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Buck Holly
158 Plays2 years ago
This week Drew is joined by long range hunter and founder of C&H Precision Weopons Buck Holly. After serving in the marines
Buck started his own firearms business which he has grown into one of the largest in the country. He spends his free time racing cars and hunting all over the world.
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Give us a call, Follow Instagram and Facebook at Tricer USA and go check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com
Until next time, shoot straight, have fun and always put God first!
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Transcript
Introduction and Invocation
00:00:06
Speaker
You are listening to the Tricer Podcast, where we talk all things hunting, gear, and the great outdoors. Before we begin, let's start things out right and put God first. Lord Jesus, I thank you for Tricer, and I ask that you can use this podcast as a way to bring joy to all of our listeners. We lay Tricer and this podcast at your feet.
00:00:31
Speaker
All right, another episode of the Tricer Podcast.
Meet Buck Hawley: Innovator and Hunter
00:00:35
Speaker
Today I'm joined by Buck Hawley of C&H Precision Weapons out of Georgia. Buck has a machine shop, machined all kinds of, he was in rifle parts and now he's doing handgun parts and all kinds of real innovative things for the gun industry. And he's also an avid hunter. He was just showing me a picture of a 270 inch whitetail on his wall. So he likes to kill stuff and he likes to kill big stuff. So Buck, how you doing?
00:00:59
Speaker
I'm fantastic. Glad to be with you. So tell me about yourself. Tell me about C&H Precision Weapons. What is it? How did you start doing it? Everyone wants to have a gun company and you
From Marine Corps to Precision Rifles
00:01:08
Speaker
have one. So how did that start? Yeah, well, I spent nine years actively in the Marine Corps and then I worked for as a government contractor for 13 or 14 years and
00:01:18
Speaker
got burned out and kind of hurt and was kind of tired of the DC beltway. And a buddy of mine and I decided that he was going to retire from the Marine Corps after 27 years of building precision rifles for the Marine Corps, building sniper rifles, M40A1s, A3s, A5s. And I was going to retire out of the government and we were going to start a precision rifle building company in La Belle, Florida. We both wanted to live in Florida, so we moved from the beltway down to Florida.
00:01:44
Speaker
And we started a company and we started building them. He was a primary builder and I was doing marketing and all the other stuff and shooting PRS matches at the same time. So I was trying to promote our product by shooting nationally in the PRS. And we did OK for a couple of years. We didn't do great as a small startup business. It was very difficult.
Collaboration with Glock and Business Growth
00:02:06
Speaker
Then one day a buddy of mine from Glock called. They were getting ready to go to SHOT Show and they were getting ready to mount. They were going to introduce
00:02:14
Speaker
a Glock that had a Trigicon RMR on it. If you know anything about pistols, in order to put an RMR on a Glock, you have to have an adapter plate. What does RMR mean? Reflex. Man, I don't even know. I don't even want to say because somebody's going to correct me, but it's a reflex sight. So it's a little optic that you put on top of your handgun that
00:02:36
Speaker
It's no different than a reflex sight that you put on your, like an Aimpoint T1. It's basically like a red dot sight on your pistol. It is a red dot sight on your pistol, yes. I got you. Okay. They were the first company to really introduce this en masse to the public in Chacho in 2015. And we made some of the very first plates that they used for marketing to show off this concept. I'm smart enough. I've known, I've worked with Glock for a long time and I figured that if they were going to do it, it would turn into something
00:03:06
Speaker
uh it would turn into something big so we stayed with it we started making some plates and selling them on ebay of all places and it seemed like every time i turned around this little batch that i would make would be sold out and we'd make some more we'd make 100 we'd make 50 and then we made it 100 and within two years my partner and i parted ways over some disagreements of you know should we build be building rifles or machining these parts and machining pistols and
00:03:32
Speaker
He went one way i want another and i grew successfully grew cnh precision from a two-person company in two thousand fourteen at the time to last year we were named the fastest growing privately held manufacturing company in the
C&H Precision's Expansion and Innovation
00:03:51
Speaker
six.
00:03:51
Speaker
or seven state region of the Southeast US. And we were number six or seven across the country, fastest privately held, fastest growing manufacturers.
00:04:03
Speaker
in the US. We've gone from two employees to nearly 60. We've acquired a couple other companies. So we've had a lot of success making these plates to put red dots on pistols. And along the way, we found out all the issues with other companies' red dots and we decided to fix them. So we started, we designed our own and now we're making our own red dots.
00:04:23
Speaker
Really? Yeah. That's neat. So you went from, I mean, I guess, so do you think that the rifle market is kind of a saturated market?
Navigating the Rifle Market Challenges
00:04:30
Speaker
I mean, everyone's kind of getting a Remington 700 action trying to make a long action or long range rifle and buying a carbon barrel and put it on there and he found a niche that just worked better for you or what? I, our specialty was, was making authentic Marine Corps sniper rifles. So we, we catered to a very, very niche clientele and we made some really light
00:04:52
Speaker
hunting rifles and we made some competition rifles. Is it saturated? I don't know if it's saturated. I just think that in today's age with the ability of people to precision machine actions and barrels and stocks,
00:05:08
Speaker
You no longer, I mean, dirty little secret, you no longer need a custom rifle builder to build a high end precision rifle. You can call impact in Oklahoma and buy an action, have it sent to your FFL. You can call one of two or three, call foundation stocks in Oklahoma and get a stock called Timoney or one of the trigger manufacturers.
00:05:30
Speaker
And you can call and get a free foot barrel you can screw the thing yourself together and you got a subway gun that will shoot absolutely lights out you don't need a gunsmith so you're kind of running into those issues along with big manufacturers like burger and and all you name all the other ones that are coming out with these amazing rifles.
00:05:49
Speaker
You put a brand new Bergara, one of their high-end ones that cost 2,000 bucks, you put it against my $5,000 rifle and they pertainer shoot the same. So how do you convince a guy to spend $5,000 when he can spend $2,000?
