บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ We Asked Ultimate Reloader What Really Makes A Rifle Accurate

went, you know, again, the process, rebarreled it in six-dasher and did hand loads, and we got it down to I think just sub-half MOA, which is a huge improvement, right? The groups were ten times as large. And this kind of I think backs up what I've seen in in other instances, which is I think the bore itself is the most important part of the equation. If you have a cut rifled precision match grade barrel blank that has been hand lapped, and if you chamber it with precision, and if you choose a cartridge that is forgiving, and then if you choose a bullet that is known to just be the magic bullet, there's there's a couple burger bullets that come to mind. The Burger 105 six millimeter, which I used in that story, and with six dashers produced the best groups I've ever shot. And then there's also the seven millimeter 180 hybrid, both of those hybrids. There's just some bullets that just shoot well. Like if you have a rifle, they're gonna like lightly, ⁓ likely paint that rifle in a positive light. And and the bore is also super critical. And then there are a whole bunch of other factors. When you like want to Would want to take that Mossberg from half MOA to quarter MOA. There's a whole different set of criteria. Things like the quality of the action, you know, the fire control group, the consistency of the ignition, ⁓ dynamics on the firing pin, that, that, that sort of thing, betting the stock. ⁓ definitely putting a good trigger in. I I put a trigger in that rifle that was way lower in in pole weight. ⁓ also cartridge selection. You know, I was talking with Brian Litz at the shot show. And he was talking about basically the F equals MA equation, right? The total energy of the cartridge and the size of the group are proportional to each other in some way. And I've definitely seen that myself. You know, our our six dasher and our two two three trainer shoot way better in a sixpeen sixteen pound gun than a three hundred wind mag would. That's just physics. You know? Right. So so there's multiple things at play, but I really feel like the actual bullet itself and the bore and the respective chambering job are probably the biggest bang for the buck improvements that you can make or areas to focus on if you're getting a new rifle. speaker-1: Okay, your answer tracks with I think what I've I've heard from several a as well as our own experience. But I asked ⁓ Mika who's the lead engineer at Tika ⁓ when I visited them in Finland recently, I asked him the question if we have, you know, forty Tika rifles that have all been manufactured the same everything, obviously there's gonna be some difference in the accuracy from rifle to rifle. And so if you only got one measurement to measure on each of these rifles to pick which was mo most accurate. What what would you measure? And his answer was the the crown. The the bore at the crown, I guess more specific. ⁓ that he he wants to make sure that the the bore of the barrel wasn't a little too fat right at the crown. ⁓ and that that makes sense. ⁓ that's anytime you have kind of fatter areas and skinnier areas in that in the bore of the barrel we're we're speaker-2: Okay. Interesting. speaker-1: Word toast. It doesn't really matter if we did everything else right. So yeah, that totally speaker-2: Is the bullet supported at the very end of its journey in in the bore, right? Is it is it guided in the right direction or does it have a slight degree of movement there? Like when you take a button rifled barrel and you turn it down to thread the muzzle and you relieve the stresses, it it produces a trumpeting effect at the very end. And I know for rim fire competition, they actually choke down the barrel, the at the the bore at the very end to make sure that that bullet is supported. And when it exits, it's perfectly perpendicular and centered with respect to that boraxis. speaker-1: So we had a guy that that messaged us about a year ago and he said, Hey, I've I've invented a device that fixes rifle accuracy. And ⁓ he he flew out here and we we we expected this is gonna be funny, you know. This guy's got this goofy device and this is gonna be funny. ⁓ and w we he's what he asked us to do is to take our worst rifles, the worst rifles we've ever reviewed, and then he's gonna put th his device on on those rifles and see if you can shrink up the groups. And so we did exactly that. It was it was a very heavy, a little bit it would be very unwieldy as a product. ⁓ but it was essentially ⁓ something that would just wrench the the the muzzle of the barrel just a little tighter. It it just kinda had two pieces that kind of screwed together and just kind of wrenched the the metal on the on the muzzle tighter. And though we were very skeptical It actually like factually worked exactly as he told us it would, in terms of taking again, what our test was our worst hunting rifles and making them better. But then he took the exact same device over to Cortina. And that that test was different. In that test, he said, let's let's take, you know, a very accurate precision rifle and let's see it get better. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: And it just didn't. It just didn't didn't change anything. No change at all. And I think that's exactly what you're talking about as well. If it's unsupported, we have huge problems. If it's already supported and we're doing well, this isn't going to make it any better. We were already we were already succeeding. speaker-2: I'm gonna need to check out those videos. That sounds fascinating. And then my other question is when he shot it beforehand, did he have the equivalent amount of weight on the end of the barrel, but without the collet tightened? speaker-1: So we didn't test that with him, but he said he tested his device versus just a suppressor just to have a weight on the end and it it was a night and day difference. But we didn't physically see that. speaker-2: Gotcha. speaker-1: So that's So that's the biggest that's the biggest piece of the

pie. speaker-2: Yep. Yep. And that points towards cut rifling and ECM over button rifling, all else being equal, because of the stresses in in the bore. speaker-1: Yeah, so there are three and now maybe four ⁓ basic ways to cut the rifling. You have your hammer forged, which is what we'll see on most of the mass produced rifles. Ruger Americans, Tikas, ⁓ are are hammer forged. They're taking a mandrel, it's maybe, ⁓ I don't know, four or five inches long, that has the pattern of the rifling on it, and they're pushing that pulling that through the bore and then bang bang bang, smashing the metal onto that the ma mandrel in the middle of the board to make the rifling. ⁓ and in general a hammer forged barrel is going to be a little bit lower quality ⁓ because the you're we're just inducing a lot of stress into the metal, but it does not need to be. You know, Tika and Sako rifles are phenomenal and they're using that that process. So definitely definitely can't, you know, ride it off. It can be really, really good. Then you have your button rifling. where we're pulling something through the bore to in engrave that rifling in. And then your cut where we're making tiny little passes. You know, a on a fine precision c or single point cut ⁓ rifling, you may have two hundred passes of that tool just shaving off tiny little amounts ⁓ through that barrel to to cut out that that rifling. And then you mentioned ECM, which is kind of the the new one that's that's starting to make waves. Is it Carbon Six that's working on that? And I know one other company is as well. speaker-2: Carbon six McGown has it going and I know there are others. I don't think I can mention any of them. But yeah, that's electrochemical machining with an anode and a chemical process that that is very consistent. I d I I'd like to test it more. I've chambered multiple barrels. They seem to shoot great, but I I don't have enough data to compare directly to cut rifling, for instance. speaker-1: And that's my question. That's what that was exactly what I was gonna ask you is is is is this is it really as good as the single point cut? Because if it is, that's gonna change everything. speaker-2: Yeah, that's a really good question. When I was at the SAMI conference last, which was a couple of years ago, ⁓ HS Precision was there. And they have some amazing internal scanning tools for chambers and and rifling inside of bores. And so I would like to see some data comparing the consistency of both. Cause like you mentioned, the consistency of the of the dimensions inside the bore. Is is going to be critical because if you're squeezing the bullet down and then you're letting it go, now you've got free-floating space in there. So ⁓ you know, talking with Gordy Gritters, he'll he'll do a lead slug, push it through a bore and and and feel if there's tight spots. And if there's tight spots, you know you have inconsistency. ⁓ that would be an interesting test to run. I haven't done that actually with an

