Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I’m Travis Bader and this is The Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses that comprise of the community. If you’re new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca, where you can learn more about courses, services and products that we offer as well as how you can join The Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in North America wide liability insurance, to ensure you are properly covered during your outdoor ventures.

[00:00:41] We’re joined again by six time national service rifle champion and technical director for International Barrels, Ryan Steacy. Listen as we discussed the current state of service rifle, how to get into precision rifle series shooting, pro tips to help you with your marksmanship. As well as stories and adventures from working on farms, working anti-piracy security off the coast of Somalia.

[00:01:08] We’re live.  

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:09] Nice. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:10] It’s been a minute. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:11] It has.

Travis Bader: [00:01:11] Holy crow. Heck of a lot’s changed since the last time that we got together here.

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:16] A little bit yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:17] What’s new we’ve, we’ve got what? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:19] Well, the last time we talked, was last summer, right after I shot the service rifle match, we came back and we did part two, the mental management podcast. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:29] That’s right. That was a fantastic podcast. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:31] I like those. Like, I’ve listened to those quite a few times again, over, just to make sure I didn’t sound like a weirdo and, yeah, they’re, they’re quite good. And I’ve had quite a few people actually comment that, Hey, you know, I bought the book because of what I heard you guys talking about during those two podcasts so.

Travis Bader: [00:01:49] We emails, we get phone calls.

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:51] Do you? 

Travis Bader: [00:01:51] Yeah, we do. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:52] Ahh really eh?

Travis Bader: [00:01:53] Yeah. People asking about it, telling the same thing, that they bought the book and they want to learn more. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:57] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:01:58] I mean, really that’s the secret to marksmanship. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:00] It’s the secret to a lot of things.

Travis Bader: [00:02:02] Sure.

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:02] You know, it’s that, it’s, it’s basically the technical manual to the, what was that book that came out that everybody was raving about earlier this – the secret. 

Travis Bader: [00:02:11] Yeah yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:12] Remember that? 

Travis Bader: [00:02:12] Yeah. I remember the secret. That was on Oprah’s list. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:15] Yeah, yeah, it was an Oprah book. Yeah, I never did read it, but the gist of that, is exactly the same as mental management.

Travis Bader: [00:02:23] Okay.

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:23] So.

Travis Bader: [00:02:24] That was all about manifest destiny though. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:26] It was yeah, but yeah, manifest destiny happens because you make it happen. 

Travis Bader: [00:02:31] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:31] And it’s exactly the same as mental management, in my mind. It’s that, that other, remember that Russian guy we were talking about, he had that book, the flow?

Travis Bader: [00:02:39] Yeah yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:39] And the flow state. I can’t even pronounce his name, but that’s all mental management too. It’s, it’s mental management in a flowery.

Travis Bader: [00:02:47] Right, right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:02:48] Presentation, but that’s basically what it comes down to. 

Travis Bader: [00:02:52] Well, I’m always surprised at how once you put your mind to something, even if it’s something that seems unbelievable at the time.

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:00] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:03:01] Later, it seems to come to fruition. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:03] It does. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:04] And I’ve never, you know, if I want to be a little bit analytical about it and look at it, am I now analyzing after the fact and just justifying facts to say, well this ended up like this because of the way I was thinking.

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:18] Mhmm.

Travis Bader: [00:03:18] Or is it a situation where. Essentially everything unfolds because of the way that you’re, you’re managing it mentally.

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:27] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:03:27] Or is it the third one? Are we living in the matrix and there’s a bit, is it a simulation?  

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:31] Is it a simulation? No, I think, I think that, you’re right there. I think that definitely, we subconsciously make things happen that we may not well, that we’re not consciously thinking about, you know, we want something to happen really badly. We subconsciously go through the process to get there.

Travis Bader: [00:03:50] Mhmm.

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:50] And guess what? It happens. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:52] Mhmm.

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:53] Hmm. Shocker. That’s the same in shooting, it’s mental management to a T. You just focus on the process and the end result is what you want. Hopefully.

Travis Bader: [00:04:03] Just happens that way.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:03] Yeah. As long as the steps to get there are, are perfect. Then by the time you get to the, well, your end goal will be what you want. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:14] Right. You know, I was asked to do a talk for the rotary a couple of years ago, about a life experience that I had.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:19] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:04:20] And they had some judges in there and lawyers and some diplomatic figures, and I was supposed to talk about one thing, but for whatever reason, as I was going through the whole talk, it completely took a right angle.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:30] Really?

Travis Bader: [00:04:30] And it essentially revolved around without even knowing it, the mental management process.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:36] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:04:37] And how working through a difficult situation, but segmenting it into small chunks and actually believing in certain areas and finding that everything sort of unfolds as it should.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:54] Mhmm.

Travis Bader: [00:04:55] It was, without getting too specific at the situation but.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:58] Yeah. Interesting that you said small chunks because that is a massively important part of mental management, is small manageable goals. So you get guys that look at things and you ask them to set a goal and their goal is I want to win a national championship. Okay. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:17] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:05:18] Well, that’s, that’s, that’s a good goal, but. What are the steps to get there? How are you going to do this? You can’t just say I want to win a national championship and then be disappointed when you don’t. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:28] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:05:28] So if you break things down into small portions and you achieve those portions and you keep achieving those small portions, guess what happens? You end up winning a national championship. So, as far as shooting goes, that’s just firing perfect shot every time you’re there, but it could be anything in any, any kind of business or a talk or whatever you’re giving, it’s all the same thing, small achievable goals. 