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, I get you, man. I had a Tikka 260 Remington that I killed, I mean, countless animals with, and I loved the rifle, and I actually built a
African Hunting Adventures with Basic Gear
00:06:16
Speaker
custom 260 off of McMillan Action and did that. I paid someone to do it, and I was like, man, I want to build another rifle.
00:06:21
Speaker
I went to do what you're saying. I went and bought a stock from a guy and then I went and bought a pre-fit barrel from carbon six. I put that gun together and it probably cost me, I don't know, 2,500 bucks to do it. And I mean, I actually, $1,200 with that gun. It's 280, it's a 280, actually improved. Now it's not a 260, but did it all myself and you can do that. Now there's the parts out there to make it, you know, I still send it off to get, what's it called, gaps, right? Or when you make,
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, just make sure everything... I didn't want to make sure I didn't blow up.
00:06:53
Speaker
Honestly, those TKs are so pretty thick. You're pretty much good to go. I mean, you just put it together. You tell that story. You know, I've got an equally good story. So this past summer, I took our my significant other and our two daughters to Africa. We went for three weeks. So we hunted for a week in South Africa. And then we went on vacation in Namibia for two weeks. And because you're flying internationally, I could have taken one of my high end guns.
00:07:19
Speaker
You know it's a you know it's got the new shirovsky ds scope it's got the laser range finder and you know it's it's the most badass gun ever that's what i shot this big ran with it we'll talk about later i could have taken that but when you fly in south africa and then you travel up north and then you get back on airplane you go to namibia there is just a bunch of hurdles.
00:07:38
Speaker
It's OK flying to one country, but when you start bouncing around the countries, it gets problematic. OK, so I said I called my guide and I know him and I said, hey, can you just can I just use one of your rifles? He goes, yeah, man, I got you covered. So we get over there. I have no idea what I'm getting into. We get over there, we're going to hunt. And he goes, all right, we're going to go sight in our rifles.
00:07:58
Speaker
And he pulls this, this rifle has to be 20 years old. It was beat to death. And I look at it and it's a Mossberg. I don't even know what model is in 300 short mag. It's got some chintzy little aluminum rings with a one inch tube scope. It's the vortex, you know, the $350 vortex Viper order like the crossfire.
00:08:23
Speaker
It has like a two to 12 crossfire on it with some chintzy rings and I'm like, this is what I'm going to use. I mean, that thing didn't, that thing didn't hiccup one time we shot 12 trophy animals. Now we didn't shoot anything super long range, but I think I took a shot at five or 600 yards. It killed everything. So do you need a, do you need a $6,000 rifle? I do, but most people don't.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah, I tell people all the time, honestly, like, if you're buying a $4,000 rifle and using $400 binoculars, you've got it backwards.
00:08:57
Speaker
You need to go spend, buy the expensive binoculars, the nice tripod, get all that stuff. And then worry about the rifle. Everyone's worried about the rifle. The rifle's sexy. Everyone wants the rifle, man. It's like, what caliber are you shooting? You know, guns are fun to buy. We're like, as adults, it's like our Legos for adults, right? Or, you know, when you're kids, we like buying, you know, whatever hot wheels and RC cars and bicycles. And now as adults, I like buying guns. And my wife, yeah.
00:09:24
Speaker
can't figure out why they can't see, you know, we just got back from Texas hunting and we're hunting these huge vast canyons and what we're hunting camouflages themselves perfectly. The cheap binos, there's guys that went with me that they couldn't see anything. All they see is mountains. And I'm picking out
00:09:42
Speaker
I'm picking out sheep here and there and, you know, I've got Swarovski binos. I've got a Swarovski spotting scope. I've got a tripod from you. Everything's super stable and they don't understand. I mean, I didn't even tell them. I'm not going to talk about why they can't see things. I just find animals for them. Let's go get that one and here we go.
00:10:03
Speaker
I hunted those sheep in New Mexico on a, I got lucky and drew a public land tag. And that was just a fun hunt, man. If you like glassing and big open country, man, the problem with those sheep is, is that their eyes are like the size of baseballs and there's like 40 of them in a herd. I mean, good luck getting any closer than 300 yards on a sheep. It's just like, they see you coming from a mile away. That's cool.
00:10:27
Speaker
Well, that's where my years of precision shooting come in because we shoot cross canyon. The shortest shot, we had one rookie shooter and there was a feeder. We had him shoot one at like 260 yards. We were all in a little behind a bush and a little hide.
00:10:45
Speaker
He got one at 260 yards, but all the rest of them, we shot it. We shot my big one at 589. We shot the next one at 608 and we shot the next big one at 612. Oh, man. So they don't really have a fear of you when you're that far, but you've got to have the hardware and you have to have the knowledge to be able to take those long shots in those canyons when there's you don't see any wind because you're shooting across the canyon, but there's damn sure five to 10 mile an hour from right to left or left to right that you've got to compensate for.
00:11:15
Speaker
I wanna get into that cheap story but before we get into that i kinda like starting out with like you know how do you get into hunting you know what would you start hunting after you got the military when you were six i was born and raised in anchorage alaska everybody in my family is a.
00:11:32
Speaker
Stone cold killer they don't think everybody grew up salmon fishing or hunting moose or i still have a big moose tooth necklace that my dad gave me when i was an infant i'm somewhere in my youth we move from a cold state to a colder state we moved to central minnesota.
00:11:48
Speaker
where my mom was from, and deer hunting is a public holiday there. Now it's only two weekends long, and that's where I actually shot my first deer. I was probably fresh out of gun safety training at 13 or 14 years. We were in southern Minnesota, so it's archery or shotgun slugs only.