ECM and then ⁓ a cut. And then are you comparing the best cut versus the best ECM? I mean, there's there's so many variables. speaker-1: Right. speaker-2: And isolating the variables, you mentioned that earlier is kind of one of my goals, but it's also nearly impossible. You know, when you talk about the environment, the shooter, the ammunition, and the rifle itself. There's a lot of things there that make it difficult to reproduce results day after day. You know, when we talk about do tuners work or how do they work, or which variables are most important. Wow. There's a there's a lot that you can debate there and for good reason. speaker-1: Yeah, and there's so much in the gun industry that y simply can't be proven. And frankly, a lot of the the discussion and teaching ⁓ really thrives on the fact that it's impossible to prove otherwise. ⁓ for example, you'll see somebody do a ladder test and they'll, you know, have thirty two grains and then thirty two point one and they'll shoot, you know, a three shot or heck, a five shot. I don't care if it's a twenty shot group. ⁓ you're not gonna be able to it's just not enough data to prove if thirty-two or thirty two point one grains is gonna produce a more accurate result. ⁓ and so somebody will take too small of a sample size and say, well look, you know, I I d again, I don't care if it's twenty shot groups of each, y it could it could take a thousand shots to really prove i if if point one grain is actually producing a more accur accurate result. And if you've taken a thousand shots with with each, even if that were enough data, the problem is now we've changed the condition of the barrel. You know, our throat is that much more burned out now. Heck, the whole barrel might be burned out depending on what cartridge it is. And so there's so much in this industry that i is just kind of witchcraft voodoo science because you really can't know. speaker-2: Yeah, to me it's more about developing a relationship with a load and a rifle. In other words, I know I can take my two two three trainer or my six-dasher and I can shoot approximately quarter inch or better groups day after day. And if that's a hunting rifle, that's a pretty empowering thing, even if you don't need it, right? Mm-hmm. And so what's important, you know, what we want to be focused on in life is are the things that matter to us and then to let go of the things that don't matter. And of course, as riflemen, That's a huge challenge. It's easy to get wrapped around the axle all over the place and maybe it it's not even helping you. speaker-1: Right, so that that's kinda why I wanted to start this conversation out with with the big pieces of the pie. Because I think it's so easy to get wrapped into these tiny things that are like, Yes, that tenth grain more powder can make a difference. Yes, ⁓ ten thousand jump in the bullet can it change the accuracy slightly? Yes. But but but it it's such a tiny sliver and we've ignored all the rest of the big pie that it's just kind of silly to even focus on. Okay, so if we s if we said y your you know, your biggest piece of the pie is the boar itself, what would be some of the other big players in terms of just if somebody has an accurate rifle or one that there is a little bit frustrating, what would be kind of the next pieces that you're looking at? speaker-2: Well, I think the bullet itself is a very critical variable. And and I kind of alluded to this, there are certain bullets that just have a reputation for shooting well across the board. speaker-1: What what might some of those be for you? speaker-2: Well, the ⁓ burgers seventy seven grain OT I'm just gonna focus on burger 'cause have a few examples that you know, it's easy to compare. Sure. Seventy seven grain OTM in the two two three Remington. ⁓ burgers one hundred five grain hybrid in six millimeter, and that has been a just a winner in PRS. speaker-1: Yeah, y you can't argue against that bullet. That bullet wins. speaker-2: The burger 180 hybrid in seven millimeter. I've had great results in seven PRC, seven SS, seven SWIC. I mean, it just across the board is is phenomenal. And so there's something about maybe the center of gravity and the profile of the bullet, the consistency of the manuf manufacturer that makes it forgiving. And then in combination with that, you have a forgiving cartridge. Six Dasher is a great example. We were just talking about that before we started the recording, you know. six dasher, easy to tune. Why is that? There's something there, right? With the powder that you might use, I my best results have been Varded, for instance. Yes. It's just a perfect combustion. Yep. It's a perfect combustion with the with the one ⁓ five on there. And so speaker-1: I'm sorry, go ahead. There's just there's a little bit of delay in the c in the call, listener. So if it sounds like we're interrupting each other, it's just 'cause of that delay. Sorry, continue. speaker-2: Yeah, so along with that, w when we're looking at consistent ignition, we have the brass. Does the brass have consistent dimensions? Does it support ⁓ itself in the chamber ⁓ and and guide the bullet straight into the rifling? And is the internal case volume consistent? I think that's one that most people don't think about. You can kind of weigh the brass. And look at weight consistency and infer how consistent that internal case volume will be, at least after it's been once fired. speaker-1: Could I ask you about that one? Because that's something Garrett and I have been talking about a bunch lately, is what if we we have too many different cartridges that we reload for and it just becomes unwieldy. ⁓ it just takes too long to get set up when when you're switching constantly with a bunch of different cartridges. We have now the area four nineteen press, the turret press, so I think we get whatever eight do we get eight Dies in each one of those. speaker-0: Ten, isn't it? speaker-2: I think it's nine actually, but

yeah. It's in there somewhere. speaker-1: anyway, we have one for ⁓ for you know forming the the case and then another one for pressing the bullets and so we we get that many cartridges and that's it. ⁓ th that we that we're reloading. And so one thing we've talked about, because we are switching a lot, is what if we just stop reloading a lot of cartridges and just hand load a lot of cartridges? ⁓ just basically don't don't give the brass a second firing. J you know, just by what if instead of buying the, you know, the nice Lapua brass, what if we buy cheap old Hornady six five Creed brass, but then we do everything else right? And that's a test we have not run. I'm curious if you've done that. You know, if you take a a n a nice load you have and then just do everything else the same but use crappy brass. speaker-2: Mm-hmm. I don't have a whole lot of data for where we've loaded the ammo. I have I have more data from factory ammunition along those lines. And I can say if we get consistent, impeccable precision, in other words, if we're down in that quarter inch or under, it tends to be Lapua or Alpha or Peterson. You know that that kind of top tier. I do think the brass affects things. The consistency of the neck thickness can put the bullet off center, obviously. And then the the variability of the case internal volume is another factor. And then maybe there are other factors ⁓ that the brass effects, like the consistency of the neck tension, that are gonna all add up to either enhancing or detracting the the precision. But I I feel like I have I have anecdotal data, I don't have spreadsheet data on that. speaker-1: Okay, we should run that test Garrett. speaker-0: Yeah, that would be interesting to see because if you're just hand loading, wouldn't that get rid of a lot of the inconsistencies? Like if you're like y obviously, you know, the whole cheap Hornedoe brass is a lot softer. So after the first firing it's there's gonna be a lot more c inconsistencies. Right? So if it's just hand loading, I'd be curious to see how close you could get the performance if you know, as compared to like Peterson brass. speaker-1: The perfect test for that, because it the cheaper brass is available, would be our SIG cross in six five Creed. We have really good data on our Lopua really nice hand load. I would love to just grab some hornedy stuff and just see what happens. speaker-0: Yeah, I'd be curious to see how that goes. speaker-2: Or Starline would be another, you know, more inexpensive. Yeah. speaker-1: Winchester. speaker-0: If you were you'd still be quite a bit cheaper than buying factory ammo. If you're just handloading and it's it's gonna be a lot faster than if you're you know reloading. speaker-1: The speed, that's the thing. I talked to so many guys who are very serious about shooting, but just reloading is just a step too far. It's just too much hassle to do. And at the price of components versus loaded ammo right now, I think this is a like a really viable method, if if this worked. Because if you cheap out on the brass but you use nice components for everything else, you're still going to get your ammo cheaper than most factory loads. Right now the the factory loads are pricey. speaker-0: Yeah, I think we looked at it with seven PRC and we decided it was something like it was something like forty cents a shot cheaper or something like that. Still if you just hand load. Yeah. And you use brand new brass every single time. Cheap. Yeah. speaker-1: Right, brand new but cheap brass. And so I that could be really cool because i y I think if if that works well, what it means is the guy who's very serious about this, they they need so little. Like they ni they need to, you know, have a powder measure. They need and then they need a basic press. And I I don't think you need to go expensive on on presses. ⁓ you you can get a basic press and a r ⁓ I would probably spend more on the powder measure. And you seat seat your primers even on your press if it has that function. And then load your bullet. Like it would take, I don't know, thirty seconds a shot. Like if you're just hand loading it, it really forming the brass, it takes up like seventy five percent of the time of reloading. It's it's it's so much of it. ⁓ 'cause you gotta clean and ⁓ it's a hassle. So anyway, that's something that I'm really fascinated by. speaker-2: Yeah, and and Jim, I think w you and myself, well, your team and my team are put into a similar position frequently. And that is, all right, we either built a new rifle or we have a rifle in from a manufacturer. My goal is to demonstrate how good is the rifle? You know, what kind of groups can it produce? So I want to take myself out of the equation. I want to take the ammo and at least use the best ammo available. And what I've found in my testing recently is If I just swap out bullets from one SKU to another, even within manufacture, or if I take a break off and put on a suppressor, those variables alone can create a combination that the barrel that the barrel and the rifle likes and demonstrate what the rifle can do under the best conditions without even doing proper load development. Right. We're doing a gross adjustment on the barrel harmonics and One example, I think I was shooting six five Creedmore and I was comparing two different A tips. I started with 153s and they would not shoot. And when I say would not shoot, we're talking like five eighths of an inch, you know, really disappointing for whatever rifle it was we were shooting. I think it was a custom. I switched to the 135 A tips, and immediately the groups went down to in the threes. So just with swapping out the bullet skew. Even within manufacturers' lineup, even within a a bullet family, that can make a profound difference. So if you're not hand loading, you don't have that opportunity to try a different bullet to do load development if you want to go that far. ⁓ like when we did twenty-five by forty-seven,

