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Are Copper Bullets Superior – Hammer Bullets – Steve Davis
263 Plays2 months ago
This week Drew has Steve Davis from Hammer Bullets on the Tricer Podcast. Have you ever wondered about the performance of all copper bullets? Steve and Drew discuss copper bullets in detail on this podcast. If performance is a question you want to list to this show. Steve talks about using copper bullets in Africa on many different species of game. Drew talks about his experience with Hammer Bullets out west. If you want to know more about copper or Hammer Bullets this podcast is the one for you.
HAMMER BULLETS
Website - https://hammerbullets.com
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/hammerbulletsco/
TRICER USA
Website – https://tricerusa.com/
Instagram - @tricerusa
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tricerusa/
YouTube - @tricer
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Transcript
Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Bullet Design
00:00:00
Speaker
guys do and how you got going. I like to hear that too, you know, which is, I'm sure it would be a repeat on your, on your show, but yeah, yeah we good know I enjoy hearing the entrepreneurial thing as well.
00:00:12
Speaker
You know, everything great starts in a garage. Everything great starts in a garage around a mountain, actually. That's kind of how my stuff started.
Transition to Copper Bullets in California
00:00:18
Speaker
It was ah on an elk hunt out in the middle of Arizona. So you guys are catching in right now. You're hearing me and Steve Davis from Hammer Bullets start talking entrepreneurship. um we We actually did like a whole great podcast before this just talking. And I'm like, you better press start because we're just going into way too much good stuff. So um being from California.
00:00:37
Speaker
we are forced to shoot copper bullets. Like a mid 2010s, they went to copper in like Central Cal, like our pig hunting and stuff like that. And then they went statewide, I think in like 20, might've been 2019, maybe it was earlier than that, 2018. Might've been a little earlier. You guys have been kind of a captive audience for us. Yeah, maybe it's 16. I don't know, somewhere around there, the late 2010s, in the teens right there, it went copper only in California.
Hammer Bullets: Success Stories and Industry Disruption
00:01:03
Speaker
um I was shooting a different bullet a very popular bullet a bullet that works really well for me and I have it in some of my guns still but uh man when Steve came out with hammer bullets I got some of those from my 260 Remington because I don't shoot Creedmoor I shoot 260 because I'm a gentleman so I got some of his 124's And by golly, those things are some of the most accurate, easiest to load bullets I've ever gotten in my life. And I can't even tell you how many animals I've killed that bullet now. um I've shot in, no joke, I've shot in groups of the size of a grapefruit a thousand yards with that bullet. We had to drive down. One one of the bad things about copper veneers shot them is you don't get that mark on the target. So yeah, we had it. We actually drove out there. I'm like, I know I hit it. We had a, I had a three shot. I have a picture of my phone. I mean, it's the size of your freaking hand on this thousand yard silhouette with those
00:01:54
Speaker
those 124 hammer hunters. and Man, they're just great bullets. They're easy to load and they they do everything I need them to do to the point where I don't even shoot lead anymore. I just shoot hammers at everything no matter what state I'm in because they give you a great blood trail. and With Steve's design, they're super accurate and they also do some stuff inside that's different than other a couple of bullets that come apart and we'll talk about that
Challenges and Successes with Copper Bullets
00:02:19
Speaker
right now. but Man, Steve, you knocked it out of the park. I love industry disruptors. I love guys who come in and do something different. Cause there's, you know, four or five big bullet guys making the same damn bullet right now with a different color tip on them. And you came out and said, uh, hold my beer. I'm going to make a cup of bowl that does something different. And, uh, it just works. to that's So, you know, and if anybody's listened to us on a podcast before, you know, Brian, Brian and I became
00:02:49
Speaker
buddies and started hunting together and, and all that, all all that goes with that, you know, and we were, we were those weird guys that would go to the range and set up milk jugs and catch bullets to see what they do. Right. And, uh, trying to find that, that bullet that would, for lack of better terms, make our deer nice and dead without blowing them to pieces. Right. Yeah.
00:03:19
Speaker
We grew up, you know, if, if dad didn't have a good hunting season there, we didn't have a lot of meat, you know, so we were both those guys that were, you know, Todd, you know, yeah, don't, don't shoot too close to the shoulder. We want to eat that. You know, so shooting an animal and making a good shot and still losing a shoulder was just a ah violation. Um, and so in our quest, we've, we found copper.
00:03:46
Speaker
and liked it better, but everything we tried had some sort of an issue. And not knowing any better, we thought, well, we'll just make it ourselves.
Entrepreneurial Persistence and Product Development
00:03:58
Speaker
but yes So before you get going on that, one of my pastors, he did his message last years ago, and he says, if it wasn't for illusion, nothing would get done.
00:04:08
Speaker
Meaning you have this idea that I'm going to create this great bullet and the problem is you start doing it and then you get to a point of no return where it's either like you're going to fail or you've just gone too far and then you're stuck with it. You have to keep going, right? And that's kind of happened with this. I imagine like, yeah, this will be easy. You know, I kind of think we were just too stubborn. I don't know. You know, I mean, we bought a, we bought a small CNC lathe and put it in my garage and thought if we just get the purest copper that you can get, it'll work great. right how How much better can it get than really pure? And we just didn't know. And it didn't work. you know And we had this ideal of of of the the nose opening and shedding. We wanted that nose off, you know where we didn't want that rounded mushroom because the flat square front
00:05:03
Speaker
even if it's quite a bit smaller, will create a larger wound channel because it displaces perpendicular to the direction it's going versus the the rounded mushroom kind of parts its way through and goes through with less less permanent wound. yeah So we knew we wanted that off of there. And anyhow, it was it all seemed real easy, but when we started doing it and it didn't work, then we're, holy <unk>ed What do we do now?" yeah And so that it then it was, you know okay, we've got to find different copper. And yeah, ay I couldn't count the hours of research and trying, you know and and and then you start getting into different coppers. You can't just get a piece. yes You have to order a thousand or 2000 pounds.
00:05:58
Speaker
to try it. Copper is cheap. I came from the sheet metal industry, so I just left my dad's company for 24 years and yeah copper copper is a real cheap one to pick up, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So we spend thousands of dollars to get a box of copper and try it and it didn't work. You're talking probably three or four bucks a pound. I don't know what it is right now where copper is right now. Something like that. ah Maybe double. Six dollars a pound.
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, well, the copper we use is a little more expensive. You're talking six grand for people don't see that and other people don't seem like all your stuff so expensive. Man, I have a shed full of boxes of prototypes that is throw away, right? Like you make something doesn't work next. Next. And if you're a perfectionist, you're willing to do that. You're willing to, you know, swallow your pride and do it again, right? You're willing to have your buddy shoot your ball and be like, didn't work right. Even though you just poured your heart and soul into that bullet.
00:06:50
Speaker
for a year yeah and change it out. The last thing we wanted to do is go to market with, you know, another copper bullet. Yeah. Or a full metal jacket. Yeah. I mean, our whole thing, we came into this with terminal performance is, is the overwhelming guiding light for everything we do. Everything, everything else is secondary to the bullet performance on impact.
00:07:18
Speaker
And so that had to be the the best there is. And anything less than that and we weren't okay with it. Heck, we're still pushing. you know we're still We still experiment with stuff. you know We're not just riding along going okay we figured it out. you know There's always better, right? the yeah And so we keep we keep pushing and trying stuff as whenever we can. But yeah, we wanted to get that. and um You know, and you talk about your shed full of prototypes,
Financial and Material Challenges in Prototyping
00:07:53
Speaker
you know, we, we got a lot of that too. Try this. Oh, that, that design's not so great, but you know, the nice thing about what we do with the CNC is I can, we can make a few, you know, and go, I don't have to make thousands of them to make a run or anything, you know, like that kind of thing. So we can toy with that kind of stuff pretty easy.
00:08:17
Speaker
Um, but, uh, so we got lots of those discarded designs, but the copper, you know, we, we started this, we didn't, we didn't really have two nickels to rub together. But the next thing, you know, we've got, I don't remember three or 4,000 pounds of copper on my garage floor that we can't use. Yeah. You know, and so it's like, well, we'll hang on to it someday. We'll make target bullets or something. You know, and finally it was, well, you know what?
