Top 5 Cartridges Every Hunter Needs – Episode 19

On this episode, host Dale Evans is joined by Gregg Sloan and Alan Griffith to discuss a fun topic. If you could only have five hunting rifles in your collection; what would they be chambered in? You’ll hear of some oddball cartridges, some unusual suspects, and the tried and true traditional rounds. What would be your top five?

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Everybody good? Yeah, I’m good. Okay. Welcome back to another Barnes Bullets podcast. I’m your host, Dale Evans, and today I’ve got Greg Sloan with me, which is essentially my co-host at this point of this podcast because he’s just about I think you’ve been on every single one. Most not everyone, but pretty pretty close. Yeah, pretty close. Pretty close. Then we have Alan Griffith. He has come back to make his second appearance on the Barnes podcast. How are you? Apprehensive. Apprehensive. I feel like I’m getting getting trapped. Yes. We’re not going to trap you. Found out about this five minutes ago. That’s perfect. We we we don’t want you to have like some crazy I mean so the topic for today the reason that Allan feels quote apprehensive is that we want to talk about if you only had five hunting rifles in your safe. What would be those cartridges of choice? Those calibers of choice. you can go ahead and start writing them down as I kind of introduce this podcast and and how this kind of came together. You know, I think in EP in season two, we really want to kind of dive deep and start doing some uh cartridge comparisons, right? And talk about why, for example, a 7 mag might be better than a 7 PRC or vice versa. But I feel like this is kind of an entryway to get us to that point. So, with it being hunting season right here, you know, it’s a good time to kind of talk about what would be the five hunting rifles that you had in your in your gun safe if you could only have five. Are we going to focus on what those rifles are chambered in, meaning top five cartridges, or do we also want to hit the actual gun configuration along with the cartridge? Any of the above? I I mean, sure, if you want to go down that road, but I was gonna just say more of like Yeah. the top five cartridges that you would have. I just say guns because obviously they have to be chambered in something, right? But um yeah, so let’s just say top five hunting cartridges that you would have. I mean, if you want to throw in I want it in this specific gun, you know, maybe everybody wants a custom build, something yada yada yada, but um yeah, that’s not really kind of what I was going at. I also have some data over here that we can we can refer back to once that I mean, I guess all three of us can kind of make a list. I haven’t even made my list yet. Allan’s made a list pretty quick. Scribble down five cartridges really quick. Okay. Um, I have them too already. So, well, maybe that’s why. I mean, I I I would think that you probably have these five already because there’s a reason that I guess that one I probably don’t have. But, um, we can do that. Okay. So, I want to start smallest to largest is h is how we’re going to kind of work this out. And then as we do this, we’ll kind of debate back and forth of, you know, if if Greg picks something different than Allan does, then let’s talk about why you’re picking this one versus Allen picking that one or I’m picking something else. So, I’m going to I’m going to jot it down and Greg, you can start with what is your smallest cartridge that you want. Okay. My smallest in my top five, I will begin with 22 Hornet. 22 Hornet. 22 Hornet. Okay. Do you want to give us a little bit of why you want a 22 Hornet? Absolutely. So, I’m skipping rimfire obviously. Y um going center fire. 22 Hornet uh has always been just a neat round for me. I’ve always been kind of intrigued by it. Um that goes back 25 plus years ago reading about it. Um, it’s a very old cartridge. Um, careful. Careful. Well, old. Was it developed before Allen was born? Oh, yeah. Yes. Oh, okay. You’re fine. It’s okay. Yeah. What are you How old are you? I used to shoot it back in the 70s. Yeah, but the 22 Hornets’s been around since like early 20s or 30s, probably. We’re looking it up. See, that’s why you brought a laptop. You wouldn’t let me bring my laptop. You have a laptop in your in your pocket, probably. I do. Yeah. But 22 Hornet, it’s a, you know, everyone needs a varmint gun, right? Um, something small. But it’s, what I like about the Hornet versus say stepping up to like a 223 or a 22250 is a 22 Hornet is it’s very, you know, it’s it’s basically in my mind almost like the center fire version of a rimfire, if you will. You know, I mean, it’s very small report. It’s quiet. It’s low recoil, very little powder burn. So, if you’re a hand loader, you can load a lot of rounds with with a pound of powder. I mean, most, you know, depending on the propellant, obviously, but most of these loads, you’re 10, 11, 12, 13 grains of powder per case. Yeah. So, you know, a lot, you know, a little bit of powder goes a long ways. Yeah, there’s that. Um, easy to shoot. Um, they can be accurate in the right rifle. They’re great for prairie dogs, you know, groundhogs, rock trucks, um rabbits, you know, kind of small game, small varmments. Um I’ve used them on up to coyotes. Um with the right configuration, you know, and a a fast enough twist rate. That’s one of the drawbacks to a lot of the especially the older 22 Hornet rifles. A lot of them were were fairly slow twist rates. Um one in 14 even I think some rifles even one and 16 twists. And so you’re very limited on bullet weight, you know, lengths. So pretty lightweight, just small lead cord type varmint bullets. But, uh, we build a little 30 grain bar grenade. Yeah. Um, for specifically for the .22 Hornet. Um, great little bullet. I’ve used it on rabbits, prairie dogs, rock chucks. Um, it’s accurate. Um, and if you really wanted to with the right projectile, you know, you could even step it up to if it’s legal depending where you’re hunting. Yeah. Um, but I know we have had some um consumers even going back many many years ago um that used our little 45 grain TSX loaded in 22 hornets to even take small small analopee in in Africa, those kind of things. Yeah. Very minimal meat damage, right? You know, those kind of things. But it’s just it’s one of those, you know, like you look at the rimfire, the 17 HMR 22 mag type, you know, a little bit higher end of performance rimfire cartridges. Yeah. The 22 Hornet stomps those. Yeah. you know, and if again, I’m going to come at it from a handloader perspective, but I can handload 50 rounds of 22 Hornet, you know, way cheaper than buying a 50 round pack of 17 HMR or 22 mag and have, you know, a little bit heavier bullet potentially going a lot faster than those rimfires are capable of. But just super I mean, my current 22 hornet rifle, I’ll bring up the gun itself. Um, it’s not my dream 22 Hornet rifle. Yeah, cuz the one I want is more than I want to spend on a 22 Hornet. But it’s just a TC Encore singleshot brake action. Um, but I shoot it suppressed. Mhm. You know, I have a little uh actually run a Silencer Co. uh Sparrow can on it, which is a rimfire cam. It’s 2200 rated and I have the barrel cut off right at 16 in. Okay. And so if you think about a single shot, there’s no receiver length. Yeah. Right. Because the breach is right at the end, right? Quiet. Really quiet. really quiet. But now it’s the gun is literally like that long with the can. Yeah. You know, I’ve got a little three to nine scope on it. It’s just a blast of a little varmint gun. Okay. So, I start there. 22 Hornets. It’s an awesome round. Um, we use it in the lab to test some of our like that 30 grain VG. Um, and when we download some of the 22 caliber bullets to shoot in our water tank at low velocities to simulate a downrange shot, um, we actually use the 22 Hornet at times because of it smaller case capacity, um, to be able to consistently hit those lower velocities when we’re firing into the water tank. So, I’ve always kind of appreciated the the abilities of the 22 Hornet. And it has that old school early 1900s kind of case design. Very sloped. You know, it doesn’t have a sharp shoulder or anything. It’s kind of just that tapered. You know, I like to again, I’ve said it before, but it’s kind of an ugly cartridge, but it kind of is cool in its Yeah. in its dumbness, I guess. All right, Alan, do you have anything? I’m just going to throw on top of what he’s got there. Not that I chose the 22 Hornet because I didn’t. Okay. We got a gentleman, I haven’t heard from him for a while. I hope he hasn’t passed. He’s he’s an older gentleman in one of the New England states, and he would take his uh 10-in TC contender in 22 Hornet and our .45 TSX and go shoot his buck every year with that thing. Yeah. I’m like, yeah. Yeah. I I actually wanted to shoot an analopee with my 22 Hornet. Mhm. Um, but I found out the state I was hunting, it wasn’t legal minimum caliber and weight, projectile weight for big game hunting. And so I couldn’t use it. So I’ve yet to take a big game animal with a 22 Hornet. But, you know, close range 100 150 yard shots on small small white tail and an animal prong horn size game. It’s capable with the right bull and the right shot placement. What’s interesting too is literally 10 minutes before this podcast, I had a phone call from a gentleman who’s running a 22 Hornet. We were talking about bullets for it. This is talk about coincidence for me. Um 223 Aley. Okay. I’ve got a custom rifle, surgeon action, a preferred barrel, uh carbon wrap, run it suppressed, and I shoot our 50 grain varmint grenade in it. and it’s really really a hammer. I like it a lot. I think I don’t remember what powder. I think I’m running benchmark in it right now and it works really really well. Okay, so that would be my So what So my my first initial reactions is I think that my list is going to be very different than your list probably than your guys’ list. Y um do you even reload? I I have I I have recently um but I don’t really reload a lot. Okay. Obviously. Yeah. So, that’s where Exactly. Like you you you’re kind of read my mind there that I think my list is going to be definitely more centered around readily available ammo offerings that you can pick up at almost every like any store out there. Yeah. Right. So, with that, I’m going to go 223 RIM. Yeah. Right. just because one, I was in the military for 10 years. I shot the cartridge a lot. I I know what it, you know, kind of does um out to say 600 meters, right? Um again, kind of step on that good for predator. I I would also argue that, you know, you talked about how you can’t legally shoot, you know, big game animals with something, you know, like a 22 Hornet, but I can do it with a two, you know, a 223. So, that’s kind of where I go with it. Um, what Well, we’re talking bullet diameter. Well, what he’s getting at is some states, you’re right, you’d have to be like 24 cal minimum, but there’s also states that you can hunt with 22 center fire. Yeah. Because you have center fire versus But well, but you have to have a specific weight. Like, so the one I was referring to was actually Wyoming. Don’t quote me on this, but I want to say you can hunt with 22 caliber 224 diameter center fires, which 22 Hornet is a center fire, but you have to have like a 60 grain minimum projectile weight, and a Hornet won’t shoot 60 grain. It’s too long of a bullet. It won’t stabilize in the twist rates of a 22 Hornet. Yeah, there are definitely states and I don’t know there could be more, but there’s there’s going to be those to Dale’s point though, there’s those situations where a 223 with the right projectile could technically potentially be legal and meet game laws where 2200 wouldn’t. Okay. So, you know, and I know that obviously we’re talking hunting, right? But I’m even going one step further of saying that, you know, I can also use it for home defense and yada yada yada