we did have to go through load development. No question. I mean, we had five-eighths inch groups and then Serena on our team on camera shot a sub quarter inch group once we had landed on the right, you know, charge weight and all that. Well, that's Kind of going into the weeds and and going really deep on it. If you hand load, you can do that. Now, you were saying that this is a great time for people to hand load. The Converse point is whoa, component prices. What is going on? there's just, you know, an eight-pound canister of powder when I started getting serious about reloading was about $180, and now it's $600 for certain SKUs. speaker-0: Yeah, it's bad. speaker-1: This morning I we looked at ⁓ a one pound canister of powder that I had that was old and it was twenty seven dollars. And now it would be like fifty seven for H one thousand. Gouch, it is punishing, but even with I mean the I totally agree the component prices are crazy, but the factory ammo prices are are i just as crazy. speaker-0: Well the the unfortunate thing is like the factory ammo is expensive, but it seems like the quality's even gone down. Well the whole idea, like the whole reason somebody would want to shoot factory ammo is like, okay, you go on a hunt and you know, I didn't have time to reload or I forgot ammo or whatever, I can walk into any gun shop and I can get the same ammo. Mm-hmm. But what if it's di what if it's a different lot of Hornedy seven PRC and you're shooting fifty, seventy five feet per second slower than you were when you were test shooting your rifle? Yeah. Now it's a big problem. Because, you know, if you shoot a take a six hundred yard shot, you can miss the whole animal probably. You know, I and so that whole purpose is now defeated. speaker-1: I completely Yeah, anybody who says, ⁓ I I pick whatever, thirty out six 'cause I can get it anywhere. Right. It's like, Yeah, but it's different. Like every time you go buy that box. We've done so much testing now with with factory loads that we'll we'll have a load, we'll we'll measure everything, we'll know exactly how that gun performs, ⁓ have the velocity, everything, and then six months later we go buy another box of the same load and we get it and it was like, Whoa like The accuracy result is wildly different. We think, ⁓ maybe we gotta clean it or something. And then what it always comes down to is you look at the velocity and we're like, they've obviously switched powders or something in this load because it it's it's just performing completely different, totally different velocity and it's impacted the accuracy too. speaker-2: Yeah, and I would I would argue that if component pricing is the concern, reloading for the precision hunters, that's probably the the best person to be reloading because you know, like when I went to South Africa, I had five shots and I had five kills. And so Peter Milan and myself, we shot steel at a hundred, two hundred, and three hundred meters with his rifle, which by the way, any hunter that does that is setting themselves f up for success. Like confirm your zero. Confirm your dope and you'll be a step a ahead and your ammo at the same time, right? Yeah. So we probably shot a total of let's say we shot 20 rounds at the range, you know, and then we each shot five rounds at animals and had f five kills each. So that's you know, 30 rounds of ammo. When you're talking about flying to South Africa, when you're talking about hiring a guide, when you're talking about the whole process, the cost is not the factor. The reliability and the result is a hundred percent the factor, you know. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. How about scopes? If if you had like, you know, you you you're building a rifle just for you, ⁓ you know, it's depend on which model you pick kinda on on the purpose, but what are some of the brands that you kinda lean toward for scopes? speaker-2: Yeah, on the budget side, Athlon, because they just they just work and they have great I think price to feature kind of pricing and and they've been reliable actually. And on the on the mid-tier element has been doing a really good job on their designs on the glass itself, and they've been incredibly reliable. Like I like their toolless turret design the best, I would say. There's a knurled knob on the top for elevation, you just pop that off. You put the turret at zero, you put it back on and your zero stop is set and you're you're good to go. Right. And they have Japanese glass and a lot of their stuff and whatnot. I also run a lot of loophold. And, you know, I'm I'm one of those guys that will run a tactical scope when I'm hunting, which is what I did with Peter in South Africa, because you know, once you get used to that, that functionality, the field of view, the quality of the glass. I'll lug the extra weight. That's just at the end of the day kind of where I'm at. I don't want to compromise on on anything. And it's like the guy with one guy gun is the dangerous guy, right? ⁓ I'm used to first focal. I'm used to tactical features, I'm used to having a bubble level, right? Just I I wanna stay in that zone when I'm hunting. And so sometimes the hunting and the target scopes kind of overlap directly for me. speaker-1: Okay, so similar question then. If you let's say ⁓ you have the like the most amazing property. Like it's incredible. Take it's it's in the mountains of eastern Washington, like is just beautiful green everywhere. You can shoot elevation, like it's it's an insane property that you have. This here's a bet. Somebody says, Hey, you know, I'll I'll bet you y your property's on the line here if you miss this shot. You got a shot at ⁓ let's call it five hundred yards. Okay. W what what gun and what cartridge do you pick? speaker-2: For target? speaker-1: Yeah, you just gotta hit a five hundred yard target. speaker-2: Yeah. Okay. You know, you can't go wrong with the six five Creedmore. I hate to be super boring about it, but you know,

