8-31-25 - Wing-Shooting with Guest Jason Craig

On tonight's special wing-shooting program, special guest Jason Craig with Epic Shotshell Company shares shooting tips and techniques. He also shared the technological advances of his custom made Epic Shotshells.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:23):
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(00:44):
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Outdoors on news Radio eight forty whas.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Good evening, everybody. Jim Straighter here and my co host
Scott Cronin and I got a great guest for you tonight.
His name is Jason Craig. He's the owner of Epic
Shotshell Company, which produces high performance loads bismuth tungsten, TSS,

(01:21):
steel blended options, and copper shot alternatives, which is quite
a story in itself, but one of the main reasons
we're having him on tonight. As everybody knows, Dove season
opens tomorrow, early season, Goose and duck seasons are right
around the corner, so we're gonna do a wing shooting

(01:41):
special and in that regard Jason as a great guest
for us because he spends over one hundred days a
year and duck binds. He operates multiple private duck clubs
in several different states, and he is a lifelong wing
shooting expert. So, Scott Dies, most people are going or

(02:03):
no strangers to shot gunes in the wing shooting ourselves.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Scott, I'm really looking forward.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
To this man. I think that this program tonight may
be Jim Strader's economics, because if you can shoot better,
you have less holes on the ground and more money
in your back pocket. So it's not always about bragging rights.
Being a good shooter at the range or in the field.
But one thing about it, we all have tendencies to

(02:29):
have a little rust on us and there is always
changing dynamics. But it's important to stick to the basics
and the foundations of wing shooting. And that's going to
help folks out, Jim, weather or not they're going to
the field or not. We've got so many young people
today that are involved with shooting sports, from sporting clays
to trap and skeep. We're going to have a little

(02:50):
something for everybody. But more importantly, we're going to have
those tips and techniques for what we've figured out has
improved our wing shooting and made our piles a little bigger,
in our shot count a little lower.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yes, sir, and we're gonna cover a broad brush of
things to night choke selections, shot sizes, you name it.
We're gonna try to cram it all in the next
two hours. So buckle up and get ready. We've got
a great guest for you. I'm gonna go to break here.
This break is presented by SMI Marine. The twenty twenty
five's are on sale and they have all kind of

(03:25):
end of year incentive on those boats.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
The twenty six is are on their way.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
They've got a whole bunch of used boats over there
on the lot with some great deals on those as well.
Check them out and remember you never get soaked by
my friends at SMI. And again we're talking wing Shooting
Night with Jason Craig. Jason, can you hear me? Okay,
I can hear you?

Speaker 5 (03:48):
Fine? How you boys?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
We're doing great, buddy, Very appreciative of you taking time
out of your super business schedule between managing for ducks
and put together blinds and everything else that goes along
with it. And then of course your duties there at
Epic Shot Shell keeps you jumping, so we're really grateful

(04:10):
to you. Let's start out the program by helping folks
a little bit with some of the things that perhaps
are keeping them from being a better wing shooter. We
talked about this extensively before the program, and let's start
out with mounting the gun, because that's where so many

(04:31):
mistakes are made, quite frankly, in the astem.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Of taking the barrel to a bird.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
A lot of people don't understand how important it is to,
as I like to say, keep the wood on the wood.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
What I mean by that is keeping your head firmly
attached to that stock. Jason, Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 5 (04:53):
I don't have any disagreement with that at all. You know,
I've got a couple of young boys that are coming
up learning how to shoot now, and I mean young
like under not teenagers yet, and I'm taking a little
bit different approach with them. So my approach with them
is to pull the trigger. So look, when I grew up,
my rule was I had was allowed one shell in

(05:14):
my gun at a time, and that was it. The
problem with that scenario is it doesn't allow you the
freedom to miss, miss, and then hit the birdle on
the third shot and you don't learn anything. So my
boys are taking a little bit different approach to it.
So we're having them shoot and shoot and shoot. Shoot
Clay's shoot, you know, shoot doves, shoot ducks. And I

(05:36):
can tell you that it's pretty amazing what your brain
can do with your body if you just allow it
to happen. So, if you don't mount the gun properly,
which I don't believe most guys even know what to
look for when they mount their gun, But if you
don't mount it properly, you're never going to be on target.
And if you do something right, you're never going to

(05:57):
be able to repeat it. So I think you're I
think you're absolutely right. When it comes to the mount,
it comes to the gun, it comes to the fit
shimmier gun, and I think you'll be significantly more I mean,
you'll just be more accurate time and time again.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, you know what I see in a lot of
wing shooters is they don't have what I call the
magic triangle. And we all know how strong geometrically a
triangle is.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
And if you.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Don't have that triangle where your forearm and your upper
arm are more or less in alignment with the plane
of that barrel, there's all kind of crazy things can happen.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
And back to my statement about wood on the wood.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
One of the most important things is you mount that gun,
is get it out in a way and bring it
into that pocket in your shoulder. And once it's there,
your eyes should be straight down that barrel. I mean,
if there's any DBAC and obviously that shot charge is
not going to go where you're looking. And one of
the things that helped me shooting an international competition where

(07:07):
you had to put in a second shot very rapidly,
I learned the hard way that getting a firm grip
on that shot gun and holding it into your body.
I'm talking here principally with a right handed shooter. Obviously
you'd have to reverse what I'm going to say with
a lefty, but by gripping and pulling in tight, that

(07:29):
tends to keep you tied to the stop. I'm sure
you guys have probably noticed this as well, because too
many shooters on the first start, second shot peak a
little bit. You know, they want to come up off
they gun to see what's happening, and that's not the
way they do things.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
With the younger shooters. And just getting people into shooting
is to make sure, most definitely that you've got that
fit of the firearm to where they get everything correct
with not only your casting in your drop, but the
point that they can actually handle it inun The fad
of the gun to the person goes all the way

(08:12):
back even to the waiting. With modern shooting and what's
going on the twenty age and twenty eight games upgage
into grown and such popularity, and that's fit that you're
talking about, Jason and Jim. It's not just the fit
of when you put the gun up to shoot. It's
staying in that good form and mentally, as Jason was saying,

(08:34):
what your brain will do, just mentally being prepared to shoot.
Because a lot of times when we get into any
type of wing shooting or sporting clays, things are happening
really fast. It's a and I agree with what Jason's saying.
It's so important to let the shooter learn what's going on,

(08:56):
because I've seen it with these people on newscuters. Do
they start processing and images and they can start to
tell that they're either in front of behind, or high
or low onto the g And there's something that's naturally
when you connect and smoke that target, whether that's a
a goose or a duck or whatever it is, it's

(09:19):
just something that instinctively triggers into your body's programming and
it creates a lot of muscle memory. And it's that consistent,
repetitive I'm doing the same thing each time and I'm
getting the same result, and those results when they start
going towards the good side, which is hitting the target.
It's just something that the body naturally observes.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
You know. There's another aspect here too, guys that plays
into this. Back when I was getting into competitive shooting.
I was lucky enough to be around Bob Brister, who was,
in my estimation, probably one of the best shotgun experts
and outdoor writers in the country, and I'm you know,

