Inside One of PRS's Hardest Matches

The Haunted Epic has earned a reputation as one of the toughest and most respected matches in Precision Rifle Series competition—and this year was no exception.

In this episode, we're joined by match directors George Gardner and Brian Sykes, along with 2026 Haunted Epic champion Austin Bushman, to break down one of the wildest matches of the season.

From 40+ mph wind gusts and natural terrain to stage design philosophy and match strategy, this conversation goes deep into what separates the Haunted Epic from every other PRS event.

In this episode:

Austin Bushman's winning performance
How to manage extreme wind conditions
What makes the Haunted Epic so challenging
Stage design and match director philosophy
The story behind building the Haunted Epic
Why difficult matches make better competitors
Mental preparation under pressure
Equipment, bullets, and match strategy
The future of PRS match design

Whether you're a seasoned PRS competitor or preparing for your very first match, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to build—and win—one of the most demanding competitions in precision rifle shooting.

If you enjoy the episode, be sure to subscribe and let us know which guest you'd like to hear from next.

#PRS #PrecisionRifle #HauntedEpic #LongRangeShooting #AustinBushman #HornadyPRC #PrecisionRifleSeries #CompetitionShooting #ForsterProducts #LongRange

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

All right, welcome back. PRS the show this week. Uh this is a great one. Uh George Gardner Brian Sykes join us. Um have kind of a kind of a laugh fest here uh to talk about Hornedy PRC and uh this year's winner.

SPEAKER_04 0:14

And then uh Austin Bushman here is gonna prove that he's a much better shooter than he is an IT professional.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Stick around and find out what it takes to beat Kale Harmon like a drum.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

You're gonna love yourself.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Hey, buddy. Long time no see. How's it going?

SPEAKER_07 0:39

It's it's been a minute, been a minute, dude. Now myself and Sarah and everybody we get to kind of decompress from the long range, uh not in your own backyard precision rifle match.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Hell yeah. That looks like you're doing it right. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 0:57

I mean, I guess someone's gotta like pave the road, but damn, that's a tough road. Destination matches, dude. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

No joke. You've been around. Um, yeah, let's do it. Let's make this a little bit of an interview. Sykes, you've been around a little while.

SPEAKER_07 1:14

I've been around a minute, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Yeah. What? Um let's take a look at your impact profile.

SPEAKER_07 1:21

Um just don't look at all the scores, dude. They they take a downturn.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Yeah, over time. Brian Sykes. Uh, of course, there's like five Brian Sykes in here because uh, yeah. Number 281.

SPEAKER_07 1:36

281.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

281. That's crazy. Uh, we're at like 23,000 now, bud.

SPEAKER_07 1:42

Yeah, man. And I think I was only 281 because I was a holdout, man. No, dude. Yeah, you ain't gonna get my $10, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Yeah. This PRS thing's never gonna work out.

SPEAKER_07 1:54

Yeah. No, I mean, pretty much, yeah, dude. Kind of from uh ground one ground zero, really, just kind of scratching up the surface and then then letting us slowly evolve into something.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

It it feels like it's some days feels slower than the others, but some days it's crazy fast.

SPEAKER_07 2:12

Yeah, but review rear time on. It goes fast, dude.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

What uh what's keeping you busy these days, Brian? What do you do Monday to Friday?

SPEAKER_07 2:22

So the typical Monday to Friday for sites is spending a bunch of time within the walls of GEA precision, doing a lot of like the production management side of things, making sure we get the right products from the right folks. Sure. Um, and then flexing a little bit of my time towards uh manner's composite stocks, doing a lot of design work, RD, and kind of future planning and just kind of like estimation of things and kind of blowing on the dice and chucking them down the down the pelt man a little bit. Um, the nice soccer and the TCS and the LRH and stuff all have had uh a lot of brain trust involvement and they've been super fun projects to work on.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

So heck yeah. So split in time. A lot of people a lot of people probably know this, a lot of probably don't, but manners and GA precision are like a st literally a stone's throw apart, right? Like oh man.

SPEAKER_07 3:18

It uh it works out selfishly fantastic for me because yeah, we're we're about one entire block apart. So when we uh thrust uh an order of stocks, we I just walk I literally walk down the street and get them when they get ordered. So it works it works out good for me, man, selfishly.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

So that's cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_07 3:37

And then a good crew at at both shops, so I'm pretty lucky.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Yep. Yep, yeah, it's uh it's cool that uh you guys are all located right there, and you got Tom and George and yeah, and uh yeah, I don't know a lot of Tom's crew, Matt, I guess, and a few others, but uh the crew at GA is pretty pretty awesome, pretty involved too. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 3:58

Solid good crew, a real massive audience.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 4:02

Speaking of which, Matt, Bush is on.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Yeah, we got a bushy here this week.

SPEAKER_07 4:08

Dude, I kind of want to punch you in the liver for banging out that percentage at the precision rifle match you did. Oh my goodness, dude.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Had a good weekend. Oh, we can't hear him.

SPEAKER_07 4:22

World world class. Like, I I didn't think attainable. No, like no kidding, dude.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

I yeah, it's pretty wild to think uh how well he did, especially in the crowd of shooters. We can talk shit about him here for a little bit. His audio is not working, so yeah. Oh, even better, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:40

Yeah, he his wind calls suck. I mean yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

Yeah. Uh you know what? I'll say this before he comes on, but I I sent him a text at the end of the day Saturday. Sounds like his mic is picking up some wind, at least.

SPEAKER_07 4:54

That might be me too, dude. If it ends up being a pain in the ass, I'll pull off.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

No, it sounds good. Um, I I sent him a text. Uh, what did I say here? Uh man, he's texting me a lot since Saturday night. Jeez, it peeps. Um, I said you dropped enough points on that last stage, just trying to keep that door open for Kale, because Kale was pretty close at the time, right?

SPEAKER_07 5:21

Yeah that's how that match, that's how that match works, dude.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

So he says, you have no idea uh what that last stage was. You would have zeroed it four times in a row. Getting a six was a miracle.

SPEAKER_07 5:35

Oh, yeah. I mean, especially if he's talking to you in the first person, you don't have a chance, dude.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Well, come on.

SPEAKER_07 5:45

But you yeah, four zeros in a row is no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Right. So uh one of the things I want to point out to all the listeners at home, uh hopefully Bushman figures his internet out. I bet his I bet his little shop that he usually does this in is probably 120 degrees. Um I hope so. If you're looking on the impact uh website, and again, we make all the up I say we like I do anything with impact, I give Bill a lot of direction. Um if you're looking on the the website now for all of our matches, you'll see uh they have tags. So you can see the qualifier tag if it indeed is a qualifier. Um so taking a look at uh the results from Horn of the PRC, which is why Brian's here and George is soon to join us. Bushman wins this. Do you know what he finished? It was like the 900-yard troop one, I think like stage seven. Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_07 6:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yep. Uh yeah, so he goes six six out of ten. What can you explain that course of fire on stage seven all the way up?

SPEAKER_07 6:54

Uh remind me of too many is that the E-types or the Hex.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Might be. Yeah, it probably is. It has the hex on top of the hill. It's it finishes out like 1100 yards or something.

SPEAKER_07 7:04

Yeah, I mean, he's finishing out like I mean, as the curl flies, natural terrain, nothing's adjusted. I mean, you have no idea as a shooter whether that sagebrush is three feet high or sixteen feet high, or if we skyline the target in a place where it doesn't look skyline, I mean, it is very natural shooting. And uh when you get to stage seven, you're gonna stretch it out. You're gonna start there, and that wind call is gonna change, and that the evolution of that shot between number one and and and number last one is not not only gonna adjust, I mean, 60 to 80 to 100 degrees, but also like 20 to 30 degrees in elevation. So you're all it's a very three-dimensional type of environment that me and my bro George work on that just popped in IC.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

That match has got a uh a heck of a reputation for being one of the one of the most challenging. What uh like do you guys always just go in in mind with that in mind and just try to set up that course of fire to be just a just a ball buster, or does it just kind of come together just because of the environment out there?