00:08:46
Speaker
Let's just go recycle it, get half of what we paid for it and get it back in the company because we need the cash. It's just one of those one of those lumps that we had to take. Yeah, man. so I've had so many of those, whether it be marketing mistakes or designs that just didn't work, things I believed and no one else believed in. I call them expensive lessons. right You have to look at them as expensive lessons. You can't look at them as like,
00:09:17
Speaker
I failed. but like I'll openly say like some of my first tripods weren't good, but you know I had to make those not so good tripods to get to the point where I am now where I feel like I'm one of the top dogs in the tripod industry. You're actually willing to make those mistakes and lick those wounds, and you can't look at it like, oh, I got half my i had got half money back from a cop or we're screwed. It's just like, oh, well, that didn't work, but I guarantee you that you know if we get this right,
00:09:42
Speaker
Carver's not gonna be an issue for us anymore. You know what I mean? And that and the only person who sees that is the entrepreneur, is you guys, right? Everyone else is like, it'd be cool if you make it, I'm rooting for you. But you see like, no, if I get this right, if I get this the way I wanna do it, I'm gonna be able to do hunting all the time I want. I'm gonna be able to do these things, I'm gonna be able to have an income and a business. And it takes an entrepreneur to have that mindset and do it and be willing to fail. Yeah, well, and I always say, you know, we learn more from from failures than we do from
Customer Feedback and Product Improvement
00:10:12
Speaker
success. yeah sir right Because when it doesn't work, then we can learn something from it. When it does everything perfect, it's like, that's great. you know it so So it's always great to hear from people. Oh, man, it's amazing. you know They shoot so accurate. They work great on the deer. They do everything you said they would do. And Guy loves to hear that stuff.
00:10:33
Speaker
But you learn when you when you hear about stuff that didn't go right. no And it's like, okay, now we got we have got to figure out why. How could that be? Why did that happen? And figure it out and try to make it so it can't happen again. And I'm sure you're the same way. The failure the failures made you better.
00:10:54
Speaker
Oh yeah. And the failures eat me alive. Like I still have, if something fails, it gets shipped to my house and I want to see it. I want to hold it. I want to see what's wrong with it. And a lot of the times, I mean, sometimes it's just someone was a knucklehead. Sometimes it's someone put a bullet through the guts and said, your bullets sucked. And they have the ability to go on rock slide and just hammer you. Right. I mean, like you get those guys too, but you want to kind of figure out what, what went wrong and how, you know, how we can make it better from that. Right. And I, you know, and I've made, like I talk talk about all the time, like my first panhead, um,
00:11:23
Speaker
It's probably the best it's the probably the bests selling hunting panhead in the country right now. and i've made I couldve like could have left it the same from day one. I've made like four or five changes to that panhead since inception, not because I had to, but because I saw I could make it better. right right like you know I had one guy email me that his tripod got water in the legs. When I designed my new tripod, I spent 10 grand and made waterproof twist locks. You know
New Product Development and Testing
00:11:46
Speaker
what I mean? like Those failures, if you look at them,
00:11:50
Speaker
in a way to improve, you know you're really unstoppable. It's when you kind of think like you're you've got it and you're the best, whoever else is going to catch you. When mean you're constantly trying to improve, it's really hard to catch you, right especially someone like you guys. I'm enough of a fanboy to know, you had the hammer hunters, the sledgehammers, but now you have like the absolute hammers, then you got the tipped hammers now, which I haven't even tried yet. um and You're constantly improving. and Honestly, you could have left it with the hammer hunters. like They work.
00:12:15
Speaker
You work really good. great we we're great and and You You bring up the TIP bullets, you know the HHTs. And that was that was a year or so in development. you know from i mean we And we tried TIP bullets several times before. we're We were long range guys, so chasing BC, all that kind of stuff. you know But there was no way if we could possibly take a bullet to market that almost works as good as what we already had. There's no way I can tell you, you know, hey, Drew, you should try these HHTs. They're great. And the terminal performance is almost as good as a Hammer Hunter. I think you'll like them.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah yeah just there's no way we can do it. you know It had to be as good or better in order to take it to market. And so you know and in the beginning, you know we were small and we could make mistakes and and chase them down. yeah Now it gets it's a little scary. you know If I launch a new product and we sell a whole bunch of it in a in a quick hurry and it's not good, as that's really tough to recover from.
00:13:28
Speaker
It really is, and people love, I don't know what it is about the internet, people love to pile on to, so something like that goes wrong, you jump on a forum, and people will just like, they don't they're not even involved in it, but they'll just start hammering on you, right? No pun
Handling Criticism and Misconceptions
00:13:42
Speaker
intended. You know what I mean? Like I had a guy the other day go on to Rockslide, which I'm a big sponsor of Rockslide, but sometimes people can go on there, and just because they have a public forum, they can do whatever they want. Put this totally false thing out.
00:13:54
Speaker
And I had to go out and then instantly 10 messages, gee, I knew it. I knew those guys, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, they had to be like, no, actually you're wrong. We emailed you back. Cause he was upset. We didn't email him back. We emailed you back, you know, and you never responded to us, you know? And you know, but it's like,
00:14:11
Speaker
People want to see hammer bullets fail because people don't like copper. I mean, people, people, yeah it's like I'm a big dirt bike guy. Second passion. So it'd be, it's hunting, hands down, shooting, and then dirt bikes. There's this big thing with electric bikes coming in. The electric bikes are really good, but there's even guys who will never switch to electric bikes because they just, they're not real. And people do not want to switch to copper because copper just doesn't work. Copper does pencils, deer, copper does, does things. But.
00:14:38
Speaker
get I get tired of the generalization. yeah You know, guys will say, well, all copper bullets are the same. But then in the next sentence, they'll say, well, yeah, not all lead bullets are the same. Well, how do you make that? How do you make that? You know ah you don't put all lead bullets in the same category. Well, you don't put all copper bullets in the same category either, you know, because they're not.
00:15:02
Speaker
the So that that gets a little frustrating. you know and and And I'm sure, like you said, you know when you have people that have bad things to say, almost always they've never used my product. Yeah, that's the worst part. They have something bad to say about my product, but they've never actually used it. I really don't have any time for those people. Now, if you've used my product and you've got it and you've had and you have an issue, then I very much want to talk to you. Because that guy I can learn from.
00:15:32
Speaker
But yeah no yeah, I get exactly what you're saying. That stuff's frustrating. you know And then you know we got our hammer haters.
00:15:44
Speaker
You know, and it we almost kind of figured out we got, it well, I guess we kind of, maybe that means we kind of made it if we have a hate club. Yeah. but So one thing i I can say that it's been nice as we've gotten bigger is I used to like, feel like I had to respond. Now it's gotten to a point where I don't have to respond most of the time. People will just respond for me. Right. yeah Like, like if someone were to knock hammer bullets, I'd be like, no way, dude. Like I don't even know. I probably shot 34. I don't know how many animals I've killed with your bullets. A ton.
00:16:11
Speaker
They've all done like the, one of the worst things about your bullets is they just work the first time I have, I loaded a hundred off of my odd six. I used one so far. The animal's dead, right? Like, I just, like, I don't know. If I put that bullet, where does it go? They die. I mean, I'll give you an example right now, a copper example. So I went to Hawaii, the show had access to your, and I was going to bring my hot six, but I was already bringing my bow. We were going to archery hell with Brad from gritty. We're going to archery hunt. We had to bring a cooler, you know, all this stuff. I was like, well, you guys just borrow my gun. You get here.
00:16:40
Speaker
So I borrow his gun, and this is a California guy. He's a phenomenal guy. Actually, it's a phenomenal guy. But his gun was a 6.5 PRC, and we were using copper bullets.
00:16:55
Speaker
Well, they weren't your bullets. I know your bullets would have done this, but I kid you not, I penciled three deer. One of them I didn't find. Because that bullet was going, we were shooting 100 yards, 150 yards. Those bullets were going so fast that they were just penciling. And I know for factory or penciling, because I know they were good hits, and I found the deer. The second two deer, I was able to put follow up shots on and kill them. But you can see the pinky, pinky both sides. And I'm sitting there thinking, man, hammers love velocity.
Performance and Design Enhancements of Hammer Bullets
00:17:25
Speaker
And hammers. Yeah. And I don't see, I don't understand that. I haven't tested a lot of other bullets, you know, really tested, uh, test my own stuff, but you know, the higher, the higher the impact velocity, the faster they do their thing. Your rules are phenomenal. They hit the just do it. And also.
00:17:44
Speaker
You know, and I've heard those stories, well, you can shoot a bullet too fast and it goes all the way through the deer before it can react. And that doesn't make sense to me. I don't, because I've, I've never been able to personally witness that happen on impact testing. Yep. This is my first time ever. was So fast that it won't open. This is my first time ever penciling and.
00:18:05
Speaker
It was a copper bullet and 100% a hundred percent of pencil because I was looking for my pinky on both sides of this thing. But my point with that is, is I've seen your bullets come out of a 30 nozzler at 100 yards and it looks like a bomb goes off. there's There's holes all over the place in this pig because it went in behind the shoulder and there's holes.
00:18:22
Speaker
I kid you not, we shot a pig one time. That's when I first started messing with hammers. My father-in-law was shooting a 30-nozzler. He shoots a pig behind the shoulder. I would get up there and I'm like, you skull shot him. You head shot him. I'm like, no, I didn't. That pedal came out the skull and blew the back of the skull out. I mean. No way. Oh, it was so bitching, dude. It was so cool. It so cool. And that thing's ripping. you know I mean, that thing's, I think it's pushing like 3, 300 feet per second or something, shooting like the 190, probably the hammer hunters I imagine at that time.
