Ep. 17: Flying With Guns, Packing Gear, and Shipping Meat

Interested in traveling to hunt? This podcast covers it all from packing your gear into duffels, checking your rifle with airlines, what to carry in your carryon, all the way to logistics of getting your meat home.

If you have a question you want to submit to Gear Talk for discussion, email [e-mail]. Want to comment on this episode? Visit https://www.themeateater.com/listen/gear-talk and join the conversation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
All right, y'all, welcome back to another gear Talk podcast
with Meanness with tell Us and the Great Jordan Bud.
We're talking gear as always today, specifically, we're gonna dive
into gear around traveling, like what we packed when we
go on on a hunt. We're gonna do some traveling,

(00:35):
jump into some airline stuff. Jordan was recently in Hawaii
and had to travel over there with oliver hunting gear,
weapons and whatnot, and uh so we figured it'd be
a good thing to touch on since it's so fresh
in Jordan's mind, and actually we can jump right in there. Jordan,
you haven't told me anything. Well, I got a picture.

(00:56):
I got three pictures of your your axis buck look
like a nice one. I don't know what a nice
one is. It looked pretty to me. But was it
a good one?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I hear it was. I When I went over there,
there's quite a few people that were like, you want
to aim for thirty inches and honestly total.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Like highth total length of mabem or what.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I don't know. I haven't looked. I like, literally yesterday,
I think it was yesterday. We got the buck shipped.
We got him shipped back over here. And I put
him out against the side of the house so he
was frozen so his head could start on and then
we can we could do a boil. I'm just going

(01:42):
to do a European mount on him. But I was
looking at him and I was like, I really should
google how you're actually supposed to score one of these.
And then I just haven't done it yet, but thirty
inches was supposed to be the goal, and I believe
we broke that what the guide says, but again, haven't
actually taped it. But dude, it was so fun. We

(02:05):
uh so we were on Lunai and we went to
Pineapple Brothers. It's uh, I think they might be the
only outfit that's on the island. But that island used
to be a Dole pineapple plantation.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
I've heard about it, and so like, yeah, when.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
You fly in, they like you can see where the
old pineapple fields were like blocked out, and they I
think it was in nineteen I'm pretty sure, as in
ninety two is when they pulled they there was another
company that bought out Dole and they thought that the
island would do better as a tourist destination basically, rather

(02:46):
than a pineapple plantation, so they pulled all the pineapples out.
And I was assuming that since that ground had been
like torn up and farmed, that there wouldn't be that
much brush there. And I was very wrong because it
is like it's super thick with brush. A lot of that.

(03:08):
A lot of those bushes and stuff are like eight
foot tall, and those access deer man when they they
like feed on the edges of it where it's a
little bit mostly just where there's more grass growing, and
then they go into it in the middle of the
day when it's hot, and when you walk into that stuff,

(03:28):
there's no like there's no there's no grass in there
at all, Like the canopy is so thick. There's just
it's just dirt underneath of it. So they have to
come out to feed. But it's a pretty it's a
pretty quick it's pretty quick hunt, you could say, because
it's like if you if you don't get on them,

(03:49):
like first thing in the morning, they're just they're all
going to be inside those super just like bushes. And
I don't know, I don't know how you would get.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Them once you're there, I mean not you can't you
can't see fifty yards.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
No, not at all. No, like you'd have trouble seeing
fifteen yards. So it's crazy. There's like there's a ton
of deer on that island, and uh, and we got
to see We got to see quite a few. There
was like the one evening we went out just to
try to get some more footage after I shot my buck,
and uh, we saw probably forty and kind of all

(04:27):
come out together feeding on the edge of a bunch
of the brush. So that was kind of cool to
see that many together. But yeah, I shot my buck
opening well the first day of my hunt, I guess,
and it was like two I think it was two
hundred and sixty yards ish. And then the next morning
I ended up shooting a dough too at about the

(04:49):
same distance, so got a couple deer out of it,
and they're all back home down the freezer.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
So yeah, it yet.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, when we were there, we ate, Oh what did
we eat? I think it was just a piece of tenderloin.
We did like a little cooking scene and it was
pretty good. It was the buck and he was a
little ruddy, and so it was tougher than I thought
it was going to be. It's tougher than I remember
it being but that was like pretty fresh off the

(05:22):
deer two. So I don't know if like freezing it
and then on thawing it again we'll help with that.
I have no idea, but we have some thought out
right now for tonight.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
So I think it would be good to, uh, since
this is on the heels of our bullet episode, to
talk about what bullets you used, what distance it was,
what caliber, and what the bullet performance was.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, so six or five creed more, I was shooting
one hundred and thirty grain Sierra game King bullet and
with the buck it went, it went through and through
and it was like right behind the shoulder, tucked in
like right behind the shoulder. It just went through and
through lungs, and he went like thirty yards maybe the

(06:12):
dough though we actually uh, she was about the same
distance to I think like two sixty. She was a
little bit quartered away, and I put it like right
in front of the last rib, I would say, and
it went through her. It clipped like just a little
bit like the front part of her like guts and

(06:33):
just went up through everything and stuck in her front
off shoulder. And we did pull, We did pull the
bullet out of her, and uh yeah it was. It
was like the back held together and then the front
mushroomed out. I mean it was about as good as

(06:54):
I I would have expected it to punch all the
way through, but it did go through quite a bit
of body and it hit like that shoulder bone, it
hit all that. But I was still a little surprised.
But I'm used to like the one forties and just
that little bit of extra weight like could have carried

(07:14):
more momentum through her. But the bullet itself, like it
mushroomed out and you know, performed just as I thought
it was going to.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Seems like it kept most of its weight.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah, it did really good. I
had heard quite a few people talking on those game
kings that they would like just disintegrate. They've had experiences
like on Mule Deer and Elk where those game kings
just disintegrate. But this one held together really well.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah. I think it's a I'm trying to read up
real quick on it. I'm pretty sure it's a bonded
unique construction utilizes special lead alloys surrounded by a tough
copper jacket that delivers excellent penetration yeah, I'm pretty sure
it's a bonded bullet.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I think it's really similar not soup, not exactly, but
it's kind of similar to like the eld X.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, tip, I think there was a while where people
shot the Sierra match What's match King maybe?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, their match King they kind of have. I was
having trouble following their names for all of their different
bullets because they had a lot of them that the
verbiage kind of overlapped.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Now, I wouldn't be surprised if there's people that had
match King experiences and are saying that about the game King,
because the match King is a you know, it's it's
a target bullet. It's like the original Burgers, right that
they're very very frangible. Uh, and they're gonna blow up, right?

(08:48):
I bet? I bet that that could be not saying
that for sure, whoever you talked to you mixed it up,
but it seems it seemed hard to believe that these
game Kings would just blow up like that unless it
was just extreme close range and super high speed. You know.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, yep, I think I'm running twenty eight hundred out
of the muzzle with those one thirties, so.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
You know, that's something they were accurate. That's good. That's
something to talk about. I chronoed my I don't know
if you call it kronode if you use a lab radar,
but Garret and I did lab radar for my six
y five creed More in the cross. I was shooting
the one forty acubonds and you just said you had

(09:35):
twenty eight out of the muzzle, those one forty acubonds
twenty five hundred.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, which which rifles that out.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Of my cross?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
And Garrett's just saying it's because it's a short barrel.
But he says, like it's a known thing. At those
shorter cross barrels. It's like you just can't build enough
pressure to really get those higher speeds. But is your
run sure? Just have a little bit longer barrel.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
I'm at twenty six yeah, for one for the one
forties with eighteen inch barrel, I was at twenty six
hundred right about twenty six. This this rifle that I
shot has a twenty inch proof research barrel on it.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Interesting, yeah, a.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Little bit like and then different bullets. So I haven't
really done like a you know, side by side, especially
like with a sixteen inch barrel. It's just probably what
yours is, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, I don't know off the top of my head,
but it definitely it's nice because it's short and it's
very handy in that way. But it's the first time
ever in my you know, career of messing around with
guns where I've realized like, oh, here's the implication, right,
is that with a short barrel is not going to
is going to lessen your pressures and thus lessen your

