November 30, 2024 • 39 mins
Would you use dogs to hunt turkeys in the fall? Chris Ellis of Timney Triggers sits down to chat about fall turkey tactics and new triggers from Timney.
This Gun Talk Hunt is brought to you by Ruger, Range Ready Studios, Silencer Central, Savage Arms, Franchi USA, RCBS, Smith & Wesson, Hodgdon Powder, CZ-USA, and SnapSafe.
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Copyright ©2024 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Hunt 11.30.24
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
This Gun Talk Hunt is brought to you by Ruger, Range Ready Studios, Silencer Central, Savage Arms, Franchi USA, RCBS, Smith & Wesson, Hodgdon Powder, CZ-USA, and SnapSafe.
For more content, subscribe to Gun Talk at guntalktv.com, on Gun Talk's Roku, Apple TV, iOS app, Android app, or find Gun Talk on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, X and guntalk.com. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.
Copyright ©2024 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Hunt 11.30.24
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Welcome in Gun Talk Hunters. I'm your host, kJ,
and today we've got a great one. We're gonna talk
fall Turkey hunting. I know it's a the white toe
wood season, but it's also fall Turkey season, and mister
Chris Ellis from Timney Trigger is knee deep in it. Hey,
I'm kJ dedicated lifelong hunter here. If you've got an
interest in all things hunting, you're in the right spot.
(00:22):
Whether chasing quail across the plains of Oklahoma or in
pursuit of belk in the back country of British Columbia,
you'll always find me on the hunt. This episode is
brought to you by Ruger range Ready Studio, Silencer Central,
Savage Arms, Frankie RCBS, Smith and Wesson, and Hodgden. All Right,
(00:42):
Chris Ellis from Timney Triggers.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome in, sir, Hey, appreciate you having me on. Man.
Thank you so much for y'all's time.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Well, you know when you called today and we were
kind of talking about what we were wanting to talk about.
You know, typically most podcasts this time of the year
are pretty deep in to the whitetail conversation. And I've
been there myself, and there's nothing wrong with that, but man,
you are you are about the most die hard turkey hunter,
(01:10):
and really it starts ramping up for you in the fall.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, oh absolutely yeah. Don't get me wrong. I'm a
white tail guy. I grew up in West Virginia and
a whitetail hunt. Have been whitetail hunting for over forty years,
and it is time. There's no doubt about it. Rut's
coming on cool front's coming through, deer on their feet
during daylight hours. It is time. But having said that,
if there's a turkey season open spring, fall, winter, I
(01:35):
gotta go. I'm sorry, It's just it's who I am.
It's what defines me. Man.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You know, it's it's one of those times a year
where I don't often think about it, but like Oklahoma
has a fall turkey season.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Now, man, it's just different tactics. Typically when I'm shooting
a turkey, it's like it's not expected, like it's it's
it's kind of an afterthought for me because I'm so
focused on whitetail, Like I forget that there's plenty of
turkeys out there, and I see turkeys every time I'm
(02:10):
in the White Toil woods.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, which is you know, it's not uncommon. I locked.
I talked to a lot of hunters throughout the year
being you know, an I have a hunter myself and
working for a try company that stands behind hunting one
hundred and ten percent. But yeah, a lot of people say,
you know, I'll be in my deer stand or in
my box blind or sitting on the ground or whatever
and have an opportunity, and yeah, that's that's that is
(02:32):
a form of fall turkey hunting. Now for me, in
the fall, if you put me in a box blind,
you'd have to superglue my feet to the floor because
I Am not going to sit there. I promise it.
I do not deer hunt for turkeys. Nothing wrong with that.
It's just I have a different sport that I like
to play in the fall, just like I like to
play in the spring, and I like to get up
close and personal, and I like to communicate with them
(02:54):
and I like to be honest with you the fall
just to torque them off.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, so what are so what are they doing in
the fall? What's I mean? I know they're they're really
in a big clutch. I mean every time I see them,
it seems like they're in forties and fifties, and man,
I've seen them as much as one hundred in a group.
How are you picking one apart from that group. Yeah,
you're gonna chase them.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You know, in early fall, you know they're they're kind
of broken down there. You'll have some some gins and
hens or Jenny's and hens together. You will have some
hens that didn't have any offspring that year together. You'll
have a wad of jakes running around together. Uh, you know.
Then you have some young of the year gobblers, and
then you've got your mature gobblers running around. And you know,
(03:37):
a turkey, especially if you talk about male turkeys, they're
always in competition for breeding year round. You know who's
on first, what's on second? You know. So if you can,
if you can find a fall flock of young gobblers
knowing that they're in, you know, in competition for breeding
for next spring, and you can challenge them, or you
can be like there's a new kid in town. It's
(03:59):
it can be pretty. It's a heck of a lot
of fun. If you like communicating with turkeys and turkey vocalizations,
I'll hear more if it's a good fall, a lucky fall,
especially when there's a lot of acorns. Uh, and they're
really concentrating on you. Gotta remember, from where I'm at
West Virginia, they're in any agriculture, so I don't get
to drive by beanfield or a cornfield, especially when you
(04:21):
live in the mountains like I do. Uh. But what
you what you'll find out is if you hit an
early morning right after the roost, or you get a
challenge situations, you'll hear more turkey vocalizations in the fall
than most people hear in spring, like for example one
hundred a couple of different states this year in the fall.
One of them I was hunting was in Ohio, and
(04:42):
I got right underneath their roost tree, put them in
the roost. That night, I heard them fly up and
it was it was a Motley crewe concert, you know,
the first hour after daylight, you know, and I just
concentrate on one or two turkeys and I communicate with
them the way they're communicating back. If you like the call,
(05:02):
you can't call loud enough or too much.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
In the fall, really, you get a.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Lot of tree talking and they fly down and at that time,
you know, I like to concentrate on shooting gobblers. You know,
we'd all like to kill mature gobblers, but they're a
little tougher than the fall in my in my experience.
But you know, your last year's jakes that are now
getting ready to be too, and then you've got the
young of the year, young gobblers. You start key keying
to them and gobbler clucking to them, and Gobbler you
(05:29):
up into them and kind of, you know, challenge them
a little bit. It's pretty lively.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Are you mostly I mean, I guess it's all dependent
upon like your situation, but are you mostly sticking with
a slate call or you you doing a diaphragm or
a box call? Like what do you really kind of
what calls do you kind of hone in on?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well, you know, you know, key keying is kind of
key run in the fall is kind of like the
old Appalachian go to a lost hen call or gobbler ELPs.
And I find in my arsenal I have a couple
dedicated fall turkey calls. They're all friction, you know, mouth
calls them are fantastic, But that high pitch squeal of
that of that kiki it's hard for me to get
(06:12):
that right. And it's hard for me to get that
mouth called to stay tuned because I blow it a lot,
and I blow it very, very loud, and it's probably
just a personal thing. But I've got a slate call
that works phenomenal, you know, for kikiS and gobbler ELPs.
And then I've got a couple of old old I'm
an old Appalachian soul, so I've got a couple of
old scratch boxes that I can really sing in the fall.
(06:34):
So you've got a couple of options in the fall.
You can either one challenge them right off the roofs
or on the way back to the roost in areas
where allowed to hunt, you know, daylight to dark. As
the sun said, you can also an Appalachia, you can
use dogs during the day when the turkeys are kind
of loafun or doing the thing that you can scatter
(06:55):
them and their instinct is to flock back. Like you
talked about, you see a lot of large flaw flock.
Especially when you get late fall into the winter, they
get a lot, you know a lot of those big
giant flocks together. Yeah, you get you know, you can
deer hunt them. You can sit in the green field
or a green patch or every type food source and
just hope that you you know, happen to see one.