00:18:52
Speaker
Um, probably the one 80 ones or the one eighties, something like that. Yeah. Just ripping out. You know, and it's just like, it's like absolute destruction and you know, and then like, I shot a deer or I shot an antelope last week. End to end. I went right behind the shoulder. I'll send it before the podcast. I went right behind the shoulder perfectly, but it was hard quartering and that bull went and, and came out by the ball sack. There was, you know, three holes in the bullet out the back of the pedals and, uh,
00:19:23
Speaker
it in the slow motion video off saying to this, you see that deer expand three X or that antelope expand three X. I mean, like it looks like a basketball. like them Yeah. Well, the coolest thing I've ever seen. That's that shock that we were after by shedding. Yeah. And yeah yeah and in in the beginning when we first started making them, we just knew we wanted the nose off um and didn't, we didn't take into any account the process of that happening and what it, what benefits came from it. We just knew we wanted it off. We wanted that square flat front and shank. Um, and then, you know, it's like, Hey, there's something to this shedding. So we started, you know, working on that, you know, how much too much, not enough, you know, and the shock that comes, you know, when the, when, when they open and shed, there's an incredible, uh, shock or, or
00:20:21
Speaker
permanent, that initial permanent wound channel is very big, but that's what makes those animals and it gives you that visible impact on the animal when the animal goes, Oh, that hurt, you know, versus the animal when they shoot them and they go. Something happened. I think I should run. Uh, cause they don't, I don't think they can feel it. Uh, you know, but when they go or they lock up and can't move, that's that shock that just kind of shuts them off.
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, this buck, which was really surprising, he ended up going like 100 yards. But he was so turned on at this point, he was chasing a doe. Like, I just shot him because he wasn't going to use this. I mean, literally, like, if I didn't shoot, he probably would have ran another 500 yards that way. He was all over the place.
00:21:06
Speaker
I, he was so dead on his feet, like more dead than I've ever seen before dead on his feet. I ended up having to gut him and typically, typically I'll just go gutless. So I go to gut him and not, you know, normally like if you've ever got an animal, there's pressure in their stomach, right? And you're going to gut him and you're you're going to put your fingers in there. There was no pressure. I couldn't figure it out. So we open them up and it pure rate that hammer bullet, dude, it was my 30 odd six and go one 51 hammer. I'm going 31 60. So which basically it's four to 500 yard gun.
00:21:38
Speaker
It pureed his guts. I've never seen something like it. There was not an intestine left in this deer. Both lungs are gone. It just, it just killed this deer. I don't know how he ran. He was the best man. So horny that he ran. I don't know. He wanted those does so bad, but uh, is a wonderful thing. I think, yeah you know, that, that adrenaline's going. They, you know, and and we, we typically don't see anything go that far with it with a good shot like that. But every now and then there's that one.
00:22:06
Speaker
that just has the ability to do it. Yeah, I don't know. He was dead on his feet. I mean, like I said, it was his lungs were pulver. I wasn't going to do the pictures. it's I'm not going to show you his pictures on the internet because they're just that graphic. but it's like i don't I never show those pictures either. I let other people do it. I encourage other people to show what happened. Somehow as the manufacturer, I've never thought it was a good idea for me to show the gory shots. I'll send it to my friends. I'll text friends with that kind of stuff. People get all upset. you know people don't you know, they they harvest animals, they don't kill them, right? Like I always say like, I'm going to kill something, I want to kill it dead and hammer bullets do that. You know, it's funny as I've never really been like an end to end guy, but I did the same exact shot on a kuzu this year, but I went through the chest because it was a, as a one Oh nine kuzu came into water and there was only shot I had. And I put that thing end to end through him as well. And he didn't go more than 20, 30 yards and piled up, right? It's all a video pause right in front of us. um Yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
And the the cool thing about those hammers is, is they get that penetration to make it all the way through. That's one thing I preach about copper. Right. A lot of these guys now have gone to using match bullets and I am a big advocate. I hate match balls for hunting. I will go on to rock slide and fight with people and be like, no, this is not, those are match bullets. They are not hunting bullets. If you go and talk to Hornady, they're going to tell you there's not hunting bullets. But for some reason, the hunting industry has decided that no, the manufacturer lying to us, these are, these are hunting bullets. You know, I'm not sure I understand that one either. You know what I mean? And I get.
00:23:35
Speaker
people call me, so usually when people are calling me, they're trying to find a new bullet because they had an issue with another bullet, right? So I get to hear all the bad stories, yeah you know, and you know, so something went wrong. So now they're trying to find something else to try and keep that from happening again, you know, and what I've what i've learned over the years of listening to what people told me about what happened to them,
00:24:06
Speaker
is you know in every bullet has a velocity window you know the low velocity and the high velocity in between things work well outside of that all bets are off right and the the match bullets and and and stuff like that you know basically their window of velocity is narrow you get them you get them you know much over 2800 feet per second impacts and it might get rough. you know And you get much below 22 or 2000, they tend to have trouble and want to tumble. And you know sometimes tumbling bullets do great things, sometimes they do bad things. know and also So there's that narrow window. You keep them in there and and put it in the right spot and they're pretty dramatic.
00:24:59
Speaker
Um, you know, and that's, and that's why people love that stuff is cause they get, they get that dramatic kill when they put it in the right spot and the right speed thing drops and it's drops in his tracks right there. Cause there's everything exploded inside of them. And yeah, you get, we'll see. in And they're, they're generally those bullets tend to just come all apart. And so you get what I was just talking about. You get that huge shock from that, that opening and shedding. Boom.
00:25:24
Speaker
but then they tend to only go a little ways. Yeah, I've seen, my father-in-law lost a bull in New Mexico because he used a match bullet, a match bullet that I love and I'm going to shoot in my six dasher, but it just blew up the shoulder.
00:25:42
Speaker
God didn't penetrate, you know, and when people don't realize, and this is one of the issues that I don't, I don't say I have issues with PRC's and stuff, you know, and everyone wants these ripping cartridges. Now these six, five PRC's and stuff. If you're shooting a match bullet, you probably won't be past 200 yards of that gun with a match bullet. That thing hits that animal at 3,300 feet per second.
00:26:04
Speaker
all bets are off, you know, it could blow up right on the shoulder, especially an elk, you know, it's just going too fast. I'm, since we started doing this, I'm firmly in the, war the Roy Weatherby camp, speed kills. You know, and, but old Roy was a little handicapped. He didn't have too many bullets that would work to do what he wanted to do. yeah You know, and now we, I mean, we don't, I really don't think we have a,
00:26:31
Speaker
I mean, we've impacted, you know, 4,000 plus feet per second. We still retain the same weight. They just squish more, you know, and on we've, we've some bullets like our, our 300 blackout bullet. You know, I've had guys shoot those, you know, you know, out of rums and stuff that.
00:26:50
Speaker
Crazy velocities, you know, and and you hit a deer with that at close range. It still retains the weight, but it'll flatten out like a nickel. but That's awesome. It was like a one 10, right? One 10 bullet or something. 101 grain. Oh, one a one i did I remember looking at those the other day. Yeah.
Technical Aspects of Bullet Stability and Performance
00:27:08
Speaker
101. And it's got a big hollow point in it. It's designed for the blackout to maximize powder capacity in the blackout and get it up to about 2,600 feet per second.
00:27:18
Speaker
And now you've got a legitimate deer killer, you know, up to a couple hundred yards. Yeah. I need to, I probably should pick some of those up from you. Cause I'm going to take my kid to Texas to kill some pig, my 11 year old, and he's going to shoot his blackout. Cause he has a Creed Moore and it's just, it's just too much gun for him. You know, it's not too much gun, but the blackout, he just shoots really good, you know, and you're going to be shooting a hundred yards. Anyways, why do I need to bring a Creed Moore for that? You know, big muzzle brake or anything. Just get them on the block out. So he checks, checks on those out.
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, if he shoots it good. And that's that's exactly what we designed that bullet for. um so But yeah, so the high velocity really isn't an issue. you know and We've got a ah very good low velocity. I'm comfortable with 1,800 feet per second with all of our bullets for full opening and shedding. Not just that little bit of a mushroom and go, oh, look, see it expanded. No, I expect.
00:28:10
Speaker
full opening and shedding of the nose. You know, if we hang onto those pedals, then I'm going to, I'm almost leaning towards that was a failure. That's not what we want. So you're saying it'll shed shed, it'll shed pedals at 8,200 feet per second still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that gives, that gives us a huge wide impact velocity window. Um, where the bullets going to do everything that it should do, you know,
00:28:36
Speaker
The only place that we get sticky is making sure you're running enough to a straight for the bullet. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Those long bullets are going to be, you probably run a one to eight for most of these longer ones, one in seven. Yeah. but mean And we've got different bullets, you know, but they wind up being lighter for caliber than people are used to because it's copper. It's 20% lighter by volume than lead. You know, so that bullet gets longer in order to gain weight. You can't really get fatter, right? Yeah.
