great luck with it. I I've hunted so much and he even asked like for bison, which one would I pick? And I know ⁓ this is one people are gonna be mad at me about. But I said I'd I'd pick a two twelve ELDX and a three hundred PRC bison. And the reason I say that is because we killed fifty freaking bison. ⁓ and so I n I like it's not for nothing, but I know people are gonna freak out and to be like, wrong answer, partition or copper or whatever. And it's like, okay, I know, but I know what that bullet's gonna do. And one of the things it's gonna do is gonna make a wider wound channel. Yep. So as long as you get enough penetration I want the wound channel to be li to be ⁓ to be wider. And so I I know what it's gonna do. The other reason that I like it even for for bison, and again, that's not based off theory. We c we killed a lot of lot of bison, ⁓ was is that I'm gonna shoot a high shoulder on a bison first shot, no question. It's just gonna drop them right there. And so if you're gonna shoot a high shoulder shot, what you need to do is you need to shock the spine, right? That that's how it works to drop the animal. And if I need to shock the spine I want something that's gonna spit lead all over in that spot. 'Cause all we need is one little bit to touch spine and it's done. Yep. ⁓ if I if I pick something that has a skinnier little wound channel, I I might just miss it and not drop the the animal, which defeats the whole purpose of the shot. But anyway, I know I'm gonna take some hate for that, but I'm I'm behind you on the other things. I think that's a good bullet. speaker-1: I think you you touched on something there that it's interesting. It's kind of that taboo thing people don't like to talk about. Like I'm not a big proponent of, you know, give me through and through so if I got a blood trail. Well dang, if it's dead right there, I don't need a blood trail. Right? You know, and so to me like the the bullet going in and dropping full amount of energy and not exiting is almost perfect condition. Actually it's funny. ⁓ I shot a bison years and years ago and it was with a long throated, so I could get a little more powder in it, ⁓ seven rim mag. with a hundred and eighty grain VLD target. B ⁓ yeah. So but like you said, you squack one and it doesn't exit, but interest it's like knowing your game. Like you talk about elk. Elk like to run, they all run off in a herd. Bison, my experience has been they kind of pull up, right? So they pull up to protect. So they're not running off. So you don't have to be so overgunned when you're hunting them. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I I'm I'm with you. So you shot Mammoth with with Cooper that works with you as well. What was it so Mammoth Sniper Challenge, for those of you who don't know, it's a you know, it's it's rucking, you gotta have ⁓ gotta have weight on your back and you gotta cover a long distance and then there's shooting challenges as you go. W did you do a lot of like ⁓ like physical prep for it? H and how hard was it physically? speaker-1: Man, it sucked. But but but in the way that it was like I I think, you know, I would describe it as it was it was so bad, it was fun, right? Like, you know, we you you like you said, it's ⁓ ruck and shoot competition. So it's kinda like imagine this is gonna sound terrible, but like CrossFit mixed with camping mixed with NRL. Like that would be the only way that I could really describe it. So Two man teams, about a hundred teams ⁓ that enter and show up for actual weigh in. You're carrying all your food, all your gear, you know, and you get like an idea of how much ammo you're gonna need, pistol and rifle. And so then basically you have three days, and it's typically I'm gonna call it five to eight mile ruck in, five to eight mile ruck out, and you have a time limit when you ⁓ that you have to to finish it by. ⁓ and then there's all this movement during the day during your shooting competitions. And so You know, the the competition itself's about thirty five ish miles, ⁓ the the actual running for time part. But then we looked at our garments between the moving between all the stages, we'd went forty nine point nine miles over three days. yeah, it was it was pretty brutal. Of course, like thunderstorms, raining, you're camping out, trying to get your, you know, calories and all those kind of things. ⁓ but the the shooting was really hard. And I think that's what made it super fun. We did