pound for pound, I mean at five hundred actually I would probably go with something like a six dasher, actually now that I'm thinking about it. ⁓ plenty of ballistics. Heck, even twenty-two arc for that matter in a bolt gun, we've had phenomenal results with twenty-two arc. Super easy to shoot, super easy to see, no sight picture disruption. Similar ballistics to six five Creedmore. Unbelievable. So if I had to choose one though, I think it would be the Dasher just because it's been my most reliable shooter. I know what to expect out of that gun. ⁓ it I would say two, two, three trainer, but at five hundred yards, you know, for a twenty two cow, you're starting to get into like, ⁓ I don't know. So that's my answer. Six Dasher, full custom. speaker-0: I speaker-1: I would agree a thousand percent. I'm sure you would too, Garrett. Yeah. There like you know, you mentioned it earlier about the 105 grain bullet. There is just something about 32.5 grains of Arget, a Burger 105, and a six dasher that I'm I've yet to see anything be anything other than a quarter inch gun. I that that is the combo for accuracy. speaker-0: Definitely. And we've brought this up several times, like, how is this not more popular for hunting? It is yes. Like it it's just it's perfect. Like the ballistics, you're not gonna have any problem spotting your impact. ⁓ it's it's it for me, it's plenty of bullet for anything under an elk, like plenty. and so like we've been talking about the the caribou hunt we're going on and we're like, wow, six dashes real compelling. Like this could be the perfect the perfect option. And a lot of people like complain about, ⁓ you know, it's not great wind drift. It's not bad though. It's really not. ⁓ and so yeah, I I love this six dasher. I think it's such an underrated cartridge for all things. I think it's pretty you know, it's pretty common in like PRS. Obviously it's like, you know, the winner. Everyone uses six six dasher. But for hunting it's like no one uses it. Yeah. You know? So speaker-1: And and for pe so it's it's a wildcat ish. Yeah. I mean I mean it's very a well established ⁓ cartridge, but it it's not SAMI approved. You know, you're not gonna find it on the box at your at your local store. But the other thing is if you do wanna find it on in a box on at your local store, get a six Creedmore. ⁓ like it's very, very similar. Very similar. And the Creedmore case is great. six Creedmores can do Great as well. There they're really only slight differences between a six dasher and a si and a six Creed. But whatever it is, i if you have if you're shooting that burger one ⁓ five in right there, that is just incredibly it's just amazing. The question we have, because we're looking at it for a hunt, is how it performs on game. And so we're gonna shoot that into gel later this week and and see what we think of that. speaker-0: Especially 'cause the bullet we're we load for is the the burger hybrid target. And so yeah, curious to see how that

doesn't gel. speaker-2: What we found when we compared ELDX to ELDM with ballistics gel is that the differences weren't as pronounced as what we expected. If people are hunting with match bullets, a lot of people will give them grief for that, but it's probably not deserved. speaker-0: We saw that too. speaker-1: Yeah, I agree. And i but what I would say with hunting with match bullets is g ⁓ there are some oddities and some things to be aware of that I think lead some people to say it was a bullet failure who maybe didn't totally understand what happened. So for example, when when we we had a hunt that we killed I think like five deer in a week between me and my boys and I decided, Well, let's just use all ELDMs, just match bullets, just to Just to try something new was really the reason. And during the hunt I was starting to think, man, this is terrible. I I hate this. seeing what it was doing on the animals. And it was because I was seeing just knitting needle tiny little exit wounds and I was assuming that ⁓ this didn't perform very well. ⁓ but actually what was happening is the stump on on that the shank of that ELDM often will stay together. And you often will have full penetration, but that doesn't mean that it's a tiny little hole all the way through. It's really I mean it's sh sending stuff everywhere in there. And after we were able to see it in ballistics gel, I'm like, ⁓ okay, now I'm kind of seeing what was actually happening and it working. It brought the deer down right away, but once I saw it in ballistics gel, I saw, okay, we're seeing the the shrapneling like you'd see with an ELDX2, but then that shank really does punch through pretty decent. So I like an ELDM. speaker-2: Yeah, and I I the only hunting I've done with big game with one of those similar bullets was the the one forty three ELDX. And that was a black bear and it was far hide when the bullet stopped. So speaker-1: Yep. Can't complain about that. speaker-2: Yeah, exactly. So that yeah. I you guys all have a lot more experience hunting than I do. I'm not a real prolific hunter. I'm s I'm super interested in doing that more. It's quite an experience and learning from people. But you know, so there's a lot of a lot of my my ears open to people to to pick up on what they've actually seen in the field. 'Cause ballistics gel is one thing, but actual field performance is definitely another. And and going back to the South Africa hunt. We were using the burger 156 six five out of ⁓ six five Sherman short and and Pete had that gun set up with an APW braked suppressor. And I'll say it was amazing. You know, a six five Magnum you'd think could be a little bit of a handful, but in a full PRS type rig, I was watching the bullet. speaker-1: The EOL, yeah. speaker-2: Hit the shoulder of the animal, I saw the flesh ripple and even saw blood shoot out through the scope. Like when you think of shooting an old school magnum and you think you're looking at like the clouds when you're done with the shot, that was totally the opposite of of what I experienced. So in that way, I feel like those some of those cartridges, like the six five PRC, which is pretty similar, have a very large window of versatility. speaker-1: Yeah. I that's interesting that you talk about that because we had this same conversation this morning about the six five PRC and hunting, which is, you know, we're gonna similar levels of recoil to what you're talking about. And it's just at that level that if you're in a lightweight hunting rifle, you're like you may see the impact, you may not. It kinda depends what position you're in and critically, like you mentioned, what muzzle device are you using. And so with a break Yeah, you're you're probably gonna see it as long as you're in a stable position and you have a good quality stock. If you're a little bit less stable and we switch to a suppressor, you just might not quite see the impact. And for me in hunting, that's a very, very big deal that I'm able to spot the impact. One so that I can follow up. Two, just 'cause like I I I replay that in my head for years. Like you can just you know, you get back into that moment of the hunt and I'd like to watch. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: Absolutely. speaker-1: It it's somewhere between the six five Creed and the six five PRC is where it starts to be tough to to spot that impact in a in a lightweight hunting rifle. If you're in a twenty pound, you know, precision rig, it's it's gonna be easy, but yeah. speaker-2: Which br brings the question what's the ideal weight for a rifle in a particular class? And you know, I've I've shied away from lightweight magnums or definitely ultra lightweight magnums for that reason. I just don't want to have something that's out of control that I don't have confidence in. speaker-1: That's the problem we've had with the seven PRC. We've reviewed whatever six different seven PRC rifles from different companies. And to be honest, we hate ⁓ We just hate seven PRCs in general because what happened is everybody you know, the trend in the industry is light, light, light, light. And so we get these lightweight r hunting rifles, and then a new cartridge comes out that's a pretty decent magnum of seven PRC. And you just cram that cartridge in the exact same platform and say, here you go. And so we honestly we just didn't get good results. We were we you couldn't spot your anywhere near your impact. And the accuracy was just very poor. It was just too light of a barrel contour and everything for that cartridge. And so it led us to have a very sour taste in our mouth about the cartridge in general. Not that there's anything wrong with the design of it. But just it wasn't working well in these lightweight factory rifles. Since then we've built, you know, a a nice custom of it. We shot the Seekins and there's a the Tika's. There are good factory seven PRCs, but I would say it's really hit or miss. And so when guys are asking, you know, what elk

