00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode and today on the show, we're talking guns season. And to do that, I'm first joined by my father to discuss our gun hunting traditions. And then I'm going to be met with Adam Weatherby and Kevin Welkerson to discuss firearm hunting gear setting, an ethical max range, becoming a better marksman, and much more. And now welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought to you by Onyx. And as I just mentioned, today's episode is all about guns season. You know, many states across the country right about now, give or take, have or will be soon opening their firearms seasons for deer and other species. So for many of us, this time of season is all about a shift. You know, hunting tactics change, gear choices change, dear behavior changes, and hunting goals changed. So you know, all these changes, all these shifts, that's what i want to talk about today. So first I'm bringing on my father for our intro conversation. We want to kind of talk about the history, the culture, and the traditions of what guns season and gun hunting means in my family. Now, we're just fresh off of our first gun hunt of the season together, my dad and I up at our Northern Michigan deer camp Ken Ravan as we call that, So we're gonna talk about that. Once we wrap that up, then we're gonna kick it over to an earlier conversation I had with Adam Weatherby and Kevin Wilkerson from weather Be Inc. To discuss all sorts of more contactical and gear related questions around hunting. So things like how to pick the right rightful, how to pick the right cartridge, um, how to become a better shoot, or how to I don't think about the ethics of gun hunting, and a number of different things along those lines. So we kind of cover both sides of gun hunting, the the tangible tactical stuff and then the intangible, bigger picture culture side of it, which which I hope is going to make for an interesting conversation and when you guys will benefit from. So without further ado, I say, we just get right into it. I've got to repeat guests here with me for the introduction, Mr David Kenyon, thanks for hopping back on the show. Hey, you're welcome. Uh do you have a good time this past weekend? Pops? I had a great time. It was fun. It was fun, and I kind of I screwed up. As you know, we already talked about this, but I meant to bring my podcast recording equipment to camp with me so we could do this chat they're together sitting in front of fire, but I forgot all that stuff. Um, But what I wanted to do here was, as you know, UM, the rest of this podcast conversation with when the main two guests is going to be about, you know, kind of like the tactical and gear related questions around what it means once firearms season opens up. But for you and me, I know, when gun hunting season opens up, it means more than just changing our gear and changing how we're hunting. It also kind of means something different for I don't know us, like culturally. So that's kind of what I wanted to talk with you about in addition to just kind of talking about the weekend. But how would you describe our tradition for guns season up north? Um? I don't know We've talked about a little bit in the past, but how would you describe kind of what this past weekend meant for you this year and every year. So there were two holidays in November for family Thanksgiving where we got everybody together, we had a big turkey dinner and um celebrated thankfulness for all that we've been given. And opening day of gear season, big holiday. Yeah, and you know, to your point, Grandpa would start talking about the the the opening day of deer season back in June, you know, and literally he'd start coming off the monks, only five more months to deer hunting season, Dave, un it's gonna be so excited to get out there, so on and so forth, and so for us, it was it was really a ritual. There was something we celebrated, and getting everybody together and getting the guys together and and being part of that that group, and especially you know that first morning heading out for the for the big hunt was kind of in our blood. It really was. Yeah, And we talked about this over the past couple of days, how the opening period of gun season just as a different feeling than the opening of bow season because you and me we started bow hunting when I was I don't know, twelve years old or thirteen years old. So at that point we had these Now we have two parts of our season. We had both season and then we had a gun season. And now today that's still the case, a little bit more so for me since I you know, I'm bow hunting a ton, um. But I was telling you how it's it's a very different thing for me now. Both season for me is this this go go go go, blood, sweat and tears, hunting like crazy, you know, trying to kill a mature buck, traveling across the country up early, up late. Uh, just a grind, especially during the rut. When it comes to gun season. For me, it's a little bit of a shift. Um. It was kind of even the case back when you and I were both hunting together when we were younger. Um, we bow hunted, We were out there quite a bit, but it was much more of like a solitary activity like you and me would go hunt. We're hunting behind the house. But when guns season came, there was this shift and it's the same the same shift we have today, which is it shifts from more of a focus on the hunt, a focus on getting out there kind of solitary try to kill your deer. To this shift towards the camaraderie and and all the pomp and circumstances around the hunt, that kind of becomes a little bit more important. Would you do? Would you agree? Is that kind of when guns and opens, it's kind of more about the experience and the people in the place than the actual sitting out there is trying to shoot something. Yes, I would say was both. I mean, it was absolutely the former, right, It was getting us all together. We had some of the people in our hunting group we hadn't seen since the previous you know, rightefless season, So it was getting anybody together. We talked about it, We had phone calls and and no sent back and forth during the year and how excited we were to get together and on all of that. So finally getting together was kind of this culmination of all this anticipation and all this excitement. But you know, we're all talking about the big gear we're going to get and talking about the sign we've seen, and you know, and gee, I'm gonna go out here and the big one of the big rituals mark and I'm sure you remember this is the night before. We typically would come up either the day before opening day or a couple of days before opening day, whatever we possibly could. And uh, you know, certainly not something that you would probably suggest a hundred due, but we spent that first day or two going out and scouting. Right now, we've been up their previous weekends, maybe even a month or two prior, and that sort of thing. But you know, we just, uh, we would go out and kind of checked a sign again, you know, check the trail camps if they were out. Um, try to stay out of the woods as much as possible, but if we if we had that last bit of stuff to do, we would And it was all excitement about the signing song. I saw scrape here, and I saw you know, rubbed there and a scrape and so and so forth. That was part of the excitement that built up to that. And um, and then usually the night before we usually stay in. Sometimes we go up, but usually we'd stay in. We'd make you know, if somebody would bring up a big pot of chili or or venison stew or chop suey or something, we have a great meal, you know, talk around the table, and we've finished off the night playing poker, right, But the whole time we're telling stories, both telling stories about deer hunting season has gone past, and looking up on the wall with all the antlers and telling stories about each one of them, and you know and saying, man, I remember that hunt, Dad, when you were out and that deer came right up on top of you, or at one with Uncle Steve where you shot the deer the big eight point one weekend and you know, you came home and you promised, you know, I looked up at you as a dad, and we're going to do the same thing the following weekend, and lo and behold, we did, you know. So that was just all of that, that storytelling and and the family coming together and and you know, we were especially my dad. My dad was running all the time. I mean, he had two jobs. He was a director at the gas company and he was a you know, a senior officer in the army, and he never had a lot of free time. So that was the time we spent as a family. And and you know, really when we kind of came together and it was okay just to kind of stop and settle down and and share stories and share time together. Yeah, and that is exactly what it is now. I feel like for you and me and the rest of the guys that come to camp now, it's it's that chance to get away from everything else, get up to the cabin, turn off your cell phones, turn off your iPads, go off the grid, and just be together and the hunting and the that is that is the excuse to get up there and be together and to tell these stories and to eat some good food. Um. But at least for me now, the most important part of gun hunting season, for me, at least here in Michigan, is being with you guys and being up there at Ken Rovan. And uh, of course, yes we'd love to shoot a deer. But I would if you told me, like, here's okay, here's a situation. If you told me I could only choose one of these outcomes. I could go up to kenn Ravan, what we call her deer camp. I could go up there next year, and I could kill a five year old hundred fifty buck next year. That's option A. But I'm the only one there. Just be up at Kenn Raven by shoot a hundred and fifty five and half year old buck. Or option B is that I get to go up there and I don't kill buck, but I'm there with you and Uncle Steve and Terry and Josh and maybe my son, and we get to spend a week up there and just have the best time telling stories and eating good food and all that. I'm gonna take Option B every time. That is what I would agree. And frankly, and you've talked about this before in the show. That's kind of the way it's been for the last ten years. So the populations just kind of dwindles where we just have not seen a lot of deer up there in the last ten fifteen years. Prior to that, as we've talked about, we saw more, and when we did get a chance to bring in, you know, getting a deer every season or a couple of year of the season was not unheard of. It's been kind of, you know, kind of slip pickens over the last fifteen years. And yet we all still go up there. We all still love being together. We all still go out and you know, start our stands up and do the scouting and do all the other things. Can we tell our stories not because quite honestly, any of us expects to come home with a hundred and fifty and you know, mature buck. But because we love being together and we love what Ken Roban represents, and we love God's creation and being outdoors. Yeah, it is. It is that that culture, that tradition, that connection to a place and the people that you share with makes it one of my absolute favorite times of year every year. And this weekend was a great example of that. I mean had a blast. I know short, we had to you know, two nights, two days, but so nice is to be up there. And as you know, that first morning, I said, you know what, guys, you guys go out, head out at dawn, go hunt. I'm gonna take it a little slow this morning and just kind of soak it in and rejuvenate myself because I've been going NonStop for three weeks, hunting every single day all day, kind of just going after it during the rut, and I've just kind of warmed myself to a pulp. So Saturday morning, you guys headed out at you know, before first light, and I waited. I drank a cup of coffee and sat in the chair and I just looked up at the wall with all the bucks on the wall and thought through some of those stories that I remember, and some of those moments I remember, and sat and looked out the front window and imagine what it was like when Grandpa and Jerry were sitting in the same chairs looking out across the lawn and out in that field it used to be a field. Now it's a forest. And thought about, you know, the days when I was a little kid up here, and imagined how cool it's going to be next year or the year after that when I bring my son up. And I just spent I don't know, an hour and a half maybe when typically i'd be out hunting. I just spent that first hour and a half sitting there and just kind of taking it in and just closed my eyes and just took some deep breath and just try to smell it. Just smell and think and taste, like just soak it all in. It was. It was so nice. And then I headed out to go hunt, and I just slowly walked my way. I still hunted my way, uh to the