SPEAKER_07 8:14

No, I uh I totally get how it could seem that way. But uh believe it or not, I think we we we find like really cool, relevant spots that we feel kind of replicate, you know, a real-world scenario type target when we're kind of using scale factor and putting what we would be, you know, considered a a life-size type coyote at X distance, you know, given the terrain. And it's the terrain that makes it difficult. I mean, it is the environment that makes it difficult. Whether it's a six-inch target or a sixteen-inch target, you still gotta get as close to center as possible. And you don't know if it's gonna be 20 mile an hour winds or 50 mile-an-hour winds or what your what your what the sunlight's gonna look like on your stage. I can guarantee you, all the guys out there that started on stage what 10 versus stage one, the lighting conditions alone could make for a very visible target or a very impossible target, which is when you try to kind of flex the matchbook to replicate some sort of blueprint to make targets easily findable.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

First year of Hornet EPRC, I mean, that was the most amount of work you guys put in, right? I mean, a lot of the stuff kind of goes back into similar locations, and you have a pretty good formula worked out for how to do this. What was it what was it like building that course of fire the first time?

SPEAKER_07 9:37

Daunting. I mean, that's like uh like a blank canvas, you know? Like it it's yours to do with what you will. Like, there's almost too many options, you know. Let's that place started just like every other razor back to the top of a ridgeline is the other 200,000 some acres. Just a piece of sagebrush that ripped up to one side that myself and George thought would be a real cool place to put some targetry out.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

The piece of property there in Utah that Hornady leases, uh, you guys get some bonus time out of it. I mean, uh, can we talk about like what that piece of property is actually used for?

SPEAKER_06 10:18

Yeah, I mean, why not? Yeah, so Hornady's the main leaseholder and they sublease it out to Loophold and Freightliner and Black Rifle and other comp companies that want to use it for functions and hunting. Um basically, Neil had extra weeks that they weren't using. They get like a certain allotted amount of time up on the mountain and they weren't using it all. So they'd asked me if I could basically find someone to run a match there. Believe it or not, uh, me and Brian weren't ever really gonna run a match there. I actually took I actually took Castle there and him and Saturday were gonna run it. And uh me and Castle went there and they told us kind of an area that could be used, and uh we didn't really lay anything out, but saw the area, and then Castle kind of quit shooting and got disinterested in the PRS. And I asked Brian if he'd uh be my partner in it, and I called Neil up and said, Hey man, sorry that guy didn't work out, but me and Brian are gonna do it, and that's kind of where it started.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Yeah. I mean, it's a amazing piece of property. You have to like it has to be used for something, right? You know, like uh it what an opportunity to shoot out there. So why you know it's 250,000 acres, right? Ish. I mean it's two acres. 278 if you want to be exact. 278, all right. Wow. Uh I know it takes like an hour from the time you leave the blacktop to you know when you get to the actual place where you guys host it. Now use like at check-in, there's like a hundred, well, I'd say a hundred yard range. There's a hundred yard paper and you can shoot out for probably five miles there. Um so then the place that you guys actually selected, why why'd you settle on that part of the property to to host the match? 'Cause because we were told to. No, no joke. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 12:14

I'll I'll tell you why. Here are your options. Yeah, here's your option. It's right here. Um because it's mainly a hunting lease, the elk are up there where we stay at the cabin, which is another about 30 minutes up the mountain, about 2,000 feet higher in elevation. There's some better looks up there. Like you know, and we can make it look crazy up there. The problem is they don't want all that shooting up there where the elk kind of hang out that time of year. So we're down kind of in what they call mule deer and antelope country in that spot. And there's you know, all those rocks, and there's the lake, and there's that ridge, and kind of all that cedar and juniper. It just it's the second best look, pretty much, that was shootable and that they would allow us to use. And but you went back to that question and I'll let Brian speak to it. But when we got there, there was nothing there. That that static range wasn't there. They basically brought in a bobcat. I think there was maybe a truck and a and uh something with a mower on the front of it, and they said, uh, let us know what you guys want done. And that first year in May, we kind of built that range that's there, and it's just gotten better over the last eight years.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 13:23

That that road that goes at the ridge back that services the entire set of stages, like didn't dig not exist eight years ago. Like, as you look at it, that nothing was scratched in, not not a thing. I mean, we walked up that thing eight years ago and used surveying stakes and engineer staked out each stage for the first match, and like perspectively where we would think targetry to go without having gone to the target tree on our little recons for the first one, two, three years. I mean, it was it was kind of a wild journey. Whether we knew we were gonna get snow in March or not when we were doing our recons, but those are the times that we had available to us.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

Do you guys have to set up and tear down that match completely every year? Or are that stuff up now?

SPEAKER_06 14:15

It's kind of hard with moat being bride. Do you want to take that one? You want me to, Brian? Go for it, no, no, no, no, let it rip, dude. So the first year, and that's the biggest part, I guess. I'm gonna change the subject a little bit and go into it. The first year, like you got to realize we didn't know any of these ranch personnel. I knew a few of the guides, and of course, Neil and Jason, and they were very standoffish. I wouldn't say they weren't prepared to help us, but they were c you know very cautious. So the first the first year we had a minimum, very cautious. Yeah. So the first year we ran 10 stages, and that was kind of like back when PRS was a little bit afraid of not having a score on day one because of weather. So we ran 10 stages on day one and 10 stages on day two with about 160 shooters, and we ran that ridge back that we use now, and we shot like kind of 360 down the bottom where the parking lot is now. Of course, the next year, both Jason and Neil, like, we want 200 shooters. And I'm like, Holy shit.

SPEAKER_07 15:20

Yeah, it has to be 200.

SPEAKER_06 15:22

It has to be 200. Yeah. So we we did that, and that that's when we kind of formed the current ridge back, you know, 360, where you kind of walk up and come back just to be able to do 20 stages at once. And then kind of the funny part is after that year, do I think we did 205 or something, and maybe 198 showed up. Neil was like, okay, never mind 200 shooters, let's let's clap it around 180, 160. So totally agree. 100%, 100% agree with that one. But uh, as far as the teardown, that our relationship with the ranch manager who now likes to shoot, uh, the resource manager who's who's who we deal with directly, Scott, he's got into shooting. Um, you know, we became really good friends, we converse year long. Um we can we can leave the stakes up on the hillside. Uh any stakes down in the grazing area where cattle would be and where the horses would be riding when they drive and we pull. Um, I would say probably right now we're looking at 65% of the stakes stay in, but nothing else. So, like the stage itself, uh, they all get torn down, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:36

Um, yeah. We try to put in at least two new uh somethings a year just to keep it interesting. You know, I'm not saying that matches that run the same props every year are bad. I'm just saying I always like to see a couple new ones, or like our policies make two to three new somethings a year.

