Gundog Nation
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Jimmy Muller - From Machine Shop To Mastery: How Muller Chokes Redefined Shotgun Patterns
#65 What if your choke isn’t what’s holding you back—but how you understand it is? We sit down with Jimmy Muller of Muller Chokes, a master toolmaker and elite shooter who went from aerospace and defense machining to reinventing shotgun performance. Jimmy pulls back the curtain on why two “modified” chokes can pattern wildly differently, how taper, parallel, surface finish, and concentricity shape results, and why barrel harmonics make shotguns far more individual than most shooters realize.
From there, we dig into the physics you can feel in the blind. Jimmy explains gun-specific patterning geometry and the testing behind it—dozens of guns, bore diameters, and thousands of rounds on paper, water, mud, gel, and high-speed video. You’ll learn why stacked or blended shot sizes lead to mass separation and longer shot strings, how sphere packing inside the barrel creates pressure dynamics that change consistency, and where blended loads look fine at common ranges but fall apart when distance stretches. He’s blunt about what a choke can and can’t fix, and how to pick more uniform ammo that lets geometry shine.
Skill ties it all together. Jimmy’s method—“kill it with your eyes”—teaches you to control birds from the front, not panic from behind. We talk rangefinding to calibrate true 30 to 50 yard shots, using sporting clays to build mount and move, and adopting a modified pull-away or sustained-lead approach that matches speed, opens a clean gap, and finishes with confidence. Add smart gear choices, realistic velocities, and a choke designed for your gun’s harmonics, and you’ll see tighter patterns, shorter shot strings, and cleaner kills across ducks, upland, and clays.
If this deep dive helps your shooting, share it with a hunting buddy, tap follow, and leave a quick review so more shooters can find it. Got questions or a patterning win to share? Drop us a note and let’s keep learning together.
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I'm Kenneth Witt and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. Gun Dog Nation is much more than a podcast. It's a movement to build a community of people around the world that like to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we want to get our youth involved into the sport of gun dogs, whether it be hunting, sport, or competition. We want to build a community of people united to preserve our gun dog heritage and to be better gun dog owners. Tune in to each weekly episode and learn about training, dog health, wellness, and nutrition. We will also offer tips for hunting with dogs and for competition, uh, hunt tests, field trials, and other dog sports that involve gun dogs. Please go to our website, gundognation.com, and subscribe to our email list. We will keep you informed weekly with podcasts that are coming out. We also will be providing newsletters with training tips and health tips for your dog. You can also go to patreon.com forward slash gundognation and become a member. There's different levels of membership on there. Just go check that out. Also, we'd like to thank Sean Brock for providing the music for this show. The introduction and the outro is Sean Brock. He played everything on there except the Banjo by Scott Vest on the Dobro by Jerry Douglas. Sean is a neighbor of mine from over in Harlan, Kentucky. I'm just crossing the mountain in Hyden, Kentucky, and he's a super talented guy. But most of all, want you guys to check out the Creekers. They are also from Hydon, Kentucky. This is an up-and-coming bluegrass and country band. And these guys are hot. They're all over TikTok and YouTube. You will hear these guys because in a year or so they will be on the radio. They are very talented. Their videos are going viral on the net. These boys are family. Two of the lead singers, one grew up with my daughters, and the other one is my cousin's son. So he's family. But check them out. Check out the Creakers. Also, last but not least, if you want to buy a hat, koozie, t-shirt, or even gun dog supplies, go to shopgundognation.com and you can purchase any of those items. Thank you so much for listening. It's a privilege to have people that want to put up with me talking about dogs all the time. I actually enjoy what I do, and I'm so glad to have this opportunity. And thank you. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Gun Dog Nation podcast. I'm coming to you today from Fort McCabot, Texas, actually this evening. And uh I've I've I've got this guy on. I actually chased him down on social media because a friend loaned me one of his products used while duck hunting in Saskatchewan about two weeks ago. And and I've heard people talk about your product. We're gonna tell we're gonna talk about what that is. And and I had a lot of friends that use them, and I was like, all right, and just so happened a friend of mine, JJ French, uh, that was uh there hunting, he and his daughter with us, he said, Man, I I've got one in my backpack, I'll own it to you. I use it the rest of the day, you know. And I I thought, man, I know you still got to be a good shot, but I like what I see. And Jim, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself here in a second, but you know, I I'm I'm a military guy. I I was in the in the army and uh and I shoot. I'm a hunter. But to be honest, I'm not a I'm not like a gun nerd. I've got lots of guns, but I don't sit and get into all the specs. I'm not a patient guy. And and embarrassingly enough, I let a couple of my friends uh zero my guns in for me. Because I still I can't stay, you know, I just want to shoot. I don't I don't get into the ballistics, don't care if I want to shoot and I want something to die, and that's it. So, Jim, please uh introduce yourself. I know you don't need an introduction in this industry, but go ahead, please.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, Ken. So Jimmy Muller here, Muller Chokes. And uh it's awesome to be on your show. Uh that's great that you're up in Saskatchewan with JJ, man. That was a great time, I hear.
SPEAKER_00:It was. They were fun, and his you know, his daughter, uh, she's pretty hardcore, you know. When I look over and I'm sitting here kind of cold, and I look at Addie and she had on Crocs and no socks.
SPEAKER_01:I thought, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I was like, okay, I'm not gonna complain, but my feet are frozen. I had big boots on and warm socks. And uh I even offered her some of those little foot warmers, you know, just stick in your boots, and she's like, you know, I was like, yeah, she's hardcore. Yeah, but she they were they were real fun. We had a great time, and the guys we were hunting with uh actually knew the outfitter from dog training. And we both uh had gone to Cornerstone members weekend. But anyway, so Jim, how did you get started? What uh did were you a military guy, just a hunting enthusiast, competition shooter? What got you into the choke business?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so when uh when I was six years old, just turned six, I shot my first duck flying and uh October 13th, 1975. So uh man, I'm getting old. But anyway, so shot my first duck flying um 1975, fast forward, um ended up uh 1988, graduated trade school as a machinist, got into aerospace defense manufacturing my senior year, um, did a lot of very tight tolerance uh classified projects for DARPA, Hubble Telescope, Blackhawk helicopters, presidential helicopters, nuclear subs, you name it, lots of classified military stuff, um weaponry, all that. And uh did that. I was working at the same machine shop from 88 when I was in high school, worked there for 18 years, and then started my own machine shop. And you know, I was doing the same work in my own machine shop, and in uh in 2008, the economy tanked, and um I lost all my aerospace and defense customers like in a week, gone. And I was like, well, what am I gonna do now to pay the bills? And I had created the best choke in the world at the time. I was using it for my own advantage for a clay target competition, shooting sporting clays competitively all over the country. And I'm like, I know I have the best choke in the world. I made it that way because I wasn't happy with anything else on the market. I had improved every downside to a choke tube. And I'm like, I'm gonna patent this, I'm gonna bring it out of the closet, see if it'll help pay the bills. And I did that, and it literally just took off. And so I was back in the machine shop, you know, running six, seven days a week. And in a very short period of time, I was working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, just making choke tubes. And then I started going on back order, and I'm like, man, this is insane. So, so that's how my choke tube manufacturing and business started with choke tubes. But what had happened, you know, way previous to that, um, that patented product was a featherlight choke tube for sporting clays or, you know, all clay target chokes. And um prior to that, backing up in 1992, I, you know, my dad and I started shooting steel shot because you know, everybody had to start shooting steel. And my dad was shooting a fixed choke full, you know, Model 12 Winchester. I was shooting a fixed, you know, full choke 870 Wingmaster, and neither of us could kill anything, you know, like 25 yards, we'd be pulling feathers out of a mallard, and the mallard would like not even fall in the water, he would like land in the water and we'd shoot five shots at