The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 163: Wildcatters

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Steven Rinella talks with Adam and Brenda Weatherby, Ryan Callaghan, Spencer Neuharth, and Janis Putelis.Subjects discussed: hot marriage advice from Weatherby; love stories and reasons not to die; adventures that give you sweaty palms; when steel shot pellets meet MRI machines; Spencer Neuharth scores the antlers from Bambi’s dad; high ballistic bullets; are short mags out of fashion?; fire forming, wildcatting and the confusing world of naming cartridges; California's vineyard bucks; a family legacy; length of pull and bouts of global transient amnesia; life is too short to shoot cheap guns; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwear-less. We hunt the meat-eater podcast. You can't predict anything. Okay, we're joined today by Adam Weatherby, like the actual Weatherby.

Like when I hear Weatherby, I the actual Weatherby. Like when I hear Weatherby, I'm thinking Weatherby. Right, that's who we are. Are there other Weatherbys running around who aren't Weatherbys? You know, there was some out in California where we came from that had a furniture company. So in California, here, moved to Wyoming, everybody says, are you Weatherby with the gun company?

I say, yes. And out there they said, are you with the furniture company? Yeah, that kind of speaks to the state mentality too. It does. And then your wife, Brenda, am I being presumptuous? What's your last name, Brenda?

It's Weatherby. All right. Well, you know, I'll tell you. Hasn't always been. There are some women out there who don't honor their man, speaking of my wife. No, she is proud to have the Weatherby name.

Because the furniture company, right? That's right. She thought, cool, we're getting cool sofas and things. And now she's a hunter. But yeah, we were high school sweethearts, actually. So we've been together for like- 23 years. Since she was-

23 years? 14 and I was 15. No. Yeah. Married 23? 14 and I was 15. No. Yeah. Married 23, together 28. You guys started dating at 14 and 15?

Yeah. And I didn't know what a weather bee was when I started dating. So you weren't, really? She didn't grow up in a hunting or shooting family.

Oh no. I had no clue. She liked me for other reasons. Let's discuss those reasons. What grade are you in in 14 and 15? Freshman in high school. In sophomore.

Really? And you guys didn't like have little breakups? Never. No. Yeah, what grade are you in in 14 and 15? Freshman in high school. In sophomore. Really? And you guys didn't like have little breakups? Never. No. Yeah, parents had to drop us off. Like our first date was like a Valentine's Day. Went to a steakhouse.

I didn't have enough money. He ran out of money. Tax and tipping on stuff was foreign to me. So I like had to call my dad. He came down to pick us up and help pay the bill. Were you at Red Lobster? No, it was a little local thing called AJ Spurs. When I was a kid, you went on a date, you took on the Red Lobster. No, it was a little local thing called AJ Spurs. When I was a kid,

you went on a date, you took on the Red Lobster. Not long John Silvers. No, Perkins. Since 14 and 15. Do you guys got a hot tip? Do you got a hot tip for marriage? Be friends. Really? Be really good friends. That is not what Adam was going to say.

Be passionate friends. How about that? I was going to say. Be passionate friends. How about that? No, we're just best friends. We've just always, even in high school, whatever, we've just been best friends. And now we're running a third generation family business together. So we do that together. So it's late at night, like 1030.

And she wants to talk about some HR thing, or I want to talk about a new product. And it's like, no, boundaries. Oh, so you guys do some boundaries? We try to have boundaries. Like certain times, like, hey, we're not going to talk about business right now, but with this move the last year and everything,

there's just a lot going on. And so we'll do that tonight. We're not going to talk about business. It's like quiet. We're both like, well, I have something. Could we just break the rule really quick? That's what's on your mind. Yeah.

Yeah. You guys had some fights though, huh? We're not real fighters, actually. Hold on. No. This is a brilliant podcast. Married 23 years. Married 23 years.

Dated four or five years or whatever. No fights. Come on. Like, I don't know. Little disputes or something. Do you love her? Absolutely. Do you love her mother? Absolutely. Do you love her mother?

Yes, yes, absolutely. No, there's a little. Absolutely. There's a little. Is he wonderful to your mother? Where are we going with this? Just trying to find some chinks in the armor, man. No, there's dead end streets here.

This leads right into Calvary. I love my mother, too. But the things that bug him about my mother bug me about my mother. So you guys are friends about that, too? Yeah. Yeah. We kind of agree about that. And it's okay.

I mean, we got kids. We love them. But guess what? They bug us sometimes, too. And we bug each other sometimes. It's just life. How many kids you guys got? Two.

Two. High school junior boy and sophomore girl. Yep's just life. How many kids you guys got? Two. Two. High school junior boy and sophomore girl. Yep. Yep. They get in a lot of trouble? No. No, they're good kids. They're good kids.

So far. You guys should have like a program about- We have a white picket fence. We don't. We used to. No, I mean, they're still kids. They're teenagers. But yeah.

Yeah. My question is if they're getting now real serious with somebody starting to get real serious on the dating scene. If they're like you guys. If they're like you guys, you already met your son-in-law. Our daughter is in California right now

on spring break visiting friends. Yeah. And sometimes he gets in a shape about this and I say, Adam, what were we doing when we were 15 or 16? That's not what we're going to discuss either. And then he's like, oh yeah, no, that's different. And I'm like, no, it's not.

Time to change, man. No. Time to change. I will tell you when I went down and checked out the Weatherby facility, the new Weatherby facility in Sheridan a couple weeks ago, I was grabbing folks, running around, and quizzing them. I'm like, yeah, you know that Adam. He's real energetic.

He's always bouncing around. And they're like, you should see Brenda. They're like, both of those guys. They just go hard. And, yeah, so I think that probably helps out in the friendship category too. They move at the same pace. Yeah, that's essential.

This is from non-biased third parties, mind you. Just people you cornered. Yep. Yeah, I was grabbing guns. You get a paycheck from us. When we moved to Wyoming last year, we just said, hey, we want to learn to hunt right in our backyard and in some local general units and all that kind of stuff.

And we just scouted out and the two of us just rented mules. Kevin, our marketing guy, came along to film slash handle Brenda's mule when she didn't want to. And so the two of us, we just went in a little teepee tent and went into the back country together. And she's hardcore like that. We were in there 10 miles, whatever. So we even do hard stuff together, fun stuff together you know lead the business together so we just we're teammates

that's exciting stuff and then uh there's a couple things i want to touch on real quick but one other interesting thing is you guys flew up in your plane from sheridan bozeman do you guys um did you guys sort out who's going to take care of your kids if something bad happened to you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because flying together in a small plane? Or doesn't that even cross your mind?

I think of it as being risky. Life is about risk. I'm not saying I wouldn't do it. I'm just saying I would think of it as being risky. So he's a risky guy. He just is. And a good pilot, of course. No, no.

He's not a risky pilot. That's different. He's a risky guy. He just is. And a good pilot, of course. No, no, he's not a risky pilot. That's different. He's a risky guy and I've learned how to like be a riskier person, but I don't regret that. Like that's just, I feel like I live more of life because of that. And the flying thing is a little funky, but

I just kind of go, you know what, if it's my time to go then it's my time to go. You're a fatalist. God is going to take care of my children and who they're with. And I have family. We don't go old enough now too where you can kind of see the path, right? Oh, right.

They'd be like, oh, bummer. But who gets the house and who gets dad's truck? Yeah, but like when it comes to those types of things, I'm not a daredevil pilot guy at all. I don't fly low and fast. I fly high and slow. My rule is get up there and get bored as quick as you can. I'm also not, I don't go do that stuff.

Because I do have also, not only kids, I have business employees and just a lot. And I don't want to die either. But also with reasons not to die. Yeah, with reasons not to die. And so I don't do, I either. But also with reasons not to die. Yeah, with reasons not to die. And so I don't do, I'm just not that type of pilot. So if you go up with me, it's going to be pretty boring, probably. You don't try to beat the weather and stuff?

No. If I get out ahead of it, but I don't beat through it. No, even with weather, like my minimums, all that kind of stuff, I try to be conservative. Or else I wouldn't let him. Is there adrenaline involved or is it like driving a vehicle for you? No, it depends on the day and either

weather or traffic. So like you fly to LA, there's adrenaline because you're just like, cool, there's 747. There's a bunch of guys yelling at me on the radio. Like it's crazy. Or if you are in certain kind of weather, like I came into Landon, Luke and I,

VP of sales and marketing, we were down, we flew a shot show this year. And so we came back and we're flying like 130 something knots. So it's not like a private jet. It's 1974 Cessna 206, right? So it's still like- That was the year I was born. 74?

Yeah. Ah, 76. You're old. Oh, so anyways, we were on the way back. Yeah, I'm older, man. You should be asking me advice. We went on flying. Oh no, marriage and stuff.

11 years. Anyways, we came into Landon Airport. It was like riding a buck and bull, like just the winds and your palms get sweaty and things. Not that like, I'm not going to land it, but like, let's hope somebody's not filming this landing type of thing and your palms get sweaty. And so there's still that. And we all like a little bit of the palm sweaty, like right on the

edge stuff in life, right? Don't we? No, for sure, man. Yeah. Yeah. But you pick your flavors. Yeah. So what do you do that gives you that palm sweaty, risky feeling? No desire to fly a small plane. Yeah. I fly in them, but no desire to fly one small plane yeah i fly in them but no desire to fly one right because i have recurring nightmares about crashing crashing one into phone wires phone wires bad you know they have cell phones now like well do they have wires maybe my nightmare will become obsolete but you still see wires around yeah it's a recurring nightmare of mine man to be flying a plane oh yeah and then all of a sudden all the wires and there's no way to get through all the wires because didn't you see a wreck when you were a kid yeah some in wire hitting wires nope burrowed into the woods out by my house some

dragged two people out little parts when we were little kids well this is great we're gonna be flying back this afternoon we switch subjects but that was a good question by Adam. Do you have any particular activity you'd like to do that you know is going to at some point give you that higher endorphin? Sweaty palms? I think they're running around in small skiffs

in southeast Alaska. That's true. I've been there. I've gotten sweaty palms with you in some high seas. When the weather turns fast and you're in a 16 or 18 foot skiff. And it turns fast. It's not like big mountain people, you know, like mountaineers who watch their whole social network get whittled away over the years until then you die too. I mean, it's like running around in a skiff in Southeast Alaska isn't that, but there's little things like that.

There's a degree of certainty there, though, when you're in that skiff and it's water temp and everything. You got minutes. Yeah. You got minutes. Yeah. Spencer, say something again. Just say anything.

Yeah, that's Spencer Newhart. There's two things I want to talk about, and then we're going to get back to the Weatherby situation. One, remember we're talking about, do you guys remember we're talking about a guy saying how he had ingested a shot pellet, a steel shot pellet? Do you remember this? Continue.

He was going into doing MRI and he was so thankful. He was like expressing thanks that they did an x-ray and found the shot pellet before going into an MRI. And we were talking about, we were speculating about whether if you had a shot pellet, steel shot pellet in you, non-ferrous, what do they call it? That the MRI magnets would drag it through your body and pull it out yeah we were even talking about what if they put the magnet at the top of your

head and suck that bb right yeah well a guy that a doctor that run a ferromagnetic metal a doctor that runs one of these wrote in said it, it's just, it's not how it works at all. Like he was saying that if you had a shotgun pellet, if you had a steel pellet in your brain, where he said he likens brain material from doing autopsies, he likens your brain material to being like tofu. And he said, there's a possibility that that shot pellet would shift and potentially damage something around it or if it was in lung that it could potentially shift a little bit because they're soft areas you know yeah but he said that and he was after hearing us talk about it he even did an experiment where he took a shot pellet and put it inside the m to feel around. And he couldn't even detect the movement of that pellet

from those magnets. He said, if you had just gotten shot and the wound channel is still open and it was at the surface, you might have enough to pop it back out its own channel, but you're not going to send it up through your skull. Interesting, because what's the reason that I had one not too long ago? They check you, man.

Yeah, they make you take off all your metal. There must be some other reason. It's kind of like when you board a plane and you're not allowed to use cell phones. It's like... He goes on to say, it's not... Sorry, I'm doing a horrible job. It's a big, long email, very expertly written. But he said the metal can cause significant artifacts on the images acquired. So that alone can be a reason not to do the MRI if you've got some, hung some metal laying around.

I've also seen a few cases where a patient forgot that they had been shot with a BB gun years ago only to have images degraded by artifact that's cool I like this guy's effort but I also kind of dislike it because last time I got a concussion they're like you should really get an MRI I was like great how much like two I'm like, well, I'm not doing that. This guy can just flip one on and play around with BBs inside of one. Man, you should go and see if you can jump in there real quick next time he's playing with his BBs. There could have been long-term damage, Cal.

Yeah, there could have been. But what are they going to do about it now? It's like you just got to run with who you are. Spencer's here. We wanted to bring with who you are uh spencer's here just got one we we wanted to bring in an expert to handle the listener question the guy wrote in are you ready for this i'm ready okay guy wrote in he's like what would bambi and bambi's dad score boone and crockett score and he only was just curious about it but i I wonder about it because of all the trouble that the guy that shot Bambi's dad has caused for hunters. Because then they made the movie Bambi and on and on, right?

Yep. Was it worth it? It was worth it. Is he a nice buck? Bambi's dad? Yeah, and a unique deer. So you sent this question to Mark, Kenny, and I, and we batted back and forth,

and we took it way too serious, probably. I like that you thought he had wicked mass. He does have wicked mass. Is that what I said in the email? Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at a picture right now of Bambi's dad and like amazing frame. Like that's a 200 inch deer frame, but he's a four by four.

Like he's got great brows, great G2s uh split g2s so that helps but he's got super weak g3s um mark his dad should have been like he could have filled out to be a 200 inch buck for sure yeah if he'd had like a g3 g4 g5 that would have been a giant for sure he's still a big deer so Mark and I kicked around some numbers um with that great mass that great frame but the four by four thing is hurting him we're thinking like low 160s ish Mark was thinking closer to 150 I was thinking like high 160s so we'll settle around like 160 so not a bad buck it It's a good deer. And especially for a four by four. Any hunter should be proud.