[00:05:57] And then that way you’re, you’re winning, you know, you achieve those goals and you get that feeling and everything is good. And then you tack another one on top of that, another one on top of that. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:08] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:06:08] And then you ended up in the, in the zone that you want to be in. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:11] So it’s okay to set the North star as.

Ryan Steacy: [00:06:13] Sure.

Travis Bader: [00:06:14] I’d like to win this, or I’d like to win X amount of times or. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:06:18] Sure. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:18] But, and that’s okay to have that and as long as you look back and all of your small chunks lead towards that final destiny. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:06:25] Totally. I think you have to go in with a winning mindset into whatever you’re going into, be it a shooting competition, business, gunfight, whatever. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:36] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:06:36] You totally have to go in with a winning mindset, but you can’t be focused on that win, you have to be focused on the steps to get to that win.

Travis Bader: [00:06:44] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:06:45] I always say that, well, I probably said this previously on the, on this podcast, but the path to being subconscious is paved with a thousand or 10,000 conscious steps. So in order to get subconscious, you have to do a thousand conscious repetitions basically, but it’s kind of the same idea as far as achieving your end goal. You know, there’s a lot of little steps to get there. You just have to achieve each one of those little steps as you go along to get to that end. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:14] It’s interesting, you mentioned the surviving a gunfight. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:07:17] Yeah, really the, the process, and I’ve never been in a gunfight, so I don’t know, but I think if you look at the overall process of a gunfight, it’s more important for you to fire good shots and make good hits depending on what kind of gun fight you’re in, may, make good wind calls.

Travis Bader: [00:07:35] Hmm.

Ryan Steacy: [00:07:35] To achieve that end result of being alive. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:38] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:07:38] It’s exactly the same as on a shooting range, when you’re in a competition, you need to shoot good shots to win. So whether the win is staying alive or ending up getting a trophy or on a chair or whatever, the steps are kind of the same. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:53] So since we talked last, of course we have the big COVID-19.

Ryan Steacy: [00:07:57] Yes. Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:59] How’s that affected IBI? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:08:02] Well, I mean, it affected us. We laid off pretty much everybody in the shop except for me for about three weeks. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:07] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:08:07] And so for me, it didn’t really change. I basically had to continue on with everything than I needed to continue on with, but the shop wasn’t producing barrels. I was running off of what we had in stock basically, but still getting barrels out. But it’s been four really good months. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:26] Really?

Ryan Steacy: [00:08:27] Yeah, it has. Since COVID-19 hit, it probably been our busiest four months so far in the, in the business. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:34] Why do you think that is? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:08:35] I think there’s a few factors. I think probably people are a little bit worried about what was going on. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:40] Sure. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:08:41] As far as whether it was going to get really ugly.

Travis Bader: [00:08:44] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:08:46] Probably some of the shenanigans in the States, people were looking at saying, I hope that doesn’t bleed over up here, but if it does, I’m going to be ready for it. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:54] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:08:54] So I think that was a factor. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:56] And I guess I make sense. Well, it gives, when I think of IBI, I don’t necessarily think of, you know, if I look at the shenanigans in the States.

Ryan Steacy: [00:09:04] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:04] I better get a new barrel on my gun, but you guys do more than that, I mean, there’s. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:09:08] For sure. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:09] Massive suppliers out there that you guys make the barrels for .

Ryan Steacy: [00:09:13] Yeah, that’s true.

Travis Bader: [00:09:13] And there’s going to be a big demand on their barrelled actions. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:09:16] Yeah, I mean, the other thing too, is that if, if this virus thing got really, really bad and there was a while there where, supply chains were somewhat threatened. I mean, just look at the toilet paper shortage, thankfully, that didn’t really matter. 

[00:09:31] But I mean, if it came down to a meat shortage or something along those lines, any kind of food shortage, there were people that wanted to be ready to go hunting and to shoot a moose or a deer or an elk or whatever the case may be to be able to feed their family.

Travis Bader: [00:09:46] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:09:47] So there was definitely some of that going as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:50] I find that whole survival prepper mindset is just, is definitely grown.

Ryan Steacy: [00:09:54] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:09:55] Because people are being shown that there are holes in their, in their plan. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:09:59] Yeah. I think, I think this whole thing is showing a lot of holes in a lot of respect. People don’t know how to get food on their own. And I think, maybe not so much up here, but in the States, I think if you look at people wanting to be able to protect themselves, that’s a, that’s a massive thing as well. 

[00:10:17] People that normally weren’t purchasing firearms, I think have seen some of the stuff that goes on TV and are like, I do not want to have to deal with that in my neighbourhood. So it’s probably best if I’m ready to at least ward, a few things off.

Travis Bader: [00:10:33] My mother in law. She’s the last person who should own a firearm and she’s.

Ryan Steacy: [00:10:37] Are you sure you’re allowed to say that? She’s gonna hear this. 

Travis Bader: [00:10:41] She says uh.

Ryan Steacy: [00:10:42] Sorry Mom.

Travis Bader: [00:10:44] She, when COVID hits Trav, how do I,  how do I get a firearm? And she’s totally not a firearms person, not into firearms, but that, and when we talk about that American sentiment, I think is, cause a lot of Canadians are afraid to say the, the self defence side, which is a perfectly legitimate reason.

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:01] It’s totally legit no matter where you are.

Travis Bader: [00:11:03] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:03] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:04] It’s just kind of, have it ingrained in ourselves that no, no, no, that’s America. We can’t defend ourselves. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:08] Yeah, yeah, nope. It’s funny, you know, I, when all this stuff started sort of getting to that crazy point, I actually had two people send me messages and ask me if they could borrow a gun.

Travis Bader: [00:11:20] I did too!