(07:16):
I prefer to do either bust them up with a
dog or bust them up using my feet and the terrain,
or I really like that that first after the morning
fly down, when they're all kind of communicating, how is
your night where you're at? Now, let's skip together here
for a little bit of But you know, it takes
about an hour maybe a little a little bit less
before they walk off and start feeding. But that's when
(07:38):
you hear the most vocalizations is when they're just calling
each other back, making sure everybody's you know that that
recall after you after you flush them, or that assembly
call when they first slide down and they want to
get together and walk off. But it's you know, that's
where we used to hunt turkeys. You know. Right now
everybody's concentrating on the spring. And don't get me wrong,
(07:59):
hunt every day of spring season by calm, not.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Right, But how are you how do you train that
pub to break them up? I mean, are you just
sending the dog after him or and then call them back?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, it takes. It's there's been volumes written about it.
I happen to have a feist dog that I walk
with every day for exercise and for training and for
myself as well, you know, to get out every morning
the first hour or so of daylight. And I just
got fortunate that this dog flushed a lot of turkeys
and on the farm and continue to flush turkeys an
(08:33):
he barks. I mean, because if you have a dog
that flushes, then don't bark. You really don't know what
you have, right, And this dog just then then you've
got a hunting dog that knows what he's hunting for.
So then you start doing the tail fans and the
wings and whatever you young to be excited. But this
little fist dog I got is he likes to run
(08:54):
in there and chase them around and flush him like crazy.
And then the game is you go to the flush spot.
Sometimes you put your dog in. Old timers will put
them in a bag or put them undeath your legs
and sit still and call them back. I generally, if
the truck's close enough with this young puppy I have,
I generally try to get him in the dog box
and hustle back build a little makeshift blind. You know,
(09:16):
sometimes I carry blind material with me, sometimes I don't.
Lots of times I just sit against a big tree
and find some brush and stuff and stick it down
in front of me and just you won't take you along.
You don't hear a call, you'll hear either a lost
hen call or assembly call or something, and so you
start mimicking what you hear, and you know, just get
right back together and hopefully they get back together within
(09:37):
shotgun range. And and it's it's a heck of a
lot of fun. If you get a bunch of gobblers
going back and forth coming in, it's it can be
a lot of gobbling right off the roost, a lot
of gobbler yelps. It's very common in the fall. And
to be honest with you, just hear just about every
vocalization a whild turkey can make.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So yeah, that's I mean, it's it's one of those
things that you kind of never think about. But man,
those diehard hunters, turkey hunters especially, they will not like
that's their one goal, Like deer really don't matter. Like
kind of how I am with duck hunting, man, The
duck hunting can wait until I'm out of the deer woods.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's that's what I do. You know, if I had
my brothers, I would fall turkey hunt as many states
as I could. We're blessed to have some of those
old states still available, and some of them you can use.
Dogs of them you can't. But the drills the same.
You locate the food source, you locate the roosting source,
and then you figure out how to how to get
in between. And it's mostly it's wood wise, which I
(10:40):
really like growing up inn Appalachian Mountains. Is using the terrain,
especially if you walk in the high ridges, calling down
into the into the hollers or into the valleys for
for blushingham and for scatter them is just it's just
who didn't like to take a walk on a nice
crisp fall, Daddy, when beautiful colors are out as bluebirds, guys,
(11:00):
low expectation, walk a few ridges, make a few calls,
and then when you strike them, get ready because it'll
be loud.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
It'd be my problem, Chris, that would be my problem
because I would be like, all right, I'm gonna I'm
gonna try my hand at turkey hunting in the fall
on you know, one of those beautiful fall Chris mornings,
and that's the morning where i'd see just an absolute
giant buck. You know that would You're.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Not wrong because I've had this kind of theory and
I have no way to prove it, but I've seen
it myself. When you're walking into crunchy leaves, the hardwood leaves,
and it sounds like you're walking on potato chips. You
think there's no way I'm going to walk up on
any game, right, But if you're if you're using a
turkey call while walking, you'd be surprised how many critters
(11:48):
you walk up on. Because when when a hillside full
of turkeys and they're scratching for acorns, it's loud. There's
no doubt. It doesn't sound like a deer, doesn't sound
like a squirrel, uh, doesn't sound like a human. It
just sounds like someone's got a leaf blower out there,
blowing all the leaves out. And if you're calling during
that for I'll give you a good example. We I
live in bear country in West Virginia. I had to
(12:10):
live in the county where there's tons of bears where
I was fall turkey out the other day and I
was walking that blind. I had no idea just walking
down a ridge, calling into the valleys and using the
top of the ridge and kind of tucking underneath the top.
So I was out of it, you know, it wasn't skylighted.
And I walked up and I looked, and I was like,
(12:30):
is that a bear? And this was in boat range,
and I was like, is that a bear sitting there
looking at me? Because it I don't care how many
bears you see. When you're walking through the Appalachian hardwoods
and you see a boat swaggon, you know, you're like, huh,
that's a huge animal. I literally walked up on three
bears turkey outing this year. Three of them were two
(12:50):
of them were thin bow shot, and one of them
was in a pretty chip shot if you were if
you were a rifle hunting for bears. So I think
I wasn't playing the wind. I wasn't watching which way
the wind was blowing, my cent or anything. I wasn't quiet.
I was crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. And I think
that turkey call just gives him some a little bit
of ease, thinking, well, there comes a whole bunch of turkeys.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, maybe I'll have a snack. Maybe you were the snack.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Maybe I was a snack. Well, they were gorged. We
had a heck of a white oase and red oak
mast in some areas of West Virginia and on my farm,
I was blessed with them. So they were just gorging
on acorns and rooting around and I just interrupted their
snack time.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So oh really, yeah, that's pretty good. Hey, Chris, we're
gonna we're gonna take a break here. We're gonna read
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Speaker 2 (17:00):
All right.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
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(18:26):
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(18:47):
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(19:51):
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dot com. Backslash Winchester. All right, we're back with Chris
Ellis of Timney Triggers and Fall Turkey. We're gonna switch gear.
If we're gonna we're gonna switch them from first to
second and go from hunting in the hardwoods in the
fall with turkeys to slinging lead down range and in
(20:55):
the woods with a Timney lever action trigger. Man, I'll
tell you what so this is. You didn't ask me
to do this, but I'm on. I was on the
website and there's a review. There is one review and
it's from Marion h. This is a verified buyer, and
he says this is what he says. He gives it
(21:17):
a five star review. The factory trigger on my new
Marlin eighteen ninety five weighed in at seven pounds ten ounces.
After install of the Timney and operating the trigger a bunch,
it weighed in at three pounds seven ounces. He says,
amazing difference. And he goes on and he says at
(21:37):
the end, he says you know, I have three more
Marlins that will be getting this upgrade sooner rather than later.
So all that being said is this trigger is a
major upgrade for your your lever guns.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Absolutely, our customers, you know, we've been around almost nearly
eighty years. Just by listening to our our customers are
what They're the ones that tell us what true to
build next. Right, so we always are currying them and
asking them what would you like for us to build next?
And most of the popular triggers that we have right
now came from our customers. I mean, they know, they
(22:11):
know what platforms they're working. Isn't that crazy We now
call rifles and pistols and shotguns platforms. But anyhow, so
we had several many requests for the Marlin, and the
Marlin rifle was very dear to me. It's a fantastic rifle.
It was my first center fire rifle when I was
young growing up in West Virginia. It's what I took
(22:33):
the most dear with in high school into college. It
was my we called the meat Getter. It was my
deer hunting rifle. We got a member in West Virginia.
