March 13, 2025 • 39 mins
John Hatcher of Sun and Shadow joins Gun Talk Nation’s Ryan Gresham to discuss maximizing performance - and winning competitions - with AR-type rifles. John discusses the nuances between accuracy and performance with gas guns vs. precision bolt guns, Sun and Shadow’s premium products for competitors, hunters, and professionals, and much more.
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Copyright ©2025 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Nation 03.13.25
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This Gun Talk Nation is brought to you by Wheeler Tools, Ruger, Range Ready Studios, Smith & Wesson, and Colt.
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Copyright ©2025 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Nation 03.13.25
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, go ahead and shoot boom, She's down. All right, kJ,
when you're ready, go ahead and boom shoot. Yeah, she's down.
And it was just like two elk down. I'm Ryan
Gresham and this this is gun Talk Nation. This guntognation
(00:32):
is brought to you by Wheeler, Ruger, Range, Ready, Smith
and Wesson and Colt Hey. Welcome into gun Talk Nation Today.
On Gun Talk Nation, let's talk about gas guns, which
is the slang. And if you're like gas guns, I mean,
if you're listening to this, you're probably you're probably a
gun nerd and you probably know gas guns. But we're
(00:53):
talking about AR fifteen's, I guess is the easy way
to put this. But on the show today a guy
who knows a thing or two about gas guns and
kJ met him at a match recently. John Hatcher, welcome
in man work.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Thanks very much for having me. Super appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
With Sun and Shadow. But so it looks like you're
like the guy you're you're traveling around PRS, NRL. All
that stuff is super popular in the last few years
and everyone as soon as they this is what happened
with sporting clays. By the way, everybody like, let's develop
a sport, a game that will help us with our hunting.
(01:35):
It replicates hunting, and as soon as you start, you know,
you get like one hour into this new sport, people
start gaming it because they want to win. It's not
about preparing for hunting. It's just like, no, no, I want
to win this match. I want to improve my scores.
So what happened with sporting clays. I'm going off on
(01:56):
a tangent, but is they you had to start with
a low because it's like hunting, you can't start with
a mounted gun. And then we want, we want to
shoot better scores, and they convinced somebody to say, okay, fine,
you can start with a mounted gun. Well what happens
is everyone's scores go up. So I don't know if
your your scores go up, but everybody else's scores go
up to so congratulations. So I'm just picking on NRL.
(02:22):
But like, it's like hunting, except that the gun weighs
eighteen pounds and has a lot of stuff on it.
But you're you're a guy who perhaps is a bit
of a weirdo, which I like, because you are shooting
I'm gonna say gas guns. That's slaying AR fifteen style
(02:44):
AR ten guns at these long rematches, which most people
are shooting bull guns, right John.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh yeah, oh yeah for sure. So NROL hunter is
you know, it's it's it's a super easy format, one
of the simplest formats of shooting that either it's it's
really cool. You pretty much have eight rounds for each
stage if you missed every single shot, right, all.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Right, so I need so I need eight rounds is
what you're telling me?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Eight rounds per stage. Yeah, and you can you can
do it in less, you can do it in four rounds, okay.
So it's a four round minimum, eight round maximum, super
easy format. There's either going to be one target in
four positions, where there's going to be four targets in
one position, where there's going to be two targets and
two positions. That's it.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But I like this.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
It always gets me with like super matches of any sort.
It's like all the procedural stuff where I'm like, can
I just pull a trigger? Like I'm okay with that
part of it?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah. Yeah. The the you know USPSA, the planning, same
thing with pcsl's the stage planning and all that that
goes into it and n R Hunter. You don't really
get to plan the stage, mostly because the stages are blind.
You have no idea you know what positions you're going
to be in. You have no idea what the ranges
(04:00):
of the targets are going to be. You you have
an understanding that you know what target you're looking for.
It's like I'm looking for one deer, or I'm looking
for two rabbits, or I'm looking for four coyotes, you
know whatever, and you know that they're going to be
between like one hundred and a thousand yards.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Right, and you have to find them.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You got to find them. Yeah, you got to go.
They give you a little brief you're looking for. Hey man,
you're looking for two deer.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Here's your pos question, John, go find them. I got
a question. Is shooting a gas gun for long range disadvantage?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I get I get asked that a lot. I think
it can be. It can be. Okay, when people talk
about the disadvantages, I would say that those things really
start to matter at the very highest levels.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Of the sport.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Okay, it's a very nuanced thing. If you're a mid
pack shooter with a bolt gun, you're probably going to
be a midpack shooter with a gas gun, right, Let's
just be honest. That said, the gas gun takes more
of your energy to control. Okay, it's it's not as forgiving,
(05:17):
let's say, as a bolt gun might be. And when
I say that, I mean like recoil management wise, it's
not as forgiven. There are certain pressures that you need
to apply to a gas gun, and if those pressures
aren't there, you're probably going to have a bad time.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
To make the gun run, to make the gun work,
to make Okay, that's fair enough. Like, yeah, I mean
a bolt gun, you can you can load these these
powder puff loads as long as you can hit the
target with them, I guess. And and you know the
recoil is negligible, So.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yes, yes, and and and that that would be coming
from like the PRS side of the sport, where the
guns weighing twenty twenty five pounds maybe more. Yeah, and
are a hunter specifically, they do limit the weight of
the rifle. In most divisions they limit the weight of
the rifle to sixteen pounds maximum, and then some divisions
they have it's only twelve pounds maximum. So you're generally
(06:12):
dealing with like lighter hunting rifle setups, let's say, so
they're recoil on those. Even the sixteen pound guns can
be a little bit more. Of course, there's always ways
to kind of game it. They have what's called power
factor where you must meet a minimum power factor unless
you're shooting factory ammunition. And power factor is the velocity
(06:36):
of your bullet times the grain weight of the bullet,
and they have a minimum for that. So if you're reloading,
you you need to meet that minimum power factor. So ideally,
like you'd be shooting a heavy gun with a low
power factor, and that's kind of gets you the least
amount of recoil. Basically another gaing gaming the system kind
of thing. But yeah, I mean in general, like a
(06:57):
bolt gun, like I said, a little more forget the
AR ten, especially the R ten requires a lot of
mental management in order to control the gun, so it
is a different way of shooting that particular sport. I
would say, I shot gaskun at this last one, this
one in Alabama, and I've got another one coming up
(07:19):
this weekend in Georgia, and I'll be shooting my gaskin again.
But a lot of the shooters are going to be
shooting bulguns. I would say like ninety five percent of
them are going to be shooting bulk guns for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Is that a different division or is it your shooting
amongst everybody?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, so it is. I'm The division that I mean
is called open Heavy, so I'm just in there with
the bulkun shooters. My gun weighs like slightly less than
sixteen pounds. I think it's like fifteen point nine. So
I mean the category for open heavy, they do open light,
where you shoot a twelve pound in undergun. I'm not
(07:58):
sure that you could get a gas gun to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Maybe really it'd be hard to get it that light.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, the air tens are usually pretty heavy. You you
probably wouldn't meet power factor with an air fifteen like
a small frame gas gun power factor, so you could
shoot a small frame in what they call Skills division.