SPEAKER_07 16:55

But yes, through through that, like George and I will read the matchbook out, and even just by like, you know, incorporating a couple of new stages, we'll kind of go through some of the language and even, you know, just quickly adjust some of the wording in stage one or stage three or five and completely change the dynamic of that stage. So it's very kinetic, and there's a lot going on, and it's very feasibly easy to change the look and feel of a lot of stages, too.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Now let's talk about uh uh weather usually, and I've I've shot that match three or four times now. Weather usually is cool in the morning, 50, 55, and then very pleasant after the sun comes over the mountain, and it's usually pretty nice, and then mid-afternoon it gets a little breezy. Um, and the evening is very nice. Um a little different this year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:58

We were staring at the weather all week and it didn't change much. At first, I'm like, oh, they you know, it'll be floor today or back a day. Uh but we did change some targets, you know. Like I said, a couple of stages that were supposed to be an eight and a ten became a ten and a twelve. Um what like one of the stages that uh was gonna have three targets, so all three of those jumped up two stages in size. But because a lot of our targets are animal targets and we have duplicates of the exact same target, it's kind of hard to change those. And for instance, the elk deer stage, which is just an elk stage now, um you can't really change those because we spent like a week cutting out stage where those targets would you know be below the stage where you could see them. So you can't just move those around. So you know, some stages we couldn't change. We tried to change a few for the win. I think we maybe changed three. And uh I you know, it blew me away that those guys shot in the 80 percentile that first day. Like that really gives those guys credit. I could reliable talent. Yeah, in fact, it was some of the worst win. Dude, I'm telling you, some of the f worst win was right off the go on day one, and clay was clean through three stages. And I was like, holy shit, dude. Like, like, I don't even know how you're doing it. Like it it was kind of most mind-boggling, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Yep. And Bushman, what what'd you say there about uh it was clay early on?

SPEAKER_06 19:30

I think Bushman just stayed consistent the whole match, and Clay maybe had a stage or two where he dropped a few, but like Clay came out of the gates strong. Like he I I I kind of checked it every you know hour or so, and he was clean through three stages and maybe dropped two on his fourth stage. I'm like, holy shit, he's gonna run away with it.

SPEAKER_07 19:49

But dude, you drove up to me after the fourth rotation, remember? Right, and you were like, Man, dude, Clay's killing it. And then you said he's smoking some stages, and I'd considering where he started and what you were saying, I was fairly surprised.

SPEAKER_06 20:06

Yeah, and that's not that's the thing. He didn't start on an easy side. He's he kind of started on the Bushman.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Were you shooting with Clay?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah, we were squatted together.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

He start.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

I mean, just we started on stage 16. He started on 16. So we shot the longest distance stage of the match at the very end of day one in the second longest stage of the match at as our next to last stage on day two.

SPEAKER_07 20:34

Yeah, great squad, great, great squad decision, but it's real tactical.

SPEAKER_06 20:38

Yeah, I I'd love for somebody to try to say that they got some kind of like great start of it, because that's definitely my thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

We have a whole text message string between Clay and I uh debating on what the best uh starting spot is, and we we ended up not getting what either one of us wanted. But my whole strategy was to try and figure out how I had to walk up the hill the least amount of time.

SPEAKER_06 21:07

I like your back up, man. I could tell you where the best place to start is, but that wouldn't be fair because I definitely know where it is.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Well, booksman, what do you think of this?

SPEAKER_00 21:19

You you know that range better. I think stage 14.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

You think 40 would be the best place to start? Huh.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Because it's all it's close to the best place to start. It's it's definitely debatable. Is that for a highest score or least amount of walking? You start stage 14 and you shoot 12 stages, then the uh the other long distance stage is your second stage on day two. So you you get to shoot uh both the long ones uh early, early in the morning.

SPEAKER_06 21:48

Interesting.

SPEAKER_07 21:50

Well if you put that in the chat, GPT, I'm gonna be pissed.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

The tr the truth is uh I don't think the long distance stages matter a whole lot at this match. Smart.

SPEAKER_07 22:00

That's a smart shooter right there, if I've ever heard one.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

I didn't hit hardly anything. Well, I did okay. I did I I missed by far the most of my shots on those stages. Uh I shot some a little bit of bad positional early in the match. It it's hard to shoot good positional at Hornady. The wind blowing doesn't help, and then there's some props that are just not there's a few positions on a couple stages that are not great. And then there's some whole there's some whole entire stages where it's not great. Uh but you know, I I think that you can miss every target past a thousand yards and win the match. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 22:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:44

Come from the math.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

You're talking about you talking about the elk targets or uh no the the elk so the elk is probably the easiest of the long range stages just because of how wide they are and and they're like decent sized target. The long term uh the probably the E-types to the hacks. Yeah, the big stop sign at the far end. Yeah, that's the stage seven.

SPEAKER_06 23:07

Uh that's so that's exactly where I would want to start. That's where I would want to start. That's where I would start.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

That'd be a good start. That's like the that's kind of like the opposite end of what I was saying. You'd you'd accomplish the same thing both ways, starting there. Um That's a hell of a control right there. The the wind was pretty well terrible all day, day one, so there wasn't probably a great draw. I doubt I I mean from our very first stage, it was very windy and switchy. So I don't think the guys that started on those stages probably loved it a whole lot either, right?

SPEAKER_06 23:42

So that so this year, Ken, I started the shooters like as close as I could to first light. Not because I like getting up early, actually, I hate it. And that was like the biggest decision me and Brian had this year was do we try to throw him a bone and let him have some, you know, light wind in the morning for at least a couple hours. And right. So we we had them start like be at the you know range at six and and it's start time at seven. And I think maybe that first stage.

SPEAKER_07 24:13

It's a tough pill to swallow, but like it was legitimately for the guys that are out dentin' primers, I promise you.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

So what was the what was the win first thing in the morning?

SPEAKER_06 24:24

It was a little lighter. Very cool. Nice. It was a little lighter, but it didn't last long. Maybe, maybe a stage and a half uh got I we didn't even get one stage in.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

And then it was already pretty bad. It was pretty bad, Bushman. The way the wind was 15 to 20 after one stage.

SPEAKER_06 24:45

Yeah, it's pretty much they got one stage, they got one stage in, and then the wind came up.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

It peaked at 30 to 35.

unknown 24:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 24:54

Somebody showed to give you an example, too. I I hadn't seen Corey Vogues in in a minute. So I had seen him just roll over and shoot uh stage seven, the hex that we were just talking about. And uh he gets he gets up off the gun. Hey man, great to see you. Hey, by the way, I I heard you got a hit on that last target. What would you what was your wind hold? He said, Oh man, it was what I dialed when I held, it ended up being 6.2. Wow. So, hey man, great to see you. Hell of a hole. Well, see you later.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah. I would love to tell you what wind call I needed to hit it, but I did not hit it.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

So it doesn't matter what what I see took two shots, your final two shots are at that point.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

I tried, I tried 3.8 mils. Uh I I shot it in a little bit of uh less wind than some of my squad mates, but um KL Harmon hit it with 6.3.

SPEAKER_06 25:51

Yeah. I'm telling you, man. I do I do had one shooter on stage uh what would be nine, which was a rickshaw, which is the shittiest like uh stage we have as far as the prop, but it the prop's cool, so we have to use it. Um but it's its location is in the hardest wind and it's the crappiest uh you know it's the crappiest prop we have, but it's cool. And uh somebody showed me their Kestrel with a 47 mile an hour gust on day one.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Wow, yeah, that that end of the range where you're kind of on the point of that hill, you get way higher wind right there than you do when you're on the other side.

SPEAKER_06 26:36

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_07 26:38

Which is almost like almost a half mile, like at up that whole ridge to the end of like that turnaround point. And it's a very dramatic half mile.

SPEAKER_06 26:49

And that's a good point. Like everyone always asks how much walking there is. It's almost exactly one mile from the bottom stage one all the way to stage 20. If you if you were to walk the whole thing, walk, it's one mile.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

And it's not so bad.

SPEAKER_06 27:05

And pretty much every single stage is 60 to 80 yards apart, except between I think five and six or six and seven, and you might have a hundred to twenty-yard walk there, but everything else is pretty short.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

Yeah, yeah, that's not too bad.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

No, so looking look as I say real quick by the number stage seven all the way up. That's the hex we're talking about. Average score was 3.8 out of 10.