Buck of a lifetime. If I kill them. And for a four by four. And some people freak about giant four by fours. Yeah. A mainframe four by four that's 160 something inches. That's a giant deer for sure. But Bambi, he wasn't like nearly, he didn't live up nearly to his dad's.

Like Bambi didn't live up to his dad's. Did we ever see Bambi with a rack? Yeah, he threw a rack. He threw a three-year-old rack. Did he? He gets to be about three. So I had to type into Google, and Mark and I kicked around those numbers as well for Bambi.

And the images that we saw, he had like a spike, basically. It was probably like a, I don't know, eight-inch spike or something. I don't know the picture in front of me. Really poor width or whatever, but just by the product of all the measurements that you get with a Boone and Crockett system, like you get four mass measurements, no matter what, no matter how many points a deer has. We figured he'd fall around like 60 inches or so.

So a hundred inches shy of his dad. Yeah. That's why he never gets shot. Yeah. Yep. People probably passed him up. Yeah, but nobody would pass up Bambi's dad for sure. Even a hardcore Illinois, Southern Illinois dude.

I'm going to keep harping on that's a giant 4x4. A deer with that frame, everyone's killing that buck. Good. Bambi's dad. But he had more potential. That could have been like 180, 200-inch deer.

I thought he was already like the monarch of the woods. He looks like it. So would he be going downhill the next year or two? I don't know if you know he was going downhill. With Doug Dern's nice buck next year, he could have maybe like Bambi's dad could have. So a whitetail will peak around like six or seven years old, start going downhill after that. So I guess do we know Bambi's dad could have... So a whitetail will peak around like six or seven years old, start going downhill after that. So I guess, do we know Bambi's dad's age?

No. No. If they do a remake of that movie, it'd be sweet to have the hunter pass him up for a couple of years. Yeah, like in central Illinois, walking by, too young. And then look at Bambi and be like,

nah, that's not the one. So to the fellow that wrote in, there's your answer. That's how nice Bambi's dad was. Okay, back to this. Back to our main thing. You're going to stick around with us, right, Spencer? Yes.

With that voice, why wouldn't you? Yeah, no, it's great. I'm going to now have him just say his name. There's something you were telling me and I cut you off before we got started what um and then i'm gonna pivot i'm gonna segue this into something else we were talking about how certain fads come up with uh cartridges right and i want and i want to get into why like the proprietary cartridges that Weatherby's known for.

Is it fair to say Weatherby's known for a lot of proprietary cartridges? That's actually how we were started. I mean, my grandpa started in 1945. Like... Oh, don't tell me that yet. Because I want to lay a pre-question on you. Okay.

So wait, what's my question then now, Steve? You were starting... The question I want you to get, whenever you want to hit it, is you were starting to explain... We're talking about fads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you were talking about one fad that you to get, whenever you want to hit it, is you were starting to explain, we're talking about fads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you were talking about one fad that you, or not a fad,

you're talking about one thing that you keep thinking will fade, but it remains popular. And then I brought up like the short mag, the short mag craze, or at least I felt that it was a craze because I bought into it and why that didn't stick. It's true. There's certain ones that, so like a lot of our cartridges, we have 14 proprietary cartridges, most of which were designed 50 to 60, 70 years ago.

And it's amazing how long some, you know, stand the test of time or 30 out of six or whatever. I mean, we're talking ages, decades, decades old. Most of the things we're shooting, I think there's some that kind of stick around. So the short mags like had a couple issues that people had with them. The guy developed them like as far as opening it up and allowing everybody to kind of chamber it and hand load and dyes and all the different things that come with it. The short mags had some difficulties in kind of allowing everybody to do that and certain patents on it. So there were some differences there.

There also was some feeding issue because it was so kind of short and fat. There were different feeding issues that a lot of folks end up having on short mags. So it kind of depends on both the functionality of it in that sense, as well as the use of it. So is it, you tend to have times where- Explain what a short mag is real quick. It's short mag. So it's going to be fatter, right? It's short mag is real quick. It's short mag.

So it's going to be fatter, right? It's just taking the same thing. It's going to be bigger and fatter, but rather than kind of long and thinner, it's short and stubbier, right? So you're still using a magnum bolt face, if you would, in order to fit on the case head. But it's shorter.

So guys can have kind of lighter weight guns and have a shorter action. So it's kind of a short mag, therefore. Because that's often the heaviest part of the gun. I'm saying, what was the selling point? Right, so our action, like our Mark V, we have our 6 lug and our 9 lug. I mean, it's a pound difference between those two guns.

So really a lot of it is weight. So I want something I can go in the backcountry with, they're hunting with the 300 wind mag, or like, hey, I want something a little bit shorter. I can save myself maybe a pound. Why do I need all that bolt throw, right? I can get a shorter bolt and kind of pack that thing in there. And that was what made those interesting.

Right. Wasn't it also there was something with the rate of powder burn making for more consistency and thus accuracy in that shape of a cartridge. You're always going to have accuracy that plays in. I mean, it's going to be the accuracy. It's going to be the design of it. Yeah. The quote efficiency of it. There's so many things that go into a cartridge being successful. Like right before we were describing the 6.5 Creedmoor, that in the past five years has just absolutely blown up as far as its popularity. It's inherently

accurate. It's not super fast, but people are using it in hunting, using it in competition. It's very versatile. And so there are a lot of people. And then it depends on how readily available the ammo is going to be, the affordability of the ammo. So there's so many different factors, I think, that come into it really taking off. And then really what gun companies are going to chamber for it, I think kind of comes into play as well, how popular it is. So, I mean, I think in the last decade,

certainly, I mean, the 6.5 Creedmoor, there's nothing like even second place to it. I mean, it's just- In popularity. Correct. Yeah. I mean, in gun sales, it's just absolutely nuts what it's done across the board.

You know, because in a lot of it is because that six and a half millimeter bullet, the ballistic coefficient, I don't know how technical we get. We get technical, right? So the BC, if you would, you know, the technology for bullets. Just real quick, just for folks. Yeah, we got a lot of gnomeskills listening to this show. So bullets are going to fly through the air and have a different ballistic coefficient. And typically the higher the ballistic coefficient, which is measurement taken of the bullet to really talk about its aerodynamics, okay?

I like that one. And so certain things, certain bullets are going to be, even if it's the same weight and same caliber, size of bullet, it can be a different shape and therefore be more aerodynamic. Right. Yeah. And so in certain square is not aerodynamic.

That's why bullets are not square. No, no, no. And round, they used to be round. Round is better than square. We've done well in wars with round.

Yeah. Bullets. Right. I mean, but, but yeah, so to win all those wars, all of them yeah

so what's popular now are higher bc bullets meaning that a lot you have a lot of longer bullets that are seated out farther closer to kind of where the rifling is they're in the chamber so folks are seating it out further in that high bc in the bullet yeah stop again because i want to explain that what's the coefficient because I want to explain that. What was the coefficient? No, I want to explain the part about seated out farther. Okay. So people can picture like an empty case, like a shell case. Yes.

And then that shell case crimps onto the bullet. I think some people, like my kids have the idea. I feel that they think that the whole damn thing- Is a bullet. Bullet casing that all comes out. And I was explaining to them, I took one apart to show them like what actually happened. So the bullets in the casing, you're saying that the bullet protrudes further

from the casing and actually touches the rifle. Or it gets close to. It gets close. So there's less of a jump if you would. Reduce the gap. From when you pull the trigger, the firing pin goes forward. It hits the back of the case where the primer is.

The primary knights. I like this. Right? So you pull the trigger, the firing pin goes forward it hits the back of the case where the primer is the primary right so you pull the trigger the firing pin goes forward it hits the primer the primer ignites the powder that's within the case and it launches the projectile out forward if everything works well right and so all of that that happens i mean we're talking it's 60, 65,000 PSI that's taking place in there in order for this to happen in a split second that that's taking place. But a lot of your accuracy happens within that, you know, fraction of a fraction of a second there is that bullet launches forward and there's different, you know, powders that burn at different rates. And so all of those things, and then you get into

barrels and rates of twists and lands and grooves, and it gets pretty, you know, there's a lot of technical things. Cause if you think about it, these guys are shooting what, you know, thousand yard stuff is just super popular. But in order to do that, like all of those things from the cartridge itself, the chamber, the barrel, the way everything is lined up, even the way that the barrel was trued up next to the action, all of those things, if you're off half an inch at a hundred yards, times that by 10, right? So, I mean, if you shoot a two inch group at a hundred yards, you know, it just multiplies the further you get out there. And so what's the popularity is off a lot of this long range

shooting. And so rifles, ammunition, all of that has to be so precise right now i think in order to kind of kind of i don't know follow up with this trend that's happening for long range i just totally got off on a tangent no you didn't this is what we do uh no i think you're gun nerds like no you were tearing it up i think you're tearing it up all right all right all right okay i just want to touch on this little pet subject of mine, though, real quick. Are short mags now, like, totally out of fashion? No. They're in, and they've kind of had a little bit of a resurgence.

So people, you can still shoot them and be cool, if that's what you're looking for. Well, I own one, and I don't want people to look down on me when I'm with it. No, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. I kind of, I've sort of kept it. I collect it now. Right.

The one I have. Right. Okay, so you were saying, we were talking about proprietary cartridges. Walk me back to the infancy of Weatherby. Sure. Because you're saying that's how you guys got started? Yeah, it wasn't even guns.

It was ammo. So grandpa, Roy Weatherby. So this is like your legit grandpa, your father's father. My father's father, Roy Edward Weatherby. Then my dad was Roy Weatherby Jr. I didn't get the Roy, but I do have middle name Edward. So I'm still in there, right?

So I'm the oldest of the third generation. So grandpa born in 1910, rural Kansas, seven older sisters, sharecropper, like doesn't own the shirt on his back type of guy. They kept going. They wanted a boy so bad yeah they got roy they got roy yeah eighth try right and he actually had an older brother that died at a very young age so he grew up as the only boy but actually had they in a large household yes with pretty much no house sharecrocropping cotton? A little bit of everything.

It's out of Salina, Kansas, which I whitetail hunted with my dad. We went two years ago on the same creek where he started trapping and shooting crows for neighbors and got his love for the outdoors 100 years ago. We went and hunted the same creek, probably downstream five to 10 miles. That's cool. And shot my first Kansas whitetail.

Oh, really? That's pretty cool. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. So first Kansas whitetail. Oh, really? Pretty cool. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. So anyways, grandpa grew up out there, wanted a better life, moved west, went to California, brought my grandma Camilla. Okay. Our women's rifle line is named after my grandma Camilla. No kidding. And they moved. I think you told me that, but I think I forgot it already. It's a good story. You should remember it. I'm good at this time, man. So they moved out. He didn't hardly own anything. Started selling insurance

and was still like into the outdoors, kind of growing up in Kansas, on the farm, stuff like that. Got invited to go hunting, started getting to hunting a little bit with people because back then it just was a pretty simple way of life. And he went, I think it was, he went out of state to Utah,

went on a hunt, injured a deer. And that's what drove him to his high velocity theories and philosophies that he had that back then it was just big bullets were the thing. And he was like, no, I think velocity is actually the thing. And that that's going to produce energy. What back then they called that hydrostatic shock and all those things is that velocity, I mean, it's just physics, right? Why back then? Isn't that something, people still say that now.

They do, but back then, so we race 74 years from now and all the cartridge development or just modern science and all those different things that were there, I mean, there was no real magnums like around. So there was not, I mean, these magnums pushing bullets fast. It was heavier bullets moving slower and that it's like got to have the big bullets.

So his thing- You can even catch a glimpse of some of those things. What's that? How you could catch a glimpse of them. We were shooting one of those old sharps buffalo rifles oh you mean actually see the bullet yeah yeah in a bright sunny day we're shooting those and you catch like you'd see it right head now arcing out yeah arcing so he started taking existing cartridges and okay that were already there and it was called fire forming so if you

get a chamber in a rifle okay in a barrel and it's say slightly larger a different shape you can i'm not right do not try this at home disclaimer but you can if you know what you're doing then you can fire form a case and it blows that case out and then you make that case into a different cartridge it's called fire forming. So my grandpa was known as a, it's called a wildcatter. And a wildcatter is one who plays with things dangerously like my grandpa did in his garage. So he took like the 300 H&H,

a cartridge that was around back then and said, let's blow this thing out and make it bigger. One of the things that he did was he took the wall, the shoulder of the cartridge, as you move up towards the bullet, there's the shoulder. rounded it it's called the weatherby venturi shoulder so our 14 proprietary cartridges if you look at them have those rounded shoulders pretty much there's no edge there's no sharp there's no sharp angle and part of that was the way that the powder kind of runs in there and flows out and it also really kind of blows it out and makes a little

bit larger and you use a little bit more capacity and fit more powder in there. Helps with cartridge feeding too. Exactly, it's smoother ramp on the way in. So he started writing letters to editors and magazines and just things like this. He's just so passionate about his philosophy of bullets moving faster and we can shoot things further

and the energy is going to get out there further and you just got to go fast, fast, fast. He wrote a letter to the editor of Sports Afield in the early 40s and they put in their magazine, just like the guys were emailing about Bambi, right? And then here we are talking about, so they did that. So Roy Weatherby's thing started. And from there, 1945, he officially started where he was rechambering people's rifles for his cartridges. And it all went from there. So from 1945 to 1958 for the first 13 years,

it was really about custom rifle builds on like German, these Mauser actions and these other things that he was using those and he just had his cartridges. And that's what put us on the map first was what we call, whether it be ballistic superiority. In other words, our stuff moves fast. I'm a little bit confused. Okay.