target plinking range time. And you know, for the most part, you can pick up 223 ammo pretty cheap across the board, right? So, um, that’s a valid argument. Yeah, like I always try to look at, and that’s one argument that, you know, as I was growing up, it was like, why do you want to have these offshoot calibers? Because let’s just say for some crazy reason you run out of ammo and you’re on a hunt or something like that and you need to run down to the store to grab something or get somebody to bring you something or or whatever, right? My cartridges are going to be quote readily available cartridges. Yeah. So, um not to have a spoiler alert, but yeah. So, so that’s kind of where I’m at. Um, I mean, I think that obviously everybody’s going to have a slightly different opinion and and I will say, you know, I’ll preface everything with obviously we want um listener and you know, people that are watching the podcast their feedback and tell us your top five that you would want as well and and see how they stack up. And again, like I said, I do have some data over here of like, you know, most searched uh cartridges, like hunting cartridges from Google and and and different polls and things like that from reading different things that I think it’ll be interesting to see where all of our stuff kind of uh adds up there. So, let me add the reason I chose the act instead of just straight 223. Mhm. The bane of my reloading existence is I hate case trimming and with the Aly shoulder, the cases don’t grow as fast. Yeah. Uh but again, it it goes back to reloading, right? Like if if I don’t care about that because I’m just picking up the right stuff off the shelf or whatever. But as far as between he and I, I mean, how is the Hornet as far as case uh neck um growth? Horrible. Um, I’m not sure if it’s running enough pressures to really stretch that out too much. I don’t have specifics off the top of my head to say I got x amount of firings before having to trim, but it, you know, I’m thinking back to the times we’re loading it in the lab. It’s not a case that we’re trimming often. We’re getting multiple firings before between trimmings. Yeah. Yeah. Especially after the initial one time fired and then trimmed. Yeah. You know, I would imagine at that point we’re probably four or five firings before having to trim again, but I could be wrong. Okay. Okay. I just I I know that some of the cartridges I that I like that I have here on my list have sharper shoulders, right? That way I don’t have to trim as much, which is cool. I mean, that’s one of the reasons we’re having these discussions, right? There’s different perspectives. You know, I think it’s good to have, you know, Dale’s perspective versus like an Allen, you know, there’s there’s going to be people out there that hopefully on both sides we can maybe spur a thought or a or an opinion or Right. You know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, cuz everybody wants quote latest, greatest, right? But at the same time, you always got to look at propellants, charges, or um again, going back to readily available ammo that you can find anywhere, right? And there’s some decent 22 Hornet ammo. Um but yeah, I mean obviously 223 is one of the most popular cartridges, right? You know, in the world, um especially in the US, you know, to your point, it’s everywhere in different configurations, grain weights, bullet styles, um different price points. you know, Hornet is going to be a little more obscure. Um, but I have found a couple decent loads over the years. You know, factory ammunition. Obviously, Barnes has never loaded .22 Hornet. Yeah. Um, but I’ve mostly hand loaded it. Um, but yeah, we were tied with Remington many years ago and at that time I got a little Remington um it was one of their premier varmint loads with like a 35 grain, you know, and it it shot pretty good out of my gun, but I mostly hand load the 30 grain varmint grenade. So, All right, let’s um what’s what’s next on the list? So, I only have four on my list right now because I still can’t figure out what my fifth wants to be. But well, and I think when you break it down to five and it’ll be interesting to see what everyone shares. Yeah. You know, do we hit a size where we kind of hover around some choices that are similar or do you approach it from, well, if I can only have five, I need a small one. I need a kind of a standard and then I need a big magnum and then I need something for the really big stuff. Yeah. So, I’m curious to see what you guys have to say or I’m up to eight so I might struggle with this one. You can only you can only talk about five. Maybe maybe at the end we can have honorable mention. So, what what he’s going to end up doing is as we’re giving some off, he’s going to check some of those those other three off the list here. So, okay, give me the next one on your list. It doesn’t matter if it’s big, small, whatever. You know, the next one that’s jumping out to me um is actually and it’s going to be a little more obscure. Yeah. But it’s a 6x 45 um which is a 6mm 223. Okay. Um it’s simply just a 223 case necked up to 6mm. Got it. Okay. Um and the reason being and I obviously skipped 223. Yeah. You know, my my choice of small varmint gun was the Hornet. And so this is kind of that next progression in in step up for capability and range. Yeah. Um but it’s also some of the characteristics of the cartridge that I’ve noticed as a hand loader, you know, and being a ballastician that’s really stood out. It is incredibly forgiving and accurate. Okay. I mean, a few of us in the lab have built multiple rifles chambered in 6×45. And you don’t even have to necessarily I mean, you could argue, right, if I’m trying to go all the way to like bench rest style loading practices, you know, I’m sorting components out. I’m, you know, matching everything down to the the tea, trimming everything the same, case prepping every which way possible, chamfering, deburring. I’m uniforming primer pockets. You know, I’m going to take all the little extra steps. You know, I’m using special competition cedar dyes and working up loads, trying different propellants, different seating depths. You know, I’m using every tool available to really tune the load in. That’s one thing. But what stood out to me with the 6×45, and it’s not just one lucky gun. This goes across multiple rifles that we’ve we’ve used it in. Um the thing doesn’t really care what you feed it and it just shoots. Okay. I mean, I’ve taken once fired um literally like milspec 5.56 brass, you know, run it run it through the sizing die on a 6×45 to open up the the case mouth. Mhm. And just picked a powder that was in the proper burn rate, seated a bullet. I mean, literally no case prep outside of that. No fire forming once, you know, even right off the bat, the initial firing gone out and shot sub half MOA groups. I’m talking the guns shooting the twos and threes, point 2s and threes. Yeah. You know, consistent velocities. And this is with multiple bullets, too. I’ve done it with armor grenades. I’ve done it with varminators. um done it with match burners, anything in our 58 to, you know, 72 grain weights, um that we’ve offered, and the things just flat out shoot. I mean, I don’t think I can get that gun not to shoot. And I know Kagan, who’s been on the podcast before, he’s another big fan of the 6×45. He’s got like three or four of them. He’s got some with fast twists, some with slower twists. Um but those cartridges are just efficient as all get out. And it’s another one that we use in the lab. Yeah. due to its case size. You know, we’ve mentioned before how we test bullets in the water tank. Um, we download, you know, on purpose to simulate a downrange shot, a low velocity shot. And so that case allows us to test 6 millm bullets at low velocities efficiently because, you know, if you go download a 243 Winchester or a 6mm Remington um or 6 Creedmoor, you know, you’ve left with a bunch of empty case, right? You haven’t filled the case. it’s not as efficient where that 6×45 we can shoot that same projectile purposely downloading it to lower velocity with a much smaller case capacity. Interesting. And it allows us to do that. And so it’s really kind of just stood out as, you know, a very just efficient, you know, it’s not one that’s ever really taken off as a commercial offering. You know, this is more of a Wildcat. Yeah. Hand loader type. You know, there’s been different versions of it. Um, who came up with that? I honestly don’t know if it was a 6mm TCU or if it’s the 6223 6×45. Like I said, there’s different versions. No, let me rephrase my question. Who in the lab started thinking about using the lab for uh I think it was Kagan. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, and funny enough, here’s a little story. So, I had a friend, a past co-orker, um who you know, Josh, um Senior. Yeah. And I was actually buying some barrels through him. I don’t even know who they came from. It was actually a bench rest shooter and we were buying his used takeoff like uh six PPC barrels or something like that. Um I think mine’s maybe a one and 12 twist. Mhm. Cutting them rechambering to 6×45. So this is literally like a garbage takeoff barrel that I’m buying for like dirt cheap, right? chambering a 6×45 and going out there and having a varmint gun that shoots sub half minute. So, it’s nice when that happens. Yeah. So, one thing that I do think that we should kind of talk about is like what what do you think is your most use case scenario for your for for for the ones that you’re picking as well, right? Because that’s a good point because because I think that that makes a lot of sense, right? So, for example, you had 22 hornet and you kind of talked about it, right? that it would be like your light varmint, like that type of thing. So, what where do you think that the 65 the 6×45 or 6223, whatever you want to call it? Yeah, good question. It’s it’s kind of my it’s more more standard gun, right? Um it is a the one I have specifically is configured more as a prairie dog gun. Okay. Um that’s what I use it for. Um it’s when, you know, shots are two, three, 400 yards. Um I want to shoot a little bit heavier bullet. I still want to shoot as fast as I can on the prairie dogs to get good re, you know, results once it impacts. Um, but obviously you start shooting a 30 grain bullet out of a 22 hornet at say 3100 feet per second, you know, 300 yard shots become pretty difficult. Yeah. Um, it’s more of a 150 yard and in typearm gun. Um where the 6mm by 45 is it’s a little bit step up armor gun yet it’s not like my big 6mm Creedor guns which I also use for long range prairie dogs but the barrel heats up so much faster you know barrel life is less and so that’s the other advantage of 6×45 is I can go out and shoot if I wanted to you know if I’m in a prairie dog town you know I get that many more shots before my barrel’s smoking hot versus say like a 6mm Creedmore right um coyote gun good predator gun. Um, with the right configuration, deer, analopee. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, and that’s what I was about to get to, right? Is like it’s kind of interesting that you only get five and here you’ve picked two varmint guns right off the bat. Yeah. Or are very kind of varmint specific type of Yeah. And cartridges and I and I can kind of maybe you’ll see why when I get to my big I mean and we’re not trying to say like this is like apocalyptic apocalyptic times, right? That like you know you got to put food on the table and everything else. So, why would you only want, you know, two obscure varmint guns? Yeah. Of the five. Exactly. No. No. And I I picked it just cuz they’re they’re guns you can go shoot. You know, they’re guns that they’re easy to load for. They’re efficient, effective, they’re economical to load for. Yeah. And higher volume type shooting while still paying attention to precision. Um whether that be steel targets, you know, I do a lot of just steel plate shooting, right? Um but yeah, it’s you got to have something to shoot. you know, you can’t go to the range every weekend and dump 100 rounds through a 7 PRC, right? You know, and so, and I think it’s maybe a little more specialized for sure between those two on that smaller end. Okay. Very specific. Yeah. Um where once you step up, maybe they have a broader they’re a lot more versatile, right? For sure. And so maybe you don’t have to have as many when you step up. But no, it’s a good point. You could you could come out if it is the end of the world scenario. I’m I’m screwed with those two. Yeah. I mean, and that’s again, you know, not to kind of like have a um spoiler alert, right? It’s like when I think about my five, it’s like I want as much versatility as I as I can. I want to be able to do anything and everything with all five versus very nichy type of things. Yeah, I’m too much of a cartridge ballistic. Allan’s over here scratching stuff off and writing more stuff. Crap. He’s like, you made a good point right there. I have to change this. to me. See, I I have one coming that is as generic as they come. That’s my do- all. Okay. So, I won’t I won’t ruin it. Does it have a maple stock? And did your son shoot it recently? No, I won’t go that far. But it’s a I’ll I’ll have some stories behind it. But it’s it’s a very common popular choice. Okay, go for it. What’s What’s your next one on your list? 257 Roberts. Oh my god. Yep. You’re like, you invited the wrong people. I have two of them, but if I had to pick one, it would be a very custom uh Pre64 Model 70. Have Have you killed anything with this gun? Me, my son, my stepson. Do we want to talk about what you really want to kill with it? Uh, I’ve killed elk with it. So, I thought that there’s like this one bucket list. Oh, yes. Whitetail. Yet to ever get a whitetail. And not just any white tail. No, not just any white tail. He’s got to be a banger. He’s got to be a banger if he’s just a little bug. I’m like, “No, I’m not I’m not going to shoot.” The bad thing is is that when you’re using a 257 Roberts, you’ve just limited yourself to the states that you can go to on on your because it’s a center fire rifle. And when you’re talking about shooting a 190 to 200 inch whitetail, you started to really limit yourself to the states that commonly produced that type of white tail. Okay? You can’t rifle hunt is what he’s getting at unless you’re like straight wall. You can’t rifle hunt in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa. These are like archery, muzzle loader, shotgun states, straight wall states. Okay. You got to think where the big big deeract is what he’s saying. Yeah. Got it. So now now you’re into, you know, Kansas, maybe a little bit of Missouri. Yeah. Right. Is Yeah. Nebraska makes some big deer, but 200 deer’s really big deer in Nebraska versus, you know, Kansas makes them pretty regularly. Missouri’s starting to really do it. Kentucky on occasion. So, okay. Anyway, but I want to know why you haven’t just done this. I know. Like I know what stops me from going killing a 200 inch whitetail. I am in a different place. I have a wife and four kids at home and a mortgage. You’re like at a different point in life. So like what’s stopping you? Uh it’s along the same I mean kids are grown and gone. I’ve seen what you do and what guns you build. They just stop right shooting. Yeah. You you could probably not build a gun for a year and go do this one gun. I can’t do that. So you you would rather have you would rather have more rifles than your quote bucket list hunt taken care of. No, I think I could do that. Yeah, you’re right. I could do that. See, I’m all about like, you know, you notice how one I can change his mind pretty easily and I like that. Um but also doing Top Ramen for lunch or something every day. What? Okay. Whatever it takes. No, it’s don’t build a one rifle. Like, do you think that you spend on average $4,000 a year on rifle builds? Some years. Some years more. Yeah. Some years less. Yeah. So, averaging about $4,000 a year on a rifle. Yeah. One year of rifle builds. So, So, are you saying I could do a nice banger hunt for $4,000, give or take? Okay. Okay, let’s say four to five, but I think that you could do it even if you said six, right? Yeah, these aren’t $10,000 hunts. No. Okay, I mean, I figured you I need a lot more money than I mean, it depends. Like I mean, obviously, I’m assuming that you want to do all free range. Like if you want to go kill just like go kill a 200 inch deer on like a high fence operation or something like that then yeah you I mean you could probably get more into that 8 to 10 to 12,000 type of range which is what I was thinking that way I’m assured of getting well yeah and so so that’s where I was going to go when you said I don’t know why you haven’t done this it’s like going and killing a 200 in deer isn’t exactly just like I meant like with a 190 I meant like booking a hunt planning something at least trying even if you come home empty-handed or you come with 150 inch white white tail. So what I was going to say is that I’ve hunted whitetails in a lot of different states for a lot of years, right? I mean going on 30 years of white tail hunting, I’ve seen one deer in my life free range over 190 ever. Okay. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I might have to save more money for the high fence. Yeah, I mean you could totally go do that. You’re going to quickly learn that you don’t need a 257 Roberts to do it because you’re probably going to shoot it at 30 yards. Well, a solid copper bullet will still do it at 30 yards. I get that. I’m just saying Roberts. So, okay. Go ahead. Go. Sorry. Sorry to No. Um I mean, uh this thing was put together by a custom gunsmith that used to work at Dakota Arms. Uh he he teaches this this thing. I mean, I’m thinking when that stock was probably a 2×4 blank of wood, it was probably $1,000 just for that. I I I fell into this rifle about a decade back and I probably took me five years before I was able to kill anything with it. It just seemed like I almost sold it two or three times just because it’s like I can’t kill anything with this thing. All of a sudden, boom, bam, bam, bam, bam. So, I’m like, okay, it’s not going down the road. It’s going in the will to my son. So, in fact, I think it already is. He doesn’t listen to these podcasts, so I don’t have to worry about that yet. So, you you can change your will if need be. So, you’ve you’ve enlightened me, Dell, and you’ve changed my mind. I’m going to retract I’m going to retract my 6×45. Hold on. We can have retractions at the end. Okay. We we we’ll have retractions at the end as as I change all of your minds. Yeah, cuz I see you guys changing minds when you’re on podcast. Well, we get to do what we want. You don’t Why don’t I? I’m just teasing. You do get to change your mind. But like I said, I want everybody to kind of go down their list and then see if as we’re as we’re altering. It’s hard though, like when you’re when you’re deep into you’re a hand loader, you’re enthusiast, you’re you know, you’re a ballistic guy, like a gun nut. A gun. Like it’s so hard to be like, hey, I can only pick five, right? I mean, that’s a challenge. I’m going, gosh, really? Cuz I honestly I did not come prepared with a list. Well, I just essentially I’m kind of made a list as we started and it’s like four was pretty easy to get to. I’ve I’ve actually changed one as we’ve kind of talked a little bit, but it’s along the same lines. Um, I could give you five different lists. They’d be different every time depending how, you know, because there’s so many that are so close of like this one between that one and so, you know, I think that we’ve kind of discussed it a little bit like offline. I don’t think that we really ever talked about on podcast, but before I really got into the hunting space, I was like a two rifle guy, one shotgun, right? and then like a a rimfire is basically what I had at all times. Now I’m like a 20 rifle guy and six or seven shotguns and everything else. Yeah. Oh yeah. Rook I mean granted I’ve only been in the space for five years. So g give me a little bit of time. He like rookie and then you’re like all you have to do is not build a gun and you’d have the money for your white. Well, what’s funny, right, is let’s start talking about all the hunts that I’ve done that you’ve never been able to and and then Yeah. start going down that road. Yeah. Right. Yeah. If I quit building guns, I know I could go on more hunts. Yeah. You could do a lot of things. Well, and I think it’s and it’s there’s nothing right or wrong, but I think it just shows there’s sometimes a difference of the hunter side of it versus the shooter side of it. Yeah. you know, the the experience in the field versus the rifleman versus the the hand loader versus, you know, I mean, and sometimes there’s a balance of both, but you’re right. I mean, there’s different. Sometimes it’s a very practical this is a tool. I’m not going to get wrapped up in what this is because it’s just to, you know, serve a purpose, right? I I was always in the thought process of pick what works and just learn it the best that you can and you can go kill anything that you want to with it. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I would rather spend my money on tags and applications and and going on these hunts than I would building six more rifles. Yeah. That are just going to sit in the closet because I can’t go on hunts and go do stuff with them. Yeah. And something that’s changed in my life this past year is I’m I I consider myself aging out of all the competitions I like to shoot. You know, PRS, NRL, NRL Hunter, NRL22, 22X, all the national matches. you know th those fees, that gas, the hotel, food. It it it does build up. Yeah. I mean, there were years when I’m shooting three matches a month. Yeah. And then on the fourth match, I’m reloading trying to get ready for the other three matches a month. Yeah. Now, I’m not doing that as much. Yeah. So, he brought up the gun price. Yeah. I’m not going to say you have to throw a number, but what do you think you average a year on matches if you include travel, hotels, gas, fees, reloading, reloading components, all the components? I’d have to break it down. I mean, I’ll I’ll bet you I’ll bet you between especially on the heavy years, I’ll bet you I might have been doing 810 grand a year. See, I thought it was going to be more than that. So, pretty good. But even that, like most hunters, most hunters don’t have a $10,000 budget a year to buy tax. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could argue that I could go on three pretty damn good hunts, you know, DIY type of stuff, right, for under five, right? Right. may maybe in that eight range, you know, with tags, with hotels, with gas, everything like that. And that’s traveling like across the country to do stuff. So, but granted, if you’re shooting, how many how many matches would that $8,000 be? 15 matches. Oh, more. Oh, gosh. Like, so you could argue that like you’re getting more experience, you’re getting more um opportunity. Yeah. opportunity or or just yeah just like being able to do a lot more things, right? Where I’m saying that I’m only going to do three things, right? See, my life evolved around shooting year round, right? Which kept me busy, kept me in the guns, kept me reloading. Whereas, if I’m hunting one or two species a year, you I’m sitting there going like, come on, hunting season, come on. I’m waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. So, well, I mean, you could still hunt year round. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I wish I have not gotten into that part of it. Yeah. You think at my age, I mean, if you’re only thinking quote big game, right, for the fall, but I mean, there’s a lot of things to do in the spring. I know. There’s a lot of things to do in the winter. You know what I mean? And you can always find something to do in the summertime. I know. I just I’ve never gotten into that aspect of it. No. That the year- round hunter. I was more the year- round competitor. Right. No, I mean, I get it. You know, it’s just different strokes for different folks. Right. Exactly. All right. Exactly. give me some more details on the 257 Roberts. Well, I’ve got two of them. I’ve got a Montana uh so it’s a very light all-weather rifle. Don’t care if I bang it up. Whereas the the the Pre64 is what I call a fair weather gun. It’s got to be, you know, no rain. Snow is fine. Yeah. But no rain because it’s it’s, you know, it’s gorgeous walnut. It’s blue steel, high gloss blue steel. And I want to make sure and take care of it. But that’s I want to really shoot a good whitetail with that rifle. I’ve worked up uh loads with uh the 100 grain tip TSX, the 101 LRX. I’ve been playing around with the 80 TTSX. I know a lot of people think that’s such a light bullet. No, that that 80 that thing screams with being monolithic. I mean, oh my gosh, the 25 caliber is a for I mean, the 256, the 257, they’re the ones that everybody wants, but for the distances, I think I’d be shooting a white tail at 250 Roberts is fantastic and with enough velocity, enough penetration, enough bullet weight to to get the job done. And like I said, I mean, I’ve I’ve taken elk with a with a 100 grain tip like 200 plus yards. Uh, breaking through humorous bones, breaking bones, uh, ribs on the way out. That little bullet just just keeps on going. Yeah. Elk went all over like 20 feet. Yeah. So, just stood there and just kept soaking up. That’s like, oh, you’re going to stand there. I’m going to keep shooting you. You’re going to stand there. I’m going to keep shooting you. Right. That’s my policy when it comes to elk. If they’re standing Yeah. I’m I’m going. I keep shooting. Yeah, exactly. Um, and it is it is a classic cartridge. The I think, you know, I mean, it’s the wrong 257, but sure. Yeah. You know, I know you’re the Weatherbe guy, and that’s okay. Uh, I think, you know, the Weatherbe is a fantastic cartridge. I still haven’t had a chance to watch your video. I I watched the short one, not the long one. So, I I’m looking forward Oh, you’re talking about the podcast. Yeah, the podcast. I’ve not watched that that one yet. So, this isn’t a pick, but I got to hurry your butt in because you’re talking 257s, and Dale said it’s the wrong 257. There’s a 257 that’s a mention. It’s not a top five. But I’m going to challenge your 257 Roberts, and that’s with the 250 Savage. Oh gosh, yes. Gosh, yes. It’s And I’m going to save two reasons why you have to credit the 250 Savage. Um, because it was It’s a very old cartridge. I mean, I think it was like 1912ish, something like that. Yeah. Um, and it was really the first commercially available cartridge to achieve 30,000,000 per second. Exactly. The two, which I think is kind of cool when you think about from a progression, you know, as cartridge development, you know, it’s pretty neat. Yeah. And when I many many years ago when I was shooting um load data um as a lab tech for our reloading manual um one of the first cartridges I did was actually we went back through some 25 cals and I shot all of them. You know I did 256. I did 257 Roberts. I did 257 Weatherbe. Um but the 250 Savage even though it’s smaller and lower velocity than those it was just dang efficient. Yep. It just that stood out to me just as efficiency. Yep. I was impressed with what it could do with very little. Kind of like a 22 Hornet. There’s my little very efficient. I challenge your 257 Roberts. Okay. Okay. Well, and and I have to mention it was mostly chambered in a Savage 99 lever action, which is an awesome rifle. Great. Great little rifle. Yeah. So, I’ll I’ll stop now. Okay. Brian’s got one in 300 Savage. Yeah. You ever gonna have Brian on the podcast? We were trying to get him on this podcast, but he doesn’t have enough hunting experience to He said all he was going to talk about is shooting rabbits with a smooth boorem mouser and some crazy stuff like that. So, I’m I was shocked when I heard he but but we do have some plans to um again in this like like as we go deeper and probably season two, it’ll probably be next year. um where we want to have these cartridge debates of like this verse that I think that Brian can bring a perspective of understanding efficiency, right? And like all of those things that I think could help like he could be kind of the middle ground almost moderator between Greg and I of like why we want to select certain ones. Yeah. Purely from the viewpoint of doing the pressure velocity development, the load development, the propellant, all of that hands-on, not like I’m the guy in the field hunting with this, right? You know, it’s more just understand what this cartridge can do. That guy has shot so much different test stuff. Yeah, for sure. It’s incredible. All right, I’m gonna jump to my second one. And I actually just switched it back to my original thought. I’m going to go with 3030. Oh, it’s a good one. It is a good one. Yeah, you know, I run a 3855. So, I I’ll be honest. I which is a year older than I have not had I’ve not had 3030 cross my mind in this whole conversation and even like thinking ahead a little bit. Yeah. And I think it’s a good one. So I was going back and forth between a 30-30 and a 4570. Um and the reason I was going to go 4570 is because I could go ultra heavy, right, versus 3030. Obviously, we can do it with Pioneer, right, with 190 grain, but I was like, man, it’d be nice to have a 400 grain bullet that I can do whatever. I could literally kill basically anything. But I go back to 3030 again because readily available on storeshelves pretty easily that you’re going to find that somewhere. Um, we do have some pretty awesome offerings in it. Three what? Three different offerings. Yeah. for for us. I’m just saying like if you were going to go on storeshelves and you were just trying to pick up ammo everywhere. Um it’s it’s everywhere, you know. I I started hunting with 3030 when I first started hunting. That was what I had. I killed like my first like literally 12 deer with it. Um so it just makes sense. I think it’s a little bit of that traditional, but also, you know, I I go back to like, okay, I had 223. That kind of gives me that farm gun. Now I’m starting to get up into like the whitetail size. Obviously, you probably could shoot an elk with it. You’d have to be close, but um you know, you could definitely do it. You could shoot a bison with it or a bear or something like that. I got a button I lived in Alaska who killed most with his 3030. Yeah, I mean I’m I’m sure you can do it as long as you’re, you know, within that range. So, what I’m trying to start to think about also, right, is ammo availability. And then now I’m starting to think, okay, I’ve got my varmint gun like super light and now I’m starting to step up into regular big game type of cartridges and now I have my 150 yard and end type of gun. Right. Right. So So that’s where I kind of go with a with a 30 to30. No, no debates on it. No, no, I’m not going to challenge that one. It’s a good one. I mean, I’ve got several lover guns. Um, I typic I wouldn’t go 3030 or 4570 could because to me I want something different. I want something unusual. That’s why I run the 3855. I run a 45. And when you don’t have ammo and you don’t have uh propellants and everything else, I can get 45 cold ammo about anywhere I want. That’s why I run it out of Winchester 1892. Okay. So, yep. Okay. Should I go third? You should you should go to your third one. Okay. Let’s Let’s do And this is going back to a quote more traditional. Yep. This is not going to be some farvoir thing or whatever you threw out in that one podcast. Bartard. Bartard. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. So, this is this honestly has always been in my top five. It really is. Um and that’s a 308 Winchester. I mean, it’s it’s popular for a reason. Allan’s over here scratching off now. No, no, I haven’t scratched. I’m just going like, “Yeah, between that 308 and this one, I’m like,” So, there’s a lot of reasons why, too. Um, I think you have to give credit to the cartridge design. Um, it’s like many others, but it’s an apparent case to, you know, multiple cartridges. It’s versatile. Um, it’s a short action. It’s still 30 caliber. Yeah. I mean, I can shoot 110 grain bullets in it. Um, all the way up to, you know, I don’t like going much heavier than 175 in a 308. Yeah. Um, if I’m hunting, I actually think 150 grain is about the most ideal. Um, but we do some awesome factory ammo. We do awesome bullets to handload in us. You know, there’s a lot of good options out in the world. You brought up some valid points. You know, ammo’s everywhere. I mean, you’re you’re always going to be able to find 308 Win, whether it’s a bolt-action hunting rifle that’s lightweight mountain rifle, or it’s a heavy target gun, match gun, um, or it’s even a a gas gun or semi-automatic. You know, if you’re thinking more from a defense, you know, home defense type, yep. End of the world, whatever you want to call it. I have components to load 308 for my lifetime. I have loaded ammo in 308 to last a long time. You can shoot it a lot. Good barrel life. We have test barrels in the lab accuracy test barrels. And given these are 1.2 diameter, full diameter blanks, right, that start with and they get chambered and crowned. Okay. So, they’re heavy barrels, right, for a reason. Um, but we have accuracy test barrels in 308 that literally have 10,000 rounds on them. Wow. And they still flat out shoot. Good barrel life. Um, it’s not the lightest recoiling obviously, but it’s it’s super doable even without a break, even without a can. Like, you can shoot a 308, right? I mean, I mentioned this already, but I mean, little kids can shoot them even especially once you’re suppressed. Yep. New shooters. um like Target. I mean, I’ve had a Target 308 um for I don’t even remember how long now. And 308 is kind of special to me because it actually I grew up in a family and it we’ve talked a little bit about this before. Um it’s interesting because you get like different, you know, kind of geographically, right? There’s popular choices like maybe if you grew up in this part of the country, 3030 is kind of the go-to or 270 or whatever. Like I grew up in kind of a both time and culture of like 270 win versus 30 out 6. Yep. That was pretty much like you were either a 270 camp guy or you a 30 out 6 camp guy. Like that’s one or the other. You had your oddball here or there, but like if you were out on the mountain, you were pretty much going to be carrying a 270 or a 306. Well, and I and I mean I would even say, you know, where I grew up, right, which is drastically different in the southeast in North Florida, right? Like I mean it was either you’re a 270 guy or you’re a 3006 guy. Yeah. and plain and simple and they’re pretty popular, but 308 is kind of right there with them. But for me, it was like I was the oddball in my family. He’s like, “A 308? That’s like some military cartridge, you know, what are you doing?” But anyways, I did a I’ve mentioned this before, I also did a lot of muzzle loader hunting. Yeah. You know, when I was a young teenager because of opportunities, seasons, tags, those kind of things. And so the 308 was actually my very first um boltaction center fire rifle that I ever bought was a 308 Win. And so it’s kind of I still have that same gun. It’s a heavy barrel how 1500 um varmint model and it has since been modified and configured and worn many different stocks and scopes and whatever. But yeah, I’ve done a lot with that 30800 with it. Mostly it’s more of a target gun. Um, but our 175 match burner, you know, hand loaded or in the precision match ammo. I mean, I’ve shoot Vortex ammo. I load, you know, the 130 TTSX is awesome. You can load light and fast. You can load heavy and slow. Yep. It’s versatile. I can hunt really. I can hunt anything in North America. Absolutely. So, that’s