You're hunting hardwoods at least where I grew up. And
you're you're shooting deer at fifty yards, right, I mean
it's just and you're walking a lot. You know, this
was before we had a lot of people hunting, not
(22:54):
a lighter stands and box blinds and grind you know. No,
you just went out and you found game train els,
You found scrapes and rubs, you found a lot of
deer sign and you sat somewhere where you were out
of the wind and concealed against an old oak tree,
and when a deer walked by, there was so I
fell in love with. You know, everything to me is
(23:14):
when you get a little bit older, it's kind of retro, right,
you kind of like to think about. You know. I
was in a good mood and happy at high school shooting.
It was in Calstagia. Yeah, I didn't have much stress,
right talking about deer hunting, man, I was. I was
mad at him, as a kids say, I was. I
was after the deer as hard as I could still am.
But that marlin gun I fell in love with. It
(23:35):
was a three, three, six and thirty thirty phenomenal deer round.
And then as I got a little bit older, here
came a forty five seventy, and then a couple bears
happened to be, you know, taken with a forty five seven.
And then I got a chance to go one time,
to go to South Africa with my brother, and what
did I take? I took a Marlin forty five seventy
(23:55):
and his game and the hundred in Alaska with a
forty five seventy, and it's it's just always been maybe
I want to be a cowboy, Maybe I want simpler times.
I'm chasing that high school buzz of being turned loose
in the woods deer hunting. I don't know, but it
was romantic to me and still is romantic to me.
So when we started getting these customer request I couldn't
(24:17):
get the engineering fast.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Enough, what I'm telling you, So we developed them on
we started messing with the Timney lever action trigger on
our show build box. And so we've got this guy's
I mean, it was an old Sears and Robot model
and I want it didn't go into the season robot
(24:39):
but for the giveaway. So we're giving this gun away.
It's a brand new Marlin eighteen ninety five. I mean
it's a brand new and we install this trigger. I
install this trigger. Chris had to. Chris Serno kind of
gave me a little bit of help with it. But
it was very easy, And I think that's the more
important thing because really, when you think think about like
(25:01):
that's a there's a lot of parts there a lever
gun that we're not used to operating on. We're not
used to be taking these guns down like a you know,
an AR or a Bold Action yeap. So there's there
was a little bit of fitment that I was like, Okay,
hold on a second, you got to put take this
screw out first and then this anyway, Yeah, but man,
(25:21):
super easy, which is what Timney's always been about, Like
this isn't You don't have to be a gunsmith to
install this, and it is really easy.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, you're right, there is a learning curve if you've
never taken the butt stalk off of a Marlin lever gun.
Right in, Their parts are a little different. We're kind
of we kind of know the parts fairly well of
a Bold Action rifle. We kind of know the parts
very well when it comes to like an AR or
ten twenty two. But yeah, the Marlin is not a
(25:52):
hard trigger to install. But there is a little bit
of a learning curve because most people that I talked
to have not taken it apart. But don't you do
it once. It's not that difficult. I've done it multiple times,
and it's like anything else, you know, the first time
you put something together, you're like, ooh, I had to
read instruction two or three times. I had to get
(26:14):
on Timdy and go to their YouTube channel on the
installation and they had to call it, you know, a
tech at Timney and say, you know, I've got this
thing in front of me and it doesn't seem like
I need any special tools. But it's this grew and
it's this one. But when Alan Timney started timndy back
in nineteen forty six, it's the same philosophy we had
(26:35):
to these days. It has to improve the accuracy, your
accuracy with that firearm. It has to be easily installed
with common you know, kitchen countertype tools, and then it
needs to be adjustable where it needs to be adjustable
for the user or it needs to come, in the
case of the Marlin, in appropriate pool weight for that situation.
(26:58):
Marlin's in my fact, in my mind, in our mind
here at Timney, or majority of them are used for
collection or for shooting back in the backyard of plinking,
but the highest majority of them are used for hunters. Right,
you know, sound a good trigger at three pounds, but
more importantly the poundage is right. But one of the
things that Timney has made, Timny is yet a three
(27:20):
pound trigger and a hunting rifle was fantastic. But if
it's not repeatable, if it's not a christ trigger, if
it doesn't break the exact same way every single time
for the lifetime of that trigger, then it's not a tendon.
It's just it's just not Because the hillbilly logic of
how to shoot better is if you want to hit
(27:42):
the same hole twice, the trigger has to break the
same way twice, or you really got something else going on,
you know, maybe it's a barrel or something, something's loose somewhere.
But to start by improving accuracy with any firearm, you know,
taking a look at a trie that consistently breaks the
exact same way, even if it's heavier. You know, I'd
(28:05):
rather have a heavier trigger that break the same way
because my muscle memory learns that when my brain says
I'm on target, and I can make that shot. Yeah,
a good trigger will take out a lot of the
physical barriers to that. Like we talk about creepy triggers
or draggy triggers, or triggers that don't necessarily break the
(28:28):
same way. Can you add an element in there to
when your brain calls I can make that shot, finger
time to pull the trigger. If there's something mechanic when
there that's not allowing you to hit the same place twice,
you may want to take a look at your trigger.
So when our engineers designed the Marlin trigger, the drop
in Marlin trigger, we had to, you know, same mantra
(28:49):
that Alan Timly used. Does it improve the accuracy of
that rifle? Does it improve your experience for the application?
And you know, there's a lot of different Marlins out there,
you know. We found out that, you know, we have
to deal with tolerances way back when, and we figured
out roughly we're learning to these days thanks to our
customer right about nineteen eighty three, nineteen eighty something. The
(29:12):
tolerances there are perfect for our trigger, you know. Yeah,
And I don't know if some of the old historical
Marlins need to be monkeyed with or not. That's kind
of a personal preference, but I do know that people
are enjoying modern Marlin rifles and with the Timney and
then understand what Timney can help help you do for
(29:32):
accuracy there and it's a you know, it's just a
phenomenal deer. It's a great pointing rifle. It's fun to shoot,
it's easy to shoot U And they're accurate. I mean
they are. They are very very accurate.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Very much so. And I think you you hit on that.
I mean the major thing is just the repeatability.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And I mean, yeah, it's good. It feels like a Timney.
It feels crisp, it's smooth, but it's one hundred percent repeatable.
And then if you're wanting to be accurate, and especially
you know, lever guns because a lot of these guys nowadays,
I mean they're going with scope rifles. They want to
accurize them. I mean that's the point of that's one
of the bigger points of you know, putting in a
(30:11):
different trigger. You're wanting to get better, You're wanting to
get better repeatability. And I think that's kind of overlooked,
you know, by it is.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I was talking triggers twenty some years ago and back then,
believe it or not, triggers were important the same as
they are today, but there were a lot of people
talking about it. There were a lot of people talking
about terms trigger terms like pull weight, over travel seer engagement.
They were talking about trigger terms. They were just talking
about you know, every gun comes with one elis and
(30:41):
you've got to take the gun apart. I understand, I understand,
I've dealt with that for twenty some years. But one
of the things that I did screw up on kJ,
and I'm being honest with you, was I was talked
I talked too much about pull weight back then.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Oh really, yeah I did.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
And if you look at let me give you example.