it, and the thing would like fly away. And we're just like, this is ridiculous. So so basically what I did was I went out and uh bought a bunch of chokes, couldn't really get anything to work good, and uh back moving forward to like 93, one year later, I wanted to really become a better wing shooter. So what I did was I joined some sporting clay events, and uh I I fell in love with the sport, wanted to jump in with both feet, wanted to be the best I could be. So I said, okay, I'm gonna buy a good over and under shotgun, I'm gonna buy a vest, I'm gonna buy glasses, I'm gonna buy the best ammo, I'm gonna buy the best choke tubes, I'm just gonna buy the best of everything I can so I know that if I miss, it was me. It wasn't my equipment. And I went out and I bought two modified chokes from, you know, the most well-known choke manufacturer at the time, and put them in my browning and went out and shot. And when I shot paper to pattern them, I was checking my point of impact and I wanted to see what the patterns were like. One patterned like a skeet and one patterned like a full choke. And I'm like, well, that's not cool. They must have mismarked the chokes. That would be really the only explanation, right? Because one pattern basically looked like you know a full choke based on telecount and size, the other one covered like a six-foot sheet of paper. And I said to myself, Well, the only thing that would make sense is that they marked them wrong. So went in the shop the next day, I measured them, and to my surprise, they're both 20,000 from my board, which is defined a modified. And I said, It was just a mind blow, Ken, because I'm like, how could two chokes then measure the same exit diameter pattern that extremely different? So that was my introduction to okay, a choke's not a choke based on exit diameter, but why? So, make a very long story short, when I got into measuring all the geometries of the choke cylindricity, straightness, roundness, uh, concentricity, squareness, surface finish, I realized that they're both very different in geometries, even though the exit diameter was the same. So, really, the only two things that were similar to the chokes, the overall length were the same, um, the outside diameters were the same, which has nothing to do with the patterning, just the gun fit, and the exit diameter was the same. But the geometries were entirely different, and that is what created the patterns, not the exit diameter. So that opened up a dumpster of worms, you know? So then I'm like, well, this is horrible. So then I went back to the company, I bought two more, and neither of them patterned good, and I bought two more. Make a long story short, I bought 10. I ended up buying 10 modified chokes from this well-known choke company to get two to pattern good. And I called the owner up at the time and I told him what I found, what I did for a living. And as I tried to explain to him what was wrong with them, he told me, You bought them, you own them, kidney, hung up on me. So I was like, Okay, well, this isn't cool. It's the top-known choke company, and he basically won't even listen to me talk to him about what the problems are with the chokes, being a master toolmaker. So my dad said, throw them in the garbage and go make your own. So I went into the shop the next day, I made my own, and I never looked back. Um, so that was how I got into choke making, but I never had the intention of making them to sell at that time. It was just for myself, you know, and of course I made some for my buddies, and but that was it. And then you fast forward the clock to nine, you know, to 2008, 2007, and I made my own featherlight chokes for a competition to have an advantage because I was able to make a choke that patterned better than anything in the market. It was lighter than anything in the market. When you've got two big extended chokes sticking out of a 32-inch barrel over and under, weight matters. And so I made a choke that was half the way to titanium, only a third of the weight of stainless steel or steel. You never had to clean them, no carbon buildup, no plastic buildup. The patterns were picture perfect, lowest shot shot deviation, regardless of ammo, regardless of gun that I put them in, and I was like, you know what? This is gonna work. So that's what happened. I ended up patenting it out of necessity. It took off, and from 2000 basically 2008 to 2019, all I did was made feather like chokes for Clay Target sports.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And um I always wanted to go back full circle to the hunting chokes I had created back in '92 for my dad and I. But I was going on back order working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, making feather light jokes. I couldn't make hunting jokes. So even though I had perfected them and created amazing things with hunting loads for steel and bismuth and lead, turkey loads, all that, TSS wasn't even a thing then. Um there was no such thing. But I had created this amazing choke for hunting, but I couldn't get around to making them to sell them to people. So then when 2019, 2021 started rolling around, I started expanding my machine shop. And I'm like, you know what? In 2021, I got to the point where I'm like, it's time for me to start making hunting chokes. I'm not gonna tell anybody, I'm gonna make production, I'm gonna build inventory because I knew they were gonna sell like hotcakes. And when I have enough inventory, I'm gonna start marketing. And basically, I started marketing heavily in 2022, 2023. And here we are, 2025, almost coming up on 2026, and my hunting chokes have literally surpassed my clay target chokes because people just absolutely love what they do.
SPEAKER_00:We know, Jim, I know it's on your website you've got a a drop down for international.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I don't I'm not trying to get real nosy in your business, but you ship a pretty good amount overseas.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I actually before I even did the hunting chokes, I had 14, I had distributors in 14 countries, actually 16 countries and uh all over the world. And the only reason I stopped was, you know, it was really good for them. They were making a boatload of money. But what was happening to me was I was giving them a discount because they were distributors. I was giving them a discount on shipping for customs and VAT, and then I was getting beat up on price, and I was hurting my own inventory because I was a small company making, you know, chokes all by myself. I made every one of them by myself, one at a time, hand polished, you know, hand inspect every choke was inspected, and uh I would actually take them out and test them after every batch, you know. So it was overwhelming, and I was like, I just can't do this distribu uh distributor thing all over the world anymore. So I just went directly, uh, you know, customer direct, consumer direct. Everybody buys off my website now. Um they call up an order, they email orders in. Now, you know, we've got social media, we've got YouTube channel, we sell on Amazon, you know. Amazon doesn't um fulfill, they don't inventory anything. We do all our fulfillment and all of our all of our inventory. But uh it's it's pretty awesome to be able to sell all over the world every day, you know. So it's a it's a good time. We uh we uh once we once we got all of that stuff going well, the the hunting chokes. I just as you can see on my website, we've we've expanded a little bit with some limited edition special colors and got some cool hats, and you know, I make choke wrenches, and so we just got a bunch of cool stuff now that people can enjoy when they like the product.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, this is Kenneth Whipp with Gun Dog Nation. Many people quickly become frustrated and confused when training the retriever. Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy's online courses eliminate all the guesswork by giving you a proven training system that will help you train a dog that anyone will be proud to have when they're blind. Learn where to start, what to do next, and what to do when problems arise. Visit Cornerstone Gundog Academy.com to learn how you can train your retriever. I have used this method myself. I have been through it a couple times with different dogs. I refer back to it lots of times when I'm trying to get dogs fresh and back up for hunt test season. I highly recommend them. I have actually been a subscribed member of Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy since 2016, and I would suggest anyone use it. I highly recommend it. They have an app that you can get to on your phone. You can do it from your phone, your laptop. You can't get any more convenient than that. I I've used it, it's proven and tried, and I know literally hundreds of people that have done the same thing that I've talked to. Visit Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy dot com and learn how to train your own retriever. Hello, this is Kenneth Witt, and Gun Dog Nation is proud to have one of their sponsors as Retriever Training Supply, based in Alabama. Retriever Training Supply offers fast shipping on quality gear. Your dog will love it. Visit Retriever Training Supply.com to purchase gear to help you train your retriever. Listen, they have some of the best leases I've ever found. It's stuff's made in America. Their leases are and they source them locally. They have anything you want. Fast, friendly service, fast shipping, just good people. Retriever Training Supply. Jim, are you are you still solely making these by yourself?