it’s that’s kind of my go-to common versatile just practical choice and it’s a good round. It’s efficient and accurate. We use it all the time in the lab as an accuracy test cartridge in a 30 caliber. I mean, generally, um, we can get some pretty amazing results when we shoot really any 30 caliber bolt that we build out of a thoria win. What do you got? Oh, I’ve been struggling the past five minutes while listening to him talk about 308 because 308 is on my list. It really is. It’s such a great cartridge. It’s so versatile. Uh, I mean, Ryan Muckenhorn over at Vortex with his 130 grain, all the experience he’s got there, it just adds to credibility of that bullet and that cartridge, we make great ammo in it. It just flat works. Uh, for me, I’m because I I’m more willing to take a longer shot if need be. I’m the 168 tipped triple shot guy when it comes to that cartridge. Uh, at my altitude, even with a 20-in barrel only running a little over 2500 feet per second, I could reach out to 600 yards with that thing. and dang near have. Yeah. Uh but it’s not my pick. I struggle with it. It’s not I I want it to be I wish you why did you have six rifles instead of five? But anyway, so so that one’s not going to make the cut for me. It’s going to be my 65 by 47 plural as in rifles. Uh I’ve been shooting that cartridge uh well since I hit the the competition days 16 17 years ago. Uh deer, elk, competition, uh bench rest. It’s just it’s just a great cartridge. It’s easy to load for it. It’s efficient. Uh great brass lapa. Um lot lot of wonderful bullets out there. Light, heavy. Um run a standard eight twist barrel. You could shoot anything you want to out there. Uh I I don’t think brass is that hard to find, whether it’s Lapo or Peterson. I’m sure ADG makes it. Um it’s just it’s got uh it’s got what I believe a 30° shoulder so I don’t have to trim next on I can probably go about 10 firings before I need to trim. Okay. Uh my first set of lop were brass uh a kneeling every one to three firings. I probably I think I got 28 firings off off that brass. And the only reason I tossed it because I was starting to get bolt click uh which is basically when you’re when you’re opening your your bolt it’s right at the very top you have to pop it. That means that that the case head is is uh is starting to expand to a point to where um basically the bra I could have kept shooting it. Yeah. But in competition I don’t want that that that difficult pop at the very top. I want it to be smooth. So because if I’m running my bolt, I want to be able to keep my optics or my crosshair on the target while I’m running, right? Not have to re uh readjust the rifle because of a bolt pop. So um like I said, I’ve taken deer and elk with that thing. uh long shots, short shots, it just flat worked, especially with our bullets. So, that would be my number three would be the 65x 47 Lapa. Okay. It’s a good one. I I uh and I know that he’s on that too because it didn’t make your list though, did it? It didn’t. But it probably should have I would put it over my 6×45 choice. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that because you could shoot light. I had a feeling you heavy varmint rifle. I had a feeling you were going to pick it. So, I gave that one to you. Okay. I’ve never actually hunted with it really. I’ve never hunted with mine. Okay. Um it was match gun. Yeah. Target gun. Um when I the Again, I haven’t done a lot of competitions, especially for a long time. But when I was doing those, that was my my go-to. Yeah. Tens of thousands of rounds down various barrels, various guns with that cartridge. So, okay. Uh what’s your third? My third one was tough. I um I was all over the board. I was going to go extremely traditional and it was going to be in one gun that I’ve I’ve literally never owned one and it was going to be a 3006. That was literally my first choice. Then I changed it 270. My second choice was going to be a 308 because everything that you just mentioned, I have a 308. It’s a little 20inch barrel, right? like it’s it’ll do anything I need to do out 500 yards, right? Um you can find brass or or find ammo anywhere, right? It’s been around the world, you know, doing everything. My final choice for my third was 270. There you go. I knew it. So, and and I almost want to switch back to 30 or 308, right? A 30 cal. But I think it just makes sense and it goes back to you. You made a really good point there of 308 was your first boltaction rifle that you got. 270 was mine. I remember that. I remember you saying that. Right. And I’ve I’ve killed elk with it. I’ve killed analopee with it. I’ve killed mu deer with it. I’ve killed tons of white tails with it. Right. I mean, it’s very hard for me to not say, you know, one, you know, you talk about just in our offerings alone, right? We have anything from a 110 all the way up to 140. Yeah. Um, so you can go super fast and light. You can go heavier and you can kill elk size game or bears or whatever. Um, I know what it does again out to that five 600 yard range, right? It’s extremely flat. Um, it just makes sense. So, I I I got to go with 270 for and to be different, I guess, because like I said, I wanted to go 308. I almost switched back to 308 when you brought it up because I was like, “Oh, man. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I’m going to go 270. I came close to having the 270 be my first bolt action rifle. Um, we were I remember I was probably 13ish years old. Yeah. And I I did a lot of archery hunting back then as well. I was pretty much archery muzzle loader, right? Um, you know, we had rimfires, shotguns, we did bird hunting and stuff. So, but yeah, I didn’t own a center fire rifle of my own. Mhm. And I I have a lot of extended family and and back then, you know, when my grandpa was alive, 270 was his like that was his one gun. Do everything. Yeah. He hunted everything with it, like you said. Yeah. Um analopee deer out. It was just 270 win. Right. And so I remember going to a gun shop and looking at a a Ruger um 77 77, but this is the when they had the indented stock, like the all-w weather stainless with the black plastic indented stock. Do you remember those? the the the boat paddle, they kick like crazy. But anyways, um I remember looking at one, I came close to buying it. My own my dad, mom helped me purchase this and and I ended up not. I ended up being a couple years later before I bought that 308. Um but yeah, 270 is a great one. I’ll credit it. It It’s versatile. I don’t think it’s obviously popular. Yeah. You know, I mean, it’s been around forever, but I think it’s kind of lost its popularity. You know, there’s a lot of hate out there on some forms for the 270 and I don’t understand it. Why? Because it’s such an old cartridge. I I think it is. I mean, 192. Yeah, it’s probably so that thing’s 100 years old. Um I think a lot of it is just because there’s so many quote new age cartridges that do very similar things and that people just want to shoot new age stuff, which I get. I mean, sometimes it’s fun to be different. It’s fun to have something new. Um, but like you know, I look at we talk about building guns a lot or having a gun built or even buying some of these. I mean, there’s so many awesome guns on the market today with carbon fiber barrels and stocks and they’re threaded and they’re set up for suppressed and they’re kind of this I’m more into the what I’ll call long range precision hunting rifles. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I think a lot of us um you don’t hear too many people going out and building or having built a custom or semi-custom or purchasing like a you know weatherbe Alpine CT in 270 win right or I’m going to go build a unfortunately they don’t make them right 270 weatherbe you know what I mean like like cuz that’s speaking of that right cuz like I want to own a 30 out 6 I’ve ne I’ve literally never owned one and I tell myself like I have to have one in my safe because again right like you can find ammo ammo anywhere, blah blah blah. Um, and I was like, man, I should just buy a Weatherbe Vanguard or something like that, which I think you can find some Vanguards, but I was like, should just buy a better rifle if I’m going to do it, right? Like, what’s the difference in $900 and $1,200 or $1,400 in the grand scheme? Um, but yeah, they just like it it’s like unless you’re going to have a Vanguard, that’s the only way you can get quote traditional rifle or traditional cartridges once you start stepping up to a Alpine C or Model 307 or a Mark 5, right? They’re basically just Weatherbe cartridges. Yeah. A few other than 7 PRC, right? 300 PRC, 280 Acley, some of the newer. Yeah. Yeah. But no, you’re right. 270 can just it it’s impressive. Yeah, it really it’s flat shooting. I mean, that was a fast, flat, hard, you know. Yeah. Open country, mu deer, sheep. I mean, you talk about sheep hunters, right? I mean, still is. Yeah. Right. You know what’s funny is I’m, as we’re starting to go down the list and everything and I start thinking about this, um, I currently don’t own a 270 because we just ripped one apart and made it something else. Um, I currently don’t own a 3030. Uh, I mean, I guess I do, but I don’t have it in my gun safe because it’s at my parents house. Um, and like everything that I have, I don’t feel like I’ve pulled the trigger on one in five plus years. Yeah. Which is super interesting to think about. Never owned a 270. Never had a desire to. I I think it’s a great cartridge. I just for some reason I skipped over the the 27 and the 28s. I’ve never owned a 28. That Yeah, you’re you’re missing the boat. I know I am. Well, he listening to podcast. I’m thinking about turning my what used to be a 30 odd 6 my first ever custom rifle from 40 plus years ago. I still got the action. Yeah. Is doing a 280 Aley. It’s on my list, but I crossed it off because it’s just not in the top five. Well, at least at least this podcast is switching people’s ideas within within these walls. I don’t know if it’s doing it outside of these walls or or not, but we’ll share our opinions either way. There go. Exactly. Exactly. All right, let’s go to number four. Make me go first. I’ll go. You go. Uh, my 300 PRC. I love that cartridge. As long as I’ve been reloading, six decades. I’ve never hunted big game with Hold on a second. Let’s not just jump over that. You’ve been reloading for six decades. Mhm. Started when I was seven, eight, maybe eight. Yeah. Wow. 45 ACP. Casting bullets, loading them. Yep. Okay. my great-grandfather’s neighbor. I’d go over and watch and I just I got hooked and so he sat down and started showing me the ropes. Crazy. Never a family thing. It it was either the neighbor or friends and selftaught. Interesting. So, but um sorry, 300 PRC. Um like I said, I had never hunted big game with a factory cartridge until the 300 PRC when we released our ammo two years ago this month, se September, I think. Sure. Okay. Okay. Um, I had a 300 PRC. It was about a year old. I had a couple of loads for it with the 208 LRX. It was It was shooting really, really well. That’s what I was going hunting with. We came out with the ammo. I thought, I’m going to buy a box of this and just see how it shot. And it shot lights out. Yeah. I’m I was like, “Holy cow.” So, I decided to go hunting with it. And I shot uh two years ago, I I drew a a Manti late season tag and I shot a really good 12-year-old bull uh with that ammo. And it it did it did exactly I mean it was within 10 15 feet of my own uh velocity wise as as far as my own handload. Wow. It shot really well. And so I I stocked up on something. I probably got about a dozen boxes of that of that of that ammo sitting down in the basement. Yeah. I may never shoot it all but I got it. Yeah. Um how far was your shot on that elk? 790. Drop him in his tracks. He was in his bed. I hit him. He stood up. I hit him. He dropped down and died. Nice. Right back in his bed. Okay. So, and I had my best friend there and a bunch of others. This is your first 30 cal. It’s on your list. Oh, no. No. Well, it’s on the list. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And it’ll be the only 30 cal on my list, but like I said, 38 308 was right there. I It was that or the 65 by 47. So, uh have no desire to have a 3030. Um other other 30 cals the Rome doesn’t interest me. I did I uh I did I did 300 Win Mag. It it was a shooter too. Same bullet the 208 LRX. Yeah. So I in fact it was the year that we came out with with the 208. I said I built that 300 Win Mag around the 208 and the next year I built the 300 PRC and this is why he doesn’t hunt white tail. Right. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. He’s he’s had six decades to hunt whitetail and he still hasn’t done it. Yep. Or at least four decades that you had the money to go do it anytime you wanted. Yeah. Well, there’s other reasons, too, but I don’t need to go into those. Okay. There’s at least two decades. Yeah. That you’ve had the means and opportunity. Yeah. So, yeah. All right. We’re going to push him. He He’ll end up like finding some white tail hunt and just go do it this year. Do you have any other tags this year? Just my spy elk tag. Yeah, you got plenty of time to go hunt white this year. I will give a little bit of advice though. Like if you’re going to go do some high fence, don’t go kill like some 200 inch crazy deer. Yeah. Don’t I mean you mean like big like non-typical type looking thing? Yeah. Like some like I want typical. I want All right. Well, now now your price range just went up exponent exponentially. Yeah. Like 15 to 20 probably for a bigger. You should you should target a 160inch typical free range. That should be your goal. Okay, that’s a tough one. That is a tough one. And I mean, let’s do 140. So, bail. What? Well, he’s up technically. You help me make it. You guys going to help me make it happen? I mean, I think you could go kill 140 this year pretty easily. Mhm. On a free range hunt. Over the counter tag. Yeah. I mean, let’s talk then. You can go to Oklahoma, Nebraska, or I guess Nebraska’s draw now or whatever. Ken would go where every year? Kansas. Kansas. Yeah, Kansas is draw tag. Oh, is that draw? Yeah. Draw. So you go Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky. I mean, you know, uh I mean you could truthfully you can go kill 140 inch deer in Mississippi, Alabama, right? Like just to get on the books. Yeah. At least like Yeah. I mean, Texas, you’re starting to push, you know, 140 inch deer in Texas is, I should say South Texas, right? Is like starting to get a bigger deer in that range. Um, you know, I’ve killed quite a few 125. Like that’s kind of just your average, right? 8 to 10 point type of deer. Um, I did kill 153 inch deer in Texas one time. How big is the deer that’s on the face on our our page? 167. Okay, it’s a nice buck. Yeah, I’d like that one. And then I killed that deer in Iowa last year archery that was 164. Okay. And he had a broken G3 that was that would have pushed him over 170. Wow. And that was a DIY public land. I I like that. I look at that. I go I’d like that one every every day. You you talking about the one on on on the reloading page? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good looking deer. Yeah, it is. So, it’s not I I don’t want just inches. I want it to look good, too, right? So, I mean, again, if you want typical I mean, yeah, go to Texas or Oklahoma or something like that. I think that that would be pretty good. I mean, like Kentucky, you can do it, too, right? I mean, they’re killing 150 inch deer pretty regularly there. Mhm. But it’s it’s just I mean, when you start getting 150, 160 inch type deer, I mean, like just doesn’t grow on trees. I know. You know what I mean? Like I’ve I’ve literally killed I do three deer over 150 in my life tail wise. Yeah. Um I’ve killed quite a few in that 135 to 150 range. Um, but this is I mean literally this is traveling around the country to do it, you know, and having I mean there was years that I was doing five whitetail hunts a year and the biggest deer I might kill that year is 140 inches. Okay. And I was killing on almost every single hunt. You know what I mean? And still 140 inch deer. You know, one thing I learned a while I and I know we’re getting on a crazy sidet track here, but it is what it is. That’s what a podcast is for. Um, but you know there’s one thing or something that I learned a long time ago. I don’t know you guys know who Dr. Deer is, right? Dr. James Crawl, right? Out of Texas. Does stuff with North American white tail, all that, right? Yeah. He says the average whitetail buck should never really get over 130 as an eight point. Like when you start like a true quote mature when they’re at four years old or whatever, right? Okay. On an average white tail bucks, you never get over like 130 in. So when you start pushing above that, like you are starting to really get into like above average type of deer. And then you start talking getting into that 170 Yeah. age class range or or you know, size range. Like now you’re getting into quote rare air. But now it doesn’t it doesn’t feel that way because I think that one a lot of deer are you know heavy publicized very quickly and everything like that but then you get to like a 200 inch deer especially as a freerange deer and if you’re talking typical versus non-typical I mean that’s a giant that is a giant I know I know it is I mean 170inch deer is a giant it’s a big deer it’s still a big deer yeah I’ve only hunted I’ve only hunted I’ve hunted very little white tail um and all my white tails pretty much been in Texas. Um, you’re probably going to kill a white tail this year under the barns umbrella in Montana. Yeah, I’m good with that. I’m good with that. Yeah, I remember, and this could be wrong. This is just what I was told. So, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember being told um by one of the the ranch managers that we’d hunted on their property that the average whitetail hunter, and maybe I can’t remember if they said in the state or in the region or across the country, I don’t remember, but I just remember the statement something like the average whitetail hunter will probably not kill a deer bigger than 125 inches in their lifetime. I I could believe that. I mean, you said that was in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. So, definitely in Texas and anywhere down along the south, right? Like I would definitely agree with that. I mean I grew up in Florida and hunted Florida all my life. I think the biggest deer I’ve ever killed in Florida was like 120 125 inches. Mhm. I’ve killed a couple pretty decent deer. But I mean even when I was growing up in like South Georgia hunting, you know, I remember I killed like 127 inch ninepoint and like everybody thought that I killed a giant a giant, right? It was like the biggest deer ever. Yeah. And then I killed a few years later when I was in the military, I got invited to go um with a buddy of mine on some property or whatever that he had access to. And I killed 148 in deer up there, just giant tinpoint. And he was only like 14 in wide, so he’s super narrow, but he had like 14in G2s and like 12in G3s and he’s just like this huge just basket, right? And um that was the biggest deer they’ve ever seen come off that property. And those people lost their mind to see like almost 150 inch deer. Oh wow. So, you know, because again, average deer was 120 in that people were killing, right? So, Oh, that’s cool. I I could 100% agree that. I think, you know, I think that’s more of a southern thing or or up along the eastern seabboard, right? Um up into the Carolinas and Tennessee and that type of stuff. But you start to get Midwest, right? Like it’s I don’t want to say it’s easy to kill a 120 inch deer or 140 inch deer, but it starts to become more doable. Yeah. I mean, like a a 4-year-old buck should be getting to that 140 plus inch range. Okay. Okay. So, well, I’m rethinking my size requirements. That’s all good. Yeah. I mean, I I think that if you had it if you had it as a 16 like your goal was to kill a solid typical 160inch deer free range, like that’s a very impressive deer. Okay, it is. You’re convincing me. I mean, even as a 10point my absolute ideal, like if I could pick a deer in my life that I ever want to kill, it’s not a 200inch mu deer. Okay, which is weird, right? Like you would think that that would be kind of what it should be. My I want to kill a 8 point 4×4 whatever you want to call it whitetail that’s 160 in. Yeah. And like that is an a that’s an absolute giant deer. Like I would rather kill that over 180 inch 10point. Right. Got it. you could just because more mass, more more length in the T. I mean, and to be able to get to that type of size as an eight point and only have four scorable points, like that’s so big. Four scorable times on each side. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. What’s next? I think I’m up. It’s Greg for number four. Okay. Uh, this one’s probably not going to come as a surprise. Um, is it in the 284 diameter range? Yeah, it is. So is mine. I know which one I I I got in my head narrowed down to two. I just can’t figure out which one it would be. I know what it is. Yeah. It starts with a two and it ends with an I. Yeah. Okay. Okay. 280 Aly improved, which is what I want to have my custom rifle rebarreled into this next year. Yeah. 280 Amp Improved is definitely on my list. Um, I’ve talked about it multiple times. I’ve had three or four of them over the years. Um, I love loading for it. I love the case design, that alley improved shoulder. You know, it’s a 40 degree. It’s it just it’s pretty much ballistically a seven mag almost. Not quite, but almost. But it’s just more efficient. You’re doing it burning less powder. Um, but you’re in that you’re in that performance category, right? Um mine my current rifle is built off a Remington 700 action tred up um blueprinted proof carbon fiber barrel 26 inch with a manners um I believe it was the E5 stock um carbon fiber stock. It’s I’ve killed deer analopee elk. You know I’ve shot 139 LRX, 145 LRX, 168 LRX, and 152 LRX out of it. I’m about to handload the 160 LRX, the 7PRC bullet just for fun. Why not? But it’s a do all gun flash because you have a slightly different twist rate. Yeah, mine’s a one and 8.44 and at our elevation air density, we I can stabilize the 160. Yeah. Um I’ve talked about this before. I don’t need to. I honestly think that 145 to 152 is good kind of the balance. Um I love shooting the 139 in it and just getting velocity up a little bit. Um I go way back to when I first started a 280 Aley. Um we didn’t have any of those LRX bullets available, right? and I was hand loading the 150 grain TTSX and having good results. Um, but yeah, I I like I’ve owned seven red mags. I’ve always liked the seven millimeters. Um, you know, I I’ve told you this before. I’ve I came close to doing a 7 SDW build way back in the day. You know, I’ve help I’ve built a couple 28 noslers for other people. 