If you come up to me and you said, hey, man,
I got a car to'll go one hundred miles an hour,
I was like, great, that's awesome. Is it comfortable one
hundred miles an hour? Oh no, no, it's just an
old beater and you don't want to go one hundred
miles in it, but it'll go on hundred miles. Or
if you come up to me and say, yeah, I
can go one hundred miles and a mile miles an
(31:17):
hour in my car and I'm like, jeez, what kind
of car you got?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I got a Lamborghini and you don't even know you're
going one hundred miles an hour, right, So that's kind
of way I look at pool weight. There are triggers
out there with later pool weights or correct pool weights
that may not necessarily be repeatable or be Chris, or
you have the over travel set correctly. So yes, pulll
weight is important. If you have a seven pound hunting
(31:40):
rifle and it takes ten pounds to break the trigger automatically,
you have to move the rifle, right, I mean, it's
just physic, but that's not the end all. If I
could hang my hat on something now twenty years later
about talking about triggers, I don't care necessarily as long
as the pool weight is appropriate, but I care is
it repeatable something I can get muscle memory around and
(32:03):
to learn how to shoot this thing with a very
very low learning curve. You know, you can learn anything
with repeatability. I mean even really can. Yeah, but it
takes a long time. But if you have something like
I'm kind of a trigger snob and I like all
my rifles to break in the three pound range because
I'm a hunter, So if it's a three pound range
(32:24):
and it's got a tight wall, in a really crisp break,
in a pretty decent reset, I can become I could
become very acurate with that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So yeah, and I mean repeatability and just being being
more accurate. That's what we want. And you only get
that out of being repeatable doing the same thing twice
over and over over.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, that's what we expect out of modern ammunition. Now
we're blessed to have great ammunition that you don't have
that much defense from round to round, right. You used
to have to when I was growing up, you know,
go to the barber shop and talk about people in
elk hunting or going out west or whatever. They talked
about magic handloads and each little grain of powder and
you had to have this much in there, and you
had to have this bullet and you got to get
(33:05):
to get that. But we're so blessed nowadays with modern
firearms and modern ammunition that you're getting that stuff right
out of you know, right out of the factory boxes
are all the time, and plus or minus for deer hunting,
you know, So especially if you're going to talk about
stretching your bar rye a little bit that a lot
of people are doing now with competition shooting and with hunting.
And you know, a three hundred yard shot is the
(33:29):
old fifty yard shot for me. So yeah, if you're
going to shoot three hundred yards or plus, everything, everything
in the beginning needs to be a tight, tight, tight
barrel action trigger, good optics on there, the correct way,
good foundation to be able to do that, and the
trigger is a huge part of that.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Oh yeah, absolutely. I do have a funny story for you.
So I'm sitting there. Every night, my kids go out
to the garage, they pull out their hunting rifle and
they fire. So this is a process they do every night.
So my youngest son ten, he goes out there and
I'm like, hey, I want you to try this one
because I think the link, the pull for you is
(34:09):
going to be a little bit better. And he gets
behind the gun and it's a two stage and he
sits there and he does it, and he goes and
he does it again, and he looks at me, he goes,
can I have the other one back? Immediately you know
what he's requesting, But he's requesting my Remington seven hundred
(34:32):
Calvin Elite trigger.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
YEP.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's what he wants back because he's like it's he goes,
it's just more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Congratulations. You may have a trigger snob.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I do have a trigger snob, and that's so I
blame Timney for that.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well. My daughter came home last year for run to
the holiday time. She'd been in school forever, and she
was like, Dad, I think I want to go dear hunt.
And I was like, great, you can go with me
in the morning and we'll put up a BLONDI you
can get in the in a double buddy stand with
me or something. She goes, no, Dad, I think I'd
like to go deer honey, And I was like, really great,
(35:08):
twenty six years old, awesome, perfect. So I did the
same thing. We got out ten twenty two with a
nice tuggar in it from Timney, and we practiced practice practice,
and then she got the anatomy of a white tail
deer for shot placement. And she studied, studied, studied, and
then we got the little I had a little Mini
Mauser built one time and got a great Timney in
at the Calvin built for me, and we practiced dry
(35:31):
firing and dry firing, and we did some deer targets
dry firing, and she went out and shot that morning,
and that evening a little dough ball came in and
it was Antler's season and she put a great shot
on it, and thirty yards later she was she was
bringing home the bacon. You know, she turned. She couldn't
wait to turn a game animal into meat and the
meat into the meal to share with everybody of all
(35:53):
her friends and stuff, just to say hey, hey, you
know I can do this too, And I brought home
I brought home dinner.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Dry firing is a fantastic practice. It and yeah, because
there's no boom and there's there's no recoil. You you
can feel the click, you can feel the break of
that trigger. Yeah, and you can trust yourself. My eyes
on target, my point of aim is correct. I am
ready to hit that target.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
And when they squeeze that trigger in that point of
impact moves, whether the scope moves a little bit, whatever,
they know, Hey, I don't think this trigger is the
one I need. I don't think this trigger is one.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
On that one. That's exactly what he was like. He
was like, Yeah, I just I just I want I
want that other one back and then and it's it's
a Calvin Eleide Remington seven hundred because he's he's dry
fired it so much. I mean they're doing you know,
twenty five to thirty dry fires a night, you know,
starting in like early early September. Probably the last maybe
(36:51):
the last week of August is when they start dry
firing every night. And because I want them to know
the trigger like I want them. I wanted them to
have an intimate relationship with that trigger today where they
know exactly what they're feeling, because man, when that heart
rate gets up, that's the last thing you want to
think about.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Right, you're exactly the last thing you need is some
physical barrier. When you work that hard to sit still,
watch the wind be quiet, and get immersed into mother
nature and immersed into that hunting, you become a hunter.
You are sitting there, I am actively hunting. I am
hunting for this game animal. And that shot presents itself. Yeah,
(37:32):
you owe it to yourself and as a hunter and
to everybody else to be sure that you know exactly
when that trigger is going to break, and you know
exactly what your point aim is and you know, like
the anatomy of a white tail deer. You know, you
know exactly where that bullet needs to be placed on
that for absolute success, and when it's done right, especially
(37:53):
with kids, when it's done right, and it didn't, you know,
you go over there and it's laying there twenty yards away.
It's just it's a a feeling, it's a high that
has been chasing since the beginning of time.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yep, it's amazing. Well, all right, Chris Man, I appreciate
you jumping on with us.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
No, Man, if you want to talk about Paul turkey
hunting or triggers or deer hunting, you give me a
call anytime. In one of these days. You're invited up
to an old old place in Appalachia and we'll take
a walk about about daylight and see if we can't
find a drove with turkeys. And I'll do a bunch
of call and you'll think I'm crazy because I'm going
way too much, way too loud, and hopefully a young
(38:31):
gobbler walks out there and starts calling back, and I'll
give you a shotgown with an eight seventy trigger fix
in it, and we'll see if we can't bring home
things giving dinner, because that's what.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
We used to do. Yeah, that's what we used to do.
Some of us still do.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Some of us do.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I appreciate it, Timny Triggers making trigger snobs of all
of us all the time. All right, gun talk, hunters,
you know the drill man. Keep those muscles point in
a safe direction and always be on the hunt.
All right, Welcome in Gun Talk Hunters. I'm your host, kJ,
and today we've got a great one. We're gonna talk
fall Turkey hunting. I know it's a the white toe
wood season, but it's also fall Turkey season, and mister
Chris Ellis from Timney Trigger is knee deep in it. Hey,
I'm kJ dedicated lifelong hunter here. If you've got an
interest in all things hunting, you're in the right spot.
(00:22):
Whether chasing quail across the plains of Oklahoma or in
pursuit of belk in the back country of British Columbia,
you'll always find me on the hunt. This episode is
brought to you by Ruger range Ready Studio, Silencer Central,
Savage Arms, Frankie RCBS, Smith and Wesson, and Hodgden. All Right,
(00:42):
Chris Ellis from Timney Triggers.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome in, sir, Hey, appreciate you having me on. Man.