Fire forming. Like, okay, so Grandpa Roy has, he makes a chain. I don't understand. What's he starting with and what's he winding up with? Sure. As far as gun-wise or ammo-wise? So he has an existing, he has an, what was it? Tell me a cartridge back then that he could have started with to make a wildcat.

So if there's one that's really similar to another one, that's the thing. If you look up, look at a book of cartridges, look how many there are, right? Or Sammy, who's the governing agency, S-A-A-M-I. I'm getting real technical here, right? But that's the governing agency over like all these things about cartridges and names and you know, all the things in the pressures and everything. That's our governing agency. We got to play by their rules in order for everything to be safe. Okay. You look in the book at like all of them. There are so many cartridges that are out there

and what's happened is a lot of them are made and then there's a parent case and then there's stuff real similar. And that's the funny thing about these kind of these wildcatters and these hand loaders and these kind of ballistic guys is like, they geek out and like, maybe to somebody that's not into it, it's like the smallest change, but it's like, oh my gosh, it's revolutionary. They freak out about it. Right? So he took, you can take a case and if you make, have a barrel made, okay? And so you can have a barrel made with reamers, right? And actually it's just a machine shop, right? So my grandpa could say, I want the chamber in the barrel to look like this.

I'm going to call it the 300 Weatherby Magnum. And I'm going to make a chamber. Wait a minute, Roy, there's no ammo for that. Well, I'm going to take this 300 H&H case. That's what I was trying to figure out. I know. Yeah, I'm going to take this 300 H and H case. I know. Yeah. I'm going to take this 300 H and H case which is really similar. It's got a straight angled walls, shoulders, right? Where it comes up towards the bullet, straight angle there. It's not rounded, but then what I can do, and it's maybe mine's a little bit longer, but I think all the dimensions line up, then I'm going to put this ammo in there. And when you pull the trigger, it's going to go to go and that powder is going to stretch that brass brass has you know a stretchiness to it if you

would right i think that's the technical is it true that it almost hits like a liquefied state every time you you pull the trigger and then solidifies again softens right i don't know i don't know i mean but to the point that it literally accepts the form of wherever it's in right so that's what it does is it goes here's my chamber you got 60,000 psi that's a lot right i mean i don't know i gather think sounds like about your your tire on your truck what is it 50 yeah that's a good point right or think about i don't know even like a scuba tank's what like 3,000 60,000 right so more than scuba tank more than a tire by sixty thousand right so more than scuba tank more than a tire by a long shot geologic pressure so it's like so that brass will stretch then when

you eject it often if do not try this at home i'm with you i'm with you but when roy would eject it he'd pull that bolt up it's like whoa okay bolts a little sticky i pull it up i'd eject it out i just made my own new shape i just made my own brass out of somebody else's by having somebody make a barrel so what was that make sense what was his initial customer base? Like a lot of deer hunters or sports shooters or what? Yeah. You know, we've always predominantly been really hunting focused. It's, uh, you know, we say like our vision statement is we exist to inspire the dreams of hunters and shooters, our fluffy phrase we say, right. Cause we believe our products are out there and it's more than just the products we make. It's memories. It's taking your kids out. It's being with granddad. It's us, you know,

Kyle, we were out last week shooting pheasant. It's memories. It's more, it's more than just a tool. And so for hunting, I think that happens. Brenda and I, we've shared hunts with my, my, my kids, my dad, we make a product that just happens to like be a part of that and get passed down through generations you know like grandpa weatherby's first 13 years his customer base what kind of people were reaching out to him i don't know dude i wasn't around gun nuts gun nuts a lot of gun nuts and then a lot of guys that what then when he started doing is right when like commercial airlines just took off and like it was a TWA or whatever those ones. Brenda did her senior project on my grandpa.

She was a history major. Did you really? Mm-hmm. Did you meet him or was he already dead when you guys met? I didn't. He passed away in 88. But I did get to hang out with Camilla a bit. She actually, separate story.

Yeah, she. We had a close relationship. Yeah, my grandma had Alzheimer's and it was tough. So she lived with us the last few years and Brenda and her twin sister took care of Camilla. story. Yeah, she- We had a close relationship. Yeah, my grandma had Alzheimer's and it was tough. So she lived with us the last few years and Brenda and her twin sister took care of Camilla. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. She's a special lady.

Was that pretty rough? Yeah, well, I didn't really know her before Alzheimer's. I actually met her when I was 15. I went to her house and she dragged me around showing me things. But for some reason, she always just took a liking to me, even though she didn't really know who I was. And then, you know, I later on in life

got to take care of her. She just rediscovered that she liked you every time she met you. Yes. I mean, she just would snuggle up to me and people go like, she doesn't do that to anyone. So she was special. She was very special.

So my grandpa did he then started going to Africa and on planes game of which then was still is in many parts there's a lot of it there a lot of game and so he wanted to see

what this actually did and the higher velocity and the differences and bullets and all those different things is is how his whole thing was i want to provide a quicker more humane kill on these animals and that was what drove him was more one-shot kills and and at greater distances especially back then it was just so close up with those heavy moving bullets yeah so he did several trips to africa We have old reel-to-reel

and the dictaphone things and all these recordings. Tons of memorabilia. Talk about podcast. I mean, he did it. I mean, it was pretty crazy. He did podcasts in the 50s, basically. However you do that.

Yeah, and then he would come home and share them with anyone and everyone. It'd be like a recorded experience. He would actually go and visit these groups and show them old reels and people would go, oh my gosh, I've never seen Africa before. So it was like they were living through. Like no sound.

Yeah, yeah. We have them on DVD. It's strange. A number of years ago, it's like the little, you hear the thing going and there's Roy and he kills something and goes up to it. And it's pretty cool. So that really kind of validified coming back to the question,

there was the shooting, but he's a passionate hunter. And really the drive for the velocity was out based off of hunting and based off of ethical hunting. And that's what drove him. And I think that's why we got such a following from the hunting community. So was he, what's it called when you, you can patent around, I gather? Yeah, ours aren't, I mean, it's a, what happens is if you come up with that particular shape of that cartridge of which then the barrel chamber is going to be, then you name it something.

What's funny is the naming of cartridges historically confuses more new hunters than anything else. It's like in trying to explain it, there's certain people, like I try to explain it to like nine times, and I consider myself a decent communicator and like I fail at it because of the way it's been.

And what happens is they're like, okay, it's a 30 cal bullet. And you're like, well, is it a 308, a 30-06, a 300 wind mag, a 300 weatherbee? Like you start to go down the list, a 30-30. You try to go, no, that's all the same bullet. But then you show them the cartridges and they all look different. And they just like, their brain blows up. People that are new to the shooting or hunting community.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so what happens is really is when you come up with a cartridge. So we have a 300 weatherbee magnum, right? You name that cartridge. And then when you you name it you stamp it on there says 300 wby mag that's saying that cartridge which happens to be this size and this shape and holds this much powder and will fit in this gun needs to on the side of the rifle and on the side of that barrel it needs to say 300 weatherby mag and it's shooting a 30 cal bullet. So you could go develop a Ronella something, something, just go develop something. And then Sammy, that organization I was talking about kind of validifies. If you get it, Sammy

survived there like this is it, but there's a lot of these still kind of wild catting things and guys make barrels for them and all those things. You just need to make sure that whatever it says on that case head is whatever it says on that barrel and those two things have to match because it's the shape you need the shape of that cartridge to go inside of there but then you get into bullets and you're like that's when i try to explain you know to people that are new okay well then you have different size bullets which is really just the diameter of the bullet not the case going back to what your kids believe, right? So take that bullet diameter. So a 30 caliber bullet is a diameter of 0.308 inches,

but you can stuff that in a hundred different pieces of brass cases, right? And that's what people sometimes get hung up on, so that's why you can have a 300 Weatherby, a 308 Winchester, a 3378 Weatherby, a 30-odd 6. It's all the identical bullet that you're putting in different size cases. And just people that grew up with it,

that's easy to other people, they're like, that's really confusing. But when you look at like a 30-odd 6, okay, so it's a 30 caliber bullet and made in 1906. There's like a weird version of it. I don't think any, is there any other cartridge

that uses a name like that with the year they made it? I don't know of another one that has the year. I'm trying to think offhand. 30-30 is the grains of powder after the 30-cal. 30-cal over 30 grains of powder.

There's no consistency to the naming of cases. So my grandpa took. But any Tom, Dick and Harry or Tom, Dick, or Harry- Yes. Could go and make and sell 30-06 bullets. No?

No, bullets? You mean cartridges? Yeah. Right. But they can't make and sell a 300 Weatherby. Yeah, they can. Yeah. They can.

I mean, Federal has a 300 Weatherby that they sell. So when they say- You hear the term proprietary, is it just because it carries the name? Correct, because we designed it. So we designed those fortune cartridges. You can't prevent other manufacturers from producing that ammo.

No, and in fact, that's okay though, because it just puts our name around. They might buy our ammo and put it in there. So if other people make them, we're like, that's cool. Got you. I wasn't aware of that. I thought there's some things that you could protect

and then that you had to give the permission to make it. Yeah, that's where actually those short mags had some things on that. So there are a few, but for the most part, it's pretty wide open. I mean, it's just a, yeah, a chamber dimension. You put that cartridge in there and it's kind of the way it works.

Quick side note, when you know chemical compounds, you don't patent the compound, you patent the use. Meaning I could have like, let's say I had some chemical compound that I realized controlled some plant species, like a weed. And you take the same chemical compound and I'm like, and I'm a herbicide company and I patent that.

But you take that compound, and I'm like, and I'm a herbicide company, and I patent that. But you take that compound, and you realize that it, I don't know, polishes glass. You would then go and patent it for polishing glass. Even if it's the same chemical compound. That's crazy. You get the use. People find new uses for stuff all the time,

and they grab up and patent the use of that compound because you can't patent the compound I did not know that I might be doing a little bit of a bad job explaining it but I'm not doing a horrible job of explaining it hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada

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So there, so the, that's how we get started. And he comes up with a bunch of these rattle, a few off that folks would know the 300 weather be right. 257 weather. B is my grandpa's favorites. Normally been the number two selling.

That's your number two seller. Yeah. We came up the six, five, 300. So we neck down the 300 weather be to take a six five bullet a smaller bullet move it faster which is back to kind of grandpa's roots there's a couple guys that work here that's in their minds yes that is the the cat's meow the one that is the true one rifle it? It's fast and it pushes energy out there really far. And that's what we're kind of known for. Was that at a once upon a time considered a wildcat round?

It actually was. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. There is actually, my grandpa actually made, he called it a 264 Weatherby Magnum because 264 is the inches for the 6.5, right? Okay, I didn't know that. I was going to ask how come you guys went 6.5

instead of 260 or 264. Right, because especially with the 6.5 Creedmoor right now and a lot of people are just understanding that, I think the newer terminology, a lot of people are calling them 6.5s. There's an old 264 Win Mag, Nosler called, there's the 26 nozzler they're all six five bullets six five there's a there's a gazillion six five there's a lot probably as many

as there are 30 counts there's still more 30s but there's a lot of six fives that are out there so we six five is 264 correct 0.264 is that's correct and like a like a 7mm is a 284. Yeah. So, and that's the thing is, why are you going to call it inches or millimeters? Whatever I want to call it. What's the metric equivalent to a.308? Or is there no exact cartridge that carries a metric name? Well, no, yeah.

I mean, the military guys, you know, a lot of times, you know, use more the metric. A lot of times is the way, you know, traditionally it's been. But with, I mean, usually the 7mm millimeter was always most of them are called seven millimeter then once in a while there's like 280 remington or whatever different things that are more off the inches but it's just funny it's like why yeah i don't know is that word is it actually or achly actually 280 actually 280 actually seven millimeter so what he would do is he would take one and improve it. He's a fella kind of like your grandpa.

Exactly. Wildcatter. Yep. And there's wildcatters in the oil industry too. Is there? Yeah, the guys that go out, right? Wildcatter, speculators, trying to strike little, prove out a little chunk of ground.

762 is the answer to your question. 762. So when you hear that normally with the military stuff. Yeah, you know what you do. Yeah, I remember like guys, I remember buddies growing up had 7.62. So if you want to buy really cheap 308 ammo, you go in a store and it says 7.62. That's just...

Old Soviet stuff. A military version of the 308. Okay. So, you know. You guys have a 240 Weatherby as well, right? Correct. And that thing's a scream and a smoke and a heart. It's like a 243 Winchester but faster and the 243

is also a six millimeter so there's a new six millimeter creedmoor uh but the 240 weatherby is the fastest 243 production round so it shoots a 243 bullet faster than anybody else does in a production round the 257 weatherby shoots what they call a 25 caliber bullet faster or six five 300 is the fastest um or 33 78 weatherby is actually the fastest 30 cal so it's a huge case neck down to a 30 caliber bullets faster than the 300 weatherby that came out in the late 90s and went like berserk for a long time it was kind of like the six five 300 is now it was to us in the 90s so it's just taking these cases and playing with them and trying to just get stuff moving faster and a lot of it's a lot of load development because speed can come at the price of accuracy and so it's really making both of those things

work together is a lot of the name of the game of what we do tell people what is slow and what is fast like let's say you take a six five creed more which is an efficient accurate cartridge really popular or the six five three hundred weatherby let's say with a hundred and forty grain bullet where you measure bullets which is a goofy unit of measurement correct like i said everything in that if you didn't grow up in it it's like what is this like a grain what are you talking about i can't remember do you remember the definition of a grain and so i knew it at once upon can't remember. Do you remember the definition of a grain? And so- I knew it at once upon a time.

Put it on the scale. Look up- I will. I mean, it really originally did start from grains. I know, but it's- Like seeds. Look up the definition of it. So a 6.5 Creedmoor, I'll shoot like 140 grain bullet.

This is off the top of my head. So if people Google it, they can probably correct me. 2,600, maybe 2,700 feet a second. Okay. Where with that same one, we're probably 3,300 feet a second, same bullet. So difference between about 600 feet per second faster. Now at 100 yards, yeah, that matters. At 500 yards, that's everything.