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:21] I’m like, no, you can’t borrow a gun. You need a license for that.

Travis Bader: [00:11:26] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:26] Yeah. But can’t you just get – yeah, okay, so I’m going to give you, I’m going to let you borrow a gun. You don’t have a license, you don’t know how to operate it. You’re going to shoot somebody by mistake or yourself and they’re going to ask you how you got a gun and then you’d be like, well, Ryan lent it to me.

Travis Bader: [00:11:41] Well totally. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:42] And then I’d be like, yeah. And they’re like, Oh, yeah okay, I guess that kinda makes sense. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:48] We do have some rules in place, you know? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:50] Yeah. It’s that whole legal gun owners thing, you know.

Travis Bader: [00:11:53] Totally.

Ryan Steacy: [00:11:54] It’s like, I kind of want to stay legal.

Travis Bader: [00:11:57] If I want to call myself a lawful, law abiding firearms owner. You kinda have to obey the law. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:12:02] Totally. Yup. And I’m not being, handing out any guns anytime soon to anybody.

Travis Bader: [00:12:06] Been a while actually. So COVID, I had a couple of people say, Hey, do you have any guns I can borrow? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:12:10] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:12:11] No. I think going back about 20 years, but the last time I was ever asked if someone, someone asked me if they could borrow a firearm, a guy phones up and he says, Hey, I want to get a firearms license.

Ryan Steacy: [00:12:24] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:12:24] I said, okay, well, there’s a mandatory course. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:12:27] Sure.

Travis Bader: [00:12:27] Then we go through the course and then provided you’re successful. And I take them through the whole process, right, and our listeners I’m sure know about. And he says, Oh perfect, when’s your next course? I said, you’re in luck, it’s coming up this weekend. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:12:39] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:12:39] Great, cause I need a gun for the weekend following. And I said, well, it doesn’t work that way. I explain it to him and, a really nice Filipino fellow. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:12:48] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:12:48] And he says, okay, well, let me think on this. And he calls back later and he says, I got it figured out. I’ll take the course, I’ll get a bunch of my friends to take the course with me and that way you’re going to see, I’m a good person, I associate with good people and then you’ll feel comfortable lending me a firearm afterwards. I’m like no, it doesn’t work that way. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:08] Mmmm, no. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:09] And so now I’m really curious, like, what do you need a firearm for, for next weekend and he said.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:13] What’s your deal?

Travis Bader: [00:13:14] Totally. He say’s well, my brother’s coming in town. Uh huh.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:18] This is not good.

Travis Bader: [00:13:19] Right, yeah. My mind is going a billion different places.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:22] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:13:23] And he says, well, we’ve been purchasing livestock at an auction and we want to have a big barbecue cause my brother’s coming.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:31] Ohhhhh.

Travis Bader: [00:13:31] In and we got a cow.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:34] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:13:34] And right prior to this it’s always been goats and smaller animals.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:13:40] And he says, well, can you come and shoot it for me? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:46] No way. Like in his backyard or what?

Travis Bader: [00:13:48] Yes.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:49] Oh no. Please tell me that you didn’t go shoot it for him. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:53] And so.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:56] He had a farm in the middle of BC somewhere.

Travis Bader: [00:13:59] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:00] Yes. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:01] Out in an area lawful to obviously discharge firearm for your, for your livestock and all the rest and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:07] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:08] But I show up there and I’m the only white fellow there, towering above a whole bunch of.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:15] Yeah, your.

Travis Bader: [00:14:15] Filipinos.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:16] You’re not a small guy. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:17] And with a rifle in my hand. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:19] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:20] And they’re already cooking up a goat on the ground.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:23] Oh wow.

Travis Bader: [00:14:23] I thought they were burnt burning the hair off of it, but.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:25] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:14:25] It was all crepitus and black and charred, and they’re cooking it up with a propane roofing torch, right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:30] Oh geez.

Travis Bader: [00:14:31] And I’m like, Ooh. They said oh, that’s great, it’s really good. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:34] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:14:35] And I’m like Oh I’ll, they offered me some and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:38] Sure.

Travis Bader: [00:14:38] I politely declined. And they had two cows there and these cows, instead of, I guess some, of the cows are going to have their horns and they usually chop them and they.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:48] Oh okay.

Travis Bader: [00:14:49] Put some lye on it. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:50] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:50] And that was, I always figured it was the males that had it, but the females can have them too as well and they had horns.

Ryan Steacy: [00:14:56] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:14:56] And they were afraid of them and I figured I’d just go up and put the thing against his head and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:00] Boink.

Travis Bader: [00:15:00] Put it down and nope, this thing’s running around all afterall them. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:04] Oh geez.

Travis Bader: [00:15:04] Anyways. So I’m like, I, I know the general area to shoot this cow in the skull because we had a commercial fly fishing lodge and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:14] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:15:14] There was a cow skull that I’d found as a child and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:16] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:15:17] Had hung up and had a little .22 hole in there.

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:19] Yep, yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:19] And so, but I’m looking at the skull and I’m, or I’m remembering the skull and I’m looking at the cow. And it doesn’t really line up.

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:27] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:15:27] When you ?? everything on there. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:28] Sure.

Travis Bader: [00:15:29] Anyways, I pull the trigger and ‘moooo’ and it goes running off and I’m feeling bad. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:35] Oh no.

Travis Bader: [00:15:37] Catch up with it, get it, alright. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:40] You sort ’em out pretty quick. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:41] No. No, but I had a very nice grouping!

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:48] Geez.