really well on the pistols we got. I don't know if you're I becoming a a a bigger twenty eleven guy. ⁓ we worked with the guys at Atlas Gunworks and man do they make the nicest twenty eleven I've ever touched. I mean that thing I was joking, I was like, I feel like I could shoot it, point it backwards, and it would hit the target in front of me. It just it just always shoots, you know. And then ⁓ you know, on the rifle side, ⁓ interesting you it was four minute stages and so they give you what I loved about they give you a brief. You kind of W y you don't know everything's blind. You don't the time of the running and stuff, they don't tell you until the time. You don't know where you're going, how what the what the train's like and so like when you get up to shoot, they they get everybody together and they say, Okay, I'm gonna give you you get the stage briefing twice. All right. So, you know, you're gonna proceed down the hill. ⁓ you're going to eng ⁓ primary shooter's gonna engage four pistol targets, order left to right, don't you know, ⁓ shooting only diamond diamond, you know, ipstick, and then you're going then secondary shooter follows suit. Then You know, primary shooter grabs rifle, gets in the back of a truck bed, you know, engages four diamond targets from yardage varying from two hundred to nine hundred. Then secondary shooter follows suit, right? And you got four minutes basically to do something like that. And you take notes, you get ⁓ a couple ⁓ you know, a few minutes to ask clarifying questions. ⁓ and then it's sp time and here you go. And so, you know, ⁓ I remember one stage specifically, we like are supposed to go down this hill. You pick up like a fifty pound backpack, throw it in the back of a truck bed, you get in the back of the truck bed, and you're supposed to find targets and shoot ⁓ You got four minutes and it's four targets, and you're supposed to hit ⁓ three times each. You shoot and others shoot. We get in the back of the truck and we literally never find a target. And like you spend four minutes. I'm like, I don't see any target. Like there's zero there's not targets out there, you know. And there's little s hidden sniper targets and stuff, they're extra bonus points. And so it's just a lot of fun and and pretty humbling. ⁓ because what's really interesting to watch how different people react. So like, you know, one stage, there was pig targets and they're like, there's 12 pig targets. You can shoot up to 12. And there's this barricade in front of it. You can use the barricade to shoot off of, right? And so your mind immediately, you're tired. Your mind immediately goes to must shoot off barricade, right? Well we go to the barricade, we find one pig target. We're like, where the heck is there's not 12 pig targets. Well like if you'd take three steps to the left of the barricade, you'd have seen the rest of the targets. But you get so mentally fixed in that they play mind games throughout the day. And you start kind

of seeing how you react. I think that was the biggest thing for me that I enjoyed, you know, not coming from military, not coming from those kind of backgrounds and and more like just kind of testing your mental will. Like so we'd be running, you know, at the end of the day, you're like rucking along and yeah, it's terrible. And you'd look at somebody or pass somebody and you'd be like, They won't be here tomorrow. Like they've already mentally checked out in their mind that they're going home tonight. And ⁓ it was very, very interesting to just observe that happening. And then at the same time, I think gave me such a respect for some of our special forces. I mean, there were some guys, it dude, I don't know that I've met harder guys, right? Like it rained the last night that we were there, it rained. I'm talking like tornado warnings, rained. We were in a tent, you know, and all that kind of stuff, felt fairly protected, had it all, you know, taken care of. And a couple of the guys we were competing with in our squad, they like literally slept under like a lean to rock thing, like a little piece of concrete they found. In a black trash bag. And I'm like, dude, that must have been terrible. And this answer was wasn't as bad as Iraq. And I was just like, ⁓ my gosh, everything's so much in perspective for me that, you know, yeah, you're right. Okay. Well, awesome. Yeah. I'm like, what am I? I'm like, I'm a civilian over here going like, dang, man, I feel like such a poser, you know, and it was a a really interesting thing for me. speaker-0: Yeah, that's that's pretty cool. Are you on the testosterone train? You haven't mastered that, huh? I started doing it a couple of years ago. Man, that's speaker-1: No. ⁓ really? I'm gonna have to talk about that. speaker-0: ⁓ you'll see when it started kicking in. If you go watch some old videos and you go watch some recent videos, you can hear the testosterone in his voice. Yeah. I don't know. You might not be able to tell yourself just because like when you talk, like speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: It's hard for you to recognize when your voice changed. Uhhuh. But you can tell like when you started doing testosterone by like going back to the old videos and seeing some of the more recent videos, like when I started working for