00:29:05
Speaker
gets longer, well, then it needs more twist in order to stabilize it. So you know the guy will say, well, yeah, but my 30-06 has always shot 180-grain bullets. Great. you know Or 200-grain bullets, whatever it is. It's like, yeah, but you've got an 11-twist. you know Or you've got a 10-twist. And you know getting a 10-twist copper bullet at 200 grains is difficult. We've got one, but it's just ah it's a big blunt-nosed bullet.
00:29:33
Speaker
you know but you're better off you know with extra stability. The more twist, the better. you know And the more we do this, the more I'm leaning towards, I don't think we can over spin a bullet. Can't over twist it. Oh, I always say there's a line somewhere, but we have yet to be able to find it. Those guys shooting that 8.6 blackout, they're running our 186 grain stone hammers out of it um with a three twist.
00:30:05
Speaker
And I think they're getting them like 2,700 or something like that. And it's spectacular on deer. But there's something too that, you know, the faster that thinks, you know, and over the years of impact testing, you know, the better the stability, the better the bullet performs on impact. And I think the more you twist them, the better it gets for everything. yeah and i was I was talking with a fellow the other day that's super smart.
00:30:36
Speaker
way smarter than me but we were talking about a lot of different stuff but he he brought something up and he's an EOR guy you know shooting miles and he said the faster you can spin a bullet the less the wind will deflect it and so that was kind of a light bulb for me and it's like hmm I guess it kind of makes sense you know if it the more stable it is the harder it's spinning the harder it is to push it off of its axis. yeah So it made sense to me. I can't, I have proved it, but it, you know, in all the shooting and testing that we do, it sounds to me like he's he's definitely onto to something. no So there's, yeah, the more you spin them, the better, you know, and now, you know, we build rifles often, you know, and we, you know, 30 cows, I'll get an eight twist.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah. You know, the seven millimeters or seven or eight twist, you know, so we, we fast twist everything. Even if we don't intend to shoot heavy, the more spin, the better. Man, I have notes here now cause I got so many questions. I want to go over. I want to know about kinetic energy. I want to talk about exit holes. I want to talk about light for caliber. So I guess we'll go in.
00:31:59
Speaker
I guess we can kind of tie those two together that the light for caliber and the kinetic energy. So I've always kind of like lean towards heavy for caliber, but everybody does, but, but with hammers.
00:32:12
Speaker
You're kind of making me a leap believer in the velocity thing. Cause I'm a big kinetic, I still like kinetic energy. Uh, and you still get with, with high velocity, still get kinetic energy, right? Like I always say like people still don't talk about the 1500 pounds rule. I find that if you find the 1500 pound mark, you're probably, you're both still probably going to perform. Right. And most times it's even a thousand pounds on deer. But let's talk about the white for caliber thing, because you, I know just from listening to you and recommendations you made to me on like emails and stuff, you're always going wider than I want to go. So.
00:32:42
Speaker
Talk about that. Like I have a 280 that I wanted to shoot like the 170s out of or something, but I'm shooting the 140. They only have a nine twist. No, no, I've got it. I spun it up. I mean, it's, I think it's like one in eight or something. Is it an eight? It's an eight, but I, but I ended up with 141s cause they just shoot really good and they're ripping like, you know. Yeah. So.
00:33:05
Speaker
You know, so when somebody asks me, okay, what bullet should I run? My first question is what twist do you have? Because that will tell us what we can't run. Okay. All right. And so often, like I said,
00:33:19
Speaker
a moment to ago, often that twist will dictate that and we can't run that 170 grain bullet because you can't stabilize it. You've got a nine inch twist. They're going to shoot sideways. Or if you're at a high enough elevation and you can get them to shoot well, there's a very good chance on impact. They're going to yaw and not open, tumble. Bad things happen when you're not fully stable. right So that's the first thing. you know And so often that winds up dictating that we're gonna run a little lighter than we're used to running to keep the stability. Now, in your case, you got you got an eight twist, so you basically could run any of our seven millimeter bullets. So my next question is, tell me about your hunting. What are you hunting and how far do you wanna hunt to? you know not not not Not how far do you wanna shoot rocks. how far do you What's your hunting range that you're comfortable shooting at an animal?
00:34:17
Speaker
Right. And so we'll get that number from the guy. You know, one guy will say, well, I don't shoot past 300 yards. The next guy is like, well, I want to be able to kill elk at 900 yards, whatever it is. Right. So that will start to say, okay, well, that lighter, faster bullet.
00:34:40
Speaker
We'll get passed up by that heavier, slower bullet, someplace down range. Some around 450 to 600 yards. It's going to start passing. Yeah, 700 depends, you know, depends on the horsepower running, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, but, and then the question is, you know, it's the, the, I always call it, you know, the rabbit and the turtle race. The turtle always wins the race. But the question is how far down range before he passes the rabbit.
00:35:07
Speaker
If he's passing the rabbit past how far you want to hunt, then why are we going to run that heavy? Right? Not to mention you can' you have to have a higher impact velocity. A lot of your rifles aren't going to be throwed for some of these longer cover bullets. You're going to have to seat that bullet super deep in there. You're not going to get a lot of powder in there as well. Unless you build a cover. Yeah. you could You could throw, I know a guy who throwed his bolt has gone out just for to run the heavies in his 280 Acli.
00:35:31
Speaker
Um, yeah, he had to throw out his gun though, to get him to get the powder in there, you know, that, or you're pushing that thing way down into the into the case and you're not going to want to powder. Yeah. See, and I did that with my two ad actually, but I don't, I really don't run very heavy with it. Um, and actually it's my daughter's now. She, she wound up getting it because her scope broke at hunting camp one year and I, Merry Christmas. but What are you, what are you running? Are you running the one fifties? Um, she's now running the one 45 HHTs.
00:36:00
Speaker
Okay. tipped one So that rifle is for the most part, it's run the, the one 40 absolutes, that's what 43 hammer hunters and now the one 45 HHTs. Uh, the, the Ackley does really well with the absolute design, the huge velocity gains in that cartridge. Um, but we'll, we'll come back to that. That takes us off into different tangent.
Impact Velocity vs. Energy Debate
00:36:26
Speaker
Um, but, uh,
00:36:29
Speaker
You know, the energy thing, I'm not a big energy guy. You know, there is energy there, right? You have to have energy in order to make the bullet deform and and and cause a permanent wound channel. But, you know, the energy number was something that, you know, some magazine writer came out with in the fifties or sixties. You know, you got to have 1,500 foot pounds in order to kill an elk. Anything less than that's not enough. And it became one of those things that became fact, you know,
00:37:00
Speaker
But really it's not, you know, the energy, you know, if so if you, if you take, you take the bullet that's running and it's impacting with 1500 foot pounds of energy, but it doesn't deform and it pencils through. Well, that energy didn't do us any good. Right. Or you take another bullet and lands with that 1500 pounds of energy.
00:37:28
Speaker
but it totally comes undone and it only penetrates a few inches. Well, that 1500 pounds didn't do us any good there either. you know And you got those guys out there, well, I want energy dump. I want all that energy to land in the animal. Well, that one, that one that came undone, that animal took every bit of that energy and he ran for miles.
00:37:51
Speaker
Energy didn't do us any good, right? So it depends on what the bullets doing with that energy. Right. So I'm much more about impact velocity versus foot pounds of energy. To me, the foot pounds of energy is just an arbitrary number. That's great to compare one cartridge to another while we're arguing around the campfire, which one's best. Right. Well, mine has this much energy at this distance. Yeah. Well, mine has this. Okay. That's, that's about as much value as I give the energy number, you know, impact velocity. We keep our impacts.
00:38:28
Speaker
with With our bullets, we keep our impacts above 1,800 feet per second. The bullet's going to open, shed, and do everything that it should. right So we're going to get that proper wounding. We're still going to get deep penetration, oh all those things. So no, I'm not an energy guy. yeah and you know yeah And this argument will never go away. you know and Somebody's going to listen to this and go, well, that hammer bullet guy's stupid.
00:38:56
Speaker
so But, you know, and for years, you know, we've been running light for caliber to prove a point, you know, look what I did with my six Creedmoor. I just killed an elk with an 88 gram bullet. And it was phenomenal. You know, so know you just did that a few years ago, the you know, but i would I would do that and I would, you know, get it out there that hey, look, look how well this works.
00:39:24
Speaker
you know've We've gone to Africa and taken light for caliber stuff and shot animals that are way too big to shoot with that and with phenomenal results. you know But it's all about how that bullet acts on impact and creating a permanent wound channel to a ah harvest that animal quick and clean. So yeah, no, I'm not much of an energy guy. So when that guy is asking me, well, I only shoot to 300 yards, but I need But I need the highest BC 200 grain bullet possible.