(10:00):
talking to him about choke and gunfit and everything involved
with it, and both he and several other international champions
that I shot with agreed that gun fit is probably
more important overall than choke because if a gun is
not shooting where you're looking, you can't get enough open

(10:24):
this in a choke, in those rampidt sequences that win
shooter requires to make up for it.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
I know that could be arguable.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
But basically, I'll put it this way, if a gun
doesn't fit me, I can't hit with it. You know,
I can adjust a little bit. But what I'm getting
at here is when a person purchases a shot gun,
they ought to try to make sure that as they
bring that gun up and mount it, their eye needs

(10:53):
to be straight down that barrel, and I mean dead
center every time. And the way to prepare you yourself
for the field, it's a whole trick that I've used
for years, is to raise that gun repeatedly. Obviously, make
sure it's make sure it's unloaded, but to raise it
in front of a mirror and look at your image

(11:14):
and see as you raise it up and point it,
not name it, but point it that your eyes right
down that barrel, that the beads in your eye are
in alignment. You guys got thoughts on that.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
So I think you're right on the money. I think
something else. There's two other things that happen in my world,
which is, you know, colder weather, hotter weather, And that's
that people have more clothing on, but they don't have
clothes on when they practice. They don't have clothes on
when they go to the clay range. So I've seen
so many guys get hung up on their jackets trying
to mount their gun and they can, and they'd end

(11:49):
up pulling the trigger when the gun's on their bicep
and you're just shooting holes in the air. But I'll
tell you the other thing is, and this is something
that's not really taught anymore, it's how do you stand?
Because if you're not standing correctly, you're not going to
mount the gun and look down the barrel. I've seen
so many people try to shoot with their feet side
by side and I mean it just basically tries to

(12:10):
push them backwards, and they're never going to be on
for the first shot, and they're never going to have
a follow up.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
You know, that's a great point, Jason.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
It's as important wing shooting as it isn't golf, for example,
our tennis. You know, de deliver a heart, sir, if
go through what you think is the best approach to
tell people about that.

Speaker 5 (12:32):
So if I were starting, well I can. I can
tell you exactly what I'm doing with my boys. If
you take somebody who's never thrown a baseball and you
put a ball in their hand and you watch them
try to throw it, you know how almost ridiculous they look. Well,
I'll tell you what. If you're right handed, go throw
to throw, to go, try to throw one with your
left hand. Your body is completely out of torch. So

(12:54):
when I'm setting up, anybody knew who hasn't shot a lot,
doesn't have a lot of experience. We basically take the
gun out of their hands and we put them in
a position like they're going to be a pitcher throwing
a single ball to a catcher. And then as soon
as they get into that position, we put the gun
back in their hand. So for a right handed shooter,

(13:14):
you're actually leaning over your left foot. Your right foot
doesn't actually play very much into the actual stance. It's
more or less there to keep you from falling over.
But if you can put that weight on your front foot,
you will find that you bear down on your gun,
so your mount changes, and if you can bear down,
you can put your mount correct. You're going to hit

(13:36):
significantly more birds than you were prior to doing that.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Exactly.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
It goes back to just good mechanics is what we're
talking about there, and before we worry about, you know,
what choke and what shall we shoot? The mechanics is
also important when it comes to getting your mount down right,
making here that you're not rushing to shot, and when

(14:03):
you're in the field trying to watch where your feed
or going and trying to keep your body mechanics is
a little bit different. It's no different whether you're trying
to get some grouse or if you're going into a
duct line. Sometimes you're going to be sitting, sometimes you're
going to be walking, sometimes you're just going to be standing.
In those mechanics that Jason's talking about, I think that
goes back to a lot of that muscle memory and

(14:25):
how you're shooting and what you are talking to Jim,
it's amazing as well as even when you have all
of these things right, let's say that we start working
on our mechanics and we really start focusing on having
the gun that fits us really well. Jason and I
have spent numerous minutes and hours just in this past

(14:48):
spring talking about how many shotguns no longer shoot point
of aim and point of impact. So it's very important
when you start someone off shooting, or you give someone
a new gun, that you check automatically just putting that
gun onto a large sheet of paper to make sure

(15:12):
that you're not going backwards. Because nothing is more frustrating
with trying to teach somebody how to shoot and they
have everything developed and only to learn that the gun
shooting so far left, right, up or down that they're
not going to hit what they're aiming that period, if
they're doing what's right. Would you agree with that, Jason.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Yeah, that's absolutely on the money. So you know, I mean,
I'll give you an example. I have a four to
ten single shot here. It shoots twenty four inches low
at forty yards and I couldn't figure out when nobody
could hit anything with it. We put it on paper,
and I thought there was something wrong. We tried it
again and again it's so far off we couldn't even

(15:53):
get it to line when we put an optic on it.
So and I know that's an extreme circumstance, but I
have a lot of guns who shoot twelve inches left
that you have no idea that you, I mean, factory
brand new out of the box to twelve inches left,
five inches right, and you can tell it pretty fast
even at twenty yards fifteen yards. You don't need to

(16:15):
be shooting at fifty yards to find out. Get pretty
close to your target, piece of paper, single black dot,
hold it tight, squeeze slow, and see where it hits.
And if it doesn't hit all around that black dot,
you probably need to pay a little bit more attention
to what you got going on.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Absolutely, there's other things about technique that we're going to
talk about Jason throughout the course of the program.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
But one thing that I.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Would like to put in people's mind right now, because
as we talk about choke and et there there are
some respects that are going to go back to what
I'm bringing up here. The way I like to teach
people to shoot to wing shoot is to have them
shoot over water to where they can see the shot string. Folks,

(17:05):
a shotgun is not a pancake pattern like most people
think it is. Most people think they trap a berg
with that pancake of a pattern out there that all
gets there at once, Jason, as you know, it does
not work that way, and that becomes a no, and
that becomes a really big deal at long range. It

(17:28):
becomes a big deal in understanding that an open choke
tends to produce a shorter shot string than a tight choke,
which is one reason tight chokes are pretty demanding. But
if folks would practice shooting, you know, just off a
regular clay target thrower over water where they could see
that they're behind, which is as we all know, or

(17:51):
most people miss, it would go a long way to
helping them understand that if you're gonna miss, miss out
in front.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
So that is the gospel of how to miss. So
you you I would rather miss out front day after
day versus be behind one time, because worst case scenario,
you're going to catch him in the front with the
back of your pattern and you're you know, I grew
up in high wind shooting doves, and if you want
to miss, that's a humbling experience. And so you you

(18:26):
figure out real fast exactly where you need to be.
And most people, and I can testify this, I've we've
been running a private water fowl operation for you know,
give or take twenty years. The guys who can shoot,
they are always in front of the bird. The guys
who rush are always behind the bird. And that's that's