north, across that public land towards some of our old stomping grounds back when you and I were hunting together, and I just walked and took a couple of steps, stopped glassed, looked around, took a couple of steps, took I don't know, forty five minutes or something, maybe longer almost an hour, I guess, to get to the location where you and I used to hunt our old blind. And I'm in the old blind and now it's all I don't know if when the last time it is you got out there to that spot, but it's all collapsed. There's hardly anything left. There's just on one of the trees, there's you can see a couple of nails, and there's a little bit of that old carpeting that Grandpa used to use as walls for the blinds um so that some of that is on one of these trees. And then you can see a couple of the posts that have been cut. So I was just standing there in the midst of what used to be are blind, and I remember just touching the nails and rubbing my hands against the old carpet and just like kind of touching that tree and just like physically connecting with this place that we've spent, you know, so many great times, so long ago. And as I'm standing there just kind of thinking about these things, I hear crunch, crunch, crunch, literally breaking me out of my little reminiscence here come to deer walking right up on me. And it was such a cool moment and kind of like, I don't know, one of those weird little things that UM just made for a really cool experience out there that brought it all back to why why we do this stuff in the first place? You know, Yeah, it was you know, it was interesting when you that morning when we were talking about where we're going to go and that sort of thing, and you said you were gonna, um, you said you're gonna head out. Initially you said you're gonna head south right and or you're gonna head north. And I said, no, I want you to go buy the food, bounce and and hunt south. And I said, well, gee, that's why I worked on them all year for you. I want you to get out hunting and I want you to get the big mature here. And that's when you said, but Dad, you don't understand this is this is different for me. And you went through what you just talked about, and I kind of the word I used and I thought I had was kind of an intermission for you, you know, UM, for us, this is this is the peak of the season. Right, the rightful season is uh, you know, I went out in both hundred and archery hundred a number of times, but rightfless season is this, That's the that's the pinnacle of the season for us. It's your intermission and that's kind of that's kind of a little bit of an insight for me. Um And and yeah, that's really pretty cool that you don't think of the cabin that way in the camaraderie that we have, and I'm very thankful for that. To me, it's the most important time of the year, not because I'd love to get a big deer. You know, we went through and I think they're probably going to talk about the pictures we saw on the trail campra Man I got excited about that. That was really cool because we just have not seen that kind of evidence in such a long time. To see it finally and see the proofs of our labor and um see the benefits of you know, the the management process that's going on in Michigan finally start to come to fruition, that was really exciting. But to be there with you is the single most important part of deer hunting camp for me. Yeah, and you're right, it was. It was encouraging to see, yes, which had our trail cameras, we have more, you know, relatively mature bucks on camera, more consistently than ever before. I think there's at least three Bucks that might be three year older, um, which is a big deal up there, and we've never had that and just the how often they showed up in the past. We've had some mature Bucks show up over the last four years since we started doing some improvements and started running trail cameras. As you know, dead we've had a mature Bucks show up or to show up most years now a time or two on camera. But this year there's deer that are showing up weekly daily, um off down and in daylight. So that's exciting. Now, we didn't see him while we were out there hunting, but I think that's more a product a product of we just haven't had a lot of time to spend up there this year, and and then you know, tactical stuff, but but it's it's so encouraging just to know they're up there and that some of the things we're doing or helping some uh. And it's you know, as we talked about this spring, I think it gives me hope for the future when we start bringing Everett up and Soun number two, when he starts coming up and Josh is Soun Wade and and all that. So, man, it's it's good to see you talked about the importance of us getting a hunt together, and now we haven't got to do that a whole lot over the years since you know as a kid, we got a unique opportunity to do that. Though earlier in November on the Back forty, you came down and hunted on the Back forty for a couple of days. Um, we haven't talked about on the podcast. You wanna give us a quick, uh story of of what that was like for you. So you you came down and hunted our new Back forty farm. It was bow season, it was November seventh and eighth. I think, Um, I was super excited to get you out because you've never really been able to hunt a good area during bow season during the peak of the rut. So I had these hopes that we're going to see all sorts of activity and you know you're gonna see a big buck and get a chance at your biggest buck ever. Um, that was kind of how I thought it was gonna go down. Enter the scene on the night of November six, the arriving camp. What do you think about it? What what stood out to you from that hunt? Well, other than the sausage being made, that was that was kind of a trip by that. You by that you mean getting to see how we produced the show. Yeah, yeah, that was really fascinating. That was really interesting to see all that go was into what what you and everybody does and how exciting that is and and you know, it's just kind of neat, especially for me because you know, obviously I listened to the podcast all the time just to kind of get a feeling for what goes on there at camp and what goes into everything you guys do. It was pretty fascinating for me. But you know, when we went out to the blind Um Thursday morning and then you know, subsequently Thursday afternoon and then Friday, a couple of things, I guess just I mean, you know for me that I almost choke up when I think about, uh, you know, youth is wasted on the young. And if I had known when I was thirty years old, when I know now and uh, and you and I talked about this all the time. Mark, you know that that time when your son's in that blind with you, Um, next year, year after that, whatever, you're gonna look back on over the next forty years as the best times of your life. And uh, that's the way I felt when you and I were in the blind, even with cameraman behind it. I mean, I still I was like, Wow, this is really cool. Man. I got a chance to do something and probably I probably thought I would never be able to do again. And uh, it was just so cool being there with you and and you know, uh and kind of like I said, I mean, it really was fascinating for me to be able to see kind of what you go through and what you do and kind of preparation. And and although you and I hunted or never quite like that, Um, that was really pretty cool. I really enjoyed it. And and yeah, I know we didn't see real big deer, but I did get a chance to see several deer and there was a nice at least for general open standards, um, you know, fairly decent five point And uh, it was my choice not to shoot it. I was really tempted. I still wonder whether I should or not but but just being able to scope the deer, watching as it worked through the field. Um, you and I chatting and talking about you know, all that excitement, all the the adrenaline rushing through you know, my veins, and thinking about that and knowing that if I had there, that I would have been there with you to to shoot and and find and and you know either when we had that experience together, Um, it was a really neat couple of days. So when that we're sitting there together, it's the first evening and it's getting to be towards the last I don't know, hour, half hour of the day something like that, and we hear this big grunt behind us. Remember that, Um, so there was a there was a buck behind us. And you know what, I got to think, And have you ever heard a buck grunt in the while before? Because I know I never heard one up a Kendra over my whole life, and I can't remember ever hearing one when we hunted behind the house. No. No, the only buck frount I think I've ever heard is you. So that's that's actually really cool. Like I remember, it wasn't until I started like going to other states that I started you know, hearing buck vocalizations that were real. Um, so that's pretty cool. You have to hear that. Um, it was actually I recognize it. So you said there was a buck frount and and I heard it, but I didn't realize that's what it was. That's that's how rare that is in my experience to heart. So yeah, it was really exciting to hear that, and then of course getting ready and hoping that he was gonna because it was behind us, like he said, and hoping he was going to walk around to the last of us and get a good shot. And um, you know that that enthusiasm or that anticipation was was was great. Yeah, and then that buck comes topping out over the hill in front of us, and like, yeah, there's a buck, there's a coming up. How you handled it like a champ? I couldn't tell you were you were excited? But were you pretty amped up when that buck was coming in? I was. I was, because, like he said, he came right over the hill and it was it was a port It was a portrait picture, right. He was coming right at his antlers. Even though they were only five point, that was a pretty big five point. He looked he looked like a bigger deer than what he actually was as he got down. And so seeing this deer on top of the hill coming down, I'm getting excited, one of the class one, and I'm pot again the black binoculars first, and then the crossbow of UM scope on him next, and just Washington come on down. And that's when I was debating back and forth. I mean I could have shot him as he was coming down the hill, um, and certainly when he was turning broadside to us. I had a number of times when it was a good shock. Um. And I still, you know, going to my internal debate. Should I have shot that deer and not um, it would have been venice amount of table, right, and uh we didn't. So. But on the other hand, hopefully that that will be a a bigger, more mature deer next year, and and you and I would get a chance, maybe without of it, to take another crack at next year. Yeah, that would be cool. It made for a fun evening, that's for sure. That was a fun experience. And as we said many times, I wish that it had been a more action packed deer hunt. Just the activity is not like I was hoping and we got to work cut out for us to try to improve things out there. But you know, it comes back to the whole moral of the gun season story, which is, you know, all of this getting a hunt together up north with the family and friends, getting a hunt with you at the back ford the other day. Uh, it reminds me of the things that are more important than shooting a deer. Um and that. Uh that's a good thing to get reminded of every once in a while. Yeah, it is. You know, I think that's right on Mark, you know, for me, I know for you, you were disappointed. I was absolutely thrilled. And uh, and they're kind of you know, they're kind of competing feelings, right because I was there with you, because I was I was seeing deer and and and being in this situation where there was a good possibility that nice big buck was going to walk in front, and I was it was going to be it was gonna have an opportunity to shoot that deer with you. Um, that meant more to me than anything else. So I had a ball. I'm glad you still had fun. That was very cool and hopefully we'll have some more chances to do something like that in the future. Um, I gotta ask you one more question while I got you, because we're gonna keep this kind of short. But um, in four days from the time this podcast drops. Yeah, three or three or four days from when this podcast drops, my brand new book, my first book ever, That Wild Country, an epic journey through the past, present, and future of America's public lands that will be officially released to the world on Sunday, December one. You got an early copy of the book and the audio book before anyone can get the audio book. Um, do you have any thoughts you want to share? I didn't coach you on this, I didn't tell you what to say, so you are You are welcome to say whatever you want to say. If you hated it, you can tell me what do you think about the