Wound Channels and Hunting Effectiveness
00:39:58
Speaker
And I'm like, well, those things don't really go together. You know, why don't we shoot 138 grain bullet and get the velocity a thousand feet faster and actually do something. Gotcha. Man, I got all kinds of stuff. Let's talk exit holes.
00:40:18
Speaker
why Why is an axe at all important? Why is it like, and I feel like that's one of the reasons I like shooting copper is I don't like to dump everything inside there. It's something, you know, I think bleeding is good. And I know that I've shot stuff with your bullets. where If you shoot a hammer perfectly, like we say, but I would say perfectly. Like we say you put right behind the shoulder and it goes through both sides, doesn't get leg. It'll come out with Four holes. I've seen it coming look like a cat's paw, right? Like it's got like the ball in the middle and then three holes around and the pedals come out and it's just blood everywhere. They're going to bleed out. You're going to find the animal. Uh, I like exit holes, which is one of reason I shoot copper. Are exit holes important to you? Um, yeah, maybe not for the same reason though. Um, so.
00:41:08
Speaker
So the the wounding process, that permanent wound channel that makes them bleed, right? Bullets do it by tearing a hole, you know, versus say an arrow that does it by cutting a hole, right? So a bullet goes through and it's tearing a hole and tears don't bleed as fast as cuts, right? So we tear a hole and the larger that permanent wound channel is, the faster it bleeds. And when it runs out of blood,
00:41:37
Speaker
Central nervous system shuts down and and we're successful. All right. So if a bullet goes in and stops short of getting out the other side, you know, that's the energy dump guys. I want my bullet to stop on the opposite side of the hide, but they don't have sensors in them. They hit the animal and they're continuously slowing down until they stop.
00:42:07
Speaker
The slower they're going, the smaller the wound channel gets. Yep. Right. Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. And so if that bullet doesn't get all the way through, our wound channel gets reduced until it stops. Or if I get that bullet all the way through, I can maintain a larger permanent wound channel all the way through.
00:42:28
Speaker
So there's no wasted energy when the bullet goes out the other side. It means that I made a big wound all the way through, you know? So if I could make a magic bullet, it would fly through the air whether its with its ballistic form. And as soon as it hits the animal, it would deform or change into its terminal form. And then I would pass it through the animal without losing a single foot per second. That would create the largest wound channel possible. Right?
00:42:58
Speaker
But we can't do that. It's going to slow down because it's got more resistance. you know But if we can if we can design that bullet to penetrate very deeply and not lose as much feet per second as it penetrates, then we're creating an overall larger wound channel.
00:43:14
Speaker
So exit means we get blood on both sides. you know Really, my hope is I don't have to track it. so you know it's It's tracking anymore for me is stressful. you know We grew up as kids, you know shoot the animal and expect to have to go find it in 100 or 200 yards. you know That was just the expectations. you know You're going to have to go track it. you know i and I see we see faster kills with our stuff than I ever saw with anything else I ever used. you know But there's still, there's always that antelope like you shot that's juiced up and can run with no lungs or heart or anything left in it. But you know generally speaking, I've gotten pretty lazy anymore because I shoot stuff and they fall over and I see it happen. the you know And that's more normal now.
Expectations and Comparisons in Bullet Performance
00:44:08
Speaker
Do I tell people, oh, if you use a hammer bullet, you're always going to be DRT. Nah, I can't do that because that's not true because there's always that one that's, you know, even though you made a good shot, the bullet did everything it should. He still has the ability to to run for 10 seconds. So I'm curious as we're going into this. Are you a shoulder guy, high shoulder guy or behind the shoulder guy?
00:44:33
Speaker
I'm, I'm going on this whole my kid and I've always been behind the shoulder with him. And I'm kind of like, I told him this time, like, I think I want to shoot him through the shoulder. Do you hit a deer, a good deer tag in there in, error in and Utah. Cause I find when you hit first yeah him within the shoulder, they're going to drop. Uh, are you, what are you shooting? Where are you putting your bolts? Oh, you know, we talked earlier. I don't remember it was before we started recording or not, you know,
00:44:59
Speaker
When I was taught to hunt, you know, shoot them behind the shoulder, don't do too close to the shoulder. We don't want to ruin the meat. We got to eat that. Right. And so if it's in the heat of the moment, then I'm naturally in the pocket. yep I'm a, I'm a pocket shooter because that's just, and all the years of archery, you know, you got to stay away from the shoulder. You know, there's too many things can go wrong there pocket. So my natural eye goes to the pocket. If I have time to think that I crowd the shoulder more now.
00:45:29
Speaker
because we don't have that meat loss like you get from the lead core bullets. And well you know we get we get more meat loss from bone frags than we do from the bullet. So yeah, if i've if I've got time to kind of think about it, then I'll crowd into the shoulder now, because yeah, it does. If you can turn if you can turn your four wheel drive animal into a two wheel drive animal, they don't go very far. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, coring away behind the shoulder, a lot better.
00:45:58
Speaker
um I think broadside, I think through the shoulder is is a very, with with the copper bullets, is a very good shot. You are gonna get some bloodshot in the meat, um but you're probably not gonna attract the animal very far. it's gonna It's gonna do good. And with my kids, honestly, there's a little less room for error, right? Sometimes they you know they might pull it a little bit and go back a little bit further. If I'm having to put it on the shoulder, you know then I end up right behind the shoulder. I just have some circuses with my kids.
00:46:26
Speaker
Yes, you know, I'm an odds guy too. So, you know, I want to aim in the middle of the biggest. Yeah. too Right? Yeah. So if I'm aiming in the middle, then that gives me room for error on my shooting ability or was the animal maybe quartered more than I thought. They always look like they're broadside, but they hardly ever are. Yeah. a You know, when you see them and it's like, oh, there he is. You get them in the scope. They always look like they're full broadside.
00:46:54
Speaker
They almost never are. They're always turned a bit some way. And so you know there's another reason for that deeper penetration. He's quartered more than I thought. you know I actually went in you know back rib and hit far shoulder. And I had to get through punch in order to get to the vitals. And that's a taxing effort for a lot of bullets. Yeah, it is.
00:47:24
Speaker
And I've found some hammers like an elk, I've found some hammers, right? Because it's just a big old animal. Like you're trying to get through bush holders, you're going to find it. And typically when I find it, it's going to be in the offside hide, not yet not in the meat. Like it's going to, it's going to penetrate almost all the way through and you can see that thing poking out, you know?
00:47:40
Speaker
Um, which happens all bullets, but you went went all the way through with some of those lead bullets. You probably when they made all the way through. It just, they're dead. I like when they don't know it. Yeah. Yeah. The quicker, the better. It's much more relaxing. Uh, you know, I, I hunt because I enjoy it, you know, and so when hunting, when it's stressful is stressful. Uh, I don't, I don't want to add stress to my hunt. Uh, you know, not, not anymore. Um,
00:48:10
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, even on elk, we don't very often catch them. We catch more bullets in Africa. Those animals are just a little more dense and harder. They have a tendency to be able to stop a bullet better than our North American animals. Usually,
00:48:28
Speaker
Usually if we stop a bullet here in, in the, you know, deer and elk and things like that, it's, it's, you know, end to end or hard quartering. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's what my experience well big bull elk. If you take on big bones on both sides, often we'll stop a bullet that way. Yeah. You know, but you know, even on the elk, we don't, we don't catch very many.
00:48:53
Speaker
All right. Where do I want to go? I want to talk about Africa. I know you guys do extensive testing over there. And I also want to talk about if the cream or is an elk cartridge. Cause I don't think it is, but I know that fits everybody off. I've done it. I've done it. And I just don't think it is, but we'll go back. We'll go back to the cream or in a minute.
00:49:11
Speaker
Okay. So I know you guys spend a lot of times in Africa, a lot of time in Africa, right? You guys, you get to test a little bolt or and that's a great place. If you're, if I was a bolt manufacturer, I would be in Africa. Cause you could shoot a pile of animals and you you know, you get one tag here.
00:49:26
Speaker
Right, and then you need to go that's you get to go kill hogs, like you pretty much get one tack, right? Yeah, we get to shoot we could shoot a few animals a year here, right? Yeah. In Africa, there's there's a bunch, you know, and usually when we make our trips to Africa, we'll have a group of us and everybody in the group shooting hammers. Yeah. Right? So like this last trip that I went on in May, there were six of us hunting and we shot 37 animals, I think it was.
00:49:55
Speaker
And I shot one and that was all I wanted to shoot. I shot my Cape Buffalo and then everybody else shot a pile of stuff, you know, but in, in a matter of a few days, we can go shoot, you know, 30, 40, 50 animals and, and go examine all of them and and get great feedback, you know, and, and the outfit that we go with in Africa, they shoot hammers exclusively.