7 LRM, I’ve messed with that one. It’s I I like that range. You know, 7 PRC’s I’ve done a ton of work with. um put a few of those together. But the 280 Aley just it has it’s it’s versatile, it’s efficient, it’s accurate, um it hits good velocity, not too much recoil. I mean, I can pretty much hunt everything I do with it. Um it wouldn’t be my first choice for elk, but it’s super doable, very capable. Um yeah, 280 amp proves on my list. It has to be on my top five. And again, I get the argument ammo’s not going to be available everywhere. I mean, I was shooting it before it was standardized. Um, so you you could not buy 280 amp proof brass. I was my first rifle, it was truly a wildcat. I was buying 280 rim brass, fire forming it, you know, and I would lose some. Yeah. Through that fire forming process. It’s that many more rounds down the barrel. It’s kind of a pain in the butt. Um, and then once it got standardized and you could actually buy a version, you know, when Nosler standardized it, I started to just buy the brass. But you can technically fire a regular 280 RAM ammo in in a 280 a not that 280 RAM is all over the shelves either, right? Yeah. So, not too much of a valid argument from that availability perspective, but it’s it’s established enough that it’s, you know, it’s at least common the components. And I generally view it as a handloader perspective, other than obviously we we introduced the Vortex LR load with the 152. Right. As much as a diehard hand loader as I am, and I just mentioned all those bullets I’ve shot, the last two seasons of hunting, I’ve used our factory 152 load because it shoots awesome by gun and it’s just easier. Yeah, it’s really interesting, you know, as I just built one myself, right? Or we built one. Um, which is almost identical. Like since you just described yours, I’m like they’re pretty close. They’re like the stocks are like the only thing that’s different and the twist rate. essentially you have a one in 8.4 before you said I have a one and nine but we have 26 in proof barrels on it right 700 uh action all that except stock’s just different but um it’s really interesting how much of a resurgence that the 280 is like is starting it it’s weird it’s kind of like gained the steam and and I don’t know it’s really interesting to me just I mean it was never on my radar for the longest time and then you know I started to see like JVB was talking about a 280 a lot Y um and then obviously coming to work here talking to you a lot and yeah there’s enough there’s enough rifles available now I mean you’re seeing more and more you know you mentioned some of the weatherbe stuff they’re chambering 280 act improved right you know I mean Savage builds a bunch of rifles in 280 improved including the ultral light with the proof carbon barrel you know which is a great you know there’s a lot of like the the fierce Christian arm type you know semi-custom if you will you know and then it’s easy to have one built and chambered There could be others like you know I’m not going to name I don’t I’m not aware of every factory rifle available in it but there’s there’s options right there’s factory ammo on the shelves like we’ve talked about the Vortex LR load um it’s it’s a good round. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got a Remington 700 action I’ve had since the early 80s. It started out as a custom 300 6. It’s been a 306 a now it’s a it’s a wildcat I created according to Dave K. No one’s ever done it. He says it’s a 8 mileser neck to 65 with the shoulder blown out to 30° 65 by 57 BR he calls it. I’ve killed deer and elk with that. It’s great. So, but I’ve got the rifle ready to go. I just got to have it rebarreled in 280 ACL AI. There you go. That’s it. I uh I’ll say one little thing. I used to joke and we already talked about 270 win and it’s obviously this is just in good fun because I like the 270 win but I I’ve teased many times that the best thing you can do to a 270 win and you could even say or 256 or 306 is rip the barrel off and build it into a 280 amp. Yeah. Yeah. So Greg says that and he laughs at me because he talked me into I mean I don’t know if he talked me into doing it but that’s basically what I did. Yeah. is exactly that. Yeah, I ripped everything off my 270. That cartridge platform, I mean, it’s it’s a simple barrel swap. Yeah. And you got so many different cartridges out there that you could shoot. Yeah. So, you don’t have to buy a new rifle all the time. Where’s Where’s that? As long as you can buy rifles and still go hunting. Yeah. Like, that’s all that matters. Yeah. There you go. All right. My number four. Anybody take a guess? I think I know what you’re going to say. Okay. 257 Weatherbe. No. Okay. I’m I’m going bigger, Alec. I started small and I’m going bigger than seven PRC. No. Oh, wow. I’m surprised. I am too. I thought it would be seven PRC. Seven rev. There you go. Yep. It’s still got to be I mean, we’ve had this conversation a lot, right? Like I’m a 280 guy, 284 guy, whatever you want to say, right? 277 or 284. Like you I feel like you give me one of those two in any any size, whatever, right? any cartridge. I I can probably go hunt and kill anything that I need to, but it go it goes back, right? So, I had 270 first or I had 3030 first. I had 270. My next step up was seven rim mag. It just made a lot of sense for me. You go back to like our, you know, um, options that we have. You know, you’ve got all the way down to what 110 grain bullet that you can shoot in that seven rim mag all the way up to 160. So, you can go super light and fast. You can go heavy if you need to. Y um I mean again I’ve killed everything from white tail to elk with it, right? And everything in between. I’ve killed bears with it. It just makes sense for me. So and it’s going to be readily available on shelves. It’s it’s always like that is one of my key requirements on this list. Which that makes sense. Key requirements. Yeah. You go somewhere, you go to Alaska, you go to a small town, they may have that ammo in. I mean, it might not be the ammo that you are shooting. Yeah. But there’s gonna be something in that cartridge. Like the gun would still be functional, usable with ammunition because you had it. There was a little sporting goods store in Gnome when I went up on my grizzly hunt years ago and I was shocked at the variety of ammo they had in there. Yeah. I just just a huge variety just in case. Yeah. So, all right. I’m curious to see where Allan goes with this one. We’re at the last one. So, you want Allan to go first on this one? Yes. This is my big rifle. Yeah. You got to have one. Yeah. Yeah. This is This is I I had this built years ago to go back to Alaska to go back for Grizzly andor Moose. And uh thanks John’s Bars Nest. It’s my 9.3 by 62. I’ve owned a couple of them. This is a a custom built on a pre 64 action Pacnor barrel and it’s a freaking tag driver with our 250 grain tip triple shock. And that’s that’s that’s it right there. I had uh I’ve got one of um Darcy Eckles Legend stocks holding the whole thing together. Run a little uh 1.6 to five I think loophold uh and with with believe it or not with a BDC turret up on top. I got three of them for for different altitudes. Yeah, that’s a cool a cool cartridge. I I’m not going to argue with you. The 93 by 62 is a good round. Yeah. And a lot of people claim it it’s a short range cartridge, but you put that 250 grain tip triple shock, you hit 25 or 2600 feet per second. It’s the same ballistics as a 308 168, but you’re putting a lot more weight down there. Yeah. When when it hits. Well, and I I’ve recently actually been doing some testing with the 93 um with some 286s, but we also shot some 250 grain digit tip triple shocks into some gel um downloaded to 2,000 ft per second. And the expansion of that 250 TTSX of the 93 at 2,000 ft per second in jail was super impressive. Oh, I want to see those pictures. I want I’ve got the bullets. I’ll show you. Yes, please. Yes, please. Yeah. Is this the one that we were talking about a couple weeks ago? That unfortunately it’s not available on the Yes. in the American market, but it’s available in the Euro market. Correct. Through Barnes. Yep. Barnes does a Euro 93x 62 with the 286 TSX. I think that needs to change. I agree. I couldn’t disagree with that one single bit. That is such a great heavy cartridge. I mean, it to me it kicks like a 220 grain 300 on six. It’s not a bad recoil. It’s more of a push instead of a very bizar slap, you know, sharp. Uh, and yet, I mean, it’s grandfathered in many countries in Africa to still hunt any of the the big five, right? So, uh, Ottobach 1908, if I remember right, uh, they were starting to colonize Africa and they needed something that the farmers who were not rich hunters, the farmers and ranchers could actually use to, uh, protect their crops and it just works. And when a lot of those African countries decided to go as with the 375 caliber as the minimum, there was enough uproar that in some of those countries they grandfathered that that cartridge. Uh that the 286 is is the typical there are heavier, there are lighter, but the 286 I think is the typical bullet weight. But with our 250 tips or non-tip uh TSX, it’s a phenomenal killer. K Buffalo. Yeah, it’s a 366 diameter just for those that don’t know. And we’re not the metric because we don’t Yeah. What I think 1,800 ft per second minimum impact velocity for full expansion on the 286. Yeah. No, on the 250. Oh, the 250. Yeah. I say no. The 286 is made more for Yeah. when you’re stepping up to Cape Buffalo within 150 yards. Got it. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for the history lesson. That was fun. I didn’t even rehearse it. Little nuggets. All right, Greg. Yeah. So, this one I’ve struggled with my last one. Um because I kind of screwed up. I started too small. I need to retract my 6x 45. We can do that at the end. We can do that at the end. But you know, I I hit I feel good because I hit my throwaway. So I I have my versatile do all available everywhere. Yep. So I can I can go a little obscure, but I don’t want to go get crazy. Okay. Um I feel like my 280 a can really hunt anything in North America. M so I don’t feel like I need to step up, you know, to like a 300 win mag or which I think is a great round. You know, I I’m going to go big. Okay. You know, if I can only have five now, I need something that is the next level. Mhm. And there’s a few that stand out. I love the 375 H&H. I love the 375 Ruger. And I get I totally understand your 9 your 93x 62, but I’ve always loved the 416s. um doing a lot of development with Safari ammo, low development, you know, 416 Remag, 416 riby. Um they’re great rounds. I if if I was going to have a dangerous game gun, I’m going Kate Buffalo. I’m I’m doing big stuff. Even up in Alaska, I want something that’s just going to pound giant coastal brown bears or whatever. I need a big big cartridge. I’m just going to say screw it. We’re going big. Rigby, we’re stepping right over none of the above. I I brought all those up for a reason. I would pick the Remington. Yeah, the Riby um I love it. It’s a riby. I get the whole appeal there, but at the end of the day, when you really look at the pressures they’re they’re loaded to the 416 Remington does it’ll stomp a 416 ribby. Yeah. When they’re both loaded to pressure, you need a really long action or something. You need the longer bigger action, bigger head. Like there’s just more around the rigby to really make it work for most people. The 416 REM is more approachable in more platforms, but I’ve got to go different. And it comes from some personal experience handloading for this specific cartridge, and I would go 416 Taylor. Okay. Okay. I did some work for a guy once on a pretty sweet custom rifle in 416 Taylor. I’ve worked up some hand loads for it. Um, it was impressive what you could do with that little bit smaller case. Um, super efficient. I was almost 416 rim mag velocity um but with less powder. Yeah. But I would actually load our uh 350 grain TTSX in the 416. Mhm. And that would be my big do everything Africa, Alaska. Yep. The far north to the, you know, and this is something I don’t do, right? I’m not a go kill giant animals yet. They’re on my dream list. when you become an empty neester someday. Yeah. But yeah, I’d go for it. 416 Ruger. That’ be another big giant animals is is your white tail. Yes. All the big giant animals. Yeah. Africa and Alaska. Sorry. Yes. I said it right. Yeah. Yeah. 416 Ruger is another one that’s mentioned. Honestly, I don’t even know if I’d pick one. I’ll back up. A 416. Just a 416. 416 Ruger. 