SPEAKER_01:No, so what I did, Ken, um, a few years ago, I my machine shop, like I was to the point where I hired some other people. I was chained to my machine shop. I couldn't go around and market the way I wanted. I couldn't hunt. I couldn't test. And I was literally strapped to machines, right? So I'm like, the only way that I could make this company grow the way it needs to grow so people could get my product is that I need to have somebody make them for me. So my good buddy Sean, 10 minutes up the road, we had done work together for over 25 years in aerospace and and medical. And uh, you know, so I I went to Sean, I said, Sean, can you make these jokes for me? And he was like, Absolutely. So he I went Over there. He was running three shifts. He's got a 150-man crew. He's got machines lined up. So what we have right now is we started with one machine and one shift. Now we've got three machines with bar feeders, and we're running two shifts. And he makes them as good as I did, maybe even better. And I have full access to the company. I go there like it's my own. We're good friends. I go in, I go to inspection room. I I inspect things as I want to. I I bring in new chokes that I want to build. I create them there. I I do modifications myself there. I do testing. So it's like having my own machine shop without having to be chained to the place, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Man, that's a good thing. You got so busy that you had to grow. You know, Jim, we talked a few minutes before we started the podcast, and I told you that I I love getting people on here that that's had a dream and a passion or just want to make something better, which is how a lot of products come about, right? You see something and you see a way to improve it. And and you did that, and look, look what it is today. I love that. It's impressive and it's made here in America.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, it's cool stuff. We even have our metal, all of our metals, our aluminum and our stainless steel, all melted and milled in the USA. I even actually have some of my materials blended differently than regular mill spec because I wanted harder or tougher, higher tensile strength. So, you know, things like that I don't share with people. But uh, you know, I I have a degree in metallurgy of exotic alloys, I have a heat treating degree, and I'm a master toolmaker. So it was uh it's in my wheelhouse, it's what I do. So I was able to tweak things and make them better than what else is out there.
SPEAKER_00:So you know, without getting too much into your business secrets and and and and what probably way over my head, what makes a choke great in your opinion.
SPEAKER_01:So so basically a choke tube is just a glorified funnel, right? You've got a taper section, um, most chokes have also a parallel section, some chokes have just all taper right to the end. Um so so basically it's a funnel per se. But what I learned back in '93 through, you know, up until today, but the amount of testing I did between 1993 and 2011 was just insane. And, you know, there was a point in time there when over a two and a half period, two and a half year period, I fired 12,000 rounds on paper, mud, water, um, live birds, clay targets, high-speed photography, studying shot strings, looking at everything I could, making, looking at 3D models of shot strings. But I did it through 22 different guns with 13 different board diameters. And then I did it with every choke on the market, some of which don't even exist today, and also every ammo on the market, ones from 1950 all the way through today. And what I learned was tremendous. I mean, like the most important thing I learned about choke was that choke was not defined properly. To this day, it's still falsified, it's still falsely spoken about, it's mostly myth, it's mostly false. There's so many things, nomenclatures that are so far from the truth that many people still live by. So that's why I do podcasts, I do videos, I I do the teaching I do because people really have no understanding of how important chokes are, but the physics and the science behind it is tremendous. And then you roll into the you go from the choke to the ammo and then the gun. So what I learned was that every gun likes a different geometry of choke tube. And what I mean by that is not exit diameter, thousandths of an inch constriction. What I mean by that is if you take if you take three different guns, different manufacturers with the same bore diameter, let's say 18.6 millimeter, which is 732 thousandths of an inch, that's basically the diameter of the ID of the barrel, a pipe, you know, the ID of the pipe, inside diameter. And you take the choke out of those guns and you pattern them. They all pattern different. And what I realized was it had to do with the tooling, the material, the heat treat, the harmonics. I mean, if you get into rifle barrels, it's all about harmonics. Well, why would a shotgun be any different? You're not shooting a single projectile, you shoot a bunch of little BBs, but you still have harmonics involved, right? And then through high-speed photography, we saw that. It's why Winchester and Remington and Browning they developed vent ribs. Vent ribs were not so much to dissipate heat waves, it was more to try to keep the barrel straight when you fired it. So that tells you right there that a lot of things are going on, just like when you fire a uh you know, arrow out of a bow. If you look at that at high-speed photography, the thing bends like a banana, you know, wobbles all over the place, then it finally straightens out and hits the target. So when you get into choke tubes, the choke tube is the last thing that contacts the shock column, right? The the wad and the shock comes down the barrel, it goes through the choke, which is tremendous amounts of pressure. It goes through the choke and exits the bill, the bore. When it exits the bore, it goes into the air, and then physics, you know, are gonna act on it. So, like Newton's third law of physics, if it starts the faster it starts out, the faster it slows down and the faster it spreads out. So when you get into all the ballistics of shotgunning without going into hypersonic and transonic and subsonic, which people don't need to know about. But when you get into all that, choke has a big effect, but also the ammo has a big effect when it comes to effective ballistics. So with the choke tube being the last thing that contacts your shot, choke is incredibly important. It's important enough to the point where it can make or break your hunt. And you know what I always teach people if you're gonna shoot stuff inside 20 yards, it doesn't matter what choke you shoot or what ammo you shoot, the duck's gonna die if you hit it, you know. So of course, even inside 20 yards, there's a uh ultimate type of choke and there's an ultimate type of ammo, but you could use a ski choke with rock salt and kill a duck. Okay. So, but what happens is choke and ammo become very important past 30 yards. Past 40 yards, it becomes extremely important, and past 50 yards, it's another universe. So it happens that fast because of air resistance. So, depending on what distance you shoot at, that all depends on how important is your choke, how important is the gun you're using, how important is the diameter of the inside of your barrel, your bore diameter to match to what you're doing, and how important is the ammo that you're going to use. So the further we get out, the further we push beyond 25 yards in let's say five-yard increments, even, things become accumulatively more important. So that's why I created my chokes the way I did. I created gun-specific patterning geometry, GSPG, which nobody's ever done. And what that is was I started with one gun. I changed every geometry you could imagine, and probably a lot that you can't even think of. And when I got the lowest shot shot deviation and the most even patterns that gun could create, I drew the blueprint for the choke for that gun, moved on to the next gun, and started all over. So every Muller choke has its own specific gun geometry in the choke for the gun that it's going in. So if you were to take all my different chokes for all the guns, they all have different taper lengths, gascular clearance, surface finish, parallel length, overall length, um, different exit diameters, you name it. Some of them I even changed materials based on how it's shot better. So, so a lot went into it. And, you know, I determined that way back when, when I ended up shooting all these different chokes and seeing how different they were, and then all the different guns with no choke in them at all, and then putting chokes in them and seeing how they reacted. And it was just mind-blowing. And then you change the ammo and it starts all over again. So I had to come up, my job was to come up with chokes that you could put in your gun and take that ammo, regardless of ammo, but take that ammo and know that when you put my choke in the gun, you're gonna get unequivocally the best pattern possible out of that gun with that ammo without having to do anything because I've already done all the homework for you.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna ask you that, Jim. Do you I I I I think I know the answer, but I'm gonna ask anyway: do you recommend any certain ammo to go with your chokes? I'm sure that's hard to do, I guess, but how do you approach that? Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation, and I've got to tell you guys about something that I've gotten hooked on lately. It's Folicious. These are gourmet instant faux and ramen bowls that actually taste like the real deal. When I'm out in the field all day, and the last thing I want is a sell for bland camp food. Folicious is what I go to. It's authentic, the flavor, it's real ingredients, it's ready in just minutes. It's perfect for hunters, fismen, or anyone on the go. And you can get them over 1900 Walmarts nationwide, your local HEB here in Texas. Or you can just go online at Folicious.com. Trust me, once you try it, you'll keep a few stocked in in your bag, your packpack, or for your next adventure. I just want to say this, I want to add this to this commercial because I know the owners of this company. They've hunted on my ranch. Uh Joseph, uh, he and I were actually met in Colorado on a hunting trip uh that was a real adventure. They are true hunters. They've hunted the ranch, you know, and I've I've hunted with them. And Anna, she is just amazing. She is the one that came up with this idea. They were both on Shark Tank, they are amazing people. So it's I love seeing people like this have a business. And I just had to say that in addition to the commercial, because I really believe in the product and I believe in the people that made the product. Be sure to go to foalicious.com or go to Walmart or H E B and try their product. I promise you, you will like it.