(10:54):
your speeds.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, just running slower. Yeah, I know, it's just one
of those things. And I think just a creed More
in general is they're just not zippy.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
No, I know, it's funny. Somebody I actually just picked
up like a it was a Peterson's Deer and Deer Hunting.
I don't know if it was that one anyways, some
it was a Deer Hunting magazine grocery store. I was
shopping and I just thought, you know, what'd be good
to flip through one of these see what's going on.
And a guy had a very well written article about

(11:23):
the six y five creed More and about the stuff
that the crazy stuff that he hears at the range
and at the gun shop, about how you know, it's
the best thing ever. A thousand yard gun can kill
anything under the moon. YadA YadA, yada's And he kind
of really broke it down ballistically and what it was,
and in the end he's like, it's a great three

(11:44):
hundred yard deer gun and no more hm and sure
can you push it? And I've shot an elk with
it, It killed it. That's not true. I've never shot one
with a sixty five creed More, but I've shot a
few with a six by fifty five Swede, which is
very very close to the emballistics. But yeah, it's not.

(12:07):
You can shoot at a thousand yards at targets, and
and it's known for its inherent accuracy. But yeah, it's not.
It's not a big old bank stick that that freezes
them in their tracks.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
No, no, no it's not. But I just got my
suppressor for it, oh like right before I left it finally, Yeah,
this is actually funny. I went to I went to
pick up something. I think I was looking for a
gun case or something. I went to the to, uh,
what do you call it? My gunsmith guy? And I said, man,

(12:46):
is that suppressor still like hasn't got approved yet? It's
been a it's been almost a year. He's like, you know,
last week the ATF just gave us emails. It said
their email system was being goofy and wasn't sending out
all the emails when they got approved. And so he said, uh,
look up your number, your confirmation number you got and

(13:08):
he said, I'll look it up and see if it's
been approved. It got approved in January.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Oh well yeah, but didn't they send it to your
gun shop or your gunsmith.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah he had it, but the actual uh.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
He had gotten a ework.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah. Yeah, they're supposed to send you an email when
it's been approved, so you can just go to the
gun shop and pick it up. But they something happened
with the system that got all messed up. So if
you have a suppressor you're waiting for you, you might just
want to double your number and see if they can
look it up.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
If you don't have one you're waiting for you yet,
do yourself a favor and get in line because you're
going to be so stoked when you finally get it.
A good way to do it, they can do all
of it for you online is silence are central. I
think it's Silence was Silence or Central.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Duck Silence Central.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, I got my first one through them, and uh,
it was a very easy process. Other than the waiting
portion of it, everything else is super easy. So yeah,
they Yeah, it's a great website. It walks you right
through what you need to know about it soundstorthcentral dot com.

(14:20):
But before we get into how you packed that Hawaii hunt,
I don't know where to start. I got so much
to tell you about we went from well, I'll just
tell you I went turkey hunting in Montana with my family.
It's an annual trip we do every year, and the
weather forecast was calm for rain, a fair amount of rain.

(14:43):
But I figured that's middle of May. Ye know, there's
a fair amount of rain. All we need is a
break here and there, a little bit of sunshine. And
I really do believe in turkey hunting. Sun's out guns
out like it holds true, and it held true this year,
except that it did not stop raining really for about

(15:04):
three days of our four days out there, to the
point where I even called into work and said, guys,
I know we're supposed to leave on Monday for a trip.
I might not be making it out of here until
till late Monday or Tuesday morning, which is going to
back us up. Because it rained so much and we
were afraid to drive. We messed around a little bit
with it, and immediately all four tires were just mud

(15:27):
cake and we're digging holes and like, okay, nope, don't
mess around with it, just let it pass. So it
was a bummer. It was three days of just crazy,
just steady, you know, steady, steady, steady rain, and we
got onto some turkeys. They would gobble a little bit
in the morning, but it was almost like they reverted
back to early turkey season. They kind of flocked up.

(15:50):
They were gobbling a bunch, but didn't really want to
come to the call until it broke. And it broke
on Sunday morning, I don't know, eight or nine in
the morning, kind of started getting nicer and I went
out with my wife. My neighbor had been out all
morning and stayed out until early afternoon. He came back

(16:13):
to camp. We were breaking camp down campus. The roads
was still too money to really drive out, so my
wife and I figured, all right, we'll go do a
quick loop get out there. I don't know three ish
or so, and the second place, we stopped on this
pretty high ridge top and run a loud box call
I get an answer, drop in there, get some birds

(16:34):
for fired up. It was actually multiple gobblers, I can't remember,
four or five gobbles, might have been four gobblers and
a jake and just one or two hens. And man,
they came running to the call, a couple of them
really gobbling, really strutting. The other three, yeah, just kind
of dinking around. Didn't really want any part of it.
But staying with the group, Well, I'll bet you I

(16:56):
called two thousand, I made two thousand yelps, and then
ninety minutes and that bird gobbled a thousand times. I
mean just every call i'd make, he gobbled triple gobble
at me. But it's one of the problems you run
into with Western hunting is that it can be so
open that if you haven't set up right and don't
have some visual barrier between you and them, and sometimes

(17:19):
it's just not there. It's just so open. It's just
a it's a ponderos of pine savannah and you can
easily see one hundred yards. You know, there's nothing you
can do about it. And the turkey's looking over her going,
I don't see a hen. Until I do, I ain't coming,
So it might have been good to have a decoy
or a turkey fan. We'd gone light that hadn't brought
any of that stuff. Eventually, because it's getting late, it's

(17:41):
coming on six and we have a four hour drive home,
four plus hours, my wife says, why don't you just
take the gun, go down there and shoot him. I'm like,
all right, you're right, that's what we gotta do. Get
out of here. So I slipped down into the creek
bottom that's just twenty yards below us, and it had
a very easy time slipping, and they just had this
perfect little berm that hid me and got in there,

(18:03):
very nice quiet cow path that took me right to
the turkey. I basically got on the other side of
a service berry bush and I could see him strutting
on the other side. He was close ten to fifteen yards,
and I was just kind of starting to like lift
up my gun and inch to the left. I could
peek around it, and he comes out of strut and
just starts feeding up this hill a little bit, and

(18:25):
he's gonna walk right in the open. So when he
pops out of the open, lift up my gun. He stops,
looks at me, pull the trigger click. I'm like, what,
no way, And sure enough it and I'm shooting the
Baretta Ultimate this year. I think this is a this
is a hot tip, or just something to be wary

(18:47):
of with any semi automatic shotgun. I think Banelli's. I've
heard it called a Bonelli click, but I think that
I've seen it happen with the weather beas that I've
hunted with. Yeah, if you don't like, slam that bolt shut,
and the best way to do that is by hitting
the bolt release button so that it closes hard and engages.