book and is it worth anybody picking it up? Yeah, so admittedly I'm biased, right, but I gotta tell you so. Um. You know your audience probably knows that I'm visually impaired. Um, So I tend to listen to a lot of audiobooks. I read books as well, but I like to read audio books because they allowed me to multitask and do different things in the cistence. I own probably two fifty audio books, UM, because I've been a member of you know, audio book services for twenty years or so, so I kind of have a good feeling for good narrators and bad narrators, and I typically like books where the author narrates this book, UM. So I got your audiobook. So I've got the booth, the book book, and the and the audio version of it UM and have read the book portions of the book, but I really wanted to get the audio version and listen to that because I just my experience with with authors and how that just makes a totally big difference. And it absolutely did so when I listened to the audio version of it UM and again recognized I'm biased, but it was the one of the very best narrated audio books I've ever listened to. And I think Mark, because of your your passion for the topic. First of all, I think that it's just a very well written book with lots of great information, and some of it's very personal. There's some very subspections of the book that are very almost personally embarrassing to me, UM in the sense that they're showing an aspect of you know, who I am and what we did and when we went sort of pictured Rocks trip that uh, you know. On the other hand, I think it was done in a very loving, um respectful way, and you did that throughout the whole book. I mean it was just really well, a really interesting blend of storyte storytelling and historical inter weaving those facts and ideas and thoughts in a in a manner that was very thought provoking for me. And going back to the narration. So what what I have told people is if you possibly can do it at the dal version of it, whether it's you know, through one of the services or a CD or whatever, because it's it's in my opinion, it's it's exponentially better than even the great book that it is in print because you hear your your your passion for public land preservation, you hear your compassion and and thoughtfulness around the people who went on these adventures with you. It just all came through in the audiobook. So I'll stop there, I know, gramble, but but yeah, you get as I did ask, and you know, it is kind of self serving right now. If you if you gave the wrong answer, then it might have been an issue. But you've been you you've been embarrassing me though in front of like other people in public when you start gushing about, like how your son about this book, and I'm always like, Dad, don't go over the top with it. I really appreciate it, but you know, let's let's let's keep it mild. But right now, hey, go for it away. So it doesn't help the fact that I bought fifteen copies already ten copies because I'm giving way to everybody I know the process that is absurd, but thank you. I appreciate. Yeah. But but the reason I started out with the Wold g I've listened to a two D fifty bucks over the course of twenty years blah blah blah, is because I think that gives me some credibility in terms of knowing good narrators and people who could really tell a story from people who just blindly go through and tell their story, you know. And you did a phenomenal job. I quite honestly, it's the best audiobook I've ever listened to. It. Well, thank you for saying that, even though it might be biased, I do appreciate it. I'm glad you're liking it. I'm glad that you liked the chapters that were written about our trip together, UM and I haven't talked about the book too much on the podcast yet, and I'm going to talk about it more in some future episodes in detail. But I do want to give you guys just a heads up a little bit more about what is in store within this book. It is the story of the history of our public lands and across the country and what's happening to them right now and what we might need to be thinking about in the future to keep them around. And I share all that information, UM through the series of three series of my own public land adventures. So things that you if you've listened to this podcast for a while, uh, you know that I care about public lands. You know that I've been following this current controversy around them that's been taking place over the last five years or so. And you know that I've spent a lot of time out there doing these things, seeing these these wilderness areas and national parks and national forests and whatnot. So I tried to weave my own story of trying to learn about these places. I tried to weave that through a series of trips within those places. So I went backpacking Yellowstone National Park with my wife. I went shed hunting with further in western North Dakota and we explored Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I went pack rafting and fly fishing in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana with my buddy Andy Bradley, who was on that Boundary Waters hunt with me. Recently. We went and I did some camping and hiking with my wife. I caribou hunted in Alaska. UM went on a bear hunt with Randy Newburgh in Montana. A whole series of different things like that, and then the backpacking trip I took with you and my sister in pictured Rocks. All those personal experiences I hoped would flesh out and engage people as we learned about these places along the way. So that's the books about. I poured my heart and soul into it. UM. Like I mentioned, we'll talk a lot more about it over the next couple of weeks as the book is released here. UM, But it would and I don't do this often. I don't know if I've ever done this really ever on the podcast before. I'm gonna do it a couple of times this month, UM, I have poured myself into this podcast, in this audience, over the last ten years of Wired to Hunt, in the last uh five years with the Wired Hunt podcast, I hope I've given you guys a lot of value. I hope I've been able to entertain you and inform you and inspire you. And that is what I have tried to do now with this book. If if anything I've done has helped you along the way, or inspired you, or helps you shoot a deer or whatever might be, if you've ever thought to yourself, I would love to give Mark a high five or hand or a handshake, or support who in some way. This is the best way you could ever support me. Please purchase a copy of That Wild Country. It would mean the world to me. This is a dream come true to have been able to write this book. And uh, I really am hoping I get a chance to write some more. And you buying a copy of this book or the audiobook, or buying one for a friend or family member, that would help that be possible. So that's my plug for That Wild Country. This week. I'll give you a couple more as we lead into Christmas. But um, thank you everyone for considering the book, and thank you Dad for so shamelessly plugging the hell out of it. Hey, you can't plug your son's book. I guess that's right. I guess that's right. And thanks Dad for for coming on here and helping me introduce this episode. It's I'm glad we could talk about this because because this is that there's there's two parts to gun hunting for me. One is how to do it and the gear to do it, and the other parts about the people and the memories and the places. And I couldn't think of anyone better talk about that part with than you. So thanks for joining me, Thank you, thank you for having me all right here with me now on the line is Adam Weatherby and Kevin Wilkerson. How are you guys, good doing well? Thanks for having us on. Hey, it's it's my pleasure. I appreciate you getting up bright and early starting the day straight off of the podcast. I hope you've got some coffee at least, I know isn't the best way. I'm on my second YETI full, so I'm good. I'm a little weird. I don't drink coffee, which always throws people off, but it's just because I never have. So it's actually easy when when we go hunting, Kevin doesn't eat breakfast and he doesn't drink coffee. So I'm up usually a half hour before him, in the tent or wherever, trying to get going. He just rolls out, puts on his boots, and starts hiking. How do you function? That's incredible? Yeah, I don't really know. Actually, well about nine, he usually gets really angry. Yeah, I get really angry around a little breakfast bar, and then I just keep going. But it was first, the first couple of our adventures. I could tell Adam was a little worried about me because he was like, you know, getting ready and getting coffee, and you know, I was just kind of like sitting there, and I think he thought that I was just lazy. He were lazy. No, I'm ready to go. That's all right. Well, before we go too far, I guess I introduced the audience to you really brief myself. But I'd love to hear from you yourselves, just a little bit of a cliff notes intro to to your story for each of you. I don't know. Maybe, Adam, do you want to lead us off there? Sure sounds good. Yeah, I'm Adam Weatherby Um CEO of weather Be Inc. Company my grandpa started back in n in southern California. So I'm the third generation leader of this firearms business, rifle, shotguns and ammunition. Passionate outdoorsman and hunter. Father, A two husband to a pretty hot wife that runs this company with me, and uh so I get, yeah, the opportunity to what we believe is make the world's finest firearms. I get to carry that on being an American family owned business. Moved our company out here to share it in Wyoming. Uh this past year, which has been a huge move, built a new facility. So we're just south of you guys, uh here across the border into northern Wyoming and uh absolutely loving it. That's that's a pretty incredible story from everything I've heard about that move. Uh, what about you, Kevin? I want, I do want to dive back into a little bit more about the story of Weatherby. But but Kevin, let's hear yours first two. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how I'm gonna follow up Adam here, but keep Kevin Wilkerson. I get to hang out here and hunt with Adam. No. Uh Um, I moved out here when when Weatherby decided to move from California to Wyoming. I've been a hunter in my whole life and actually primarily grew up hunting over in Tennessee and Arkansas and Indiana and Kentucky for white tails and UM started as I as I got into my college years, wanting to come out west and started doing that. And then when weather Be decided to move out to Wyoming, uh, it looked like a perfect opportunity. I've worked UM for almost a decade now, I think in the outdoor industry and UM all mainly in hunting hunting brands, and so this just seemed like a great fit for me. And uh, I'm happy to be at Weatherby. I think there's a lot going on here that people can get behind. And I also, uh, you know, I love working for the weather Be family, Adam and Brendy. Couldn't ask for better people to work for. And uh we have a great time out in here in Wyoming so far. So UM it's really not as cool as adam story, but that is my story. So me and my wife moved out here. I have a wife and we have a dog, no kids, and uh, you know, just kind of grew up on white tails out east, so well, I gotta believe your story there of moving out to Wyoming, having that having that dream living in the midwest of the South, and then eventually wanting to move out there. That's something that a lot of people can relate to, UM and and that's something I gotta believe has helped And maybe not, but I'm curious, Adam, if that has helped you guys that weather Be moving to Wyoming, UM, because that rocky mountain interior west has such a draw for so many outdoors men and women. What was that like, What's what does that move mean for you guys? Why did you guys decide to shift from California to Wyoming? What's that mean for you guys to come enny in a brand? Yeah, No, it's it's huge. I think, you know, ultimately, it represents our future. I think I often have said here this past year that California represents a rich history and heritage, my grandfather and my father running it, a lot of great people working for him over the years. Wyoming really represents a bright future for weather be UM. You know, we have UM. You know, about eighty percent of our workforce is new here in the past year year and a half. So it's it's a pretty incredible new beginnings of it. Like you said, I mean we're right here at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains. You know, I I tagged Antelope, Muley, an Elk, you know, all well, mountain Lion, all right here in Wyoming this year. Um, our employees are out outdoors all the time. So I think it's it's authentically you know who we are. We've been We're a hunting rifle. We sell a ton of guns too, you know, places east to here and south to