Ep. 14: Shotguns with Luke Thorkildsen

How's everything going over there at weatherby Man. The last couple of years have been a wild ride. Uh, it's really really good. Business is good. We can't complain. There's definitely been a number of, let's just say, challenges in this post COVID world that we all are enduring. But business is good, so I really can't complain too much. Got you? I got you? Yeah? How do you like the Were you with whether Be when you guys were in California? Have you only been with a company since Wyoming?

Just since Wyoming. I was one of the very first hired as part of the transition from California to Wyoming. I don't I don't think I could have ever been a California residents. Sorry to anybody that is, but you know, I just it was tough. I was from the industry. I actually joined, whether it be from Walter Arms and Fort Smith, Arkansas. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I figured I knew what your answer was going to be if you

did move, that you were enjoying Wyoming better. But since you started there, your answer kind of confirmed what what your answer would have been if you started in California. So no, I appreciate you having you on. I've been able to shoot. Um, you know, the weather be element both last water pol season and this year for Turkey. So we're gonna um definitely have a little bit bit

of experience that I can weigh in there. But um, we're gonna start like every other episode, We're gonna take some questions that you guys get asked a lot, you know, from from social from you know, people emailing us, and if you have any questions of your own, please email us at ct D at Phelps game Calls dot com and we'll make sure to to pitch your questions and some of these experts in the field. So the first one I have for you, Luke is why are the

element and eight teen I shotguns. Why did you guys decide to go with inertia driven mechanics? There great question. Um. So we actually used to have um some gas shotguns in our line and and pretty much every gas shotgun on the market, Uh, you you need multiple uh pistons, I guess for lighter and heavier loads. And it became

kind of a customer service issue. And not to mention, a gas gun shoots a lot dirtier, you need to clean it more often, and so for for a lot of reason, and we just gravitated towards the inertia system. Are our sales kind of started moving that way as well, and so, um, we just kind of took that as

customer feedback. And uh we put a lot more effort into the inertia system because it's cleaner, it's you're gonna you're gonna shoot a wider range of shells with more reliability, and uh, for those reasons, we just overall felt it was a better fit for our line. Do you find that the inertia shotguns so regardless of you know, being cleaner, are they just more repeatable? There's less breakdowns, less issues with the with the inertia than than with gas. Yeah,

I think so. I mean that really the benefit on an on an inertia shotgun is that, um, you know, shot shell and shot shell powder they're just they're they're inherently dirty, and so when you're using that dirtiness to cycle the action, um, you just get a lot of build up inside and so you need to clean more

frequently on a gas gun. On an inertia gun pretty much a hudd perent of the stuff that's you know, firing the shot is leaving out the front of the barrel and not coming back into the receiver where all the moving parts are. So it just leads to a cleaner, more repeatable system for sure. And so knowing how I cleaned my shotguns inertia is definitely for me because I don't like to breaking down and clean clean them very often,

so it's a bonus. Yeah. And then I'm always jump on the you know, the turkey hunting forums, you know all of that, and people talk about changing out spring. So that kind of leads me to my next question that we're still on inertia. You know, you guys are trying to design a spring or use a spring rate that you know, a comp a companies either a two and three quarter inch low base all the way up

to your three and a half inch Turkey magnums. Have you guys found that you're able to find a spring that works, you know, fairly well from everything or um does whether be promote, you know, finding a spring that works better for the loads that you intend to shoot out of the gun. You know, there's there's all this hopping up, but there's also just buying them like I do and shooting the thing, you know, and and it's

performing well no matter what I throw at it. So from the factory, our guns are set up to run mostly everything. So I think I would say there's two exceptions to that. If you're a shooter that's gonna go grab a gun and like just go run nothing but low base like seven eighths shot like lightweight stuff. Um, you you might benefit by getting a slightly lighter spring rate if you have no intention on on shooting you know, a heavier magnum load. Uh. If you do that, though,

you're probably gonna have issues with heavier magnum loads. What we the spring we ship with I believe is like the most forgiving across the range. That said, like if you know, you get a brand new shotgun out of the box, in your first hundred rounds, you you potentially might have a few, uh, if you're shooting like light field loads, you might have a few that failed to cycle fully until you kind of wear in the gun just a little bit. But typically after you get two