(19:09):
There's some sort of engagement that has to happen. I
don't know. I don't know the exact specifics of it.
But if it doesn't do it, when you pull that trigger,
that firing pin does not engage the primer and you
don't have a shot. So I start freaking out. I
pulled the bolt handle back, let it go, and I
see that now the second shell has jammed up behind

(19:30):
the first shell because the first shell didn't eject when
I pulled the bolt open, and it seems like it's stuck.
And I'm, you know, trying to shake it out and
pry it out, and eventually I get it out. The
whole time I'm watching the turkey. Luckily, he could have
just bugged out and I never would have got wouldn't
have guy, it would have gotten a shot. But somehow
he's like what is going on over there? Like, I'm

(19:52):
all fired up. I've been goblining for ninety minutes maybe
two hours down here, and now there's this dude wrap
his shotgun around a tree ten yards away from me,
and so he's kind of ambling away and I think
he got out to I don't know, forty ish maybe
a little farther, and I finally got it figured out
and I shot him.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Dude. Multiple I've heard that kind of like same kind
of a thing from multiple people. It's just because, like
you're in the Turkey woods, you're trying to put one
in quietly. You don't want to just like let it slam,
so you're putting it in quietly. They almost need like
a forward assist, like that's on an ar. You know,
they got that little bump lever in the back. You

(20:34):
just like whack it and it'll it'll help engage the bolt.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
No, that's a very strong idea because yeah, every almost
everybody's got one of these stories. If you shoot, I mean,
and that's maybe a case for shooting an over and
under or side by side, or even a pump because
you know you can close that pump quietly as long
as you make sure you know your pump gun well

(20:58):
enough to when you had that pump forward enough to
know what it takes to close it, then you've done
it right. But uh, because so rarely do you actually
need those second and third shots right that you gain
is what the whole reason to shoot is semi auto.
I mean, I guess it does less and recoil a
little bit too. But anyways, got my bird got out

(21:24):
of there without too many hassles. You know, it's a
lot of this country. As long as you can give
it eight ten hours without rain, it drives out enough
that you can you can get out of a spot.
Then I made a turnaround. We got in late, I
mean almost midnight next morning, got picked up by Corey Caulkins,

(21:46):
and we headed to western Montana, Dang near the Idaho
border to go bear hunting and uh roll in there.
I don't know, it's late in the day glass and
so it's pretty cool to go turkey hunting one day,
kill a turkey, and then twenty less twenty four hours
later be glass and for bears. It was hard to

(22:07):
make the transition because as I'm sitting there looking through
my binoculars, I hear a crow in the distance, and
in my mind I hear, oh, you know, like I'm
just expecting. I'm like, oh, we got to go roost them.
Like oh, no, we're not turkey hunting, you know, it's like, oh,
we're bear hunting. Okay, yeah, Like get into the glass

(22:28):
and start looking. And that's what. It took a couple
hours of glass and got me into bear hunting mode.
But man, we get host by the by multiple factors. One,
it was got hot. The first day was very bury
temperatures like it might have just been in the sixties.

(22:52):
The latter four or five days of the of the
trip were eighty eighty plus. On top of that, we
had the smoke rolled in from those British Columbia fires.
Everybody I think it had a little bit of that.
I heard it came way down into southern into southern Montana.

(23:13):
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, I heard that it got so bad
they'd use instruments to land planes there at the airport.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
So Nebraska was even like three miles of visibility.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah, that's it stinks. I mean you couldn't. You could
kind of glass at a thousand yards, but anything past that,
it really wasn't.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Mean.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Sure, if there was one wide out in the open,
we're gonna pick up a black blob. Sure, But it
made it tough. So we walked roads, which is how
Corey hunts bears. There a lot anyways, he used to
guide in that area, and I'd never walked roads for bears.
So it was interesting to see obviously, because it wasn't

(23:53):
working for us. I was a little bit like, Eh,
let's go glass because we can look at a lot
more country instead of just looking down this you know,
fifteen foot strip all the time. I think, when it's good,
you can see fifteen piles of poop on every good
section where the grass is really good. I mean we
were walking two three mile you know, sometimes three miles

(24:15):
one direction, and they coming back and seeing six piles
of poop total, and he just felt like they weren't
concentrated on the roads like they can be. And that
might have been because it was a bit of a
early spring even though they had a good winter, it
got hot, hot and got springy fast because there wasn't
a lot of snow. All the hillsides were pretty green.

(24:37):
So I think that the bears they just didn't have
to be on the roads feeding they could. They were
spreading out and feed all over the place. We saw
grizz which was cool. I saw more grizz and I
saw black bears. Cory and I each saw two bears.
We overlapped on one saw like a four and a
half foot sal but it was through the windshield on

(24:59):
the road. And it was the first day. I just
didn't know right about killing her, you know, basically watch
her go up into the woods and then make us
leaving the truck making a fifty yard stock and shooting
a bear. Just it wasn't on the last day. Sure
I tried, you know, blood sweat and tears and been

(25:20):
chewed on by mosquitos for six days. Sure, but I
did get out a very good opportunity glass of a bear.
Second to last night and roughly not quite a mile
I think, you know, I just did the quick two
finger you got Have you used that feature yet? On
X It's pretty slick. They have a new feature where

(25:40):
you can use two fingers. Just you just got your
map open like you always do, and all you do
is just drop two fingers on your map, hold it
there for a second and it'll give you don't before
you pick up your fingers, you'll see a red line
pop up and it'll give you that distance. Yeah, so
you don't have to do the two points anymore, which
is pretty slick. I did that. It came out to

(26:00):
I don't know, zero point seven point eight something like that.
But I had to drop off this. I was on
a logging road, had a drop off probably five hundred
feet or so across the creek, climb up five hundred
feet and then go across this hillside. I don't know
what it was like. I said three quarters of a
mile or so, and it was eight oh eight. I
remember looking at my looking at the phone as soon
as I saw him eight oh eight and last shooting

(26:23):
light was nine thirty, so I had not quite ninety minutes.
But I figured gotta go same to last day. I've
only seen one bear so far. You gotta try. So
I take off running, make it across the creek on
the other side, going across this burn jumping, you know,
lots of log burn, log stuff. And I get to

(26:44):
get to where I can, I should be able to
see him. I find him. He's at three point thirty
and it's getting it's getting later, like it's definitely after
nine at this point. So but I've got half an hour,
I think. I'm thinking, like, I've got time, be patient,
get it, get a nice rest set up, you'll get
an opportunity. But he's working. He's in this big draw

(27:06):
and he's the top end of the draw. There's a
little bit of water in it, but it's timbered bottom
of the draw, and the sides of the bottom are
all just open, well open because it's been burnt, so
you can see in there, and there's feed in there.
And he's just kind of slowly working to the left.
But I'm thinking, well, he's been out here already for
an hour. He'll stay out here feeding till dark. Why not?

(27:29):
And when I first got set up, I couldn't get
the angle proper, Like I couldn't get steep enough to
make a shot. So I had to put my backpack
down first, and then my bipod on top of that,
and that gave me a steep enough angle to get
the shot, and I had a pretty good opening right
when I got there too him, but he kept working left,

(27:50):
and you know how it is those burns. You think
it's wide open because you can see the bear of
your naked eye dang near at three quarters of a mile.
But you get there and you realize just how many
trees or you know, because you're not just looking through
the trees where he's at, there's all the tops of
the trees that are the one hundred yards between you
and him. Right there's just been branches and whatever. And

(28:14):
he just kept ambling to the left and basically ambled
right into the timber. And at that point it was
I don't know, nine twenty nine twenty five. I mean,
I had minutes left and there was gonna be no
second opportunity. So he slipped out of there by the
hair on his chinny chin chin, And uh, I can't
say that's happened to me too many times where I

(28:35):
really felt like I was going to kill that animal
and then he just slipped through my fingers and.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Retrospect ripped off a predator call in gres Country.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, I mean retrospectively, a lot of things I could
have yelled at him, tried and stopped him. I could
maybe just try to shoot off my elbows, which elbows
three hundred yards even if you're prone, it seems a
little bit long. I haven't practiced that shot a lot.
I probably should, just to see how I do at
three hundred yards just shooting off my elbows. I feel

(29:10):
like at two hundred yards it wouldn't be a problem.
Three thirty I don't know. And with the way I
wounded that one two years ago, I'm definitely a little
trigger shy. Want to make a good shot the next
time I shoot at a bear and recover him. Uh so, yeah,
I could predatorcall pretty heavy grizz country, So I you know,