Skills division is kind of like an anything goes division,
but you're not really shooting for points or anything. If
(08:24):
you're just there to just have fun, you know, learn
about the match, you know whatever, that's fine, yeah, but
if you're there to compete, you're not going to be
in the skills division. You'll be in one of the
other divisions, and like I said, it's hard to make
weight for the open light division with a an AR ten.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
No. Obviously, there's you know, I was picking on the
gas guns as their disadvantage, but there's pros and cons
to all of it. What would you say?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Some of the pros are, Oh, fast follow ups for sure,
real fast follow ups. It's the nurl. Hunter is not
a gas gun sport. And I also I also want
to say that I'm not great at an er hunter.
I'm not a professional let enter. I'll hunter right, But
with gas guns you have the very fast follow up shots,
(09:08):
so you can take a shot and in that very
same wind you can immediately make a correction and hopefully
get your hit off that correction. Bolt guns, the fall
up is a little bit slower, so you know, you
can still be fast with a follow up, but the
fall ups are not going to be as fast as
a gas gun. Right, there's no there's no manual, there's
(09:30):
no shift knob.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
You know, you got to we're not having to run
the bolt I mean obviously, and wind is a giant
factor in making those hits, especially out at some distance,
and if you have a consistent whatever the wind you know,
full value ten mile an hour wind, it's consistent, right,
But if you're if you didn't read the wind right
(09:51):
and now you've got some data because you can see
your miss and then adjust from that, that's a quick
follow up. Or if the wind is not consistent and
it's swirling and it's like, well, maybe you're getting the
same wind because you have such a fast follow up.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Is that they're saying, yep, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, the
fast fallow ups are pretty nice, and you know that
there are Like I said, NRL Hunter is not really
a gas gun sport. And when I say a gas
gun sport, what I mean is you can use a
gas gun there for sure, but you're not unlocking the
sport itself. The rules set does not unlock the full
(10:33):
capabilities of what a gas gun can do. So the
idea behind a gas gun is speed. Precision is part
of it. You know they call a precision gas gun
or you know, whatever scope car being whatever you want
to call it. The idea is still a precision getting
hits at distance, but speed is also a factor, and.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
For that game, it's speed is not as important.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, So in Inner All Hunter, you have for an individual.
You have four minutes per stage, and in that four
minutes you need to find all of your targets. You
need to build all of your positions, and you need
to get your four impacts or your eight shots, you know,
whatever whatever it is. So usually finding the targets can
(11:29):
be very difficult. In here in the southeast, which is
most of the area that I shoot. We're not talking
about big terrain like they have out west. You know,
where you're searching hills and rocks and mountains and you're
looking through all that stuff. Here, you're you're searching smaller hills,
maybe wooded, right, so you're looking through through woods to
(11:50):
find things. You're looking at woodlines, you're looking under shrubs
of trees, that sort of thing to try to find
your your animal shaped target. It can take you know,
some time to find your target or to find all
the targets that you need to find. So usually for me,
just this is just the way that I do it.
I'll usually give myself two minutes to find those targets.
(12:13):
And if I haven't found all the targets in two minutes,
well time's up. You need to start shooting. Just shoot
at the targets that you do see. Okay, so like
you kind of have to manage your time, but you
do have four minutes to do it all.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Start throwing lead yep, yep, all right, John, Let's take
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So let's talk about what kind of gun, what kind
(15:21):
of setup you're using, because we kind of know in
these you know, the bulk guns and then the calibers
and the type of stuff people are doing. What's perhaps
different or perhaps the same as how you approach it
with your particular gear.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, so let's let's talk about the gun first. For
for NRL hunters specifically, I'm using an AR ten. The
one that I'm using is chambered in sixty five creed More.
We can talk about cartridges all day, but that's the
one that I chose, you know, to use for this
particular sport. That rifle has a four to sixteen power
(16:00):
optic on it. It's a night force attacker. Inside that scope,
I have the I'm using the mil X t redical.
If you're not familiar, it's a it's a meal medical
with a tree in it. And that tree allows me
to do a couple of things. That allows me to
do holdovers if if I really needed to do that,
which is not something that I'd recommend for a sport
like an ERL hunter, recommend dialing on the turrets instead.
(16:24):
But it also the tree also has windage in it, right,
so you can you can measure your windage, make your
winage corrections very easy with that tree redical. So the
optic is very important for for what you're going to
select for precision rifle shooting. From that, Like I said,
we've got an a R ten or a four to
sixteen or similar powered scope. You're going to want to
(16:44):
have a bipod. Super important that your rifle accepts a bipod.
You don't have to have it for every stage, but
super important that you have one. A tripod really important
you have a tripod, especially for an ERL hunter. You're
going to be put in positions where you have no
idea what support you're going to have available. A tripod
(17:06):
kind of guarantees that you have a stable shooting support
no matter where you go.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
And you know, if people aren't familiar with it, I mean,
it does give you a ton of versatility and a
lot of times even if you are able to use
that bipod and there's some sort of rock fence, whatever
rest thing out front, you can use that tripod as
basically rear support, especially if you're having to stand or
(17:34):
neil and there's nothing you don't want the rear of
the gun just kind of floating in mid air. It's
not as stable as you could be. It's one of
the big advantages of this type of shooting, the PRS
NRL stuff is people are figuring out how to use tripods, bipods,
(17:55):
building a bay building your shooting platform. And if you
haven't looked at this, not that you have to go
spend all the money on the gear and go travel
all over the country shootings matches, but if you want
to hit stuff, or if you're a hunter and you
want to hit stuff, you can really learn a lot
from what's happening at these types of matches. And I
(18:18):
mean kJ and I were out in New Mexico in
January and we both had we both had bipods, like
long bipods because we weren't sure what we were going
to be dealing with, and bipods and or like bog
pods and stuff like that. But then we had a tripod.
(18:39):
And the way the guy wanted to run this the
way he runs these because this is cow elk, so
there's plenty of targets out there. We were both set up.
I was on one leg of the tripod as a
rear and he was on one leg of the tripod
because I shoot left handed, so it worked out perfectly.
And it was like, all right, go ahead and dude, boom,
(19:01):
she's down. All right, kJ, when you're ready, go ahead
and boom, shoot, yeah she's down. And it was just
like to elk down and we were using kind of
that that knowledge from what people are doing in these matches.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And her Hunter was you know, as
you said before, was built around getting guys knowledgeable on
their hunting rifles and knowledgeable not just on their hunting
rifles but on the equipment as well. Ranging a target
is a skill. Finding a target is a skill, right,
(19:37):
And in these matches, you know, yeah, I mean there's
you're confined to a small area, right, You're shooting a
stage and a match at a range. You know, you're
not out in the world, let's say. But that said,
these are skills that you can build in the match,
and I think it's just an amazing format using all
those skills. A lot of matches you'll go to prs.
(19:58):
You know, they're going to give you the range and
they might be off by two or three yards and
some guys, you know, some some people might complain about it.
But at NRL Hunter, they don't give you the range.
You got to you gotta figure it out for yourself.
And if you don't have the skill to be sure
that your target was ranged properly, you could be one
hundred yards off, you know, just because you didn't hit
(20:19):
the target right. And I mean, like, you didn't hit
the target right with a laser right. So if you're
if you're off with that, you know, that's a sure miss.