here. And so a lot of folks, even like Kevin that grew up UM maybe either wanting to come west or started to but um, you know we so so we're a national company. But but our heart has always been and kind of just even our location, who we are has been in the West, and so obviously moved to Wyoming is huge. It was a business move as well. I mean from taxes and regulations, costa living, um, political climate everything in California that kind of shoot us out of there, and you know, kind of often said we we kind of ran as far away from California as we could and we ended up and shared in Wyoming at the far other end of the spectrum, it's been it's been very very good for us. Um. I mean it's it's been a ton of work. They're gonna lie. Um. We've got a great team, UM, some sweet new things we're working on, a great new facility. Uh, some great new partnerships like with you folks. So it's it's Uh, it's an exciting time for weather, be for sure. And the move really was a catalyst for a lot of that. Yeah, it sounds like you've been fawful busy with all those tags you filled this year in Wyoming. Um, but I have started heading out west too. I've I've done a lot of the big game as well, but I've also been tinkering with white tail hunting out there. I've hunted in oh Montana, North Dakota, and Nebraska, some of those western states and found this some pretty damn good white tails out there. Uh, what's the Wyoming story? Can you give me like a white tail scouting report? I'll keep this one off air. This is just this is just for me. I want the intel. Get Yeah, you get on air, because it's not enough people out here shooting white tails. Really. I mean, the weird thing about Wyoming is well not weird. But when you buy a deer tag, obviously you have to if you want to hunted a good a draw unit, you're gonna have to put in points or you're gonna have to get lucky and get a random draw um as a nonresident. But it's an either sex tag. It's not neither sex tag. It's an either meal deer or war or white tail tag when you get your tag. So for the most part, people coming out to Wyoming, especially from out east or more than likely looking for a mule here, but the white tails don't really uh, get a lot of attention. It's actually it's actually a funny little thing because you know, me coming from out east, you would pass fields, you know Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, whatever, uh, you know, see like twenty deer in the field. You'd be like, oh man, look at those deer. You know a d deer. Oh wow, that's a lot of deer around here. You pass the field and you'll see hundreds and hundreds of white tails and you're like, whoa, that's different. They are very heavy private land. The white tails is compared to you know, your mule deer, elk and a lot of other things you can find on public it's it's definitely a lot harder because they are you know, in the in the hay fields and irrigated areas and those different things. Like I live. I live out on a little bit acreage, and I have muleed here on my properly property exclusively. Uh, once in a great while a white tail wander up. I am probably at most a half mile from our creek to which all those properties have white and and I might see two white tail a year. Well, I lived here for a year and a half. I'm talking like I'm a local expert. But in the last year that rarely come up. And so you have this kind of weird mix of you'll drive by if you're driving and you're driving by the creek beds, and there's a bunch of white tail and people's fields, and then you kind of come up and maybe there's a little state chunk of land on the right, and there's a bunch of mule deer antelope. And so it's really kind of a weird thing that people untill they're kind of here, can't can't really figure out. I mean, they're not monsters in relation to a lot of things you're probably used to, uh, you know, easy to hear for sure, but at least from my experience, and I don't know if it's the same in Wyoming, but I'm guessing it might be. You kind of alluded to it. It's the fact that a lot of people in the West seem to ignore the white tails. They just aren't quite as sexy as the elk and the mule deer and everything else you can chase, So they're a little bit under the radar for at least local people. So when someone like me heads out there will While there are some big deer in the Midwest, of course, coming from Michigan, it's a little bit different here. We don't get to see a lot of old deer. So when I came out to Montana or North Dakota, the number of mature bucks you see is just so astronomically higher that I'm used to back home. That was just a blast. I mean, you're not maybe maybe they're not maybe boone and crack of bucks, but I love just seeing If you see a four year old in Michigan once a year, that's a great year. You see four and a night. Some spots up hunt in Montana. Oh for sure. No, No, there's they'll they'll be around, especially if you're looking for mature deer. It's just that you know, and and there's gonna be a lot of people that probably disagree there's big deer here. But generally speaking, in my opinion, consistently big deer white tail wise in this specific areas. Generally I going to be on private land. But you I mean, I know a lot of people that shoot big, big deer um in a couple of little pockets of public land here and there because they're just kind of when they're they're they're there. But what happens too is some guys don't want to use their tag on white tail. It depends so some guys like depends on the zone kind of where I hunt locally around here. You know, my mule deer, Uh, it's just the last two weeks October. You know, it goes through the end of October, and basically you can kind of just hold out for a good mulei and if you don't end up shooting that mulei, you just November one, you kind of transition to white tail um. Like myself, my wife, my daughter all got a MULEI my son. He's playing football which shout out shared and just won the state championship football game, by the way, But uh yeah, I like anybody cares, but we're pretty excited. Uh but but I'm taking him out Saturday and we're gonna go try to try to find a white tail buck on some public land and walk around for a little bit. So, you know, it's kind of it's kind of fun that you have that either or type of thing. If you see some see a mule here, that tickles your fancy and that's awesome. And if not, the white tail season goes, you know, quite a bit further here in this area. Anyways, most of them go through novem Um. It really kind of extends that time for for rifle. Yeah. So, speaking of that shift, you talked about how a lot of people are shifting locally where you're at too, thinking Okay, now it's time to try to get a deer, get a white tail if we have to fill that tag with a gun. There's there's a similar shift happening and a lot of other parts of the country kind of around where I'm at, where our bow seasons are ending, in our rifles seasons, or firearm seasons are beginning. UM, so that's happening for me personally. I'm heading up to my northern Michigan deer camp tomorrow for the first time of the year for my rifle hunt. UM. A lot of other folks are doing the same across all sorts of parts of the country. So would that be the case? Um? What I kind of want to talk about is is that shift in in first how that shifts in your mind? Would you, guys go and head out there for a firearm harnt? I know, Kevin, you used to work in the archery industry, so I'm sure you have been a part of this too. Write your bow hunt, bow hunt, bow hunt, and then all of a sudden you make that shift and you pick up the gun. A flip is switched in your mind and in your tactics and in your gear and your setups. Uh. What comes to mind for you guys? First off, when you head out on that first hunt with a different type of weapon, When you're shifting to deer hunting now with a firearm, how does that change your mindset? Well, for me specifically, even if it was where I grew up or even out here, generally, when I'm hunting with the bow, obviously, I'm wanting to get closer. So a lot of the time, if I've not filled my tag, or if i have multiple tags for that specific animal in that state, at that point, I'll kind of know it. It makes it a little bit easier when you pick up that rifle because you're having to get so close. You know, for instance, uh, mule deer this year out here. I know we're kind of talking about autise, but just the experience I was having to really get within sixty sevent yards of a mule deer and I didn't make it happen. But when rifle season started, I was like, why nowhere, I'm gonna be like, you knew where you were going to be with the rifle on a bipod looking at a specific area. You know, either that or you have the opportunity if you have multiple tags to to set up on a different animal um and try to fill that second buck tag, or you know if you're in that area that you have multiple buck tags. But you know, really, I think the biggest shift is the area that you're hunting UM. When I pick up a rifle, I generally don't try to I generally try not to go into that that thick timber um, whether it be for white tails or for um or for mule deer or anything like that. I like to make sure I can see things because that rifle is gonna allow me to get out there and and put a good shot on an animal. Also that I mean, obviously you got weather moving stuff around, so i'd here. I mean we're at a four thousand feet but if you could drop a pin, get to Black Tooth or Cloud Peak that's at thirteen thousand feet and that's twenty five miles from here, so and we're at four thousands, so I mean, you know, we're right at the base of the mountains. Uh So, I mean, Kevin, you are up as high as ten thousand feet hunting for elk uh with with your bow. I was as down as low as five thousand feet, you know, hunting for elk here during rifle um. So obviously you know that weather just you know, weather pushes things around. So there's a lot of considerations you know there as well, especially when you're out here with the different elevations, things are just really starting to starting to move around as soon as rifle season starts. Speaking of that weather influence. One of the things that as a bow hunter we always have to obsess about is wind and wind direction. What's the wind doing? How is that going to affect how we can set up for a shot at a deer within twenty yards or forty yards or whatever it is. It's it's so crucial to everything you do. How do you guys think about wind differently at all when you're out there with your with your rifle. Do you disregard it completely? Do you still think about it? Or you saying, hey, you know what, it's just as important now as when I was out there with arch quin. I think it's just as important. Yeah, I mean, I mean, well, obviously you have wind as far as uh you're not getting sniffed out by the animal. And then really you have then wind to consider as far as bullet drift, especially out here and why I mean, it can get a little breezy, but it uh it uh you know, and and I guess it's a little shout out to our cartridges and different things like that that the faster moving bullet you have depending on your ballistic co fish and different things of the actual bullet you're shooting. I think people overthink wind when it comes to bullet drift. Uh, it really starts to play in at much longer distances wre of people probably are not hunting, and so um. You know, with a lot of the kind of especially the faster cartridges we have, the wind really isn't as much of a factor. It's one of the you know, the great reasons about getting a bullet moving fast is is a you don't have as much drop and be it's in the air for less time. Therefore, you know, wind being less of an effect, you know on it. I think people can overthink wind certainly when it when it comes to bullet drift. So what is that range than wherein you do need to worry about? It depends on the cartridge and depends on the bullet. I mean, for instance, you know there's six five creed more super popular, right, So maybe with the one forty grain, that thing's moving feet per second, we have a six hundred weather be that thing's moving more at thirty four feet per second. And so between just those two again, you're gonna start thinking about it more. Really, anything within three hundred yards where a lot of people shoot, I mean, wind is very rarely an actual factor, especially when you have a fast moving cartridge. You know, when you get beyond five hundred your wind starts to really you know, obviously make a bigger difference. And then every fifty to a hundred yards after that, I mean it had I mean difference between shooting four hundred and five and fifty yards is the world. You know, people don't kind of get where those those things are. And so obviously with technology out there now, it's it's helped quite a bit. You know, you have