hundred rounds, it's gonna eat pretty much everything. And I don't really recommend you play with the spring rate unless it's for a purpose built shotgun like competition shooting, or if you're gonna shoot nothing but heavy magnums. Going to a heavier spring rate to soften the recoil a little bit is an option. But like, if you call our customer service, they're just gonna tell you to not mess

with it. I like that, Ander, And I noticed that when I was first shooting the element Um just to get my red dot sided in, I was shooting a lot of just you know, low base seven eights loads, and you know, it was funny. You could literally watch how far the shotgun I was shooting from the same location, Like the first show kicked a couple of feet away from me, and that and that next show kicked you know, six or seven and by time I got to the you know, the turkey loads, we were kicking them out

there away. So yeah, that that spring, you know, as you mentioned in that first hundred shots is definitely kind of getting broken in and and fit in. So great great information on why whether it be went with those inertia UM shotguns and in lieu of using gas operated shotguns, I would add just in you know, in full transparency and fairness to that, like typically that that first hundred shots is not necessarily something that you have to do

in a gas shotgun. But but that's your trade off is like a gas gun is gonna, you know, from the first shot probably give you the same performance as it does in the last shot, assuming that you clean it well all the way through. Uh. But the inertia guns, it doesn't matter whose it is, a little bit of

breaking period is beneficial. Yeah, yeah, I thinks. So the next question, which doesn't really apply to me because I'm not necessarily an upland hunter, but um, how does the Orion compared to the other over and unders out there in the market and where's it placed? Uh? That is that is one of the top questions we get the Orion, which is our over under UM is kind of an

magical price points. So the over under market's unique. So you get you, you get some of the upland guys like I I sometimes joke the upland Hunters are like the cost players of Hunters, Like they like to get you know, the the wax cotton stuff, and UM almost like play dress up a little more. I mean all of us Hunters played dress up a little bit right with the camo and whatnot, but UM, like some of the over under guys take that to the next level. And what that can lead to is like a competition

to see you has the most expensive gun. UM. I think there's a law of diminishing returns with with some of the game on the on the shotgun side, So on the Orion specifically, we're around a thousand to eleven hun bucks at retail UM and that I would put the Orion up against. You're like silver Pigeons and White Onyx and Satris all day long, but those are all two thousand dollar plus guns. So for basically half the price,

you get the same level of performance. We have some pretty good looking wood on on the Orion's as well, and the metalwork and the lock up is really really solid, and so you get substantially more than you would get out of like, uh, some of the guns that are in that like you know, three to six hundred dollar price point, and there's just really a gap in the over undermarket from like that six hundred dollars to the Orion at a thousand, and so what we're seeing is

that people want to be taken seriously and not show up with like, you know, just a kind of a junkie over under. And they show up and like you know, can hang with uh with the two thousand shotguns all day long, and then they can spend more money on their wax cotton perfect. You gotta you gotta look the part, you gotta feel the part. But you know, if if those guys are like me, you know, it comes down to performance, and you want that gun to perform, which

it sounds like that gun. You know, talking with cal and um, you know he shoots. I think the twenty gauge Orian you know, had had great luck and really likes that gun for all the the upland stuff he does. I think I was talking to Callaghan right after we sent him the twenty gage Oriyan and he goes, dude, there's something magical about this gun. Like I've been hunting for a long time. I'm out there with snort and

my my first three shots are three kills. He's like, I'm not that good of a shooter, so it must be the gun perfect perfect. So I really appreciate you taking you know, those two questions. Um. Once again, if you have any questions for any of our guests you want answered, feel free to hit us up on social or email us at ct D at Phelps game Calls dot Com. Will do our best to kind of put him into the podcast. So now we're gonna jump into some of the questions I had for you and and

just kind of go through your lineup. UM, what's there? What each gun is good at? UM? What you know? And we'll walk through that. So my my first question for you is can you walk us through those models? We we actually already mentioned them all, but the eighteen I, the element, the Oriyan kind of differences in them, and as we were talking before, the podcast is kind of a step up in nature. You know, you've got different

levels to the shotgun. UM, so if you can explain that a little bit, Yeah, So we'll talk about um kind of the element, then the eight nine, then the orion. So the element family is UH. It's inertia driven. As we talked about. We import those shotguns out of Turkey, and there's multiple models. So we've got the base model, which is the element synthetic and pretty much all of these that all of the elements are available in four varieties.