SPEAKER_07 27:33

Yeah, I mean, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Bushman, I I uh I'm a little offended that you said if I shoot that four times in a row, I get a zero every time.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

At the time we shot. And and I was uh probably exaggerating. You probably would have hit one target out of four types of prize.

SPEAKER_05 27:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:51

If I remember the first ones, the first one's nine and some change, and those targets are all full-size E-types, they're not even Ipsics, they're E-types. Genuine 20 by 40.

SPEAKER_07 28:03

I mean, genuine, genuine pieces of metal.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

No one in our squad, not a single shooter in our squad got a first round impact on that Ipsyck.

SPEAKER_06 28:13

Oh, I don't doubt it. The only good thing about that stage is that they're placed in good spots where you get a good call up your first shot.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yep. Yeah, tons of dust. You know the fourth, the fourth target that was bladed. So the fourth target's at 1260, I think, and it was about two-tenths wide. I kid you not. And I hit that twice. I missed most of the other ones, but I hit that twice.

SPEAKER_06 28:37

Yep. Depending on where they are in the range, if they get a lot of wind, they're gonna turn sideways.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yep. That the big elk targets were turning sideways in the wind.

SPEAKER_07 28:47

And those are legitimate full-size pieces of steel. That's a hell of a swing. Hundreds of pounds.

SPEAKER_06 28:54

Hey, those will never move because I think we had like a two-man carry with backpacks to get those in place that first year. And believe it or not, Brian can back me up on this. Somebody rode in there in the winter and stole our one of our deer targets uh two years ago.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 29:14

Yeah, we've got warrants out. We got warrants.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:18

And then the other deer target, one of the uh guides there decided they wanted to put it on a different hanger for some uh hunters, and they cut a hole that's like two inches in it to hang from. And so it blades like almost sideways in the wind, so we don't use it anymore. That's that's the story of why it went to three elk and not two deer, two elk and a bear.

SPEAKER_07 29:43

So uh there's there's a lot of it goes on about the whole square peg round hole with that match and making things happen in regards to that.

SPEAKER_04 29:52

Sure. So Bushman, um you you won pretty pretty handily. Eleven points. 11 impacts ahead of second place.

SPEAKER_07 30:04

What incredible, like unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

If you if you could narrow it down to some individual, like uh well, what what do you think you did better than uh than everyone else at the match? Was it was it positional? Were you just calling the wind better? Were you staying ahead of the wind changes? What do you think it was?

SPEAKER_01 30:24

I did a lot of things right, but I don't think I had the I I certainly got lucky often with wind that happened during my stages. I missed one first round impact for the entire match, and it was on that 1300 yard stage. It was a 900-yard target that was unhittable. But um, so I did good at at at the first round win calls. I think I think there was another year or two years ago when I shot probably a better match um at Hornady. I I think that a lot of things have to come together. It in any PRS pro match, for somebody to win like that, that yeah, you have to have a great rifle that's shooting great, you have to perform well, but you also have to get lucky. And in a really windy, really gusty match is a time that the that luck factor, I think, can make a bigger gap in the scores. Because when when when people are really getting train wreck stages in the in windy, switchy conditions on difficult stages, it's not like a two shots dropped, it's like five or six shots dropped, which I s which happened to Clay and Kale on multiple stages. So uh the scores were a lot closer than this after day one. I was a couple shots ahead of Kale and five or six shots ahead of Clay. And you know, those guys shoot so good that I thought, well, the way this match is so difficult, it just one stage and they could catch up or pass me. Yeah. And the I shot great on day two. I didn't have anything go on wrong. My gun shot great, perfect elevation when it needed to have it, you know, on the pelicans or the coyotes, when you got to have perfect elevation, I had perfect elevation. That's one of the that's one of the things it's hard to uh put your thumb on why that happened, you know, because it's very easy to get a tenth or two of elevation variation in windy conditions. Um so I don't know. I think that that both Kale and Clay were right behind me after day one, and I don't think that I shot that exceptional. I think that they just had some stages where the wind got them, and um so I I feel like normally they would shoot as good or better than I did on day two, but their score dropped and I just stayed level, is how I feel about it. I I mean I've shot Hornady uh four times at least, maybe five. I've been top five every time, but I I don't think I've ever actually come close to winning it really in score. Um somebody almost always runs away with it. Somebody's always six shots ahead or eight shots ahead or ten shots ahead. And so I've been on the other end of that every year. And I don't think that I did anything extra special this time to end up that far ahead, if that makes sense. Sure. So what you're saying, what you're saying.

SPEAKER_07 33:24

There were a couple of things I noticed. I think there's a big difference between getting lucky and capitalizing on luck in a match. And I think where luck kind of intruded, you capitalize. And then also between the amount of times that George and I are spending roving between stages, at no point in time did I come up to you and y'all stage where you looked like flustered. What am I gonna do? Like it you always look like you had a game game plan. It looked like you were kind of ready to attack stuff. So I think a lot of your stage prep and whatever you do mentally, even in situations that call for a lot of focus when you're getting just beat on with 40 plus mile an hour winds and still making shots that you're making, dude, you're you're operating on a level beyond a lot of more a lot more than most people, dude. Like that's a fact. I you know what?

SPEAKER_06 34:20

Um I wasn't gonna say this, but I think I can say it in a way that you'll understand. Like, I went and talked to Kale on the last stage of day one, and I think he got mentally wrecked on his last stage. And maybe Bushman can say something about it, but I know he had a bad last stage. And I was basically went up there to congratulate him on a shooting, and he said, Oh, I'm out of it now. And I'm like, What are you talking about? He's oh, I fucked up my last stage, I'm three points back. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? He's like, I've seen guys come back, you know, 12 shots back. He's like, get your head in the game, and he just was hanging his head low and was like, he almost was like giving it up like that last day or that first day on the last stage. And I was I was kind of trying to convey that, dude, you don't understand how mental this game is. A guy that can keep his head in the game, even if he has a bad stage, is like probably gonna be the winner nine times out of ten.

SPEAKER_07 35:17

100% agree, especially at a match like this. I'm a wicked head case, and I don't think I'd survive five stages at the Margaret match.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

The uh that's true. You guys are right, but the truth is I wasn't getting beat up the whole time. I was hitting targets the whole time, so it was easier for me to, you know, to stay in it, I guess.

SPEAKER_07 35:39

Dude, I would have loved to hang out in your orbit because I was eating dust all day, bro.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

I uh I shot so our squad got beat up bad on the on the bear TYL stage. And I so here's an example of what I think is mostly luck. Like you you go into that stage expecting that the small target is maybe two and a half tenths, three tenths wide, and like one and a half tenths tall. It's a little bear target. I don't know how big they actually are, but the last two targets on that stage are tiny. And the stage is difficult too, with having to pan and shoot the confirmed target. And so there's an egg, there's an angle change, and we had almost a tailwind at that time. So you go into it expecting the wind to change on you. Every time that you have to pan and shoot the confirmed target and come back to the plate rack, you have to you you have to know that you're gonna have to watch where everything goes because it's likely to change. I dialed 1.1 mils left, sent my first shot, hit the first bear on the TYR act right in the middle, and I never changed that wind hold.

SPEAKER_07 36:48

Golly, it's impossible and cleaned that stage.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

And so, you know, like there's if if I if I shot 30 seconds later or 30 seconds earlier, I guarantee you that wouldn't have worked on that small bear the whole time.