Thank you so much for y'all's time.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Well, you know when you called today and we were
kind of talking about what we were wanting to talk about.
You know, typically most podcasts this time of the year
are pretty deep in to the whitetail conversation. And I've
been there myself, and there's nothing wrong with that, but man,
you are you are about the most die hard turkey hunter,
(01:10):
and really it starts ramping up for you in the fall.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, oh absolutely yeah. Don't get me wrong. I'm a
white tail guy. I grew up in West Virginia and
a whitetail hunt. Have been whitetail hunting for over forty years,
and it is time. There's no doubt about it. Rut's
coming on cool front's coming through, deer on their feet
during daylight hours. It is time. But having said that,
if there's a turkey season open spring, fall, winter, I
(01:35):
gotta go. I'm sorry, It's just it's who I am.
It's what defines me. Man.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You know, it's it's one of those times a year
where I don't often think about it, but like Oklahoma
has a fall turkey season.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Now, man, it's just different tactics. Typically when I'm shooting
a turkey, it's like it's not expected, like it's it's
it's kind of an afterthought for me because I'm so
focused on whitetail, Like I forget that there's plenty of
turkeys out there, and I see turkeys every time I'm
(02:10):
in the White Toil woods.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, which is you know, it's not uncommon. I locked.
I talked to a lot of hunters throughout the year
being you know, an I have a hunter myself and
working for a try company that stands behind hunting one
hundred and ten percent. But yeah, a lot of people say,
you know, I'll be in my deer stand or in
my box blind or sitting on the ground or whatever
and have an opportunity, and yeah, that's that's that is
(02:32):
a form of fall turkey hunting. Now for me, in
the fall, if you put me in a box blind,
you'd have to superglue my feet to the floor because
I Am not going to sit there. I promise it.
I do not deer hunt for turkeys. Nothing wrong with that.
It's just I have a different sport that I like
to play in the fall, just like I like to
play in the spring, and I like to get up
close and personal, and I like to communicate with them
(02:54):
and I like to be honest with you the fall
just to torque them off.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, so what are so what are they doing in
the fall? What's I mean? I know they're they're really
in a big clutch. I mean every time I see them,
it seems like they're in forties and fifties, and man,
I've seen them as much as one hundred in a group.
How are you picking one apart from that group. Yeah,
you're gonna chase them.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You know, in early fall, you know they're they're kind
of broken down there. You'll have some some gins and
hens or Jenny's and hens together. You will have some
hens that didn't have any offspring that year together. You'll
have a wad of jakes running around together. Uh, you know.
Then you have some young of the year gobblers, and
then you've got your mature gobblers running around. And you know,
(03:37):
a turkey, especially if you talk about male turkeys, they're
always in competition for breeding year round. You know who's
on first, what's on second? You know. So if you can,
if you can find a fall flock of young gobblers
knowing that they're in, you know, in competition for breeding
for next spring, and you can challenge them, or you
can be like there's a new kid in town. It's
(03:59):
it can be pretty. It's a heck of a lot
of fun. If you like communicating with turkeys and turkey vocalizations,
I'll hear more if it's a good fall, a lucky fall,
especially when there's a lot of acorns. Uh, and they're
really concentrating on you. Gotta remember, from where I'm at
West Virginia, they're in any agriculture, so I don't get
to drive by beanfield or a cornfield, especially when you
(04:21):
live in the mountains like I do. Uh. But what
you what you'll find out is if you hit an
early morning right after the roost, or you get a
challenge situations, you'll hear more turkey vocalizations in the fall
than most people hear in spring, like for example one
hundred a couple of different states this year in the fall.
One of them I was hunting was in Ohio, and
(04:42):
I got right underneath their roost tree, put them in
the roost. That night, I heard them fly up and
it was it was a Motley crewe concert, you know,
the first hour after daylight, you know, and I just
concentrate on one or two turkeys and I communicate with
them the way they're communicating back. If you like the call,
(05:02):
you can't call loud enough or too much.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
In the fall, really, you get a.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Lot of tree talking and they fly down and at that time,
you know, I like to concentrate on shooting gobblers. You know,
we'd all like to kill mature gobblers, but they're a
little tougher than the fall in my in my experience.
But you know, your last year's jakes that are now
getting ready to be too, and then you've got the
young of the year, young gobblers. You start key keying
to them and gobbler clucking to them, and Gobbler you
(05:29):
up into them and kind of, you know, challenge them
a little bit. It's pretty lively.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Are you mostly I mean, I guess it's all dependent
upon like your situation, but are you mostly sticking with
a slate call or you you doing a diaphragm or
a box call? Like what do you really kind of
what calls do you kind of hone in on?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well, you know, you know, key keying is kind of
key run in the fall is kind of like the
old Appalachian go to a lost hen call or gobbler ELPs.
And I find in my arsenal I have a couple
dedicated fall turkey calls. They're all friction, you know, mouth
calls them are fantastic, But that high pitch squeal of
that of that kiki it's hard for me to get
(06:12):
that right. And it's hard for me to get that
mouth called to stay tuned because I blow it a lot,
and I blow it very, very loud, and it's probably
just a personal thing. But I've got a slate call
that works phenomenal, you know, for kikiS and gobbler ELPs.
And then I've got a couple of old old I'm
an old Appalachian soul, so I've got a couple of
old scratch boxes that I can really sing in the fall.
(06:34):
So you've got a couple of options in the fall.
You can either one challenge them right off the roofs
or on the way back to the roost in areas
where allowed to hunt, you know, daylight to dark. As
the sun said, you can also an Appalachia, you can
use dogs during the day when the turkeys are kind
of loafun or doing the thing that you can scatter
(06:55):
them and their instinct is to flock back. Like you
talked about, you see a lot of large flaw flock.
Especially when you get late fall into the winter, they
get a lot, you know a lot of those big
giant flocks together. Yeah, you get you know, you can
deer hunt them. You can sit in the green field
or a green patch or every type food source and
just hope that you you know, happen to see one.
(07:16):
I prefer to do either bust them up with a
dog or bust them up using my feet and the terrain,
or I really like that that first after the morning
fly down, when they're all kind of communicating, how is
your night where you're at? Now, let's skip together here
for a little bit of But you know, it takes
about an hour maybe a little a little bit less
before they walk off and start feeding. But that's when
(07:38):
you hear the most vocalizations is when they're just calling
each other back, making sure everybody's you know that that
recall after you after you flush them, or that assembly
call when they first slide down and they want to
get together and walk off. But it's you know, that's
where we used to hunt turkeys. You know. Right now
everybody's concentrating on the spring. And don't get me wrong,
(07:59):
hunt every day of spring season by calm, not.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Right, But how are you how do you train that
pub to break them up? I mean, are you just
sending the dog after him or and then call them back?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, it takes. It's there's been volumes written about it.
I happen to have a feist dog that I walk
with every day for exercise and for training and for
myself as well, you know, to get out every morning
the first hour or so of daylight. And I just
got fortunate that this dog flushed a lot of turkeys
and on the farm and continue to flush turkeys an
(08:33):
he barks. I mean, because if you have a dog
that flushes, then don't bark. You really don't know what
you have, right, And this dog just then then you've
got a hunting dog that knows what he's hunting for.
So then you start doing the tail fans and the
wings and whatever you young to be excited. But this
little fist dog I got is he likes to run
(08:54):
in there and chase them around and flush him like crazy.
And then the game is you go to the flush spot.
Sometimes you put your dog in. Old timers will put
them in a bag or put them undeath your legs
and sit still and call them back. I generally, if
the truck's close enough with this young puppy I have,
I generally try to get him in the dog box
and hustle back build a little makeshift blind. You know,
(09:16):
sometimes I carry blind material with me, sometimes I don't.