00:50:24
Speaker
So I get feedback from them all the time and they're shooting hundreds and hundreds of animals every year. Great way to get andval get back. Yeah. 100%. Invaluable to us, you know, there's, man, there is no replacement for animal testing. Yeah. Yeah. You can't, you can't, you can shoot as much meat as you want. You can put a freaking ah Turkey up a frozen drink, whatever it is, water jugs. It's just not the same as kind of live the animal. It is not, you know.
00:50:54
Speaker
how fast those light, how fast their lights go off is, is more important than any kind of media testing. yeah You know, we media test all the time because I don't have an animal to shoot all the time. but but know So i gotta we got to test in something, right? Yeah. But yeah, there's, and you know, we talked about the, the development of the, of the tip bullet, the HHTs.
00:51:24
Speaker
Well, we had those hunted all over the world for a year before we said, okay, these things are great. Um, and literally thousands of animals, uh, you know, and we personally didn't get to shoot all those. And when we got to do our part, but we had other people that are out that have the ability to shoot way more animals than we ever, ever can think of. And, and.
00:51:54
Speaker
and get terminal performance results and make tweaks and change things and and make sure that it was doing what we wanted. So yeah, way more animal testing than we ever tested in media. That's for sure. It's good to hear that you're you're building a bullet that kills things and you're killing things to find that out. There's no better way to do it.
Field Testing and Real-world Validation
00:52:15
Speaker
It's really like I spent so much time in the field. I spent 100 days in the field this year glossing.
00:52:20
Speaker
Cause I can't, I can't build a tripod in my office. I can build my office, but I can't use it in my office and they'll be able to say it works, right? You can't, you have to go there and use it. So here's how I'm going to spend in this, here's how I'm going to spend in this Creedmoor thing. You went to Africa, you shot at Kate Buffalo. You use a six five Creedmoor.
00:52:38
Speaker
Did I, or did you? Did you? No, I didn't use that for Buffalo. Why not? Um, yeah, it's probably not a good choice. Yeah.
00:52:49
Speaker
You know, can it do it? Would it do it? Yeah, I think so. yeah If things go sideways with that animal, though, there's a good chance he's going to try and kill you. Yeah. So there's a whole lot of risk and in shooting an animal like that with something that is marginal. the You know, people's lives are in like at stake when you use something marginal for that. You know, and I've you know i've I've shot some pretty big animals in Africa with 30-30. I would call that less than a Creedmoor. With a sledgehammer or something? Yeah. So I took my 30-30 with the 143 grain lever hammer, stone hammer. Stone hammer, OK. There you go. It was designed for the Tube magazine, um running them out of my my old Marlin at, I don't remember, 25, 2,600 feet per second.
00:53:51
Speaker
And I shot a wildebeest and a zebra and a kudu with actually two kudu and performed very well. You know, but that, that, that is running out of poop at about 150 yards. Yep. Right. You're losing velocity fast.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yeah. a Big blunt nose bullet and it's only starting out at 2,600 feet per second, you know, and, and it's open sites, you know, so I don't know about anybody else, but I have a hard time shooting much past 150 yards with the open sites. But, you know, and so that a lot of people would say, well, that's ridiculous. You just can't shoot animals that big and that tough with that small of a gun. You know, I used a 17 hornet in Africa to take Impala worked fabulously.
00:54:46
Speaker
Uh, you know, and that's a little 21 grain bullet, but it's going 3,600 feet per second. And not that I'm going to, I'm not going to reach for a 17 hornet to go white tail hunting. Cause I'm in the same boat as you. I don't think, I think it's marginal, but I wanted to do it because I wanted to see, I wanted to know, uh, they could kill a kid or kill him. Paul, I could kill a squirrel.
00:55:16
Speaker
right Yeah, you know, so do I think the Creedmoor is an elk cartridge? Yeah, I do, you know, within reason within reasonable distance. Do I think it's what it was marketed as a thousand yard killer of elk better than a 300 win mag? No, I think it's a. I'd be, I'd almost say I think it's a 300 yard elk cartridge.
00:55:47
Speaker
I don't think it's a 600 yard elk cartridge. and And I've got a lot of guys shooting the Creedmoor, shooting like the 124 hammer hunter, killing up to 600 yards with it very nicely. um If I'm hunting elk to 600 yards, I'm not grabbing a Creedmoor, even with my bullet. you know I think, you know,
00:56:12
Speaker
I mean, we're leaving here in a couple of weeks to go to New Mexico. Sorry. Yeah. We're muzzleloader gear, honey. Make me a muzzleloader bullet, Steve. I keep going. Sorry. It's on the list. So we're going there, you know, and I'm bringing two guns. One propped up here in a corner. We just went out and did long range drop validation this morning. So I'm bringing a great big monster.
00:56:42
Speaker
a 33 38 Lapua. Um, and I've got a, we got a prototype bullet. I'm running at a little over 3,700 feet per second. It's 192 grains. Holy smokes. And so that's, I'm bringing that in case it seems like we're going to have to shoot far. Right. But the gun that I'm planning to carry and do all the work is a seven M M O eight.
00:57:10
Speaker
okay So that kind of falls in that Creed more world, right? Uh, as far as cartridge, uh, you know, but I'm going to keep it under 500 yards and I'm, I'm running out of it. Little late, little 18 inch barrel. Yeah. I'm pretty excited about this gun. Little 18 inch proof carbon fiber with a six inch suppressor in a MDT carbon fiber folding chassis.
00:57:41
Speaker
So I can fold this thing up. I can strap it on my pack and I'm short on a good day and it won't stick over my head. And it comes in scoped all in eight and a half pounds. So I'm pretty excited about this little gun and I'm running another prototype bullet, a hundred and 141 grain bullet. And I'm pushing them just a little shy of 3000 feet per second.
00:58:10
Speaker
You know, on paper, on paper, I'm good to... Oh, I got my drop charts from this morning here. I'm good to about 700 yards or so, depending on the elevation. I'm not going to use it that far. yeah You know, I used to be in the camp of, you know, if if I've got enough velocity for the bullet to perform properly, then I'm good with the shot. Well, over time, you know, probably just because I've gotten older,
00:58:39
Speaker
You know, well, maybe, maybe a seven millimeter bullet at 1800 feet per second, we might be better off running a 338 with an 1800 foot per second impact. Uh, let's, it's just bigger, bigger bullets make bigger holes. Um, you know, so yes, I think the Creedmoor is a, I can, I don't have, I don't have the numbers, but I can pretty well guarantee you that we've had more out killed.
00:59:08
Speaker
with a Creed more than any running our 124 grain hammer hunter. I can just guarantee that there's been more up killed with that combo than any other bull that we make. And for me, I killed a bull with a 124 with a 260 Remington. But for me, I'm going to pick up a 30-cal or 7-millimeter if I'm going to do elk hunting.
00:59:38
Speaker
For the reason I liked the word you said marginal. Like when you said, you'd, why bring a marginal bullet? Cause if things go wrong, right? There's a reason why my kids shoot three Oh eight now. Right. I have a kitchen through eight because they worship like two 43 and like I had a pig almost kill me. It was awesome. Like I didn't finish it. It was such a bitch in store. I do this thing. Like it almost, and there was a hole in this pig and he had the pig perfect. It just two, four, three didn't do it. And I find with that bigger funnel diameter, bigger wound cavity, bigger hole.
01:00:08
Speaker
It just kills better. And on elk, they're such a big animal that let's say that you think you are a 600-yard shooter, which you probably are, Steve. That's one of them. That's my issue, but this is my issue with the Creedmoor. That's why I'm shooting .30-06 for everything this year, from a point. Is that every guy thinks they're a 700-yard shooter now with their Creedmoor.
01:00:28
Speaker
And if you don't hit an elk perfectly, you're going to wound an animal and it's going to run off and you're not going to get a good shot on it. Where if, let's say, I don't want to say you shouldn't take it. I don't think you should take the same shot either with you're that kind of shooter, but you put it, let's say you put a 300 wind mag in that same pocket. It's going to do a lot more damage at 600 yards than that creamboard going, you know, the creamboard did.
01:00:50
Speaker
And just, I find that it just be bigger hole and it killed, they just kill better on elk. And I, I shoot my two 60. Um, I brought it to Mexico. I shot a bunch of deer with it. I would shoot antelope with it. It just, if I'm going elk hunting, I'm not picking that gun up anymore. And so I, you know, I've always said, you know, I don't think it's possible to be overgunned, but I think you can be undergunned. Yeah. Right. You know, but then in that same breath.
01:01:20
Speaker
We've got, we've got this guy that shoots his Creedmoor very well,
01:01:27
Speaker
but his 300 wind mag beats the snot out of him and he has a hard time shooting it. Yep. A hundred percent. And if I'm taking that guy hunting, I'd rather have him shoot the Creedmoor. Yep. And I'd probably tell him you need to be under 300 yards.
01:01:42
Speaker
because yeah yeah and i And I'm telling him you, 400, man, I feel very comfortable. 500, I feel like we're getting far. 600, we're pushing the envelope. Yeah, and I agree with you. I think 400's a good range for that, right? And my kid's gonna shoot cream more.