SPEAKER_01:So, what I always tell everybody is because of what we just talked about, what I created for every single gun, if you take the crappiest patterning ammo in the market and you put it through a Muller choke, it's gonna still pattern crappy, but better than any other choke. Okay. But if you take why is that it's because of that gun-specific patterning geometry that I coupled with the guns.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So, so basically, because I created that that gun-specific geometry, it doesn't matter. It was really pleasant and eye-opening when I used what I what I believe to be the best patterning ammo in the in the world. I used that ammo to create my chokes and create all the geometries, and I used that same ammo through all the other chokes with all the other guns. So it was it was apples to apples comparison. Once I created all the chokes for all the guns, I knew they were the best. I knew my chokes out patterned every other choke in the industry. I then went and shot every ammo there was. And even the crappiest patterning ammos that anybody would know, they patterned way better. I mean, I was actually shocked at how good some of them patterned, you know, within reason, inside 30 yards, let's say.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:After that, they fall apart because of components, lack of quality of shot, inconsistencies, and all of that. If you've got a bunch of pellets in a shot shell that are all different shapes, all different sizes, all different densities, all different grams per cubic centimeter weight, all different thousandths of an inch measurement, they're obviously going to fly different, right? So we learned that when we started testing bismuth a lot. What we would do is we would take a good bismuth load, well known in the market. We would shoot ballistic gelatin at whatever distance, let's say 40 yards, and some of the most of the pellets would penetrate, let's say between one and three-quarters of an inch to two inches. But a lot of the pellets, there were ones that didn't even go in the surface of the ballistic gel. They like, they like barely penetrated the surface. Some of them were an eighth of an inch in, some were a half an inch in. And I'm like, what is going on? Well, what I learned was that there was inconsistencies of size and shape. Therefore, because of drag, like NASCAR, right, they fly different. Some were fractured, some were damaged, some just flew horrible, and because they had really bad air resistance, they really fell behind and hit the block way later with no velocity. So that was eye-opening. So all these little things are eye-opening. And unless you do a lot of it, you're not going to learn these things. And obviously, if you think about that, just then talking out loud, if you have a pellet that penetrates two inches deep, and you have pellets in that same shot shell that penetrated an eighth of an inch deep, what does that immediately tell you? It means they were not flying at the same velocity, which means you're gonna have a very long shot string because the fast ones got there first, the slow ones got there way later. How way later? Was the shot string six feet, nine feet, thirty feet, fifty feet? You have no idea. That's why I try to encourage people not to only shoot paper when they're patterning, because when you shoot paper, it's one-dimensional. Every pellet in that shot shell is going to go through the paper. We know that. Okay. We don't know when it got there or how it got there. You cannot tell that shooting one-dimensional paper. So, what I always encourage people to do is go shoot water, go shoot mud, go shoot things where you can actually see the shot string and the pattern efficiency and the width of it, the length of it. Start to experiment and do things. You could shoot paper to get your point of impact. That's very necessary for gun fit, how you're mounting the gun, how you're pulling the trigger, how you're finishing the shot, lifting your head, jerking the trigger, not standing right. There's lots of things that go into shotgunning, just like rifle and handgun shooting. But point of impact is good on paper. It teaches you a lot. So do, you know, so do so do shot cams, right? I'm not sponsored by them in any way, but I own nine of them, okay? Because they show you a lot of what you're doing with the muzzle. And they show you a lot of what's happening, especially patterns. When you're shooting birds over the water, or if you're sluicing a bird on the water, you get to really inspect what's happening. Pause it, slow motion, zoom in on it. So there's huge amounts of learning that you can do without having to listen to other people that are giving you false information because it was spewed forward from 1950 from people that didn't know what they were looking at back then.
SPEAKER_00:So it's amazing. I never had any idea that there was this much science behind a shotgun choke. Yeah. It's amazing. You know, I know this is a little bit off topic, but I know you could answer this for me. And but, you know, I'm seeing, and I'm actually I I I've been sponsored by Migra Ammunition, and I've used theirs all season. And I know they they say it's double stacked. I really don't understand that. I know what I know there's two sizes of shells, but what's the reasoning behind that? That's about as much as I know, right?
SPEAKER_01:So so Migra is a good company, they make good ammo. A lot of companies out there are getting into this blended and stacked loads and all that. So so here's here's my theory. It's not a theory, it's proven, but I'll call it a theory so I don't hurt people's feelings. When you take, we already talked about this actually, but not specific. When you take different size pellets or different masked pellets, different weight pellets, and you put them into one shot shell and you fire it, the heavy pellet is gonna be in the front, no matter what. It doesn't matter if you blend them all together in the shell and mix them and shake them and vibrate them. It doesn't matter if you buffer them. It doesn't matter if you put the small pellets and light pellets on top or if you put them on the bottom. They are always gonna end up with the heavy pellets in the front and the light pellets in the back. It's just physics. Okay. You cannot lie to physics, you cannot influence physics, you cannot change physics, physics or physics, right? So if if you have different masked pellets in a shot shell or different sized pellets in a shot shell, the heavier one is always gonna stay in the front, the lighter one is always gonna trail behind. Now, there's other things that go. Into that also. Some are good, some are bad. If you have two different mass pellets, you're going to end up with a longer shot string. You are going to end up usually with a gap between the front pellets and the back pellets. There will actually be a void between them. Now, does anybody really care about that void? It's not like a duck is going to fly in between it, because if you take the longest shot string, like Joel Strickland did testing with surviving duck season, he tested a whole bunch of different ammo in the market, 44 different choke tubes, used three different guns, and he did the most comprehensive, amazing, mind-blowing high-speed photography. He basically had the gun in a vise. He had a target at 40 yards away, and he took black background and he marked with a white line every foot, all the way out to 40 yards, and he slow motioned everything right through. And you could examine the shock column every foot by yourself by looking at it on YouTube. It's absolutely mind-blowing to see how every ammo, every choke did something different. But what he saw, and what we can all see right there, is that stacked loads, or I'll just call it different size pellets in the same shell, or different material pellets in the same shell, there's actually a gap between the front pellets and the back pellets. So what does that tell us? It tells us number one, it's not efficient because all the pellets aren't coming to the target together, which means one is going to constantly fall behind as the forward pellets keep going. Okay. So the other thing about stacked loads is we have what's called sphere packing. If we have sphere packing, I have some drawings over on my desk there, but I don't want to leave you. If we have a bunch of balls going through a pipe, which is a barrel and a choke, you have what's called sphere packing. Round balls pack like a triangle. Do you remember Ballantine Ale? The beer with the logo. So it's a triangle, like Olympic rings, sort of. Okay. They stack like a triangle. It's called sphere packing. The column goes up and the column goes out. What happens is when you have all the same diameter balls, they evenly sphere pack on each other in the pipe, going down the pipe. So you literally have a round triangle that is evenly pressured outward, okay? Which is even sphere packing. Well, what happens is when you have small BBs mixed with big BBs, okay, and they always put the small BBs in the bottom of the shell because they think the big ones are going to stay in front, so we'll put the lighter ones in the back so they flow together, okay? Well, the problem is when you have all of this ignition and pressure of it going down the barrel, those little pellets behind the big pellets, you ever work with a wedge? Okay, stick stick a wedge between something, those little bebes are wedging in between the big babies in the voids. There's voids between the big BBs where the little babies are gonna start to wedge in. Well, what happens is when you have little babies wedging into big bbees in this diameter, where do they have to go? The big BBs need to force outward because the little babies are pushing in between them like a wedge. Well, what's that gonna do? That's gonna create tremendous outward forces that can actually damage barrels and damage choke tubes. So let's say it doesn't damage a barrel or damage a choke tube. What do you think is gonna happen when it finally exits out of that choke tube? It's just gonna want to blow out because it's under such extreme forces. And it's never gonna be consistent because you don't have anything the same. You know, it's hard enough for us to take multiple amounts of BBs, whether it be 120, uh, you know, 100 138 TSS pellets, or if it's you know, 315 steel pellets, right? It's already hard enough to try to make these things fly consistent because you cannot, it's not a single projectile, it's not a rifle bullet, it's not a slug, okay? A slug is still a one-ounce piece of lead, but it's one