So you've got a twenty gauge with a twenty six and twenty eight inch barrel, and then you got a twelve gauge with a twenty six and twenty eight inch barrel, and then all of the elements are going to be

a three inch chamber. So we got the base model, which is an element synthetic, and then kind of moving up in the line, then you've got the Element upland, which is UH like a map fish walnut with glossy metalwork with it's a gloss blued metalwork, So if you're gonna do waterfowl duty, that's probably not the best option. Then we have the Element Waterfowl that is a camo

dipped it's available in a couple of different patterns. And then my personal favorite is the Element Tungsten, which is a black polymer stock with tungsten sera coat on all the metalwork. It really looks good and has a ton of corrosion resistance from the sera coat. UM. So on all of those UM, I don't know every single price point off the top of my head, but prices basically roughly start at retailer from like six hundred to about eight hundred, you know, as you kind of step up

in model. And then on the eighteen I family we have the water fowler Um, the eight Synthetic, which just as all black with blued metalwork, and then we've got the eighteen NI Deluxe, which is like a semi fancy wal nut. There's some really amazing pieces of wood in the EIGHTEENI Deluxe, and then it has a nickel finished aluminum receiver UM and the the Deluxe is a three inch chamber, and then all the other models of the eighteen I or three and a half, and so that's

part of that step up strategy. The elements three inch chamber e ten I except for the Deluxe is a three and a half UM. And additionally, the receiver on the eight teen I has a dovetail. If you want to mount an optic, you can do that easily. Um, you could also mount an optic to an element, but it's going to require a little bit of gunsmith attention to to drill and tap some holes for you. Um, It's it's doable. We just don't ship it that way.

It would add costs that most people are not mounting optics to shotguns today, so there's a reason why we do that. But then we put the costs into the eighteen I so that if people really did want to do that, they could step up. Eighteen eyes are going to be going from basically right right at nine on the synthetic models and the Waterfowl model, and then the Deluxe is gonna it's kind of a bigger step up.

You're you're up about eighteen hundred bucks for the Deluxe because you get that nice wood, the high glass metalwork. They really look nice. Yeah, it look really good. I did have a question for you, Luke. Are you guys still making the Turkey specific element with that short barrel or we are, yes, thank you. I kind of glossed

over that. So we actually have a family on our website that we just call the Element Turkey that has a twenty two inch barrel that we offer in both a twelve and a twenty so and that comes with an extended choke from the factory. It will be an extended full So yeah, it's thank you for the reminder on that. Yeah, and and um, you know, I want to talk a little bit about I'm gonna go on

a little tangent here on your luke. But um, you know we with SS coming on board and in the big chain es like these twenty gauges and twenty two. It's so nice to be able to pack a gun around that ways you know, sub seven pounds, um, And and you're shooting twenty gauges and the things you're throwing patterns like our you know, our our three and a half inch magnums were you know, ten years ago with

with old lead shot. And so these twenty gauges, I think we're gonna continue to just see growing popularity more and more so is youth turkey hunters or even grown ups that just you know, adults that don't want to uh pack a big heavy twelve gauge around. Um, you know, those those little short guns with TSS are just um man, they're impressive. That t S S is mean stuff. I can't Yeah, it's unless you've seen it, you know, perform. It's people think you're lying when you talk about how

good it is, but it's so amazing. Yeah. We had a turkey in Kansas this year, a twenty gauge. My buddy shoots a twenty gauge, UM, and it hung up it It came into twenty seven, didn't have a good shot, kind of hung up out there at forty and the thing never even moved. I mean, and that's just the twenty gage with T s S. It's it's incredible stuff. But starting to make some of these, uh, these smaller you know, sub gauges or smaller gauge shotguns. UM, you know,

really really good turkey medicine. I can't tell you a real quick story about that. So my son I was hunting with him in South Dakota this year, UM, and I gave him a rifle that had a red dot on it. Um, And not a rifle, it was my shotgun with a red dot on it. We had turkeys that hung up at like thirty yards and he pulls up on him and he shoots, and I'm watching the bird. Nothing happens, and he's like, I nailed it, Like what are you talking about well, there was another bird at