00:12:09
Speaker
Here's this 13 or 14 year old car kid with a 12 gauge with these massive slugs and and I remember it was a doe and she was running away from me and I shot her in the in the hiney and I was I was absolutely stoked and my first deer it was a doe who cares I that was my first one that one lit the fire every season since then I would either I then joined the military I would go back to hunt in the fall and
00:12:34
Speaker
or I would find different places where I was stationed to hunt. It wasn't until really later in life that, you know, you're a service member, you don't have a lot of money, so you can't really afford to go on these big massive hunts or go target these big animals. It wasn't until the last 10 years that I've really been able to afford to go on these epic
A Lifetime Passion for Hunting
00:12:53
Speaker
adventures and bring my kids. And now from September till January, I would say every other weekend I'm somewhere duck hunting,
00:13:03
Speaker
Grouse hunting, pheasant hunting, deer hunting, sheep hunting, elk hunting, you name it, I'm hunting. You're living the dream. I am living the dream. I have been blessed by God to have a great company. I now have the money to do fun stuff and I am raising my kids, every one of them hunts and harvests and eats what they kill. So I'm raising kids the good old-fashioned American red-blooded way.
00:13:27
Speaker
That's awesome, man. I love when you start telling the story about shooting that doe with a shotgun, how you just start smiling. That's why I like starting out with that, because it's like, you remember that first one. I mean, there's a lot in between that you probably don't remember. You'll never forget that first one. Yeah. And it's just, it's neat to get it. Like you said, I mean, once you get it, it's just like, there's something carnal about it. And you see, like you said, my family's killers. Like there's certain people, when you get that first one, you're just like, I want to do that again.
00:13:54
Speaker
That felt good. I want to do that again, you know. Well, I got other friends who they go to, you know, they go to clean a rabbit and they start gagging, you know, you know, and I'm just like, oh man, I want to, I want to skin them. I want to, I just like cutting them up and I, my mouth's watering, you know, I just want to go do it again. I love it. That's awesome, man. So you got, you see, you have two kids. How many kids you got? I've got three. My significant others got two more. So we, we have a total of five, four girls and one boy. Um,
00:14:22
Speaker
The oldest is a girl. The next one's a boy. The next three are girls. Dana's girls don't really hunt. They're not really outdoorsy. They're more artsy, craftsy. They didn't grow up in a family. They've only been part of our family for the last couple of years. But all of my kids...
00:14:38
Speaker
have hunted since they were tiny and like i said i just took our ten-year-old who's now eleven we took her to africa last year she shot five trophy animals i'm taking my oldest daughter she's twenty six i'm taking her to new zealand and uh april we're gonna go hunt red stag and tar
00:14:57
Speaker
That's awesome. I wanted you to tell her so bad. So like I said, I plan my entire year around different hunts and where I'm going to be and who I'm going to take with me. I've got an employee who has been with me for two years. He was a bagger at the local grocery store, and he is a gun fanatic. He's got multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy, or one of the two. He doesn't walk very well. He's fantastic in customer service. And I said, listen, if you make it to this two-year mark,
00:15:26
Speaker
I'm gonna take you on an adventure. Kid's never been on an airplane, he's never shot anything, and I'm taking him to Texas to harvest a bighorn awedad this coming Saturday. Me and George Gardner from GA Precision, Brian Sykes from GA Precision, so there's a couple stone cold killers, and we're bringing Thomas along with us, and so it's gonna be an epic grand adventure for him.
00:15:47
Speaker
That's awesome, man. That's cool. I get a kick out. I like what you're talking about, taking your kids, taking him out. I just took the college pastor from my church. I had a bunch of points in Utah, or I just said the state. I had to say the state's like hunting. I had a bunch of points in the state for some cow tags, and I ended up averaging him in with my father-in-law averaging this college pastor in. And man, he had the time of his life.
00:16:09
Speaker
I have more fun seeing these guys shoot their first elk or shoot their first deer. I do shoot myself. Honestly, I killed Melk and it was like the first animal I've killed in a couple of years because all I've been doing is guiding my boys. My boys have killed, I think, eight or ten big game animals in the last three years and I've just been guiding. Honestly, it's a little more challenging for them to get an animal than for me.
00:16:30
Speaker
It's good. You know, in today's age, you know, I live in in coastal Georgia, I've had a lot of dude friends that we like to hang out at this little tiki bar down in the water and they talk football and basketball and kids sports. And we have a farm three hours away in the middle of Georgia that's just overrun with deer. And each of the last two years I've taken
00:16:51
Speaker
probably six kids from my buddies families with me and let them harvest their first deer and you to see the smile on their face and just watch them erupt with joy and to watch them shake like to me and you give me and you a little dough walks out and like you know we're just going to harvest this one because we can and this kid
00:17:12
Speaker
I had a kid last year that shot and missed two does at 100 yards because he was shaking so bad. And I finally, I brought him home. I'm like, listen, we're going to have a talk. We're either going to give you a shot of whiskey or you're going to just calm down. And the next day he finally got one. It's just so amazing to watch these kids. And then it's so gratified to go back and bring their kids back to their parents and like, listen, this is what you as the parent need to be doing with your kid. Otherwise you're raising a generation of kids that
00:17:40
Speaker
are not gonna appreciate it, are not gonna do it, and they're losing out on so many memories.
00:17:45
Speaker
100% my boys just they both killed elk over there with us and uh my one boy talking about the breathing like that he he thinks he is a stone cold killer i mean he kills a lot of stuff and uh he's just a killer he gets it done but i swear when he shot this elk the elk could have heard him breathing at 300 he was i think it was like 340 yard shot he got done and he's like i'm like dude your bruiser is like what are you talking about i'm fine i'm like dude you like are like sound like a lawnmower over there
00:18:11
Speaker
You're just like so gentle. He didn't even realize it. But it was a good time. It's always fun. So you're not building the precision rifles, but you're obviously still shooting. Are you still shooting PRS
From Shooting to Racing: A Quiet Transition
00:18:26
Speaker
or just? I went to the World Championships last year in 2022 and I won individual silver medal and a team gold. And after that, I hung up my spurs. I'm done.