You know, So ranging those targets as a skill, finding
them is a skill. Engaging them as a skill in weather,
in wind, and in the The NRL hunter match format
was kind of designed around getting guys to be good
(20:41):
with their rifles so they could take those those shots
on real animals later. You know, I think that's pretty cool,
that's neat.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I mean, I think everybody is familiar with laser range finders,
whether that's for for target shooting or for hunting. I
know there are actually some tips and techniques. Do you
have any for the audience of like, hey, because you
kind of mentioned it, like you lays it and if
people don't know better, I know you'd probably do it
(21:08):
in a different way. But like they go, oh, that's how
far it is? You're like, or is it? Did you
do it right? I mean, what are some tips and
techniques for people using a laser range finder?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, so there's a lot of nuance to it. Like
I said, it is a skill. Your laser is going
to diverge the further it gets out. Okay, it's not
like a perfect little beam all the way out to
distance that diverges a little bit, kind of like a cone.
Let's say, so there is some some beam they call
it beam divergence. There is some divergence that happens out
(21:39):
further distances. And the radical in your LRF and your
binos or your handheld or whatever it is, the radical
may not be exactly exactly zero to where the laser
is hitting. Okay, you need to understand where your beam
is hitting in that radical, like exactly where it's hitting
in the radical.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So it's almost kind of like like con siding in
or confirming. Not that you can side it in. You
can't change where that that radical point is on a
on a handheld laser range fine or whatever. But you
could say, yeah, I actually tested it out at known distances,
and you can go, yeah, it's actually I think it's
it's a little bit lower, a little bit high or whatever. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah. The easiest way to do that is to find
like a telephone pole and just range the very top
of the telephone pole because you'll just have sky in
the background. Right, So there's a sky back there at
the right, the laser isn't going to give you a return,
but as soon as it hits the pole, well, now
you've got to return. So you can you can figure out,
like exactly where your laser is hitting by ranging off
(22:42):
a pole, whether it's high or low, or left or
right or whatever it is, so you can figure out
exactly where that's going to be. And then if you
want to, if you want to test the beam divergence,
you can just you know, take one hundred yards back,
you know, see where it hits. Now, go another one
hundred yards back, see where it hits now, So you
can get a pretty good idea of where that laser hitting. Now.
As far as is as actually ranging your target, you
(23:03):
know that there's it's very dependent on the environment that
you're in. For example, if there's a berm directly behind
your target, right, okay, if you hit the burm or
if you hit the target, well, you're probably only going
to be within a couple of yards. But let's say
there's not a burm. Let's say that your target is skylined,
you know, and maybe there's a mountain or something hundreds
(23:23):
of yards behind it. Are you hitting the mountain or
are you hitting the target? You want to know. So
usually what I'll do is I won't just take one reading.
I'll take multiple readings all around the target, and I'll
make sure that I'm hitting my target. Another thing that
you can u is instead of hitting the target by
hitting the steel, just hit the there's usually like a
(23:45):
tea post or something a target hanger. Let's say, instead
hit the ground where the te post is. You know,
now you're hitting ground instead of maybe I'm hitting the target,
maybe I'm hitting the hill or the tree one hundred
yards behind it.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, you know I'm hitting the ground, So I know
that I'm I met bench target. May you may or
may not be hitting it, but yeah, the ground, you're
pretty sure you're hitting it. I've also heard and I
think you were kind of saying this, You're if you
have beyond the target is something that you know is
further right, you deliberately lays that, You're like, Okay, I
(24:17):
know that that that hill or that tree line or
whatever is somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty to one
hundred yards behind this target. Oh, it's telling me four fifty.
And then you you think you're on the target and
you're still getting four to fifty. You're not on the target,
you know, But then all of a sudden you lays
and you go, oh three eighty oh okay, okay, three
eighty three eighty base of the target three eighty three
eighty two one. Yeah, okay, that's what it.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Is, right, yep, exactly, exactly, okay, okay. Yeah. So there's
there's little tips and tricks for making sure that you've
got the right range.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Absolutely talk about like, okay, we're talking about running an
AR fifteen or AR style gun AR ten for long
range shooting. Ars are are great for a lot of things.
They can be CQB you know guns, they can, but
a lot of people don't think of the AR platform
(25:08):
as that longer end. And we're not talking about like
police ranges of like, oh, it's a sniper shot at
eighty two yards. We're talking about three hundred, four hundred,
five hundred, six hundred yards whatever, right, talk about you know,
you're talking about running a four to sixteen power scope
and I know your company's son and Shadow does a
(25:30):
car being cheek riser. That's one of the problems or
challenges when you talk about really running a gun and
being accurate, because so often when you're running a red
dot on a AR or a low power variable optic,
so often you kind of have a crappy weld, a
(25:52):
cheek weld chin weld. You're floating, you're kind of like, okay,
that's about right, you know, and you're using a red
dot and you're shooting stuff a few yards maybe like
who cares, but it really matters to have that solid
looking exactly through the scope set up when you're doing
some long range stuff. I mean, how do you approach that?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, So on a precision BULT gun, you know, one
that was built for precision, right, usually it's going to
be in a chassis or it's going to be in
a very particularly built stock and they're all going to
have an adjustable cheek riser. They're either going to be
adjustable for height, for distance to the for I relief,
(26:36):
basically distance to stope. That is not as common. It's
becoming more common now, but that's not as common on
an air fifteen because of the reasons that you said,
like it was previously just considered a two hundred yard
gun three hundred yard gun site. But as we move
into low power variables, which are very common on the
(26:58):
air fifteen, the small frame gunes even four to sixteen,
or similarly similarly powered optics like that, you need to
come back to that adjustable or fixed cheek riser so
that you can get into the eyebox quickly and stay
in the eyebox. Okay, The eyebox is a couple of things,
(27:21):
all right. First of all, in order to eliminate parallax.
If you're not familiar with parallax, it's it's you know,
having your redical on a different plane than the target,
which means that as you move your eye left and right,
up and down, that radical is kind of moving around
the target.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
It's not at a fixed spot, so you can adjust
parallax on most optics, but on lpvos in particular, you
usually don't have the ability to adjust parallax. So you
need to make sure that your parallax is good out
at distance. And one of the ways you can do
that is by having a repeatable eye placement. Okay, and
a chief riser helps you to achieve that that's.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
A good point. It's it gives you a specific resting
point for your face, so your eye is in the
same spot every time.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yep, yep, exactly. So the eyebox and parallax are not
the same thing, but they're related. The eyeboxes where you
would see the full field of view of your you know,
whatever zoom ratio you're at. So if you're all the
way on ten power, the eyebox is going to be tighter,
meaning your eye needs to be an extremely particular spot
(28:29):
right otherwise you don't see the picture at all. And
then also we want to reduce that parallax, so having
a cheek rise there where you can index, like just
right on your cheekbone. Right the cheekbone is a very
small spot, whereas the rest of your face is much larger,
it's harder to achieve a consistent cheek weld every time.
So if you're going for that cheekbone contact and it's
(28:50):
a very consistent spot, you can just get into the
eyebox quickly every single time. And I say quickly, I
say quick all the time because with gas guns, speed
is is king. You know, you need to get your
shots off faster than the next guy, especially if you're competing,
you know, and what is a I've never been in
(29:13):
a gunfight, but what's a gunfight. If it's not a competition,
you know what I mean, you're competing against somebody else.