(29:32):
being ten minutes before dark, I didn't want to blow
a bunch on the predator call. And then, you know,
then I had to walk out of there in the dark,
and you know, just thinking about who's who you who
else you've been calling in with that, you know. So anyways,
lessons learned came out. No bear had a good time though,
super fun.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, man, we have a listener's success story. This might
be our first.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah. I was super stoked to see this in the notes.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so a fellow wrote in to gear
Talk at themeter dot com. His name is Kevin Younkin.
He took his kid out. He says, I wanted to
share a success story related to some information I gained
from a recent gear talk episode. In episode eleven, Yanni
talked about the advantages of using a red dot site

(30:32):
for Turkey season. I had been debating putting a red
dot on my daughter's shotgun, and Yanni's thoughts were convincing.
We bought a Vortex Venom three moa site and mounted
it on a weatherb SA twenty. We used a rib
mount from Meadow Creek Mounts. He says it's highly recommended,

(30:53):
and uh, signing it in and pattering her turkey loads
was super simple. She killed a jake bird on the
youth opener at twenty five yards, So there you go.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, Well, I'm glad that that it word for him.
I will add to that too, that the Meadow Creek
mount that he's speaking of really good product. If you've
got a shotgun that the where the receiver isn't tapped
or doesn't have a pickrail on the back, where you
could just mount a red dot. Greg, I believe this

(31:27):
is his name over at Meadow Creek Mounts makes a
mount that you just mount right to your rib and
then put the red dot on top of that. So
it's a very inexpensive way to be able to get
your red dot on your shotgun. If it's not a
shotgun that you know is set up to receive that

(31:49):
on the receiver, I will say, I do believe it's
I've shot birds with that same sane exact setup actually
with that gun mounted on those SAO eights, and if
you can, I think it's better to have that that
red dot on the receiver because it's closer to your eye,
so that field of view within the frame of the

(32:10):
red dot is bigger the farther way it gets from you,
and get smaller and smaller. It still works great, but
I think in the perfect world you'd mount it on
the receiver and get it as close to your eye
as you can. But again that's if you if your
gun's not tapped for mounts, uh, you're gonna have to
go to a gunsmith and have them do it. Probably

(32:32):
not gonna cost you too much, but there is the
you know, the work of that you're gonna have to
put in to get that done.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, well, moving on into a Q and A. I've
got a little bit of a story with this on
some minwe gear too. We got another email from Chris Duggan.
He says, what do you think of muzzle breaks on guns?
And uh, I'll let you take that one Johnnie to start.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Oh, okay, it's complicated because what a muscle break does
is it reduces recoil. And some of them are even
poured in such a way where the blast is supposed
to go up or to the side more to limit

(33:18):
the rise, like like the vertical jump of the barrel,
which makes it easier to stay on target. Both the
like the reduced recoil and the fact that it jumps
less up and down it's going to help you stay
on your target, both great things. Unfortunately, the muzzle break
makes the gun exponentially louder. I don't know the actual number,

(33:43):
but it is much louder, so much worse for your hearing,
and it's especially noticeable for anybody that's with you because
the shooter being right behind the gun, you don't receive
the brunt of what comes from the muzzle break. If
you have someone just off to your side or even

(34:03):
somehow just standing behind you. Boy did they get their
nogg and rocked. And again, if everybody's got earpro on,
no big deal. So I guess that's my thought. These days,
it seems like they come standard. Where it used to
be a thing you had to go to a gunsmith
for ten years ago, Now I don't. It's probably hard

(34:26):
to go into sportsman's and find a rifle that isn't
threaded for a muzzle break.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
I think a lot of them are at least threaded,
like you said, and ready to accept one. I just
put an MDT Elite muzzle break on this rifle that
I took to I took to Hawaii, and one of
the main reasons I did that was because they're just like,
they're nicer to shoot. So I went to the range

(34:53):
and was shooting. I was, you know, I shot this
one with a muzzle break on it. I shot basically
the exact same gun without a muzzle break on it,
and I shot the one with a break on it first.
And I didn't do this as a test. I just
kind of did it because I was just doing it.
When I went from the muzzle break to the six '
five that didn't have a muzzle break on it. It

(35:15):
was a noticeable increase of recoil and a creed more
is not going to kick that bad. They just don't anyways.
But I mean even lessening that up more is kind
of nice, just like tracking your shot especially kind of
like goofy positions that you can find yourself in in
hunting situations, Like if you can just reduce some of

(35:38):
the recoil and be able to track your shot, it
could really could really help you there. So that's why
I put it on. And then but with that, it
is freaking loud. And I did a little uh, I
did a little research on some hearing protection and went
and bought myself. I think as good of hearing protection

(35:59):
as i've they've ever had other than just you know,
regular foamis. And yeah, we'll dig into that on the
new gear if you want to rock into that. I mean,
is there anything to really wrap up with muzzle breaks?
Like the pros they make your rifle easier to shoot,
the cons it makes it really loud, like that's probably

(36:22):
it's probably the big thing there are you know, now
that we dig into this, we should do an episode
on muzzle breaks. Get somebody on because there are like,
there are a lot of different kinds of muzzle breaks,
and like some of them that come stock on rifles
now that just have holes drilled all the way around
them in a bunch of different ways. They just make

(36:42):
it really loud. They from what I've read and heard
guys that have used them a lot, they're like, they
don't really help with anything other than they make it
really loud. Like they might help a little bit, but
they're not gonna help. Like the side ports that divert
that gas like back towards you a little bit to
help to help with the recoil. I don't know. There's

(37:02):
just a lot of science into it for something that
just screws on in your barrel.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah. I think that's where suppressors can't come in, because
you're kind of getting the you know, the advantage of both.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yeah. Yeah, suppressors are mine still sitting in the closet
because they Hawaii doesn't allow suppressors, so I couldn't even
take it. I couldn't even take it with me. So
I still need to shoot that this week and get
it get it ready for this bear hunt. But yeah,
it uh, I'm excited to try it because it's gonna be.

(37:42):
It's definitely I think the better way to go. It's
just like just as we talked about, takes forever. It can, yeah,
can take it. But once you get it, you're gonna
be so stoked. Yeah, I know, I'm pumped. Yeah. So
some new and interesting gear. I've got a couple things quick.

(38:03):
First thing goes along with the muzzle break was Hearing Pro.
So I literally just went into Sportsman's warehouse and started
walking around and looking at some of their hearing protection
and Walker's ear protection, Like they have a huge line
and you know, something that we've got a few questions
on that we haven't tackled yet. This is definitely more

(38:25):
of a question for you. But like kids hearing pro,
and I saw that Walkers they have a lot of
like kids specific headphones for hearing protection, So I thought
that was kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Yeah, So I ended up going with a set. It's
called the VX three point zero headset, and it basically
is a thing that goes around your neck kind of
like you know the Orange deals go around your neck
to just have Foamy's on you plug them into your
ears the cheap ones. This one goes around your but

(39:00):
has earbuds that pull out and go into your ears
and it's noise canceling. Plus it's you know, it's like
noise canceling when you shoot, and then it's like you
can hear really well when you're not shooting, so you
can hunt with them in. So I got a set
of those. They make them in bluetooth also, so you

(39:21):
can like bluetooth music to your ears if you want to.
That was a little overkill for me, and it was
a lot more expensive, so I just went with the
regular ones. But I got Leah a pair of that
are just like regular earbuds, like no wires holding them
together or anything. The only reason I didn't go with
those is because I was afraid of losing them in

(39:42):
the field if you're gonna have them in a lot.
So that's why I didn't go those. I went with
this other thing, and I was a little worried about it,
like just being around my neck all the time. I
thought that that could be kind of cumbersome and annoying,
But it's super flexible and it was. It's honest been
kind of a game changer, Like I don't I don't