your chestral units different things, but it I mean, trajectory is just science. As far as bullet drop, that's just pure physics. So you can dial up that dope and you can have it on a card. You can these days have it on your scope or your range finder, you can have it on your phone. Wind especially when you shooting cross canyon out here in different things, it's a it's a pretty big factory terrain into the equation and then all of a sudden you're shooting over a little canyon or a little drop in a in a hillside and the winds doing something totally different in that in that bottom than it is. So when you guys say, like how far out you know, when you shoot with an animal, wind is is that number one my position? You know, if I can be prone and you know whatever, it's gonna help me shoot out further. But then obviously that that wind is going to be I don't like messing with it, you know, once it's out that far. A lot of guys do, and they just try to bucket and everything. But it's it's mother nature. Man, It's a hard thing to predict. So this, this is something that's definitely on my mind right now, and we might as well just dive into it at this point. Given where we're going. There is so much talk and interest, especially out west, around long range shooting, shooting at long distances, and you've got these wide open expanses to do that. Um, that typically hasn't been as much of a thing back east or in the Midwest, north South. Uh, it's typically more of a short range game, sometimes by law because you're only allowed to use a shotgun or straight wall cartridge. Sometimes it's simply because of the terrain and the viewpoints and all that. Uh. That said, with so much media coming out of the West now and guys living in Michigan seeing someone in Wyoming shooting six yards There's more and more people experimenting with that and wondering about that and thinking maybe I should try to shoot at a deer across the cornfield five yards away or whatever it might be. What can you guys tell us about and and and assume this is to an audience that does not know what they're talking about when it comes to shooting rifles long range, because me, I'm the I'm the audience, and I don't know. I don't do that kind of thing. So how do we go about determining the right maximum range for you and your weapon? What are the things that should be thinking about? How do I test that? How do I make sure I'm making a smart ethical decision with that type of issue. Yeah, you know, lots of things going through my head. I think, uh, you know, I can start it off here and Kevin you can talk about because we talk about this quite a bit. Because we make rifles with the shoot bullets really fast and so it it gives people a lot of confidence. But there's a lot of people out there that maybe shouldn't be shooting at the distances that they are. Um, the you know, first off, if you uh, well, first off, if you can go shoot on a bench rest, that doesn't mean you can shoot in the field at that same distance. So so rule number one for me would be, have you hit that distance consistently in the same conditions from the same position. So if I can go down and I have a bench rest, sand, bad bags, a lead sled, whatever, you know, I'm putting my things up, and I can shoot at seven yards consistently at an eight inch plate, let's say, or ten inch plate. That doesn't mean I can do that in the field. And so it's becoming you know, in other words, I have I'll shoot longer prone, especially if I can even get uh, you know, while I'm laying down on my bipod. If I can get my pack or my bino pack even kind of tucked up under the rear, I can get bench rest solid from a prone position. If I'm sitting down, say with sticks or resting it on a fence, it's gonna be a shorter distance if I'm standing. I shot a mule deer buck this year, and I had to stand slash crouch through some trees, uh, and and I had some sticks I could put up high. But obviously my range is less. So I think understanding the difference in that, and and I would really challenge and encourage people depending on what type of range or land you can go out to shoot from, because don't just go down and shoot from a bench. Shooting of positions you're gonna be shooting him because it makes all the difference. A lot of guys, if they haven't shot prone a lot. You'll sit down, your head will get up on that scope a little bit, and people will will overshoot animals, uh, because they haven't really practiced from those positions. So I think that that's that's an important consideration. And so when you talk about where you should shoot, if let's say I know from my prone position, I have a piece of steel out there that's the sign the size of the vitals of the animal I'm gonna shoot, and I can consistently hit that again and again, then yeah, I'm comfortable to go out and shoot an animal at that distance. But it's really gotta be apples to apples from the way that you practice, from the way that you go out in the field, and then also understanding when too. So if I can shoot prone at five yards and I'm real comfortable in hitting vitals and blah blah blah. But I get out there in the field and it's a gusty day and it's twenty five your things change. So you need to understand those elements that that come into to play as well. Um and then maybe lastly and then all I can stop. I talked about this all day, but but it's also understanding your bullet um, your cartridge in the energy that it carries through at different yardages, okay, And so it's important to know if you're shooting a six five creed more, you can shoot it accurately and maybe hit steel with no wind and shoot that at eight hundred yards, But a six five creed more energy wise at eight hundred yards um isn't going to have a lot of foot pounds of energy to take down an animal like an elk at that distance. And so depending on the cartridge, Like my daughter shoots a six five creed more a lot. She's younger, but I'm gonna have that range be not necessarily because she can't hit it. But it's like man at that point, especially if you're shooting an elk or larger animal like you better hit those vitals, you know, where you have a little more room for air when you have a larger cartridge that delivers more footpounds of energy as well. So it's also understanding that what would you add, Kevin, I think the footpounds of energy would be My My main thing is when you run, you know, and I guess like you say, and starting from from the base level here, when you get muzzle velocities either off of a box of ammunition which a manufacturer will put on that box, um saying this is what this is, how fast that cartridge that this bullet is coming out of that barrel with a specific cartridge when you get that like for whether but rather be rounds for instance, we have velocity energy and inches a variation of drop at every hundred yards to five yards yards yards. If you look at some you know, just general studies, you'll start to look and see about what people general opinions think a bullet needs footpounds of energy wise to take down an animal of different sized proportions. If you don't have a box that has that, you could go to any general ballistic calculator online and type in a couple of key things which would be ballistic coefficient also called b C, muzzle velocity size, of the bullet, and generally it will spit out what that's gonna be at distances and you can kind of decide if that's footpounds of energy that you're comfortable with. I think that that's an important factor. But really for me because I'm you know, generally, we're kind of lucky because we're kind of comfortable with everything, like our guns and our cartridges. We we kind of do this every day, so we know like, oh, I shoot this at this distance and this is But I think my number one thing when you're talking about me being in the field is that I just respect animals and I don't want to I don't want to a compromise a hunt or be compromise an animal because of me wanting to shoot it at a further distance just because I could put a bullet in it, I don't shoot it. And I just one thing that I'm really adamant about, and I think a lot of us here are. Um you know, like if it's eight hundred yards away and you're like, oh man, it's last day of the hunt, hunt, but I don't have a gun to shoot it. I'm just not gonna squeeze it. I just I think that we have a responsibility I do to to be smart with how we're hunting and to have respect for the game that we get the opportunity to hunt. And I think sometimes when you're talking about long range stuff, people want to see how far they can scoop back to shoot that animal. I just think sometimes that might not be the best option. So I just say, from a personal perspective, really think about that from how we have the opportunity to hunt and the animals that we do get to hunt, and how how awesome that is. I just have a great respect for the animals that we get that we get a chance to go after, and I don't I don't want to compromise them. The worst feeling in the world is shooting a deer and and not finding it. And I think a lot of people have been in that situation. So right, it's knowing the size of your animal too. So you're out here and I mean, you know in elks, vitals is a little larger than a than a prong horn, and so you know, it's also understanding that that size of your tard it. And I think people that haven't hunted maybe out out in the western more mountainous regions to understand, like even a lot of times with mule deer or elk. Certainly there's there is a lot of cross canyon stuff and I've I've shot a few elk in the last few years, and the fish range and yardage and and yet what happened is there's a canyon in between. I closed the gap as much as I could, and you know, sometimes it's uh, you know, the likelihood of being able to get closer is just a hard thing to do. And until you've hunted in this terrain, that's maybe a hard harder thing to understand until you've kind of been here. And sometimes you're you're sitting there glass and you're like, yeah, well there's a big old gorge or drainage or creek below me, and then it shoots up on the other side, and like it's a hard thing to to go there, and dependent on how the wind is. Um. You know, it's it's sometimes so so being able to have that ability, certainly, you know, the more you can get confident where you feel you can consistently hit that target, um, it does up your odds of being able to tag your animal and and make a make a great shot. I mean my best, probably my best elk kill shot was a yards. Um, not that they've all been great, but the best single one I had. It was a hard shot. It was there, there was no wind, you know, Um, I understood my scope and and and made a clean shot. But I've had bad shots. I've had bad shots at two yards as we all have had. So it's you know, understanding that proficiency. But I guess I'll kind of clothing and push it back to you for sure. But is uh, you know, optics does play a big part in it as well. Is um, there's so many different ways to dial in your scope. Are you gonna have a hold over or are you going to have maybe an app on your phone and you dial it in and then you have you actually dial your scope, you know, with a zero stop type of scope, and so there are understanding the different methods of how you're gonna do that when you're shooting out further, The bottom line is you're either gonna need to hold over, You're gonna need to dial something and uh, you're gonna kind of need to to figure that out and and be be comfortable with it. And an error in that category there of not understanding the way your optics work, you can mean a miss or uh, you know, an injured animal that gets away, So it is important to to understand that as well. You know. Actually, great example of this I was I was mule deer hunting this past weekend in Nebraska, and um, I had brought a firearm with me that a friend of ours was using for some for some stuff we were doing here at weather being and I I, uh, we had a scope that had it was it was actually a vortex lightweight hunter and it had m o A drops under it to sixteen in and it goes by two four or six eight. And I told them where that holdover was at three because we wanted to verify rifles. And he was a little bit unsure about what the two four six state meant and we were a little He was hard. He thought they were the dashes and not, like it just depends on how that scope is set up, if we were gonna dial it or if we're going to use the hashes for the hold over. Anyways, we took like four shots and they were all really high, and he was like, are you sure this thing is sided in? I was like, I'm pretty sure this thing is sided in and I was like, do you mind if I shoot it? And he was like, no, that's fine. So I got behind it and we hit the piece of steel and he was like, what was I doing wrong? And I was like, you were holding