projectile, right? You can influence that with rifling or whatever have you. You cannot influence 300 different little bbs hit in the air. It's never gonna be the same one shot to the other. It's never gonna be the same. We can just make them as close to consistent as possible by creating the right velocity for a certain load, using certain components for that load, making everything as close to the same as possible, and putting it through a good choke that has the right geometry for what it likes. That's all we can do. So this is what I started learning way back when, when I started doing all this testing. And it comes down to the fact that you cannot beat physics, you know, you can't beat Mother Nature, and you can't you can't fight physics. You have to just learn how to do the best you can with it. And doing a good choke tube is one way you can try to work with physics instead of against it. And a lot of ammunitions out there, they're working against physics, trying to make some magic thing. The fact is they're just hurting themselves, or shall I say, they're hurting the end user because most of it is gonna be a marketing thing. And I'm not saying that they're being dishonest. What I'm saying is they truly believe that it works. So because Joe did it, John's gonna do it, and then Bob's gonna do it, and then Jim's gonna do it, right? It just it just snowballs. So one company started doing blended sizes, and they had success. And I'll discuss that in a second, why they had success. They had success with it. The moment they had success and people started raving about it, everybody else was like, oh, we got to do this, we gotta come up with a stacked load, a blended load. And people love it, right? Because it looks great on drawing, it sounds amazing. Oh my gosh, I'm getting TSS with Bismuth or I'm getting TSS with steel, and I only have to pay a third of the price than I do with a TSS load. I'm buying that. Well, so here's the deal the reason that blended loads work for a lot of people is the same reason that horrible chokes work for a lot of people, and it's the same reason that the wrong shot size, the wrong payload, hypersonic velocity all work for these same people. The reason is because 88% of duck hunters do not pull the trigger past 30 yards. Okay. Proven fact. Most people don't know what 30 yards is versus 40 versus 50. Some people think 50 is 30, some people think 30 is 60. The fact is, very small percentage of people can actually gauge yardage accurately. So that's, I mean, you know, I'm just sitting here at my table. I've got I've got a Vortex range finder, I've got a Bushnell range finder, uh, Nikon range finder, I've got a Bushnell range finder in my bag. The only reason that I know vul no distance is because I range find everything. When I'm sitting at my house on the deck drinking coffee, I'm range finding seagulls that are flying down my creek. You know, I'm range finding mallards swimming near my dock. Uh I'm range finding everything. So I range find my decoys when I set them. I range find from the decoys to where I'm going to be sitting, I range find range find from when I'm sitting to my decoys. Every duck that I shoot, I range find it when it hits the water. I even have people range finding birds when they're flying in the air before I shoot them. I mean, I'm a range finder fanatic, okay? Because I learned that if you shoot something at 30 versus 38, there's a big difference. How are we going to be able to gauge eight yards if we can't gauge 25 yards? So it all comes down to how good do you really want to be, and then decide what do you need to learn to be that good? And you know, like gauging distance is one of them. And then it gets into the right choke, the right ammo, the right gun. And then, of course, we need to learn how to shoot. Right? So learning how to shoot is a very big thing that a lot of people don't take very seriously. And I'm a big component about shooting because I'm, you know, a masterclass shooter in sporting clays. I've competed all over the country. And I learned, I'm I'm proof and I'm witness that shooting sporting clays correlates directly to hunting in the field. And it taught me how to be a much better wing shooter. And what I learned from that is it's critically important for everybody to be able to practice off season and during season. Okay. If you're shooting a lot during season, maybe you don't have to go out and practice. But off season, it's critically important to go out and practice because if we don't know how to shoot, none of the other stuff matters, you know? And if we're gonna start to shoot past 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 80 yards, we better darn well know how to be able to put the pattern on the front of the bird. And if we're always gonna shoot at the bird like we're shooting a rifle, if we shoot 1700 feet per second hypersonic inside 25 yards, you could literally shoot at the bird and kill it. But if you shoot past 25 yards, that no longer exists. You have to start to be able to lead the bird. And the further you go, the more lead you need, the faster the bird, all at, the angle. So it all comes down to being able to shoot at the distance effectively that I shoot at, and then deciding okay, I am only gonna shoot inside 40 yards. What do I need to be able to kill a duck at 40 yards in case I shoot at my outermost limit? Okay, I need this type of pellet, this size pellet. I'm gonna use this velocity, I'm gonna use this choke, and and that's how we go down the road. Don't just, you know, do what everybody does because everybody's different, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, it's Kenneth Whipp of the Gundog Nation Podcast, and I'm very proud to have as a new sponsor Cable Gangs. That's built G-A-N-G-Z. Brendan Landry at Cable Gangs has developed, in my opinion, and I have and I'm a customer, the best tile systems on the market. They're easy to pack, easy to store. They can call up just like an extension cord. They use premium galvanized steel cable coated with durable, UV resistant PVC coating. The branding can make custom products, anything you want that's related to a dog tie-out system or a cable system or a way to safely secure your dog. They've even made a system that works with a bicycle so you can go and exercise your bicycles and have your dog running along with you. It would be impossible for me to describe you all the different custom applications they have, so just go to their website at cablegangs.com and check it out. They make dog tie outs, a way to safely secure your dog. If you're at a field trial, hunt test, cone count competition, whatever that might be, these guys make the best product on the market. Check it out for yourself, cable gangs.com. It's um, you know, that's something that I need to work on is my shooting. I'm gonna be a better shooter, I'm gonna do that this offseason. But you know, Jim, I never thought about ranging that much. I on I I bow hunted for years. I don't do it as much as I used to, obviously. And and uh, but you know, then I was you have to range, right? Or go home. Never thought about it, like in this context, especially like duck hunting and stuff. And and I've got rangefinders because I've I've still got my good rangefinders from from bow hunting. So you've made me think about that a lot, a lot. Because I uh that's one thing I've learned after my two-month hunting excursion, uplanding waterfowl the last two months, and I need to work on my shooting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, it's it's just they go hand in hand. I mean, you know, I I shoot a lot, right? Even especially when I was like highly competitive in sporting plays, I mean, I was shooting a lot. And if I did not pick up my shotgun for one month, it felt foreign to me when I picked it up and shot. Now, I could still hit what I was shooting at for the most part, but if I put the gun down for one month, now I'm somebody that was shooting a thousand targets a week. Okay. If I put my gun down for one month and I picked it up, it just didn't feel right. It it just it it wasn't second nature anymore. So I would go out and shoot and shoot and shoot, and I would come down at nighttime, I would mount the gun a hundred times before I went to bed, you know, just so I would never have a bad mount. These are things that I did. I know that's a little extreme, but I was competitive, right? Not just hunting. But if you're gonna be a duck hunter and you're gonna spend all this money, all this time, and let's face it, it's not easy going duck hunting, man. It's grueling, okay? If I'm gonna go through all that money and trouble and sweat and break ice and snowing and blowing, and I'm gonna be setting my decoys and I'm gonna be sitting in the grass or in the boat, and you know, birds of a lifetime come in and I can't hit them. What am I doing? Like, like it makes no sense to me. It would be like somebody golfing and never touching a club all year, and then you know, going out and thinking they're gonna they're gonna hit a good game on an 18-hole course. It just doesn't happen. So it all depends on how serious you want to be about what you're doing. And what's always, well, not always, but let's say in the last 10 years, what's been pretty amusing to me and amazing is you see people more than ever spending huge money on boats, trucks to pull them with, decoys, guns, thousand dollar waiters, I mean, three hundred dollar duck calls. I mean, I could go on and on. People spend more on their lanyard these days than I did on a duck call, okay? And then they don't know how to shoot. They don't practice. They go out and buy a$500 shotgun because they're looking for a cheap gun. I'm like, what are y'all doing? Like, it makes no sense to me. It's like they they want to be the best duck hunter in the world. They want to have all this social media following, they want to have a brand, but they don't even practice shooting. And they can't figure out why they're not succeeding. It's like they're missing the most important part.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I could take a I could take a canoe that leaks, and I could take, you know, beat up old rubber ranger waiters and a fallen apart model 31 Remington that may not even pump. And I could go kill a limited ducks with, you know, four shots. So it all depends on where your priorities are and what's important to you. And if you want to be a really good duck hunter or any type of wing shooter, you need to go on practice. And then once you get your shooting good, then really start to get into the other stuff, you know, because it matters.