So what it does is it, because your foot pounds of energy that's measured of when that bullet impacts, obviously if it starts faster and if you have a high BC bullet, going back to what we were talking about in the aerodynamic and it carries that velocity further, it's carrying that energy out there further and then therefore providing

for a quicker, more humane ethical kill. Yeah, and there's a thing that we've talked about it. I can't remember why we were talking about not long ago, but a bullet needs to do something when it hits, meaning it needs to expand and form a mushroom shape or else it's not, it's lethality. Is that a word? Lethality drops off greatly.

Right. So carrying that speed lets that thing do what it needs to do out to greater ranges. Right. Instead of getting so slow that it just pencils in there or starts to- Or too fast. Too fast.

Too fast. And blows up or what? It can go too fast or it can just pencil hole through it too. So, and there's different constructions of bullets as well. We're not a bullet manufacturer. Yep. So we have our rounds and we use other, you know,

good bullets like say a Hornady bullet or a Nosler bullet or whatever. We're not bullet manufacturers, but the construction of bullets, I mean, there's all copper lead-free bullets. There's, obviously there's lead in most of them, but then the way that it's actually constructed depends upon how its weight retention.

In other words, like if you find it sometimes in the back hide of an animal or whatever, when you recover it, how much weight is retained rather than it fragmenting and kind of blowing up. Or sometimes it can just pencil hole through. So really there's a lot that goes into the physics behind bullet making and why it's so important, especially important to try to ethically kill an animal and you know um and not destroy meat so i've had animals before if you have the wrong combination of all that that can ruin a lot of meat as well yeah man so i mean you probably lose two shoulders off stuff and yeah right goes in there and if it hits bone and that's part of the problem is certain bullets if it hits bone that's when it's

gonna fragment and then if you found bullet and then you find not only bone but you find you know fragments of bullet too yeah so but it looked like a hand grenade went off right but it's perfect if you find a perfect mushroom bullet on the back you know that back cape and you just take it out and it's a hard shot like there's nothing like that you just pull it out and you're like, that's what this was made to do. So how did, so what's the next transition? So he starts making these wildcat rounds and makes them main, takes them from wildcat to mainstream.

And then he said, I'm going to make, I got to make my own gun. Like I want to make the world's strongest, most reliable action that there is. In 1958, we launched the the mark 5 it's still our flagship product today and that was he took what standard had uh like in the bolt and he just redefined it like from the ground up he took what everything else at the time had a bolt lift of 90 degrees meaning you would lift that bolt up 90 degrees before the locking lugs up in the chamber came off. So you could pull the bolt back. And our Mark V has nine locking lugs,

three groups of three up front that lock, actually that bolt into place. And that was just like, nobody had ever done anything like that. And therefore the bolt lift is 54 degrees. His largest cartridge at the time was a 460 Weatherby Mag which obviously used in Africa on anything right and it was made to like dude I'm going to take so that's up to a 500 grain bullet so we're going to put big barrels in these I just want an overbuilt super strong reliable

this short bolt throw which could make rechambering rounds quicker type of thing and that was developed in 1958. And that was really his next step. And then being in California, he leveraged the Hollywood culture to market that. So hold on, the first gun then that he chambered in was in the 460? No, he had probably six, eight cartridges.

Probably by the time the Mark V came out. Got it. Yeah, yeah. So then he leveraged being in California, six, eight cartridges by the time the Mark V came out. Got it. So then he leveraged being in California, which most recent times is more of a challenge for us, but in the 40s and 50s and 60s, got to know John Wayne and Roy Rogers and Gary

Cooper and all these guys would come in his shop and what's now the ghetto and started to use them to really leverage things his trip to africa and then he made these real high-end wood exquisite stocks like that a lot of people still see today as weatherby has been is just real high-end walnut and maple and rosewood and these inlays and started to hire custom really craftsmen for both the wood and the metal work and then just started making like

really nice, beautiful rifles. And so then like really within his first 15 years by probably the early 50s, he'd had his cartridges developed, he developed his own rifle, had his own unique look, the shape of the stock, the Monte Carlo,

which is that cheek piece that comes up on the stock, was unique. He had these maple inlaid diamond-shaped things on the pistol grip. It was in every one. If you walked into a store in the early days, if it didn't have that diamond, it wasn't a Weatherby. Yeah, you know, I used to have, when I was a kid,

I had a pump-up BB gun. Right. I had a Daisy, like 10 pump, and it had that diamond really yeah in the forearm easy yeah they put a plastic yeah with the black border yep and the white pearl yeah that was the thing yeah i had that in there it was a nice daisy then it was yeah so yeah so he got into that was the mark five what you get what's still around. Right. It just looks a little different. Do you know the backstory on how the cheek piece,

why he chose that? Well, a lot of it, I mean, from a performance standpoint, was just to better align yourself optically and to get your neck and cheek placement on it better. And then a lot of it is he's just a marketing genius too and just wanted things to be different. And so nobody was doing that at the time. And so a lot of things that he did, he just really wanted what he had done to stand out.

In the early days in the 50s, I think it was 54, he created the Weatherby Big Game Trophy Award, which is still there today, which now today takes- The Weatherby Award, right? The Weatherby Award. Takes conservation and your character and different things along with your hunting accomplishments. And so anyways, he felt that in 1954 and to have celebrities come in. So he just built the, I mean, it's the classic post-World War II entrepreneur driving his dream and he poured every ounce of his body,

mind and soul and everything into building the business. And that's why we're here today with you. So we call it a blessing. It's a legacy. You call it what it is. And it's like, it's cool to be a part of. So when did he, how late was, how long was he active? And then how did your dad become

active? My dad had obviously grown up in the business. Dad was born in 51. So he, you know, grew up in it. I think he became president or whatever in 83. My grandpa passed away in 88. He saw the first fiberglass stock was my dad's idea, which we were the, I think one of the first, if not the first company to have a non-wood stock. Oh really? Okay. In the early eighties, it was my dad's idea and my grandpa hated it because that's not what a rifle looks. That's the ugliest rifle I've ever seen, Ed. Like my dad, cause he was Roy Edward Weatherby Jr. went by Ed and grandpa was like, that's horrible. It's never going to sell. Cause he liked the really aesthetic. Yeah. He's classic. The beautiful stuff. Yeah. I'm going to have plastic. So anyways, it sold really well, and then my grandpa liked it.

And now 85% of what we sell, probably at least. And we sell more wood percentage-wise than probably a lot of folks because we're known for that. But it's still composite materials. What year do you think approximately it was when it went from, when was it 50-50 when plastic caught up to the wood? I don't know, but 90s it really took off. Really? Yeah.

I remember in my lifetime, I remember people talking about how, oh, they're ugly as hell, but these synthetic stocks are pretty nice. That was still a thing you would hear people say. And now they look kind of cool. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's been funny to watch that transition. So has the company always been, I mean, I know now we'll talk about how you just moved it to Wyoming and why that is, but it was just always out of the same place in California. My dad in the early 90s, so after it'd been around for almost 50 years,

shortly after my grandpa passed away, we moved from Southern California up to the Central Coast. He knew we needed to get out of the LA area. It just wasn't a good place to have a gun business. And so moved it up to the Central Coast of California, which it was up till we just moved it to Wyoming. Yeah. And what happened?

I mean, I guess you could sit and think like, oh, California doesn't seem like a logical place for a gun company, but why or what? Right. Lots of things. I mean, it's kind of funny because we ended up going, if you look, you kind of end up going to the opposite sometimes and you're feeling a little bit of pain.

So we went from the state as far as its regulations on guns, it's like the most regulated, to Wyoming, which pretty much is not that. We went from the most populous state at, what, 37 million to like a little over half, to most populous to least. So we started to go, uh, worse taxes to like three years in a row, Wyoming, like best taxes, no income tax, blah, blah. So it's, it's a business thing. Uh, it's a people thing, uh, cost of living thing for our employees,

uh, operating expenses, turning on the lights, you know, everything that we, that we did along to just the regulations that were just getting extremely onerous on firearms. And so the writing was on the wall that it was not a good place to be. And it wasn't a place for us to grow. Brenda and I are the type of leaders with the business that we don't want to put this thing on cruise control and just kind of do what's been done.

And in our industry, we really can't afford to do that. You have to be innovative. You got to come out with new stuff. You got to be building and growing. And we knew that we'd had an excellent past in California and a lot of great tenured employees. And, and we missed a lot of them dearly that weren't able to move, but we knew for the future of Weatherby, there was no option. It was just a matter of time. Did a lot of people want to move with you? Yeah. Brenda heads up all our people

at Weatherby and she can, she can speak to the people, but. Yeah. I think there was a lot who wanted to move, but when you have a family or split custody or those kind of things, I think probably 50 wanted to move, but we only got about 22 out of the 75. Got you. So a third, it could have been worse than that, but it's still been a big pain point

to rehire and retrain two-thirds of your workforce. We got a lot of amazing people, though. Yeah. All your gunsmiths. I met all those. 100% of our gunsmiths moved because they're like, where else am I going to work in California if I don't work at Weatherman?

They had to move to Ohio. But it's in the state. The whole team. That's interesting. We had a gentleman who came to my grandpa when he was 18 years old. First job right out of high school. And he just finished with us 57 years later

at the end of February. 57 and a half years. He worked in a variety of things from custom shop to customer service to tech support to, I think he's supply chain. Conservation sales. I mean, he just. Yeah, he did everything.

Made the rounds. Yeah. I was recently saying how Wyoming's the best state in lower 48. Well, including Hawaii. So best state in the 49 states, excluding Alaska. And you were like, oh, that's personal opinion. I think it's an objective reality.

We had, think of it this way. We wanted to be out of California and we wanted to be in the West still because in our roots, that's who we are. And we looked at at least half a dozen states and we ended up in Wyoming. I mean, we could have gotten- It'll be the last state to get screwed up, I think.

We're at the caboose. Except for Alaska. The caboose. Alaska, Wyoming to get screwed up, I think. We're at the caboose. Except for Alaska. The caboose. Alaska, Wyoming will get screwed up somehow and Alaska will still be cool. Everyone will fall off the cliff sooner or later, but we are at the caboose. Yeah.

Yeah. That's right. You got billions of years before you fall off. Well, we'll see. Before you guys fall off into the ocean. Right. We knew California was falling off first. We move about three quarters of an inch

to the northwest every year. We got a while. I'd have to go do the math, but you got a good stretch of time. There's other things I do that are more risky. A little off subject, but what does a gunsmith that actually works in your factory,

what do their days look like? What are they mostly, because they're not building every gun that you guys are producing. It's everything from custom shop to service work. So it could be a full-blown custom. Like recently we had this commemorative and rifle for Wyoming and it's a fancy wood gun

and you got to checker bolt knobs. And it's fine line, like old school gunsmith checkering that we're still doing. So it might be something like that. We also service 74 years of guns. So it might be repairs, you know, replacing out parts, those sorts of things.

So people send in old stuff and you guys work on it yourselves. Oh yeah. We have service centers as well, but we do a lot, which has been tough during the transition. So if you're listening to this, give us another month or two before you call us. If you're wondering where your stuff is. But yeah, I mean, we stand behind our stuff. It's like, that's the thing you've been around a long

time. It's like, you know, it doesn't matter how old your gun is. If it says Weatherby on it, we're going to answer the phone and we're going to help you. So it's not like if you just ran it over with your truck, we're going to give you new stock for free but if it's something that you know broken your gun i mean we stand behind it uh jim got a shotgun stolen 30 years ago um police department just turned it up about two years ago really yeah it was his only Weatherby shotgun. And it was not in good shape. And he sent it back in. He has totally redid the shotgun. Really?

Yep. And he was like, best goddamn customer service on the planet. That's interesting. Yep, he's a big shotgun guy. Huh. Are you not happy about that? No. I'm happy we have happy customers from a revenue standpoint

I don't have as smart did you guys hunt much in California yeah I mean there's surprisingly some decent hunting there I got a lot of good public land there there's a lot of people there but in the area we were in there's a lot of people there, but in the area we were in, um,

there's a lot of pig hunting, uh, you know, Turkey, dove, quail, black tail or coastal mule deer. So they called it. Um, so one of actually an interesting hunt out there, Brenda's first buck, tell me about your first buck you shot out there, I think for this. Yeah. Um, so they have this vineyard and obviously in central coast, there's tons of vineyards. And so most of the vineyards fence these deer out, but this vineyard is kind of a, likes hunting. So they let the deer come in, which does provide great hunting access for people,

but also it kind of destroys some of their crops. Do the deer want to eat the grapes? Yes. So these deer- They eat the leaves more, the vines. Not necessarily the grapes, but the vines. The tender shoot of them. So they will lose a lot of grape yield from it.

But these deer are so happy. They're sitting in the shade. It's like deer resort. Drinking like drip. They're not fenced in. They're fenced out from all the other vineyards. Yeah. And typically black tail in California is not the best venison, It's like deer resort. Drinking like drip. They're not fenced in. They're fenced out from all the other vineyards. Yeah.

And typically black tail in California is not the best venison, but this venison is the best venison you've ever had. It's the best venison in our life by none. So when she shot her first buck, it was a vineyard buck, right? And you're literally- That's their known as their vineyard buck. You're hunting down the rose.

You're turning your head, looking down the rose. Yeah. I shot one one year as well because it is so good. So they actually take, after you shoot it, they go and if it's in the Merlot area, they take a bottle of their Merlot and they cook up the heart and you have the heart and the Merlot.

It's awesome. And the venison. I don't know if you guys did the tenderloins or whatever you did. Right then and there. No, just the heart. Just the heart. It is, and I'm not kidding you.

I had people over. They serve it with the wine that came from the Hillary shop here. Absolutely. That's cool. I mean, I've had people taste test that typically are coastal California blacktail or coastal mule deer,

depending on where they are, as far as bordering it, what species they are, is usually very tough and pretty, I mean, it's just not phenomenal unless you really got to do a lot of stuff to it. It's just not the best. And it is this particular one. I mean, you'll put it next to elk backstrap or tenderloin, or I've had it next to, I mean, whitetail from farmlands and everything. And people will, taste test wise, they'll pick this.