Lots of times I just sit against a big tree
and find some brush and stuff and stick it down
in front of me and just you won't take you along.
You don't hear a call, you'll hear either a lost
hen call or assembly call or something, and so you
start mimicking what you hear, and you know, just get
right back together and hopefully they get back together within
(09:37):
shotgun range. And and it's it's a heck of a
lot of fun. If you get a bunch of gobblers
going back and forth coming in, it's it can be
a lot of gobbling right off the roost, a lot
of gobbler yelps. It's very common in the fall. And
to be honest with you, just hear just about every
vocalization a whild turkey can make.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So yeah, that's I mean, it's it's one of those
things that you kind of never think about. But man,
those diehard hunters, turkey hunters especially, they will not like
that's their one goal, Like deer really don't matter. Like
kind of how I am with duck hunting, man, The
duck hunting can wait until I'm out of the deer woods.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's that's what I do. You know, if I had
my brothers, I would fall turkey hunt as many states
as I could. We're blessed to have some of those
old states still available, and some of them you can use.
Dogs of them you can't. But the drills the same.
You locate the food source, you locate the roosting source,
and then you figure out how to how to get
in between. And it's mostly it's wood wise, which I
(10:40):
really like growing up inn Appalachian Mountains. Is using the terrain,
especially if you walk in the high ridges, calling down
into the into the hollers or into the valleys for
for blushingham and for scatter them is just it's just
who didn't like to take a walk on a nice
crisp fall, Daddy, when beautiful colors are out as bluebirds, guys,
(11:00):
low expectation, walk a few ridges, make a few calls,
and then when you strike them, get ready because it'll
be loud.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
It'd be my problem, Chris, that would be my problem
because I would be like, all right, I'm gonna I'm
gonna try my hand at turkey hunting in the fall
on you know, one of those beautiful fall Chris mornings,
and that's the morning where i'd see just an absolute
giant buck. You know that would You're.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Not wrong because I've had this kind of theory and
I have no way to prove it, but I've seen
it myself. When you're walking into crunchy leaves, the hardwood leaves,
and it sounds like you're walking on potato chips. You
think there's no way I'm going to walk up on
any game, right, But if you're if you're using a
turkey call while walking, you'd be surprised how many critters
(11:48):
you walk up on. Because when when a hillside full
of turkeys and they're scratching for acorns, it's loud. There's
no doubt. It doesn't sound like a deer, doesn't sound
like a squirrel, uh, doesn't sound like a human. It
just sounds like someone's got a leaf blower out there,
blowing all the leaves out. And if you're calling during
that for I'll give you a good example. We I
live in bear country in West Virginia. I had to
(12:10):
live in the county where there's tons of bears where
I was fall turkey out the other day and I
was walking that blind. I had no idea just walking
down a ridge, calling into the valleys and using the
top of the ridge and kind of tucking underneath the top.
So I was out of it, you know, it wasn't skylighted.
And I walked up and I looked, and I was like,
(12:30):
is that a bear? And this was in boat range,
and I was like, is that a bear sitting there
looking at me? Because it I don't care how many
bears you see. When you're walking through the Appalachian hardwoods
and you see a boat swaggon, you know, you're like, huh,
that's a huge animal. I literally walked up on three
bears turkey outing this year. Three of them were two
(12:50):
of them were thin bow shot, and one of them
was in a pretty chip shot if you were if
you were a rifle hunting for bears. So I think
I wasn't playing the wind. I wasn't watching which way
the wind was blowing, my cent or anything. I wasn't quiet.
I was crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. And I think
that turkey call just gives him some a little bit
of ease, thinking, well, there comes a whole bunch of turkeys.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, maybe I'll have a snack. Maybe you were the snack.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Maybe I was a snack. Well, they were gorged. We
had a heck of a white oase and red oak
mast in some areas of West Virginia and on my farm,
I was blessed with them. So they were just gorging
on acorns and rooting around and I just interrupted their
snack time.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So oh really, yeah, that's pretty good. Hey, Chris, we're
gonna we're gonna take a break here. We're gonna read
a few messages from our sponsors. But when we jump
back in, we had some experiences with Timney Trigger's new
lever action trigger, and I want to talk a little
bit more about that when we come back. Unmatched precision
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the CZ six hundred series rifles. They've got an American version,
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Speaker 2 (17:00):
All right.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
You know what I love about traveling on the road
is being able to take all my firearms with me.
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dot com. In eighteen fifty four, Smith and Wesson launched
a lever gun that was the Volcanic Lever Action. All right,
very nice gun. I'm sure it was acclaimed back in
the day. But times have changed. I'm telling you right now.
Times have changed, and Smith West and jumped back into
the lever gun market with their Model eighteen fifty four.
(18:05):
Now you can get it in a traditional wallnut stock,
or if you're a more tactical age and you don't
want to look like your granddad out there hunting, you
can go with a loyal, more tactical version. It's got mlock.
But let's talk about some of the finer details of
the Model eighteen fifty four. I like to start with
a trigger man, because behind every great gun is a
(18:26):
great trigger, and the eighteen fifty four absolutely just knocked
it out of the park with their flat faced trigger.
I really like that. And then on the safety aspect
of things, you look at the magazine tube. It's removable,
so there's no like dumping the gun out and everything
like that. You can actually remove the magazine tube and
(18:47):
it just makes sense. It just makes sense to me
that that's the way it probably should have been designed
in the first place. But it's got a threaded barrel,
It accepts mounts compatible with Marlin eighteen ninety four hole
pas turns again a walnut stock or a black synthetic
stock with textured grip panels where you need it most,
(19:08):
which is I love that excess sites GHOS string rear site,
which is top notch. But anyway, man, if you really
want to stand out, either in the field or at
the range, check out the eighteen fifty four series from
Smith and Wesson Smith Daskwesson dot com. Let's talk about
powder Hodgden dot com. That's where you find a lot
(19:31):
of your powder needs. Let's talk more about Winchester Stable Match.
This temperature insensitive double bass ballpowder is stable in extreme
hot or cold conditions. So to me, what that means
is if I'm reloading in the hot temperatures of Louisiana, man,
(19:51):
when I take off to Oklahoma and the temperatures absolutely tank,
I can count on that ammunition. I can count on
that powder to be stable. And you know, typical of
a stable a ball powder, precise metering contributes to consistent
velocity and pressure with lower standard deviations, ingredients that are
(20:11):
paramount to match grade accuracy. Now you're looking at like
with stable match, what you're looking at is two two
three Rimington two two vor Valkyrie twenty two two fifty
three to H eight Winchester and thirty odd six and
a couple more that if you want to test it out.
So find out more about Winchester Stable Match at Hodgden
(20:34):
dot com. Backslash Winchester. All right, we're back with Chris
Ellis of Timney Triggers and Fall Turkey. We're gonna switch gear.
If we're gonna we're gonna switch them from first to
second and go from hunting in the hardwoods in the
fall with turkeys to slinging lead down range and in
(20:55):
the woods with a Timney lever action trigger. Man, I'll
tell you what so this is. You didn't ask me
to do this, but I'm on. I was on the
website and there's a review. There is one review and
it's from Marion h. This is a verified buyer, and
he says this is what he says. He gives it
(21:17):
a five star review. The factory trigger on my new
Marlin eighteen ninety five weighed in at seven pounds ten ounces.
After install of the Timney and operating the trigger a bunch,
it weighed in at three pounds seven ounces. He says,
amazing difference. And he goes on and he says at
(21:37):
the end, he says you know, I have three more
Marlins that will be getting this upgrade sooner rather than later.