(18:47):
day after day, shooter after shooter, doesn't matter who they are.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Well, Jason.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
The thing that that helps people understand this, I think,
and I've taught god knows how many people to shoot,
is that because that's a string of pellets, you have
to understand that by putting further out in front, they
catch the majority of repellants of the charge, as opposed
to if you're a bit behind, you only getting half

(19:15):
of that pattern repellants. They're able to in accept the bird.
So we'll talk about that a little bit more. And
I got to think I got a really good way
to explain it after the break. This break is presented
by Massil Properties Heart Realty. Paul Thomas's The Broker has
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Speaker 3 (19:34):
You can check out all.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
His current liftings at mop h A r T realt
dot com dot You were going to make a point
there right for a break.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
Well, it's just so important when you start to wing
shoot and do so much shooting with clays and different
styles of targets to understand distance. I was fortunate enough
when I was very young to shoot on some really
epic field locations with Tom Kinnaff and several folks from

(20:11):
Benelli and learning distance, and that was the distance to
lead both on left and right, how things were approaching
or going away, and just how far away you were
actually shooting at a target and trying to read all that.
And for folks listening through the airwaves, I guess what

(20:32):
I want to share with you is when you truly
learn how to shoot with the proper lead or to
determine where your target's at and where your target's going
to be by the time that your shot pattern or
shot string gets there, it's almost it's haunting, but it's
so rewarding because when you start shooting and you really

(20:55):
start to perfect this, it blows you away a lot
of times, especially when you're shooting to the left and
the right, just how far you do have to lead.
And that's just something too. With the amount of technology
that we have in our cell phones today and the
amount of people who have got thousands and hundreds of

(21:17):
thousands of rounds behind them. Try to utilize some slow
motion footage with just a cell phone camera and make
sure that you have somebody over your shoulder and watching
you as canicts and develop that technique to relate to
the distance. Distance is just something that folks really got

(21:40):
to get accustomed to and practice, practice and practice, and
when you think you've practiced too much, go practice again,
because it's when you get out of that consistent rhythm
when you start picking up bad habits again, or you
start getting some of that rust not only on your
barrel but on you as a shooter.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Jason, I think the thing that another thing that I
guess could illustrate what we're talking about in terms of
lead that we were discussing there before the break. I
love to take a person that doesn't really know how
to shoot yet and take a garden holes with a
spray nozzle on it and thoro frisbee right to left,

(22:26):
left to right, and let them. See if they just
point at that and pull the trigger on that on
that holes, they're going to be way behind.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
They'll learn that very very quickly.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
And what I think is important to talk about here
is it is paramount that you keep that gun moving
when you slap that trigger. I know those guys that
say they spot shoot, and I think that's one reason
that's the quail and ground shunters have such a hard

(22:59):
time with doves waterfowl. You know, they're used to taking
advantage of the shot string runners straight up the bird's back,
if you will, because most of your shots are either
slot of the corning or straight away, and most of
your shots are close. But when you're talking about waterfowl
does you've got to get that gun moving, and you've

(23:20):
got to keep it moving because the second you stop,
that bird leaves that string of shot we were talking about,
correct it does.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
That being said, I am a point and shooter, so
I don't swing my gun the way a lot of
guys need to. But I think it's just because I've
just shot so much that at some point your gun
just becomes an appendage to you. But I actually teach
everybody who when I'm trying to explain to somebody exactly

(23:52):
what you're talking about. So we don't do what the
garden hose. We do with a football. So we get
out somebody out there running at thirty yards, okay, throw
a football at them, straight at them, and it'll end
up being fifteen feet behind them by the time that
ball gets the ground, and then we start trying to
transition that over to the shotgun. So once you can
kind of figure out that you're supposed to be in front,

(24:14):
it's a lot easier, I will tell you. The other
thing that's the real problem is of all ages, new
shooters are overmanaged, so there's almost always somebody sitting right
behind them trying to tell them exactly what to do,
when most people will actually learn better through trial and error.
So you can give them tips and you can give
them pointers, but there's a lot of guys out there

(24:37):
who almost want to take the gun out of the
kid or the new shooter's hand. You know women too,
and they literally want to shoot the gun for the wife.
You can't do that. You just got to let them fail,
just like somebody let you fail when you were young.
And the more you pull the trigger in all kinds
of scenarios, so sporting clay, traps, ski, it doesn't make

(24:58):
any difference to all that because it's all going to
give you a different skill set that you did not
possess before you started doing that.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yes, sir, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
The swing shooting method is one that I find the
easiest to teach beginning shooters, especially because if you start
as you come up on a dove, let's say that's
flying past you, all you got to do is bring
that gun up. It's the Europeans call it butt belly,

(25:31):
beak bam. And really what you're doing is you're coming
up behind the bird, accelerating your gun to catch at speed.
Continue to accelerate, and as you see the barrel pass
through the head, speed up and that automatically establishes the
lead out to about forty yards beautifully.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
It's just that simple. But if you stop as you
pull the trigger, not so much. It won't work so well.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
The reason why that method works best, and it does
work best, is because you're drawing a line through your
gun barrel. So, sir, as you're going from the tip
to the you know, to the beak, the tail to
the beak, you're drawing a line in which that bird's going.
And so by the time and not all birds go
perfectly straight. You know, a lot of them are going

(26:20):
up or out or slate quartering or what have you.
And so you think you're in front of the bird
and your shot ends up being two feet behind him
or below them because that bird's climbing and you didn't
know it. So your method works better. And that's, honestly,
that's how I teach virtually everybody else who shoots with us,
that's what you do. And I have watched a lot
of guys who swing and then stop, which is probably

(26:42):
even worse than just pointing.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Oh yes, definitely. It's a road to hell. Quite simple,
it just doesn't work. The cool thing about it too,
If a bird's climb and let's say a dove's coming
at you, and he changes course and starts to climb.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
That swing shoot. He forces you to.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Redirect the gun barrel and pick up that I call
a line of deflection that he's taken. In other words,
he's taking a different course and your gun barrel tracks that.
And then as you move through him again and pass
through the head, make sure you visually see your barrel
accelerate and pass through his head. And then as you

(27:25):
slapt that trigger again, you're placing that shot charge out
in front of him where he'll fly through it. In
an incover. No incovers are hard for a lot of people.
I had trouble with it for years and years, so
I finally figured out, in many ways, the easy shot
of all.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Just start belong him, come.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Up through him when you see them the gun barrel,
blot him out, pass his head, pull the trigger, and
he's dead.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Every time to keep that barrel moving.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
I get a question for both of you as I
sit here and listen. It does prove that great wing
shooters have different techniques, number one, and that you can't
just say that there's a cookie cutter method. But one
thing we've not talked about, and it's something that's very
important to me when it comes to this, it's keeping

(28:18):
both eyes open, or whether or not someone decides to
shoot with one eye. I'm a huge advocate for teaching
folks how to shoot with both eyes open for a
multitude of reasons, more importantly for just the entire field
of view of what you see. Because I'm just gonna
say it, if there's two ducks coming in over here