It's amazing. It's really good. It's absolutely amazing. And part of it's like very rare though. There's a conservation piece behind it too, of like, what about these deer that are getting, you know, there's all these population coming in California and then you take these vineyards. So even when we were kids, um, just even 30 years ago, there's like 300 wineries within like a 30 mile radius of our old place in California. Right. So they're everywhere so what does the wildlife you know tend to do and where do they live and all those all of it when all of the land is when they're fencing all the wildlife out right yeah and it used to be ranching land so it used to be just cattle transition into wine yeah yep but it's good why uh why did you so you've been exposed to shooting in firearms for 20 some years why did you, so you've been exposed to shooting in firearms for 20 some years.

Why did you only so recently start hunting deer? This is interesting because when I met Adam and definitely after we got married, they're just like the women weren't in the family, weren't hunting a lot. So I didn't come from a family of hunters. So I kind of just followed suit. I was like,

well, I guess this is what you do. And the guys go out hunting and the girls don't, you know? So, and really I didn't, I always went dove hunting in the fall and that was just always a fun time. But I didn't until my daughter actually wanted to get her hunter safety.

And so I was kind of worried she wasn't going to pass her test, literally. And I'm like, why don't we do it together? You know, because I thought it would be better to do that together and be able to go through the class and all that. And so as soon as- You could like help her cheat.

Well, no, I didn't. No, she's a really good test taker. I just had to like walk her through the dynamics of it, you know? At what age was she doing it? She was 11 or 12, 11, 10, 11, something like that. Yeah, yeah, I got you. Something like that.

You guys did it as a mother-daughter activity. Yes, yes. And so right after I got my hunter safety, the company was actually just launching the idea of this women's rifle. And so it really came at a pivotal time for me. the company was actually just launching the idea of this women's rifle. And so it really came at a pivotal time for me because I had this purpose to then help launch this rifle. And we, Women of Weatherby, that was kind of what we called it, was really about mentoring.

So I kind of hooked up with a few mentor lady hunters and they took me out and helped me learn. And then that Camilla rifle just kind of gave me a lot of opportunities to hunt for myself. And it wasn't that I was going out, actually most of my hunting the first couple of years was not with Adam. It was with other women.

So it was just, and with my daughter. So it was a really learning, fun experience. No pressure, you know? So it was just, it was really, I always say with, if it wasn't for the Camilla rifle, I probably wouldn't be the hunter that I am. So there was kind of a push. Yeah. Things lined up. Yeah. It's like always, Brenda's always been passionate about cooking and about eating healthy and as a family and all those kind of things. So I think that part of it was always natural to her too. And so that I think was one piece

that pulled you in as well. Yeah, I remember my first pig hunt. That was my first big game animal. And if you call pig, big game. Yeah, man. What else would it be? Big pig. Yeah, that's a big pig.

Big varmints. But I didn't know, they're like, do you want to do this? And I'm like, well, I guess I should try. I don't know what I'm going to feel afterwards. And everyone says, oh, I could never do that. And I'm like, well, I don't know if I could do it or not, but I guess I'm going to try. And then I can always say, no, that didn't work out for me.

So, but after I shot my first pig, I was like, that was awesome. That was so, it was just a positive experience. And then I took home all this meat and I was like, that was awesome. That was so, it was just a positive experience. And then I took home all this meat and I was like, this is so cool. So the meat part, like, actually put me over the fence way more than the, than really the experience. I mean, experience was awesome, but like, I got to enjoy this meat and cook it for my family for like months. Yeah. That was just amazing. It lends a nice satisfying validity to the whole thing. Yeah. You know, I may never have to buy a T-bone again. Like that was amazing. Yeah. It's this tangible thing that comes from it. Yes. Do you hunt with your daughter much? Yeah. Yeah. She enjoy it?

She does enjoy it. She's a very busy girl in high school, doing sports, doing this and that. But she is, she's quite a little firecracker. She, yeah, she can just run them like no one. She's a great shot and she'll carry anything on her back a lot longer than you would ever think she could. Cal came with us and Dana, our daughter shot an antelope this last year

and she, just cause she wanted to. There was eight guys with her, but she had slewed the antelope this last year and she, just because she wanted to. There was eight guys with her, but she had slewed the antelope on her backpack, carried the whole thing by herself. We just field dressed it and she packed it out probably three quarters of a mile

on her back, the whole animal. Yeah. I mean, it was just purely off of, well, I want to do more because,

you know, antelope hunts just. No, no. Yeah, it's more kind of social. And then had a great stock and super fun. And then she's like, well, can I help, like, get this thing out? And I was like, well, I'll stuff that thing in your backpack for you

if you want to do it. And it was, like, the highlight of my hunting season. It was awesome. Like, her attitude and just like, she kind of stopped and adjusted the pack a couple of times and lifted it up and gave her a break

once or twice and she's like, okay, yeah. It was so cool. How old? Really cool. 16. Okay.

Yep, she'd been 15 then. That's awesome. When you say a woman's rifle, how's that, like how is it actually different than a man's rifle? I've been talking about guns a lot. Brenda?

Yeah, the Camilla ergonomically is different. So the stock itself is different. So shorter length of pull, slimmer grip. You'll have to explain length of pull. Sorry, length of pull. So this is, I'm going to probably butcher length of pull. I mean. No, just explain it.

Yeah, so your arms are shorter. I'm going to probably butcher length of pull. I mean... No, just explain it. I'd like you to explain it. Yeah, so your arms are shorter. Most women's arms are shorter. And so a full length rifle feels really big and feels off balance to them. It's the amount between the buttstock that goes on your shoulder and where your finger pulls the trigger.

The distance from the end of the stock to the trigger. Correct. Yeah, so when we were designing it, we had five different women. They were all of different stock to the trigger. Correct. Yeah. So when we were designing it, we had five different women. They were all of different kind of statures. And we took- A lot of very experienced hunters. Yeah, and guides and stuff.

And so we basically took all of our measurements and we tried to come up with something that would, you know, it's not a custom rifle because everyone would have a different length of pull, but it was, you know, similar. So it would fit that person. But even just the curves of it, the shape of it, the women's neck is typically longer.

The cheek weld. So the actual cheek piece is different. And the actual pistol grip is narrower too, actually. And in your distance, not only the length of pull back from your shoulder, if you would, out to the trigger, but also that grip, the grip to trigger is a different dimension. So it's not just what a lot of people do for quote, youth or women, okay? if you would, out to the trigger, but also that grip, the grip to trigger is a different dimension.

So it's not just what a lot of people do for quote, youth or women, okay? Is they just change the length of the pole so they hack the back of the buttstock off. Everything else is the same. Everything else remains the same. But in our experience, when women go to purchase things, they don't like to buy things made for men, but slightly smaller.

They like things to be shaped specifically fit or ergonomically designed for them. So we did that and packaged it in something that is done really well for us because there's just not a lot out there and there are a lot of women like Brenda who are maybe newer to things and so

we found a lot of women to really identify with it in a lot of different ways. I think the biggest feature is the cheek weld. So it sets your cheek up higher so you're not cranking your neck down. And that's been the biggest change, at least for me. You know, a lot of times you're trying to find your way,

your scope picture, and it's just, it's really difficult. And so- Is that scope alignment for new hunters sometimes difficult, right? Trying to actually get your eye on- That was the hardest thing for me behind that. It'd take forever. You're like, where do I go?

How many of you guys have taken your kids on their first hunt? You're like, there's a big deer, whatever. And they're like, I can't see through the scope. I can't see it. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the, I feel like- Number one.

No one really discusses it, but when you're hunting with a new hunter, that's typically the problem. They're lifting their head up and down and left and right it's right there yeah yeah and so that's that's the biggest i think most women would say that's the biggest feature that they like so we have it in a lot of calibers in a our mark 5 and our vanguard rifles a lot of different ones so it just keeps expanding because it's just been really popular because there's not a lot out there specifically designed for women it's got to be hard though because there's not a lot out there specifically designed for women.

It's got to be hard though because you're making a product for only 10, like you're automatically limiting yourself to 10% of the user group. However, here's the difference is pretty much every other gun company out there is building guns for the 90%. So every time I build a regular guy's rifler or whatever you call it,

it's competing against everybody. We're competing against very, very little people for that space. There's not a lot of people who see that. And we love the idea of new hunters coming in and enjoying the outdoors. And I think people like Brenda that have experienced that,

we want to make it a great experience for them. And often things that you purchase help you get into that. You start to get into something and you're like, wow, that rifle right? I mean, like you start to get into something and you're like, wow, that rifle was like made for me. I'm going to get my own rifle. A lot of women come into it and they're using boyfriends, dads, uncles, or whoever stuff.

And it's just, you tend to get more into things once you start spending a little bit of money on your activity, right? Yeah, you got your own gear. I mean, they don't like to wear guys, just like women's outdoor clothing gear, the same thing. I mean, they don't want to wear guys, just like women's outdoor clothing gear, the same thing. I mean, they don't want to wear guys' clothes. So, same sort of thing.

In the firearm business where people seem to like new stuff, right? And you have all these new companies that are making these like small run costumes and stuff. Do you feel that it's hard to, like you guys have, you a like a legacy brand right it's that every it's like everyone in the country not everyone in the country most hunters who've been hunting a long time like recognize it and know the name but do you feel that it's like a confusing landscape right now because there's so much you know there used to be just this like small handful of gun manufacturers and now there's hundreds. Right. What's that like? What

is it like to exist in that landscape? Yeah. It's, you got to find your unique space, right? Like, how are we unique and how do we stand out? And I think we've spent a lot of time as a team going in some ways, we have that brand name, that recognition, everybody, what we hear a lot of time as a team going in some ways, we have that brand name, that recognition. Everybody, what we hear a lot of times is, oh, Weatherby, always wanted to own a Weatherby. Or man, I remember my dad's Weatherby collection. It's that, so we have the brand prestige that's there. And then it's okay, once we have that brand,

how do we stand out? Part of it is you're sitting here and talking to Adam and Brenda Weatherby. There's very few left in our industry where you could say that about of any company that's been around for longer than a decade or two yeah and there's something personal about that in an american owned you know firearms and ammunition company that i think a lot of folks in our industry appreciate so there's some uniqueness about that um i think that you know the ballistic superiority thing we talked about, it's a little

bit different. So we always need to come back and go, okay, we got to remember grandpa started this thing with, with ammo. And like the speed game is something that we do. We do hear a lot because that brand prestige about the quality craftsmanship, but you start to go there in the accuracy and everybody starts to claim that type of stuff. Right. And we kind of find ourselves in the middle. There's a lot of the small gun shop guys. There's maybe some of the large or large competitors that have tons of resources. But yeah, I think we can be more nimble because of our size. And so we try to really just take advantage and go, who are we in this space? And how can we take our brand prestige, our quality craftsmanship, our ballistic superiority, the things that are different about us, the family owned aspect of it and really leverage that. We can't ever, we're not going to have guns as cheap as a few of the

large US gun manufacturers. It's not good for our brand and we'll lose money. So for two reasons, it's not a good idea. And so we need to focus on that space for a lot of gun at a good value with our premium name on it. We're also not the custom shop guy that only makes a hundred a year. And so like, we're never going to have the quality that you are on like a Parazzi shotgun. That's like a hundred thousand dollars or something. We're not going to compete there, but we're also not going to have a rifle for 249. So we have to figure out like who we are in all those, those spaces and kind of do that. When we do that, it gets really less crowded really quickly. If I said that right it gets really less crowded really quickly.

If I said that right. Does that make sense? Yeah. What's a, what's the sweet spot on, on money? Cause we'll oftentimes have people come in, people that are coming to us.

They're trying to figure out buying a rifle and they're trying to understand what do I get for 300 bucks? And what do I get for 7,000? Yes. And where do I need to land in there? Absolutely. Do you know what I mean? Like you kind of find, like you mentioned,

you're not going to have a $249 rifle. You know, what's funny is- Like where does the, I guess, where do the returns, where does what you're getting really start to drop off sharply? No, it makes sense. As you get into the astronomical dollar amounts.

Yeah. I think first is, you know, what's funny is there's a lot of guys who are a lot of guys who own a lot of guns. So they don't spend a lot of money on any particular one gun. Right. So a lot of people that own a firearm own 15 firearms. Right. Yeah. But then they do it and they buy a lot. The crazy thing is they'll complain about the difference sometimes between a $349 gun and a $499 gun, $350 and $500. And they just, but then it's like, whatever, you get a smartphone and it's dead in two years. These are like generational pieces that you're like making memories with traveling throughout the world, harvesting game and possibly handing them down

to your great grandchildren. And you're complaining about $150. So I think there is a certain point, this is me personally speaking, that you want to have a little bit of pride in that product. Now there's different uses, okay? You get a truck gun, you throw it around and you got a rancher who wants to shoot a coyote or something, it might be a little bit different, right? Yeah. And so it depends on what you're going to do with it. But even if you're getting just a deer rifle that you're going to have for a long time,

you want something that has that quality feel to it and it. But even if you're getting just a deer rifle that you're going to have for a long time, you want something that has that quality feel to it and it doesn't rattle around and feel like a piece of junk, you know? It's disappointing, man, when you have something that feels like it's just rattling. And it drives me nuts, though. Sometimes over like a hundred bucks, I'm like,

guys, you just went and bought a big screen TV at Costco last weekend. That difference could have just bought you a piece you'd had for 50 years and had pictures with on your walls and like handed to your grandkids. Like, so I'm passionate about that, right? Cause that's what I do. And I get that.