(40:02):
see myself not having them on just so I can
like pop your pro in real quick and like you
put them in and as long as you turn the
unit on, you can still hear everything. Yeah, it's going on,
so you can communicate.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
What's nice about it is if you don't have time
or forreget to turn it on, it still works. As
far as the hearing protection.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yes, yeah, yeah, you run out of batteries or whatever.
Like I don't know, I didn't think I'd ever get
so excited about hearing protection, but I'm pretty I'm pretty
excited about it.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah. A good place to to get more information on
hearing pro if you're to thinking about getting yourself some
legit hearing protection is auto Pro Technologies. It's just spelled
ot op ro o Technologies dot com. We did a
podcast at meat Eater with Grace that owns Auto pro

(40:59):
and runs it, and uh, I think I got the
sound gear Phantoms, which sounds similar, but they do also
have the bluetooth so you can listen to a pot
I wear them now just doing weed whack and at
the house and listen to music and podcasts while I'm running,
you know, weed eater, chainsaw whatever saved my ears and

(41:21):
being entertained, So pretty cool. Nice.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah they look good. I just popped them up here.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah there's there's slick as can be. All right, what's next?

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Uh? Last thing for me for new and exciting stuff.
I've got my hands on this. I haven't used it
in the field yet, but I I handled it on
a desk. The new Titanium backpacking stove from our Golly.
He has two different site like the stove is the
same size, but he sells it in like a five

(41:54):
foot not chimney pipe, yeah, yep, stove pipe, and then
a six foot and it's two pounds eight ounces, so
it's kind of set up like a box stove. Looks
pretty good. If you're in the market, check it out.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
I love them, man, when it's the right kind of weather,
that little little I have the one from Seek Outside
and pair it with a redcliff tent normally, but man,
late October November, you're going to be stoked and cozy
and drying gear and hunting a lot longer than other

(42:33):
folks that don't have a similar setup. And it's all
light enough where you can get into the back country.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah. Yeah, packs down pretty small and yeah, handy as heck.
What have you found.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Lately, luckily, I mean big time. It was serendipitous. A
couple of days before I left from my family turkey hunt,
my buddy and I were running together. He says, oh,
you have you ever tried to shelter? I go, no,
never heard of it. I thought, well, I thought maybe
Clam used to make ice fishing shanties. He's like, maybe

(43:07):
it's kind of like an ice fishing shanty. So he says, well,
you want to borrow it? Said, yeah, it's supposed to
be a little rainy, I'll bring it. Thank goodness, because look,
those sektpe's are great. They're light, but and this thing's
not light. I mean it weighs I don't know, fifty
sixty pounds. But the difference is that like a seek
out side shelter, it's the shape of a teepee. The

(43:30):
clam has got vertical walls, right, so you just have
that much more room. And I didn't need I mean
we set it up right next to the truck. I
didn't need it to be light, right, So it was
just that it was a way more comfortable space to
be in for car camping. And like I said, we
spent a lot of time. Well, I don't know if
I mentioned this earlier. We spent a lot of time

(43:52):
in the tent basically for three days, and we had
brought games with us. Oh no car, So we played
some Latvian card games. We played Gin Rummy, we played
Rummy Cube RUMMYO. I don't know how what the name
of that game is. It's one of the tiles. Anyways,

(44:12):
silver lining there was that the kids had a great
time three days in a tent, partially, dude, because we
had a nice shelter, and partially hopefully it is because
we've raised them right and they don't need they don't
need to be plugged in to have a good time. Yeah,
but this Clam was clutch. I actually have a ten

(44:33):
x ten like pop up just awning.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
That also is a heavy soccer that's I don't know,
sixty seventy pounds, but it's durable, like I'll have this
thing for ten years. We had that thing over the
entrance of this Clam shelter. If you want to look
it up online, it's called the Quick Set. Quicksetshelters dot
Com is the website and it's by Clam. I think

(44:59):
Clam's owns a bunch of other companies. But anyways, I
mean it's basically a ice fishing ice fishing shanty, but
not insulated.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Does it pop up like a pop up blind like
did the hubs pop in?

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yes? Yeah, got it exactly. Like all the walls you
just pull on the handles, they pop out. Ceiling goes
up when it got completely drenched after two days and
then we had some pretty heavy winds coming around and
pushing down on the ceiling. We actually we had to
go and cut a center pole and put it in there.

(45:32):
It doesn't have that because it was popping the ceiling down.
But like I said, for what it is, it has
its limits. And being drenched and soaked, I think put
a lot of weight and you know, made the structure
a little bit weaker, and then you know the wind
pushing on it. You know, we had the roof roof

(45:54):
class couple of times. So we just went and cut
it whatever nine foot pole and stuck it in there
and it was good to go. Even though that happened,
I am one hundred percent gonna have one for my
next family camping trip. Like it was that slick, like
if it got buggy. The fit nice thing about it
the walls can roll up and you still have screens

(46:15):
on all sides, so if it got buggy, you could
get in there and have a great shelter and not
be cooking in there because you have plenty of breeze.
We actually did speaking of cooking, we did do cook eventually.
We brought the kitchen in there and did all of
our hanging out cooking in there, and if we needed to,
you know, let it air out, we just you know,
pop open a couple of windows and let it do that.

(46:38):
So yeah, man, I was very very stoked on that.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
I'm I'm deep in the planning of really awesome car
camping camps currently, so this is really appealing to me.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, I would, I would. I would looked into it,
and my buddy's already had it for three years and
he says it's been been tough, been working, So yeah,
check check it out. All right. So for our main

(47:17):
section here, our segment today, uh gear for traveling and
around traveling. Jordan, you you started it off with a
question of, uh, what you typically bring it for gear?
I feel like that question is a little bit broad.
I think you need to you need to ask me
a little bit. Yeah, gotta make that conciser, so I
can I know exactly what to answer.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Well, here's here's the hard part with it is like
the way I packed for Hawaii was like one eighty
degree difference from how i'd pat going to Alaska. Like
when you and I went on our caribou hunt, it
was like two duffel bags completely packed full of stuff,
and then a bow case packed full of stuff, and

(47:59):
then why trip was like gun case, one roller bag,
and off we went. It was so much simpler. So
I like for this trip, and I think some like
like this was a guided trip and so I think,
and we were staying in an airbnb. We weren't like
backpacking doing any overnight stuff, so there wasn't that much

(48:21):
camping stuff I had to bring, which really takes up
most of the room. When all you have to bring
is like clothing and your gun, it it eliminates a
lot of the stuff.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
So yeah, that's nice when you can pack light.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Oh yeah, it made it made a huge difference. So yeah,
what are you typically bringing for gir Yanni?

Speaker 1 (48:46):
My question the kitchen sink and everything with it. I mean,
obviously you do have to pack a little bit smarter
when you're when you're traveling because you can't really bring
the kitchen sink. You know, whatever clothing you're gonna need
for the trip. And we've talked about this before previous

(49:08):
Gear Talk episodes. Yeah, is that clothing I feel like
is a place where a lot of people can slim down.
You just you don't need two bass layers for even
a seven or eight day trip. Okay, these base layers
that we all wear and sell these days, they dry quickly,

(49:29):
they don't get too stinky. You'll be fine in just one, right,
and that kind of goes on down the line. You know,
you don't need five pairs of socks for a five
day hunt. You know you can do it easily in two.
So slim down there. Another gear I do like to
bring is definitely bringing yetti hopper to put meat in.
I feel like that is the best way to travel

(49:52):
home with meat. The yettie hopper, you can kind of
squish it up. It doesn't squish up great, but depending
on how much room you got in a tough wall,
you can squish up into a dough. Or sometimes if
I'm bringing I don't know, maybe some presents or you know,
some gifts to wherever I'm going or I don't know
some snacks or food that I want to have with me,
I can. I'll just check it and then hopefully come

(50:13):
back with you know, having full of deer meat. And
I'm pretty sure that those Yetti hopper forties, if you
pack it full of deep bone meat, you're gonna be
close to one hundred pounds. I mean you can really
like meat is heavy and dense, and you can get
a lot in there. I've said this before too. I
don't worry about getting it frozen or even completely processed.