you. That's interesting. And you can see I didn't know that. Yeah, right. No, it did I just you know, I I just was feeling like just lethargic and like I was trying to just exercise, just generally be fit. I'm not you know, I'm not gonna like speaker-1: Jim's getting jacked, right? speaker-0: this physical specimen or anything, but just trying to just, you know, keep my heart healthy and stuff. And I just felt like I got into the gym every day and I just couldn't. Just I just like couldn't Do it. It was just, you know, kind of like that feeling that you just get out of like a hot tub and you just feel just lethargic. Yeah. And I just felt like that all the time. And then I started to talking to a few friends that were all, you know, around right around 40 years old. I'm forty one. And I like I I asked several of them that are like, you know, in just active and stuff, and all of them are taking testosterone. Interesting. And so I was like, interesting. So I I started researching anyway, and I took it and I just felt so much better. Like I, you know, I'd what I I I'm I got plenty of plump and stuff. I'm not like this physical specimen again. I just but like I just feel a lot better. Like I feel like you know, the kids want to run around and do stuff. I I'm ready. You know, I can go I can go do stuff. I don't feel just wipe that feeling away. And I just thought I was just a lazy butt and just you know, just like man, get it in gear and just push yourself a little bit in the gym. And I it it was a physical thing, like I just couldn't. It was interesting. speaker-1: Interesting. Interesting. I have to check that out. Yeah, that's ⁓ yeah, 'cause I said for me, I I I don't like Jim working out. The the thing I think that just drove it was the rucking was a lot seemed to be easier in my body. And, you know, it's like our I think my my pack was fifty four pounds ish with the gun, right? And so it was just like, you know, it it felt like a hunt. I think that that's what it was. It's like I just I'm just going to find the elk on the other side of the mountain and just gotta get there, you know? speaker-0: Yeah. That's awesome. That's pretty fun. So tell me this. Why the heck is nobody building an integrally suppressed hunting barrel? That's the one that I keep going back to and I just feel like somebody's gonna pop in popularize it. I of it of course exists, but like it's just ⁓ extremely rare integrally suppressed barrel. But I feel like now is the moment where suppressors are easy to get now. There's not even a tax stamp on And where speaker-1: You know what I think? speaker-0: you know, proof is, you know, making a lot of noise about something that people have researched for a long time, but the the faster the the game twist barrels that could protect your your barrel life with it, it just feels like now's the moment for somebody to come out with it. speaker-1: Yeah. I think you know what I think the interesting thing's gonna be and I don't disagree with you a hundred percent, right? And we've and I I think it's fair for me to say like obviously our next move is we we we wanna make barrel blanks at some point, right? Like we have to. And so we've been looking at a lot of those kind of things. And what's interesting, even though it's so much easier to get suppressors and all the law changes and stuff and and even there's some like interesting ATF laws now about potentially being able to do background checks like suppressors like remotely and then ship t guns to your doorstep, right? Like that's like being actually talked about, there still seems to be some interesting lag and stigma around SBRs and ⁓ you know, okay, well, if I buy

this gun, I gotta do this paperwork and I don't get it today. And so like, you know, there there's still like a weird as much as they've gotten popular for us and as much buzz as our SBRs get, ⁓ you know, it's I would say we don't sell as many of them as we do in the same gun with just a little bit longer barrel. And I think that's what it is. I think it's I think it's literally still mental and I th but I think you're right that we're, you know, right around the edge of that changing. ⁓ you know, and I think it'll be soon. But that but that's what I think it is. I think it's literally just a a mental block. speaker-0: Okay, so you mentioned something that I'm I'm pretty fascinated in. So the ATF proposed a new rule that, you know, you'd you'd be able to to ship a gun direct to the to consumer. Don't don't have to go to your local gun store to get it and stuff. ⁓ and you can, you know, kinda do the background check online. I think there's a five day waiting period for this. But obviously if that goes through, whoa boy, is that gonna put lightning through the industry. Yeah. I part of me thinks we might be our worst en our own worst enemy there because what a lot of mom and pop gun stores if that happens