So I'm a little thwarted, but I think you get into a certain price point. There's a lot at the bottom. In the last five years, there's been a lot that's come out at the very bottom. There are decent, good shooting guns at the bottom of the pile, well under $500 for a deer rifle that did not exist 10 years ago. Under 500 bucks, 10 years ago, there wasn't a lot of good stuff. There are some good shooting guns that will shoot well and

harvest deer or whatever you're shooting. I think from there, if you're looking to get beyond that at all, there are other values and features. It's the quality, it's the way the bolt feels, it's durability. Cerakote's real popular, which is a coating on the gun and all weather coating, which then brings in the color aspect. There's, do you want a muzzle brake? Do you want a detachable magazine? You know, so you start to get into a little bit of the features, you know, that are on there. But the difference between like a $350 gun and a $750 gun is everything. Like from a quality and feature standpoint of what you get in the difference of those, if that makes sense.

And just even the tolerances and you go to mount a scope up and sometimes things are off. It's like all of those types of things that just kind of add up there. But I think what we're doing, like our Vanguard line, I think it starts at about maybe mid-fours to 500 bucks,

about as cheap as you'd go in a rifle that has a Weatherby name on it. But where the trend has gone the last five years is actually towards more of the value-added stuff that we're selling a lot in the 750, 800, 850, where they're like, man, I get Cerakoted. It might match with my camo, like that first light Vanguard that we have, right? I think it's pushing about a thousand bucks. It's selling like crazy for us. Cause you're like, I got flutes in the barrel,

which helped the barrel to cool a little bit better. Plus it makes it look cool. Looks cool. And it's supposed to make it more rigid, more accurate, all this kind of stuff. Right. But plus then you have the full Cerakoted flat dark earth that matches with the colors on the first light. And it's got a muzzle brake, reduces recoil by 50%. All those things you're adding up. It's a gun that when you're sitting around the, I don't know, sharing a campfire with people, you're like, I don't know, a little biased, but you pull out your Weatherby and you're like, yeah, this is, this is pretty cool. And there are other brands out there that

are like that too. Obviously I think that are on par with that, but you certainly do get those features along, not just the brand, but I don't know. That was my sales pitch, but I do this for a living. So I'm pretty passionate about it. I'm just, I think life's too short to hunt with an ugly, cheap gun unless you have to. Okay. So your economics may, okay. If that's the case, there are, like I said, a lot of guys dropping money on big screen TV and all these other things. So then it's just a priority matter. And at that point, get a smaller TV

and get a nice rifle for crying out loud. That's what I think. Yeah, smaller, older truck too. Yeah, it's a $60,000 pickup and the $40 binos, man, which always throws me. Oh, optics are the same way. Yeah, where you get,

you have real nice optics and a bad rifle or vice versa so it's all for a lot of people they say they can't afford a decent rifle it most the time i find that not true it's just what you choose to spend it on it's priority for sure and i feel like it's a hard lift then go get it yeah it's a hard sell for beginners mostly i find i don't really find that talking with an experienced hunter they really get that too much but But for some reason with beginners, I'm always like, yeah, you really shouldn't go there for X, Y, and Z. And they just don't. And I feel like you just have to have a certain amount of experience to be like, oh, okay. I understand why that bolt throw, this feels better. And it might,

end up meeting more dead deer in the long run because it's faster and smoother or whatever. I think binos, fishing reels, rifles, there's just certain things like over the course of your life, you realize there's certain things that just warrant the extra expenditure. Yeah, your pre-spooled fishing reel sitting there. Yeah, beware the reel that comes with line on it. Spend all day untangling crappy line.

And a lure tight on the end already. Yeah, the more stuff is attached to it when you purchase it, it's actually it seems better, but it's actually much worse. Spencer, you cool right now? Do you think gun technology has peaked? I know a lot

more about the archery industry. A decade ago, it seems like the materials and the cam systems and things like that like it just hit a wall and now vertical bows haven't gone much further in like a decade has that been the case like in the gun industry or do you think you're close to that i think it's actually rounding a corner right now technologically um you know let's say carbon fiber barrels right which? Which it's still steel, okay? Just so everybody knows that it's carbon fiber

wrapped around steel. So the part the bullet travels through is still steel. But you're seeing those on a ton of rifles right now, right? I mean, you got proof of research up here in Montana. That's 10 years ago. It was like really rare to see those. And so you're starting to see, I think you're gonna see more materials

with a lot of material technology and composite technology, different things. I think actually, because I think the firearms industry is really slow. I mean, you start, you look at the technology in a firearm or, you know, like I always use the example of a 1911 pistol. There's like a half a million of them made a year. It's 108 year old design. Our flagship product was designed by an engineer in the fiftiess like we hadn't even been on the moon like you start to look at this it's like a lot of oh i mean you're talking a cartridge how long has it been around you got a chunk of brass you put a little detonator thing in the back called a

you fill it with some powder and you stick some copper and lead in the end of it it's been that way since before we were all born you look at you know smartphones and vehicles and so many different things i mean this podcast this whole internet thing, like none of, and this has stayed the same. So there's a lot of room. Through the atomic age, through the internet age, the fundamentals. Got my guns and my ammo. The fundamentals are just.

Yeah, the same. So I think there's a lot of room. And I think in the next decade, we're going to see a lot. Lasers. We hired a guy from aerospace that actually for 10 years. You guys did get a rocket scientist. We did. Engineer.

Literally got an engineer that built a spacecraft that went to Mars. But he comes in and he looks at our industry and he just like laughs. He's like, like guns are funny. Let's build real cool stuff. And so he's taking though, and I think bringing those outside things in

rather than us that grew up with insights, like it's gotta be this way. You gotta bolt action. It's gotta operate just this way. think bringing those outside things in rather than us that grew up with insights like, it's got to be this way, you've got to bolt action, it's got to operate just this way. Bringing in those outside folks are really going to help it as well as more folks, more people in the industry makes it competitive. It's very competitive right now. The market's not great.

That drives people towards innovation. So I think there's actually going to be a lot, to answer your question, Spencer, I think there's going to be a lot of innovation in the next decade. So in summary, it's far from peaking. Yeah, there's guys starting to make polymer cases instead of brass. Like there's, I mean, you look at the technology in, you know, the polymer type of stuff and plastics and the, you know, the chemistry and all those things, I think, you know, from stocks to recoil reduction, optics is starting to see a lot more electronics in there.

And, you know, I mean, just even your range finding stuff to your ballistics of how you run that and your apps on your phones. I think 10 years from now, it's going to be quite a bit different. So I should hold off like a decade before buying. No, with that said, go buy a gun now. I think that one of the things that becomes

the slow movement is, you know, I mean, hunters are like, you know, I mean, I know there's a lot of people who buy guns that aren't hunters, right? Most guns are not bought by hunters, they're bought by shooters. But you guys have always had a strong hunting focus. Hunters are like kind of anachronistic. You're like, it's a traditional, you know, there's a lot of people that you're not ignoring technology,

but there is a strong tradition component. And you even mentioned you value the fact that your business is a family business. You value that your grandfather was involved. You were talking about like a gun that you can hand down right there's all these these themes come up of some kind of you know legacy attributes right and so people not a lot of left like that in this world no no one's like the thing about this phone man is when i give this phone to my grandson and he makes a call on it like no one's like, the thing about this phone, man, is when I give this phone to my grandson, and he makes a call on it.

Like no one, right? Right. It's just not there. No, there is. And I mean, hunting at its roots is a very- Relational. Yeah, it's relational with people. But, and so usually your technology kind of goes away

and you get in the outdoors to escape technology these days. Right? So there is part of that, as well as hunting itself and the taking of game and harvesting of an animal and cooking it is a very old human tradition like so just the roots of doing that and getting your hands messy like it's a very just old thing and i think there's part of us as humans that want to get back to our roots a little bit that way. You know? Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high-end titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onXMaps.com slash meet.

OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. I was down in Florida messing around with some guys one time, and they had one of those rifles where you have a laptop set up, and the laptop's actually tied into the rifle. You know what I'm talking about? Mm-hmm and i even just watching it made me feel dirty i felt like i felt like when we found like some hustler magazines in a ditch when we were kids man it's just like watching i was like i don't know i'm getting real uneasy feeling like i wanted to turn and look the

other way like something about it just made me yeah yeah, I was like, man, I don't know, dude, laptops. Should we be plugging those into our guns now? Feels like. No, it is. I mean, we do that in our testing. Like we have an underground range. So we're testing as a company trying to put good, safe, reliable, accurate, you know, fast shooting stuff.

So we need to have that type of stuff. For a consumer, it is true. And I had that same. There's some people who run to it very enthusiastically. But I'm saying with me, it's not even a condemnation of the thing, but it's like me personally, I see it and I don't, I'm more, and I know Cal's this way, when I see stuff like that, I'm more,

I don't like lean into it. I'm more kind of lean away from it a little bit. But I mean, I use a laser range finder. Sure. I think there's certain things. One thing that I'm passionate about as hunters is hunters and conservation and getting people outdoors is we do need to stay as united as possible.

And there are people that are going to be like, say, anti-technology and those type of things. Or some people are going to gravitate towards it or away from it. If it's legal, if it's ethical, if it's good for the wildlife, the conservation, the habitats, all those things line up, then like, I think we need to be okay going, yeah, you can use that piece. That's cool for you. But like even the long range hunting conversation, I get asked the question all the time, right? And how far is too far and all those different things of like what that is, but technologies come a ways and it's like, so what, is there a magical number? Is it 400? Is it nine 50? Is it how many? That's not the answer. Right.

But people are looking for that to go. Where is that ethical? And there's so many things. People want to apply a number to it real bad. Oh yeah. All the time. And there's people that I know that can shoot at 800 yards better than a lot of people can shoot at 300 yards. I've been with plenty of people. I'm like, for you, 100 yards is pushing it from what I've seen. Right. Exactly. It depends on their equipment.

It depends on the person. So I think in general, I don't know. I think I definitely don't want to come against. Like you said, hey, it's not for me. It feels weird. It feels weird, feels dirty. You know Shane Mahoney, you ever hear of him? Yeah, I've heard him speak. I had dinner with him one time not long ago.

This is the first time I ever hung out with him. And he was talking about the technology question. And he's talking about future generations or people who grew up in the outdoors wanting to engage their kids in it and get their kids excited. And he feels that all this language, I'm a little bit, I hope he doesn't hear this and feel like I'm misrepresenting his perspective. I think I'm getting it. Is it all of this sort of this anti-technology rhetoric about needing to get kids away from technology. He feels like you're setting up an

unnecessary obstacle for yourself in having your kids involved, where you're putting them in this situation where they have to either... It's like, I'm making it be that you have to choose tech, which is where all of American society is pushing you, or you have to choose my thing, which is non-tech. And he feels that if that's the game we're going to play and how we're going to frame this conversation up and position this, you will lose. We will lose. That's smart.

It's accepting that you can love nature and want to engage with nature and want to be outside. And that doesn't mean that you have to, you know, shove all these other interests of yours away. And that there is room to have these two worlds come together in some way that it like, is it increasing? Now I'm getting beyond what he said, but I'm just extrapolating from his perspective, is like, is it increasing?

Is some better than none, would be one way of putting it. Right? And so it's the thing, like, I think about all the time, like if I take my kids out, if I take them out jigging halibut, which on a bad day is one of the worst things that a person could ever do, is jig a halibut on a day when no one hooks a halibut.

So if they're with me out in a boat, suffering in all the ways that I want them to suffer, and they get bored and pick up a Kindle and play a game, should I now act like somehow this has all been a failure? They're still out in the damn boat suffering. They don't want to be here. I'm making them be here. They're still in it and seeing it and around it. So is it that bad?

Right? It's like, I always look at that question. And I kind of like, on one hand, I hate to see, like, I'm like, oh man, why do you got to do that? Well, you've been out here six hours. Still going to get sunburned and seasick. Yeah, we ran out of Tootsie Pops two hours ago, man. So I'm like, I guess it's still okay.

Like, do this and it'll be, you know, we'll integrate. We'll integrate. out of we ran out of tootsie pops two hours ago man so i'm like i guess it's still okay like do this and and it'll be you know we'll integrate we'll integrate i'm not gonna create a dichotomy you have a lot of people that are though yeah and like even like so i use a garmin inreach right for being able to text brenda or the business when i'm gone things and people are that's horrible you get outdoors to escape that and everything i'm like yeah, yeah, but with my business, I'm out in the back country a lot, just testing product or with media or different things. And I need to do that to continue to run my business, check in with my family, make sure they're okay.

So I check in, it doesn't ruin my hunting trip. So if I check my inReach for 10 minutes a day, and then you have those people like, yeah, you got to get off the grid. I'm like, well, then I wouldn't be able to go hunting as much. Because I got a business to run. You see this thing? This allows me to be out hunting. Yeah, you know why I'm here? I'm here because I'm like, well, then I wouldn't be able to go hunting as much because I got a business to run. You see this thing? This allows me to be out hunting.

You know why I'm here? I'm here because I'm trying to run this business. And so you have to like, you know, where people, some people are just anti that too, you know, communication. Well, he's gone for 14 days and he never calls me. Then he's not going to be gone for 14 days.

Questions arise. Yes. Things that one needs feedback on come up. Yes. During those time periods. So what, you like Wyoming? Awesome.

You guys putting in for some tags and whatnot? No. No? We, yeah, they take their residency real serious there. Oh, because you're just not there yet

12 months no well we've been there for nine months 12 months wow you have to be it's 12 months in wyoming to the day not to the month you can't put in to the day you can't apply for tags uh yeah yeah for limited quota so in other words by the time this hunting season rolls around i've been i'd have lived in the state of Wyoming for 16 months. I'll hunt as a resident with general tags, but I cannot apply for limited quota in May because I moved here in June. No, I'm with you. At the time of application, you need to be a legal resident.

That's correct. And I asked the director of fishing game for the state just to make sure. I don't think that's a- Oh, we're going to have fun tomorrow. 12 months is a long time, but I don't think that's like too much. Man, I feel like it's forever.