01:02:01
Speaker
I mean, it's a, it's a good, uh, like I always tell people all the time, cream, more is a great cartridge for your wife and your kids. Um, you know sir Green Moore's a great cartridge. It is what it is. It's a small six five. It's a small six five. That's what it is. and I'm actually building one right now. I'm so I'm actually going to, I actually bought one for my kid. I got to pick up today from the gun shop.
01:02:22
Speaker
freakin communist California 10 days and then I'm actually building a NRL gun we're starting to build NRL tripods and heads and PRS heads so I'm gonna build a my my PRS gun is a six dasher my NRL guns gonna be a cream mark because this is phenomenal it's a great cartridge it really is it just i think it gets I think it just gets people try and make how it'd be like an end-all cartridge, I don't think it is. I think if I had to pick an end-all cartridge, I'd pick a freaking seven run mag, or a 300 win mag, or even a 30 on six over a Creedmoor, because it's an end-all. I know it's going to do more than it gets there. Well, you know, I i like them all.
Choosing the Right Equipment and Hunting Strategies
01:03:05
Speaker
Right? I like oh i like and like all the guns. But, you know, there's always that question, you know, if you could only have one gun, what would it be?
01:03:13
Speaker
at all And if you had to choose, you know those ah those are those great campfire discussions, right? um I'm probably falling on the 30-06 or the 300 win back. help you know if i have to run If I have to run without any kind of so recoil reduction, um I'm probably going to say my 30-06 is the dual gun.
01:03:38
Speaker
Uh, three and one mag, they just start to hurt. Yeah. I've got a brown, a rifle from Browning this year, a Woodstock 30 out six. And I cut a break onto it. So four hundred bucks for a break on it. Cause it wasn't enjoyable to shoot 20 rounds through. Now it shoots custom break. I didn't think it shoots like a Creedmoor. It's awesome. But I did it all day long. Yeah. It's actually kicks. Let my kids have radio breaks into three Oh eight. So my, my gun shoots better than theirs do now with this good break. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:07
Speaker
put kids on big guns with good breaks. Oh yeah, good breaks are a life. They were game changing for me with my kids. Like I, my oldest boy is still, he's just now getting over being recall shy, he's 18. Cause I started out shooting at a 243 with no break.
01:04:23
Speaker
And they still, when you're freaking 10 years old, those things still kick, man. They, they punch him for 15 pounds in the shoulder. It hurts. You know, you put, you put in perspective, you know, I'm one 80 and I'm shooting, you know, a gun with maybe 10 pounds more recoil. And I'm like, ow, well you put a kid that's 70 pounds behind a, you know, a gun that's not broke. You know, that's hard on kids. You know, I mean, back in the day, you know, the dad would put his kid on the 30 out six and then laugh at him and hurt him. Man up. Man up. He was a 12 gauge, man up. Go shoot it and everyone's drinking beer and laughing at you. Yeah, it's hard on kids, you know, and it creates habits that are hard to break. When people are afraid of the gun, they have a heck of a time shooting, you know, so it's tough, you know. But yeah, I like the idea of, you know, shooting the
01:05:15
Speaker
the blackout with your boy. Oh yeah. i have the time I have five kids. I have five kids. This one's my fourth. This is my third boy. My daughter ain't going to hunt. She's just like, she's beautiful. She's awesome. Just not her thing. But I learned yeah like I'd rather, I don't rush them into like, I used to have my boy shoot like a four 10 single shot. Nope. You're going to shoot it. You're going to shoot a semi auto 20 gauge. It's going to no recoil. You're going to shoot a, you know, a lighter bullet. You're going to shoot a, we're going to shoot, you're going to shoot a thousand rounds of 22.
01:05:45
Speaker
It's just as important, just as important, just as much practice of the 22 you do with the two 43, right? Or put them up, put them behind an AR and AR is a phenomenal, only problem with an AR is it costs you a ton of money. I can't, I swear my kids, we probably blew through three or 400 bucks every day in the range. They just freak out. They reload for me now. So my kid reloads. So he's blowing up 400 rounds of 308 right now, but you know, it's still expensive. and so Well, you know, and what I found with the kids, even with their shooting a 22.
01:06:15
Speaker
If you, um, if you can get rid of the noise, yeah, know double plugs, foamy's and 100% agree, get rid of the noise. Cause the, the, you know, the bark is worse than the bite. Um, you know, so if you can get rid of that noise, then you can get rid of the fear of the noise. Uh, and I think that helps kids a whole lot, you know, then it's not, they, then you can work them up and keep it quiet.
01:06:44
Speaker
And it doesn't, it's not scary. Yeah. We double, plug we double plug, especially my younger ones that will double plug them. And then, uh, I'll also do stuff where you'll throw in like a dummy round and then video, and i watching you know, flinch, you know. Only time I've seen, okay is whatever, I can talk about this, I don't care. The only time I've seen a hammer not work for a shot was my kid shot a cozier nine times, or Adam nine times. He killed it. he He killed it, but it was just like, what are you shooting at? This is when he's like 11 years old.
01:07:15
Speaker
oh no It was a to this poor deer. I had the skull on the wall of shame outside because it was a tiny buck. He ended up blowing the skull out of the back of the sink in the end. But it was just like, what are you shooting at? Because he was so recoil shy and so gun shy from the noise, right? and And I had to break that. And I've learned now, like i need my 11-0 did not shoot start shooting a center fire, which is a 300 blackout, until he was 10.
01:07:41
Speaker
I will be the first kid, I think is poor for everyone to hear your first kid. You're like, you want to get them out there as soon as you can. Yeah, let's go, go, go, go, go. And you're almost pushing them into it too hard and you're screwing them up. You could really screw your kids up with firearms. Try to push them into it too fast versus just take your time and shoot BB guns, do all that stuff. Cause you will pay for it in the end, right? Where my kids shot a million BBs. Yeah. Uh, you know, I used to, uh,
01:08:10
Speaker
heyga hang a pop can on a string and the kids would shoot the pop can on the string.
Building and Testing Custom Rifles
01:08:18
Speaker
Pop can swings and they shoot the swinging pop can pretty soon. They'd come in, dad when you knew pop can. But they would they would spend the afternoons just shooting the pop can. And they're both pretty good shots and I think ah attribute a lot of it to Shooting the BB gun. you know Shooting, shooting. I don't care if it's a slingshot. you know It's all hand-eye coordination. And yeah, I think any kind of shooting is good practice. Yeah, 100%. And there's nothing funner than like going to the range and shooting .22s or going to your backyard and shooting BB guns. like I'll still pick up the daisy. We must have an arsenal of BB guns. Pick up a daisy and you're cracking that thing and just 10, 15 yards away and just shooting cans.
01:09:01
Speaker
It's fun, man. It's fun to do with your kids and it's cheap. You can do it in your yard. yeah um Well, Steve, we always end these things with a hunting story. So it doesn't have to be like the craziest story you've ever had, but it could just be a memorable story. Good campfire story. You want to go to the campfire story?
01:09:18
Speaker
come
01:09:22
Speaker
Sure. Sounds like you've killed a few things in your life. like So I guess probably, you know, my most recent story would be our last trip to Africa and I shot my first Cape Buffalo. Okay. And so for this, for this hunt, I had a 500 Jeffrey built. We talk about overgun, undergun, right? So I went big.
01:09:49
Speaker
So I had a 500 Jeffrey built. And I tell you what, me and Jeff, me and Jeff had a real love hate relationship. I had, I had this rifle built, I built it on a Seiko 995 action. um Beautiful action, but not quite, not quite big enough for the diameter of 500 Jeffery feeding into extraction issues that uh not great for a dangerous game rifle um but anyway it's it's what i built you know and i had shot a 500 jeffrey before and and it was fine you know i mean it's a handful you you know you shot a gun um but it wasn it wasn't bad so i feel like 45 45 pounds or what's what's the recoil
01:10:37
Speaker
sixty I a 60.
01:10:41
Speaker
It's terrible. It's like three times what are not what that seven millimeter on it is. It's terrible. It's terrible. So I built it on this 995 action and so it's in the the factory stock because you can't just go get a stock for a Seiko 995, right? so And there's just a little too much drop in the comb. And so when you fire it, it would cause the muzzle to come up.
01:11:06
Speaker
And I could, you know, offhand, you know, bend at the waist, you know, all that kind of stuff. So we take this thing to the range, you know, and I'm like, all right. So I just set it up on sticks, then I'm gonna shoot off the sticks, right? And I take the first shot, and it cracks me in the nose and busts my nose over. Oh, gosh, isn't that the best? You know, so I get that all bandaged up and I'm like, golly, all right, give me another one.