could be in a lot of trouble. ⁓ and mom and pop gun stores are already in trouble. And if we wipe out more and more mom and pop gun stores, it gets harder and harder to just get guns out, especially in some of the more liberal states. So I I'm worried about that aspect of it. speaker-1: I hear you, man. And it was interesting about it. You know, obviously we it's hard to wrestle with that. Like for us, you know, like ⁓ yeah, it'd be great to be able to you know, ship and e com and the world of, you know, all that kind of stuff and if new marketing opportunities and things opened up, but like at the same time, ⁓ you know, I I think, you know, y you and I talked a little bit, like I spent about the last year helping, ⁓ with our family's like saddle brand from a marketing perspective. And it was a fresh look for me to see like how a different industry was doing it without being handcuffed by all the, you know firearms rolls and YouTube shutdowns and all those crazy things. But because of the direct shipments, it the the thing that you're describing is happening in that industry. So, you know, the mom and pop feed store saddle shop, you know, grandkids don't want it, you know, son doesn't want it. So guy shuts the business down. Or it's getting consumed by megastores. And so there's very, very few megastores that like are servicing the full industry. But the consumer's getting a really weird experience because the saddle, much like a gun, like sometimes you just want to hold it. You like want to know, like, does this feel balanced? Like, is the scope mounted to my eye? I don't want to do that at home. Same thing with the saddle, and we're seeing it be like a really, I'm gonna call it a really mixed consumer experience. And so, like on the saddle side,

or like on shoes, for example, how many times I I'm terri terabyte. You buy like five or six pairs of whatever from Amazon, you're like, Yeah, I'm gonna keep this one, I'm gonna send these back, right? And that's the world we live in. That's not going to be able you're not gonna be able to do that with guns, right? ⁓ and so I I don't know, it's it's man, I I I struggle with that. speaker-0: Okay, so here's here's my other thing though. I here's here's Jim's hot stock tick on that. So when this r this rule was was announced, so Donald Trump Jr., who's a big gun guy, very popular in the industry, he's been behind a company called Grabagun. ⁓ that is an online ⁓ retailer of really firearms accessories right now. But kind of the idea and they've gone public, the stock ticker is Pew, PEW, and I I invested a little bit in it when I saw this the this ATF rule come. So Donald Trump Jr.'s behind this gun this company, which frankly seemed a little weird from the outset. I mean, I know he's a big gun guy, but also like, you know, their family's working on real big businesses and he's done doing a ton in Bitcoin, and then he buys this online firearms retailer, you know? And so ⁓ I see he's behind this, and then this new rule from the ATF big gets proposed. I'm guessing it's gonna go through. ⁓ and that's kind of where this company's kind of positioning itself is suddenly, hey, if we can. Be shipping direct to consumer. We're doing we're getting ready for this one and we're gonna become the you know the new ship to ship directly to consumer gun company online. Yeah. And so I bought a little stock and ⁓ a little stock in there when I saw this rule proposed. I'm like, ⁓ let's let's see what happens. Because the company, Grab a gun, it's trading for one times earnings. Interesting. That's wild. Like they're they're killing it. Trading at one times earnings is way low. They're down seventy three percent. percent ⁓ over five years and I s see it there and I'm like, dude, that just seems like a pretty good opportunity. That's that's Jim stuck speaker-1: Very interesting. You know, and I'll tell you the the other deal, if somebody out there listening w wants to start a business, we were I was having a discussion with somebody in the industry y actually yesterday, because what I think's gonna hurt it or hurts us all anyway right now is is people don't realize that your UPSs and your FedEx are not really pro gun, right? Like they they ship our stuff because they kinda have to. But like, you know, there's a I won't say who'd for disclosure reasons, but there's a, you know, firearms company in the space right now, but I believe it's like even in a lawsuit with like you know, ⁓ FedEx on now of a sudden like had a contract but now they're not shipping their stuff and now UPS is saying they're not gonna ship their stuff. Well like what's USPS gonna do? You know, and so like I think the interesting thing is like people don't realize credit card processors and shipping companies really just don't want to do business with us and that they just kinda have to. And so somebody is going to get together