(28:40):
and there's eight ducks coming in over here, I may
wait and shoot into that group of eight before I
shoot those group of two. And the same way when
you get into wing shooting, sometimes you got to pick
and choose your shots. When you have multiple birds, especially
and you're in what most folks know is being on
the X, it's very important to know which one you

(29:01):
better take and which one you may come up after
on your second and third shot, and that recovery is
so important. And I think open eyes or closed eyes
is a topic that folks would want to hear, So
I would just like to hear both of you comment
on your preferred method of shooting open eyes or want
to open.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
I'm strictly both both eyes.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Got. There's a lot of reasons for it. The most
important one is that's where your depth perception comes from,
and that becomes I think Jason critical on waterfowl hunt,
especially if a person has the ability to learn through repetition,
which is something you're very keen on. That enables you

(29:48):
to learn, you know, to judge yardage in a certain
fashion because you don't shoot a close duck like you
shoot a far dough. I mean the lead factors become different.
I would assume you're too. I got but I'd like
to hear what you say.

Speaker 5 (30:06):
Oh yeah, you can't shoot with one eye closed with
a shotgun. If you do, you're making your pulling trigger
one time because you're never going to see the second shot.
You're never going to see the second bird. You're not
even going to really catch up to the first bird
if you missed him. So if you don't have two
eyes open, you're you're already starting at the handicapped.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
Before we go in to break gim you know, going
back to the mechanics and fundamentals if we're really gonna
bring something to the table for folks to shoot with,
as you should have done before you begin to shoot.
But let's just say that there's some folks out there
and we've all seen it. You really got to learn
whether not your left eye or right eye dominant. And

(30:49):
that can get into a very controversial topic as well,
when it comes to shooting dynamics and foundations of trying
to make someone a better wing shooter, because some folks
over the years still try to correct something that you know,
naturally they were born with. And you can go back
and forth, but what's what's your experience Jason on working

(31:12):
with with folks on left eye or right eye dominant
and trying to get them to correct that, even if
it's something that they think, well, this feels more natural
with my on hand versus my off hand. How have
you help folks over the years deal with that?

Speaker 5 (31:27):
You you pick the eye is more important than whether
you're right handed or left handed. So whatever, if your
right eye dominant, shoot right hand. If your left eye
dominant and right handed, you still shoot with your left eye.
I found that most guys will get faster and faster
as they keep shooting, but you'll never be able to
fix being the opposite eye. It's how you were born.

(31:50):
So you might as have just accepted. And I know
several people like that, and they may not be the
fastest shooter, but they are significantly more accurate than if
they switched hand. It's really easy to miss three times
in a row, so, you know, and a lot of
guys do just that. But yeah, I would take I
would take any body who's left eye dominant and make

(32:12):
them shoot as a left handed shooter.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
You know. And there's there's a couple of unique ways
to test for that. Jason, I'm sure you fooled with
some of these. But the easiest one is to have
somebody put their hands out in front of them and
make like a little triangle, you know, between their palms,
and have a small object on the ground in front
of them and look.

Speaker 6 (32:34):
Through that with both eyes open. They close your left eye.
If it's still there, you're right eye dominant. If it disappears,
then your left eye dominant.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
And it'll teach you pretty quick because, as you say,
your dominant eye calculates for your brain. That's the easiest
way I can put it, all right, God, pardon said.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
We do it the exact same way, do you.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, it's so simple. I mean you just look through
a small amperature. It's something that both eyes open and
in folks, close your left eye it stays there, your
right eyes down it it disappears, it's your left eye
that's don Then once you know that, you move forward.
All right, got to go to quick break here. This
break is presented by SMI Marine.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Go see them. Let's take great care you remember you
never get soaked at SMI. Thanks you.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
We're going to talk about choke and loads and all
the things are going these magnificent products that you all
putting out there with the Epic Shot Shell Company. But
before we close out this hour, what are some additional
tips or mistakes that you think folks need to pay attention.

Speaker 5 (33:57):
To as far as shooting goes accuracy.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
Yes, sir, so.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
I would say, number one, you got to practice with
what you're actually going to be using. So don't take
out you're really nice, pretty over and under and shoot
clays with it all year and then go grab your
your beat up some automatic and go duck hunt. Right, So,
whatever you're actually gonna do, you need to practice with.
So put your jacket on, even if it's hot out,
even if it's only for you know, a couple rounds.

(34:28):
Make sure you're fit to everything that you're gonna be doing.
You know, try to use ammunition that closely replicates what
you're actually gonna be using in the field. So you
go and grab the cheapest possible box of lead shot
seven shots, you know, seven and a half, go to
the range and shoot, and then wonder why your three

(34:50):
inch twelve gage number two's don't quite shoot. The same
patterns are different, everything's going to be different.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Yes, sir, no doubt about it.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
What are some of the most claiming mistakes you see
people make, especially shooting.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
Out of duck blines, rushing, trying to mount their gun
and take their safety off before it's time. People have
no idea how much time you actually have to pull
that trigger. The best shooters in the blind are not
the guys who pull the trigger first. Ever. The guys
who pull the trigger first usually miss. They're trying to rush,

(35:27):
And I've seen guys from the right side of the
blind trying to shoot the duck on the left side
because it's closer. Don't do that. Stay in your lane
and you'll be so much more successful, you know.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
I think that's great advice on a lot of different fronts,
because a guy that's deliberate is more relaxed and gets
in line with his barrel and gets it done by
getting out in front of the burn.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
And that's it's just that simple.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
If you're gonna let's close out with this. If you're
gonna miss, folks, miss out in front. It's it's really
important to get that through that that head, because that's
a big deal. All right, folks, got to go to
news break here. This break is presented by Massel Property's
Heart Realty. Paul Thomas has some great listings available right
now and he'll be glad to look at your property

(36:19):
and see that you get a great appraisal and a
great sale.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
Check them out an m O p h A R
T Realty dot com.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
I'm curious and would very much appreciate your thoughts about
choke and choke selection. Uh maybe we could start with
does movie The Waterfowl and then uh, you know, we
talked a little bit about upland birds, but upland birds
it's a little less demanding than it is the others.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
But I'd like your thoughts on that.