(50:36):
I just get it off the bone, get it cooled down,
like as cool as possible overnight in a fridge. Is
gonna be plenty. And if you put all that thirty
five to forty degree meat into a Yetti hopper in
the morning and then fly all day and get home
that evening sometime, I think your meat's gonna be plenty

(50:58):
cold enough. We should do a test one day. I
need to bring a thermometer and see you test it
what it is in the morning when you put it
in there, and then and then see how much it
warms up. But I'm guessing because there's not much air
in there. If you close that zipper tight you know,
you're not getting air going in and out. Those things
insulate that meat very well.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, Like we did that in Alaska with my caribou.
I think debone we were we had two of the
hoppers full of meat, yep, and I think all we
did was, I mean we hung the quarters up and
then the next day or when we got back to
uh where we were staying, I deboned them and put
them right into the cooler like that, not like and

(51:42):
I was going to put a trash bag around it,
like put the meat in the trash bag, and you're like,
I wouldn't even do that, just put it in the cooler.
So that's what I did. And it was almost nicer
when we got back because you didn't have to thaw
out a bunch of frozen meat too. It was like
ready to just trim up and package and throw the freezer.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Because I mean, unless you're staying at a camp that
has a nice not a butchering facility, but has a setup,
you know, at the minimum of a table to work
on and then you know your paper and tape and
everything you need to package it up or vaxies or whatever.
If you have that at hand, and you have time
to get it frozen. Sure you can go you can

(52:21):
go that route, but most of the time that's not
on hand. You just got to get to meet home.
A big reason I don't like to freeze it is
because anytime you freeze meat, you're breaking cell walls down,
and then when it thaws the cell walls that you
that you broke. That's what causes like that. Even though
you have a completely dry piece of meat, when you
wrap it up and freeze it and you thought it

(52:43):
and you have this bleeding that goes on right, and
you have a that's all you got to thaw stuff
out on a on a pan or or a plate.
Otherwise you end up with a puddle of blood in
your fridge. That's a real pain. And that happens because
it's been frozen and broke cell walls down and then
basically that juice or blood, whatever you want to call it,
leaks out. And so if you don't freeze it, you're

(53:05):
not going to have that problem. And the reason I'm
worried about that is that I've been told by the
airlines that if you're uh cooler leaks, that gives them
the right to just yank it and dispose of it. Yeah,
and so you don't want that happening, So you can
some people will put a towel or some paper towels,

(53:27):
you know, on the top near the zipper or you know,
the latches whatever you're using to prevent that. If you
did have some sort of you know, moisture coming out,
that would hopefully catch it and prevent leakage. But again,
if you don't freeze it, the meat really shouldn't be
producing this juice, meat, blood, whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Yeah, super interesting point. And I've got just since I've
been back for a week, I've gotten a ton of questions,
Like the mostly the most questions I've gotten from the
Hawaii trip is how you got me home? And there's
like a couple points I want to make this. So
when we went, we hunted for two days and then
we vacationed for two days. If you're gonna go do

(54:07):
something like that, flip it vacation first and then hunt last.
So then you are you can take soft coolers just
like Yanni just talked about, put the meat in them
and fly at home with you. It's gonna be a
hell of a lot cheaper than shipping it because we
vacationed after and the outfit just has a meat processor

(54:29):
that they take it to, which I don't mind doing
that because he just did it all for us. But
I had to ship it home because we were literally
living out of a camper van in Hawaii for like
three nights on our vacation side of it, so like
no freezer to put meat in, yeah, and then try
to take it home with us. So it got FedEx

(54:52):
overnighted here Monday night, which was fantastic. I had roughly
thought about how much that was going to cost for
one box, but they sent two boxes instead of one box,
so it was like a smidgeon over four digits. And
I was like, I don't know, really, Oh dude, I

(55:14):
got railed.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
I yeah, I mean, I guess why might I even
be surprised you're shipping an animal home from Hawaii? Of
course it's going to be a thousand bucks.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
College and of course, and then next cheap no, And
next thing is like if you have to ship it,
If you have to ship it and you're going to
freeze it beforehand, don't ship it overnight. Ship it like
two day. It would have been just fine on two day.
It didn't really have to be overnight, but that's, you know,
kind of just the standard. And I didn't know any better,

(55:45):
and here we are. But it's uh, yeah, it's just
a good learning. People should learn from my mistakes, I guess,
or experiences, I should.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Say, if for some reason people are timid about bringing
meat on a plane like we do. But I'm telling
you now, it's been ten years for me of messing
around with this meat eater thing and flying around flying
meat home, and we've never had a problem. We've never
lost meat, we've never had meat go bad because of it,

(56:17):
we haven't had the leakage issue and lost our coolers.
It's we've had very good luck. We've even done it
with yetti hard sides, which I think we probably did
it once or twice. And you realize that that is
just too heavy of a container to do that because
you're just you're paying so much for the weight of

(56:38):
the cooler itself. Where the soft sided hopper, you know,
it's the weight's negligible. What I mean, it's probably less
than five pounds.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Yeah, and depending what you can also save a little
bit more money depending on what size of the soft
cooler you have you could carry it on, yeah, the
backpack cooler, Yeah, you can carry it on. We've we've
done that before.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
So yeah, I bet you YETI thirty would easily go
as a carry on easy.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yeah, yep, yeah, those backpack ones. I've got one of
those backpack ones in it. It fits in the overhead
bind super nice. So all things to think about if
you're playing in a if you're playing in a trip
like that, what about like bag wise, what other bags
are there? Like bags you like always default too.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Or you know with our connection with the first Light,
I mean pretty much any kind of duffle, and I've
used duffels from Patagoing in North Face f h Chef Duffels,
which I don't know if they have them right now.
They had some old versions. Any AnyWho be on the
lookout because I think there's some there's some pretty sweet

(57:50):
duffels coming from that f HF down the line. But
I'm trying a lot of them and they just seem
they just seem to work. It's easy, Uh, they seem
pretty tough if you need to. Most of them come
with some kind of backpack strap so you can throw
them on your back and you know, walk a little
ways with them if you need. I still haven't gotten

(58:12):
one with the rollers, because again, when you get those
roller bags, they do add a lot of weight. But man,
I've done some traveling alone for hunting recently, and it
would just be a heck of a lot easier on
my on my body if I felt was just dragging
that one of them, you know, because I end up
traveling with two duffels, usually in a gun case and uh,

(58:36):
one on the back and then one rolling and then
rolling your gun case in the other hand or bow case.
I think is uh is the way to be. So
I've been using the first light Duffel. UH. What I
like about it is it's got these the end pockets.
It looks like they just be like a ten liter
pocket on the end, but the the sort of inner

(58:58):
uh between that pocket and the main compartment, it's huge,
and it can expand going into the main compartment. And
my buddy Jake turned me on this. Why he loves
that back so much is that as he's going through clothes,
he basically takes those out. That takes the clean ones
out of the main compartment and then starts stuffing dirty

(59:19):
clothes into one of the end pockets, and eventually, you know,
if all of your clothes got dirty and you put
all of them into that end pocket, that endpocket could
probably take up nearly almost half of the main compartment,
if that makes sense. It sort of expands that way,
so it's a nice way to keep it separate. And
then the other end, I'll just put my boots in
there both going there and back, and it just you know,