and create a two a shipping company and you will have so much business, especially if that passes, you like it would you be giant. Like ⁓ tomorrow, right? E every gun company would work with you 'cause we're so fed up with the rest of the stuff. speaker-0: ⁓ that's pretty cool. That's pretty Yeah. speaker-1: That's my next that's my next venture. That's right. That's that's coming up next. Next to the gunshipping, yeah. I love it. speaker-0: How often should somebody clean a twenty two greed more? speaker-1: man, you're asking the guy who's like the worst at cleaning guns. And it's so funny. Like I probably for me personally, it there's two triggers for me. One, the end of hunting season, ⁓ I will, you know, clean the rifle and really clean it. I'm talking like making sure that, you know, carbon throat and all that kind of stuff. and and then I'll fire a couple, put it in the gun safe and rock on, right? ⁓ and I do that typically on my hunting guns once a year. The other thing is like if I go out and the gun just doesn't shoot a group like I expected, or I'm gonna say this is terrible in Texas, but like if you get if you're using a lot of suppressed stuff and a lot of using a lot of short barrel stuff and it's humid down here, a lot of times you're riding around doing predator competitions, you may have a projectile in the chamber, different cartridges, ⁓ the, you know, copper or sorry, the carbon fouling likes to kind of make that bullet extract a little sticky, then I'll clean it. But it's really like those couple signals, once the gun's like shooting when it's when you first get it, like to me it's like I'm gonna this gun, I'm gonna shoot it and it and if it this is terrible to say as a gun guy, but man, if I pick that gun up and it pounds, I'm not messing with it too much until it's not making what I think it should do, right? Yeah. And that's that's been my experience with them. It's not like, you know, I see, you know, I this is kinda weird to say. I I I see like more cut rifling that needs a little more break in and then once the cut rifling's kinda good, that gun's just sorta, you know, it's kinda like a good cast iron pot, man. It just gets better over time until like You're like, you what, I don't want to cook my eggs on that bacon, right? You know? And that's that's kind of the way that I personally see it. ⁓ but you know, it's it's interesting when you when you look at cleaning your or groups and w you know, I was actually talking the trooper th this morning about this. One thing is kinda like weird. We get very few RMAs and we're we're again blessed in that. But we but everybody gets something, right? But we see a lot of a lot more user errors than I expected. And then it's really hard to communicate as a as a gun company. And I I don't think I like respected that for some of the you know, for other

manufacturers, you know. And I what I mean by that is we get a gun, guys like, Hey, it doesn't shoot. But this is like currently happening right now on on one. Doesn't shoot. She sends it in, we literally like we clean it, put it back to factory condition, put a loophole mark four on it. Typically on RMA's is me or one other guy are shooting them. ⁓ we film it, you know, the whole deal. and gun shoots and you're like, ⁓ dang, now what? I would almost have rather it not shot, right? And put a new barrel on it and go on. So we get this gun, shoots great. Okay, well, send it back to the customer. Customer calls back a week later, furious, shoots three inch groups. And I'm like, there's no way. There's no way. We bring the gun back, right? And me and another guy each shoot it. And the other guy actually she shot better than me. I'll give him that group. He was on fire. But he shot a twenty-five Kore more a three shot, and again it's three shot, you know, whatever, but that's like what we do is mobile three shots. ⁓ and it was a point two five se two five eight, two five nine, something like that. Like dang near single hole groups. Send it back to the guy, can't get it to shoot. And I'm like, dude, I know it has to be people overlook. ⁓ you buy a nice gun, you buy a nice scope, and so many people buy cheap rings or don't mount them right. And then we also see people think, Well, I can just throw any suppressor on anything and it's gonna be fine. Or like people don't realize like, hey, if I've got a ⁓ suppressor but's got baffles like When I take the baffles out, baffle orientation like matters now. I probably should like check and make sure my zeros are the same. And so I see so much of that that I just wish I could be he'd say more honest. I wish I could just be like frank to a guy and just be like, Hey man, like it's really not the gun, but let me like help you help you, you know? Yeah. speaker-0: It's what ⁓ tech support guys called PebCAC. Have you ever heard that problem exists between keyboard and