SPEAKER_07 37:04

See, there's been times where like George and I have gone up on the gun to like verify valid, confirm, etc. Whatever stage at whatever year, and had him roll the bolt, shoot a race, stand by, go, you know, and him go, oh, that was a good stage. It was like got like a seven. Hey, do it again. Oh man, got a free. Like all right, now you do it. Hey man, no, that that's a little too easy. Okay, cool. Try it again. Oh my god, dude, that's impossible. Like that, I mean, I I don't have a good answer except making stuff like we were talking about earlier. Like George and I go back and forth on the road radio, like we're just trying to put like realistic-ish target sizes as far as like animal engagement relationships and like kill zones. Like, nothing's totally wild and crazy. You know, everybody in the entire universe, especially if they got a PRS number, shoots, you know, 0.2s, you know, single-digit SDs. So we shouldn't have a problem.

SPEAKER_06 38:03

Let it rip, dude. You know, it's funny is uh, you know, we all me and Brian's like goal in every match we run, whether it's Horny or or the Manners, you know, match anything. 80% is should be uh obtainable by the winner, somewhere in the 80 percentile. I know some matches are in the 90s, but like I'm thinking if the if some if the winner's somewhere in the 80s, that's the goal. And to be honest, I did not think that was going to happen at this match when I saw the the wind, you know, before the match, but like I don't want to run an easy match. I think the the top guys, and even maybe the mid-pack guys are right below above or below mid-pack want a hard match or something challenging. You know, new shooters obviously want big targets, they want to get hits, but at the end of the day, it's it's a championship. It's we're supposed to challenge the top guys, and that's always kind of been my goal, and Brian's as well.

SPEAKER_07 39:04

A million percent. Like, I want Bushman's and Blackheaders and top-level shooters, I want Harman's. I want all of them to run through our course of fire and have at least two train wrecks. Like that's what I want. Like, if if if Bushman comes up a stage and I and he's like, dude, that was the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I'd be like, All right, victory, man. Like everyone needs to be like it can't all be 80s and 90s, boys. Like, you gotta you earn your hits at the Horning match, you don't just get them. I promise you that.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

The match is super difficult. I like there's a ton of stages where I got eights or nines, and I knew that I was lucky to get an eight or a nine. It's like you're always, you're always just a few seconds away from that train wreck. And if you could just get through the stage without it happening, then move on with life and be happy. And somehow, somehow, this time I avoided it for the entire match.

SPEAKER_07 40:02

Awesome. If I had to ask you an honest question of the uh the stages that you felt you did the best personally, like how much more like personally fulfilling were those than cleaning the other stages that you smoke at any given time on autopilot?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Oh, it's way more satisfying to clean a really difficult stage. So I'll give you an example at this match. I cleaned the Pelican stage. It was on day two, and it was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_07 40:31

That's unbelievable, dude. That's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

I was the first one to clean it in the match. Apparently, a couple other guys cleaned it after, but I shot that in really favorable wins too on day two. I know the guys on day one probably hate the fact that I cleaned that because that's super hard stage. I cleaned that on day two, probably only 20 shooters left in the match, or 20 or 30 to even shoot it. So there's probably 130 people that shot it before me. I got to clean on that. And shit, and the RO said, You're the first one to clean that. That's a good feeling.

SPEAKER_06 41:04

If you bring up, if you bring up an impact, all the stages, every single stage was cleaned. Did you guys look at that? At some point.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Every every stage has a clean.

SPEAKER_06 41:19

Yeah. Which which is actually not the norm in a match. So that surprised the hell out of me when I got the match director report. I'm like, holy shit, like every stage got clean. That's crazy because I did not.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

After day one, though, there was about four stages that hadn't been cleaned. Uh the pelicans hadn't been cleaned, the the all the way up hadn't been cleaned. All those got cleaned right the first thing on day two. First thing in the morning.

SPEAKER_06 41:47

But those, but those are actually, I mean, for a guy like you, it'd be easy to clean that stage in a no-wind or a low wind. But like to show that every stage is cleanable was kind of like cool to see, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 42:04

Keep in mind, like, not only do George and I have like a multi-hour drive back, we also like work together. So these analytics go back and forth and we chew on them like like gangbusters all day talking about little things, trying to quiz each other. So this I mean, some of these stuff that came out of this match is wild.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

It's the the reason the match is so fun and that I make a point to go to it every year is because it's difficult. There's no I don't remember a stage at that's super easy from the Oki Showdown that I cleaned three years ago. But I'll remember cleaning that pelican stage three years from now.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:45

Yeah, I think when you say that when uh the proverbial meatball match, I don't think the top guys care so much about that. I mean, I know the mid-pack guys maybe want to see it as a place to go get points, but I think the top guys want a challenging match where their you know performance of outdoing somebody counts. Where uh like a proverbial meatball match, the top guys are all so close. Like the points are aren't as critical, I guess. And you know, Austin got some points in this match that no one else got. And I think that's kind of what separates you know the harder matches from the easier ones. Yeah, the top guys wanted oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

I was gonna say I'll speak for Beamer and the rest of the mid-pack crowd here. Uh the I think I think when you shoot a tough match and you know you take a five out of ten on a stage, you're s you still energize, like, well, that didn't really hurt me. Like, I could come back and get a nine out of ten on the next one, and I know I'm gonna move up 30 places. Right? But if you're in a if you're in a you know, quote unquote meatball match, you take a five out of ten, like, no, you're not gonna gain anything. You're not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_07 43:56

I mean, you can sh you can dry fire and guess what. Training in.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 44:05

Having a wheels fall off stage at the warning match, it doesn't even it it affects nothing, dude. You have to stay wired tight for all 20, man, or you're gonna get fucked off.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Hey, I got a question for you, George and Brian. Did anybody hit the uh mile target? Oh yeah. So that's a cool thing that's actually a that's actually a funny story.

SPEAKER_03 44:23

So what stage is that?

SPEAKER_06 44:26

I it was it was a bonus target. It's it's it's uh down the drain. This this year, the mile stage wasn't worth a point, but if you got through your stage in time, you could send one at it, and we were gonna keep track of who hit it and then draw a name for a stock for manners. Um the guy that came to R.O. it brought one of the BTX 115s, and he was gonna spot that target with it. It was so windy that like the lights were going off on it from it banging back and forth, and both the ROs like said no one hit it. Well, we got up there to pull it down at the end of the day, and then we're five hits on it, so who knows who hit it? So five people hit it. Well, but a lot of guys a lot of guys wanted to shoot at it after they were done, and if they were like a stage ahead, they could send a few at it. So I don't know if it was lettering talking about officially no one hit it.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Derek, yeah, yeah, I on in the time of the stage, they said we were next to last stage, and they said no one hit it when when all of our shooters were done. I think they're probably right because when we pulled up, we all looked at it with our glass, and it was it was better lighting on day two, and we could see two impacts on it. But the RO said that they knew that one of them came from a shooter who just wanted to send the shot after his time had expired on the stage.

SPEAKER_07 45:52

Which is a confirmed one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

And then one of the shooters in our in our squad who was not having a good match, decided to send 12 cider shots at it and then try to hit it.

SPEAKER_07 46:07

Tell of a tactic, dude. What but why not?

SPEAKER_01 46:10

I mean, if you're not gonna get anything from the match anyways, and you get a stock out of the deal. If you hit that target, that's a hundred nobody else in the match has hit it. You've got a hundred percent chance at a manner stock, which is you know, like a top 10 prize, like just like you got top 10 at the match.

SPEAKER_07 46:24

So I would have done the exact same thing. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

We were all saying that's a no-brainer. I don't know why five or six guys from the last couple of squads didn't all try that. So he hit it twice, sending his siders, and then sent his last shot and went right underneath it. It was man.