Speaker 5 (36:53):
So I'll tell you the difference of the factory chokes
versus thirty years ago is pretty pretty staggering. So we've
been running the last couple of weeks, we've actually been
running patterning tests and we're putting on YouTube for guys
to be able to watch the same shell out of
three or four different chokes. So a factory versus you know,

(37:13):
one hundred dollars choke versus one hundred and fifty dollars choke.
The factories are doing better than expected. As a matter
of fact, sometimes they're better than a hundred dollar choke.
I think most guys don't want to change their choke
out that what's in the gun is going to stay there,
and it may just rust in there before the you know,
before they quit using that gun. I don't know. I'd

(37:36):
say dove hunters, if they'd open that choke up, are
going to be more successful because they're probably not as
far out in front as they really need to be.
And I think duck hunters, i'd say, most of the time,
just stick with them modified most of the time. You're
going to be more successful if you just kind of

(37:59):
go right down in the middle of the I'm one
of those guys who likes a really really tight choke
because I would rather completely miss it or kill a
dead But most guys are going to have a lot
harder time hitting a bird with a really really tight
choke modified for most situations, whether it's up land, whether
it's dove, whether it's clay, whether it's goose, that's gonna

(38:21):
get you out to forty yards without too much problem.
Most guys are not honestly gonna shoot past forty yards.
They claim it's a seventy yards shot and it's forty five,
and that goes back to what we were talking about earlier,
with you know, actually understanding your distance waterfowl go there.
Most guys aren't gonna put their decoys past twenty five yards.
If your birds are five year olds on the other

(38:42):
side of your decoys, they're not. At sixty yards, your
pattern is still only gonna be twenty five twenty eight
thirty inches across. It doesn't give you a ton of
room to miss, but it's plenty enough to hit the
bird at twenty five thirty five, forty five. A lot
of the new chokes out there, they just don't seem

(39:02):
to be doing. They don't seem to be doing as
much as we would expect them to do for paying
that much money for them. And there's a lot of
reasons to have an upper end choke.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
Can can I brag on Jason for just a minute
so that folks do understand why he's he's on the air.
It's not just for his phenomenal wing shooting. It's the
fact that Jason realized there was a shortfall in the
quality of ammunition that is out there, so to reverse

(39:36):
some things. Jason just told us that the chokes are
a little bit better today. The guns are doing a
little bit better with their factory chokes, But I don't
know if we have across the board as good a
quality as AMMO is what we could use to go
and pick up because components and everything got so out
of line. And when we talk about these chokes, it's

(39:58):
extremely important to see how different shells and how those
components are in them make up your pattern, and how
different pellets sizes and different pellet alloys change how well
or how bad your gun patterns, and all this stuff
right there and let you two to take over.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Well, Jason, I'm in total agreement with you about well
you said about the chokes. For instance, with the doves,
I think most guys tend to be over choked. They mistakenly,
I guess, think that they got to be prepared for
the extra long shot.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
And if you.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
As you know, day in and day out, most of
the game, that shot is shot with the inside of
forty yards, and longering shooting is especially I mean, there's
no doubt about it. We were talking earlier about swinging
through in spots shooting. I shoot a lot of sustained
lead out a real long yard is, but that's something

(41:01):
that comes only after you fired thousands. I mean, it'd
be difficult for me to even explain how you do that.
But with dove, honey, if you actually step those birds off,
I guarantee the majority of them you shoot are inside
of the thirty five to forty yard range, which is

(41:23):
in proof cylinder territory. And I go so far as
to say a skeet's not a bad choice, especially if
you go to smaller shop like a number eight. You know,
I'm a seven and a half guy, because I love
to eat those eight. For me, if they're centered in
the pattern, tear the meat up a little more than

(41:44):
I desire. But and you see where I'm coming from
there you agree with that?

Speaker 5 (41:52):
Oh yeah, I can tell you, Like I said, we've
spent the last couple of weeks putting loads on paper,
and years ago we had really two choices. You want steeler,
you want lead. That's it. And then so you know,
you shot your clays and your doves and you're uplanding
your pheasant. You shot that with lead, and you shot
your waterfowl steel And that has changed greatly, And I

(42:16):
can tell you every single alloy you shoot is now different,
and patterns different through different chokes tungsten, for whatever reason,
stays tight all the time you have you have a
hard time opening up a tungsten pattern unless you go
really fast you break fourteen to fifty plus on the speed,

(42:37):
then you actually have some issues because it just tends
to want to go wild. But bismuth is another, you know,
another problem. So vismuth patterns very similar to lead, so
you get really nice dense patterns, but they're not clumpy,
and they're not you know, way outside the paper, so
a lot of it will stay, you know, kind of

(42:57):
right there in you're thirty in circle of thirty yards,
which to me is how we kind of judge what
we're looking for for patterns. Steal shot it's different again
because you're trying to go faster, so you're you're throwing
stuff out there and it catches more wind and it
just starts to peel off a little bit different, but
it's different than it used to be. And I'll tell

(43:18):
you one of the largest kind of lessons we've learned
of the last couple of years. We were always told
that ported chokes shorten off the shot string. But the
videos that we've seen of the really really high end
camera shooting, it it actually makes it longer. So we
were always told that, you know, the wad would go

(43:40):
out and actually push through the shot, and then it
would disperse some of the shot left right, and then
the wad would fall back through the shot a second
time and cause this void or this opening in your pattern.
And after watching it on film, it's it's none of
that happens. It doesn't happen on a factory choke. It
doesn't happen on a portage choke. It doesn't happen on

(44:00):
a non ported joke. But the non ported chokes seem
to in most situations have a better pattern than the
port it. The only time we really find that the
port it is better is when we're trying to pull
that wad off faster, like some of the tongues and stuff.
We're trying to get that wad off of the off
of the shot so it can open up a little bit.

(44:21):
But most of the other stuff, it seems like the
porting is actually more detrimental than the non ported.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yes, sir, I want to return to something when you
said too about modified chokes for waterfowl being day in,
day out excellent, and I totally agree with you because
despite what many people think larger shot does better in
a little looser choke, and the shot tends to the

(44:49):
form less insteads the pattern more evenly. And all the
experiments I've done through the years, you agree with that.

Speaker 5 (44:58):
Oh yeah, I could. I tell you. You know, we
we went so far as to actually put calibers on
chokes this year, the same gun, you know, same twenty gauge,
nothing's gonna change. We put calibers on it, and they're
all off. There's no consistency in this industry. The you know,
the boar diameters different from manufacture to manufacture, the choke

(45:21):
diameter is different from manufacturer to manufacture. So we're picking
modified because it just is the middle of the road
option and it is the most consistent for the guys
who need more consistency. But if I had to do
it again, I would open up my pattern modified or

(45:42):
more open for most situations. The only time we would
not do that is if we're gonna shoot high wind
or long distance, so divers on the water at you know,
forty fifty sixty yards that are tough to shoot, or
if we're gonna shoot really really high wind and the
guys are shooters, you can tighten those jokes up just fine.