(59:41):
my boots are always dirty, so it just keeps your
you know, other stuff separated. One thing that I will mention,
I've seen people do it otherwise, and some people will
even try to carry on or check their backpack you
know that you're gonna hunt with, which can definitely work.
But the reason I've gone this route, and basically I

(01:00:02):
just I empty it completely and put it into the
bottom of a duffle and then I put my gear
in there is I've always heard that if an airline
loses your baggage that they're only responsible to like insurance
or whatever, is only responsible for the contents and not
the bag itself. And so if if you've just checked

(01:00:24):
your nice exo pack, that's you know, five hundred to
one thousand bucks. You know, whatever you got into it
and then they were having to lose that or damage it.
And backpacks have a lot of straps and stuff and
just roll down those stuff. Yeah, it's just it just
seems like it's better to protect it inside of a Duffel,

(01:00:46):
you know, the Duffel, even though they are one hundred bucks.
It's it's it's gonna take the where for for all
your other gear. Right, It's gonna get rubbed on by belts.
There's gonna be holes eventually, but at least hopefully stuff
insides not getting messed with. So that's why my one
big tip there about how I pack is I go
empty backpack in there and then just pack everything else

(01:01:09):
around it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Yeah, and I think it packs better like that. I've
heard some people though, they will like have their backpack
packed like they're gonna go hunt, and then they'll just
put it inside of a Duffel. Yeah, and they're just
not quite shaped the same. So it just I think
that in my experience, I've just had like a lot
of wasted space and it's been hard to get the

(01:01:31):
zipper done because the backpacks more circular than like a
Duffel bag is a little bit more oblong like so
I think you can just fit a lot more if
you do the empty backpack like you're talking about. But yeah,
on this on this trip, of course, it wasn't quite
as much gear that I had to take, but I

(01:01:51):
did the I did a yetty roller bag, like the
big roller bag pretty much fit all my clothes, my
hunting clothes. And then I had like a little stone
glacier backpack, the little ones that we got from the
SIG deal. I just had like my camera and a
few things in there as my carry on for the plane.

(01:02:12):
And then I had my gun case and I want
to like slide into that. The gun case deal I
came up with, and I kind of stumbled into it.
I didn't really plan for this, but it couldn't worked
out any better. When I started looking at gun I
needed to go buy a new like an actual gun
case for airline travel, kind of an older one I

(01:02:34):
had when of the latches broke, and I'm like, eh,
it's just time to probably get a different one. So
I got a Pelican and I got a double. The
double it's called the V eight hundred I think by
it's the Pelican air and a bunch of people had
told me like, hey, the seven thirties are great and whatever. Well,
then I found this eight hundred and just me trying

(01:02:57):
to get the most bang for my buck, I'm like, well,
if I get a double case, then I could put
more than one gun in it if I need to
at some point, and YadA, YadA, YadA. So I ordered
it off Amazon and it gets here and I'm like,
this things giant, and it's probably it's too much for this.
So I actually tried to return it, but usually Amazon's

(01:03:19):
real good about returns, but this one, it was gonna
be forty five bucks to ship it back for return
through ups. So I was like, I guess I have
a gigantic gun case. So then in Hawaii on like
if you're around town or whatever, you're supposed to have
your gun in a soft case. So I'm like, okay,

(01:03:42):
I got to figure out how I'm gonna get a
soft case with me and pack it all in this
hard case. So the gigantic case came in really handy
because those foam layers, there's like three foam layers, it
might even be four. I took the top to out
put my gun inside of an FHF gun case in

(01:04:03):
the soft case, put the whole thing inside the hard case,
and then I had quite a bit of width room left,
so I ended up putting my spotting scope in a
case itself as well in a soft case, my tripod
a little like fix it sticks, a little like gun
repair kit, my Bino's in their biny case, and then

(01:04:29):
like two boxes of ammunition. I put all in that
one case and it came out at forty eight pounds
on the scale. Perfect it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
That's what I was gonna say, even though you wanted
a smaller case, it's nice to have the double even
if you're taking only a single rifle, because it's gonna
count as a piece of baggage, so you might as
well have that piece of baggage be as close to
fifty pounds as you can. And there's no way you're
gonna do that with a single gun case. So the
double is nice for the reasons that you just mentioned.

(01:04:57):
Is you got all the other gear in there. You
came in forty eight and it allowed you, you know,
your other bags to have other things in them you
maybe wanted to bring.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Yeah, it honestly, it was perfect. I kind of stumbled
into it, but I'm super glad I did no.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Paul Lewis over at FHF. He made that gun case
specifically so that it would fit into hard sided cases
so that you could do exactly what you did and
basically be bringing along two cases in one without really
adding a lot to it. Right, because you've got all
the protection of the foam you need it in the
FAHF case, but it's got to be in a hard

(01:05:34):
case and locked when you fly, so you can basically
just take out the foam drop that in. I've got
a very old I don't even know the model of it.
It's some old, you know, Pelican gun case. And I
did the same thing with mine, just took the bomb
out and just, you know, drop the FAHF case in there.

(01:05:55):
Works slick.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
What are you doing for your bow?

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
I believe it's a is it called s KB company SKB.
I don't know the model number. It's pretty good. The
only thing I wish I could, I mean, it works fine.
You can put arrows in the in the in the lid.
The foam is kind of worn out a little bit,
so some of the arrows will fall out, so I'll

(01:06:31):
usually take some gaff tape and after I put my
arrows in all gaff, tape over the sections where you know,
the little the where the parts are that are actually
holding the arrow. And then so it works fine, you
strap your bow in there, and again I can put
The thing is you got to take off your site,
you got to take off your quiver, you got to

(01:06:53):
take off your stabilizer. So all that stuff. I'll take
a pair of socks or a hat or gloves and
slip all that stuff into there and then drop it
into the case and even maybe pack you know, a
couple of layers. Just those stuff's not moving and flopping around.
I feel like with a bow, I'm way more careful
about what's going in there and how stuff's gonna move,

(01:07:14):
because the last thing you want is to you know,
it seems like it's bow is just more fragile than
a rifle, right, So I'm pretty careful about that. I
will say one thing that I'm sure it gets. It
happens every year, and you gotta be suit. Don't do
this is your broadheads have to be in a broadhead case.

(01:07:35):
Don't have them on your arrows and in that box
with your bow and bow strings, because that's just that
you're asking for it. Right, one of those arrows with
a broadhead is going to get loose, and then it's
gonna cut your string or fray your string. Who knows
what could happen. But definitely have your broad heads in
a separate case. You can have field tips on your

(01:07:55):
on your arrows. But yeah, and it's been a great case.
You know, it does the trick. It would just be easier,
but again the case might get way too big if
you could say, just unscrew the stabilizer and leave your
you know, leave your quiver on, leave your side on,
drop it in and go.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
But yeah, I before our Alaska Caribou trip this last year,
I was I needed a new bow case again, me
and my cases. But I felt I apparently was feeling
pretty fly and I was like, I just want one.
I'm gonna have it for a long time. So again
was looking at Pelican cases, and lo and behold, they

(01:08:40):
make one that is called d bow case, And so
I looked at pictures of it and like in the
inside it, like you put your bow in, you can
strap it in and then they have like a padded
cover that goes over the whole thing and clips in.
So then it kind of protects that top your bow

(01:09:00):
from anything else that you have in the top, and
then like in the lid, they have the little cutouts
for arrows you can stick in there. They have a
couple of little pockets that you could put stuff in.
I usually just put like extra like repair stuff that
I may need an extra release, but that that's been