Travis Bader: [00:15:48] Had a very nice grouping, but I learned I was in totally the wrong spot. I felt so bad, but they had two cows there. Second spot, second cow and I learned the proper spot. Down.

Ryan Steacy: [00:15:58] Boink.

Travis Bader: [00:15:58] I mean, before it hits the ground it’s dead. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:00] Yeah. Nice. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:01] And finally they.

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:02] Was it a .22?

Travis Bader: [00:16:03] It was a .22.

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:04] Yeah, yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:16:04] And finally they get themselves licensed and I end up giving them a .22 and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:10] Oh nice.

Travis Bader: [00:16:11] Yeah, just a little thing. So they could, they could do their own cows.

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:14] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:16:14] And I, some, a year and a bit goes by and I get a call. Hey, can you help us kill a cow? And in the meantime, I’d killed a bunch of cows for them. And it was very clean, very humane. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:24] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:16:24] I knew what I’m doing now.

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:25] Yeah, yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:16:25] And I just.

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:25] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:16:27] You got your own rifle, what do you, what do you need me for? He’s like oh I just, we tried the shot, it didn’t go down. Alright, I’ll come on out. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:33] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:34] So I bring my .22 and they had purchased a property across the street, they were getting a much larger operation and they had a Hereford bull there. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:43] Oh no.

Travis Bader: [00:16:43] Towered above the other cows.

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:45] Geez. No wonder they wanted you over there. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:47] Right. So we’re walking up and you know, first guy says, well, I tried one shot and um, didn’t go down, so I decided time to call you Trav. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:58] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:59] Next guys talking, he’s like, Oh yeah, It was like six or seven shots and guy, guy in the back’s like, Oh, I lost count after how many shots. I’m like, Oh my God, poor guy. Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:07] Geez.

Travis Bader: [00:17:08] Anyways.

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:09] They just bouncing them off his head or what was it? 

Travis Bader: [00:17:11] The skulls just too thick. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:12] Too thick yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:17:12] And if you guys, if anyone listening, ever finds himself in that situation, the cows will have a bony ridge and the bulls as well down the centre of their skull. So you want to go offset of that a little bit and you take the eyes and the horns and you draw an X and you just, middle of that X, offset the centre.

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:29] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:17:29] And that’s your, that’s your sweet spot.

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:31] Huh. Interesting. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:32] First time I was doing it, I was a little low and. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:34] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:17:34] So came back with something that was more appropriate for the Hereford bull and 

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:38] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:39] We’re done. ?? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:40] Perfect. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:40] I don’t know how we got into that story. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:42] That’s funny. I don’t know either 

Travis Bader: [00:17:43] Oh, boring guns so.

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:45] I have a funny Filipino story about when I was doing some security on, on a boat.

Travis Bader: [00:17:51] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:51] We had a Filipino crew. And they were great guys. And we were in the middle of the Indian ocean and they decided that they were going to go into a deep water port off of a Mumbai. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:03] Okay. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:18:03] So we’re sitting in this deep water port for like seven days. So the reason we were on the boat was because, we were transiting near the coast of Somalia. So it was.

Travis Bader: [00:18:12] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:18:12] Anti-piracy thing. So we’re completely crossing Indian ocean in, near India. I think we were about 40 miles off shore, maybe a bit more, I can’t remember, but anyways. We’re in a deep water port and there’s like a hundred boats there and the Indian Navy is cruising round. So it’s basically almost stand down kind of time right?

[00:18:35] So one of the, one of the fellows, has a birthday, so they’re like, yeah, you should, you should come down to the lounge. And there’s four of us right. And there’s me and another Canadian and there’s an American ex ranger and there’s a Scottish SAS guy, ex SAS guy. Awesome guy. So you guys should come down and  join in the party.

[00:18:57] So we’re like, okay, no problem. So you know, we made sure everything was good. And then, packed up our crap, put it away, and then went down into the lounge, for some really lousy whiskey.

Travis Bader: [00:19:09] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:19:10] And food. So we walk in and there’s a pig’s head on the, on the counter and, you know, they’re cutting pieces off and I’m like, Oh, that’s pretty crazy.

Travis Bader: [00:19:19] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:19:20] All right, whatever. I’m probably not going to go there cause it’s just not my bag. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:23] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:19:24] But I’ll eat the other, other stuff they had and they had snacks and all kinds of stuff laid out and whatnot right. So we get a few crappy whiskeys in and not really paying attention and we’re doing karaoke and having all kinds of fun.

[00:19:38] And they push over a, a plate of what I thought was some sort of antipasto. You know like with olives and all that kind of.

Travis Bader: [00:19:48] Yeah, I know what you mean.

Ryan Steacy: [00:19:48] Tomatoes and some crackers and stuff like that. And they sort of shove it over to the table and Grant the other, the SAS guy, scottish guy. He passes it over to me, he’s, you know, have some. Okay, so I stick a chip in there and scoop up big pile of stuff and shove it in the face. And I started chewing and I’m like, okay, that’s kind of weird, weird flavour. 

[00:20:16] And then I’m like, texture of this is really strange and so I keep chewing and I realized that I’m chewing something that I probably shouldn’t be chewing. So I looked down into the bowl that I take an un-whiskey look, down into the bowl.

Travis Bader: [00:20:34] Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:20:35] And I realize that there’s fur in the bowl. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:39] Mmmm.

Ryan Steacy: [00:20:39] So, and I look over at the Filipino dudes and they’re all staring at me like, I can’t believe he ate that. And they’re all kind of laughing and smiling and whatnot and I looked down and so it’s some sort of goat skin mixed in with all of us and tomatoes and it still has a hair on it. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:57] Eeew.