I wouldn't, I's like too much. Man, I feel like it's forever. I think more than that. I think there's a lot of states that run six months. Yeah. Montana's six, isn't it? Yeah. I feel like Alaska's at six or 12. I feel like everything's six. We're like five years.

No, I'm just kidding. It's because we're around. But here's the thing. There's so much amazing general season hunting. We'll be able to do this fall anyways. Man, I like those states that take it real serious though, man. I like those states that guard the resource real jealously. Like they take it seriously.

It's true. You know? And it's like, hey. You get the sense that they're really watching over it. To hunt as a resident in Wyoming is a privilege and you got to earn your privilege. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's a lot, there's a fair, all the destination states deal with quite a bit of fraud. People trying to get residency and getting an address. And buying resident tags, which is a really stupid way to save a few hundred bucks. But people do it.

And buy, you know, people buy a vacation home in a state just to be able to buy resident tags in the state. You hear all this kind of stuff all the time. Especially like in Alaska. Because I recently moved states. And when it came time to do it, I went down with all my stuff.

And I'm like, here's all my stuff. You tell me. Am I cool or not cool? Yeah. You know? To Game and Fish, I mean. Yeah, I mean, because there's all these things about how a state defines a residency.

So just wanting to be not, I didn't want to be in a situation where I was viewing it one way and would encounter a warden who viewed it another way. Right. And then the media to follow. Yeah, oh, sure, yeah. Because there's no better story.

If there's one story Americans like, it's a person with a hunting show getting in trouble with the law with regards to hunting rules. Right. That story, people... Or somebody running a gun company too. Yeah, I imagine. That'd be a pretty good story too.

People would like that story. Yeah. What's in the future? Like, you know, who's going to, do you have an heir? Do you have an heir who's interested in the business? You know, we don't know. We don't want to, just like my dad didn't push it on me and, you know, we were just taking it a day at a time. You don't bring it up? Oh, we talk about things, you know, as a family and all that kind of stuff. But I knew when I was in high school,

I was thinking about lots of things. So, you know, we let them think about that. But I think it is- You don't tell your daughter there's one path in this world for you. No, we don't. And that's Weatherby. No, it doesn't work out so well.

Actually, about a month ago, she was at the office because she came over and did homework while we were waiting to go home. And then on the way home, she was just doing homework. And anyways, we drive home and on the way home, she goes, man,

I thought I wanted to work at Weatherby, but dad's job looks really stressful. I don't know if I want to do that. She was in the office and we were like, three back to back calls. Well, she's here and this is just part of running the business. You need to plan it out better

when she comes down. You just do like totally fun stuff. Right, exactly. Well, we do lots of fun stuff. It's like, oh, I'm just playing with a pinata in my office. We do fun stuff too, but. Work is work though.

Work is work. They have to read X amount of pages of the employee handbook before they go to bed. Stuff, subtle things. Stuff like that. Yeah. But if you had to guess But if you had to guess,

do you think one of your... I don't know. You don't want to go on record. I want them to do... They got to make their own path. So I wouldn't want anything that we do to help determine that because I wouldn't have wanted that on me.

My dad was really cool about that. Is that right? My grandpa was a stronger personality, that first generation entrepreneur. He's the one who started it. And so my grandpa was just diehard the business, which is awesome. That's why we're here today.

But my dad, huge family guy, and just really, I think the pendulum swung a little bit. So he's like, you know, with us, it's like, hey, it's a business and it's a blessing. It's an opportunity. It's a legacy brand and all those things. But like, hey, you got one life and I'm not gonna like you know with us it's like hey it's a business and it's a blessing it's an opportunity it's a legacy brand and all those things but like hey you got one life and i'm not gonna tell you how to live it so that's good perspective yeah yeah people would like to ask me like what are you gonna do if your kids don't like the hunt as much as you do yeah i was telling most people don't yep right it's true and that's the thing like

you know we just yeah I think it's important as parents. I mean, we certainly don't want to want to parent that way, you know, just same thing with you. I mean, you have, we're leading a business. It's fairly well known and you're doing the same. And it's like same time. Like I want them to be Connor and Dana and who they are. Right now, my eight-year-old thinks he wants to work here. A six-year-old wants to work at her on her aunt's ranch she's got her mind made up about that can you uh can you plug something can you leak any like cool things or don't you want to plug anything man i mean just last week we launched a new

shotgun so we're excited about that i know it was uh unpackaged on social media their meat eater pretty good unpackaging of the product. You know what we had a good laugh about? What? Like there's a thing when you touch, like I like a lot. Yeah. Is there's, when you touch the stock, it's got a nice grippy, but not too grippy. And Giannis used the word tacky.

And someone was like, well, tacky has a negative connotation. I'm like, I don't think in Giannis used the word tacky. And someone was like, well, tacky has a negative connotation. I'm like, I don't think in Giannis' life he's ever declared something tacky in a negative way. Maybe someone, but not something. When he says tacky, it means it's got the like, but not too much. Because sometimes people will do that and it gets like sticky. Yes. Or it doesn't like, it doesn't move. Do you know what I mean?

If you want it to slide through your hand, it won't. That's what I'm trying to say. Like it winds up feeling like when you move, it kind of brings your skin. What am I trying to help me out here? Like your skin grabs it and twists and stuff. But this is like grippy, but not. Not too grippy. Sticky. Right. You hit the right, you really, and it's, I this is like grippy, but not sticky. You hit the right, you really,

and I don't know if it's something you guys- Hit the right grippy tackiness. I don't know if you guys focus on it, but you really hit the right tackiness. I'm sure someone thought about- Yeah, there's no way you're tacky. You don't get accidental tacky. It is. I mean, how a gun looks is really important.

Typically, people purchase a firearm without firing it. So you have to sell it on other things. So you go to a gun looks is really important. Typically, people purchase a firearm without firing it. So you have to sell it on other things. So you go to a gun store, like we always laugh with the bolt action rifle. First thing everybody does, and we'll be at gun shows, and these are, you know, buyers for big customers or these things.

And as soon as you hand it to them, what do they do? And they examine it every time. Cycle that bolt. They pull it back, and they kind of do that a few times. And then you'll give them another model with a different colored stock. They do the same thing. It's the same darn action.

And you'll give them five guns and they got to cycle it. It's just different colors, right? And so you tend to, there's something about it ergonomically though, with a firearm of how it makes you, how it feels. It's how it looks first on the gunshelf and then second, how it feels to the touch. And so I think it is important. And then obviously when you hunt, but you rarely do ever hunt or shoot a product before buying it. Most of the time, it's just how it feels in your hands. That's a really good point. Yeah. I never thought of that, man. Like the thing that it's supposed to do. Right. You haven't done it with it. You can go down and drive a truck usually and get a test drive. And there are a few places you can do that.

But 90-something percent of the time, there aren't ranges right there for you to use. I mean, there are those type of things. Most of the time, there's not. Yeah, I realize that's true, but I never really thought about it. Yeah, a lot of times, I mean, a bolt-to-action gun won't even have a scope on it. So you're just throwing it up and sort of pretending

that you're looking through a scope. We used to have a copy of an ad. I think it was a Walmart ad. Oh, yeah. I can't remember. Where there's like a picture of it. It was like, it wasn't? I can't remember.

It's not important. Somebody messed up in marketing. It was a big store, and they had an ad, and it was like getting geared up for deer season, but they had a dude with a, you know, he's holding a rifle up in his tree stand. No scope. Well, not even iron sights. It was like. He was aiming.

Was he aiming? I believe he was aiming. Oh my goodness. That was just like a real. Good outside marketing firm there. It was like when you see those, the other thing that happens all the time is you're looking at some thing

where someone's trying to sell lawn chairs or something. There's like the fishing scene and the dude has the open face reel that's up. And you realize that the art director is in over their waiters. That's cute. I like that. Why'd you guys name the new shotgun what you named it? I don't have a problem with the name.

Oh, no. You know, it's funny because naming meetings are always the hardest when you design a product. You design a whole product and you get to the end and either all the names have been taken in a billion different industries. Like Buck Slayer. Right. And then what's funny is, even in the firearms world, like how many, an 870, Remington 870,

or a model, Winchester model 70, a 1911, just a bunch of like numbers and letters. And you try to come up with something cool. That's, you know, I don't know, whatever named after something. And our names are always all over the place. So it's something like you try to like do. Um, and sometimes it does tell a story though. So we had like a semi-auto that came out in 2008. It was the SA08, okay? We had the PA08. This is the 18i. It's developed in 18.

We launched it in 19. At the time we named it, we were hoping to launch it in 18. Inertia, because it's an inertia-driven. So instead of our other semi-autos are a gas-driven where the gases in there are actually what cycle the shotgun, if you're not familiar with it inertia is actually the recoil that cycles that semi-auto and so that inertia system so it's

the 18i developed in 2018 inertia system so that's one thing we notice if you take it and just gently tap it correct it'll that's right the bolt will kind of go and that's why it's so much easier to like bring a bolt back in an inertia semi-auto than in a gas semi-auto because it's made to come back easy and cycle that way. And it's the recoil that actually, you know, causes it to cycle. Once you shoot in inertia semi-auto for me a couple of years ago, I switched over from a gas one and it's just, it's just smooth, light feeling. Oh, that thing, ergonomically, I think it's nice, man. Yeah.

You guys got one of the black synthetic ones? Yeah. Yeah. Johnny took a crack with his last night of advertising. 26 cracks. You took 26 cracks last night? Oh, my cheek is... With three and a half inch?

No, no. I was just shooting two and three quarters, but I got through them quick. Shooting turkey bullets? No, no, no, no. Only one turkey round. I was just shooting field rounds just to get it dirty. Yeah. bullets? No, no, no, no. Only one turkey round. I was just shooting field rounds just to get it dirty. Perfect.

Took it apart last night. We got a camo one of that, and then we got a sweet wood one that I really like. Cal, you shot, right? Yep. The wood one. It's got a silver receiver with some kind of hand engraving and stuff, and it's pretty cool.

That was Upland specific, right? Yeah. It's not chambered for three and a half inch for the big waterfowl kind of guys so thanks dad yeah so that that just that just launched um we're gonna launch more rifle stuff more cartridge stuff later in the year um so we have the new the wyoming commemorative model has been kind of fun we just said let's make a really nice expensive rifle with all sorts of wyoming stuff on it who's that dude down there and just make it blink steamboat yeah like the state symbol man yeah it's the university of wyoming like mascot mascot thing so that's on there in gold and so

that's it we're starting our serial number prefix on our mark fives with wy0001 and we had number 87 went to a conservation banquet, a wildlife conservation banquet, and it went for auction for 38 grand. Yeah. And it was like, sure. Number 87.

So it's like people in Wyoming just love the move. We feel just, what group was that? You know, received with open arms, Wyoming sportsman's group, WSG. It's local in Northeast Wyoming.

They do a lot up there locally. All the, all the funds stay there locally. Are people in Wyoming pretty receptive to you guys moving there? Unbelievable. It's so cool, I think, coming from where we came from. And it's just, we, it's not just Sheridan community, but Wyoming.

I mean, former governor Matt Mead was a big part of recruiting us. I mean, it's the whole state. He's a good dude, man. I like that guy a lot. Yeah. Just like, even outside of politics, just just hanging out with them i hunted turkey with him last year last year man dude you just feel like he's just a real dude yeah you know so yeah so

we just we couldn't feel more at home we just and we'll say that all the time like we just there's a lot that went into a few years of searching, you know, where to move a 70-something-year-old business. And we just are like, we nailed it in Sheridan, Wyoming. We did. Didn't we? I mean, it's amazing. Do you like being there, Brenda? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It's been a lot of work to get there, but we're coming along the finish line here, getting our offices moved in. It's been a tiring couple years. I mean, it's just, you know, to do that, along the finish line here, getting our offices moved in. It's been a tiring couple years. It's just, to do that, move your manufacturing, lose employees,

train new ones, build a 75,000 square foot facility. It's short-term pain for a lot of long-term gain. The long-term gain is going to start now. The short-term pain we're hoping is ending soon. It's just a lot. In the midst of doing all that, you still have to be competitive, you still got to of doing all that, you still have to be competitive. You still got to launch a new product. You still got to market.

Business doesn't stop for two years, so it's in addition to the normal everyday thing that's out there. We'd never moved a business, and it's hard, but we're going to be so much better for it. We're neighbors. Yeah, we love it, man, just right just right down the road yeah and then people that follow our stuff um that follow the whole meat eater universe you'll be seeing a lot more stuff from weather because we're gonna be working pretty closely together which is real exciting for

all of us people this last week so we kind of posted we're gonna start working with you guys some more as people are saying you can do a meat eater rifle already asking about fun stuff so it's gonna shoot lasers dude technology yeah yeah no it's gonna look it's gonna use a lot of this old old style things yeah we're gonna use really old technology just make it look cool um you know it's funny you mentioned when you see someone pick it up and they work the bolt what do you look for like when you see someone pick it up and they work the bolt what do you look for like when you see someone pick up a rifle what do you what do you want to

see them do the trigger like what do you see when you're like he that's a discerning eye I don't know I like to like I honestly I work the bolt yeah because you want to, like, I honestly, I've worked the bolt. Yeah, of course. Because you want to see like,

how sloppy and weird it is. The play. And then I'm interested in the trigger. Those are the two things. And then, a lot of times, people will shoulder it, even if it doesn't have a scope on it,

they want to see, how it shoulders in that balance. Obviously, with a shotgun in particular. But, even with the rifle too, I think. Yeah, people are into, people are into triggers. Yeah, the bolt and trigger, but even with the rifle too, I think. Yeah, people are into triggers.

Yeah, the bolt and trigger are the only two things that move that you can actually manipulate. Otherwise, you just sit there and fondle the thing, you know, and see how tacky the stock is. Dude, yeah. Just enough tack. Yeah. Another thing with that having the right tack,

I think that the Mark V has, you know, like everybody for a while, everybody wants everything so damn light. Yeah. But you don't want it to be heavy. But I think people like the light thing has gotten a little. I know that you probably have a lot of customers that really want ultra light, ultra light.