chair. speaker-1: No, I'm not. I love that. That's so good. But you know, and and it's and it's so hard because I like ⁓ you know me. Like I love this industry and I love like helping people in that sense. Like reloading questions, man. I there's so many people that sometimes I'm like, dude, don't, please don't. Just stop. Just stop. I had a guy and I and I hope and he's probably listening. I know he's a a big follower of yours and he don't think he'll mind me saying this, but you know, Col was asking like questioning prints on the twenty two Creamore chamber prints. And ⁓ I was explaining to him And I could hear on the phone immediately when the light bulb came up, he was looking at like loaded prints versus chamber prints. And I my brother was laughing at me. He goes, I heard you from the other room. He's I literally had to say, Man, I I understand what you're saying, but you're literally talking to the guy who drew those prints. Like you know, it's

like you know, so it's like, ⁓ but I want everybody to have such a good experience with our product that we we ⁓ you know, we we go through quite a lot of that. ⁓ you know, so it's interesting. speaker-0: Yeah, zo those who don't know on w on the Sami drawings for each cartridge where it gives you know, every little number of every little measurement, there two pages of it. And one page is is the the chamber dimensions and then the other pages is what the cartridge dimensions should be. And so th they're they're gonna be different. There has to be some kind of space between ⁓ right? speaker-1: Exactly. Exactly. So anyway, it's always it's always interesting. I love the it really it's funny. This time of year it's ⁓ it's always even a good little education or a refresher for myself, we get so many it's it's like you get the hunting season, those guys buy, you know, guns and and ammo and stuff and and like normal stuff. And then this time of year you get all the guys who are building guns. So we get stiller cells and man, the wildcats and stuff we watch some people think of. I'm like, Whoa, dude, you're doing what? Like That doesn't seem like a great idea, but hey man, knock yourself out, right? But so it's always it's always kinda fun this time of year. speaker-0: Yeah, that's pretty cool. Alright. You ⁓ you always do a little lightning ro round on your on your podcast. I really enjoy. ⁓ I'm I'm literally looking here. I've we've been going for fifty minutes here, but I have like five or ten more questions that I really would like to know your take on. So give me a couple of just a few a a few word answers on on a few of these and if you got any too, Garrett. what is the longest shot you've ever taken on a big game? speaker-1: thousand seventeen six five PRC on a black wilder base one forty burger. Woo. Got it on video. speaker-0: Smote it. Is high pressure gonna win in the end. speaker-1: ⁓ I think that there's a lot of new technology there that's gonna be very interesting. They have got an uphill battle when you do already SAMI approved cartridges because not all manufacturers manufacture their actions and bolts of the same specifications. And I think that is gonna be if you stay away from trying to make high pressure in something that's already approved, I think it'll get there. speaker-0: Would you personally, you're picking a rifle for a once in a lifetime hunt, and we'll leave it just general at that. Do you pick a steel barrel or a carbon fiber wrap? speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh. I'm a steel barrel guy. I I I yes, a hundred percent. I'm taking something in our vanatic. I think that is the best gun we we build. ⁓ I'm taking that gun in something. Steel barrel wombat action and you know, give me whatever stock it'll screw on. speaker-0: ⁓ y not to commentate too much here 'cause this is the lightning round, but I am shocked talking to like industry guys, it's like ninety-five percent give that c they give that answer. They'd say, ⁓ in the end I'd pick a steel. Yeah. Just a steel barrel. A hundred percent. Not that there aren't great carbon fiber wrapped as well. But how light of a rifle is too light? I mean you guys make, you know, all kind of different weights of rifles, but you generally lightweight hunting rifles. How light is so light that you're just like, gosh dang it, this thing doesn't shoot. speaker-1: Man, when that to me, when that thing starts approaching the sub six and a half pound range. And well, and and I'm gonna I'm gonna caveat that by the other thing I see is as you go lighter, and if you're coming up in recoil and down in barrel length, people don't shoot it as good. And and specifically, like I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna pick on the seven back country for a second. Heavier recoil impulse, we build most of them we ship are in sixteen inch barrels. A lot of guys cannot shoot a a short barrel that