SPEAKER_06 46:45

Well, that would explain why there was a few hits on it. Because I was I was asking RO, I'm like, are you sure no one hit that during the match? Like, we're positive. I'm like, well, there's six hits on it.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

But we were telling the we were so the next squad behind us was the last squad in the whole match that was gonna have a chance to hit that for the manor stock. And uh we were telling them the strategy too. Like, hey, if you're having a a bad match, if you're below halfway in the match, send them all up that target.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

It's hard to pull the plug. It's hard to pull the plug and do it, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

That's a fun idea. I love the idea of sending a bonus round that doesn't count for a point, but has a a stage prize attached to it. That was a great idea.

SPEAKER_07 47:24

It's all for, I mean, a great idea on Georgia's part, and just like being a little bit more inclusive into the stage briefs and like what they can entail. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

It's little ideas like that to take a stage and make it special.

SPEAKER_07 47:38

Yeah, give us something. We had traditionally done something like that in the past, but that was just kind of a new little tweak to kind of incentivize guys, and then also like as Austin obviously has described, like fine technique in the language and the wording of our stage briefs, and that that leaning into like all the stage briefs being very just informative and not regimented, like it's your stage to screw up, man. It's your targets to hit, you know? Like shoot or not, man. There's plenty of options available to you within the parameters of every single stage. Like it's it's all you, man.

SPEAKER_06 48:20

I got I got a question for all you guys. Brian, uh, what'd you guys think of the whole digital matchbook thing from a shooter perspective?

SPEAKER_01 48:29

I I didn't use it. A guy in our squad went and printed off eight copies and gave one to everybody in the squad. So you did use it. Well, yeah, I used a printed off version of it.

SPEAKER_07 48:43

Dude, options, man. Again, options, bro.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Did everybody in your squad use the paper copy then?

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Yeah, I mean, he showed up first thing on day one and just start handing them out. Uh nobody asked him to do that or anything. Um so it great. Squad mate of the year.

SPEAKER_07 48:59

Hell of a squad mate, dude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:01

For the rest of the record, there was a big eight by twelve with them with the RO for guys who couldn't read their phones because their eyesight's so shitty.

SPEAKER_07 49:09

But I kind of think we tried to create every redundancy possible with taking this little bit of a dice roll here, but we're not totally disappointed with how it worked out. I mean, 50 mile an hour winds with a little bit of rain and paper matchbooks in the middle of Evanson, Wyoming, we'd still be out there picking some matchbooks up right now.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

They're gone. I mean, they're in Bear Lake by now.

SPEAKER_06 49:32

Well, yeah. Who's gonna bring up this junior that took fifth place and like walked away with three trophies?

SPEAKER_03 49:41

Let's go through that, right? Um, all right, let's go through the picks. Uh so last week this was Berticini, Beamer, and myself that made picks. Um all right, so Team Berticini with the first overall pick was Austin Orgain, and then he got Brady Allenson, Mike Anderson, Matt Hornback, and Jacob Denny. Uh Beamer's first pick was Morgan King. And then you took Kale Harmon, Corson Piper, Zane Koon, and Lane Shelley. Did he get four top tens? Or that's pretty good. The pick whisperer, they call me. Yep. Uh my first overall pick was Clay. My second pick was Bushman. Second string pick. Thanks. Thanks for watching. Second string, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 50:29

Oh, dude, it gets worse, dude. Second string of only one person, dude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Uh, I took Chris Off for Gage Caples and Oral Aikenhead. Um who all did well. I mean, Chris Chris had kind of a rough go at it, but uh the win this week goes Speamer. He had uh uh Kale at third, Zayn at six.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

I don't know where I'm gonna spend all my bragging rights. Burticini's picks. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 50:54

They're pretty bad. He really bothered.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

It's not his fault, it's the shooters' faults, you know. They let him down.

SPEAKER_06 51:01

He's he's West Coast, he didn't count him.

SPEAKER_07 51:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

Well, he did that then.

SPEAKER_07 51:06

We didn't have thousand-yard paper, man. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

I'm not the pick, the picks aren't that bad. Uh the those guys can shoot, they just let him down, you know.

SPEAKER_03 51:17

So uh yeah, Mark Lee wasn't picked at all, went unpicked, but finished second. Travis Cohen. Travis Cohen, Marksman, yeah, uh Junior. Junior. Right? How old do you guys figure out how old he is? 17. 17.

SPEAKER_06 51:32

He looks like he he looks young, unlike Gage Cables, who looks 30.

SPEAKER_03 51:37

Yeah, yeah. Well he gage doesn't have too many matches left as a junior. Uh let's let's check out Travis here. He's from the Rocky Mountains South. I think I got Gage buy beer for me.

SPEAKER_05 51:49

Yeah, no shit. Easily.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

Um I mean, uh looking at whoops, uh looking at Travis's profile here.

SPEAKER_04 52:03

Man, Travis is a good kid. He's a he's a really good shooter, too. He's funny.

SPEAKER_06 52:08

Allegedly, geez. Where's where's he from?

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Colorado. Uh Boulder, Colorado. Yeah, so somewhere with Wend, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 52:17

Yeah, yeah. It looks like he shoots those types of matches too. He shoots the nut crusher, Iowa Showdown, Wendy, Clays. Yeah, Hornady. Horn this his Hornady score didn't even isn't even in his top three. Like he went out to a piece of steel, probably a great prize. You guys put a great prize table on, but it doesn't even count. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 52:38

I can I can think of two people that aren't allowed to the horny match anymore now. I know who the other one is.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

Don't even say it. Um and the other unpicked guy was uh Steve MC, finished seven. So great, great finish for Steve.

SPEAKER_07 52:58

Nowhere came in telling me he's all unpracticed and just being lazy behind the trigger, dude. He came in. Ah, what a oh he's a professional.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

He is a professional. Let's talk about previous winners of this. So, Austin, this is your first time winning it, right? Yep. Um Ken Sinoski won it. I'm I'm trying to get other picks at only one at one time and aren't from Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_06 53:25

Well, since we're on the subject, Judy won it.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Morgan. And he's a good one. Burrini won, I think, one of the first years, right? Yeah. Morgan King, is he won it? Morgan's won it.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Yeah, he hasn't won it. Has he?

SPEAKER_02 53:37

I thought he had it. I know he wants to know.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Oh no, now there's gonna be hold on. We'll just uh here. I think Clay's won it ties twice in Oregon.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

I know I know Oregane's won it twice because I was shooting with him when he did it. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 53:54

I know he was wearing like big aviator sunglasses walking in a slow-mo to the first prize one time, but otherwise I can't remember.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

I'm glad you searched for uh King instead of Morgan.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

I can't believe there was 35 Kings there. Dr. King. Um, I can't even yeah. Well, so when the next update is coming here, uh get the full match. But we do have qualifiers and stuff knocked out. Actually, one of the coolest things, and you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna do this live on the air. This we were just given this this data center. Um I can it's actually AI built into this and it has all of our data. So I think I can ask has Morgan King ever won the Hornady PRC?

SPEAKER_05 54:53

Whip it out, Wheeler.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

Let's see. Survey says uh the it it has this is Claude that's built into the back. All right, so let me look up Morgan King and the Hornedy PRC magic. Well, what it actually uh it actually they put a cost. Uh Bill, I don't know if you can see that. Uh Bill Tinkup has a thing on here, so it tells you how much each query costs you to run. Oh wow. It looks like uh just has the last three years. Well, just the last three years, so yeah, and he was second uh last year. Yep. Yeah. I'm gonna get off that page so you guys can see.

SPEAKER_06 55:32

So we know Clay's won it twice. Austin's won it, both Austin's have won it. Birds won it. Birds won it. That's five. So we're missing three. We're missing three. Kinsonas.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Andy Slade.