00:18:37
Speaker
I still sponsor the PRS. I went to one or two matches this year just to kind of hang out and see my old buddies. But I've lost the fire and the desire. Sadly, I took up now racing Porsches. That's a little bit more fun than shooting PRS. My priorities have changed. I want to be home more.
00:19:00
Speaker
I want to do things that are not so noisy. My hearing's really bad. So, you know, hunting and racing cars are at this stage in my life are kind of my addictions.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, I, uh, I love riding dirt bikes. So being in the, before, I have a sheet belt manufacturing company and then I started Tricer. So hunting was my getaway from sheet belt manufacturing. Well now, uh, you know, you can't even kick it too. I have a hunting company. And so now my hunts are kind of almost becoming work for me. And people don't understand that, but when you're constantly at content, I love hunting. I'm going to hunt until the day I die.
00:19:36
Speaker
But I picked up riding bikes again. I haven't got on a bike in almost 20 years. And that's where I get on a bike again about a year and a half ago. And I just love it. I mean, getting on a dirt bike. There's something about being on a dirt bike or simply when you're racing, you know, no one can call you, no one can talk to you. And if you mess up, you're going to die.
00:19:51
Speaker
I love that. I love that. I love that. It's like no one can, no one can message me, no one can talk to me. And if I make one wrong slip, I'm going to break my neck on my dirt bike, right? Cause we're doing, we do like big open desert, like, uh, not racing, but riding, you know, your fifth gear, sixth gear and flying through the desert.
00:20:09
Speaker
you start thinking about work, you're going to crash. Go to handlebars. So I really do enjoy that aspect of it. It might be kind of similar for you. Like, you know, no employee can talk to me. No one can get to me. No one can message me. No one can email me. It's just me on the dirt bike. Right. And your hands are racing. Your hands are on the steering wheel and you're grabbing that. You're grabbing the shifter and you're using the clutch. That's it.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. It's a different environment and it's stress free. I can feel myself being scared, but- It's a good feeling. It is a good feeling. Pardon my language, but I like to feel like I'm crushing my inner bitch. Yeah.
00:20:48
Speaker
I go on a ruck every day with a 70 pound pack. I like to do hard stuff to prove to myself, to prove to my body and my mind that I can do it. And it actually makes my hunts a lot easier. So do hard stuff.
00:21:03
Speaker
So I just read a book with my kids, with my 10 year old. It's called Do Hard Things. So it's written by two Christians. They were like 17 years old and they wrote it. So it's a good book for your kids to read. We read it with them and then we went and summited the highest peak in Southern California with a bunch of 10 year olds. And we backpacked up there, slept, then backpacked the top of the peak. You know, it wasn't the craziest hike, but for a 10 year old, it was gnarly, right? And it was called Do Hard Things. Yeah, I fully agree. It's good to do something miserable. I go to the gym every single day, even if I don't want to go, because I want to do something miserable.
00:21:33
Speaker
There's an exercise I don't want to do, I always do and I always add weight to it because I want to make it even harder because when you're shooting out and you're six miles from the truck, you got to get it out. So I always just tell myself I always am miserable every single day and it just helps. I think it's good for men to do that. Men are soft and it's good for men to do stuff like that. It's good for men to, like you said, you kind of get rid of your inner bitch. I like that.
00:21:57
Speaker
There's something about people don't understand, right? This adrenaline with going fast. Something about when you start cracking 100 miles per hour and you're on the line of like, I used to have a race boat, a two-seater hydro is gnarly. It's like a piece of plywood with 600 horsepower on the back. There's something about being on that line of in control and out of control that just feels good.
00:22:18
Speaker
That's pretty neat. They're racing Porsches. Are you doing that like all over the South over there? We've been to, we've been to Watkins Glen in New York. Finger Lakes area was beautiful this summer. Been to Virginia.
00:22:32
Speaker
Been to Florida, there's a track here locally. And next year, it looks like we have a full schedule to kind of go from the Mississippi over. So if I can fit those in between hunt trips, I will certainly make as many of them as I can.
00:22:50
Speaker
What's this cannonball run thing they do from New York down to Key West? Ever seen that thing? That's what you should be getting into. That sounds like a fun, I guess it's totally illegal. I watched a documentary on that. I believe it was on Netflix and it was from New York to San Diego or Phoenix or somewhere.
00:23:09
Speaker
Oh yeah, they do those too. And these guys were absolutely amazing and gnarly. I think that the guys I watched were racing some kind of an Audi. And they had 10 radar detectors, they had people in front of them, they had people in back of them, and the average speed
00:23:27
Speaker
was unbelievable. They averaged 150 miles an hour across the holes. I don't know how you can do it without crashing. Why don't I do it? Because I run a company and I try to do everything I can to within the letter of the law so that I don't get jammed up by local state or feds. It sounds like- I got you. Yeah, I'll stay racing on the track where it's perfectly legal.
00:23:55
Speaker
Are you on a track or is it open road stuff that you're racing? It's a road course, so it's a track. It's a road course track. Okay, so it's a road course track. It's not an NASCAR where there's four turns. It looks like a snake. Going through the infield. Yeah, I'm following. I'm tracking it. That's cool. That's really cool.
00:24:14
Speaker
All right, so kind of went off of hunting there a little bit. But tell me about I always like to hear, you know, like a really good hunting story, man. Tell me tell me something. Tell me something. I got I got so many hunting stories, but I got one. It's from my youth. Actually, I was probably still in the Marine Corps. I went home. We had we had three or four or 500 acres in northern Minnesota.
00:24:35
Speaker
and I was hunting with my Uncle Rod. Rod is a stoic figure, you know, put a beard, a hat on him, he looks like Santa, but he is really into hunting. So we had to drive from our cabin in a pickup truck about two miles to get to his property. So he owned a separate piece of property that wasn't part of the family property, and he really managed it well. He would put food plots in and we had a couple deer stands, and my deer stand was on his property.