cartridge, I'm very hesitant to recommend go go pick up a seven PRC because it's just it's not a good cartridge in many of the factory hunting rifles. speaker-2: Yeah, that's a really good point. It's all about how it's packaged. You know, we did a medium action build recently with a carbon barrel and a and a foundation Ezekiel stock, and that that turned out really nice. I need to spend some more trigger time with it. But again, you know, my goal is not to get the weight of the rifle way down. It's it's to focus on quality and focus on something that I have confidence in. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah, how light I'm curious. I I'm definitely in the minority when it comes in the hunting group of people. Like I would way rather carry around an extra pound and a half, even you know, two pounds depending on how light most people are packing. Just because like I I don't know, a pound and a half just is it's not that bad. And you're just gonna gain so much more confidence in your gun, it's gonna recoil less, it's probably gonna be more accurate, whatever. But I'm curious, what do you think for, you know, say hunting situations, how light of a gun would you say is too light for a magnum? speaker-1: Call it a seven PRC. Yeah. speaker-2: I'm gonna say seven to eight pounds before you even get the the optic on there is my minimum. speaker-0: Okay. Yeah, I'd say I'd agree. I think that's about that's about right, 'cause you throw a pound, pound and a half optic on there. Yeah. And you're probably right about where you'd want to be. speaker-1: And it of course it depends what what muzzle device we're talking about. If if we're naked, I want that I want a heavy pretty heavy gun. If you're running a brake, we can probably get a little bit lighter and then a suppressor point a little step down from there. speaker-2: Mm-hmm. But I agree with you, Garrett. I would much rather pack around the extra pound or two on the rifle and just have a better experience and more confidence. speaker-0: Right. And especially 'cause like a lot of hunt I know there's definitely back back country hunts, right? Where they're hiking in seven to eight miles, even, you know, further, but a lot of hunts are like driving around on the razor and in the truck and you don't even really have to carry it around that much. You know, you're walking two total miles of the whole hunt. ⁓ and you know, the other the other side of that is in Utah, you know, you spend twelve grand for an elk hunt and you save up your whole life And you go really light, you you go really light rifle, but you're like, ⁓ you know, it's an elk, I need power, I need a 300 wimbag, I need 300 PRC. And you go and you miss the shot, and then not only do you miss, you can't see where you miss. You don't know where you need to correct or anything. And so now you're just in a mess and you've thrown away twelve grand, you know? And so it's just Yeah, I I'm still not confused. I understand why people are into the lightweight

fad. But it does seem like it's more common sense to, you know, stray away from that a little bit. And speaker-2: And the other factor on confidence is the trigger, you know, for myself, since I always shoot at eight ounces for target, I'm at a pound or just under a pound on a hunting gun. And, you know, on a lightweight gun, a magnum, that that's gonna be another really critical factor is do I know when it's gonna go off? Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, definitely. ⁓ another ⁓ factor that I'd wanna enter into that discussion is it does depend where the weight is being used. To me, I don't Like if we get to nine pounds, but we did so with a heavy scope, I don't know that we're gonna see a lot of benefit. I wanna see the the if I can put meat anywhere, I wanna put it in the barrel. and including on the end of the barrel. Adding a suppressor, just the weight of a suppressor can really help. If you've got a skinny little barrel that's just finicky, there are so many times that we screw a suppressor on and it shrinks those groups pretty dramatically. speaker-2: Yep. And any weight that you put further out, the if you look at the center of rotation and the moment of inertia, you're just you're just slowing things down. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, so we have the the backlight chassis that's, you know, sub two pounds. It's it's a light little guy. And the reason that I've I've been asked a few times like, why are you building a super light chassis? 'Cause you guys are always talking about, you know, we really want a little bit more meat on our rifles. And it's 'cause it it's not gonna help me to have weight in the chassis. I I want that to be really, really lightweight so that I can spend my weight budget on the barrel. Yeah. speaker-0: As long as it's rigid, yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, as long as you got a firm platform for sure. speaker-2: Yeah, can't wait to get my hands on the backlight and it was really cool to see it with you at the Shot Show. Yeah. speaker-1: You helped us in the the development of it when we were working on the bedding and stuff. You did some consulting for us to make sure we can get that right. And and now I'm glad we did because there were a couple of decisions that y things that you brought up in the bedding that I I would have done differently, but you're you're the expert. speaker-2: Well, I know some things and you guys had a really solid design. And so it's it for me it's really cool to be a part of the process and then to test and supply feedback and you know, co engineering is what we used to call it in the tech industry. speaker-1: Yeah. Well, you you're working on Rifle Builder Pro. What is it? For somebody that has no idea what it is, walk us through the basics. speaker-2: Rifle Builder Pro is a software platform at its core. It's it's more than that. It's community and it's resources and it's training and and and all of that. But but really I saw an opportunity because I struggled building custom rifles. I struggled with the arbitrary

combination of a cartridge and a rifle action. You know, and when you put those two together, there's certain activities you have to go through. ⁓ There might be a lack of documentation ⁓ for the the rifle action. So you have to get, ⁓ okay, what's my tendon length and my diameter? And you know, if I have a counterbore, how what's its diameter and depth and all this stuff? Sometimes you have to email the manufacturer. It's just a nightmare. And then when you perform the chambering job, there's a a bunch of calculations as well. So I thought, what should this be like? Because it's a good pretty good opportunity for people to have a business where someone can walk into your shop, don't have to ship the rifle. They can walk out with, you know, a custom action and a custom barrel or a rebarrel job. In any case, it's this combination that's specific to what they want, you know. ⁓ I'd been done it been doing it for years. And so I started to put together a platform that's as simple as selecting the cartridge you want to chamber, selecting the rifle action, and then it guiding you through the process. And initially this is in front of a manual machine, but I'm also working on ⁓ it. being able to generate CNC code. So regardless of what you have in your shop, the goal is do better work, do it more quickly, and enjoy the process more. And so I've been running a kind of a spreadsheet based version of it for a couple of years now and have worked through a bunch of kinks and validated some math and some things like that. And and so right now we're developing the actual live software platform. And it it literally is pick a cartridge, pick an action And then guide me through everything and give me step-by-step instructions and provide dimensions and notes that are specific to only that part of the process. So you're not overwhelmed with this big blueprint style diagram, you know, kind of thing. And so that's that's it'll it'll support chambering, muzzle threading. ⁓ we're gonna have certain things around ⁓ profiling barrels and probably multi-axis machining for stock and letting and some other stuff down the road, but ⁓ Kind of the compliment goal is if someone hasn't gone to trade school, we give them the machine shop fundamentals training and then some of the specialty training around things like chambering and bedding and and some of those sorts of things so that they can step up to this software program, subscribe to that, and then just be successful in what they do. And and as an extension of that, ⁓ we want to provide a Costco like marketplace for rifle gunsmiths where they can get great deals on triggers and barrel blanks and stocks like Potentially the backlight in the future and and other things and incorporate that into their flow and hopefully have better lead times and some other things. So there's the marketplace, there's the software platform, there's the learning, and then we also have ⁓ in the future a private discussion forum and some exclusive video content and some things like that. So there's my quick pitch on it. ⁓ you kind of have to see it. ⁓ we have a conceptual video at riflebuilderpro.com that kind of walks through the problem domain. challenges and the solution and shows you a mock up of that that we're, you know, building right now. speaker-1: That's awesome. I love what you're doing. I think it's gonna help so many, especially at home gunsmiths that you know, ha w want to be doing this, have some, you know, machining skills, but y you just it's one of those industries that you have to have kind of a mentor to sh to show you these things. And so it's cool to have if you know, getting all your s SOPs ⁓ for for performing all the things you do. That's awesome. speaker-2: Yeah, I think people want to be a part of a community where they can they can share the experience and they can get help when they need it. And that's where the that's where the monthly live events and the you know, with live Q and A and where the discussion forum comes in and and to have it be this community that, you know, you subscribe to. So it's not everybody on the street providing misinformation. It's like an actual community of people that are all serious about what they do, all have some of the same goals and can can kind of Help each other along the way. speaker-1: Yeah, that's r that's really cool. W what what is your what's an opinion you have on on guns reloading anything that gets you into trouble? That you know you're like you're like, I I have this opinion and virtually every time I see I say this it gets backlash but I stand by it. speaker-2: Boy, you know, that's an interesting one. I think when you get into the reloading, people get really passionate about their process. For instance, am I going to uniform primer pockets? Am I gonna clean those primer pockets? How do I clean the brass? How am I gonna seat bullets? And and again it gets back to the discussion around what are your goals? Are you shooting bench rest and trying to win a national title? Or are you going to a PRS match where half MOA is perfectly acceptable? And so I try and think of of the relative importance of those steps accordingly. My goal when I'm shooting a a custom rifle is to show the best performance possible, right? So I I tend a little bit more towards that bench rest mindset, but I don't uniform primer pockets. I don't clean primer pockets ever on anything anymore. And and some people might take issue with that. You know, that's that's kind of an example. Yeah. speaker-1: What what's a product that you're in love with right now? I mean you g you're dealing with product from so many different companies and stuff. Every time I turn on Ultimate Reloader I'm like, holy c like, you're kinda like the before any product is launched it must go through Ultimate Reloader. ⁓ what what's what are you excited about? speaker-2: ⁓ man, I'm excited about a lot of things, but I'll give you a very recent example. You know,