sixty yards. He didn't see the one at thirty. He saw the one at sixty and absolutely crushed a bird at sixty yards with that t S S. And I'm like, holy cow, that stuffs mean it. I mean it was dead in its tracks. Yep, yeah, it's it's impressive. I shot my turkey the sar it under thirty with the twelve gauge and you know, the element and three TSS and I felt bad for it because it was it wasn't pretty, but no incredible stuff. You know out of

your guys guns, um, great results. So I have to ask why we're here and maybe you're you're not at the liberty to say yet, but is there any talks in smaller shotguns? I know out west right now, like there's a lot of groups of guys like you can only bring a four ten to camp now with TSS and yeah, the sub gauge guys are are definitely growing in number, UM, and I guess I would just say, uh, stay tuned. We do have some some work, some some

some sub gage stuff in the works. So no, no specific timeline right now, but uh, yeah we're not We're not ignorant to the fact that they're growing a popularity. Yeah, I think they're more curious that it's to you know, maintain the sport of turkey hunt. And it happened to get things that thirty or thirty five yards versus as we just said, tss out of a twenty or twelve.

It's almost like turning the game onto cheap mode a little bit if you want to, if you don't have the restraint, um, you know, did not pull the trigger. Uh So yeah, that's that's good to hear. Um. So on they on on that on the turkey model that you brought up. A full disclosure, I'm like a hardcore waterfowl guy, and so that was like my main entry into all of hunting was waterfowl. Uh. And so I was kind of a guy that like always wanted to

have one shotgun to rule them all. And just like in the last couple of years, I've been carrying a turkey you know, turkey length barrel in the field and like a light bulb went off for me on why the why the shorter barrel was such a huge benefit. Um, I didn't hit any branches on trees anymore with a

inch barrel. You've got quite a bit of barrel when you've got the shotgun over your shoulder, that's hanging up out there, and you're just hanging up on trees left and right, and on the shorter like twenty or twenty two inch barrel. You know, it's only six inches, but man, it makes a huge difference just when you're kind of picking your way through the woods when you're trying to make a stock on some turkeys, and I'm like, oh,

light bulb, that's why this is a thing. And so now now I'm now I'm okay with being a multiple shotgun guy. Yeah, yeah, no, I there's something to be said for you know, packability and not getting hung up on everything for sure. And you know I always sho back in the old days, you know, mass prigate five with a long but it's just a pain. And so these these shorter barrels are definitely nicer. Um, you know, to pack around the woods, regardless of what what you're hunting.

So I my introduction to whether be I and I'm completely honest, Like last year I showed up for the duckler episod. Oh, I'm not a big waterfowl hunter, you know, I've I've shot some you know, traps, some skeet and stuff before, you know, fairly comfortable at swinging and shooting, and you know, it's it's a little bit of second nature.

So we show up with Sean um there in the potholes of Washington for a Duckler episode and he hands me whether weather be element and I'm all right, you know, and this this gun had already been through I don't know, four or five stops. You know, it's it's it's not anybody's personal gun. So people are beating it around, you know, throwing it around. It's obvious that the gun had been used a lot to this point. And you know, we're I think we're shooting. I was shooting Federal Black Cloud

that day. And um, we we get our scouting all done, get down into the setup, and that first morning, um, you know, get to start shooting it. And I I can't say because I'm I'm not a water fell hunter. I'm I don't know what to expect out of a shotgun. But man, the thing shot well, at tracked, well, it cycled everything I threw at it, um and uh on. On that episode. Also, I have to say that these these elements make a heck of a a boat or um if you need to row back to to to

doc after your boat breaks down. So you know, the gun, how far did uh? We're guessing eight hundred to a thousand yards. And the way we got lucky is it was supposed to be. We were checking the wind, you know, like every good duck hunter should. Um, we were supposed to have a win. That would have never let us roll back. But thankfully, you know, hour and a half before daylight, the wind was blowing the wrong way and

actually was helping us out a little bit. Otherwise we would have had to we had made the call a shame to get a tow or come get picked up. Yeah, it was we We started with you know stomp seats you know, as our row, and they weren't working well. So we took the shotguns in their cases and used the butts, and you know, we went and finished it off with a goose hunt the following day where we didn't need the boat, and then um went and walked in and the gun performed well. So tell us a