SPEAKER_06 55:45

Andy Slade. So we're missing one. I'm pretty sure that one is king.

SPEAKER_07 55:50

I'm fairly certain he walked away with the first one because I remember like he was very dirty and small, except the belt buckle was huge.

SPEAKER_05 56:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 56:00

I know uh Andy Slade's AG Cup trophy is still sitting in my shop because it's he's never came and got it, and he's never given me an address to ship it to.

SPEAKER_03 56:10

Oh, the big red and black black.

SPEAKER_06 56:12

The big giant thing.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

Yeah. Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_06 56:14

The no set knife point for it. It's literally sitting like fine shame's black on the wall, like chained monitor something.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

You know, I want to actually change the subject a little bit. Let's go back to Punisher Positional. Speaking of people giving us shit. So Derek Love, uh Derek MF Love wanted me to point out that his picks for the Punisher Positional uh were better. He he were better than Blackhead or Gary and Beamer all together. So uh shout out to Derek Love. I want to make sure to get that in here. Uh he did beat us. He did, yes. See, Derek does Uncle and four boys.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Derek picked one and two. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 57:00

Yeah, your last one, Bushman. Thank you for for joining us last week via cell phone for a minute. Um let's talk, let's talk about that. You you didn't really have an opportunity to to talk about your win there, but any uh any insight on it? The second time you've won it?

SPEAKER_01 57:17

I can't even remember that far back. That's the last time I shot a dasher. I may never shoot Dasher again. So sorry about that.

SPEAKER_03 57:23

Uh go back. What did you shoot? And I I I meant to ask earlier in text, but uh Runar Johnson from Norway, and I think he's probably in group chat with a bunch of people, they all want to know where were you shooting, probably wanting to know if you were shooting 120 grain burger.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Yeah, so I shot a six millimeter Creedmore for the first time ever, and I shot second time. Well, yeah, yeah, that's true. You got it. So I shot a one-day bird.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

Accuracy international.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

I got an accuracy international rifle as a prize at the PRS finale last year. Like maybe it's that's a pretty amazing prize. So then Ken helped get it swapped to a left-handed rifle. So I got a left-hand, uh, I'm gonna screw this up. Accuracy International ATXC. XC.

SPEAKER_03 58:11

ATXC.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

So there's not a lot of left-handed ones, but I got one and it's in six millimeter Creedmar, which is my favorite of the factory cartridges that they make it in. Sure. And I shot it at a one-day match, and I shot great. I mean, it shoots really good. Um, unfortunately, Austin Organ was there and beat me by like seven shots. So, you know. Yep, sometimes that happens. Uh, that's the only other that a one-day match is the only other time I shot it, and you know, a cheap factory rifle. So uh this is uh this is my first time.

SPEAKER_07 58:48

I don't like you.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

You're not supposed to, Brian.

SPEAKER_07 58:54

Every time I go to a stage and I see them all cool, calm, and collective, I just like I want to hit him with a tack hammer.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

So I uh nobody would stop you. I know. I got a bunch of the Burger 120s uh two or three months ago, shot them all, asked for some more, they sent me some more. Uh, but I didn't shoot them in a match. So I I've shot a ton of them in Dasher. I shot them in a lot of different barrels. I think I've shot them in seven or eight different barrels. I have a lot of barrels at my disposal. No joke. Yeah, believe it or not. So um I kind of think that the dasher's a little bit weak for the 120.

SPEAKER_06 59:37

Yeah, and everyone's told me they kind of suck in a dasher.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

They shoot great. They're not you people are everybody's gonna try them in a dasher because everybody's got a dasher and shoots it. They're not gonna have any trouble with them. They're gonna shoot great. It's just you know, at a match where I could take a dasher shooting 109s like I normally do, most of our matches are five or six hundred yards, and the truth is most of our matches are not that windy most of the time, and uh, you're just I just don't think you're gonna see that much benefit. Now six millimeter Creedmoor, you can pump that that bullet out up to three thousand feet per second, and you you've got some serious ballistic efficiency, and it's pretty good. I shot uh six millimeter Creedmore at Hornady and I shot the burger 120s at about 2,930 feet per second.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

2930 with the 120s. Yeah, yeah. So is this the first match for the the 120?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

Yes, it's the first match I shot with the 120s.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:43

Way back in the day, uh pretty much our whole team shot six green more with the 115s doing 2920, which is pretty close to what the the burger is. I think the burger's got a little bit better BC, but it's the one of those really high BC six mils doing close to 3,000 has got some serious windows.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:05

Do you think that you mentioned never having an elevation issue, you know, which would be you know, aerodynamic jump and other factors of the wind. Do you do you think the the BC and the bullet like that much of a difference?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:23

No, I don't think so. I think elo the elevation issues are probably that everybody has. I I think they're unavoidable. I don't think your ballistic efficiency is gonna help a lot with that. But yeah, I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:34

I mean from what I've seen out there, like those like elevation discrepancies and stuff, and based on the terrain, like if you were to get a target failure, for example, at the target you were just engaging in, and have you look at us go service that target, for example, I bet it would totally change the game of your interpretation of that layout of that land, wherever that target was, almost every time. That place is pretty deceptive.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:07

There's no like everything is an angle. Like that's probably one of the most three-dimensional places I've ever dented a primer at. You're not shooting like line of sight to zero degrees. Everything has an elevation component to it. Everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

I would agree. I would agree. It's crazy. BMW have you shot out there yet? I have not. I RO'd um a couple years back.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:33

Oh, okay. It was a really good time RO'ing it, but I have not had a chance to shoot out there yet. I need to change that.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:40

What stage did you RO, do you remember?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:43

Uh I believe it was stage two, the big game.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:45

Um yeah, it's like a side.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

Yep. Yep. Yeah, it looked like that one was uh I always looked like you guys that was similar this year as what you had before.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:57

I always put like a seasoned shooter or really seasoned RO in the long-range stages, so that makes sense.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:05

Yeah, we the logistics behind putting people where they need to be is a man, that's a precursor for success, man. We're trying to do everything to get everybody the hits that they earned out there, so we work hard at putting people in the right spots out there, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

And an RO in that match is pretty awesome because you get to stay up there at the at the lodge, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:26

Yeah, you you get the lodge is about 9,000 feet, so it's a 25-ish hundred feet above where the match is. Totally different look. You're up on a mountain, you know, you're in quaking aspens and pines, and that, you know, of course, the range is cedars and sagebrush. Uh they get the option to drive round and you know, look at game every morning. We put on a couple shed hunts this year. Quite a few people found, you know, big elk sheds while they were up there. All those ponds that you shoot over are full of giant trout. When I say giant, like I've I personally caught a 32-inch trout in that big pond that we shoot into. AI giant. Yes. I mean giant, giant. So uh like they get, you know, yeah, they get to come and have a good time. And and uh that lodge has a full staff. You know, we have a our own personal cook, Janae, that takes care of us. Uh it's kind of like uh almost like a big hotel in the sky. I mean, it's it's fun. Beaver can tell you. I mean, it's it's a nice atmosphere. Quartery brings uh eight or nine cases of beer, wine, and you know, good whiskey and mixers, and like everyone just chills out that up there after the match and bullshits till midnight every night.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:48

I promise you, every RO has the opportunity at a hot breakfast full belly before they're on their stages at 6 a.m.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:55

Yeah, no, you guys 100%. You guys took exceptionally good care of us. And uh one of the meals you fed us was like a smoked tri-tip. That's still like my favorite tri-tip.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:05

Oh, we did it this year too.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:06