yesterday we were filming all day with the new loopholed ⁓ BX six range H D Binos. speaker-1: Okay. Yep, continue. speaker-2: Yeah. You know I'm going with this. The optics are just clean as can be, clear as can be. The ammo led display is is amazing. And honestly, they did sh such a good job incorporating Ford off into the control app and making it super easy. There were was one little step I had to do to enable rifle as output and then to enable Ford off within that as the profile. Once I figured that out. You change something in the app and it's immediately there in the binos and you range something and it's got your wind and your up, right? Like and a and a whole bunch of other cool stuff too. But I just thought with two thousand yard deer, three thousand yard tree, and six thousand yard reflective target, like you know, road sign capabilities, this is like wouldn't I have loved to have that when we were setting up for the two mile shoot? You know. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Completely agree with you. If I were asked this question, I would say that. It's really frustrat ⁓ yeah. If I if I were it's gonna be frustrating to listeners because we're talking about a four thousand dollar pair of binoculars. but it's amazing. it's amazing. The ranging is so good. Now a lot of e every rangefinder is capable. If you have ⁓ you know, steel targeted at a hundred yards, we're good. problem is where you get into kind of the nuanced ranging solutions that happen all the time in hunting and, you know, competitive shooting. Where, you know, you you got an antelope that's just barely sticking up above the sagebrush and then just blue sky b behind it. You know, it's just flat ground. That's a challenging scenario for a rangefinder. ⁓ you know, where where you have a flat scene, it happens in Africa all the time, where it's very difficult, you know, you you're a it at three hundred yards and then there's there's a little hill behind the animal and so you're like I can't quite tell which one I'm on because they're just these tiny little ripple hills. ⁓ you know you you see you'd like to know which one's kind of too far and then you're like okay we're the closer but sometimes with vegetation and stuff you can't tell. And with these ones I feel like it's just eliminated. Like it it is gonna give you the range. It it's it's really really good. speaker-2: Well, I'm glad to hear that because where I'm at in the process today, tonight I'm gonna be going up to the ridgeline, the ridgeline that you talked about, that that shooting area. And I'm gonna attempt to did just go through them with a camera and test the ranging performance. We got a little bit done yesterday on that. But ⁓ I wish I had a road sign at 6,000 yards to test, because that would be super cool. ⁓ outside of that. You know, so far, yeah, the performance is great and and when you're hunting or shooting a PRS match, that range uncertainty piece of the puzzle is such a critical thing. If you know that information, you can do so much with it. speaker-1: Yeah, to the extent that I asked some of the engineers that made it, I said, you know, usually the trick is you're ranging at the feet, right? If you're if you have a steel target, you're you're not ranging the steel target itself. You're actually pointing, you know, where the T post enters the ground. So you have kind of a bigger target. If you're ranging a deer, you know, depending on the terrain behind it, you usually want to range at the feet of that deer so that, you know, we don't accidentally get something forty yards beyond it if we actually miss the deer. And I I told him a a few days into the media event where we'd been using this, I said, you know, I I'm I I'm getting better results if I'm just right on the animal, right on the target. And he said, ⁓ yeah, absolutely with this, do not do not go to the feet. ⁓ and it was true, it like it it was just like it was picking up the right thing, ⁓ each time. And so you really did not want to do that how you would normally use And then the other cool features, I mean that you can, you know, use it to laze a point and then it puts a ⁓ pin on your on X and stuff. Yeah. So cool. The little the animation to see the part the particulate matter of ⁓ how the speed of the wind and stuff. Like they just packed that thing with features. It's frustratingly expensive but it amazing. The other okay you got me gushing about this thing, Gavin. ⁓ so the other thing about this loophole BX six is we at this event They had all the competitors, you know, the the loop old, the Zeiss, whatever, all the range finding binoculars from all the other companies. And it became apparent to us that they had not pre tested this. Like th ⁓ like all the marketing people at Loopold wanted to see too, 'cause they hadn't tested. But so much confidence in this product that they you know, putting out Swaros and Zeiss and every all the other range finding binos, like all the high end ones, probably had six or seven of the h bet top competitors. speaker-2: Thank you. speaker-1: And they just put ⁓ out next next to theirs and just let all the influencers go for it. Just compare we compared it in low light and ranging and everything. And I'm telling you there was not one test that any person there thought was close on the other one. Like in low light it was obvious that th this was a huge step forward, even over the Suarez and stuff. ⁓ I'm sounding like you made me turn into an into an infomercial, Gavin, but th those things are just amazing. They must speaker-0: Is that the same game? The same answer. The BX six binocular or range ⁓ finding binos, yeah. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, they're they're phenomenal. Anything anything else that you're thinking about? Any other products you're excited about? speaker-2: ⁓ man. Th I'm trying to think there's there's so much that we've been doing recently and so many different stories, it's it's actually kinda hard to pick, to be honest.

speaker-1: What about a piece of reloading gear? What's a piece of reloading gear that you just really love? Even if it's not necessarily new. speaker-2: You know, I'm gonna throw you a a curveball. We got something in the mid price category from Frankfurt Arsenal. It's their ⁓ Intel Dropper two point ⁓ Yeah, and the reason that you know the scale is probably kind of the same as it was, you know, on prior models, you know, plus or minus point one grains, that kind of thing. But they did such a good job on the touch screen. speaker-1: ⁓ I haven't tested that. speaker-2: And the user experience on that touch screen. In other words, I think the measure of a good product is if you can plug it in, let it warm up, and use it without opening the instruction manual. The calibration and then all of the any kind of powder learning type stuff and and generally entering charge weights, trigger flipping between auto and manual, all of that was so intuitive. I've actually sent ⁓ a note to other manufacturers in the space to say, hey, just if you're looking at redoing the user experience on on a on a powder dispenser like that, take a look at this one because they just did such a good job on on the design of the software. speaker-1: ⁓ that's that's pretty cool. I'd like to test that. So I have a couple interesting ideas here. ⁓ we were just Garrett and I were just spent the last couple hours reloading and we were talking about like so we have two super tricklers that's a you know, over thousand dollars power powder dispenser. ⁓ we have two of ⁓ because we just want it to run faster and still it's just way too slow. That is the slowest part of our process other than than in ⁓ shaping cases. Anyway, so one thing that I've been considering is is and the reason that you like the that we like the super trickler is there's a scale called the I think it's called the FX one twenty I, is that it? Mm-hmm. ⁓ that's kinda ⁓ pretty much all of the super precision ⁓ reloading ⁓ powder dispensers are gonna use that. And you it's a standalone scale and then you'll have something else to actually dispense the powder. But you it it's lab grade, it's it's getting you to crazy accuracy. And so I like using that, but the super tick trickler is still just too slow. And so I've actually been considering I think we would get faster results if we just bought an FX one twenty I and then buy I mean four, five of ⁓ something like the fr of Frankfurt Arsenal and Teledropper or something else and just have ⁓ throw loads and just check it on the scale. And then, you know, dump ⁓ back in if it's not. I actually think that would be faster. than having two or three super dribblers. speaker-2: Interestingly, the the auto trickler went from a dump and trickle design to a dual spinning tube design, not like unlike what you'll see on the R C B S Matchmaster. And I prefer the old design myself from from auto trickler. And my suggestion is get get your powder measure, like a rotating drum type set up