on the six, not the two. But it's just you know exactly what Adam said, you know, especially, you just gotta know that scope. You gotta know what menu of angle means, or you gotta know what mill means depending on which scope you're using. UM, and what those adjustments mean at distances, not only at a hundred yards being a quarter click, but also what that translates to at three hundred yards being a clip. And it also means you have to have your your rifle really dialed in because so if you're two inches right at a hundred yards, well, who who cares at a hundred yards? But if five hundred yards you're now ten inches, you know, and it's seven year fourteen and so UM, it's really making sure that you're very dialed in UM and that your rifle is accurate, because so if your rifle shoots a two inch group, who cares at a hundred yards? Uh, well it's six hundred yards. You know that could mean either missing your animal or your vitals for sure. So there are a lot of factors. I hope I don't know if we answered your question, but obviously we can talk about this all day. No, you certainly did. And I feel like we need to rewind the tape just a little bit and start a little bit earlier in the process though, because you were talking about choosing the right cartridge that has the right feet per second, that has the right energy, and that's something that I do think, uh, And I'm speaking a little bit from my own experience here and from my own circle of friends and family. Um. But oftentimes you shoot the gun your gran your grandpa gave you, or you shoot the gun you picked up that one time. And if everyone that you hang out with you it's a three or weight, you shoot a three or weight, um, because you're out there and you get a hundred fifty yards shot for a week a year, and um, we typically there aren't as many people that are getting as serious about really dialing in their firearms and really knowing them here as they maybe might be in Wyoming or Montana, where that's just so much more of a possibility to take those types of shots. So my question then is let's start at the beginning, which is then making sure you're choosing the right cartridge for your scenario. Um, how do you guys go about making that decision when it comes to picking the right cartridge for a white tail hunt versus? Then if you want to go out west and chase a bigger game like mule deer or elk or moose or something like that, can kind of walk us through the thought process that the questions you should be thinking about, um, and then maybe some specific recommendations to great question. And again that's a deep question. Yeah, that's a deep question. It is. I think you know, we talked about it earlier. People think about speed, but an important thing to think about is energy. It's measured in footpounds, and so usually when you look at a ballistics chart on a you can google it on that particular cartridge. Uh, you know that that footpounds and energy is what is important. And so as you're shooting out further, the faster your bullet is moving, it's obviously gonna be that speed and that weight combined, right, that's gonna carry that. So your bullet weight is gonna be an important factor in other words um. Let's say, you know, let's say a two fifty seven weather Be. Okay, maybe you're shooting a hundred grain bullet that's a caliber bullets, lighter accuband or something out of the things gonna shoot flat and far um. It's it's gonna be awesome for most all your deer, your white tail, your mule deer. But then I, I personally lots of people do. I wouldn't choose to use that on a moose er elk because I just would want more mass in that bullet, right, And so you know, there's the mass of the bullet, but then there's speed to consider, uh as well. And so people try to find, you know, a a kind of middle of the road cartridge, which you could do certainly to try to shoot North American big game. I mean, our three D weather Be Magnum is our best selling cartridge for seventy years or whatever, because you can maybe load it into one six grain all the way up to a two twenty grain. Really, uh, that you could put in there. You know, it's it's fast, it's it's flat, all those different things. So you're really looking at your speed. You're looking at that foot pounds of energy, so your mass of your bullet is going to be in there. Some people are going to consider recoil. However, I would say that with the technology of muzzle breaks, with our muzzle break, I mean my daughter who's sixteen, I could put her behind a three in a weather be mag with a muzzle break, or if you can hunt with the suppressor, which obviously is a little more complicated, it's no problem. I think people do overthink the recoil thing just a little bit, especially if you can have a muscle break. Um, and so you're really kind of taking all of those those factors into into consideration, you know, when when choosing a cartridge like we have. And it's crazy if you haven't grown up really around understanding cartridges and bullets and ballistics explaining it, Oh my gosh, it's it's really hard. What's the difference between a caliber and a cartridge. Well, caliber technically is the diameter of a bullet, which is the projectile in the end of your cartridge. And there's dozens of manufacturers four bullets, so yeah, just yeah, just for reference saying we load all kinds of bullets made by other manufacturers. We actually don't make bullets, right, we only we only produce cartridges, right right, which is a case, powder primer and a bullet, you know, so it's made up of four things. So it's really and and I know and maybe speaking of you know, people are like, I get that, and yet some people maybe don't get that. So let's say you talk about a thirty caliber bullet. It's actually technically a diameter of point three zero eight inches, and a thirty caliber bullet is used in everything from a three oh eight Winchester six thirty odds six Springfield, three D weather B thirty weather be a three PRC. It's all the same bullet, it's just moving it at different speeds and flat out, the faster that that thirty cow bullet is going out that muzzle, the further you're going to be able to shoot that thirty cow bullet. And then one of the things that's really been a trend lately and where there's been a lot of advancements in technology and bullet development is in the ballistic coefficient. We call it BC. It sounds pretty techy if you're not used to it, but basically that's a calculation that tells you the aerodynamics of your bullet, and that really has a say on how flat that bullet shoots. So let's say out of a thirty cow three weather B for instance, you could, uh, you can have a bullet that's a b C of three fifty kay point three five. You can have one that's six hundred. That one that has a six hundred BC is gonna end up shooting, say it a thousand yards certainly feet feet difference, not just inches, but feet because of the aerodynamics of that bullet. So we're getting longer, heavier, higher BC bullets that are shooting flatter and further. And there's been a lot of technology. Uh you know, obviously Hornedy their e l d X bullet Burger with their v l d s, they've been a couple really leading the way. Nozzler's got some now as well. They're long range accuban those are going to be able to shoot further as well. But then lastly, you also want to take into consideration that bullet construction and how it's going to penetrate, if it's going to hold together, is it gonna fragment, does it hold together at different velocities? So it is I mean I tried to go simple and I hope that made some sense. But but you just go deep. Kevin could maybe take it not as deep, but just goes deep. The more you get into no, no, it's interesting, you know, just uh, we're I'd like to think we're honest people over here, whether it be but a year and a half ago or yeah, a year and a half ago. When I started here, I grew up hunting with rifles a lot, and exactly what you said, Mark, Um, we just knew what cartridges were, the ones that have always been around. The thirty thirty, that thirty at six. We shot those rounds and that's what my dad gave me, and that's why we shot it. And it had its purposes and honestly, we shot it a few times a year and we were really happy with it. And I felt like I knew a lot about ballistics and cartridges and things like that. And when I got here, I was like, all right, I better hit the books because and you know what, there's still times, no joke, there's still times where Adams like, hey, that's not right when we're talking about something, and I'm like it's gotta be right, and he's like, no, that's not right, and I'm like ah, and so I gotta go back and learn again. But now I'm like, I'm super into it. I think it's intriguing and I think it's interesting and and I love talking about it, um, just because it's it really is. When you really start to dive into it and understand it a little bit, it really changes the way you hunt and the reason you shoot certain cartridges. But kind of looking back on it, when you're talking about more like deer like cartridges, Um, really, when you're talking about weather Be cartridges, at seven is gonna be one of the most popular rounds for deer out of a weather Be round, um. And you know that's in direct comparison with the twenty five O six, which is very popular for white tails, and um, not a ton of people shoot, but at tifty seven Roberts is another one that it directly compares with. But you want to talk about straight up killing power. Seven has done things to animals in the last year and a half that I've seen with my own eyes, and I've been like, WHOA, that was unbelievable. You know, we've seen people shoot uh, antelope and mule deer and deer with that cartridge and it just puts them down so fast, and I it's just it's just a crazy cartridge. So that one, and then obviously you start talking about your six five offerings, which is a huge thing right now. Uh, you know, we obviously we chamber six five Creed Mores in our rifles, which is popular, but we also have the UM which is going substantially faster. And then we just this year came out with the six five weather b RPM, which is an incredible all around cartridge for literally almost all of North America. If you want to shoot a white tail, be great for it. If you want to start stepping up, it would be amazing for It's funny mark is the questions that you're asking as some of the number one things we get, Like if we post something on social media about a cartridge, it blows up every time. People have questions, people argue about it, people are fascinated by it. People are educated, some people are very uneducated. Things they still want to post as if they're educated. Our customer service every day gets phone calls from people asking what cartridge should I buy? And we answer that question and have for over seven decades because and at the end of the day, it's like sure, thirty go kill a heck of a lot of stuff. I'm in North America, but you want something to be best. So there is there are a lot of things to consider, but there's a lot of great material, a lot of great articles out there, you know, to kind of start to look into some things. Yeah, that that information gap is present for a lot of people still, even though there is so much information out there, and and this is helpful, going to the bare bones basics and building us up with some of these key um ideas is is not a waste of time. I know there's a lot of guys who are who are finding this helpful right now, and I want to I want to do this one more time with another set of gear questions that people will have. Because if we're going from from Mark who grew up hunting with his grandpa's one semi auto rifle in thirty six, that's all I ever used for a whole lot of years. Uh now it's okay, Now I'm buying a new rifle. When we talked about cartridges, what about just general choosing the right firearm for your situation. Um, I mean you're thinking about what caliber, You're thinking about how long of a barrel, how heavy of a gun? I remember when I was choosing, you know, my next rifle. Did I want something really lightweight that I could pack around on back country Western hunts? Or because I don't shoot as much as some guys and I'm not I don't consider myself a pro marksman. I'd rather have a heavier gun that's gonna be a little more stable. So these are some of the things I was starting to try to think about myself. Um, but you guys are the experts. Tell me what should someone in my shoes be thinking about when trying to make that firearm purchase decision? Yeah, I mean I think you need to go. Okay, what is just like anything else maybe in our purchases, was we say what's the utilization? What person am I going to be using it? Uh? You know on a corn field versus hiking in the mountains. Um, and so you really need to know, Yeah, what is that