SPEAKER_00:It really does. You're you're right. You know, uh I I was either upland or waterhouse foul hunting almost every single day, and and uh there's shots I miss, and I was just like, man, I I I there's no way I should have missed that. Just get so mad at myself, you know, and I I always thought, you know, I was always a really good rifle shot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it's total different. I mean, it's just it's apples and oranges. I shoot a bow fairly decent. I I've shot in some leagues up in Pennsylvania. I worked up there for a while, and you know, I wasn't top of the class, but I was a decent bow shooter. But shotgun, I've had to work at it. And and I still need a lot of work, and I will. That's what I'm on this offseason, I'm really gonna really gonna shoot a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's uh you know, it's all it's all relative, Ken. I mean, when I was younger, I got into handguns a lot. I just thought I shot a bow since I was, I think, eight years old, a recurve. I shot compound bows, I've got my, you know, I've got my BoTe and and you know, you name it, but I got into rifle shooting when I was four years old with a pellet gun, and it never stopped. I still shoot my PCP air gun every day upstairs. You know, I got a nice 25 caliber PCP air condor. I shoot it every day. And sometimes I'm shooting things that are moving, you know. But but the thing is, I'm always active with it, right? Because it's second nature, it's subconscious, it's about feel more than anything. And what I always tell people is when it comes to hunting with a shotgun, you need to kill the bird with your eyes before the gun does anything. The gun is just a tool to finish the job. If you don't kill a bird with your eyes before you pull a trigger, the bird's not gonna die. You're just gonna poke and hope.
SPEAKER_00:Elaborate on that for me, Gene.
SPEAKER_01:So so basically, whether it's a clay target or a live bird, basically what I'm doing is I'm I'm gaining strong focus on the bird um before I'm I'm moving the gun to it. And basically I'm I'm Killing the bird with my eyes before I bring the gun to it. I'm already evaluating the speed, the angle, the distance, and I'm getting a feel for how much lead is going to need to be generated forward allowance to connect with the bird. And basically what I'll do is I'll even I don't shoot decoys very often. Maybe I think I've shot two decoys in the last 10 years. And the reason for that is because what I'll do is I have all my windows picked out before it's even shooting time, right? And I'll decide where I want to kill birds, and I'll have my my window number one, number two, number three. And when a duck is coming, when the moment comes that I know I'm gonna be shooting that bird, I am picking out where I'm gonna kill a bird, and I'm setting up my body, my gun, and my eyes to kill a bird in that spot. So what I'll do is I'll basically have a kill spot and I'll have a muzzle start point. And the whole time I'm looking at the bird, I'm identifying the bird, looking at the bird, is it a Drake? Is it a stud? Is it an immature Drake? Is it a hen? Is it close enough to look at to see if it has a band on it? I mean, that's the type of focus I've got on the bird. And then when the bird gets to the spot where I need to start to move the gun, that bird's already dead. It cannot get away. I've already killed it with my eyes. Now it's time to just come up with the gun, move with the bird, match the speed, pull it along on a string, and when it gets to my kill point, kill it. I mean, I I literally drop birds between decoys on the water because I can actually see where the decoys are in my peripheral vision, and I know when the bird got to my kill point based on my body position, when to pull a trigger.
SPEAKER_00:So You just said something that really got my attention. You said pull it on a string. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So with shooting a moving target, doesn't matter if you're shooting it with a bow, a rifle, a handgun, a shotgun. Basically, the most important thing to be consistent is you need to match the speed of the target with the barrel of the gun when you're pulling the trigger. So give you a couple examples of that. So if you have a crossing target that's doing 60 miles an hour, when you pull a trigger, your gun should be doing 60 to 61 miles an hour. You should be pulling them along on a strength, right? At whatever whatever lead it is. You should not come from way behind and race past it. You should not start way out here and try to let it catch up to you and pull a trigger. You have to control the target with your eyes and control a target with your muzzle. And that way you're always in control of the target. The target's not in control of you. And when you do that, everything looks way slower, it looks way bigger, and it looks a lot closer. So when you feel that, that's when you know you're doing things right. And um, you know, there's a lot of different methods of shooting. You've got swing through, you've got pull away, you've got sustained, you've got diminishing lead, you've got spot shooting, right? You've got all these different methods of wing shooting or shooting a moving target, but there's really only a couple different ways that work best on certain presentations. And what I've found for wild bird shooting, especially waterfowl, is to use sort of a modified pull away, sustained lead. And what I'll do is you always stay underneath your target, you always float the target, you never come up online, and you never shoot over a bird, right? So what I'll do is I'll come up underneath the bird like this, and I'll follow them for a certain amount of distance, depending on speed, angle, distance. And then what I'll do is I will separate by speeding up only a couple miles an hour, I will separate that gap, and then when it feels right, I will just pull the trigger. So it's very controlled, it's very short, not a lot of gun movement at all, because like I said, I've killed the bird with my eyes already. I'm literally sitting there saying, Okay, come on, I got something waiting for you. Okay, there you are, and bang, dead. You know? And the good thing about having that type of focus, that hard focus on any target, is that, like I said, you slow it down, you control the target, you control it from the front, not from behind, racing, trying to catch it. But it's great because if you have to take more than one shot, you're always in right position. Okay, you're not like throwing a gun and pulling a trigger and then throwing a gun and pulling the trigger, or you're also not shooting in the same exact spot three times and missing in the same spot three times, you know. So there's a lot of benefits to doing things like that. When any time that I've taught somebody how to shoot a moving target, the most important thing about moving and shooting uh shooting a moving target is the eyes. Because if a target beats your eyes, it beats everything. It beats you, it beats the gun, it beats everything. That's why you see so many people like just throwing the gun and pulling the trigger. It's because they never had hard focus on the target. They never slowed it down, they never analyzed it, they never killed it. Okay, they just throw the gun out there and hope they're gonna hit it. If if the target goes past your gun, you have to accelerate to catch up to it. It's like stopping on an on-ramp with your car. You've got to floor it and try to get into 60 mile-an-hour traffic, not a good time, right? But if you're doing 60 to 65 and everybody's doing 60, it's very easy because you're all moving together. Nothing's moving, right? You're all one. Well, that's how you have to shoot. You have to be one with the target. So if if something passes your gun, you have to speed up way faster than the target to catch it, number one. Then what happens is our brain is screaming, catch it, catch it, pull a trigger because it's getting away. We're in panic mode. So we throw the gun out there, and before we even get to where we need to be, we're pulling the trigger because we're in panic mode, like trying to catch it. That's why you see so many people with shot cam videos duck hunting, they're like shooting right at the duck. The duck is moving, it could be 25, 40 yards. The duck is moving. Why are they shooting right at it? You can't do that. You know, you have to lead it. But the reason they're doing it is because they're in panic mode trying to catch it, and when they catch it, they pull a trigger. So when something beats your barrel or goes past your barrel, the target's in control of you. You're not in control of the target. Your brain's screaming, catch it, catch it, pull the trigger. You're never comfortable, you're never methodical, things are never slow, and everything feels fast and rushed and panicky. And, you know, you're like pulling the trigger hoping it falls. You know, when I pull a trigger, I expect it's gonna fall. And when it doesn't, it actually surprises me. So that's the difference of controlling the target and not controlling the target.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, it's Kenneth Witt with the Gun Dog Nation podcast, and we are so proud to be partnered with the National Shoot to Retrieve Association, also known as NASTA. NASTA has a common love for producing the best bird dogs possible. It's a great community that builds and bonds everlasting friendships. I've actually got to meet a lot of NASTA members who's taking me hunting and some other grouse hunting and stuff in different places. So I can honestly say I'm a member and I'm proud to be partnered with them. NASTRA hosts national and regional field trials that emphasize the working ability of bird dogs. They have been around for over 50 years. There's a reason that NASTR has been around that long. Please check them out at www.nstra.org. And go along and support your local NASTAR club. They do have national and regional events, and it's a good place to help learn to be a better dog trainer, a better dog owner, and to compete with your bird dog. Thank you. I love this. This is all stuff I needed because I still got some hunting left this season.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Jim, what's uh what's 2026 look like for Muller Chokes?