Ryan Steacy: [00:20:59] And so, and Grants and hit me like you had a crazy bastard and I took one bite and then when I looked down, I’m like, Oh my God, it’s got hair on it. And so I just fired another shot of whiskey down and swallowed it and I’m like, thanks fellows.

[00:21:15] And after that, they were like, Oh that was, we didn’t think you would eat that. And I’m like, if I had known there was hair on it I probably wouldn’t of eaten it.

Travis Bader: [00:21:22] That’s right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:21:23] Terrible. But yeah, they were all buddies after that. It was pretty funny. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:27] Ah. Filipino cuisine, you know, in retrospect, I wish I kind of tried some of the stuff that they had there just because it was a bit of an adventure, but.

Ryan Steacy: [00:21:34] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:21:34] Some of it’s pretty strange for our palette. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:21:37] We had one of the thing when we were on the boat, we’re totally digressing out of the.

Travis Bader: [00:21:41] We are.

Ryan Steacy: [00:21:41] Podcast went but. So we ran different shifts on this boat and Grant’s was just ahead of mine, so after mine finished, I would go down and he would usually be at breakfast or lunch or whatever the case was right. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:55] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:21:56] And so I go down into the mess and we ate in the officer’s quarters with the captain and all the other officers on the boat. So I go down and, and, you know, we’ve got rifles and stuff. I don’t remember at what point in the journey we were on, but we were still armed. So went down into there, into the thing, and we had our own table security guy table. And Grant’s sitting there and he’s kinda just staring at his plate, looking forlone-ly.

[00:22:23] And so I walk in and I’m like, Hey man, how’s it going? He’s like, Hey, good. And I sit down and, the cookie, who’s the guy that brought all the food. He comes over and he drops his plate on my, in front of me and I’m not really paying attention right.

Travis Bader: [00:22:38] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:22:39] And so I looked down at it and there’s a piece of spine. It’s about five vertebrae long and it’s pretty much just a spine. And I look over at Grant and I said, Is that a spine? And he goes, aye, it’s a spine. And I’m like.

Travis Bader: [00:23:04] Okay.

Ryan Steacy: [00:23:05] What, are we supposed to eat this? And he’s like, I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure it out for 20 minutes. I go, where is there even any meat on there? And he’s like, I don’t know. And I’m like, okay. Anyways, so I got cookie over and we’re like, Hey So ya have like any rice. Oh yeah okay, I’ll bring some rice. So he brought over rice, you don’t want the spine? I’m like, I , no, I don’t even know where I would go with that. And so he took the spines away and brought us some rice and yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:23:31] Brought you some white guy food.

Ryan Steacy: [00:23:32] White guy food, yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:33] So are you supposed to like suck the gelatin out of the centre? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:23:36] That was kind of the gist of it, but we never really got that far cause both of us were kinda trying to figure out, cause there was basic, it didn’t seem like there was any meat on it. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:45] Okay.

Ryan Steacy: [00:23:45] Anywhere, but I don’t even know what it was. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:47] They cleaned it good. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:23:48] It was a goat or a sheep or something maybe.

Travis Bader: [00:23:52] There you go. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:23:53] I don’t know, who knows. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:54] Well my wife’s a chef and I’ve been experimenting more and more, some weird, crazy stuff I never would have thought I would eat.

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:00] Her, get her to get you spine. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:01] That’s right. We’ll cook up some spine.

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:02] Yeah. It was good. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:05] So.

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:06] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:24:06] We’ve had COVID positive effect on business. That’s great. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:09] Yeah, it’s been busy. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:11] Aside the initial led off, but.

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:13] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:13] And then we of course had big old gun bed. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:15] Oh man. Yeah, that one. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:19] So on a personal level, you’re coming off six time win national service rifle champion. I mean.

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:24] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:24:24] You train for that both physically and mentally a lot. It’s a big part of what you do. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:31] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:32] And now where does that stand? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:33] It’s, it’s done. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:34] It’s done. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:24:35] Yeah. Service rifle, which has been running since the late 18 hundreds, as a way of training soldiers to be better shots, to protect their own lives overseas and has only been interrupted twice in the history of Canada, once for world war one. And the second time for world war two, is now stopped altogether finished because of our current lack of leadership in the government. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:07] Right. And that’s affecting a lot of people’s sports, but I mean, for you, it was a completely different level. Like some people, ahhh, I’m going to go shoot service rifle, go have some fun with the guys.

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:17] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:25:17] You.

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:18] Yeah, really. It’s yeah. It’s it kind of crushed me to be honest with you. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:22] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:23] I mean, it’s something, I’ve, it’s a huge part of my life. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:27] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:27] It’s something that I trained for. It’s something that affects me in everyday life because I take the lessons I learned from service rifle and put it into running a business and life in general. So I mean, all that stuff is, is just basically been washed away now for no reason. Zero reason. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:46] Well, let’s hope the next election that comes up will change this. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:50] Yeah. Well, I mean, we’re also fighting it in court, right? So I’m, I’m a plaintiff in the CCFR court case. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:57] I didn’t realize that you were in there. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:58] Yes, I am so. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:00] Are you able to talk about that at all? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:01] I think so, little bits. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna get into strategies or anything like that. However, I think the CCFR case and all the other cases are, there’s really a valid challenges, constitutional challenges and other things as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:17] Oh, I agree. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:18] I hope that would get our day in court. You know, either way, as long as this government gets gone.

Travis Bader: [00:26:26] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:27] Or this thing gets struck down via a court case, or a change of government. I don’t, I don’t care either way make it happen. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:36] Right. Well the court case thing can be a bit of a double edged sword too, depending on who’s hearing it and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:42] Can be.