00:25:03
Speaker
And while I was home for this three or four week process, I would ride with him. One morning, we get to where we're going to park the truck. It's cold. It's in the morning. We go out to our deer stand. We don't see anything. We come back. We're both standing on opposite sides of the tailgate, taking a leak.
00:25:23
Speaker
Now we can't see each other there's a trucks between us But we're looking forward towards the hood and both of us at the same time says hey Do you see that and like this eight point buck walks in front of the like 20 yards in front of the truck? We're standing there with her with our junk out take it a leak and here come we haven't seen nothing all morning Here comes this eight point buck and I said don't move I'm gonna reach a might I'm reaching that round to the tailgate and grab my rifle and see if I can get him Soon as I as soon as I zipped she was gone really
00:25:53
Speaker
Okay, so that was in the morning. In the evening, we came back. Now everybody's texting me. So in the evening, we came back. And now we're getting ready to go out to hunt. We're putting all our stuff on. And like clockwork, we both take a leak because we don't want to take a leak out in the deer stand. And behind the truck, 100 yards.
00:26:15
Speaker
Here goes the same deer going back this, you know, he went left before now he's going right. He's going back towards our deer stands. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is the second time today we've seen this guy. So at that point, again, forget my language, but we started calling him Dick in Handbook.
00:26:31
Speaker
So I'm like, oh, this is crazy. So the next morning, I don't think the next morning we saw him, but like some point during the middle of the day, the next day, the same thing, except I think I was the only one taking a leak and there he goes. So I said, okay, I am going to just sit at the tailgate of the truck. I'm just going to hunt from here.
00:26:53
Speaker
Hunted the rest of the day, didn't see him. The next morning, we get to the truck, we get out of the truck, and I happened to get a glance of him, but he was down the road 200 yards, and I was ready for him. So I had my gun. I prone down on the ground. He jumped up in the middle of the road, very stoked. It's early morning. He looks down the road both ways.
00:27:16
Speaker
and I launched one at him. Now, at this point in the day, this dude's a huge eight, maybe a 10-pointer. I smoke him. He rolls head first, down in the ditch, snows flying everywhere, and off into the bushes he goes. So, we don't even have text messages at this point. I think we had radios or something, and I said, I think I got dick and handbook.
00:27:38
Speaker
And he goes, all right, well, let me know if you need any help. So I go walking down the road. I follow his tracks and there's blood. I follow his tracks and I look for him for half an hour. I can't find him. So I call Rod and I'm like, I need some help. So we go back to the road and we walk back in again, follow his tracks, but then we kind of lost him.
00:27:55
Speaker
And I'm sitting there and I see a little bit of steam coming off the snow behind some grass and behind some bushes, about 10 or 15 yards away from me. I went the wrong way. I look over to my left and there's a little bit of steam. I'm like, maybe that's him. And I walk over there expecting to find the trophy of my life, the biggest deer probably I've ever shot. I walk over there and this dude was like a little miniature six point.
00:28:20
Speaker
So I remember looking up and he goes, you find them? I said, well, I found them, but this certainly is a dick and hair book.
00:28:29
Speaker
This one's way smaller. And so that was the funny story about Dick and Handbook was that he never really was as big as we thought he was because we'd only ever get little glimpses of him. And then when we ended up getting them, he was certainly not as big as we ended up putting him on the wall just out of there used to be a rule that you couldn't put a buck on the wall at the cabin unless he was eight points or bigger. This guy made the wall as a joke. And it's at my expense now, as everybody.
00:28:58
Speaker
oh man that's funny so my kid one of my kids was hunting with my buddy on that hunt they just did we were just on for elk and they got down and they're laying there it's the middle of the day they they heard the elk like what's gonna get down here they're gonna cross us at some point they're gonna come down this canyon and cross us
00:29:15
Speaker
and so no joke as soon as my kid stood up and left his rifle these elk came out my buddy shot one from under a tree sleeping he woke up and shoots an elk my my kids over there dick in hand and did not get her and i told him i was like dude you have to have like it is murphy's law that you have to have your especially if you're like bird hunting like you need to have your shotgun with you because as soon as you drop your pants those ducks are flying over your head
00:29:42
Speaker
They're coming. So, yeah, he learned his lesson. Like, you always got to bring your rifle, buddy. You're going to take a pee, you can take a dump, you take that rifle, but you never know if something's going to step out. It might be the only time they step out for the week. Oh, man, that's, that's funny. That's good. So, you got him, what other hunts you got coming up this year? Well, we're going back to the same place in Texas that we just got done hunting two weeks ago. We, I took a county commissioner, our civil engineer for a new building that we're building and, uh,
00:30:10
Speaker
city councilman. So I took all my politician friends two weeks ago out there. And then on Saturday, we leave to go back to basically Amarillo, Texas. It's about 45 miles from there. We'll hunt there and for some more sheep. And then the rest of this fall, I think it'll just be hunting here in Georgia with my kids and some other neighbor kids at our farm here in Georgia for whitetail.
00:30:36
Speaker
Do you do any archery stuff for all rifles? Yeah man, I just, it's funny, I'm looking at it, it's right there. I just purchased one of my best friends and my work neighbor, he owns a shop next to me, he's a big bow hunter. He's been hounding me, he's bought a couple rifles from me. He's been hounding me to get into bow hunting. I've never ever in my life shot a bow.
00:30:56
Speaker
I like long range precision and i just bought a new brand new a hoyt with all the gizmos and widgets and stuff and i gotta sign it in it's it's a little bit too soon to take them to texas to try and shoot when the sheep a cuz are you with the bow and
00:31:11
Speaker
oh my gosh and i haven't practiced at all so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna get this joker set up and i'm gonna take it to africa next year i'm gonna shoot a buffalo cape buffalo but i'm not gonna i don't dare shoot one of those big mean suckers with a bow but
00:31:27
Speaker
where I'm going to hunt I have the opportunity to shoot orcs or impala or kudu or you name it. So my goal is to get my cape buffalo with a rifle and some other trophy with the bow next year while I'm in Africa. So I'm going to try and get it done and see how much fun it is.