Did you? I missed out.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:08

Missed out. Missed out. Yeah. I was gonna look, I was gonna creep on your pro profile, George, and see if I can find a couple fish pictures. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:18

It's definitely not fun. It's definitely not easy for match directors to fill their matches with the RO.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:26

So yeah, that ain't that ain't one of those drops that came out of a stuck in pond.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

Yeah. I don't want to say it was like this is pretty much. I I got a picture of that. That's that pond. Yeah. That's a good monster.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:52

That's my brother Steve. You're gonna have to go back away. There's so many dead animals on this.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:01

Look at this. That's a big rainbow trout.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:13

Me and Brian are getting ready to go slate some of those here in a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:16

Yeah, I'm doing both in my cabin right now for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

Oh yeah. Yeah, more fish. More fish. Yeah, you guys are living rough. Where is this? Yeah, the lodge is well, this here's a picture of the lodge, right? Yeah, there's front. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:35

All sorts of shadow hunting and stuff. Yeah. There's like 44 rooms hanging out at the top of 10,000, yeah, tons, man. We found a bunch. We've also between the eight years of being up there doing recons and actual like 10 days of match prep before the match. I mean, I can't even tell you how many miles we've walked up there, man. I mean, it's insane. Like all those props and stuff have been like found and recovered on the property.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:01

Wild. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:03

That's rich out. Yeah, bigger. And there's some dandies in there that are like just mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

I think we might have lost George. Yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

I talked about fishing too much. Yeah. Yeah, now he's gone. Screw these guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:22

I'm out of here. Creep creeping on his profile. Here's a good landscape picture. This is essentially where the match is at.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:28

Like there, there you go. Like that, that would be with that raise. I mean, that's zero day. Every time we go there, that's what day zero looks like when we arrive on the Saturday previous to the match.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:41

Wow. Nothing. The last thing that was on that hillside before we got there last Saturday were cattle and grazing in a working cattle ranch.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:52

Wow. Wow. I think I like the idea that you guys went to a digital matchbook because that allows you to, you know, if you have to change out a target size or make an adjustment to the matchbook, you can just send out an update and everybody has it. It's not locked into paper.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:09

Exactly. There was a lot to it, especially it kind of just made sense. Uh last seven years, we've been battling a paper matchbook, and you know, through the efforts of those in Evanston, just being able to like do last minute stuff for us. But I will tell you the amount of front-loaded work on just kind of building what I believe to be somewhat of an archaic form of what could be perfection kind of it's got the architecture for what could be a legitimate matchbook and not a scoring system, but like an offline app interface appearance where you know a guy like Austin could pull up a digital matchbook once saved and not just keep score for himself in impact, but like actually input a score and it actually save and compute, leave a place for notes, and kind of have hyperlinks amongst the stages and pages, so you're not cycling through a PDF, but you could go like right to the stage portion, hit a stage, and immediately go to that stage. So you're not just cycling through a generic PDF, but a little bit of interactivity, and then also I see a lot of sponsorship stuff from both sides. Um one, the side of you guys, we get to see it all the time. You know, the inbox fulls fills up with all the sponsorship requests, and in the perfect world, yeah, I mean we we I'd like to fulfill all of them, man. But the the realism is that's don't work. So you kind of want to do right by those that are sponsoring you and kind of keep that level of reciprocation and respect going. So uh within the matchbook and then the follow-on updates from that, like if you hit a a a sponsor logo anywhere, or especially in a sponsor section, it brings them right to their webpage. So like as a shooter, there's there's no excuse for you not to send a thank you for anything you've pulled off the table. I mean, we take pictures of everybody and it take three minutes and thank those that are uh, you know, putting stuff in your hands and supporting you. That's kind of the big intent with that matchbook, is just making it user-friendly to kind of spread the wealth around and and show a level of appreciation amongst more than just shooters, but those that are sponsoring these types of things.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:37

That sounds really cool. Is that something is that something that um you guys are planning on rolling out like for other match rectors to use, or are you just gonna kind of keep that for yourselves?

SPEAKER_07 1:10:50

I mean, I mean, I'm I'm happy to perpetuate the myth that I was like I know anything, but I mean it's just it's it's a way it kind of worked for us, and I haven't had too many people just freaking beat on me or tell me they hated it too much. I've had a lot of uh positive feedback, so I I think it's the way things are going. It's the future, man. Yeah, everything's going to be. Literally, like eight years ago, we had a mountainside with no connectivity, and now we're running live impact scoring on it, for God's sake. Exactly. My whole justification was people are already in their phones, anyways. A few years ago, no, I wouldn't say it's viable, but you know, I don't want to mess up Austin's game. I have uh I have a great time watching him hit stuff that I can never do. So if if Austin wants a digital matchbook or a laminated one or a stenographer, I mean I'll do whatever I can for the guy. I want to see it.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:45

I have he doesn't need any more help.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:47

I have an app for uh frisbee golf. That's awesome. I like playing frisbee golf with my two boys, and there's courses everywhere, so the app shows you where the courses are. Then when you get there, a lot of times it's hard to find, you know, where the start and end of each hole is. And so it just uses your GPS off your phone, leads you right there. You keep score inside it, you know, for each each player in the game. So having an app integrated into impact, you know, uh that kind of thing integrated into impact scoring or some other app that that's gonna be really nice.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:20

The shell of the matchbook is an app. It's just an off I just created it as an offline available version because of how different PDF formats can pull up, but also I just wanted to make sure everyone got at least something for the match, and we'll work out there's a couple little bugs in it, but they weren't they were more factoring bugs. You could still put your score in and save it for yourself. And uh Austin, what was the print format or not? Like, what was the worst part of the match bug? You're asking me? I mean, legit yeah. I mean, you saw it, you had to you had to rely on it. I didn't use it in the targetary pictures, wording. Like, what was the worst part?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:00

I think for me, whenever I had the little card and had to use the QR code, I couldn't figure out how to save that on my phone and refined it. Okay. So I had to go find the QR code over again to reopen it back up. But I'm sure it was on my phone somewhere. I just you know didn't know how to access it.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:18

Top right corner, a little spot that says download.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:22

Yeah. Well, technology.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:26

No, like it is as far as like the the internals of it, like whether again, print format or not, like like stage imagery and all that stuff. Like, I've had a lot of windshield time to go through. A lot of you guys were very efficient in your movements, whether you took all the time on a stage or not, but everything seemed to flow. I feel like that was attributed to a lot of things being one, the eighth time we run it, but two, like clear and concise course of fire, and then also I think if I had to guess, I think just a relationship between the pictures of the stage to where you should generally look for your targetry combined with the efforts we go into placarding the actual targetry, just made like I just made finding it. The idea is hitting them, not finding them. Like it's hard enough, but just finding them, engaging them, and moving on, like being efficient with our time. I think those were big helping hands in each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:28

Yeah, love it. Yeah, all right, boys. We're gonna we're gonna shut it down here at an hour 15. We're gonna record uh another one next week. Uh we'll have two matches uh to cover Apex Rocky Mountain Challenge and uh Twister Barrel. Uh Scorcher. Austin, you going to either one of those? No. No, you got your 300.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:49

So everybody else has a chance.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:52

Everybody else has a chance. Exactly. So we'll cover we'll cover those matches then. Uh congrats on being a second to 300 this year. Um that's awesome. We're gonna see uh see a fantastic finale. Um George and Brian, thank you. You guys have a great holiday week. Uh enjoy uh enjoy your time, and hopefully, George, you're gonna do some fishing this weekend too.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:16

I'm heading to Alaska tomorrow morning, buddy.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:21

I know, I know. It sucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:26

All right. Thank you guys. Yep, thank you guys. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:31

Take care. God bless. Appreciate the support on y'all's gonna, man.