(46:02):
You know, the reason why I tend to shoot a
really tight choke is because I don't shoot the first shot.
The shots that I have or sideways and backwards, and
the birds, you know, leaving or hit by somebody else.
So we're trying to we're trying to fix the scenario.
We're not trying to shoot them in the decoys. If
guys would loosen the choke up, they will knock down
more birds. It's not like it used to be where

(46:27):
you know, you can hit them with a couple pellets
and the bird may not fall or may fall. This
new emo we have now, the way that we have
created it, it is so much more effective than it
was twenty years ago. Even the steel shot is not
even close to what it was twenty years ago. We
have done so much more homework. The wads are better,

(46:48):
the powders more clean. The whole nine yards is all
set up now to keep you successful. It's not meant
to be, you know, make it easier for you to
be a failure. You're you're going. I need to go
out there with new equipment and with the new aim
of that's out there in the world, and you're going
to be significantly more effective, and a couple pellets will

(47:09):
do it, especially if you again like we're going back
to the same point again. But as long as you
miss out front, and I'll be honest, you know, I'd
like to actually hear both of you guys on this one.
How many times have you shot when you thought it
was what I want to call uncomfortably far out? How
many times have you actually missed? Because most of the time,
when we're uncomfortably far out, we still crumble the bird

(47:32):
that tells you how far behind the bird? Most guys actually.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Are Yes, sir, I'll let us say answered that after
the break and I can repeat it when we come back.
This break is presented by SMI Marine. They're eleven four
hundred Westport Road, just north of the snatter. Remember you
never get soaked at SMI. You have a question for it?

Speaker 5 (47:58):
Yeah, I want to know. I'm kind of curious now,
so we call it missing uncomfortably out front? How many
times have you been so uncomfortable out front that you
were sure you're gonna miss that bird and actually missed it?
Because most of the time, when we feel like we're
still we're way too far out. We're still not so

(48:19):
far out. We're actually gonna miss God.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
I'll let you handle that first, and I've got to
that something to say that I think to pickle both
of you.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Go ahead, Scott.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
I think over the years, I think being a hunter
and understanding how to set myself up on the element
of surprise and truly being able to.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Pass shoot.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
Allowed me to talk to what Jason is at, and
that is that I don't want the birds to know
where I'm at, and I want to be able to
shoot birds to.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Where I have that.

Speaker 4 (48:59):
Second and third, I'm not worried about just dropping one.
I'm worried about dropping a lot of birds.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Now.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Conservation stops the day that opening day begins, and conservation
picks back up when season goes out. Now, you stay
within your legal limit. But the point of getting out
and doing wing shooting versus being a white tail hunter,
for example, is that you get a lot of shooting
in and when you allow that shotgun to do the

(49:30):
work that it is supposed to do, and those pellets
to do the work that they can do. Yeah, hands down,
I love shooting farther out. It gives me a bigger
field of you. I like shooting a little bit bigger
pellet and a little bit different alloy than most people.
I understand pellet size and density, and I like to

(49:52):
crush birds, not just hit birds. And you choke yourself up.
You've choked yourself up. What's at the end of the errol.
You choke yourself up and you make yourself miss when
your game is too close to you. That's that's my verdict,
my Renk Along missigation.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
I think you'll get.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
A kick out of it because it goes back to
your method of shooting. When I'm shooting long birds, and
I dearly love to do it, I use sustained lead.
But to your point about when they're really far out,
you know, missing them.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Too far in front.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
What I do I shoot sustained lead. I attract the bird,
I get the lead established things there, and at the
end of that, I give that gun a push. By that,
I mean I really accelerate, and I mentally tell myself
push because by doing that again, I'd rather miss out

(50:54):
in front. So what I see happening, there is a
lot of long run range birds kill the way Scott's
talking about a lethal shot, not you know, butt shooting
or wounding them. But the majority of that pattern gets
the opportunity to run over that bird. That bird is
flying through that pattern. So that'd be my way to

(51:15):
answer that. Yes, you're right, miss way out in front,
and if you make yourself do that.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
I'll put it this way.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
On days when I see guys missing little birds, I
tell them all the same thing. Double your lead. I
don't care what you think you should be doing, you'll
miss it. Double your lead, and pretty soon they'll they'll
start to see those birds drop.

Speaker 4 (51:36):
The Jason's question, Jim, what happens is you absolutely get
to utilize the core of your pellet pattern in Instead
of just being at the front of your pellets or
at the back of your pellets, You're you're hitting with density.

(51:57):
Like if you can put ten pellets in to a duck,
or you can put fifteen pellets into the zone of
what you're shooting into, that can absolutely crush you know,
and I'm talking about truly foe these birds over land
or over water. What you're doing is you're allowing your

(52:19):
shotgun shell to operate it full capacity. Your shotgun is
going to operate and perform. From where you were talking
about slap to trigger. Where I pull the trigger, I'm
wanting to utilize my shot, and that is why you
shoot a shotgun, and it's different than a rifle. It's

(52:40):
about the pattern.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
No question of course, Jason.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
We're going to talk at length here in a few
minutes about some of your innovations which are remarkable, especially
some of the stuff you're dealing with business, and I'm
really looking forward to your shot thoughts about steel and
some of your other options.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
But uh, let me go through that.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
I would like very much for you as a sidebar
to talk choke options that you consider best suited to
those types of of options that you all provide because
you all are a custom shot gunshot company, that's what
you do, and you sell online which obviously kind of

(53:29):
cuts out a little bit of the middle man and
make your products a little more affordable. So does that
feel comfortable for you?

Speaker 3 (53:39):
Can you walk through that way forward?

Speaker 5 (53:41):
Yeah? So, uh, which one do you want to start with?

Speaker 2 (53:46):
You want to start with the let's let's start with
the business, and you don't mind, because I'm fascinated with
what you all doing with it. We'll do that, actually, Frank,
if you don't mind, that will give you all right, folks,
gotta go break. This break is presented by Moss Old Properties,

(54:07):
Heart Realty. Go see them. They've got great riftings outdoor cabins, farms,
Timber Properties, King Riverfront Holmes check about an f O
P H A R T Realty dot Com.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
Thank you, and again i'd like.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
To start to tell us about your products, your custom
shot shelves. Let's start with the business and why it's
different and why you developed your special type of load.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Sure, so business is not all the same. So no
matter what you do, it's just the name of a product,
but it can have different densities from different companies. It
can be more brittle, that can be less brittle. So
we have developed what we call high tensile business, and
what it is is just a slight variation of a

(54:58):
business pellet that allows it to retain generally at least
as much weight perpellet as other business on the market.
Is actually heavier than quite a few of them. But
it also rotains its structure when it hits so a
lot of business and this is why, going back twenty years,
guys didn't like business. They were really excited when it

(55:20):
came out and they had a really bad experience with it,
and what happened was that business by its very nature
is a fragile product. So because of that, when you
would load it and then you would fire it, they
would basically push against themselves and they would crack and fracture.
And there's a lot of guys who've shot it who
are going to say exactly what I'm about to tell

(55:41):
you that they pulled a bird open and there's a
half a pellet in it. But when you have a
number five pellat and you break it in half, you're
you might as be shooting, you know, number eight bird
shot at them. And this business is different because you
can take our business actually crush it with a pair
of pliers and it basically stays all in one piece
and retains the flier marks in it. So when you

(56:03):
actually load it and when you fired and when you
hit the bird, you're hitting it with a full size pellet.
That's what's so much different about our Busmuth versus other
busmus on the market. Unfortunately, Bismuth is not dead, but
it is leaving the marketplace very very fast, and we're