So you know, speed is king when you get into
that eyebox so that you can put down you know,
accurate shots as quick as possible.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
And shoot through through magnified optics. I mean, nobody likes
to have scope shadow. I mean, you know scope shadow
where you're looking through the optic and there's kind of
that black on the edge. But it actually is not
just a oh I can't see through the whole tube perfectly.
It actually can change your impacts if you have scope shadow, right.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, yeah, So if you if you're seeing scope shadow,
that means you're you're not like fully in the eyebox.
And scope shadow can be on the top, it can
be on the bottom depending on where your your cheek
is in relation to height. Also could be the left
of the right depending on where your face is on scope.
Scope shadow is an indicator that you don't have a
perfect field of view and also that you don't have
(30:11):
perfect parallax anymore. So if you see scope shadow on
some shots and you don't see scope shadow on other shots,
well that means that your parallax is probably off. That means,
especially on an LPVO where you can't adjust it, you know,
so if you want to have a perfect shot every time,
you need to have your face in the consistent spot
(30:32):
every time. Also, especially on the guns that you can't
adjust the parallax.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, so we're in a in the competition stuff that
you've been shooting. Where are there any examples of a
stage or or a match that shooting the AR ten
and six or five creed more ended up being a
bit of an advantage for you?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh well, we we spent most of our time here
talking about Erroll Hunter, which I'm I just enjoy shooting it.
I'm not there to I'm not there to crush souls
or anything like that. Another match that I very commonly shoot.
I actually kind of shoot this one a lot more
often is quantified performance, which is just scope carbing. Right.
(31:22):
It's built around the precision gas gun. You know, we're
shooting from one hundred to one thousand yards, let's say,
and it's built for speed. Okay, so fast shots. Okay,
That's that's what we're talking about with with quantified performance.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So when you do that, do you dial or do
you just use the radical in the scope, so.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
It's mostly like a hybrid. I'll personally, I will dial
for the closer target and then I'll hold over for
the rest of the targets. Some people will dial for
the farther target because they think they get more precision
out of the optic or whatever, and then they hold
under for the rest of the targets, you know whatever.
It is kind of like there in PRS an NRL,
(32:05):
you're pretty much dialing. You have time to dial right,
you have time value want the most shot. But for
your question about running an AR ten versus running an
AR fifteen in NERL hunter or PRS, you would want
preferably to use an AR ten because you can gain
(32:26):
capability from the cartridge itself better BC sure that bullet
right and you have the opportunity to buck the wind
a little better. Let's say I don't want to get
into it, but your listeners can can research what's called
gun number, which is a really cater of how well
(32:47):
your bullet performs at distance. And the higher of the
gun number, the more ability that bullet has to buck
the wind, which means that you get more forgiveness. Let's
say your shot yeah, yeah, exactly, which is which is
you need to have it. I mean, nobody's an expert
in wind. Nobody. Some people can guess it better than others,
(33:11):
but nobody's an expert. So you know, having that forgiveness
out of a higher VC bullet that you can achieve
from an AR ten is usually going to be better
for you for super small targets or targets where you
only get one or two shots, okay, With an AR fifteen,
gun numbers are typically lower. And when I say lower,
(33:31):
I mean like a five five six is probably like
a three what we call three mile an hour gun.
That's a gun number. It would be like a three
mile hour gun, or a six to five creed More
is going to be like probably a five to a
six mile hour gun. And that means that a six
to five creed More has double the forgiveness of a
five to five six. Okay, So if you're taking single
(33:52):
shots or only two shots or limited shots on very
small targets, you'd probably want an AR ten. If you're
shooting a little bit larger targets, but you have a
whole magazine, well now you know, maybe an AIR fifteen
might be a better choice. What I've been finding in
quantified performance is that the Air fifteen small frame guns
are probably going to outperform the larger frame guns because
(34:15):
they're more forgiving. You typically have more rounds in them,
and it's easier to go fast with a smaller, lighter
gun than it is to go fast with a larger,
longer gun. Yeah, moving that gun in and out of barricades,
moving that gun and out of props, swinging the gun
any R ten does not swing as fast as an
(34:35):
fifteen does.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah. R ten's are just they're just bigger and bulkier.
They just always have been. And there are some of
those smaller frame AR ten guns that are pretty nice
out there, but yeah, they're just bigger and bulkier.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, I mean it's a bigger gun to move, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
John, thanks for being all of this man. This is fun.
It's fun to talk about this. I mean, the AR
platform is certainly probably the our fifteen platform is probably
the most widely owned gun in our country. It's good
for a lot of things, and this is an area
where you maybe don't think about it as the first
(35:13):
use of it. But it's kind of fun to talk
about this and let people know, Hey, this is a
possibility and maybe it's like, you know, if you put
a magnified optic on your gun and let's let's play
with this. Let's see hitting targets at further distances. Because
if it's it could be used for hunting, it could
be a defensive use thing or what our target shooting
(35:34):
thing or whatever. But it's it's nice to test your
skills with this and and really see what these platforms
are capable of.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Oh sure, it's it's really the first time that I
learned that my air fifteen could shoot further than three
hundred yards, I would have blown away, blown away. I
still remember it. And now, like you go to matches
and you're shooting at seven hundred and fifty eight hundred
nine hundred yards and you post this stuff on YouTube
(36:05):
and all the comments are like, no way, there's no
way an AAR fifteen can go out that far, and like, dude,
it will amazing what the gun can do, even with
an LPVO. I mean, I'm LPVO with those quantified performance
and it's amazing what that gun setup can do. You
can take that same gun to a two gun match
and you can do extremely well. And then you can
(36:27):
take that gun out to quantified performance and you can
shoot it at seven hundred, eight hundred nine hundred yards.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Well, and we're so spoiled now with these scopes too.
I mean, oh yeah, we used to say an LPVO
a low power, very variable and optic. You really thought
of as a one to four and maybe you got
into like a one to six thing. But I mean,
is it really low power if it's a one to ten, Like,
come on, this is a ten power scope.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, this is while you're you're you're giving up some things, right,
it is a ten power you are giving up you know, comparatively,
we could talk about optics for forever. But you know,
a one to ten power is highly capable. But at
the ten power, the image is going to be darker.
You know, you're all the way at the max of
that range. You don't have the ability to just parallax.
(37:14):
The eyebox becomes extremely tight, so that that face placement
becomes really important. You do give up things in order
to have that capability. But that said, that's pretty it's
pretty outstanding capability to have, you know, on a sixteen
and share fifteen, you know, so.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Capable if people haven't done it. I mean even if
you're sitting there with an ar regular five five six
two two three gun with a one to four power
optic on it. Challenge yourself. You might be surprised at
hitting targets at three hundred and four hundred yards with
a gun like that. If you're dialed in and the
gun's dialed in, I mean it's like damn, I mean
(37:54):
you could make hits with this stuff. Oh yeah, that's awesome, John,
Thanks for being all this. How do they find out
more about what you're up to?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah? So we mostly hang out on Instagram. Let's say
Sun and Shadow Underscore LLLC. You can find us. You
can also find us on our website, Sun and Shadow
dot com. We have also built I Love the gas guns.
If you haven't noticed, you've also built a community. It's
on Facebook right now. It's called Gas Gunner gat g
(38:24):
A S G n n R. You can find us there.
It's community just based on on gas gunning shooters, you know,
people that use the small frame and large frame guns
out of distance. Whole amount of knowledge on there, so
you can come in and find us there.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Also, think of all the merch possibilities I've got gas.