Travis Bader: [00:26:42] Where it goes. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:43] Yeah, for sure. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:44] The, just, just having it gone, changing government, basically every conservative candidate has said.

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:51] Yeah, they have.

Travis Bader: [00:26:52] It’s gone. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:53] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:53] I’m sure won’t happen right away when they come in. They’ll save  it until right before election time. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:57] Of course, of course.

Travis Bader: [00:26:58] Four years after.

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:59] Which is super frustrating. You know, really, you would think that when a government like that is coming to, to change everything that they would get that taken care of in a timely manner. So that people really know that they’re, they’re doing what they’re promising to do instead of letting it lag over, you know, a four year period or whatnot, to get some sort of. 

Travis Bader: [00:27:25] Political points. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:27:26] Political points across and, you know, just so that it seems like they’re doing something at the end. 

Travis Bader: [00:27:32] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:27:32] You know, scoring some political points. Yeah, definitely it’s frustrating.

Travis Bader: [00:27:37] Maybe a change. There’d be a change to the narrative if they did it like that. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:27:40] It would be. And you know what? People would probably be a lot more good to go with it in because everybody knows what you guys are doing. So if you’re going to hang onto this stuff and not deal with it until the election rolls around, that makes you almost as bad as the people that put it in place in the first case.

Travis Bader: [00:27:57] Totally.

Ryan Steacy: [00:27:58] But if you take care of it right away and make good on the promise that you made and even a little further and make it so that this kind of crap can’t happen to the civilian shooters again.

Travis Bader: [00:28:09] Yes. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:28:10] You would own the votes for everybody else’s lifetime.

Travis Bader: [00:28:15] Well said. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:28:16] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:17] Well said.

Ryan Steacy: [00:28:18] I like to think. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:19] Yes. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:28:19] Somebody would stand up and do it that way instead of doing it the cheesy way. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:24] I think people are waiting for that. I think there’s a general hunger for people to just do it the right way. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:28:29] Yeah. I think there’s a bit of a lack of leadership in a lot of ways. And really somebody kind of needs to stand up and, and, and do it the proper way. And let people know that, Hey, we’re not messing around. We said, we’re going to do this and guess what? Here it is. It’s all laid out. We’re going to protect you guys for the future. And, so, you know, you would, you would gain votes and you would probably hold those votes for a long time if you did it that way, but Hey.

Travis Bader: [00:28:56] Who are we?

Ryan Steacy: [00:28:56] I’m not a politician. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:58] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:29:00] Probably a good thing. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:02] I don’t know about that. I’d vote for you. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:29:04] Oh God. No.

Travis Bader: [00:29:06] So now are you putting your efforts more to like PRS style shooting? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:29:11] Yeah, so service rifle. Well, okay, service rifle is not 100% dead. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:18] Okay.

Ryan Steacy: [00:29:18] However, in the form that it previously was, it is 100% dead. But there are still people that are attempting to keep that style of shooting going. Keith and Linda at MilCun raining complex are running what they call rebel rifles, which are .223 bolt actions. Fairly light, quite manageable and.

Travis Bader: [00:29:40] Good for them.

Ryan Steacy: [00:29:40] Yep. And so they’re trying to shoot similar matches. Obviously the timings and a lot of things would have to be changed to make it viable for a bolt gun. But they’re, they’re trying to keep it going and yeah. I mean, I haven’t heard anything from the BCRA, not a thing, not a word. Which is somewhat frustrating as well. But yeah, basically nobody other than Keith and Linda are attempting to keep things running, service rifle wise, unfortunately. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:15] Well, good for them. And if our listeners hear this, maybe they can send some support over to Keith and Linda at MilCun.

Ryan Steacy: [00:30:21] MilCun training complex. And if you want high end training, that’s in Canada, in Ontario, that’s where you want to go and they can train you on not only the fundamentals of marksmanship, but if you really want to take it to the next level and you’re shooting with mental management strategies, that’s the only place that you can learn it probably in North America.

Travis Bader: [00:30:42] That, and I’ve been seeing some of the baking that Linda’s been doing. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:30:47] I, I would like to go get some of the stuff that she posts on the Boogaloo page.

Travis Bader: [00:30:52] Oh my God!

Ryan Steacy: [00:30:53] But the bread page, it’s insane. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:54] And you as well, you’ve become quite the baker. You’ve got the sourdough down pat.

Ryan Steacy: [00:30:59] Well it kind of looks good, I don’t know whether it tastes all that good. My kid seems to like it, but he’d probably eat sawdust if I fed it to him.

Travis Bader: [00:31:07] And this is the byproduct of COVID. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:31:10] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:10] You never baked before? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:31:11] No, and I totally thought, you know what, it’s probably a good idea if I have like some flour and some rice and you know, the usual stuff at the house.

Travis Bader: [00:31:19] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:31:19] If things are gonna get out of hand here, I want to be able to like, you know, feed myself and my kid.

Travis Bader: [00:31:25] Totally. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:31:25] And then I’m like, well I got flour, but I haven’t got a clue what to do with the flour. So maybe I should, maybe I should figure out how to bake some bread. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:35] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:31:35] So I started monkeying around with bread and I had a couple of buddies, army buddies, which is strange. We were all sort of on the same kind of page and of course this whole Boogaloo thing in the States, you know, whatever.

Travis Bader: [00:31:48] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:31:48] So I just made this Facebook page and called it Boogaloo bread and it’s stupid. The amount of people that post their recipes and stuff, it’s got nothing to do with Boogaloo. It’s just got it’s just bread and, and different types of food. And like some of the stuff that people post Linda posts pretty amazing.