00:31:46
Speaker
You seem like the kind of guy who doesn't do anything halfway, so I imagine that once you start doing the bow stuff, you're just going to be addicted to it. I probably will, but I'm telling you what, hunting, I think that there's a difference. I think that my style of rifle hunting is what most people's style of bow hunting is.
00:32:04
Speaker
You gotta find something that's, I mean, I don't shoot anything that's 200 yards away. That's just a piece of cake. I really enjoy hunting Idaho, Alaska, Montana, you know, pronghorn, where they can see you and you can see them unless you're a really long ways away. And there's a lot of atmospheric conditions between you and them. You know, shooting something out from underneath a feeder at 100 or 150 yards, you might as well be bow hunting. But once you start putting an animal, an elk,
00:32:33
Speaker
A mule deer, white tail, sheep, you get them somewhere between that 500 and 800 yard range. It's very sporty and you really need to know what you're doing. And that's just my addiction. I think you're right. I think that once I get into the bow hunting, I will probably add that to my quiver and hard part in the pond as one of my favorite things to do because
00:32:55
Speaker
I think that it just increases, you know, from everything that I've read and everything that I'm told, it just makes you such a better hunter overall, because you got to really understand when, not from this perspective of what's it going to do to your bullet, you got to understand what it's going to do with your scent and where, you know, what, you know, yeah, there might be a big buck in front of you, but you can't draw on them because maybe the dough that's right next to you might might grunt or spook them or, you know, so those things you never have to worry about when you're shooting 600 yards away.
00:33:22
Speaker
So I know I told you 35 minutes, 40 minutes, but I want to hear, I'm intrigued now because you like shooting long range, right? Yeah. It's a little controversial and less controversial. I like shooting long range as well. Tell me, what are you, so you're going to go shooting, right? You're going to go on a hunt in whatever. You're going to go on a sheep hunt in British Columbia. What rifle are you bringing? What caliber? Well, what does that look like? What scopes on it? What are you using for ballistics? What do you do? The whole big old stuff. Okay. So my rifle from top to bottom, there are some parts that just don't change regardless of caliber.
The Perfect Precision Rifle Setup
00:33:52
Speaker
it's a it's a trigger tech i now shoot trigger tech triggers set it about a pound i wanted a nice crispy pound i shoot a foundation stock it's a very christian conservative company out of oklahoma we should be rest together so it's a it's a mccarter stock.
00:34:11
Speaker
Is that like a traditional stock or is that like a modular stock like the new stock? It looks like a wood stock. It's shaped like a wood stock and it feels like a wood stock but it's a little bit heavier and it's very dense.
00:34:24
Speaker
I was looking for chassis. I've invented a couple of those and I don't shoot those because they're heavy, they're sharp, they don't feel good in your pack. So I like to feel of wood or wood similar. Impact actions, they're out of Oklahoma too. Tate Streeter owns that company.
00:34:42
Speaker
it's the smoothest most reliable action on the market they're expensive but they're worth it i get my barrels done by george gardener jia precision or wait at studio precision you know their their historic and custom rifle barrels and i just go together now as far and then i put some kind of a can i'm.
00:34:59
Speaker
pretty much suppressor agnostic. I don't care what kind of suppressor it is as long as it's a suppressor to protect my ears and everybody around me. As far as caliber, this is where I'm a little bit of a geek. You know, everybody, everybody picks their caliber based on reading some blurb of some
00:35:15
Speaker
some overweight old gray hair gun writer in a magazine like all this is the new cool caliber well yeah it's new and cool but is it gonna do for you what it needs to do is it gonna be too much power is it is it gonna be enough so my two calibers of choice these days and i i've i've gotten rid of every other rifle i got several of each six five p r c.
00:35:37
Speaker
and a three hundred p.r.c so anybody doesn't know six five p.r.c is nothing but six five create more with a short action magnum case so it's you're running at about two or three hundred feet extra per feet per second the three hundred p.r.c is a long action magnum it's nothing more than a than a modern three hundred win mag so that's when you really need to knock knock the hell out of something a big elk.
00:36:02
Speaker
a big, you know, some kind of a big animal where you need a lot of muzzle velocity and a lot of energy on target. Then I determined...
00:36:11
Speaker
What bullets are you running in those? Are you running like an ELDX or I shoot Berger in my Ackley? What are you shooting? I run box ammunition from Hornady and I do not. Really? I do not, yeah. You can't beat it. I guarantee you, you put me up against any professional shooter on a range, I will go toe to toe with that rifle and box ammunition from Hornady all day long. This ELDXs? I shoot their match bullet. Okay, the ELDMs.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yes, yes. So in the 300 PRC, I'm shooting I believe it's a 225 grain bullet. Okay, the big old Yeah, and in the six five PRC, don't quote me, but I think it's the 147 or 148 grain. Yeah, 147 or 154 or something like that. 147. No, it's a 147 or 148. Okay. Now, a lot of people like Oh, you can't shoot stuff and kill stuff with match bullets.
00:37:04
Speaker
Well, hey, listen, watch any of my videos, watch any of my collection. All of it's been shot with match bullets because they perform better. They're faster and they fly truer. They might not come apart like some of these other bullets do, but I want to be able to hit a target at a long ways away and put as much energy on target. Then what I do is I figure out what's the size of the animal that I'm taking. And because I'm a little bit of a geek in the math department,
00:37:32
Speaker
I figure out how big the animal is. And I've got a chart that figures out how much energy on target do you need to ethically kill that animal, which is typically about, you know, for an elk, they, you know, it's recommended that you have at least 1500 pounds foot pounds of energy on target to kill an elk. So
00:37:50
Speaker
I'm glad that you're bringing this up, because this is something I'm a big proponent of is energy. And I can you can shoot a 6.5 cream or accurate at 1000 yards, but I would not I took the whole time. Do you not shoot? No, it passed 350 400 yards in the 6.5 cream or because you're gonna lose all your energy. It's that's a bull so I can do it needs to do it's a coyote rifle at 800 yards. It's not an elk rifle at 800 yards.