main thing? Like some people don't like getting skinny or barrels because they think it will heat up a lot. But if you're a back country hunter and you're gonna be hiking around putting on thirty miles in a number of days, which we do all the time. I'm hoping to only shoot once twice, maybe three times. And so to me, the thickness of my barrel, because skinnier barrels are gonna heat up more, will affect accuracy. A skinnier, lighter fluted barrel like on our back country rifle. If I'm a lot of the honey and I'm doing, that's really important to me. But if the time I'm either truck hunting or you know, stand country or whatever, then that doesn't mean anything to me. And so I think it's it's kind of first going, okay, where am I going to spend you know, most of my time? If that makes sense. I mean, really, when you look at a rifle, there's not a lot of components to it. You have your action, you got your barrel in your stock, and that kind of makes up most it. And that's where to make different And we got a lot of different change is to it it, just like every gun maker out there does. But I think so if you start with your barrel, uh, you know, talked about we just talked about each of those three things real quick probably and maybe answer that question you go, okay, well, then there's finish too. But um, but if you talk about your barrel, you can get a skinnier flu to barrel, you can get a heavy steel barrel. And then what's popular now are the carbon fiber barrels, which our actual thinner steel barrels wrapped in carbon fiber. In case people don't know, it's the bullet is not traveling down carbon fiber, it's still traveling down steel. But that's very popular. Um. The things to consider with barrels would be usually weight uh and then usually heat uh. So UM, A skinnier barrel is gonna be lighter. And if you know you're not gonna shooting a lot of rounds but you want to hike it around, skinny barrel is great. If you want to heavier barrel, you'll be able to go down plank at the range or maybe shoot some varmints or whatever. And if you're gonna be shooting a lot, you might want a heavier barrel because it is going to hold its accuracy longer. That's where carbon fiber barrels have grown in popularity is you get a lighter weight barrel, although our carbon fiber wrapped steel barrel is not necessarily lighter than a skinny barrel, but it has more the performance of a heavy steel barrel when it comes to heat dissipation, but without all that steel on it. So carbon fiber, although more costly, could be a good middle road for people. So you really kind of want to consider that on barrels, right, Kevin. Yeah, that was a great explanation when you got into the carbon fiber is a little bit it's a little bit deep, but a lot of carbon fiber barrels guns back east to actually do and you know it's important and in the South, which is funny, it's important to note that a carbon fiber barrel does not make it the lightest gun possible. Um are our our skinny barrels for what I want to get into contours, but our skinny barrels, like trying to use our skinny barrels are way lighter than carbon barrels because the carbon barrels are going to be general a fifty six lighter than a steel barrel in the same thickness contour contour. UM. So it's important to note that m really the main thing about the carbon fibers heat dissipation. But it's it's throughout the years a lot of people think, oh, I want the lightest gun I could get. I'm gonna get that carbon fiber barrel, and it's they're not the lightest, but the lightest gun is our back country t I. It's a back country titanium gun. It's four pounds four point nine pounds and it's a titanium action with the thinnest barrel with flutes in it we can put on with the carbon fiber stock. We just made it as light as possible. Now that that's not gonna be a I'm gonna go down and plank all weekend gun. That's gonna be strap it your stuff stuff and kill stuff. But so that's a little bit on barrel stocks. Um. You know, traditionally obviously, you know, there was woodstocks for years, and obviously for the first fifty years that's most of what we sold. Uh. We came out with the first kind of maybe commercially available fiberglass stock in the early eighties. We called it the fiber mark. My grandpa told my dad would never sell because it wasn't, you know, just that beautiful wood and then it's sold and my grandpa Grandpa said, well, I guess times are changing. But uh, but ever since then, I mean plus of what we sell is not going to be a woodstock. There's a place for it, and I like hunting with the woodstock, but I'm not gonna go beat it up carrying it around the mountains. But if I'm not gonna be hiking a lot, there's a good place for it. But it can get wet, it can swell, it can fluctuate with temperature. So basically there's three main types of stocks. You would have an injection molded plastic stock. They usually call it polymer. People don't go to market plastic, but that's gonna be most your guns you see out there these days. They're plastic. They're molded. But I've taken many weather be vanguards out of the box in a plastic SA box and shot half inch groups. But it doesn't mean they're not gonna shoot. Then you kind of step up to fiberglass. The fiberglass typically is gonna be lighter than the polymer or plastic. It often has an aluminum bedding block where the action goes in in the barrel, and and uh, the fiberglass can be lighter, maybe a little higher performance. And then a lot of what we have now is we have carbon fiber wrapped stocks, which is very similar technology of how the fiberglass is made, but it's carbon fiber. And so really you're jumping up in your materials based on kind of your your budget really uh, you know, with those three materials, and then obviously that carbon fiber stock is going to be the lightest out of any of any of those stocks. Um, it's also going to perform very very well and be and be pretty darn durable. Then you have the shape of your stock, um, and that's been really changing the last three to five years. You had a lot of just additional stocks, and now you had what looked like the tactical stocks that are on these hunting rifles. And so you have adjustability sometimes in your length of poll uh and in your comb which raises your cheek piece up and down to a line for better site acquisition with your scope. And so there's a lot of folks that enjoy that type of shooting and hunting. Now where you could get a carbon fiber stock and there's a lot more material and the gun looks heavy, but it it's still is lighter, say, if you get it in a carbon fiber stock. And so your stock shape is really another thing, and a lot of that's just personal preference. It's good to go buy a local gun shop. See how that works, See how you know you you you kind of when you you pull up the gun, how your cheek aligns to it, and how it feels, how that pistol grip feels as you wrap your your finger, you know, kind of around it. Um. And so there's really been a lot of change in the last few years in regards to a lot of stock shapes where guys are going out with what looks like more range or tactical guns and they're going into the field with it. At first I thought it was a little silly, um, But as folks are wanting to shoot out further and they're used to that, they want that stock they feel a bit more comfortable with. So that's kind of your your stock. And then and then really it's you know, your action is kind of your last your last part. Obviously, we have the weather b Mark five action and weather Be Vanguard action, and there's differences in your different actions of say your bolt lift, like our Mark five lifts fifty four degrees is maybe to a traditional ninety degrees, which means you can maybe cycle rounds a little bit quicker. You have maybe different types of feeding to look into when you're you know, you're pulling the cartridges out and pushing it in, and so a lot of that's kind of feel you have different weight and preference. But I'll tell you what, what's selling a lot of guns these days. It's just new, cool looking stuff. I'm not gonna lie. There's it's carbon fiber, it's colors, and then really it's the whole coating, the Sarah coat, which we're tradition rifles were blued. Now we have a serracode process which gives it function and fashion gives it color. You have a flat dark earth color, a tan type of color, and it's really durable, so that's popular. You have camo dip stocks, that's real popular. So a lot of guys are getting new guns because stuff is just looking cool right now. And honestly, that's what sells a lot of guns, because you can go pick up your grandpa's thirty out six and probably go shoot a lot of a lot of stuff. But anyways, I don't know if that helped any aren't incredibly helpful. I think there's there's I've said over and over again, but there's so many people that I think lack the fundamental uh, the foundations of this stuff, understanding these different pieces and why they matter and how the differences matter. So this is this is important. I think. Would you add anything, Kevin to to what Adam was saying. I mean, there's a lot, um, there's a lot. He broke it down into four sections. But even within those four sections, that's where brands start different shading themselves. So you know, I don't know, you can really look into triggers. You could look into one piece bolts versus multiple piece bolts. Um. You could look into the lugs on the actions, you could look into the fluting on the on the barrels. You could look into the shapes of the stock and what they're made of and the recoil. There's are like a lot of stuff, and that's where you just start seeing that that price difference and that those brand identities in each one of those rifles. And so when you start looking for a rifle, definitely, most brands are very different for a reason. Um, someone thinks that their action is better than someone else's or something like that, and then you know there's there's a lot of companies that are all built on Remick in seven hundreds. So, um, you know, obviously accuracy, you know one of the things. You know, accuracy is obviously very important. A lot of companies have different guarantees. All our rifles guarantee sub m o A, which means that a hundred yard you're gonna shoot an inch less and on out. Some will claim half correct. Let's not say you yeah, it's a guarantee and we guarantee it, but it's a it's a funny guarantee. But uh. And so you know, the accuracy is big, and the further out you shoot, the more important that accuracy is going to be. Even in a hunting scenario. Now, accuracy can be a bit subjective because you have the shooter, you have environmental elements, you have to load the bullet, I mean the barrel the way it's better than the stock. There's a lot of things in with accuracy. We'd like to say we we we manufacture very accurate rifles, but most of my competitors would tell you that as well, and and and frankly a lot of them do. Um. You know, where we differentiate is in the speed game, because that is more of a strict math thing and so um, we have in most cases the fastest moving bullet per that bullet diameter uh in a weather be cartridge than anybody else. And that's a differentiator for us. We call it but listic superiority sounds kind of cool. Uh. In other words, ours is gonna shoot shoot flatter. We try to be the most accurate, but a lot of people claim that, and that can be really even rifled the rifle. That's crazy thing about accuracy. You can take out and have five barrels made by the same manufacturer, put in the same gun, and one of them would like one bullet better than the next, and they're made to the same specifications. Accuracy, it can be, Man, you chasing accuracy. Man, there there's some science to it and and there's some voodoo and some black magic. It's crazy due to accuracy. But but that's where that understanding and knowing your speed and velocity and energy and drop, that's just a good research and math, you know, type of thing, and that's where we like to think we differentiate. That's how my grandpa started the company. It was actually not with guns, it was with fast moving bullets. That's what he wanted to do. His whole philosophy was let's get bullets moving faster. And that's the only reason Kevin and I got a job today is because Grandpa had an idea of moving things faster. I I I so often can point to my Grandpa as the reason I've got this job too. So that's funny how that works out something times, that's cool. That is cool. So you talked about chasing accuracy around and and one of the things you guys stand by is not just your accuracy but the speed. Um. But what about let's let's let's go back to our example person, our example person. We've talked a little bit about how we should be thinking a little differently if we're going out rifle hunting. Now we've talked a little