little bit, you know on your waterfowl hunting. You know that we've already talked about the element but is there anything else you want to go into or or chokes at ups or or stuff that you know you think you want to talk about. Is regarding your guys shotguns and water failing. Yeah, so I guess on a choke set up perspective, all of our shotguns are gonna ship with multiple chokes, so it's gonna have, you know, a

cylinder modified improved cylinder a full across the board. UM. The the difference in the element in the E ten I choke system is that the element uses the the I m C choke system UM, and then the UH A ten I uses the cry O plus, which is kind of what the newer Bonelli's and Burretta's are using. So you can absolutely run an aftermarket choke in both, but you just need to note the difference in the I m C and the cry O plus from the element and the A T and I. UM. I typically

just shoot our standard modified choke. Probably not that great of a shooter that I can tell a massive difference in my pattern. UM, but I feel like I hit more birds than most of the guys said I hunt with at the same time. So UM, I just like to I just like to leave a standard set up with a modified and I run Black Cloud a lot and some other loads as well. But um man, I think, I think, uh, the big thing is just go do it. Get time in the field. That's the number one number

one tip is do it more. Yep, yep, um, you know the same thing. And then so then I get getting ready for Turkey season and really want to shoot, you know, Like as I mentioned, I've been an old pump guy eight thirty five. I had the gun kind of all set up for Turkey. It was great, but I had seen what was available through you know, your guys guns through some of the Meat Eater team that we're already shooting them with TSS, and I'm like, man, I'm I'm getting dumped to put up a pattern that's

half as good as that with some of the new stuff. So, um, we get an element ordered up and you know, I've got a loophold red dot ready. Um, I got an Indian Creek choke ready in. We throw some number nine TSS down it, and man, am I impressed. But one of the things, rut of the gate I'm gonna I'm gonna give you. I can't let you off the podcast without giving you a little bit of grief. So I'm sitting here already, you know, me being me. Everything's late,

it's getting close to season. Um. I think I emailed you right off the bat, uh luke that Hey, yeah, because I think I was looking at the eight ten nine and I've seen that you guys had the dovetail on it, and then that there were adapters. I could go right to a rail, and I guess I that's my own fault. I wasn't looking. So I had ordered a system that was ready for the teen I and wasn't ready to mount to the element UM. You guys have any plans to drill and tap that receiver UM

in the future. But I was able to quickly get a rail fifteen minutes. You know a little bit of gun smith ing and and you know the back end of that receiver, and I'm just gonna pass on. This is not weather be saying this. This is me and my own gunsmithing. UM. The back of the receiver has a whole bunch of medal, and we were able to get you know, the entire UM screw set and then

the other are ones we did. We're able to get set with you know, at least three threads and then we had to do just a little bit of a grinding on the inside, but a real simple process. Weather Bees not promoting this, but it's what we knew we had to do to get that red dot mounted. Um is there any you know, future plans for maybe drilling and tapping that element or is as you had mentioned, is it is it more of a point and shoe or you guys just feel that enough people aren't putting

optics on those No. I definitely think that there's more optics coming um there. There's no doubt there's more optics available from you know, vortex and loophold and others coming into the space. Um So it's it's absolutely something that we're aware of and uh in the element family, I will say that on some future models, I think you can look forward to some abilities to mount optics easier than today. Yeah, there were you know, there are options

out there. Um. I was just looking. I wanted drilled and tapped. I didn't want a saddle mount. I didn't want like a rib mount, which companies out there do have. Um So, so we were able to get that gun all set up. The one thing I noticed once I had got you know all of my and I've got a pretty high um mount from my red dot from from loophold is my cheek was really low, and I I love the idea that you know, a red dot just can be pointed. You can actually float your head

off of the cheek piece. You know. I did end up adding a a adjustable cheek piece on that shotgun just to make it feel more comfortable. When I shouldered it, my head was you know, I could see the red dot versus uh having to search for it a little bit or lift my head up. Um. But man, I

threw the standard Indian Creek choke in that gun. Um as you had mentioned, it takes the the I M P choke, not the plus, which when I was doing some searching, I actually had to get educated on him, like, all right, that's the one that like the the Winchester or some of the old Winchester shotguns, some of the old Mossberg and then some of the old Brownings. So you kind of figure out what what choke you need,