(56:24):
probably looking at one, two, three years of having a
short business supply if we have any business at all,
which is why we're now switching over and we have
been working on this for since twenty twenty three. We're
going to be bringing out a copper product probably later
this year. Actually, we're in production of it right now.
We're finishing up listics and looking and seeing how it

(56:47):
actually works and what we need to tweak on the
pellet and things like that. But as far as bismuth goes,
it was such a great step up from steel shot,
but without being so rice like tungsten is. It's also
barrel states that you can shoot it in old guns,
you can shoot it in new guns. You can drop

(57:07):
pellet sizes down so you get a better shot pattern,
you get more pellots on target. Bismuth was the answer
to all the problems we had coming out of the
you know, the nineties and the two thousands with steel shop.
Today's marketplace is just different because the US does not

(57:29):
own business. China owns ninety plus percent of the business
in the world, not just in China, in the world,
and so when they say no, it's no, and they
said no, and we're we're now stuck. So thankfully we've
we've had some of this foresight to go ahead and
start working alternative products. So we're not really scrambling, but

(57:50):
we're definitely want to bring out the proper product next
that is at least comparable to the current business that
we have going on.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Briefly, if you would, Jason, talk about the shot sizes
that you recommend for folks who will be purchasing your business.
For example, large ducks and geese versus you know, te
o woodies, the smaller ducks.

Speaker 5 (58:18):
Early season birds with bismuth, you know, fives and sixes.
You start getting a little bit later in the year,
a little bit bigger birds, a little bit more decoy
shy Alan we'll call shy. Drop that down a little
bit to fours and fives three five blends been really
really popular the last couple of years. It's going to
give you the same pellet count as a number four

(58:40):
because you're going one way fifty percent the other. You're
going to get a little extra distance out of the threes,
and you get a little more pattern out of the five,
So it really does work well together. How about geese
for geese, Yeah, geese three fives and down, So three fives,
four threes, two, depending on what you're doing. But you

(59:02):
would be surprised how many guys are extremely effective with
fors for across the board, sea ducks, teal Canada, geese,
snow gee screens, doesn't matter. Furs are kind of the
focal point of the business world.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
I'm glad to hear you say that because that's where
that shoot, and I feel very comfortable with that. I mean,
I'm a little large shot for smaller Dutch, but I'm
still shooting goose, you know, and as we all know,
a lot of times you get opportunities at different size
birds when there's waterfowl. Honey, tell us about your copper shot.

(59:40):
Since you mentioned that, I'm curious what you're testing is
showing where your thoughts are.

Speaker 5 (59:50):
So copper is going to be a little bit later
than business, heavier than steel, It's going to be more
rich then Busmit this, so you're not gonna have any
fracturing issues. You're not gonna have to worry about any
of that kind of stuff. The copper that we're using
is going to be barel safe as well, so we

(01:00:10):
can run a lot of different guns with the same product.
We're going to bring out two different products. One is
just a straight round pellet. The second one, which we're
finishing up now, is actually going to be see if
I can explain this the best way I can. It
is going to be a round pellet for the top
and the bottom are going to be just slightly cut off,

(01:00:32):
so it's almost going to have a cap on the
top of the bottom. It also has a ring around
the center, which is what we're calling a razor ring.
Here's why that's different. We're running at medium speed to
the same speed that we run business, which is about
thirteen fifty. The patterns are really really good, but when
we put this stuff into the ballistic jel, it runs
deeper for penetration than the business does. Okay, bismuth gets

(01:00:59):
plenty far into the bird, so it's going to go
all the way up into the cavity just like it's
supposed to. We don't really want it to go too
much further because we're not going to be transferring enough
of the of the pressure and the power into the bird.
That little sunny cutting ring and the little tiny dead
ends what they seem to do is grab, so it's
kind of like an expandable broadhead opening up into a deer.

(01:01:22):
When it goes in, it enters and then it starts
to rip and pull and push, and it drags itself
all the way up into the cavity. So the wound
channel is better than business. By adding those little features
onto it, we're actually allowing the shot to stop into
the bird before it would go before. So it's kind

(01:01:44):
of like hitting it with a sledgehammer. So you're not shooting,
you're not shooting the bird and just the you know,
like like you're shooting a solid core twenty two. It
doesn't just zip right through. We wanted to go in
and transfer one percent of that energy into the bird.
And we're not talking about shots next shots, you know,
we're talking about mid cavity back. The bad shots are

(01:02:05):
the ones we worry about because those are the ones
that end up with cripple birds. They're the ones that
require two and three shots to put down. So we
want something that will push farn up in but also
causes enough carnage on the way in to be really
really effective. So, like I said, we've been working on
this since twenty twenty three and I'm happy with where
we are, and now it's just a matter of finalizing

(01:02:29):
the product and actually getting it to market, which at
this point looks like maybe sixty days or so.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
Great, great, he's unk.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
You have a significant amount of that ready for waterfowl season.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Yeah we should. We should have them out this year.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Good, good deal.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Okay, let me go to a quick break because I
want to give you time to talk about your steel
and you're tunged, and because here again you're doing some
pretty amazing stuff. You gotta go to break folks is
percent by s my marine, go see them. Let's take
great care you remember you never get soaked by my
friends at SMI thank shouldn't tell us about your tungsten

(01:03:12):
loads and what they can do for folks in pump
turkey too as well.

Speaker 5 (01:03:19):
Yeah, tungsten is the tungsten is the top of the hill.
So if you can afford tungsten, then you won't go back.
And if you can't afford it, don't try it because
you're gonna be really depressed after you've run out of
your tinner or under chills. But you know, let's be honest,
we're killing turkeys with a four to ten at sixty

(01:03:40):
yards with number nine shot. It's hard for guys to
wrap their head around the fact that you can shoot
such small pellets. I mean A seven is a large
pellet in tungsten, and we can shoot geese way way
past where you would ever think you could actually shoot
a goose. So tungsten is is the I mean, there

(01:04:00):
is no doubt about it. There are inherent issues with
tungsten that it flies really really tight. And I just
like I said, we just did some videoing on this
the other day. It's unbelievable the difference between shooting a lead,
a steel, a bismuth, and a tungsten load. All the
first three will shoot normal. You put that tungs into
the same choke, the same gun, your pattern's gonna be

(01:04:23):
half as big. So really you should almost never be
anything tighter than modified really closer to I see something
in that range is really where you should be on
the waterfoul for tungsten number one, it only takes a
couple of pellets, two three. You're gonna knock your duck
down with number eights. So you don't need to act

(01:04:44):
like as a turkey gun when you're duck hunting. You're
really gonna have issues with your pattern and with being
effective at under really forty fifty yards if you tighten
that choke up, So loosen it way up with tungsten,
and it is truly game changing. You can now take
and this is probably the best thing that's happened because

(01:05:05):
of tungsten. It has made four tens and twenty eight
gauges a thing that will rival a twelve gage with
steel shot. So you can have young shooters and old shooters,
people who don't want recoil anymore. They can all now
go out to the field, have a great day, and
shoot yeese with a twenty eight gauge at fifty yards

(01:05:28):
stone dead. That's the difference on tungsten. And we do
the same thing on turkey. Look how much range and Scott,
I'm sure can attest to this. How much more range
do you get versus tungsten versus leads. It's not even
it's not even in the same ballpark anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
No, it's it's it's revolutionary. It's the best way I
can describe it. I started playing around with it several
years ago and it blew my mind. You're exactly right,
I mean it did. I was like, you're kidding me.
A pattern like this, with the kinetic energy of this
carring is insane. Compared to everything we knew about lead

(01:06:08):
and I loved lead. You know, I have a guy
that's like, yeah, baby, it was the right lead load.
I'm in business here, But no, it can't ravel what
you do with tungsten. What is your trademark tungusen shell?
Or well, how would you lead folks into what they

(01:06:28):
should think about your load?