and and figure that part of it out so that it's like plus or minus point two maybe extreme spread. And then manually trickle. And I think if you were really do focusing on that, you could probably beat a lot of the dispensers that way. speaker-1: Yeah, I that that manual trickle is actually a great idea. So those who don't know, trickling is so w on these powder dispensers, these automated ones, it kinda has a bulk it has a metal tube that spins and it will, you know, shoot out a bunch of powder and then it has a trickle that kinda it's a very skinny little tube about the width width of a pencil and it just kind of vibrates that tube to just get one tiny little kernel at a time to to get that last little bit precisely accurate. that process is quite slow. And so manually trickling is, you know, you usually have a little thing that you spin and it just you know, we'll get that those tiny little kernels coming out. And so that's a good idea. If you dump volume and then you just quick manually trickle the last little bit on an FX one twenty I, ⁓ it it it'd be way cheaper than some of these other solutions, certainly what we spent and probably be faster. speaker-2: And you can see with your eye if a if three granules are about to fall out or if one is about to fall out. So that's where the human element still comes in. But can we go back to what I was excited about? Because I just thought of probably a better answer. And it's I would love to hear your input on all of this. Okay. This year probably the hottest thing around is peak technology from federal. Seven backcountry and now PXT barrels from proof, which all speaker-1: High pressure. speaker-2: like work in concert with each other to to push some things that are pretty important forward. So we recently got a Geisley King Hunter in Seven Back Country. We found with some very slight corner case ⁓ caveats that it fully fulfilled the promise of the Seven Back Country. Really? Yes. So that's speaker-1: What kind of accuracy do you see? speaker-2: We were seeing, so I was doing three shot groups with factory ammo because it's it's a factory rifle. So I'm I'm trying to use the criteria that manufacturers use here. It's not a lot of shots. I totally realized that. We were seeing sub-half MOA with federal peak factory ammunition. ⁓ their factory card was even better. I'm I don't know if they were shooting it out of a a jig. I need to kind of talk to them about that. It was like insanely good with the same lot of ammo. It is Is it a twenty inch? I think it's a twenty inch barrel. And with a suppressor, what we saw was the recoil was more favorable, I would say, compared to an equivalent seven mag that you would get similar velocity from. So twenty inch barrel, three thousand plus feet per second. I was really impressed with that. And the Geisley rifle was put together ⁓ amazingly well. Well now we've got this. Okay, go ahead. speaker-1: Well, one question I had on that then, on that specific rifle. We've

had sticky extraction, like very, very sticky extraction on the seven backcountry rifles we've had. Like like we're kinda beating the bolt to open it and stuff, like it wasn't fun. Is it yeah, like can you do the one finger move the bolt back and ⁓ move it forward or we still kinda have to mash this thing? speaker-2: So that was my caveat. Thank you for reminding me on that. At the top of the throw of the bolt handle, there's about twenty-five percent of the time a very slight upward motion necessary, not a slap, but just a pull with the hand kind of a thing to get it to extract. And then after after that, pulling it backwards was was fine. So we were obviously right on the edge of like case deformation and and that. sticky extraction thing, but I don't think the only thing it would prevent in the hunting context would be super quick follow up shots. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Okay, well that's pretty awesome. We we have not seen that. I haven't seen a backcountry, a seven back country that I was in love with. Mm-hmm. speaker-2: This one I would hunt with. ⁓ with with the caveat that I would be I'd be prepared if there was a slightly sticky extraction event to to encounter that and I would practice with it. And I think stopping power, weight, ⁓ recoil performance, it was all it was all very favorable. And and that's not usually the case when there's such a drastic industry announcement. You know, very frequently you find, okay, well, they had these big claims and then it didn't really kind of live up to that. So since then, Federal has announced the 6.5 Creedmore peak ammo with that that same case technology. And then proof research announced their PXT, the proof ex exponential twist technology. I just got my barrel blank yesterday for that. So I'm pretty excited about that. ⁓ the scenario, just so you know, we're gonna focus on something different than what I've seen out there for PXT. The scenario is take a barrel burner. And try and make it not a barrel burner. So we're gonna get a six millimeter blank as well and do a six Creed more. speaker-1: Smart. 'Cause Zix Creedmore's kinda known for burning out some barrels. speaker-2: It is. And and the reason that I'm hopeful about PXT is that it starts at something like a one and two hundred twist rate. And then it has this nonlinear t gain in the twist. And it'll end up at I think ours will be one and seven and a half for that six millimeter. So it gives a lot more room for that bullet to travel. before the inertia of the spin up happens fully. And so where you get the concentrated throat erosion, that should be stretched way out. And and the claim is approximately double the barrel life in those barrel burners, plus less torquing action, which I still don't fully understand because it's exiting the barrel at the same speed. Maybe it's just over a much longer time duration. Maybe that helps lessen the instantaneous torque. I don't know. I'm I have a lot of questions about this stuff, but so far I'm super impressed. speaker-1: Yeah, I I'm definitely interested in it. We have we have some six point five plus peak ammo ⁓ on its way to us right now. And so I'm gonna be pretty interested to see how it does. I I feel like I have a lot of questions about it. We'd even did a podcast episode talking about it. And I I have a lot of questions but I feel like You can't knock it till you try it here. Like I feel like this is one of those things that could work quite well. The one thing I would say, so you know, good jumping to the high pressure, we did see issues in seven backcountry. But in six point five this could be just a much better implementation because it's just a milder cartridge. We're just we're producing less vibration through that gun in general. And so ⁓ and b even Anyway, so I I I'm very curious to see what happens here. I would I in a six point five I would have a higher degree of trust that we're gonna hit the accuracy that we want to be than in a seven, just because it's it's just way less magnum. There's just a much more mild cartridge, even it even though we're adding more to it. I mean it's we're gonna be similar to a six five PRC. I I would trust a six five PRC and most of the platforms that we shoot, lightweight hunting rifles. To perform better than a seven PRC like we had talked about earlier. So I'm cautiously optimistic, but I do think I I think in the end, high pressure is going to win in the industry. I think we're headed that way and I don't think we can we can call the dogs back. But I think we could have a rocky ten years before we get the perfect implementation. Or it could be done right now and we'll see when the ammo gets here. speaker-2: That's a really good point. And you know, one of the things I'll point out when I was testing the the King Hunter was Geisely on their proprietary action had engraved high pressure. speaker-1: ⁓ interesting. speaker-2: My question f about this six five plus peak scenario is supposedly you could just sort of I don't know if they say shoot it in any six five Creedmore, but the idea is you can use a a rifle not engineered for plus peak and you're at thirty three percent more pressure approximately. So will there be any I've talked to multiple rifle action manufacturers that are kind of scratching their head and wondering w what will this look like? speaker-1: Yeah, I agree. I've done the exact same and some of them have been borderline angry about it, ⁓ because they said like, Look, I know everything about this action. I haven't even tested the pressure that I I haven't tested the pressure any higher than this, I would say. ⁓ you know, Tika for one, they're running their their when they're before they sell any rifle, they shoot two h ⁓ proof loads, two high pressure loads in it, and they're at eighty thousand PSI. ⁓ for the the six five creed. And so they said, okay, yeah, we test this all the time and like very, very rare th that that something blows up. But we do test it. What we are not