But you know, I don't. This is where I don't know what to give credit to, whether it's a choke or the shotgun, whatever it is. All I can say is that whether be paired up with the Indian Creek Number nine is like and I patterned out to sixty, I can see why your son flat level to turkey at sixty yards like I didn't. I don't want to shoot one there. I'm you know, being running game calls and trying to get things you know, somewhat close. Yeah,

get them on camera. But I love having that that that confidence that if anything does run out there crippled or for some reason. I usually don't get to that mad at the turkeys, but if I get mad enough at the turkeys, UM, no, I shouldn't say that. I still would rather call him man. But you have the ability to um, like I say, my my old forty yard group with the old Bossburg is now equivalent to

a sixty You know my six yard groups better. Um, So whatever combination that is, it's it's really really good. And UM, I have to throw Dirk under the bus a little bit. My my buddy here, I know your guys gun will cycle three inch TSS all day long because he doesn't go on any turkey hunt and only expect to shoot it that thing once. Um. He always jokes, I didn't go all the way to I didn't go

all the way to Kansas to just shoot once. And um, I think on multiple birds he had multiple quick follow ups. But I can we can vouch for for the cycling of the shotgun because he's he's had to do it multiple times. It's ready for a quick follow up. That's awesome. Yeah,

uh yeah. One thing. One thing I'd say about um the patterning and just kind of the shotguns in general, is sometimes the Element series we import from Turkey, right, there's obviously a lot of other Turkish import shotguns, and so people will say, what's the difference between the weather being you know, some other Turkish import And I think it's the work that we do up front to make sure that you're gonna get a really good bore, a really good choke to bore mating, which leads to a

better pattern. Um. Are all of our shotguns do pattern very well? Um? I think that's that's the difference. Is like we stand behind our product. We've got our customer

service team. We've been a business for seventy seven years and we've just got we've gotten pretty good at this and we've got a good system and so uh I I firmly believe that we probably have the best Turkish shotgun on the market, and the element it's really solid, and it's priced really competitively, and it all kind of leads just to what you're talking talking about, which is a great patterning shotgun that cycles really well, that's just

kind of performed day in and day out. I have to ask, and I know, I know you're from the manufacturer, so you're gonna maybe, uh, but but it's a question I get asked a lot. Um. I did an article way back when on polishing you know, barrels and and you know, not letting your not letting your wad kind of slow down all of this crazy stuff. Yeah, do you guys get asked a lot about lengthening the forcing

cone or polishing the barrel. You know, there's guys out there like Roy Roberts and some of these you know Turkey shotgun gurus that work these things over even you know, the the other brands. You know, they're taking the way more expensive of inertia driven shotguns and they feel like they need to rework them. And I'm not I know you're you're never gonna recommend that you do this, but what what's your take on you know, forcing cone, lengthening,

you know, polishing the barrel. Uh is it? Is? It overkills? It not needed? As I mentioned, I I shot my gun out of the box. But UM, give us a little bit insight on on what you guys feel, you know, good bad, you know, avoiding warranties all that sort of stuff, as far as starting to modify and polish these guns

and lengthening forcing cones and whatnot. I think if you, I mean from just to answer the last part of your question first, like if you just polish your barrel or polish your forcing cone a little more, there's no

issue with a warranty from that point. But if you start to like talk about lengthening the forcing cone, which if if, if people aren't familiar, that's the portion of the barrel right in front of the shot shell itself where it tapers from the diameter of the shot shell down just a little bit for some constriction, which is

forcing the shot to be tighter. Um, if you start to mess with the actual material removal in the forcing cone, then um, that's that's where you're gonna have like, you know, our customer service team is going to be like, yeah, we can't really stand behind that anymore, because you've materially altered the firearm. UM from an actual just performance standpoint, UM, I would say I have never messed with with that. I've polished some forcing cones and like try to get

a better shine out of a barrel. But I think there's such a law of diminishing returns there that um for for nine point nine percent of shooters, you're you're gonna see like basically no improvement. I think it's it's pretty darn good as it is, and you you you might get like one or two more pellets inside of your like whatever six inch circle at thirty then you would otherwise. I mean it's kind of like, uh, like I used to be a really good golfer. I just

don't have the time anymore. Um. If I went to the range today to like practice, I could put the time into doing that and shave like a single stroke off of my game. But so what, like what does that really matter? And and that's that's where I'm coming, you know. I I read the forums all the time. I'm always looking for any advantage that at least has a good return. But I feel that's one of those like modifications of diminishing returns, and people may argue with me.