But there's still like a, there's still, there's the carrying it and shooting it and there's a sweet spot there's an intersection there it's true where i think it where i think it lands well because i've had some i've had i had a custom rifle a few years ago that i actually guy made it and i went back to get a heavier barrel because it was i felt it was like too light when it came to shooting it like i shoot i shoot off my backpack all the time and when i laid that thing on my backpack it just didn't have that like funk like it didn't lay on my pack in the way where i felt like it was laying there it just felt too light yeah i love light chopsticky i love light but i agree but that's

the difference if i hunt i don't mind that because i pull the trigger hopefully once sometimes a little bit more but hopefully once but i carry it around for hours upon hours upon hours yeah i don't know because i i think I had one too light this last season. You know, it just doesn't feel right. I felt good. Oh, toting them around is great.

Walking, but it was bouncing a little bit. And I was like, oh, my brother used to have a rifle that was 13 pounds, but not because it was like a souped up rifle. It was a garbage 13 pound rifle. But he just really liked it. So when I lay that thing down,

man, I feel like it's like, I'm going to kill something. It's not going anywhere. Just like every other consumer product, we have a little bit light and a little bit heavy and a lot in the middle because everybody's got their preference.

Personal preference. It is. We're going to get after some turkeys with the new shotgun. Cool. Cool. Where are you guys going? Everywhere. Okay. Man, we're going to hunt turkeys. Texas first. We're going to hunt turkeys. Our with the new shotgun. Cool. Cool. Where are you guys going? Everywhere. Okay.

Man, we're going to hunt turkeys. Texas first. We're going to hunt turkeys. Our Michigan turkey hunt just got kind of screwed up. Oh, okay. We're going to hunt turkeys in Texas. We'll hunt turkeys here. Cool.

Hunt turkeys. I don't know. I'm going to go to Wisconsin. Taking the kids hunting turkeys. They're not allowed to hunt yet. Much to their dismay. I remember when we took our kids turkey hunting. So for turkey hunting, you're supposed

to be quiet. Depending on the age of kids, we took our sub five. All they do is sneeze and sniffle and yell at each other. Yeah. The only time I would ever shoot a turkey when they came along is once we scared them away, we'd just run them and gun them.

Which you're not supposed to do. No, that's not bad with kids I took my little boy when I can't remember I think he's three or four the first time I took him out we sit in the woods it's just getting light and I was like man he's kicking ass then look he's sleeping since he woke up it all went downhill my friend Doug let him take a after that morning my friend Doug let him take a slingshot out to this old dilapidated house he's got on his property and let him shoot all the windows out with his slingshot in this rundown house. And so I thought of it as a turkey trip,

but when he would recount the trip to people, he was like, when I was in Wisconsin shooting the windows out with a slingshot, I was like, oh, is that what you're you're doing oh I thought that was a hunting trip well guys you got any you got any concluders any final things you want to throw in there stuff you wish we asked no man just excited to hang out more with you guys

and look forward to seeing the stuff on the turkey hunts look forward to having you guys down and just anybody that knows too, we're, uh, after June 13th, we're going to have like a visitor center and just lobby for people to come by, sell some swag and people can visit us and see us right off the interstate. They're very Northern Wyoming. So when you're on your way to Bozeman from somewhere South, you come right by our place, you can see it from the highway. So, you know, a lot of people are asking about that. Oh, are we going to be able to come by and visit? Everybody asks that they want

tours. And our answer is right now, like, I need to make guns. So we're not going to give you tours. But maybe later. Are you guys going to put like some old pieces up in the visitors area? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're going to have a showroom. We'll have a lot of guns. They can see historical, current. Brenda's been in charge of kind of outfitting that so we have a lot of roy's

memorabilia from africa and other places are you gonna let people go shoot a cartridge that's not supposed to be in a certain gun just to resize the casing no no no yeah we're gonna have fire forming labs uh you can just mix and match we do have we do have a couple underground ranges though right under it it's pretty cool so i'm kind of jealous of that hat man well we can get you hats yeah i actually thought today on the way up like i should have probably brought some stuff we're still like moving so literally we're our offices are separate from our manufacturing so i actually thought about it i'm like i don't even know where to go to find a hat except for my closet you want this one yeah or the website there you go there you go i wish i can't trade anything there you go

we could find something that one's been worn cookbook hey man i recently traded uh my shirt with another guy really yeah huh you. Huh. You swapped? Yeah. Guy asked me if we could swap shirts. I traded him. He traded me his flannel. He traded me a quilted flannel for a hoodie. I just did it for no other reason than I thought it was a good idea. That it sounded fun.

Yeah. So you didn't, you just got screwed because I didn't give you anything. Well, no, I'm going to get a cookbook. You're drinking one of our, you're drinking one of our LaCroix's. You're attracting a lot of bartering to yourself. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Brenna, do you have any concluders?

Anything you wish I'd asked you about? Concluders. I got a clinging question for Brenna if you want to think about what your thought is. I want to know what the go-to wild game meal is in the Weatherby household. Oh, gosh. Well.

Or one of them. The one recipe you wish everybody knew about. Doesn't have to be fancy, but just like. She took back a marinade from her first Africa trip. I use that a lot. And we put it in Western wild game all the time. And it's really good. That's probably the go-to.

That's probably go-to, but I do a mean antelope curry. I do a, I mean, elk is very popular in our house we had actually you know your lettuce wrap thing that you did with the mountain lion yeah so i did that with pheasant just because i didn't have any cal made some cal made mountain lion lettuce wraps yeah that's nice it was awesome but i did the chili sauce and all that because you left that in my kitchen i was yeah and i'm like oh my gosh this is great i'm gonna doctor this up so kevin so we we got to cook in the weatherby kitchen yeah which is i'm quite jealous of it's sweet sweet layout um gotta get some blinds on there for filming though nope that's just that's a mountain view mountain view he keeps saying that

i'm like no we're not putting blinds no there. No, there's a tent. There's a window tent you can put up. Oh, okay. You still see the mountains. We can have one of our guys tell you how to do it. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, we had a great time cooking. So I did kind of like a larb lettuce wrap deal.

Larb? Yeah. What's that mean? Yeah, it's that. Basically, it's like a hand grind. You like dice meat until it looks good. Oh, like how lettuce wrap, the meat, the cut on lettuce. Yeah.

I've never heard that word. Yeah. I believe it's Thai. Yeah. It was like a Thai lettuce wrap. Man, we used to make a lot. That's one of the things that my kids would love, but I haven't made it in forever.

Oh, yeah. Kids did that. Could you put some coconut in there? I did peanuts, like toasted some peanuts. Man, I'm going to make some lettuce wraps because the kids eat that up. Big time. Because they like fidgeting with stuff. Yeah.

Is that a word or an acronym? It's a word. Look it up, Jan. Let's check them. You never got back to the other, but you were supposed to be checking earlier. You're supposed to be checking what grain means. I got it pulled up, man. Jan is all backed up on research.

As you all know, it's difficult to interrupt sometimes. Brenda got one of the mountain lion. You didn't get a mountain lion sandwich. I didn't get the sandwich, no. I had to go to work. I was trying to make pork chop John sandwiches out of mountain lions, and it turned out way more like a Chick-fil-A sandwich. It's not horrible though.

Oh man. Apparently there's a lot of fans of Chick-fil-A out there. People were very excited about that when I posted it up the other day. Well, Janice does his research. I'm going to tell you, remember we were talking about length of pull? Yeah. I'll tell you a quick length of pull story. I had, I suffered from Lyme disease some years ago,

and I had a lot of problems with my nervous system while this was going on. And then one problem that really surprised me, and this is as I was just beginning to figure out that I had Lyme, but I had written, I needed to measure my length of pole. So I had written L-O-P on my hand, and I'm sitting at my desk. I'm sitting at

my desk and all of a sudden I look and I don't know what that means or why it's there. And I had a amnesia bout that lasted about two hours where I lost track of about 24 hours of time. So I didn't know when I looked at my, I was working, I was writing and I had, and I was writing a, writing a document and I look at the document and nothing on the document makes sense. And I can't figure out where it came from to where I think someone wrote it on my computer. They knew what I was supposed to write about because I knew that I was supposed to write about it. I could remember that. I couldn't remember writing it. So I started taking passages of what I wrote, taking blocks of it and putting it into Google, trying to find where it came from. Because then I thought I must have cut

and pasted someone else's article. And I couldn't find it. And I started taking shorter and shorter chunks and putting them into Google. And I couldn't find those combinations of words. That's weird. And I had a book on my desk with a sticky note with the guy's address on it. And I knew who it was, but he had texted me or whatever that morning to send them a book. So I wrote the address down. I couldn't figure out why I had a book laying there with that address. And then it just started expanding outward and outward. And I couldn't remember anything. But yeah, the first glimpse was like, what in the hell does LOP mean?

But you figured it out later. Is that common for Lyme disease? No. And they, it's like, I went down. Yeah. Things like that can happen. There's a lot of sort of mysterious parts of it that happen. And when they diagnosed it, they diagnosed it as global transient amnesia. Yeah, things like that can happen. There's a lot of sort of mysterious parts of it that happen.

And when they diagnosed it, they diagnosed it as global transient amnesia. But it's never happened to me. I've been alive 45 years. I had Lyme disease for five months, and it just strikes me as unusual that at the same time that my elbows were numb, my knees were numb, I couldn't go downstairs without holding the handrail. All these other problems. How would it be that I had a two-hour amnesia bout within the worst of that five months that was not related? It just strikes me as like, how could it not be related? So what happened, like the two hours,

like literally was it like that next minute everything came back to you or did it no like gradually come back it left instantly I mean instantly it was like just snap and then it trickled back in interesting um I left I was working at our the production company that makes meat eater 0.0. I was working in their offices for the day and I got so nervous and was so disoriented that I didn't tell anyone what was happening. And I left there. And then other parts,

like I couldn't figure out how to get home. So that wasn't like a yesterday thing, but I very much knew who I was and what I did, my wife, but other things slipped. Like I couldn't quite think of how to get home, but I knew enough to call my wife, but other things slipped. Like I couldn't, I had, I couldn't think, I couldn't quite think of how to get home, but I knew enough to call my wife. Were you in the CIA? No.

No. Okay. But for a minute, I wondered if I was. You were Jason Bourne or whatever? Dude, it was so, and then once I got to the emergency room, stuff was coming back. Yeah. And maybe an hour or two later later it was all back and everything made sense I'm like oh I was going to send Mark Boardman this book I need to measure my length of pull I remember writing the thing it was wow if there was a drug you could take that would do

that to people people would take it just to be tripped out of course yeah wow or get Lyme disease and to call like to call your wife'm like, I don't understand what, but something is happening. Yeah, that's scary. And she's like, tell me something. Where are you? Yeah, don't move. Yeah, she said, don't move.

She's like, don't try to do anything. Yeah. I'm like, I'm just going to stand here. But something wrong is happening. Wow. Oh, dude, it was scary. Did you find it? Yeah.

Okay, first question, Is Cal right or wrong? He's right. I mean, this can be a complicated recipe, but yeah, most of these recipes were Thai, and it's basically like a Thai version of like a chicken salad. And this doesn't have it wrapped in lettuce, but I don't see why you couldn't. But yeah, usually the crunch is either like a toasted sticky rice or some nuts.

And then all sorts of fragrant herbs that go in there. Yeah, mint in there. Cilantro and mint. They use the word larb. Yeah, cilantro and mint. Fish sauce, coconut, lime juice, chili flakes, green scallions, cilantro. Steve, if you're looking for a recipe,

Daniel Pruitt has one on TheMeatEater.com for Thai venison lettuce wraps. But did she use the word larb? I feel like that's familiar. I think she did. There you go. I was looking at it. I didn't know what I was looking at.

In the Newharth household, what's hot right now for cooking? I just got a sous vide, so a lot of sous vide stuff. Experiment with that whole deal. Yeah, and I do all the cooking, so I can throw it in the sous vide pot before I come to work. It's ready when I get home, so big fan of that. You got the same setup where my wife doesn't like to cook. But I like to cook, so it works out good for us.

Yeah, I enjoy it. Okay, then the other thing. Yeah, tell me what a grain is real quick. The ancient grain varying from one culture to the next was defined as the weight of a designated number of dry wheat or other edible grain, kernels taken from the middle of the ear. That's what it is? It ended up being the original basis for the medieval English inch,

which is defined for instructional purposes as a length of three medium-sized barley corns placed end-to-end, which ends up being about 2.54 centimeters, which I believe 2.2 is one inch, right? So they were damn close way back in the day. There you go. It's 65 thousandths of a gram

or one 7,000th of a pound. One of our camera guys was working on a side project and it was about people trying to define what a kilo is. Because just the importance of having it be standard. Because things that you, like, let's say you have the object. And you're like, this is a kilo. Like this object will define what a kilo means. That thing sheds molecules.

So it was getting lighter. So it's like, how do we decide what is a kilo? Or how do we decide like what is a kilo or how do we decide like what exactly is a second you ever look up numbers in the dictionary no i don't have that much time the definition will always tell you no the definition will always tell you what precedes it and what comes after really yeah two well it's after one and before three that's true that's crazy it's good uh the definition of for water it's's one of the beauties of the definition for water is it acts as an almost universal solvent.

That's good stuff, man. You guys are glad you made the trip now, huh? Yeah. When you're flying home, you'll be thinking about that. Right. You shouldn't. You should think about where you're going and whether you're flying at the right elevation. High and slow.

Okay. We're going to wrap it up. Thank you very, very much for coming up. Yeah, thank you. Great info. It's not as much as if you had driven because you flew in a plane, but it's still, you risked life and limb. To be here. To be here.

That's great. So worth it. Thanks, guys. Thank you very much. Yeah. Worth it. Thanks, guys. Thank you very much. OnXH is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

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