(01:09:21):
a pretty nice, pretty nice case. I've only flown once
with it, but.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Yeah, I'm checking it out, man. That thing looks slick. Yeah,
it's do you have to take your site off? No
you don't.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
That's cool, but you mine doesn't really stick. Mine doesn't
stick out that far.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
But I'm sure you still had to take your quiver
and stabilizer off.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Yep. Yeah. And I just have like for my stabilizers
getting in the weeds a little, I just have like
the quick release. It's like you just give it like
a half a twist backwards and pop it up that
it's a beastinger, I think, and it just pops the
stabilizer right off. So pretty pretty easy there. But uh,
I know in our notes here we talked about locks

(01:10:06):
a little bit. So I was told before I did
my sheep hunt a couple of years ago that TSA
did a change for their gun cases that they didn't
want you to use t like real TSA locks because
then all the TSA agents have a key to get
into it, and they didn't want your gun to be

(01:10:28):
that accessible. So they wanted you to use your own
locks even if you have or and just make sure
you have the key with you all the time, obviously,
and if they needed you to open it, they just
have to call you and you have to go wherever
they are to open it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Interesting. Yeah, I'd better look into that because I just
I flew recently with shotguns, just in the last month,
and they didn't say anything about that. They actually asked me,
are they TSA locks? And I've always done that So
you don't have to stick around waiting because if you
don't have TISA locks, if they flag it and they
need to get into your case, you gotta be sitting

(01:11:05):
around there to either give them the combo or give
them the key so they can open it and then
get in there. Where when it's when I'm like, no,
it's got TSA locks, Like okay, see you at the
gates you know later walk away.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Yeah, so I'm gonna check into.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
No, definitely look into that, and it could be a
per airline rule too.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
Yeah, that's something too on airlines, like you gotta check.
They're all just like a little bit different on airlines too,
like you gotta check before you go and make sure
even if bouncing from one airline to the next, especially
if you have to like recheck in. I ran into
that when we went to Hawaii. So we took Alaska

(01:11:47):
to Honolulu. I had my two boxes of bullets like
in the case, in their original box, but in the case,
and the people here didn't bat and eye at it.
They let me go. And then when we got to
Honolulu and we were jumping over on the flight to
l Ani, they asked me if I had They said

(01:12:10):
that the bullets had to be out of the case
in a separate bag, checked in a separate bag, so
they wanted them completely in a couple different spots. So
that's something to think about there, and just ammunition in general,
like it can't be loose. It's supposed to be in
the original boxes, like closed boxes or a hard case

(01:12:31):
designed for ammunition, like am trying to think.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
What those is probably the most popular, Yeah, box that
you buy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Those little things and then as a side note, like
black powder or primers. You're not supposed to take those either.
So the powder I would have thought of, I did
not know the primers.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Yeah, because that's a full on explosive, you know. M
I think if you had them to get they're like
that in the case, then that's what they're worried about.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Yeah, and then you added and it can't be over
eleven pounds. I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Yeah, yeah, which eleven pounds of ammo. That's a good bit.
I don't know how much, just I bet you had
a twenty round. Of twenty rounds in a box is
probably close to a pound, So it'd be like bringing
ten or eleven or a dozen boxes, which is probably
a little more than most folks need. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:13:31):
you made a note to no gas canisters for backpack
and stoves. You can take an empty white gas canister,
which can't take a compressed gas cancer that say, would
go on to a MSR reactor MSR pocket rocket, you

(01:13:52):
know what they call caniser. Stoves can't bring the cancers.
If you're gonna if you're gonna use that on your trip,
you need to get there and then buy yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Plan ahead, Yeah, plan ahead and make sure you can
buy somewherever you're going.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Sweet, And then really to wrap it up, like try
to make sure your bags aren't over fifty pounds, otherwise
they'll get whacked with an over oversize or an overweight
bag fee. So those can add up real quick.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Oh buddy. Yeah, if you don't have we're lucky again
where we fly enough where uh you know, you get
a certain amount of bags free and they give you
a little leeway. I think instead of fifty when you
have some kind of status with Delta, they give you
up to I think it's seventy before it's overweight. But yeah,

(01:14:39):
if you're don't fly a lot, no status, Yeah, make
sure your bags because they it depends on who's working
that counter, but if it's at fifty one, they're going
to make you take something out or they're gonna hitch it.
And when they hitch it, it's probably three hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
Oh yeah, it's it's big time. Like have you ever
walked into the airport and there's people like disassembling their bags.
Oh yeah, right in front of the thing, trying to
repack stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:15:05):
Yeah, like I don't need these shoes anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
T shirts, I could just buy some more when I
get there.

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):
Yeah, especially for less for three bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Yeah sweet?

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
Yeah, what other thing? I mean we kind of touched
on how to pack Bino's or or or just in
general optics. Yeah, for traveling? Would you do there? What'd
you do when you went to Hawaii?

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
I had everything in my gun case because that was
a locked, hard sided case. In previous times, I've always
had those in my carry on. I'll just have like
a little carry on backpack, and I usually put them
in that backpack just so that's usually your high dollar stuff,
and they're also heavy, so like it can make your

(01:15:54):
that's a good way to shave some pounds out of
your bag, as if you just make sure that your
optics are in your carry on, save some weight that way.
And then those are high dollar things. It's just nice
to have them with you. Makes you feel a little better,
makes me feel better anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Oh you mean pack them in a carry on?

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
Yeah, pack optics in a carry on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Yeah, that's my recommendation too. Usually I'll go because I
rarely fly with more than one pair of binoculars. I
guess maybe on a Coos deer hunt, I might have two,
but binos, because I had a pair of binos that
was packed well, crammed well into a duffel in between
all kinds of clothes, I thought. And still when I

(01:16:37):
brought them out, they'd gotten a ding on one of
the ocular lenses and I don't know, the lens didn't
actually break, but the housing around it was bent enough
where it sort of pushed a little piece of rubber
metal sort of into the like it wasn't a perfect
circle anymore, is what I'm trying to say. And it
didn't really affect looking through them, but just every time

(01:17:00):
you look down you saw it, and it was just
in my head, like, ah man, that was a bummer.
So yeah, I too, will definitely pack my optics with
me and my carry on and yeah, baby, but a spotter,
you know, I don't know. I just feel like they're
a little bit tougher. Maybe I don't know, but usually
I have a four sections z rest, like a foam

(01:17:23):
sitting pad that I'm bringing and I'm gonna be doing
that kind of glass and that's just big enough to
burrito roll a spot or into it, and I'll get
a rubber band or some pea cord and kind of
tie it up like that and then put it into
my duffel where hopefully on the bottom I've got my backpack,
and then and then work around all the sides with

(01:17:44):
all my clothes and make sure there's something on top
so that it's really dead center and protected from all sides.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
Yeah, that's a good Uh, that's a good way to
do it. I'm always just like, I don't know, in
the past, I've always been so tight at fifty pounds
for each bag. It's just yeah, it's a it's a
good way. Like if you know you're gonna be overweight
on your bags, that's the first thing I would pull
out is your.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Ca Oh yeah, there's nothing heavier answer in your bags
and your binos and your spot nothing. Yeah, maybe you're AMMO,
but you can't carry that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
Yeah you're stuck.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Don't do that. Do not try to carry AMMO on
or try to take it through security. Uh, you're gonna
have a to end up with a with a chat
with the cops in the back room.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
Yeah, all right, Well, I know we just went through
a lot of info and kind of a lot of
different hitting in a lot of different places. If you
have any questions or comments on this we can answer
them in future episodes. Just send your questions to gear
talk at the meeater dot com or with any other
comments or if you have a request for an episode

(01:19:02):
or gear thing to cover, let us know. And yeah,
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you can see our podcast at gear talk all of
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(01:19:25):
go to the website, go to our gear talk page
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So with that, thanks for listening to gear talk podcast
and stay tuned for future episodes and yeah, we'll talk
to you guys in the next one.