bit about bare bones basic knowledge. You need to pick the right cartridge, to pick the right firearm. Now we were set up. We've got our new gun. We are becoming a more serious rifle hunter. Now I'm not just taking Grandpa's gone. I've got a new one. I'm going out there. I'm going to really take this seriously, be the best rifle hunter I possibly can be. Now we've got to talk about actually pulling the trigger and doing it well and handling that moment of truth. Of course, there's been a million things written about how to become a better marksman. People have talked about podcasts, people have I mean, it's it's all the time, right, But if you guys had to break down and share a couple of your pieces of advice or key things to always keep in mind for someone who's trying to go from the I take my gun out the day before a rifle season, I make sure it's on zero, and then I go out from that guy to them become a guy who can become a really, really good marksman. What would your advice be for making that shift in that transition you want me to start, I've been starting every time. UM, you know, I think that the most important thing on that would just be UM practice and repetition, just like you would do with anything else, whether it be a sporting activity or or or anything else you're you're doing. You just need to practice with that rifle and that's gonna be the most important thing. UM. Trigger pools a major thing. A lot of people need to make sure that you know, it goes in hand to hand with a few things we talked about recoil, and we talked about our brakes. A lot of the I would venture to say, this isn't a fact that a lot of inaccuracies come from people maybe being scared of the recoil, developing a flinch, developing a flinch, developing target panics, something like that. UM brakes helped tremendously with that right now, UM And in my opinion, and I know that maybe not everybody does this, but it's super easy to carry around ear plugs these days. And and I carry around ear plugs when I hunt, UM, and right before I shoot, I put them in so the break even without it, I've shot a couple of guns without breaks, I mean, with breaks, without your protection, and I've still been still been fine. It's really not been that much different. Now. When you're sitting at a range on a bench and you're under an awning and you're shooting it, it's way louder. And that's I think people are like, may that breaks so loud. But a lot of the time, the only time they ever hear it's at a range when their neighbors just blowing their ear drums out. So in the open field or in the timber man that the brakes aren't as bad as they really really limit recoil. But obviously I think pulling the triggers probably the most important part of being UM a good marksman UM breath control, UM, knowing your your inhales and your ex shales on your trigger, your pool, and how you kind of approach that situation. UM. I think all that that's pretty important, and I really would echo that and also just go back to that positioning in practicing in field positions, and to be honest, you can do that UM in in a in a safe in a safe way. You can do that without shooting. I remember doing that with my wife and kids early on when they were getting into hunting. Is we'd go into backyard and we live in a rural area, but we wouldn't get ammunition. And you just go out there, grab a pack, maybe grab sticks, bipod what you might have. Maybe there's some bushes in your backyard, and go see that rock up on the hill two o'clock. That's an elk and it's you got ten seconds to get your side on it before it goes over that hill. What would you do right now? And it's a three and or fifty yards so I'm not gonna shoot it, you know, offhand, what are you gonna do? And it's getting down in that position, and I've seen a lot of people just either rush it and miss animals or never get a shot off because you don't understand, like when you're in the field like that and in the moment, like you gotta be able to think constantly, Okay, what am I doing? What position am I getting in? And I grabbing sticks and I grabbing a bipod? Am I throwing it on a pack? And I resting it on a limb? And really understanding your points of contact with the ground. So the more points of contact you have, like even if you're sitting on your butt using sticks or a limb, it's okay, I want an elbow on a knee. And it's figuring those things out. And so it's not just I think a lot of people can shoot a lot of really good stuff at a bench, But I'm really convinced that a lot of people don't practice enough in field positions on hills. You know, I don't know, it's all those different things, and so I really encourage people to practice in those type of positions that may be a buddy with the ranch or some land you can go out to, depending on the rules that you range and where you're at. If you can go prone, their use sticks and then know your distances per shooting position. Uh. Obviously standing sometimes you're gonna of shooting animal you bust them out of the sticks and in the woods. So I'll cunt with my son a few weeks ago, and we busted a bunch of bulls at fifty to sixty yards uh in the trees. Didn't have time to set up. Therefore we didn't shoot an elk, but right in that moment, offhand would have been best. Uh. But then obviously if he had seen one at four hundred yards, he's he was gonna want to get prone and and establishing kind of how to how to do that, and even the shooting accessories you need, Like I have a system I use. Um it's a spartan uh, both a carbon fiber bipod and shooting sticks, and my shooting sticks would go to full standing. I can go sitting, and I can go prone, and I know in any of those positions that enables me to go out further. If I'm just hoping there's a tree branch that doesn't happen. If I just sit down on my button, don't have sticks, I'm not gonna shoot out as far. So it's really understanding that positioning and and really purchasing gear that will enable you to to be able to shoot out further as well. Yeah, that's such good advice, I feel, and I've alluded to this several times, but there is this, uh, this mistake that I think that happens commonly. And I'm saying this because I have done in the past, which is assuming that when you pick up the rifle, it's it's easy time, it's time to des grab the gun, go out, and then you can shoot your deer. But so many mistakes I think happened when you go into it that assumption and you don't practice in the different positions. You don't give the time and care to making the right decisions around the right cartridge or the right optic, or practicing just as much as you do with your bow. I think a lot of people understand that details matter when it comes to getting proficient with a bow, and then they ignore that very same thing with their next weapon, the next phase of their season. And I think I think people pay for that. So this is This is such important foundational knowledge that I appreciate you guys taken the time to step back and talk about the basic things. I know this is probably maybe boring for you to have to go through these basic ideas again and again again for so many people over decades and decades, but I'm telling you what. People need it and uh and I appreciate it so much. If if two things, number one, I think we have to get some time on the calendar someday to do the part to the advanced level course, which I think hopefully if people will listen to this and kay, decide all right, I've got my basics covered, I'm gonna go and take this to the next level. And then next year they're gonna say, Okay, now how do I really ramp things up. We're gonna have to have a round two schedule. But if well, then I got an idea for a market, or for around three market, and that would be that would be let's go hunting. Then come back and do a podcast and talk about how it actually worked in the field. Needs to happen. I love that idea. I love that call me in, call me in for you can make it happen, especially if we're chasing some of those under the radar huge Wyoming white tails that I keep hearing. No, they don't exist, They're not here. We don't have any white Tale Nope, there's no white tales in Wyom that wouldn't come here. Okay, we'll keep that secret. Um But in the meantime between now and then, for people that want to learn more about whether Be or even learn more about some of the concepts we talked about, it sounds like your customer service team can offer a lot on that side as well. How do they get in touch with you? How do they how do they get some of this information? Sure, yeah, weatherby dot com is gonna be obviously the first place to go to. But you know, if you're interested, you know, and I'm gonna put a plug in there. But if you're interested in this kind of talk and um what we do here at whether it be in the ballistics and the rifles we have on our mark the weather Be podcast where me and Adam and Luke and a couple other guys from here talk about this stuff often. Um, So that could be a good resource for somebody who who's actively listening to podcasts check that out on our Mark and then also we actually do a good job at trying to relay some information on our Instagram channel. Um so, so that's just Kevin has this thing called cartridge Wars and he puts it up and he'll he'll he'll don't tell everybody it's me. Now I'm gonna get hate mail. Oh uh. Team here at weather weather Wreck leadership of Kevin and and they will put a weather Be cartridge versus something else and will be hundreds of comments of people losing their minds. And we love it because it gets people thinking about this stuff and it's it's it's kind of fun. We just did to hear this fall, launch a whole new Mark five line and have a lot really I think a pretty brought a pretty broad range of variety of different you know rifles, and we go started five hundred bucks in a vanguard all the way up to you know, several thousand obviously, so we kind of the middle middle everywhere you check it out, and we uh, you know, just we're in plug period here. So we dropped also dropped the price of our ammunition. It's one thing that people talk about and generally is a barrier or entry to the weather be family. Being a part of this family is is all that amyunition is too expensive? Well, we dropped our ammunition. We're we're definitely way more competitive now with some things we're doing here at the company. And and that's important to note that if you're looking for that high performance ballistic superiority, it's well within reason now to get into that into that family of products. So um, any of the any of the things, just look us up on us all phone numbers on the website. I don't know it's a new Wyoming number. I don't even know the number. So it's uh, three oh seven just came to me. Well, let's you guys have an amazing new facility to there and sheared and that's that's open to visitors to right. Um we have a visitors center UM up front that's got a bunch of cool stuff. We've got a bunch of old historical memorabilia from the roy days, the days where Adam ed was here. Um. And then we've also got a bunch of great mounts that people have shot through the years. We we do have um some rifles available for people that are coming through. We sell some rifles rifles, shotguns, so people can you can kind of shoulder them and see what the lineups like. And then you know, some accessories and amo things like that for sale, and you know, it's a cool place. We get it's cool just during hunting season here because see, we out in California, we just didn't really have that, so we kind of opened up this little visitors center and folks will stop in. As funny here because these last couple of months, basically about ten to two, you get guys with orange hats and camo walking in, uh, because they've gone out in the morning and they said, hey, let's go kill time. We heard whether we moved to Shared in Wyoming, and they come in and check stuff out. So you just see pick up after pickup coming in with a bunch of guys in camo and orange and it's kind of kind of fun. So if you're out this way, we're right by the Montana border. They're Shared in Wyoming, come by and uh check us out. That's awesome. Well, Adam Kevin, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to do this. I enjoyed it, and I whether you know it or not, I'm definitely gonna take you up on your offer. Oh no, we're doing it. Let's do already got a plan, we just won't talk about it alive on this podcast. All right, I like it? Well, thank you guys, and uh, best of luck the rest of your hunting season too. And that is a rap I. Hope you guys enjoyed this. Hopefully you learned a thing or two. Hopefully you're be heading out there into the field, whether it's with a bowl or a gun, whatever it is, Best of luck, have some fun, shoot straight, and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt. H