I'm a fan of gas I.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Have a trophy from a from a competition. It says
first place gas. I love it.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Awesome, John, thanks again, man, Thanks.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Very much for having me. Guys, I would appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
All right, eyes. That's it for us. We'll see you
next time on guntalg Nation.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
M
All right, go ahead and shoot boom, She's down. All right, kJ,
when you're ready, go ahead and boom shoot. Yeah, she's down.
And it was just like two elk down. I'm Ryan
Gresham and this this is gun Talk Nation. This guntognation
(00:32):
is brought to you by Wheeler, Ruger, Range, Ready, Smith
and Wesson and Colt Hey. Welcome into gun Talk Nation Today.
On Gun Talk Nation, let's talk about gas guns, which
is the slang. And if you're like gas guns, I mean,
if you're listening to this, you're probably you're probably a
gun nerd and you probably know gas guns. But we're
(00:53):
talking about AR fifteen's, I guess is the easy way
to put this. But on the show today a guy
who knows a thing or two about gas guns and
kJ met him at a match recently. John Hatcher, welcome
in man work.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Thanks very much for having me. Super appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
With Sun and Shadow. But so it looks like you're
like the guy you're you're traveling around PRS, NRL. All
that stuff is super popular in the last few years
and everyone as soon as they this is what happened
with sporting clays. By the way, everybody like, let's develop
a sport, a game that will help us with our hunting.
(01:35):
It replicates hunting, and as soon as you start, you know,
you get like one hour into this new sport, people
start gaming it because they want to win. It's not
about preparing for hunting. It's just like, no, no, I want
to win this match. I want to improve my scores.
So what happened with sporting clays. I'm going off on
(01:56):
a tangent, but is they you had to start with
a low because it's like hunting, you can't start with
a mounted gun. And then we want, we want to
shoot better scores, and they convinced somebody to say, okay, fine,
you can start with a mounted gun. Well what happens
is everyone's scores go up. So I don't know if
your your scores go up, but everybody else's scores go
up to so congratulations. So I'm just picking on NRL.
(02:22):
But like, it's like hunting, except that the gun weighs
eighteen pounds and has a lot of stuff on it.
But you're you're a guy who perhaps is a bit
of a weirdo, which I like, because you are shooting
I'm gonna say gas guns. That's slaying AR fifteen style
(02:44):
AR ten guns at these long rematches, which most people
are shooting bull guns, right John.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh yeah, oh yeah for sure. So NROL hunter is
you know, it's it's it's a super easy format, one
of the simplest formats of shooting that either it's it's
really cool. You pretty much have eight rounds for each
stage if you missed every single shot, right, all.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Right, so I need so I need eight rounds is
what you're telling me?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Eight rounds per stage. Yeah, and you can you can
do it in less, you can do it in four rounds, okay.
So it's a four round minimum, eight round maximum, super
easy format. There's either going to be one target in
four positions, where there's going to be four targets in
one position, where there's going to be two targets and
two positions. That's it.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But I like this.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
It always gets me with like super matches of any sort.
It's like all the procedural stuff where I'm like, can
I just pull a trigger? Like I'm okay with that
part of it?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah. Yeah. The the you know USPSA, the planning, same
thing with pcsl's the stage planning and all that that
goes into it and n R Hunter. You don't really
get to plan the stage, mostly because the stages are blind.
You have no idea you know what positions you're going
to be in. You have no idea what the ranges
(04:00):
of the targets are going to be. You you have
an understanding that you know what target you're looking for.
It's like I'm looking for one deer, or I'm looking
for two rabbits, or I'm looking for four coyotes, you
know whatever, and you know that they're going to be
between like one hundred and a thousand yards.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Right, and you have to find them.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You got to find them. Yeah, you got to go.
They give you a little brief you're looking for. Hey man,
you're looking for two deer.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Here's your pos question, John, go find them. I got
a question. Is shooting a gas gun for long range disadvantage?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I get I get asked that a lot. I think
it can be. It can be. Okay, when people talk
about the disadvantages, I would say that those things really
start to matter at the very highest levels.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Of the sport.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Okay, it's a very nuanced thing. If you're a mid
pack shooter with a bolt gun, you're probably going to
be a midpack shooter with a gas gun, right, Let's
just be honest. That said, the gas gun takes more
of your energy to control. Okay, it's it's not as forgiving,
(05:17):
let's say, as a bolt gun might be. And when
I say that, I mean like recoil management wise, it's
not as forgiven. There are certain pressures that you need
to apply to a gas gun, and if those pressures
aren't there, you're probably going to have a bad time.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
To make the gun run, to make the gun work,
to make Okay, that's fair enough. Like, yeah, I mean
a bolt gun, you can you can load these these
powder puff loads as long as you can hit the
target with them, I guess. And and you know the
recoil is negligible, So.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yes, yes, and and and that that would be coming
from like the PRS side of the sport, where the
guns weighing twenty twenty five pounds maybe more. Yeah, and
are a hunter specifically, they do limit the weight of
the rifle. In most divisions they limit the weight of
the rifle to sixteen pounds maximum, and then some divisions
they have it's only twelve pounds maximum. So you're generally
(06:12):
dealing with like lighter hunting rifle setups, let's say, so
they're recoil on those. Even the sixteen pound guns can
be a little bit more. Of course, there's always ways
to kind of game it. They have what's called power
factor where you must meet a minimum power factor unless
you're shooting factory ammunition. And power factor is the velocity
(06:36):
of your bullet times the grain weight of the bullet,
and they have a minimum for that. So if you're reloading,
you you need to meet that minimum power factor. So ideally,
like you'd be shooting a heavy gun with a low
power factor, and that's kind of gets you the least
amount of recoil. Basically another gaing gaming the system kind
of thing. But yeah, I mean in general, like a
(06:57):
bolt gun, like I said, a little more forget the
AR ten, especially the R ten requires a lot of
mental management in order to control the gun, so it
is a different way of shooting that particular sport. I
would say, I shot gaskun at this last one, this
one in Alabama, and I've got another one coming up
(07:19):
this weekend in Georgia, and I'll be shooting my gaskin again.
But a lot of the shooters are going to be
shooting bulguns. I would say like ninety five percent of
them are going to be shooting bulk guns for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Is that a different division or is it your shooting
amongst everybody?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, so it is. I'm The division that I mean
is called open Heavy, so I'm just in there with
the bulkun shooters. My gun weighs like slightly less than
sixteen pounds. I think it's like fifteen point nine. So
I mean the category for open heavy, they do open light,
where you shoot a twelve pound in undergun. I'm not
(07:58):
sure that you could get a gas gun to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Maybe really it'd be hard to get it that light.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, the air tens are usually pretty heavy. You you
probably wouldn't meet power factor with an air fifteen like
a small frame gas gun power factor, so you could
shoot a small frame in what they call Skills division.
Skills division is kind of like an anything goes division,
but you're not really shooting for points or anything. If
(08:24):
you're just there to just have fun, you know, learn
about the match, you know whatever, that's fine, yeah, but
if you're there to compete, you're not going to be
in the skills division. You'll be in one of the
other divisions, and like I said, it's hard to make
weight for the open light division with a an AR ten.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
No. Obviously, there's you know, I was picking on the
gas guns as their disadvantage, but there's pros and cons
to all of it. What would you say?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Some of the pros are, Oh, fast follow ups for sure,
real fast follow ups. It's the nurl. Hunter is not
a gas gun sport. And I also I also want
to say that I'm not great at an er hunter.