SPEAKER_01:So 2026 is looking pretty amazing. Um 2025 sales have more than tripled in 2024. Um it's been a snowball. I've been blessed. Um 2026, I'm gonna uh you know, I'm gonna start it off hot and heavy going to G A O S, Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Got my boot there. I get to talk to thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of people. Um get to teach them, talk to them, shake hands with them, um, and you know, get to get to really broadcast the love, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And that's in the first week of February, and then that just kicks off the whole thing. Um I'll start shooting sporting clays in January, February. Um, I'll be duck hunting until the end of January this year. January 20th is when the season ends. Um, February GAOS, sporting clays. I've got regional championships in Arizona, I've got New England regionals in Jersey. So I got some big shoots next year coming up, competing a little more again. And um, and then I'll be fishing and pattern testing and reloading ammo and more pattern testing, and I'm expanding the product line into some other guns that are coming out. Um, Clayton Nance, a really good shooter with the NSCA. He's he's been shooting my chokes for a long time, and he just reached out to me right before National's, um, which was in San Antonio this October, and he had bought a Beretta SL2, and they take an OP Optima XP choke. I call it OPTXP, and it's basically an Optima HP choke like the A400s DT11s, but it's longer, and I don't make it, or I didn't make it. So Clayton was like, Jim, I gotta have your chokes, man. I can't shoot without your choke. So I'm like, all right, man, I'll take care of you. So I literally went, got some chokes, went in the machine shop, got a gun, tested everything, made them chokes, got them to him in time for nationals. He loved them, shot really well, and now I just finished my first production run of Optima XP chokes for the SL2. So they're actually right now at Sarako, I believe. So I'm gonna have them probably next week. So that's what I'm constantly doing. Like, you know, new guns come out and they have a different choke. I need to make a different choke system. I need to test it, perfect it, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Jim, did your hunting chokes exceed your competition chokes, or how is the ratio there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so the hunting chokes were always a blessing and always paid the bills and put Mueller chokes on the map. The hunting chokes in a very short period of time have have steamrolled the clay target chokes. You know, it's funny because years ago, Paul Larocco, president of True Glow, he, you know, he loved my chokes. And he was like, Tim, I I really, you know, would love to have something to do with this. And I said, no, sorry, Paul, I'm doing this all my own. He said, You're a smart man. But he told me, he said, someday, he said, your your clay target choke is very unique. You may never want to do away with clay targets because your product is so unique and exciting and beneficial to people. He said, but when you get into the hunting industry, you're gonna see how big it is compared to clay targets. He said, People will tell you the clay target sports are bigger and huge because there's only a million duck hunters in the U.S. He said, but when you get into hunting, he said, you watch what happens. He was right. Yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00:You know, Jim, and I know you know this way better than me, but if if you just want to look at it, uh uh just one aspect of bird hunting is look at the National Wild Turkey Federation Convention. You know, it's the biggest convention that I think that there is. That's just turkeys. That's not even ducks, yes, grouse or quail or you know, do you know dove is insane? Yeah, you know, interesting, and maybe you can appreciate this. You know, I grew up in southern Appalachia, uh right in the corner of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and we didn't duck hunt. I didn't know people duck hunted. I mean dove hunt, not duck hunting. We didn't duck hunt either because there's no flyaway in the mountains there. But yeah, I moved to Texas uh twelve 13 years ago, almost to the month. Yeah, and it was like a national holiday, the open day of dove season here. It was the the stores were just packed with ammo and everybody's gone. And now I get it, but you know, when I first got here, I thought, what in the world? Why would you want to go shoot at doves until I did it? And then I changed that. But you're right, it's a huge sport. Uh just because it's a little cheaper, everybody can afford to do it pretty much, you know. It's fun. Yeah, it is fun, yeah. Great dog.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, when I went to Argentina this year, I broke a record and uh I shot 2,025 doves in three and a half hours. And uh I did it with an 88% hit rate. I only shot uh two thousand I shot two thousand three hundred and twenty-five shells. And uh I did it with the twenty-eight gauge and twenty gauge, fifty percent of each. And uh it was just such an amazing time, you know.
SPEAKER_00:How many guns did you go through to to accomplish that?
SPEAKER_01:It it was two. I just yeah, they were Beretta 686 over and unders. And I would I started with the 20 gauge because the birds were flying really far in the beginning, like 40 to 60 yards. And um, I started with the 20 gauge, and when it got too hot to hold, I put it down, picked up the 28, shot the 28 till it was too hot to hold, and then picked the 20 up again and just switched back and forth, you know. But it was an amazing experience. I'm gonna go again in 26 and I'm gonna try to do it the 410.
SPEAKER_00:So wow. Uh you will have any trouble. You know, it's on my bucket list. I actually had a trip scheduled to go to Argentina in 2020, and COVID happened, they canceled. We'd already had everything worked out.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, let me know, man, if you want to go. I've I got a great lodge there, wonderful people, amazing food. I mean, it it I can't even explain how fun it is. I mean, we go out hunting in the morning, then we're eating lunch at a fire pit in the middle of the in the middle of the woods, and we're shooting doves and pigeons and parakeets out a tree with a pellet gun while we're eating, and then we're back out hunting the afternoon, and then we go back, it's dinner time. I mean, and then you just repeat, and then we're fishing, and then we're it's just it's amazing, man. They treat you like royalty. It's great. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:I I've never heard anyone that's done that because uh I work a lot in Midland, Texas, you know, and it's oil fields, so everybody, a lot of guys go there, and everybody loves it. And yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Now, Jim, I know you grew up from talking to you grew up waterfowl hunting. Where have you ever been a big upland hunter?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So uh the second bird I ever shot a shotgun was a cock pheasant. Um, no, actually a hen pheasant, the second bird I shot. Third bird I shot was a cock pheasant. I killed three the same day with my side-by-side 410. And um loved pheasant hunting, loved grouse hunting, woodcock. Um, traveled all over the place doing that for years. Uh northern Maine. I would drive 10 hours and go go grouse hunting for a few days and then come home, you know. I would do 60 flushes a day. It was incredible. And uh, you know, bear hunt, deer hunt. Um, I hunted with a bow, uh muzzle odor, shotgun slug, you know, you name it, I shot it. And uh I think the coolest thing was like when I was a kid, kid meaning anywhere from like eight years old to like 14, my dad was a taxidermist. He was a master wing shooter, and he had shot every bird on the Atlantic flyway many years ago, way before there was a Hunt 41. He shot everything and uh he mounted everything. And so uh he would collect certain birds that were state records or even country, you know, national records, and he would donate them to like Peabody Museum, Museum in Natural History in New York. And Dave Parson was the taxidermist for Peabody Museum. Well, him and Dave started becoming friends. Dave would mount small tiny birds for my dad, and my dad would mount some bigger birds for him for the museum. Well, Dave would get federal collecting permits, and he would call my dad, and he'd be like, Hey Bob, does your and your you and your son want to go out and shoot some shorebirds and seagulls and hawks today? And yeah. So we would go out in a boat and we'd be shooting all different things with a federal collecting permit for the museum. So I have literally gotten to shoot pretty much everything that flies in my lifetime.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:The only thing I never shot was a bald eagle. But other than that, if I open up my bird book, there's not much there that has a space next to it.