You know there's guys with their their super shotguns all done up. Um, but I just look at my my pattern right out of the gate with you know stock amo, no custom loaded, you know, federal TSS number nine's and three in and a choke that I screwed on and I went and shot the gun. And it's like what more do I need? Like how much how much debt? Or can that turkey be? Um? What what I'm already doing? So yeah, and you know there there's there's only the opportunity to make some of that worse if you go

and start modifying stuff. That'd be my fears. Yeah, we stand behind our product. If for some reason you've got a shotgun from us that's not uh having a good pattern, like, call our customer service team and let us take care of that issue for you before you start fixing it for yourself. You know what I mean? Yep, yep. Is there anything else you wanna you cover on your guys a shotgun line anything that you know people may not know, Um, give us, give us anything we might not have covered

on on the shotgun lineup. Really, I think probably best kept secret is the E T and I we we launched that the eighteen. It launched at the end of two thousand and eighteen. That's where the eighteen came from. Um it's it's essentially, um, a really really darned good inertia shotgun. So if if you if you want a three and a half inch gun that's capable of shooting and pretty much eating anything you can throw at it.

Ten I is probably our best kept shotgun secret. Uh, if you want a gun that, um it's you know, a little more friendly on the wallet that can do anything and everything elements for you. Um, they're they're both great. I shoot them both a lot. Um and Yeah, other than a there's really officially no secrets behind them. UM. We've we've been in the shotgun business for a whole lot of years, not all seventy seven years of our history. Probably only about fifty years have we been doing shotguns.

But UM, you know, I think weather B is guilty ourselves of of forgetting that, um, forgetting that we have shotguns. Sometimes it's it's not necessarily a primary focus from a marketing perspective, but a little known fact is that in twenty twenty one, we shipped more shotguns than we did rifles. Like we we're big time in the shotgun game and we have a really good system. So yeah, good good. I know we were I I preface this, we were going to talk shotguns, but I have to ask why

I'm here. Is there anything new on the rifles side that that you know you can talk about or or that that's coming coming our way. I was I was thinking that you might try to sneak in a question about some other things. But uh, yeah, and as a matter of fact, there is so. Um we have a new cartridge. Our Our latest cartridge introduction is going to be the weather be rpm UM, which is our six five weather b RPM necked up to. We're currently doing

our final uh load development with production brass. Um. There's already public knowledge out there. UM. Sammy, which is kind of like the governing body for cartridges and firearms, published the cartridge drawings back in January. Uh, and we've just had a hard time getting brass, but we have production brass. We're doing final development and sometime early August, just like a couple of weeks away, uh, we will be shipping

the three thirty at RPM. So why three thirty at rpm. Well, I think there's kind of a gap in the market for an ultra lightweight, shorter barrel, Like we're gonna have um probably somewhere between an eighteen inch and a twenty barrel in the production rifle line. That's shooting a two grain projectile somewhere in the neighborhood of feet per second. So that's a lot of energy, uh in a lot of performance with a big hole in a really lightweight,

five pound rifle package, which is pretty awesome. Now does bark a little bit like it's you're you're gonna feel a little but like it's a awesome bear gun. It's an awesome elk gun. Um. But yeah, for anybody that wants to punch a big hole with and not carry a lot of weight, this is this is the thing for you. And like I said, it'll be ready to

hunt with this fall. Yeah. Hearing you describe the barrel length and some of the ballistics, Like instantly, I'm out here in Southwest washing like we hunt a lot to elk in the timber, Like it's a perfect gun. Like I'm leaving the twenty inch barre Old seven mag in the truck. I'm gonna grab thee with an eighteen or

twenty inch barrel seems like a lot better option. Um for those that don't know, Luke, we're so that those ballistics that you mentioned off like me trying to quickly, you know, compute it to what it would be in a twenty Where does that put it like with the three eight wind maag or is it more case capacity, more performance or like where does it sit amongst the others out there? It's gonna be a little bit faster