So all that being said is this trigger is a
major upgrade for your your lever guns.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Absolutely, our customers, you know, we've been around almost nearly
eighty years. Just by listening to our our customers are
what They're the ones that tell us what true to
build next. Right, so we always are currying them and
asking them what would you like for us to build next?
And most of the popular triggers that we have right
now came from our customers. I mean, they know, they
(22:11):
know what platforms they're working. Isn't that crazy We now
call rifles and pistols and shotguns platforms. But anyhow, so
we had several many requests for the Marlin, and the
Marlin rifle was very dear to me. It's a fantastic rifle.
It was my first center fire rifle when I was
young growing up in West Virginia. It's what I took
(22:33):
the most dear with in high school into college. It
was my we called the meat Getter. It was my
deer hunting rifle. We got a member in West Virginia.
You're hunting hardwoods at least where I grew up. And
you're you're shooting deer at fifty yards, right, I mean
it's just and you're walking a lot. You know, this
was before we had a lot of people hunting, not
(22:54):
a lighter stands and box blinds and grind you know. No,
you just went out and you found game train els,
You found scrapes and rubs, you found a lot of
deer sign and you sat somewhere where you were out
of the wind and concealed against an old oak tree,
and when a deer walked by, there was so I
fell in love with. You know, everything to me is
(23:14):
when you get a little bit older, it's kind of retro, right,
you kind of like to think about. You know. I
was in a good mood and happy at high school shooting.
It was in Calstagia. Yeah, I didn't have much stress,
right talking about deer hunting, man, I was. I was
mad at him, as a kids say, I was. I
was after the deer as hard as I could still am.
But that marlin gun I fell in love with. It
(23:35):
was a three, three, six and thirty thirty phenomenal deer round.
And then as I got a little bit older, here
came a forty five seventy, and then a couple bears
happened to be, you know, taken with a forty five seven.
And then I got a chance to go one time,
to go to South Africa with my brother, and what
did I take? I took a Marlin forty five seventy
(23:55):
and his game and the hundred in Alaska with a
forty five seventy, and it's it's just always been maybe
I want to be a cowboy, Maybe I want simpler times.
I'm chasing that high school buzz of being turned loose
in the woods deer hunting. I don't know, but it
was romantic to me and still is romantic to me.
So when we started getting these customer request I couldn't
(24:17):
get the engineering fast.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Enough, what I'm telling you, So we developed them on
we started messing with the Timney lever action trigger on
our show build box. And so we've got this guy's
I mean, it was an old Sears and Robot model
and I want it didn't go into the season robot
(24:39):
but for the giveaway. So we're giving this gun away.
It's a brand new Marlin eighteen ninety five. I mean
it's a brand new and we install this trigger. I
install this trigger. Chris had to. Chris Serno kind of
gave me a little bit of help with it. But
it was very easy, And I think that's the more
important thing because really, when you think think about like
(25:01):
that's a there's a lot of parts there a lever
gun that we're not used to operating on. We're not
used to be taking these guns down like a you know,
an AR or a Bold Action yeap. So there's there
was a little bit of fitment that I was like, Okay,
hold on a second, you got to put take this
screw out first and then this anyway, Yeah, but man,
(25:21):
super easy, which is what Timney's always been about, Like
this isn't You don't have to be a gunsmith to
install this, and it is really easy.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, you're right, there is a learning curve if you've
never taken the butt stalk off of a Marlin lever gun.
Right in, Their parts are a little different. We're kind
of we kind of know the parts fairly well of
a Bold Action rifle. We kind of know the parts
very well when it comes to like an AR or
ten twenty two. But yeah, the Marlin is not a
(25:52):
hard trigger to install. But there is a little bit
of a learning curve because most people that I talked
to have not taken it apart. But don't you do
it once. It's not that difficult. I've done it multiple times,
and it's like anything else, you know, the first time
you put something together, you're like, ooh, I had to
read instruction two or three times. I had to get
(26:14):
on Timdy and go to their YouTube channel on the
installation and they had to call it, you know, a
tech at Timney and say, you know, I've got this
thing in front of me and it doesn't seem like
I need any special tools. But it's this grew and
it's this one. But when Alan Timney started timndy back
in nineteen forty six, it's the same philosophy we had
(26:35):
to these days. It has to improve the accuracy, your
accuracy with that firearm. It has to be easily installed
with common you know, kitchen countertype tools, and then it
needs to be adjustable where it needs to be adjustable
for the user or it needs to come, in the
case of the Marlin, in appropriate pool weight for that situation.
(26:58):
Marlin's in my fact, in my mind, in our mind
here at Timney, or majority of them are used for
collection or for shooting back in the backyard of plinking,
but the highest majority of them are used for hunters. Right,
you know, sound a good trigger at three pounds, but
more importantly the poundage is right. But one of the
things that Timney has made, Timny is yet a three
(27:20):
pound trigger and a hunting rifle was fantastic. But if
it's not repeatable, if it's not a christ trigger, if
it doesn't break the exact same way every single time
for the lifetime of that trigger, then it's not a tendon.
It's just it's just not Because the hillbilly logic of
how to shoot better is if you want to hit
(27:42):
the same hole twice, the trigger has to break the
same way twice, or you really got something else going on,
you know, maybe it's a barrel or something, something's loose somewhere.
But to start by improving accuracy with any firearm, you know,
taking a look at a trie that consistently breaks the
exact same way, even if it's heavier. You know, I'd
(28:05):
rather have a heavier trigger that break the same way
because my muscle memory learns that when my brain says
I'm on target, and I can make that shot. Yeah,
a good trigger will take out a lot of the
physical barriers to that. Like we talk about creepy triggers
or draggy triggers, or triggers that don't necessarily break the
(28:28):
same way. Can you add an element in there to
when your brain calls I can make that shot, finger
time to pull the trigger. If there's something mechanic when
there that's not allowing you to hit the same place twice,
you may want to take a look at your trigger.
So when our engineers designed the Marlin trigger, the drop
in Marlin trigger, we had to, you know, same mantra
(28:49):
that Alan Timly used. Does it improve the accuracy of
that rifle? Does it improve your experience for the application?
And you know, there's a lot of different Marlins out there,
you know. We found out that, you know, we have
to deal with tolerances way back when, and we figured
out roughly we're learning to these days thanks to our
customer right about nineteen eighty three, nineteen eighty something. The
(29:12):
tolerances there are perfect for our trigger, you know. Yeah,
And I don't know if some of the old historical
Marlins need to be monkeyed with or not. That's kind
of a personal preference, but I do know that people
are enjoying modern Marlin rifles and with the Timney and
then understand what Timney can help help you do for
(29:32):
accuracy there and it's a you know, it's just a
phenomenal deer. It's a great pointing rifle. It's fun to shoot,
it's easy to shoot U And they're accurate. I mean
they are. They are very very accurate.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Very much so. And I think you you hit on that.
I mean the major thing is just the repeatability.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And I mean, yeah, it's good. It feels like a Timney.
It feels crisp, it's smooth, but it's one hundred percent repeatable.
And then if you're wanting to be accurate, and especially
you know, lever guns because a lot of these guys nowadays,
I mean they're going with scope rifles. They want to
accurize them. I mean that's the point of that's one
of the bigger points of you know, putting in a
(30:11):
different trigger. You're wanting to get better, You're wanting to
get better repeatability. And I think that's kind of overlooked,
you know, by it is.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I was talking triggers twenty some years ago and back then,
believe it or not, triggers were important the same as
they are today, but there were a lot of people
talking about it. There were a lot of people talking
about terms trigger terms like pull weight, over travel seer engagement.