Travis Bader: [00:32:05] Yeah, she does. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:06] She did some relish the other day, I can’t remember, I think it was squash or something like that, but I looked killer.

Travis Bader: [00:32:13] I tried my hand at it did one thing.

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:16] Did you?

Travis Bader: [00:32:16] Oh yeah, well I did, was a biga starter that.

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:19] Oh nice.

Travis Bader: [00:32:20] I know nothing about bread.

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:21] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:32:21] But my wife worked in a couple of bakeries for a few years and so I leaned on her heavily, what do I do next? Now what? Right. Okay. Now what? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:29] Yup. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:30] Then they got the final product out there and I, ADHD kicked in and it was on to something else.

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:34] Yeah, no way. No, that’s cool. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:35] Yeah it’s good fun. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:36] Yeah, lots of fun. There’s lots of recipes on there that you look at it and you’re like, wow. I could actually make that and it’s pretty easy to do. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:44] Yeah. Bunch of good people too. And it’s primarily in the shooting community.

Ryan Steacy: [00:32:48] It is, yeah. Really, a lot of people in there, the Canadian service rifle slash, well other shooting, shooting communities too, but it really, it kind of started with service rifle folks. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:00] So now with that PRS. So I shot my first PRS. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:04] Yes you did.

Travis Bader: [00:33:04] Style match there.

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:06] Yeah. Yeah. That was good. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:07] Tried that out. That was fun. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:08] Yeah. You enjoyed it?

Travis Bader: [00:33:09] Oh man. It was a lot of fun. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:11] Yeah, it was good. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:11] Yeah. I saw the points where I was weak on, the points where I did well, target identification at distance was something I was kind of struggling with at first.

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:20] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:33:20] And that, a couple of the wind calls on station eight there, but you know, out of 53 people, I came what, 15th. So I’m okay with that. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:30] That’s pretty awesome for your first go. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:32] I prefer to say I came in second place for my division.

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:35] Ah there you go. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:36] Cause it was, I was.

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:37] Yeah, you were shooting a .308 weren’t ya? 

Travis Bader: [00:33:38] That’s right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:38] Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:40] Second place for the tactical division. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:42] Yep. Yep that’s perfect. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:43] But they didn’t have a second place trophy.

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:46] Nope. First place loser. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:47] That’s right. You got it. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:48] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:48] But yeah, that was a lot of fun. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:50] Yeah. It is a lot of fun. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:52] So we’ve got another one coming up here in, in Pemberton is it?

Ryan Steacy: [00:33:56] There was a Pemberton one in September, BC precision rifle league. Dave, Gary, Annie, and Josh both up, put them on up there. So yeah, it should be, should be a good go. I’m not a hundred percent sure if I’m going to make it or not. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:10] Well, you came first place on the last competition there.

Ryan Steacy: [00:34:13] I did. That was my, my first win actually in a PRS style competition, which was good. The weekend before that I was in Alberta shooting in medicine hat, and that was a big match. There was like 80 people and we shot on a farm out to 1200 yards I think, it was pretty far.

Travis Bader: [00:34:32] Nice.

Ryan Steacy: [00:34:33] It was awesome. Really windy. A lot of challenges there. I think that one was probably my, I think that was my fifth PRS match, actual PRS match. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:44] Okay. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:34:44] So the reality of it was, is I’m still trying to figure out how to do this properly. I’m a reasonable service rifle shooter, but when you, when you have to add in all the different aspects of the PRS kind of stuff, it, it, it changes things around and you kind of, for me, I had to process how to do it all. So the Merritt match there was. Well, the, the Alberta one in Medicine Hat was really the first one where I sort of had my act together.

Travis Bader: [00:35:12] Okay.

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:12] Managing the Kestrel and all that kind of stuff really was sort of the complicated bit for me in trying to deal with all the wind calls and all the dope and.

Travis Bader: [00:35:22] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:22] What I needed to be focused on and how much energy I needed to put into certain things as opposed to shooting good shots.

Travis Bader: [00:35:29] So I’m going to ask you about the Kestrel in a second.

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:31] Okay.

Travis Bader: [00:35:32] But I’m curious, the match that we did there, is that kind of indicative of what the other, you said it was five other matches you’ve done. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:38] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:35:38] Are they all kind of similar?

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:40] Yeah pretty similar, you know, you’re shooting off of, different types of obstacles that at various distances. All the other matches that I’ve done have all been in places where you could shoot probably out to 14 or 1500  meters. The Merritt one, I think what was it 600 meters. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:57] Yeah, six.

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:58] At the most? 

Travis Bader: [00:35:58] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:59] Yeah, smaller targets.

Travis Bader: [00:36:00] Small targets, but easier to make hits at 6.

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:02] Yeah, for sure, more, probably a little bit less on the wind calls, whatnot as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:07] And we’re shooting from vehicles inside.

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:09] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:36:09] And on top and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:10] Yeah. I mean, if you have a shorter range where you’re only able to shoot out 600 meters, you make the targets a little smaller and you make the position a little more complicated, or you make the stages that they run a little more complicated. So, I mean, there were a couple of there were, and we’re going through. What was it a minivan? 

Travis Bader: [00:36:27] That’s right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:28] We had like four or five positions in the minivan, on the minivan, around the minivan.

Travis Bader: [00:36:32] That’s right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:33] Shooting off of, you know, like bouncy seats and all kinds of stuff like that so. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:38] That station.

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:39] That was a lot of fun.

Travis Bader: [00:36:40] Yeah. You let me use the, that bag you have that shot ??