doing is testing any higher than that. And so the whole point in the tet in testing higher than the what what is normal is what if something goes wrong? You know, what what if something in this in this bullet is wrong and we get higher pressure. We got a little type bore or whatever, something. And So Tika's point was we're not testing that. And and we need to test higher than whatever it is. And so how does this bullet manufacturer say that this is fine when we know everything about our action and we're not even sure? And so I i there there's a lot of fear and uncertainty, especially because yeah, I mean, you're it's lawsuits, right? If a gun blows up, sure ⁓ you know, for whatever the action manufacturer is, so they're nervous about it. But also, you know potentially haven't done the testing, right? And Federal presumably is. And so it's just a lot of unknowns right now. But it could be pretty awesome. speaker-2: Yeah, actually we've I've done some testing with Bruce Tom, the owner of Bat Machine, multiple alpha munitions stories where we took things up to a hundred thousand PSI. And I know that Bruce does a lot of testing up to some of you know, ninety ninety plus thousand PSI. And so it definitely varies very much per manufacturer. But it's interesting, probably similar time frame when you were in in Finland. I was over in Spain at Bergara and I saw the same thing. They've got these people that are licensed, and only a licensed person can shoot the guns with the proof ammo. And what was it? Something I think CIP indicates like thirty percent over. speaker-1: I th I think it was twenty to twenty five percent over is what they do. speaker-2: Gotcha. That that tracks. Yeah. And and l like you noted, every single Bergara rifle gets proofed with two two rounds of ammo and they inspect the case and you know they can see if there's any chamber imperfections. It's pretty cool, you know. But ⁓ as you know, you take ammo that was proofed at seventy degrees inside a factory, and then you go out into a hundred degree hunt, it's a different story, it's a different animal. So part of what I'm wondering is What does this powder look like? Is there some magic temperature stability we're talking about here? Because what if it becomes ninety thousand PSI or one hundred thousand PSI because you're in one hundred twenty degree heat in Death Valley or something? I don't know. speaker-1: ⁓ or Saint George, Utah where we live. That happens here. Absolutely happens. speaker-0: Nice. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, I i I'm I'm interested. I I yeah you know and I I believe I saw from Federal that there were at le there was at least one C V A gun that they just said is not compatible. I think it was like a C V A scout or something like that, the single shot. ⁓ and so that that kinda makes me think like, well, if there's even one that's not compatible, does Bubba who goes and grabs a six five Creedmore box off the shelf know that? And so there are things I'm worried about But also like I'm not the manufacturer. They're the ones who are are looking into this and stuff. And I do trust Federal. Federal's a very reliable roo you know, reputable company. And so I I'm I'm very optimistic about it. We're gonna have some bumps and and bruises, but the biggest thing that I'm ⁓ that I like is they announced that they're gonna be doing six different bullets in this. And the reason that that's exciting to me is because When we you know, if they were only doing, you know, one bullet, I would say, what then is the purpose of this? Because let's say I buy a six five Creed. Well, okay, this is gonna be a long explanation, but stay with me here. Okay. So let's say I have a six five Creed. If I wanted to shoot it fast, I would have just bought a six five PRC. Right? There's a reason I picked a six five Creed. It's a more mild cartridge, spot your impact, all those kind things, the inherent accuracy, right? And so the argument of just, whoa, this is like 6.5 Creedmoor 2.0, I'm like, I categorically disagree. It's just there's a reason we picked 6.5 Creedmoor for this gun. Usually it's it's better in terms of the accuracy and spot your impact and stuff. And so part of me says, why are we even doing this? Yeah, like w y why even go a 6.5 Creedmoor that's high pressure? Why not just pick the dang 65 PRC and you can already get this velocity? Well, two arguments against that. One is we can use less powder to accomplish it in in ⁓ the same ⁓ case. And because we're using less powder, if you do the the calculation of the powder ⁓ into the recoil, you can get the same velocity as a six five PRC. I think the number we saw was like thirteen percent less recoil because of the lower power powder charge. Yeah, something like that. It was like okay, that's actually meaningful. ⁓ so okay, that's an argument. speaker-0: Like twelve or something like that. Yeah. speaker-1: For why we would do this. 12% less recoil is nothing to sniff out. Right. and we can get those those kind of velocities. But then the other reason that I think this matters is it gives you the ability to buy one six five Creed rifle, shoot it at the range, doing great, and then hey, I got an elk hunt now and I want a little bit more zip. Hey, now we can go use the six five plus peak. But I wouldn't believe in that at all if there were only one or two bullets in it, because how do you know it's going to shoot well out of your gun? If they're making six, probably you're going to be able to get something to shoot. So long explanation, but to me, that's the core innovation. A little bit lower recoil for the same velocity, and we still have enough bullets that we could reasonably go with the versatility argument as well. speaker-2: And then we get into reloading. And I have at least two pretty big stories planned. You know, when you think of brass and you think of neck tension, one to two thousandths of interference fit, no problem at all, right? That brass is is going to expand gracefully. When you're talking about hardened steel, now we're looking at something like two ten thousandths of an inch is you're talking about possibly ten percent of the interference fit. you know, number. And then if I trim the cases, now we have corrosion on the case mouth. ⁓ whole bunch of different things. It's gonna be a really interesting journey. And I know a lot of the reloading equipment manufacturers have been working really hard to try and make this something that's achievable, you know, at home. So so that will be a real interesting journey as well. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. It's cool stuff. I I'm I'm excited about it. I think it's it's gonna give us something new to chew on for the next ⁓ ten years in the industry as we kinda figure this out. And then, you know, it's just like we did with, you know, high B C bullets and thirty five degree shoulders and tighter chamber tolerances that it's really been what all new cartridges in the last fifteen, twenty years have have just been that. We're just doing that to all the old cartridges. And so it gives us something new to chew on that like, hey, if if we ha if we can figure out this this high pressure and we can increase ⁓ the pressure, we get the benefits that I talked about earlier. And then it's gonna be the next ten years of okay, now let's blow through every cartridge and make that update to ⁓ speaker-2: And maybe PXT will help that high pressure scenario not come at the cost of increased throat erosion and a six hundred round barrel. speaker-1: And the other thing is, i you know, if we can not erode the barrels as fast, and maybe this is the thing where we don't have to create ten new cartridges, which is the whole point of plus peak. What if we can take some of the cartridges that already have enough fa a fast enough twist and we can make this update to it, then it's just a different load. That'd be super speaker-2: Yep. speaker-1: Alright, well we'll see where it all goes. Man, Gavin, thanks for coming on and and chatting with us. I'm excited to see what you're doing with Rifle Builder Pro. Everybody should definitely go and check that out as well as the Ultimate Reloader YouTube channel to see all your updates of everything you're featuring for us. speaker-2: Thanks, Jim. Thanks, J Garrett. And I know we have a lot to keep track of and compare notes on here in the near and long future. speaker-0: Awesome. Thank you, Gavin. We will see all of you guys on the third, thirteenth, and twenty third of every month.