I'm not a professional let enter. I'll hunter right, But
with gas guns you have the very fast follow up shots,
(09:08):
so you can take a shot and in that very
same wind you can immediately make a correction and hopefully
get your hit off that correction. Bolt guns, the fall
up is a little bit slower, so you know, you
can still be fast with a follow up, but the
fall ups are not going to be as fast as
a gas gun. Right, there's no there's no manual, there's
(09:30):
no shift knob.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
You know, you got to we're not having to run
the bolt I mean obviously, and wind is a giant
factor in making those hits, especially out at some distance,
and if you have a consistent whatever the wind you know,
full value ten mile an hour wind, it's consistent, right,
But if you're if you didn't read the wind right
(09:51):
and now you've got some data because you can see
your miss and then adjust from that, that's a quick
follow up. Or if the wind is not consistent and
it's swirling and it's like, well, maybe you're getting the
same wind because you have such a fast follow up.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Is that they're saying, yep, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, the
fast fallow ups are pretty nice, and you know that
there are Like I said, NRL Hunter is not really
a gas gun sport. And when I say a gas
gun sport, what I mean is you can use a
gas gun there for sure, but you're not unlocking the
sport itself. The rules set does not unlock the full
(10:33):
capabilities of what a gas gun can do. So the
idea behind a gas gun is speed. Precision is part
of it. You know they call a precision gas gun
or you know, whatever scope car being whatever you want
to call it. The idea is still a precision getting
hits at distance, but speed is also a factor, and.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
For that game, it's speed is not as important.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, So in Inner All Hunter, you have for an individual.
You have four minutes per stage, and in that four
minutes you need to find all of your targets. You
need to build all of your positions, and you need
to get your four impacts or your eight shots, you know,
whatever whatever it is. So usually finding the targets can
(11:29):
be very difficult. In here in the southeast, which is
most of the area that I shoot. We're not talking
about big terrain like they have out west. You know,
where you're searching hills and rocks and mountains and you're
looking through all that stuff. Here, you're you're searching smaller hills,
maybe wooded, right, so you're looking through through woods to
(11:50):
find things. You're looking at woodlines, you're looking under shrubs
of trees, that sort of thing to try to find
your your animal shaped target. It can take you know,
some time to find your target or to find all
the targets that you need to find. So usually for me,
just this is just the way that I do it.
I'll usually give myself two minutes to find those targets.
(12:13):
And if I haven't found all the targets in two minutes,
well time's up. You need to start shooting. Just shoot
at the targets that you do see. Okay, so like
you kind of have to manage your time, but you
do have four minutes to do it all.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Start throwing lead yep, yep, all right, John, Let's take
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So let's talk about what kind of gun, what kind
(15:21):
of setup you're using, because we kind of know in
these you know, the bulk guns and then the calibers
and the type of stuff people are doing. What's perhaps
different or perhaps the same as how you approach it
with your particular gear.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, so let's let's talk about the gun first. For
for NRL hunters specifically, I'm using an AR ten. The
one that I'm using is chambered in sixty five creed More.
We can talk about cartridges all day, but that's the
one that I chose, you know, to use for this
particular sport. That rifle has a four to sixteen power
(16:00):
optic on it. It's a night force attacker. Inside that scope,
I have the I'm using the mil X t redical.
If you're not familiar, it's a it's a meal medical
with a tree in it. And that tree allows me
to do a couple of things. That allows me to
do holdovers if if I really needed to do that,
which is not something that I'd recommend for a sport
like an ERL hunter, recommend dialing on the turrets instead.
(16:24):
But it also the tree also has windage in it, right,
so you can you can measure your windage, make your
winage corrections very easy with that tree redical. So the
optic is very important for for what you're going to
select for precision rifle shooting. From that, Like I said,
we've got an a R ten or a four to
sixteen or similar powered scope. You're going to want to
(16:44):
have a bipod. Super important that your rifle accepts a bipod.
You don't have to have it for every stage, but
super important that you have one. A tripod really important
you have a tripod, especially for an ERL hunter. You're
going to be put in positions where you have no
idea what support you're going to have available. A tripod
(17:06):
kind of guarantees that you have a stable shooting support
no matter where you go.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
And you know, if people aren't familiar with it, I mean,
it does give you a ton of versatility and a
lot of times even if you are able to use
that bipod and there's some sort of rock fence, whatever
rest thing out front, you can use that tripod as
basically rear support, especially if you're having to stand or
(17:34):
neil and there's nothing you don't want the rear of
the gun just kind of floating in mid air. It's
not as stable as you could be. It's one of
the big advantages of this type of shooting, the PRS
NRL stuff is people are figuring out how to use tripods, bipods,
(17:55):
building a bay building your shooting platform. And if you
haven't looked at this, not that you have to go
spend all the money on the gear and go travel
all over the country shootings matches, but if you want
to hit stuff, or if you're a hunter and you
want to hit stuff, you can really learn a lot
from what's happening at these types of matches. And I
(18:18):
mean kJ and I were out in New Mexico in
January and we both had we both had bipods, like
long bipods because we weren't sure what we were going
to be dealing with, and bipods and or like bog
pods and stuff like that. But then we had a tripod.
(18:39):
And the way the guy wanted to run this the
way he runs these because this is cow elk, so
there's plenty of targets out there. We were both set up.
I was on one leg of the tripod as a
rear and he was on one leg of the tripod
because I shoot left handed, so it worked out perfectly.
And it was like, all right, go ahead and dude, boom,
(19:01):
she's down. All right, kJ, when you're ready, go ahead
and boom, shoot, yeah she's down. And it was just
like to elk down and we were using kind of
that that knowledge from what people are doing in these matches.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And her Hunter was you know, as
you said before, was built around getting guys knowledgeable on
their hunting rifles and knowledgeable not just on their hunting
rifles but on the equipment as well. Ranging a target
is a skill. Finding a target is a skill, right,
(19:37):
And in these matches, you know, yeah, I mean there's
you're confined to a small area, right, You're shooting a
stage and a match at a range. You know, you're
not out in the world, let's say. But that said,
these are skills that you can build in the match,
and I think it's just an amazing format using all
those skills. A lot of matches you'll go to prs.
(19:58):
You know, they're going to give you the range and
they might be off by two or three yards and
some guys, you know, some some people might complain about it.
But at NRL Hunter, they don't give you the range.
You got to you gotta figure it out for yourself.
And if you don't have the skill to be sure
that your target was ranged properly, you could be one
hundred yards off, you know, just because you didn't hit
(20:19):
the target right. And I mean, like, you didn't hit
the target right with a laser right. So if you're
if you're off with that, you know, that's a sure miss.
You know, So ranging those targets as a skill, finding
them is a skill. Engaging them as a skill in weather,
in wind, and in the The NRL hunter match format
was kind of designed around getting guys to be good
(20:41):
with their rifles so they could take those those shots
on real animals later. You know, I think that's pretty cool,
that's neat.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I mean, I think everybody is familiar with laser range finders,
whether that's for for target shooting or for hunting. I
know there are actually some tips and techniques. Do you
have any for the audience of like, hey, because you
kind of mentioned it, like you lays it and if
people don't know better, I know you'd probably do it
(21:08):
in a different way. But like they go, oh, that's how
far it is? You're like, or is it? Did you
do it right? I mean, what are some tips and
techniques for people using a laser range finder?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, so there's a lot of nuance to it. Like
I said, it is a skill. Your laser is going
to diverge the further it gets out. Okay, it's not
like a perfect little beam all the way out to
distance that diverges a little bit, kind of like a cone.