SPEAKER_00:You're making me grieve real bad. I I've I want to kill all the quail species in the U.S. and all the grouse. Uh yes. But that, you know, I I did rough grouse this year. I shot up one in Woodcock, and uh man, that was tough. I have some hard hunting. Hard walking and that thick woods and then hard shooting. Purina Pro Plan. Here at Gundog Nation, we use Purina Pro Plan for our dogs. We actually use the Sport Performance Edition, which is 30% protein and 20% fat, the beef and bison. It contains glucosamine, omega-3s for their joints. It also contains uh amino acids for muscles and antioxidants. It also has probiotics that's guaranteed to have live probiotic on each serving. There's no artificial colors or flavors. We see the difference in our dogs, we see the difference in their coke, the performance. Performance, their endurance, and also in recovery. Be sure to use Purina Pro Plan Dog Food. The reputation speaks for itself. There's a reason that Purina has been around for such a long time. We suggest that you use it, and we are so proud to be sponsored by Purina Dog Food. When you're getting ready to go on your next hunting trip, make sure you pack the most efficient and reliable ammunition on the market. Myra Ammunition brings you the most diverse loads on the market. Myra's patented stacked load technology is the epitome of efficiency. Two shot sizes stack together to create the most diverse and efficient line of shot shells in the industry. It doesn't matter what flyaway, what state, or what the weather, the standard remains the same. At Myra, reliable loads that perform in any condition every single time. We're proud to have Myra Ammunition as a sponsor for Gun Dog Nation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and when it, you know, a lot of times when grouse flush, it's like they're they're highly intelligent or something. You know, you'll have like one apple tree in a field, and the thing will take off and go behind the apple tree and turn straight away from you and keep the tree between you and the bird. They don't come out. It's like, are you serious? You really just did that, didn't you?
unknown:You know?
SPEAKER_00:Actually, the one I shot was pure luck because it did the same thing. It got behind behind a tree and took off, and I was just able to get to the side. And that's the only grouse I killed in Minnesota. Yeah, you're right. It's it's uh it was tough. Um but it's fun. I, you know, and then I'm a big dog person, so I love to hunt with dogs. Any do you have hunting dogs?
SPEAKER_01:I used to. My brother always had them, so I got to I I got to hang with them without having to train them. Um I did end up taking care of a couple of his dogs because I was living here at home and he was living somewhere he couldn't have dogs, so I ended up taking care of them, playing with them, hunting with them, feeding them. Um, but I never had my own trained, you know, pointer or lab. Um, but I got to hunt with a lot of dogs in my time, and I I love it. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:I I'm sure you probably don't have a whole lot of free time, right?
SPEAKER_01:No, my lifestyle doesn't permit a pet. You know, I I'm always running around. I mean, my wife and I, we hunt, we fish, we shoot sporting clays, we scuba dive. So, like we've got four passions right now, and that doesn't include business and me reloading all my own ammo and everything else I do, you know. So we're pretty chock full. And and with all the traveling and stuff, we can't we can't have a we have a pet turtle, but uh pretty self-caring. But uh we we we cannot have a dog, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's a lot of work. I spent a lot of time in my day taking care of dogs and working, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's a dedication.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I know you've I know you probably got a busy schedule coming up. And well, you are you gonna be at Pheasant Fest?
SPEAKER_01:I will not, but you know, it's funny you say that because several years ago I actually had a booth all laid out. Um I can't remember the gentleman's name now, but he he hooked me up with a nice booth, and I ended up getting sick right before we came, and I had a cancel, and I've never gotten back to it. But Pheasant Fest is definitely one I want to go to. I want to do Pheasant Fest, I want to do uh Dive Bomb, you know, and uh stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:So do you do the ducks at the DU convention or the Delta Waterfowl? You ever do those?
SPEAKER_01:U Yeah, I I did Delta Waterfowl this year. Um I've done the DU, I've done some DU shoots as well. Okay, I will probably I'm not gonna do more shows. I'm gonna wean off of them because I've got a lot of a lot of marketing and hunting to do. Um but basically I'm gonna focus on Great American Outdoor Show in February. Um probably the Delta Waterfowl show when they have it because they run it beautifully. Um and then I'd probably like to do Squad Fest with Dive Bomb. I need to talk to them about that, and I'd like to do Pheasant Fest.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know I'll be at Delta Waterfowl, have a booth. I have a booth at Ducks and Pheasant Fest. I I need to go to Dive Bomb and I haven't been.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, I haven't been to one yet, but I've talked to a lot of people. They really love it. They have a good time, a lot of good people there. Dive bomb's doing great things, so I I really want to get to one of their events and uh and set up a booth.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Jim, I can honestly say I think that I've got 60 podcasts published now, and I've probably got eight or nine in the in the queue, that this has been the most I I felt like first part of this podcast, like I was in physics class and got a real education. Sorry about that, Catherine. No, no. Hey, I'm serious. I I I just you know, all I knew about a choke is take one out and put another one in, and I didn't understand that the physics behind it. You were talking about the the I just assumed if this if the whole at the the exit was the same, there's the same choke until you'd explained to me the geometry changes all that. Yeah really educated me. I it it was I I love this. Then you gave me a good shooting education, which I'm working on myself, so that was a real big help. Seriously, I I I felt like this is one of the most educational podcasts I've ever done and technical. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Good. Can I you know my favorite part is teaching? Like teaching people is my when uh when I bought the gun club in Florida, I actually I looked forward to teaching people how to shoot. I love setting targets, that's a lot of fun because I set targets, you're using your imagination, what people may like, what could toss them up, you know, trick them up, and then I shoot it and tweak it. So setting targets was a lot of fun, but when I had students come and I could teach them, that was it. Love it, love teaching people.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you may get teach me sometime here. Help me out.
SPEAKER_01:Heck yeah, man. Anytime.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Jim, I I really thank you for taking time out of your schedule to come. Uh, I've been I I heard about your chokes long before I finally got to try one. And I I remember you, I knew you were at Delta Waterfowl, and I went by your booth. I never got to meet you. It it was a pretty pretty busy. We were that's the only thing there. I love to go meet other people, but I'm usually kind of stuck to my booth, and you know how that is. You get a way more bigger crowd than I do. Uh, but uh we'll we won't let this be our last one.
SPEAKER_01:Cool, man. Look forward to it. Thanks for having me on, and uh thanks for your service. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Awesome times. One last time, Jim. How can everyone find Mueller Chokes?
SPEAKER_01:Yep, so we've got a website, Mullerchokes, that's M-U-L-L-E-R-C-H-O-K-E-S dot com. And then we've got um email, which would be orders at mullerchokes.com. Um, we've got a phone number on the website. You can call, talk to Devin. When you email it, go right to Devin, he places the order with you. Um you know, one thing that's cool is when you call the office, if Devin cannot answer your technical questions or you have an issue, it comes to me. So you're only dealing with Devin or me. You know, when you place an order, you're dealing with Devin or you're dealing with me. So you're not dealing with people that don't know what a modified choke is, or you know, don't know what a two and three quarter inch hull is versus a three and a half. You know, you're dealing with people that know what they're talking about, and uh, we're always there for you, man.
SPEAKER_00:So Jim, what I love is first of all, that you have that personal touch with your product. Two, that you have all these years of expertise as a shooter, as a metal metallurgist, I'll say that wrongly, and all the the technical education that you have. It you're you're it's like the perfect storm. It's you've taken all these life experiences and education and just created a uh a top-notch product. And I love to see that.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. It's it's an honor. Uh thank you so much. I hope to have you on again sometime, and uh uh I will be getting to meet you in person pretty soon.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. We'll go shoot some in the lips.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds good. Thank you so much, Jim. We'll see you.
SPEAKER_01:You're welcome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation. I'd like to encourage all you listeners and viewers on our YouTube channel to check out patreon.com forward slash gun dognation. For$10 a month, you can become a member of our community and we'll have access to lots of stuff. Mainly we'll do a monthly forum, an open forum where you can ask me anything gun dog related and we'll learn from each other in the community. Should be a lot of fun each month. We will do that. So check it out. Patreon.com forward slash gun dognation.