recoils. It just not they don't track a gun really well. And that's nothing against like but that's just generally what I observe is that the shorter the barrel, the more ⁓ that recoil freaks people out and they don't shoot it as well. speaker-0: Okay. Okay. We've exited the lightning. I have two last questions and then they they're kinda horizon specific ones. So everybody's looking for new rifles, especially this time of year, right? You know, it's it's i well, not not now. If if the hunt opens October fifteenth, guys are starting to look around October thirteenth, is what they say, right? speaker-1: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. speaker-0: But let's pretend that a guy decided to start planning early. ⁓ anyway, what's the sales pitch on horizon? I mean, for guys that are looking for their dream rifle, you know, that you know, we're we're we're exiting the, you know, true mass market of the you know, sub thousand dollar rifles and you know, you guys make some, you know, reasonably pli priced semi customs in the sub two thousand dollar price point all the way up to the mega customs that you do. Yep. So what's the sales pitch to that guy that's that's looking for something a little bit nicer? Yeah. speaker-1: I mean, here's the deal. When we when we started Horizon and my brother and I sat down and I can remember vividly saying, Hey, I wanna create a company that makes products that'll go places that we probably will never have the opportunity to go, right? And so from the very beginning, like our mantras here is quality, excellence, different. So quality's what in what we do, excellence and how we do it and different just because, right? And so we came out of a custom gun builder. That's why we call our our rifles custom at the core, our core series rifles. And we wanted to deliver somebody a rifle that if they were gonna go build it themselves with a local gunsmith down the street and they were gonna pick our parts really anyway, and we could put it together at a price that they, you know, couldn't get it put together down the road, right? And so like we see ourselves like, yes, we

like, you know, I I actually like a lot of the stuff the Seeking guys are doing. I think I if I w I knew them more. I think the the group I think Horizon and Seacons could enjoy time with each other. Right? You know? ⁓ we play Yeah. I mean, I think we pull we play in a little bit different part of the market. And like for us, we're so singular focused on quality and I want you to have a unique experience and I want you to have the best thing that we can possibly build you at that at that price point. And it's not necessarily about like, do I I'm not gonna go chase a a nineteen hundred dollar gun. Could we? Yeah, but I'd I'd have to skimp on some of the parts and I have to skimp on some of the cost of materials because It's ultimately a f a formula and it's just not something that I feel like putting our name on. So to me, like, you know, why you buy a horizon is you want a a known good commodity that we're gonna you know, we're a hundred and twenty seven year old fifth generation family owned and operated company, and we're gonna be here and take care of you. And that's that's kind of my mantrost on it is, you know, there are accurate guns. I mean sure there's Ruger Americans that are accurate guns. But, you know, the fit and finish and quality and feel and You know, people behind the product it's not the same. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ for those of you wondering, you know, we talked about you starting starting Horizon firearms in a garage and stuff and now you're saying a hundred twenty seven years old. We you're talking about the family speaker-1: Family company, yes. Yeah. So I think just real quick on that. So Horizon, you know, my brother and I started it independent, right? And then in fifteen when we started the stock stock company, we merged it back in with my ⁓ and out with my wife's family company. ⁓ they started in eighteen ninety eight in Shiner, Texas, basically when her great great great grandfather was picking up smooth wire when Bob Ware came to Texas and started making corn shuck baskets and sold the first one to his neighbor for a dollar. And they became, you know, a multifaceted company, you know, now ran by the fifth generation. ⁓ you know, and is included things like if you ever put a quarter in a newspaper rack anywhere in the world, we made like ninety percent of those, right? And so what's interesting about Horizon being part of that company is we have all the structures and all the the the you know the the the soup of a big company, but it's still family owned and ran like a family owned entrepreneurial startup company. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean y you've you've started it, you talked about the struggles of of growing it, but as you're able to to do things and get attention, you're able to scale quick because you're part of the the bigger family. Okay, ⁓ then last last question I had is just can you just walk us through ⁓ some of the offerings that Horizon has that people should look at? Yeah. If they're interested in your guns, like what are what are the kind of things you want to hire? speaker-1: Hundred percent. Yeah, so ⁓ highlight there's two major classes of of Horizon Core rifles, right? So we have our Vandal series and we have our Venatic series. Really easy when you look at ⁓ The Vandals all have, you know, the the tried and true stiller, you know, predator based action. They're a little heavier. They got texture painted stocks, still a great shooting rifle. ⁓ but you know, based on the fence fits and finishes, those tend to be our lower priced rifles. They started around twenty two hundred dollars, hot, twenty two cream or right. ⁓ with our Vandal two point ⁓ Obviously our still one of our most popular rifles is the Vandal X, the one that ⁓ actually, you know, won your twenty twenty five, you know, most accurate factory rifle. That is probably our ⁓ our number one, you know, mover still. And we offer that in a variety of different cartridges. And then in our vanatic series, vanatic is a word that means all things that pertain to hunting. And there's a cool story as to why we picked that name, but ⁓ That is based off our Wombat action. So that Wombat action is designed in house. It's skeletonized. So it's half the weight of the other actions. And it is DLC coated straight from the factory, right? So super, super smooth, very nice feeding rifle, ultra lightweight. And then those those rifles come with exposed carbon fiber stocks and then even some proof research barrels on the top side of that. So it's really like vandal or vanatic, depending on, you know, what fit and finish and cycling, you know, and and how serious you are about. you know, that being your go to rifle. And then in in each of those lines, there's little nuances between stocks and, you know, ⁓ barrels and those kind of things. But the way that we kinda look at it, ⁓ you know, is if you like podcasts, listen to this podcast. I love the acquired podcast. Ferr they did a p a podcast about Ferrari. And it was the one that it was like, ⁓ that that matches how I see our business, right? Where, you know, it's small runs ⁓ and we we do new products all the time. And we've got a new little SBR that's gonna release here in a couple of weeks. We're only doing two hundred of them, right? And so that's kind of our montrose is we see ourselves in the industry as somebody who comes early mover, early adopter, you know, high quality. You know, say a new round comes out tomorrow, it's gonna be years before the you know big guys got it offered. We're gonna offer it immediately and get quality product into the market before the big guys come in, and then we'll move on and do the next thing, right? And that's kind of the the that's where we sort of see ourselves stewarding the next generation of cartridges and kind of how it fits into our our raffle on. And then ⁓ one last little thing I'll mention is so you have again Vandal Venatic and then now and I don't think you've seen them we like what we call a venable which is basically ⁓ our ELR rifle. So you know Stiller has made King of Two Mile rifles ⁓ or King of Two Mile Actions forever. And we kind of set it horizon and said, Man, we make the receivers for all these. Like, why don't we make an actual, you know, four ⁓ eight, three seven five, three seventy five Terminator, you know, in a KDEX chassis that somebody can go compete at King of Two Mile. So We are doing that as well now. speaker-0: ⁓ that's pretty sick. That's pretty cool. speaker-1: It's a beef. It's it's like a thirty pound rifle. speaker-0: The furthest I've ever shot was w like I think one point two miles. I'd like to get out to some of the two mile matches and stuff and try that out. I've never played with it. speaker-1: Dude, I wanna come shoot one of your challenges, but it I'm so nervous, man. speaker-0: No way, you definitely should come out. I'd be fine. speaker-1: My my mammoth twenty five is pretty accurate. The one the video you did here recently, I don't know exactly how recent it was, but I got on the train where I was just like binge watching them, where the guys were actually shooting a MOA size target and you walked ⁓ out. So cool. So smart. ⁓ I thought that was really, really good. speaker-0: Yeah, it's it's been fun. We l we love doing those. All right man, well I could talk to you all day. But ⁓ thanks for coming and doing the podcast. Always good to talk with you. speaker-1: I appreciate it, man. ⁓ thanks for having me and ⁓ holler anytime. speaker-0: Awesome. Thank you. We will see all of you listeners on the third, thirteenth, and twenty-third of every month.