00:38:10
Speaker
So then you do the math and you figure out where I'm going, how far can I see, how much energy on target. So if I'm hunting elk in a forested area and I'm only going to be able to see them 300 yards, I'm going to shoot a 6.5 PRC. If I'm going to shoot them on the plains of Idaho where I can see a thousand yards and I might only get a shot at 800 or 900 yards or 700 yards, I'm going to shoot a 300 PRC.
00:38:34
Speaker
So I kind of, I kind of judge, I don't have a one caliber fits all. I basically pick the animal, the environment that I'm hunting and I do the math and I figure out what's the best option for that hunt. As far as scopes, I've got four of these. They're $6,000 a piece, but the Swarovski DS scope. This scope is a 40 millimeter tube. It's got a laser range finder built into it. It calculates your density altitude.
00:38:59
Speaker
your angle up or your angle down. It gives you hash marks for wind whether you want 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 mile an hour winds left and right. It's absolutely the fastest scope and the deadliest scope on the market. No longer do you need
00:39:15
Speaker
laser range finder and you arrange them and then you look at your ballistic chart or your your Kestrel which I used to do and then figure out what it is and then you dial your scope and by then the sheep or the elk can move 25 or 30 yards so it's off this DS scope you get you put the crosshairs on them you hit the button it ranges it within a quarter of a second it gives you a return it gives you a red dot this is what your hold is you figure out what the wind is you pull the trigger it's done
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah, I liked that. My kid had a miss last weekend and he went way under an elk because we had ranged her at like, I don't know, it was like 280. He should have 308, but they're both fits. It's a good cartridge for a kid. I liked that cartridge. She was like 284. Well, she moved back to 340 and everything's going on. And I'm like, oh, you're going to be fine. Because like my gun, it's like a
00:40:00
Speaker
Not it's like a half of my way different so my shooting my understand a great burgers out of a twitty actually Well, I didn't think you think of it. It's like a four-foot drop at 350 yards Yeah, so yeah, it moved back and I just didn't think I just yeah, it was my fault like a my fault So I watched her hip lower you are clean walk to be looked for blood just to make sure but she wasn't there so yeah I like that it'll actually
00:40:21
Speaker
it happens you try to get set up and they start moving you know especially if things sometimes you know especially when you're under that you know three hundred yard mark things start seeing you if there's a herd of animals things start moving a little bit you know that elk might not even see you but the other elk you know saw you over here starts moving you know because your things are going on and the next thing you know you're going to shoot and the animals you know 40 yards closer or 40 yards further away.
00:40:42
Speaker
Well, you know, it's been my thing for years. I see these rifles come out with these scopes with these BDC reticles. I could go on for hours, but if you pick up a box of ammo, I don't have a box of ammo on my desk. If you pick up a box of ammo, it says, yeah, this 6.5 PRC goes 28.50. Well, how did you get a round number? It's not 28. Yeah, it's not at all. Every rifle, every rifle, shoots slightly deeper.
00:41:10
Speaker
And then people build these ballistic charts and then they climb a mountain and they wonder why they're shooting high because the air is less dense or they don't understand density altitude. There's just so much to, again, this is why I love long range shooting. There's temperature, humidity, density altitude, there's altitude, there's wind, there's spindrift, there's all this stuff. I mean, the average person can't shoot something at 500 yards and we routinely do it at six, seven, eight, 900 yards.
00:41:39
Speaker
Wow, that's neat. That's really neat. So yeah, and on the same thing with that whole, the BDC drop stuff, most of those are on second focal plane scopes. We don't realize it's a second focal plane scope. You have to set the scope to exactly to the right spot for your bullet that you're shooting. Those things are pretty much dead now. I mean, everything's kind of gone to the CV. Like I like, I think a CDS is a great scope, especially for my kids or someone trying to get into shooting a little bit further, put a CDS on there, you know, out to 4,500 yards, you can be pretty darn close. I actually get my kids under four and they've been really accurate at that.
00:42:08
Speaker
But yeah, those are the second focal plane scopes with a bullet dropping them. People don't know how to use them. So if you just put it on all the way up to 12 power, you're probably four power pass where you're supposed to be to have that thing work for your bullet you're shooting. And they're not, you know, that scope isn't made just for a 30-06, 150-gram bullet. It's made for every 30 caliber bullet, right? Or, you know, whatever it is. I learned the hard way with that when I first started getting into hunting and it's like, man,
00:42:36
Speaker
once i started understanding ballistics and i actually use some sig kilo binoculars to have ballistics in them so it calculates my you know my elevation all that in there because it does change a lot um you can put the wind in there and i also have stray lock on my phone which i didn't even realize the stray lock was russian you realize that yeah yeah and i i uh apple just shut them down so if you have a stray lock do not delete it and you'll not get it back
00:43:00
Speaker
I've never owned it. I'm a firm believer in applied ballistics. I've when I work for the government, I work very closely with them. Watch the development of the applied ballistics algorithm and now you can get it in a watch you get it in. It's in all these different pieces of hardware. It's it's I'm a firm believer in in there's several different companies that do it really well. But yeah, if people don't have some kind of a ballistic solver, they are they're just throwing rocks.
00:43:28
Speaker
100% 100% and when you start really looking at ballistics and I like what you're saying too about using like the match grade bullets and the reason why a Match grade bullet is so much better than a hunting wheel for longer-range shots Let's say you're using that same 6.5 PRC and you're using a 125 grain copper bullet right a Barnes bullet. Well the ballistics of that bullet it might come out of that gun 200 feet per second faster
00:43:50
Speaker
But once you hit 300 yards, it's probably going slower than that bullet that came out of your rifles 200 feet slower. Because you got the, the ballistics coefficient of that bullet is so much more. So you want those in those longer range, in the longer situations, you want a longer bullet, longer heavier bullet, it's going to buck the wind better and ballistically, it's just going to perform much better at range. So you might have a bullet that's yeah, it's going 3000 feet per second out of your rifle. But once you get to 250 yards, 300 yards, that thing's just falling off quick. Yeah, totally agree.