Let's say, so there is some some beam they call
it beam divergence. There is some divergence that happens out
(21:39):
further distances. And the radical in your LRF and your
binos or your handheld or whatever it is, the radical
may not be exactly exactly zero to where the laser
is hitting. Okay, you need to understand where your beam
is hitting in that radical, like exactly where it's hitting
in the radical.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So it's almost kind of like like con siding in
or confirming. Not that you can side it in. You
can't change where that that radical point is on a
on a handheld laser range fine or whatever. But you
could say, yeah, I actually tested it out at known distances,
and you can go, yeah, it's actually I think it's
it's a little bit lower, a little bit high or whatever. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah. The easiest way to do that is to find
like a telephone pole and just range the very top
of the telephone pole because you'll just have sky in
the background. Right, So there's a sky back there at
the right, the laser isn't going to give you a return,
but as soon as it hits the pole, well, now
you've got to return. So you can you can figure out,
like exactly where your laser is hitting by ranging off
(22:42):
a pole, whether it's high or low, or left or
right or whatever it is, so you can figure out
exactly where that's going to be. And then if you
want to, if you want to test the beam divergence,
you can just you know, take one hundred yards back,
you know, see where it hits. Now, go another one
hundred yards back, see where it hits now, So you
can get a pretty good idea of where that laser hitting. Now.
As far as is as actually ranging your target, you
(23:03):
know that there's it's very dependent on the environment that
you're in. For example, if there's a berm directly behind
your target, right, okay, if you hit the burm or
if you hit the target, well, you're probably only going
to be within a couple of yards. But let's say
there's not a burm. Let's say that your target is skylined,
you know, and maybe there's a mountain or something hundreds
(23:23):
of yards behind it. Are you hitting the mountain or
are you hitting the target? You want to know. So
usually what I'll do is I won't just take one reading.
I'll take multiple readings all around the target, and I'll
make sure that I'm hitting my target. Another thing that
you can u is instead of hitting the target by
hitting the steel, just hit the there's usually like a
(23:45):
tea post or something a target hanger. Let's say, instead
hit the ground where the te post is. You know,
now you're hitting ground instead of maybe I'm hitting the target,
maybe I'm hitting the hill or the tree one hundred
yards behind it.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, you know I'm hitting the ground, So I know
that I'm I met bench target. May you may or
may not be hitting it, but yeah, the ground, you're
pretty sure you're hitting it. I've also heard and I
think you were kind of saying this, You're if you
have beyond the target is something that you know is
further right, you deliberately lays that, You're like, Okay, I
(24:17):
know that that that hill or that tree line or
whatever is somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty to one
hundred yards behind this target. Oh, it's telling me four fifty.
And then you you think you're on the target and
you're still getting four to fifty. You're not on the target,
you know, But then all of a sudden you lays
and you go, oh three eighty oh okay, okay, three
eighty three eighty base of the target three eighty three
eighty two one. Yeah, okay, that's what it.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Is, right, yep, exactly, exactly, okay, okay. Yeah. So there's
there's little tips and tricks for making sure that you've
got the right range.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Absolutely talk about like, okay, we're talking about running an
AR fifteen or AR style gun AR ten for long
range shooting. Ars are are great for a lot of things.
They can be CQB you know guns, they can, but
a lot of people don't think of the AR platform
(25:08):
as that longer end. And we're not talking about like
police ranges of like, oh, it's a sniper shot at
eighty two yards. We're talking about three hundred, four hundred,
five hundred, six hundred yards whatever, right, talk about you know,
you're talking about running a four to sixteen power scope
and I know your company's son and Shadow does a
(25:30):
car being cheek riser. That's one of the problems or
challenges when you talk about really running a gun and
being accurate, because so often when you're running a red
dot on a AR or a low power variable optic,
so often you kind of have a crappy weld, a
(25:52):
cheek weld chin weld. You're floating, you're kind of like, okay,
that's about right, you know, and you're using a red
dot and you're shooting stuff a few yards maybe like
who cares, but it really matters to have that solid
looking exactly through the scope set up when you're doing
some long range stuff. I mean, how do you approach that?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, So on a precision BULT gun, you know, one
that was built for precision, right, usually it's going to
be in a chassis or it's going to be in
a very particularly built stock and they're all going to
have an adjustable cheek riser. They're either going to be
adjustable for height, for distance to the for I relief,
(26:36):
basically distance to stope. That is not as common. It's
becoming more common now, but that's not as common on
an air fifteen because of the reasons that you said,
like it was previously just considered a two hundred yard
gun three hundred yard gun site. But as we move
into low power variables, which are very common on the
(26:58):
air fifteen, the small frame gunes even four to sixteen,
or similarly similarly powered optics like that, you need to
come back to that adjustable or fixed cheek riser so
that you can get into the eyebox quickly and stay
in the eyebox. Okay, The eyebox is a couple of things,
(27:21):
all right. First of all, in order to eliminate parallax.
If you're not familiar with parallax, it's it's you know,
having your redical on a different plane than the target,
which means that as you move your eye left and right,
up and down, that radical is kind of moving around
the target.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
It's not at a fixed spot, so you can adjust
parallax on most optics, but on lpvos in particular, you
usually don't have the ability to adjust parallax. So you
need to make sure that your parallax is good out
at distance. And one of the ways you can do
that is by having a repeatable eye placement. Okay, and
a chief riser helps you to achieve that that's.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
A good point. It's it gives you a specific resting
point for your face, so your eye is in the
same spot every time.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yep, yep, exactly. So the eyebox and parallax are not
the same thing, but they're related. The eyeboxes where you
would see the full field of view of your you know,
whatever zoom ratio you're at. So if you're all the
way on ten power, the eyebox is going to be tighter,
meaning your eye needs to be an extremely particular spot
(28:29):
right otherwise you don't see the picture at all. And
then also we want to reduce that parallax, so having
a cheek rise there where you can index, like just
right on your cheekbone. Right the cheekbone is a very
small spot, whereas the rest of your face is much larger,
it's harder to achieve a consistent cheek weld every time.
So if you're going for that cheekbone contact and it's
(28:50):
a very consistent spot, you can just get into the
eyebox quickly every single time. And I say quickly, I
say quick all the time because with gas guns, speed
is is king. You know, you need to get your
shots off faster than the next guy, especially if you're competing,
you know, and what is a I've never been in
(29:13):
a gunfight, but what's a gunfight. If it's not a competition,
you know what I mean, you're competing against somebody else.
So you know, speed is king when you get into
that eyebox so that you can put down you know,
accurate shots as quick as possible.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
And shoot through through magnified optics. I mean, nobody likes
to have scope shadow. I mean, you know scope shadow
where you're looking through the optic and there's kind of
that black on the edge. But it actually is not
just a oh I can't see through the whole tube perfectly.
It actually can change your impacts if you have scope shadow, right.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, yeah, So if you if you're seeing scope shadow,
that means you're you're not like fully in the eyebox.