416 Rem. 416 Taylor. You have time to change your mind. I have time to change my mind. I would pick a big 416. Yeah. Your turn. I know. I’m over here researching. Have you not decided yet? I I kind of did. Okay. Um got down down down to two. I’ve got it down to three again. Um so I have one on my list that I wrote down, but two thoughts were coming through my mind the entire time. Mhm. Um, he brought up he basically kind of took one away, right? But I was going to go 375 H&H again, right? Highly versatile. Can kill anything that it needs to kill. Ammo’s everywhere. Ammo’s everywhere. I then started thinking about 416 Riby because I think it makes a lot of sense. Um, and then I was also really thinking about 470 Nitro Express as if we’re going to go big. you’re going real big, then that’s might as well just shoot for the stars, if you will. You know, you might be seeing stars when you shoot it. So, now we’re going double rifle. Yeah, double rifle because it’s like, you know, I’ve got my seven red mag. Have you shot ours? I have not. I’ve only shot a 470 Nitro Express one time. I’m going to tell a little funny quick story. Um, so I was in hunting camp. It was right before I joined the military and I was just kind of hanging out. the guy that owned the property came back came up and he was an African hunter and traveling all and he had just gotten back from like a Africa trip and he’s like hey you guys want to shoot my my elephant gun? He’s like I got it sitting in the truck like sure whatever. I was like 19 years old, 18 years old, whatever. Didn’t know any better. And he’s like okay cool. And he hands it to this one guy before me and he’s like all right well it’s you know it’s double rifle and you got two triggers and blah blah blah. like, “Okay, cool.” Guy shoots and it literally flat knocked him on his ass. Like off his feet on his ass. And I’m sitting here watching this like, whoa. Like, what’s going on right now? Come to find out, he pulled the first trigger first. And when he pulled the first trigger, he doubled he he d he double pulled. So, um, and he’s like that because the guy was like, “What in the hell?” He’s like, “That thing doesn’t kick that bad.” Right. Um, so anyway, he handed it to me and only put one in there and he’s like, “Just pull the back trigger.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” So I shot it and I was like, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” Again, it’s just that constant push and it’s just, you know, it’s a heavy gun. But to me, shoot some FNC with ours and have him step up. We go shoot one. We go shoot one today. Oh, no. Not just once. I mean, like 30 or 40. Yeah. So 470 nitro um and 500 nitro. Um we we load both obviously in Safari. Um but when we did development way back when for the Safari ammo and you know again I’ve talked about this but we we qualify loads and pressure test barrels. That’s what we established the the charge for given powder you know bullet case primer combination. Um and then we also do accuracy testing out of accuracy barrels. But we also test out of actual rifles for functional casualty testing. You know, with a double gun, it’s not so much feeding because you don’t have magazines and feed ramps. It’s literally just, you know, drop in the chamber. Drop them in. Yeah. But we still do a lot of testing out the the double rifles. And we were looking at point of impact testing, you know, and so we’re matching and we’re actually tuning the load to get our TSX load and our solid our banded solid load to have, you know, more or less the same point of impact as say 50 yards, 100 yards within an acceptable range. We shoot those through the accuracy test barrel to do that. We’ll shoot five shots of TSX loaded, five shots of solids, you know, and we have an acceptance criteria, but we also shot out of the guns. And we’re also doing all the FNC testing during our design verification test, which is a lot of rounds. Yeah. And so back then, I actually shot more rounds out of a 470 Nitro double rifle off a bench than I ever care to do again. I mean, it was it got it’s not bad like to just stand up and shoot, right? It’s not bad. But when you have to get on a bench and you’re doing accuracy precision work, and I’m talking like over the course of a couple days, I’m over a 100 plus 200 rounds out of this gun. Yeah. It’s a good way to really develop a flinch and lose some some fundamentals of shooting properly. I can only imagine. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s it’s manageable. You’re up. You’re up. All right. No, no, no. I mean, you get to go shoot. Oh. I I thought you you you wanted you wanted my final answer. You bring up a good point though. You look at the PH’s, you know, the dangerous game PH’s and most are carrying a double rifle. You know, I mean, you look at all out just reliability, end all, you know, when it comes to protecting themselves or their client, you know, they the client might be shooting a boltaction 375 H&H or 416 or 458 Win Mag or lot, but most of the time the the PH has got to double in 470 or 500. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve only um shot a 375 a few times and I actually shot it a lot off a bench like trying to get accuracy and stuff and then I actually took it to Alaska and shot a black bear with it with 375 H&H kind of the dumbest thing ever but snuck into like 80 yards and I’ve got the video it’s it’s kind of hilar I mean you know watching a black bear get hit with that was flop and I mean literally pancaking type of thing but um Okay. I don’t know. I I think I’m going to go 375 H&H. I think it just makes more sense. Again, it goes with the rest of my list of readily available, right? You you can get it in a lot of different types of rifles. Um it makes a lot of sense and you can still go kill literally anything in the world with it. And that’s a good point. like average Joe, you know, workingass American can buy a 375 H&H in a pretty standard boltaction gun. Even a cheap double rifle. Yeah, they’re not cheap. $12,000. Not they’re way out of the the realm of the majority of us, right? Yeah. All right, I will give you guys two minutes for any retractions that you want to make or any changes. I’m taking away my 6×45. Okay, you get two minutes to tell us why you’re going to choose something else and what you’re choosing. So, I’m going to go something a little more versatile. Okay. Um, I’m still going to keep it small. Yeah. I’m actually going to go six Creedmore. Good choice. Yeah. And that’s just because I can now hunt deer, analopee. I can shoot 112 grain match burners on thousandy plates or further. I can shoot pars style matches with it or I can hunt with it. I can get ammo or I can handload. Um, super accurate. I actually have two different rifles in Six Creed. Um, okay. It’s I would I would go that route for something a little bit smaller, kind of a dual purpose. It’s a good choice. Predator/match slash thinskin game hunting. It’s a good choice. Makes sense. Which one of your other three did you want to switch to? No, I don’t need to switch anything. I’m good with mine. I mean, you’re never going to find ammo anywhere, but sure. You haven’t seen been in my basement. I think what this really turned into, well, that’s the thing. That’s why he doesn’t go hunt anywhere cuz he’s just like, I won’t be able to find ammo if I get over there. I was going to say what this what this podcast really turned into is we need to convince Allan to slow down on gun builds and go white tail and sell some guns and go hunt whitetail cuz I didn’t call him out at the time, but he made a little comment when he was talking about his 300 PRC that he’s like, “Well, I also built Oh, that’s true. He does have that.” He’s like, “I also build a 300 Win Mag to shoot that two.” Right. Yeah. Yeah. But what he didn’t tell you is like he built the 300 win back, spent all this money on it, and then was like, “Nope, now I’m going to go 300 PC.” No reason, no logic behind it. Are both still in the safe? Uh, did you get The wind mag is gone. Okay. So, 300 Win Mag is gone. Is gone. Okay. And then I built had built a 300 PRC. Hunted with it couple years. Took the Big Bull two years ago. Y hunted with it last year. Didn’t shoot anything with it. uh did with the 308 and my muzzle loader. But this year uh four months ago, I had Travis spin up a 300 Super Wisdom barrel on that rifle. And I pretty much finished uh load development, couple different powders, came into some Reloader 26. It’s shooting really, really good. Tag and stale at 600, 900. No problem with that thing. In fact, uh I actually had the cartridge in my bullet in my pocket here till we started this before I started the podcast down on my desk. So the next time that we have Allen on the podcast, it’s like you’re only allowed to have three guns, not hunting guns, not match guns, not pistols. You have three guns for the rest of your life. What three guns? Handguns. I know we didn’t get into handguns, right? So, I mean, because when we were talking about potentially doing this podcast earlier in the week, I said, “What if we just did it as you get five guns for the rest of your life? What five guns would you want?” Oh, man. And and it’s not hunting cartridges or match cartridges or what? Yeah. You only get five guns. What? And we’ve clarified that includes like handgun, right? Exactly. Yeah. Shotguns, everything. Okay. Yeah, that would be an interesting one. That would be an interesting one. Wow. So that well it could be either really simple or simple, right? 12 gauge. Well, what what I think you would do is you would only end up picking two of these and then you’d probably have your other stuff. Yeah. 22 for sure. You don’t need to do it right now. Hold on. Yeah. Okay. That’s a whole another podcast. Yeah, another podcast. So cool. Um I’m not switching anything. I feel like I I kind of talked through all of my Yeah, you definitely came at it from a more practical perspective. I had my 308 though. I have my safe Yeah, your safe one. I say that. Yeah. Yeah. I’m not surprised you picked what you did because you, you know, all factory ammo. I’m not either. I thought you would do seven PRC though. I did, too. Well, again, I I tried to go back to it’s like I would want something that I know is readily available. And I mean, as much as 7PRC is taking off and everything, we can’t keep it in stock. So, there’s it’s probably not in stock on the shelves somewhere. Yeah. Is the way I look at it. For sure. Especially as we closer we get to hunting season, right? Exactly. Yeah. Okay, cool. I mean, we had uh we’ve run what, three or four batches now since we we came out with that last year. We keep running out. I I feel like we’ve run three or four patches in the past six months. Yeah. I mean, and we keep literally like we had just restocked it two weeks ago and it sold out that fast and then now we’re having to like restock it again. Yeah. Can I name drop what I mean, Little Crow Gun Works and Tim Johnson. What about him? when he did his podcast about a year ago and he actually bought our ammo, shot it, and I’m paraphrasing, but I believe he said something to the effect of if you’re going to shoot seven PRC loaded factory ammo, he says this is the best stuff he’s ever seen out there. Like I said, I am paraphrasing, but yeah. And I’m and and I’m sure that he’s not the only guy that I mean it’s all over YouTube or anything like that. like if you just kind of research it just how many people have used it and absolutely fell in love with it. So yeah, and it’s such a great bullet. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Mitchell pulled all the stops out when he created that bullet. I know. But now he’s put that as like his new like baseline and everything he wants to build past that and it’s costing the company a lot of money to be able to build all these cool new tip designs and everything else. Yeah, exactly. R&D costs. Well, thanks guys. I appreciate your time. Um, Alan, it’s always a pleasure to have you on the podcast. You always bring a different perspective. I don’t know if it’s the right perspective, but it’s definitely a different perspective. Not right or wrong. It’s just mine. Exactly. All right. Thanks, guys. And, uh, thanks everybody for listening to another Barnes Bullets podcast. Thanks.