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
So if you're looking for first off, if you're going
to be shooting tongusten, you know there's gonna be a
reason for it. So you're not going to go out
there on a wood duck shoot at twenty yards shoot
tungus and you're just kind of wasting your money, right,
Save it for when it's appropriate to use it for.
But if you're going to run a twenty gauge and

(01:06:52):
you want to run and go shoot, you know, Harlequin,
you can do it now effectively with a clean conscience
and outshoot twelve gage to with steel all day long.
So we here have been running a little bit on
the heavier side of our loads, Like we have an
ounce in three, a twenty gauge load for tongusten, which
is extremely extremely heavy. It patterns wonderful. It doesn't have

(01:07:17):
as much recoal as you think it would. That shell
will beat virtually every single show on the market as
far as being lethal. You can take that, go shoot
whatever you want with it and not even think twice
about it. We have all the different options, right, so
we even have down to number two tongues. If you
want to get really, really crazy, we got number two tongstack.

(01:07:39):
You can shoot a coyot at one hundred yards with
number two tongustack. Okay, so how far can you how
far can you kill a goose? Right? And I've got
guys who like it. We've you know, five six, sevens,
we have all that. The reason why we actually did
the larger sizes is because it helped the guys do
the transition. They're coming from key shot and BB on

(01:07:59):
steel shot and then I'm going to go tell them
to shoot a number eight pellet. They can't get it
through their head that it's actually more affectional. It has
so much less wind drag, and it's so much heavier,
and the patterns just say so much tighter that it
is unbelievably deadly when you get out of distance, and
I mean you can shoot fifty sixty seventy plus yards

(01:08:22):
and your birds are upside down in the air. Before
they ever hit the ground. It's not like anything else
in the world. It's truly revolutionary compared to what we
had even fifteen years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
Yes, sir, how about your steel loads.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
Tell folks a little bit about them.

Speaker 5 (01:08:40):
What makes it feels a lot different than it used
to be too? Yeah. See, you know, I don't know
if you remember what steel was like when it first
came out.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
It was it was just, I'll put it this way.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
I hated it.

Speaker 5 (01:08:52):
It was awful. There's a reason why we all went
to three and a half inch guns. Okay, it wasn't
because we wanted to. We already we had three inch guns.
It's because it's the only thing we could do to
possibly shoot a goose at thirty yards. That stuff was horrible.
But we've learned so much since then. The wads are better,
the powder is better, we got the speed down. We

(01:09:13):
have the correct ratios now. But the steel SHOT's actually
better than what it was before. Two. It's plated. It
just it runs more true, it's more round than it
used to be. It's a little bit actually softer than
it used to be. So you get a lot of
benefits on the new steel shots. The new steel shot
is really really good product. The disadvantage is it has

(01:09:34):
more recoil. So if you're one of those guys like
me who's just tired of getting kicked, this is why
we go to business. This is why we're going to copper.
It's yes, we can shoot ducks with steel shot, we
can shoot geese with steel shots, but you feel like
somebody is just reaching back and punching you on the
shoulder every time you pull that trigger. And if you're
forty to fifty, sixty seventy years old and you're tired

(01:09:54):
of it, this is why guys are going away from steel.
It's a great product, it's necess sary in the marketplace,
especially for young shooters, you know, guys who don't want
to spend a lot of money. Whatever the case is,
it's necessary to have. But as far as me personally,
we're going to be shooting probably business, and I don't

(01:10:15):
even shoot tungsten. We don't find the need to shoot
tungsten and the ranges we're shooting. We shoot business and personally,
I shoot number five for the last two years and
you'd be amazed at how far there's number fives are
are accurate.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Yes, sir, I totally agree with that, Jason, being as
innovative as you are, tell folks a little bit about
the shipping that goes along with your product, and obviously
let folks know about maybe some of your YouTube stuff where.

Speaker 3 (01:10:50):
They can find it and fill the sin on that
if you would.

Speaker 5 (01:10:55):
Yeah, so let me tell you why we started this company.
We started Epic because I got really tired of finding
a decent product. And two years later you couldn't figure
out why I didn't shoot the same The cost doubled,
and it was just we went through the same cycle
every couple of years. So we decided that we kind

(01:11:15):
of had enough. We wanted an uper end product. We
wanted to be able to take care of our clientele,
and we wanted to actually have something that was readily
available for the guys who wanted something that was just
better than off the shelf. So everything that comes out
of here is basically customed. It's hands on. We know

(01:11:35):
every product that goes into it. Everything is extremely measured.
So when we know, if you call me and say, hey,
this is what I've been shooting, I'll be able to
tell you the difference. I'll be able to tell you
why is different. What's different what you should go to.
But when we're looking at a product, we wanted to
create a company that was a drop ship direct to consumer.

(01:11:57):
We also wanted to do that by not raising the price.
So instead of paying a third party the difference, we
decided to just take that off of the top and
allow our customers to have a less expensive ammunition. Shipping
is free on virtually everything that we have. You buy
one box of shells, it's free shipping. We do that
specifically to allow guys a chance to get in and

(01:12:20):
try what we have, and you'll if you shoot it,
you're going to understand the difference, especially if you're coming
from you know, a Walmart steel shot and you want
to switch up to the next level stuff. You're going
to understand real, real fast what the difference is between
custom ammunition versus just you know, kind of cheap off
the off the shelf stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
Days tell folks how to rate you real quick on
the net.

Speaker 5 (01:12:47):
Yeah, it's really easy. Epic EPI c shotshell dot com.
You get on the website. Whatever you need, it's on there.
If it says it's there, we have it. If you
have a question, give us a call. The shop YouTube
channel's epic shot shell is well, we'll have more videos
on there throughout the year. Other than that, it's a
pretty easy go. If you have something, if you place
an order with us, would generally have it shipped up

(01:13:08):
that there the next day, so you're not waiting two
weeks to get your order. When the order comes in,
it goes out.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
Okay, partner, We sure you appreciate it. God bless everybody.