00:44:20
Speaker
And I am a little disappointed. I thought for sure you're gonna be shooting a seven millimeter of some sort. It's like, I'm a big fan. I was shooting, I was actually 260. I'm shooting Creedmoor. I love 260. That's probably one of my favorite cartridges. But I've got the seven millimeter bug right now. I just love that caliber. Well, all of my buddies, you know, I have a ton of friends that live in that, you know, from Kansas City to Oklahoma, Northern Texas. And, you know, I know Jason Hornady.
00:44:46
Speaker
All of my good friends have now that own rifle companies or work in their industry. They've all kind of migrated to the seven millimeter seven PRC and they're raving about it. I'm just at a stage in my life where I've seen too many things come and go fads. My 6.5 PRC works like a champ. My 300 PRC works like a champ.
00:45:06
Speaker
I don't, and I literally have, when I buy ammo, I call, not Jason Hardy, but I call somebody that works for Jason. I said, I need a pallet. No, I don't buy, I don't buy a case. I buy like 25 cases of ammo. This is enough ammo to blast me probably two rifles.
00:45:23
Speaker
So if I changed, I'd have to buy another pallet. Now I've got, then I'd have three pallets and I'd have enough ammo for four lifetimes. So I'm going to stick with what I got. I know it. I trust it. I, I too kind of have the seven millimeter bug, but I don't want to, I don't want to put together another rifle and have another cartridge and have another mag. You know, this mag, you know, that's why, you know, my, my, uh, 300 PRC doesn't even have a mag. It's an internal mag. So I can't lose the mag. There's nothing more than being like, Oh my God. So.
00:45:53
Speaker
I do. I do like that. I like simple things, right? Like Tricer is fast light simple. I like simple rifles. I like no bag. I like, I like that a lot. All top fed. Yeah. And I do agree that there's something to be said about we all shoot. I don't have one. All my friends shoot. Couldn't have found a 30 nozzler.
00:46:10
Speaker
which is essentially a 300 PRC before 300 PRC, right? And man, I'll tell you what, I tell them, you can't shoot my targets anything closer than 300, 400 yards. Because when those things hit, the amount of, it's like a freight train hitting, I mean, even at a thousand yards, they're all shooting like a 215 to 220 grain burgers. And when those things hit, I mean, that gong is swinging.
00:46:33
Speaker
It is horsepower. That's what those are. They're horsepower. It's just awesome, man. They hit something. It's going to die. They buck the wind. We'll go out and you might be holding 20 foot to the right with a 6.5 Creedmoor or those things you're only eight foot to the right. They buck the wind. They just really handle the wind well.
00:46:56
Speaker
I always say you can't kill them too dead, right? People would get all caught up and, oh, that's a huge cartridge. Really, it's not. I mean, it's shooting the same size bowls of 308. Well, you know, again, those people that say that, like, if you have a well-placed shot, you put it in the brisket, you know, in that cavity, there's not a whole lot of edible meat there anyway. The front shoulders, the rear quarters, the back straps, you put it right in that center zone, you take out their heart, their lungs, their liver. I mean, you wasted some rib meat.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah, we just killed five elk and every single elk was like a perfect shot right behind the shoulder. It was great. We only had one. We had one that got shot and started running and he got another one and it ended up going through the hindquarter, but it was it already had a good shot on it. I'm a big fan of you shoot elk until they're on the ground. It's all my kids. You just keep shooting them because I don't want to find them. Right.
00:47:46
Speaker
Right? And they try and when they die, they always just find a way to die in like the worst possible location. So like, just keep shooting that elk until it's on the ground, son. But yeah, you put it behind the shoulder right there. And I don't like shooting through the shoulder. I like shooting right behind the shoulder, a little pocket right there. You see it makes you smile thinking about it, right? Put your glasses on that thing. And you don't really waste any meat at all. It's just, it's crazy. Especially the broad side. Yeah. You're correct. Yeah, for sure. Well, Buck, that was a good podcast, man. Where can people find you? Do you have videos out?
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, I say go. So you can find me at I'm kind of a recluse. Now I don't answer many phone calls, but you can go to CHP w s.com. That's our web page. If you go to YouTube, the CHP w s YouTube page, there's a recent video on there about our recent hunt in Texas. It's a lot of business stuff. It's you know, how to mount plates and how to mount optics on pistols, but occasionally we'll throw one in the Africa hunts on there.
00:48:41
Speaker
You can find me on Instagram at Buck Holly, just my name, no spaces. Once in a while I get on the CHPWS Instagram page, but I'm trying to remove myself a little bit as the face of the company and let the younger generation take over. And I admit, openly admit that I have a very low tolerance or threshold for stupidity.
00:49:08
Speaker
people on the internet. I don't, you know, I like to post and ghost. I don't make comments anymore. I've gotten in too much, not trouble, I just get in these stupid arguments that drag me down and make me mad and I don't sleep at night. So I stay off the internet. I don't have Facebook. But you can find me on Instagram, Buck Holly, I post pictures of wildlife and my kids doing cool shit. I posted a picture last night of my 11 year old driving my classic Porsche learn how to drive a stick shift and
00:49:33
Speaker
So if you want family content and a little bit of motivation about working out and doing hard stuff, find me on Instagram or go to CHPWS and look us up and see what we're about. Awesome, man. Well, thanks, Buck. Let's do it again. Thank you. I'll send you some pictures when I'm done hunting next week.
00:49:52
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Tricer Podcast. Do us a favor or like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at tricerusa. I'm going to check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com. Until next time, shoot straight, have fun, and always put God first.