They were talking about trigger terms. They were just talking
about you know, every gun comes with one elis and
(30:41):
you've got to take the gun apart. I understand, I understand,
I've dealt with that for twenty some years. But one
of the things that I did screw up on kJ,
and I'm being honest with you, was I was talked
I talked too much about pull weight back then.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Oh really, yeah I did.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
And if you look at let me give you example.
If you come up to me and you said, hey, man,
I got a car to'll go one hundred miles an hour,
I was like, great, that's awesome. Is it comfortable one
hundred miles an hour? Oh no, no, it's just an
old beater and you don't want to go one hundred
miles in it, but it'll go on hundred miles. Or
if you come up to me and say, yeah, I
can go one hundred miles and a mile miles an
(31:17):
hour in my car and I'm like, jeez, what kind
of car you got?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I got a Lamborghini and you don't even know you're
going one hundred miles an hour, right, So that's kind
of way I look at pool weight. There are triggers
out there with later pool weights or correct pool weights
that may not necessarily be repeatable or be Chris, or
you have the over travel set correctly. So yes, pulll
weight is important. If you have a seven pound hunting
(31:40):
rifle and it takes ten pounds to break the trigger automatically,
you have to move the rifle, right, I mean, it's
just physic, but that's not the end all. If I
could hang my hat on something now twenty years later
about talking about triggers, I don't care necessarily as long
as the pool weight is appropriate, but I care is
it repeatable something I can get muscle memory around and
(32:03):
to learn how to shoot this thing with a very
very low learning curve. You know, you can learn anything
with repeatability. I mean even really can. Yeah, but it
takes a long time. But if you have something like
I'm kind of a trigger snob and I like all
my rifles to break in the three pound range because
I'm a hunter, So if it's a three pound range
(32:24):
and it's got a tight wall, in a really crisp break,
in a pretty decent reset, I can become I could
become very acurate with that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So yeah, and I mean repeatability and just being being
more accurate. That's what we want. And you only get
that out of being repeatable doing the same thing twice
over and over over.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, that's what we expect out of modern ammunition. Now
we're blessed to have great ammunition that you don't have
that much defense from round to round, right. You used
to have to when I was growing up, you know,
go to the barber shop and talk about people in
elk hunting or going out west or whatever. They talked
about magic handloads and each little grain of powder and
you had to have this much in there, and you
had to have this bullet and you got to get
(33:05):
to get that. But we're so blessed nowadays with modern
firearms and modern ammunition that you're getting that stuff right
out of you know, right out of the factory boxes
are all the time, and plus or minus for deer hunting,
you know, So especially if you're going to talk about
stretching your bar rye a little bit that a lot
of people are doing now with competition shooting and with hunting.
And you know, a three hundred yard shot is the
(33:29):
old fifty yard shot for me. So yeah, if you're
going to shoot three hundred yards or plus, everything, everything
in the beginning needs to be a tight, tight, tight
barrel action trigger, good optics on there, the correct way,
good foundation to be able to do that, and the
trigger is a huge part of that.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Oh yeah, absolutely. I do have a funny story for you.
So I'm sitting there. Every night, my kids go out
to the garage, they pull out their hunting rifle and
they fire. So this is a process they do every night.
So my youngest son ten, he goes out there and
I'm like, hey, I want you to try this one
because I think the link, the pull for you is
(34:09):
going to be a little bit better. And he gets
behind the gun and it's a two stage and he
sits there and he does it, and he goes and
he does it again, and he looks at me, he goes,
can I have the other one back? Immediately you know
what he's requesting, But he's requesting my Remington seven hundred
(34:32):
Calvin Elite trigger.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
YEP.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's what he wants back because he's like it's he goes,
it's just more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Congratulations. You may have a trigger snob.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I do have a trigger snob, and that's so I
blame Timney for that.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well. My daughter came home last year for run to
the holiday time. She'd been in school forever, and she
was like, Dad, I think I want to go dear hunt.
And I was like, great, you can go with me
in the morning and we'll put up a BLONDI you
can get in the in a double buddy stand with
me or something. She goes, no, Dad, I think I'd
like to go deer honey, And I was like, really great,
(35:08):
twenty six years old, awesome, perfect. So I did the
same thing. We got out ten twenty two with a
nice tuggar in it from Timney, and we practiced practice practice,
and then she got the anatomy of a white tail
deer for shot placement. And she studied, studied, studied, and
then we got the little I had a little Mini
Mauser built one time and got a great Timney in
at the Calvin built for me, and we practiced dry
(35:31):
firing and dry firing, and we did some deer targets
dry firing, and she went out and shot that morning,
and that evening a little dough ball came in and
it was Antler's season and she put a great shot
on it, and thirty yards later she was she was
bringing home the bacon. You know, she turned. She couldn't
wait to turn a game animal into meat and the
meat into the meal to share with everybody of all
(35:53):
her friends and stuff, just to say hey, hey, you
know I can do this too, And I brought home
I brought home dinner.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Dry firing is a fantastic practice. It and yeah, because
there's no boom and there's there's no recoil. You you
can feel the click, you can feel the break of
that trigger. Yeah, and you can trust yourself. My eyes
on target, my point of aim is correct. I am
ready to hit that target.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
And when they squeeze that trigger in that point of
impact moves, whether the scope moves a little bit, whatever,
they know, Hey, I don't think this trigger is the
one I need. I don't think this trigger is one.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
On that one. That's exactly what he was like. He
was like, Yeah, I just I just I want I
want that other one back and then and it's it's
a Calvin Eleide Remington seven hundred because he's he's dry
fired it so much. I mean they're doing you know,
twenty five to thirty dry fires a night, you know,
starting in like early early September. Probably the last maybe
(36:51):
the last week of August is when they start dry
firing every night. And because I want them to know
the trigger like I want them. I wanted them to
have an intimate relationship with that trigger today where they
know exactly what they're feeling, because man, when that heart
rate gets up, that's the last thing you want to
think about.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Right, you're exactly the last thing you need is some
physical barrier. When you work that hard to sit still,
watch the wind be quiet, and get immersed into mother
nature and immersed into that hunting, you become a hunter.
You are sitting there, I am actively hunting. I am
hunting for this game animal. And that shot presents itself. Yeah,
(37:32):
you owe it to yourself and as a hunter and
to everybody else to be sure that you know exactly
when that trigger is going to break, and you know
exactly what your point aim is and you know, like
the anatomy of a white tail deer. You know, you
know exactly where that bullet needs to be placed on
that for absolute success, and when it's done right, especially
(37:53):
with kids, when it's done right, and it didn't, you know,
you go over there and it's laying there twenty yards away.
It's just it's a a feeling, it's a high that
has been chasing since the beginning of time.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yep, it's amazing. Well, all right, Chris Man, I appreciate
you jumping on with us.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
No, Man, if you want to talk about Paul turkey
hunting or triggers or deer hunting, you give me a
call anytime. In one of these days. You're invited up
to an old old place in Appalachia and we'll take
a walk about about daylight and see if we can't
find a drove with turkeys. And I'll do a bunch
of call and you'll think I'm crazy because I'm going
way too much, way too loud, and hopefully a young
(38:31):
gobbler walks out there and starts calling back, and I'll
give you a shotgown with an eight seventy trigger fix
in it, and we'll see if we can't bring home
things giving dinner, because that's what.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
We used to do. Yeah, that's what we used to do.
Some of us still do.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Some of us do.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I appreciate it, Timny Triggers making trigger snobs of all
of us all the time. All right, gun talk, hunters,
you know the drill man. Keep those muscles point in
a safe direction and always be on the hunt.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.