01:11:34
Speaker
Six shots later, I told Brian, I can't hunt with this thing. I got ah got holes in my head, my eyebrow and my nose. yeah I think one out of the six shots, I kept that scope from hitting me in the face. yeah And I'm a little stubborn. you know i I think most guys would have said after the first one, I don't think I want to shoot that. And I'm like, I can figure this out. I've always i've never i've never not been able to handle a gun. you I've always been able to shoot it, and I couldn't shoot this gun. So anyway, I wound up putting a muzzle brake on it. And with the muzzle brake, then I could shoot it. I could actually sit on the bench and shoot it. So we got that figured out and go to Africa. And so I'm going to get... What board are you shooting out of this gun? 450 grain stone hammer, running up at 2,700 feet per second.
01:12:28
Speaker
nice So yeah 450 grains at 2,700 and I had that back down. I think we can get that bullet up to close to 3,000 But there's no way I was going any faster that guy beat me up Like I said Jeff and I have a love-hate relationship he's retired now Yeah, so get to go do the Buffalo hunt.
Dangerous Game Hunting and Experiences
01:12:49
Speaker
We had three days for the Buffalo and You know it's so it's my first dangerous game animal, you know, the Cape Buffalo. And so there's always, you know, there's a little edginess about it, you know, cause I mean, that's, well, that's the reputation, you know, you shoot them, they look at you and then they decide whether they're going to come get you or run away. Yeah. And so that's part of the reason that we're running, you know, non-traditional 450 grains, not 570 grains, running them, you know, five, 700 feet faster than traditional.
01:13:28
Speaker
because I want it to hit them and hurt them. We don't have penetration issues. The dangerous game world stuck 200 years or 100 years ago. you know slow but or a Slow, heavy.
01:13:42
Speaker
And that's a whole other discussion. So anyway, 450 grain bullet, three days of hunting. I tell you what, these you drive around in Africa and you could drive up to these Cape buffalo and they just sit there and look at you and chew their cud. Like they say, you know they look at you like you owe them money.
01:13:56
Speaker
good And when you get out of the truck and you start sneaking around in the bush trying to hunt them, man, they are skittish. Uh, you know, tell you, tell you shoot one. But prior to that, you know, they, they're cagey, you know, so three days of chasing these things around. And of course we're hunting specifically for a big bull. And finally third day of hunting.
01:14:27
Speaker
We, we spotted a herd of bulls and we're able to get out in front of where they were headed. and And the plan came together and the one that I wanted actually stepped clear of the rest of them. And I don't know, 70 yards in the shoulder out, out the far, out the back rib on the far side, went about 50 yards and done. It was beautiful. And so I got my big Cape Buffalo.
01:14:56
Speaker
You know, to go with that story, our gunsmith that works with us here in the shop, every time we go hunting, he always shoots the biggest. Just cause it's the luck of the draw. It's just, it's his turn. And he winds up, he always shoots the biggest or whatever around hunting. You know, so he, the two trips before he shot his Cape Buffalo and it was big, a 44 and a half inch, big, the big one, you know, not because he was trying to get the biggest one. That's just how it went. This was all when it showed up.
01:15:25
Speaker
Just how it went, you know, and so. Got in front of his crosshairs. When, yep, when my turn came, I'm like, I just want to, I just want an old dug a boy. I just want a 45, I just want a 45 inch Kate Buffalo. Yeah. Well, I told everyone, I said, I want an old, old dug a boy, but he's got to be bigger than Eric's.
01:15:45
Speaker
because but And he says yeah, maybe we should just work on the old part, you know, so I came close I didn't get an old bull. He was like 15 years old Yeah, so his horns are all worn down. Yeah, and he's 43 and a half inches. He was an inch narrower Yeah, so that's that's my latest hunting story That's awesome, man. Yeah, I'm gonna go over there. We've we've been over there a couple times. I do missions work in Kenya and And I wanna jump down and go hunt Africa one time. I wanna go experience it, right? I wanna go do it. You'll go back and hunt again. Yeah, I know. I started going to Sonora. You hunt Sonora yet? hu I gotta get you into Sonora. Sonora is just awesome in January. Oh man, you're in Montana. Are you in Montana?
01:16:30
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, we gotta get you hooked up with my buddy, Matt Hunt, student, go to Sonora, man. Go on, cruise here in January, it's awesome. Your friends are freezing their balls off up there in the snow, and you'll be down in Mexico. mexico even The last few years, we've been going down to Texas and hunting in February. Oh, and audience?
01:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, our dad and axis and yeah, yeah, fallow, whatever they get. They got everything in Texas. They do. I know I'm going to go hunt there in December because I'm trying to learn that market. I'm actually building tripod specifically for them because no offense, Texas, but they're like binoculars on tripod. What are those for? we Tripods are for shooting. They do not understand glass in Western. Texas is a whole other country. It really is. And I appreciate their culture and I actually appreciate a lot of the stuff they're doing with their farms. I actually did a podcast with a high fence ranch recently. I just kind of understand it better. It's cool. Everyone who knocks it doesn't understand how much people love hunting, love animals. It's like we do. And I want to go down there. I've come to learn there's a lot of different ways to hunt.
01:17:35
Speaker
than what I, you know, I grew up here in Montana, hiking miles and miles to hunt. You know, and to me that's hunting, right? And anything else, that's real that's not really hunting. yeah i've i've come I've come to learn that there's a lot of different ways of hunting. Yep. And they all love it the same way you do. That's a cool thing. They all love it the same. And I've gone and and been able to experience a bunch of different ways of hunting than I'm used to.
01:18:01
Speaker
And they all have their thing. I'm good with it. and So I don't i don't think that because that guy hunts that way and I hunt this way, he's less of a hunter than me. ye you know We're all in the same boat. We're doing it for the same reasons.
01:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, and plus you go do it and you really have a good time. Like I'm going to go out there and sit in a blind this year and I have lines over a feeder and I'm going to kill some pigs. And I bet you I have a phenomenal time of my 11 year old is cranking pigs eating corn. Like I bet you that feeder goes off, that bell goes off and we just had the time of our lives and we're still laughing the same way if we shot a buck up here. and you know, I'm going to Utah next week, you know, it's like, it's just, it's just hunting, enjoy it, man. Dude, Steve, I am a big fan of yours, a big fan of hammer bullets. I advocate for you guys. I recommend you guys. I appreciate that. ah If you're shooting copper, you should be shooting hammers. If you're shooting bullets, you're shooting hammers. Honestly, they, you know, the,
01:18:57
Speaker
I don't want to say lead is dead, lead works good, but man, these hammer bullets, they just work better. they They're the easiest bolt I've ever had to reload. We didn't go into that too much, reloading side of it, or we didn't even go into the damn drive belt on the damn things. We'll also do another one the easiest bolts I've ever loaded in my life, I literally just crank them up to max and drop them down to grain and they freaking shoot, man. Screw quick load, screw all this other stuff, screw ladders. install it to Almost all the time. you Every now and then we have a problem child rifle, but you're right. If you get a load than anything I ever loaded.
01:19:27
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. That's a, you know, that's a great endorsement. It's almost, it's almost makes me feel funny. It's hard to take that kind of compliment. Thank you very much.
Promotion and Community Engagement
01:19:40
Speaker
i but do They just kill stuff dead. And that's what I want. I want things to die. And that's why I shoot hammers. So, uh, yeah, man, hammer bullets.com. Um, there on social media as well. I think it's hammer dot.bullets. Uh, anywhere else you want to find you guys, your forum, what's your hammer for hammer time, right?
01:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah that's connected to our website. So we have our hammer time forum. There's a great group of guys on there. you know It's not like most forums where people are looking for a pick pile to get into. um you know It's just a good group of guys that no no questions are dumb. There's smart guys on there, great guys. And just it's a nice place to go hang out as far as a forum goes.
01:20:21
Speaker
and you know And then you know we do the social media thing. I told you, I don't do social media, but we've got a guy that does it for us, Ed Whipple, Outdoor Ed Venture. He's got a YouTube channel and he does a lot of stuff with our bullets there too. And he also runs our Facebook and Instagram and all that other stuff. So I think if you just search hammer bullets, it'll pop up all over.
01:20:45
Speaker
Yep, and there's a lot of reloading data out there now that I know you guys don't endorse, but it works. There's a bunch of good. I found some really good stuff online about it. They're not, they're not like this. um I hate to say, like I used to call them you guys a boutique bullet company and I don't think you're a boutique bullet company anymore. I think you guys are one of the top players in the copper business and there's lots of info out there to load them. You're not, you know, and if you haven't tried them yet, try them. You'll like them. They'll kill things for you. They'll kill them dead.
01:21:11
Speaker
you might be able to go buy some hardies for cheaper, but you're only gonna need one hammer. That's my endorsement. And then we can go, you know, but I'm an old Sears guy. So and we've run this business the way we did it, we we the way we did there. Satisfaction guarantee to your money back. I'll take care of it. Nice. Yep. All right, Steve, dude, that was awesome. Appreciate it. Thank you. I enjoyed it.