And scope shadow can be on the top, it can
be on the bottom depending on where your your cheek
is in relation to height. Also could be the left
of the right depending on where your face is on scope.
Scope shadow is an indicator that you don't have a
perfect field of view and also that you don't have
(30:11):
perfect parallax anymore. So if you see scope shadow on
some shots and you don't see scope shadow on other shots,
well that means that your parallax is probably off. That means,
especially on an LPVO where you can't adjust it, you know,
so if you want to have a perfect shot every time,
you need to have your face in the consistent spot
(30:32):
every time. Also, especially on the guns that you can't
adjust the parallax.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, so we're in a in the competition stuff that
you've been shooting. Where are there any examples of a
stage or or a match that shooting the AR ten
and six or five creed more ended up being a
bit of an advantage for you?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh well, we we spent most of our time here
talking about Erroll Hunter, which I'm I just enjoy shooting it.
I'm not there to I'm not there to crush souls
or anything like that. Another match that I very commonly shoot.
I actually kind of shoot this one a lot more
often is quantified performance, which is just scope carbing. Right.
(31:22):
It's built around the precision gas gun. You know, we're
shooting from one hundred to one thousand yards, let's say,
and it's built for speed. Okay, so fast shots. Okay,
That's that's what we're talking about with with quantified performance.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So when you do that, do you dial or do
you just use the radical in the scope, so.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
It's mostly like a hybrid. I'll personally, I will dial
for the closer target and then I'll hold over for
the rest of the targets. Some people will dial for
the farther target because they think they get more precision
out of the optic or whatever, and then they hold
under for the rest of the targets, you know whatever.
It is kind of like there in PRS an NRL,
(32:05):
you're pretty much dialing. You have time to dial right,
you have time value want the most shot. But for
your question about running an AR ten versus running an
AR fifteen in NERL hunter or PRS, you would want
preferably to use an AR ten because you can gain
(32:26):
capability from the cartridge itself better BC sure that bullet
right and you have the opportunity to buck the wind
a little better. Let's say I don't want to get
into it, but your listeners can can research what's called
gun number, which is a really cater of how well
(32:47):
your bullet performs at distance. And the higher of the
gun number, the more ability that bullet has to buck
the wind, which means that you get more forgiveness. Let's
say your shot yeah, yeah, exactly, which is which is
you need to have it. I mean, nobody's an expert
in wind. Nobody. Some people can guess it better than others,
(33:11):
but nobody's an expert. So you know, having that forgiveness
out of a higher VC bullet that you can achieve
from an AR ten is usually going to be better
for you for super small targets or targets where you
only get one or two shots, okay, With an AR fifteen,
gun numbers are typically lower. And when I say lower,
(33:31):
I mean like a five five six is probably like
a three what we call three mile an hour gun.
That's a gun number. It would be like a three
mile hour gun, or a six to five creed More
is going to be like probably a five to a
six mile hour gun. And that means that a six
to five creed More has double the forgiveness of a
five to five six. Okay, So if you're taking single
(33:52):
shots or only two shots or limited shots on very
small targets, you'd probably want an AR ten. If you're
shooting a little bit larger targets, but you have a
whole magazine, well now you know, maybe an AIR fifteen
might be a better choice. What I've been finding in
quantified performance is that the Air fifteen small frame guns
are probably going to outperform the larger frame guns because
(34:15):
they're more forgiving. You typically have more rounds in them,
and it's easier to go fast with a smaller, lighter
gun than it is to go fast with a larger,
longer gun. Yeah, moving that gun in and out of barricades,
moving that gun and out of props, swinging the gun
any R ten does not swing as fast as an
(34:35):
fifteen does.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah. R ten's are just they're just bigger and bulkier.
They just always have been. And there are some of
those smaller frame AR ten guns that are pretty nice
out there, but yeah, they're just bigger and bulkier.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, I mean it's a bigger gun to move, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
John, thanks for being all of this man. This is fun.
It's fun to talk about this. I mean, the AR
platform is certainly probably the our fifteen platform is probably
the most widely owned gun in our country. It's good
for a lot of things, and this is an area
where you maybe don't think about it as the first
(35:13):
use of it. But it's kind of fun to talk
about this and let people know, Hey, this is a
possibility and maybe it's like, you know, if you put
a magnified optic on your gun and let's let's play
with this. Let's see hitting targets at further distances. Because
if it's it could be used for hunting, it could
be a defensive use thing or what our target shooting
(35:34):
thing or whatever. But it's it's nice to test your
skills with this and and really see what these platforms
are capable of.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Oh sure, it's it's really the first time that I
learned that my air fifteen could shoot further than three
hundred yards, I would have blown away, blown away. I
still remember it. And now, like you go to matches
and you're shooting at seven hundred and fifty eight hundred
nine hundred yards and you post this stuff on YouTube
(36:05):
and all the comments are like, no way, there's no
way an AAR fifteen can go out that far, and like, dude,
it will amazing what the gun can do, even with
an LPVO. I mean, I'm LPVO with those quantified performance
and it's amazing what that gun setup can do. You
can take that same gun to a two gun match
and you can do extremely well. And then you can
(36:27):
take that gun out to quantified performance and you can
shoot it at seven hundred, eight hundred nine hundred yards.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Well, and we're so spoiled now with these scopes too.
I mean, oh yeah, we used to say an LPVO
a low power, very variable and optic. You really thought
of as a one to four and maybe you got
into like a one to six thing. But I mean,
is it really low power if it's a one to ten, Like,
come on, this is a ten power scope.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, this is while you're you're you're giving up some things, right,
it is a ten power you are giving up you know, comparatively,
we could talk about optics for forever. But you know,
a one to ten power is highly capable. But at
the ten power, the image is going to be darker.
You know, you're all the way at the max of
that range. You don't have the ability to just parallax.
(37:14):
The eyebox becomes extremely tight, so that that face placement
becomes really important. You do give up things in order
to have that capability. But that said, that's pretty it's
pretty outstanding capability to have, you know, on a sixteen
and share fifteen, you know, so.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Capable if people haven't done it. I mean even if
you're sitting there with an ar regular five five six
two two three gun with a one to four power
optic on it. Challenge yourself. You might be surprised at
hitting targets at three hundred and four hundred yards with
a gun like that. If you're dialed in and the
gun's dialed in, I mean it's like damn, I mean
(37:54):
you could make hits with this stuff. Oh yeah, that's awesome, John,
Thanks for being all this. How do they find out
more about what you're up to?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah? So we mostly hang out on Instagram. Let's say
Sun and Shadow Underscore LLLC. You can find us. You
can also find us on our website, Sun and Shadow
dot com. We have also built I Love the gas guns.
If you haven't noticed, you've also built a community. It's
on Facebook right now. It's called Gas Gunner gat g
(38:24):
A S G n n R. You can find us there.
It's community just based on on gas gunning shooters, you know,
people that use the small frame and large frame guns
out of distance. Whole amount of knowledge on there, so
you can come in and find us there.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Also, think of all the merch possibilities I've got gas.
I'm a fan of gas I.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Have a trophy from a from a competition. It says
first place gas. I love it.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Awesome, John, thanks again, man, Thanks.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Very much for having me. Guys, I would appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
All right, eyes. That's it for us. We'll see you
next time on guntalg Nation.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
M
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