than a three thirty wind bag. We've got like the fastest production three thirty eight with a three thirty eight three seventy eight weather be but the difference is um, in that seventy eight you have to use our nine lug are big heavy action. UM. In this RPM, it uses our smaller, more spelt six lug action, so you

save a pound in the action itself. And then because we just don't have a hundred and whatever hundred and twenty grains of powder to bird, it's more like a ninety then UM we can use such a shorter barrel and it's it's proving to be a pretty efficient round. So UM that's where we start start being able to

chop the barrel lengths down. So originally we thought we're going to be launching with the barrel, and through our testing we're like, man, we can we can really get this down, which you know historically Weather he is big on velocity. We still are, but that usually comes to mean you've got to shoot a longer barrel as well. So we're really happy to have this added to the line where we've got a short barrel Magnum performance rifle in a lightweight package because I don't think there's anything

else like it in this weight class. Are titanium action with the carbon fiber stock in the back country two point I was going to tip the scale like almost exactly five pounds. Geez, that's that would be nice to carry. Um, Yeah, it sound like it sounds like good round. Maybe I'm don't want to speculate because I shoot heavy Magnums as well, but maybe not super fun to shoot. But I'll trade off packability sometimes for for um, you know, you don't

ever feel the shot when you're shooting at a critter. Anyways, Yeah, I think the trade off onto the new three third RPM is that we do have some some magazine length restrictions so what kind of You're not going to have much room unless you single feed, Uh to shoot a projectile more than two and or fifty grains? Yep, yep. That makes I shoot accustom made three edge, which is all single feed, which most of the time, if we do hard jobs, a good thing, but there's been sometimes

where it's been a very bad thing. Um, so yeah, keeping those in Like I'm shooting a three inerd grain out of it, so it's it's definitely single feed. So yeah, thats a really long, floaded, great cartridge then yeah, yeah, yeah, but but no, instantly like you started to describe that, and like I say, a perfect brush gun, Um, you want of the ex you're thump in the back country in a super lightweight package. It sounds like it's going to fit that bill and check that box. Yeah. Yeah,

we're excited to bring out to market. Yeah, thanks thanks for sharing that that new information. So we'll roll back to shotguns here and we'll kind of close up. So with everything we've talked about shotguns, if you were a new user just looking to get a multipurpose shotgun that you can go out and you know, shoot a limited ducks, go out in turkey hunt with all spring, and then you know, want to maybe go do some upland like what would be your shotgun choice and maybe explain why

I personally would probably choose our element tungsten. Uh. There, there's no cameo pattern on the gun. It's a black synthetic stock with the tungsten sarah coat, so it's basically fully weather proof. If your camo changes over time, you're not gonna have clashiness with your cameo pattern. It can do duty as a waterfowl gun as a turkey gun, I would choose the twenty six inch barrel over the just so it's a little shorter, a little more friendly

for doing double duty. If it was purely a waterfowl gun, i'd i'd go for a twenty eight. But if you want something that just run, uh, run and gun no matter what and where. Um, I think that twenty six inch barrel is the way to go, and the element tungsten perfect. Well. Thanks for that information, Luke, and thanks for coming on the Cutting Distance podcast. We really appreciate it. Um. Like I said that, I don't have a lot of

experience waterfall hunting with it, but it performed perfect. And then me and Dirk are real happy with our our Turkey setups and and they they did well. How can people find more out about whether it be how do they reach you guys? Um, I know you guys are all over social but you know, give your give yourself a plug. And I really appreciate having you on here. Yeah,

weather be dot com. You can find you know, all of the ormation on everything that we talked about and more there at weather be Inc. On Instagram, um, and then you know Facebook and other places as well, just as weather be. So we'd love to have you come follow us. Probably the best thing to do is to sign up for our newsletter on weatherby dot com. We definitely get throttled a little bit by social media, so even if you follow us, you might not see everything

we post every time. But um, we're not a company that sends out you know, like six emails a day or like kind of like one a week or one every other week, and we try to make them meaningful. So uh yeah, join our join our email newsletter is probably the single best way to stay in tune with what we've got going on. Yeah, well, thanks a lot, Luke, thanks for joining, and good luck this fall. Or any of your shotgunning trips you have coming up. Thanks Jason,