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:43] The Warhorse? Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:36:43] The Warhorse.

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:44] Yeah, yeah. The plaid Warhorse. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:46] That thing made a world of a difference. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:48] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:49] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:36:49] Yeah. Good bag really does, make it easy for you. I’ve got several bags and I think that the Warhorse is probably the one that I’ll run with the most, just because it sits on obstacles really easy. Doesn’t fall off, it’s not super heavy, so it’s not difficult to carry around. And yeah, it seems to kind of conform to a lot of the, complicated positions that you need to shoot. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:12] Well, I, I reached out to, Chaz and Don.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:16] Oh did you?

Travis Bader: [00:37:18] Down at Warhorse Development.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:18] Oh yeah, wicked. Wicked.

Travis Bader: [00:37:18] Yeah. Talked to them a bit about their products and. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:20] Awesome.

Travis Bader: [00:37:20] They, cause they’ve got some great products.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:22] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:37:22] And they’re getting some more pictures and photos up on their site and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:25] Yeah, totally. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:25] I don’t know how long they’ve been around for, but.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:27] Wars been around. Well, I dunno, four or five years, probably at least an eight. That’s when I basically sorta took notice. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:35] Got it. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:36] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:36] So I’ve got a, I got my.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:38] You got one coming?

Travis Bader: [00:37:39] Got my own coming. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:40] Nice.

Travis Bader: [00:37:40] It’s on it’s way.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:41] It’s not blue plaid by any chances is it? 

Travis Bader: [00:37:43] It is not.

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:44] Okay. I think I’m only by myself on that one.

Travis Bader: [00:37:47] The plaid. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:48] The plaid. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:48] Did you request that one? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:50] I did. Well, Chaz was like, so what colour do you want? And I’m like, I don’t know, what do you got? He’s like, well, you know, I got like grey and multi-cam and all that kind of stuff. And I’m like, do you have anything that nobody would steal? Well, I got this blue plaid and I’m like sold.

Travis Bader: [00:38:06] Done.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:07] Done. I don’t even want to see it. Just make it and I’ll take it. So it turned out really cool. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:11] Yeah. It’s fantastic. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:13] It’s a neat bag, yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:14] So you’re talking about the Kestrel. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:15] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:16] Okay. So I’ve got a couple of Kestrels. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:19] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:38:19] I got one with the Horus ballistics on it.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:21] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:38:21] And one with the applied ballistics on it and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:24] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:38:25] I just got the applied ballistics, it’s got the Bluetooth.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:27] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:38:27] Because I’m looking to put a video together for something else. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:30] Okay. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:31] And how it matches up with a SIG kilo. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:34] Yeah, yeah. Awesome. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:35] Rangefinders.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:36] Have you got a set of those?

Travis Bader: [00:38:37] My wife does.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:38] Oh nice.

Travis Bader: [00:38:39] She fell in love with those things down at.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:40] I gotta get one of those.

Travis Bader: [00:38:41] SHOT Show.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:42] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:38:42] I got, I got a Leica and it’s, I love it. The glass is great, but they’re a little larger for the bino pouch. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:50] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:51] And I’m thinking that the electronics are, not thinking, the electronics on the SIG are better than on the.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:57] Really?

Travis Bader: [00:38:57] On the Leica. Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:38:58] Hmm, is it like a Bluetooth to your Kestrel. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:01] Nope. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:39:01] No, okay. So that, I mean, that’s a huge advantage. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:04] You know what if it does, I don’t know. And I’ve never done it. I might have to read the instruction manual again. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:39:09] Might want to check that out yeah. If you can do it that’d be good. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:11] Yeah. I don’t think it does. I know that the, the SIG kilo does. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:39:14] The SIG does. Yeah, you know, like I have a SIG laser range finder. I have the 2200 or 2400, I can’t remember. It’s, it’s a good laser, it’s a handheld small one, but it doesn’t Bluetooth to the, to the Kestrel. And so I was down shooting the snipers hide there, and some of the guys I was shooting with were running the kilos 3000 bino’s and it Bluetooths right to your Kestrel. So they would get on the target, laze it and they’re Bluetooth to the Kestrel and it would just give you the dope right in the reticle.

Travis Bader: [00:39:47] Wow.

Ryan Steacy: [00:39:47] For the distance. So it was like, okay, find the target, beep, laze it and okay, your dope is 3.2. The guy would dial it on a fire and bing, just like that fast right? 

Travis Bader: [00:39:58] Wow. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:39:59] Whereas I had the Kestrel in one hand and the laser in the other, and so I had to beep the, the, laze the target and then it’d be like, okay, 700 and whatever. So then I got dial it into the Kestrel and of course you miss on the, on the distance, on the Kestrel. So you got to go back and forth and. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:15] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:40:15] Until you get to, you know, 700. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:17] And those are the laser range finders account for elevation too. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:40:21] Yep. Oh, it does everything. It just tells you what to dial onto your scope.

Travis Bader: [00:40:24] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:40:24] And it’s all taken off the Kestrel. So it’s definitely something I have to look at as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:30] So I’m pretty sure I haven’t been using my Kestrel properly because I got it all, I set it up.

Ryan Steacy: [00:40:35] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:40:35] Was really meticulous about going through reading the manual and.

Ryan Steacy: [00:40:39] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:39] But I’m, I’m more or less, you know, kind of half-ass, hold it up to the wind and don’t know what I’m doing there. And then I, I could basically do what it needs to do with, with my phone, because I’m just basically using the, the ballistic charts on it.

Ryan Steacy: [00:40:52] Yep. Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:53] But when, you were up there, I noticed your, it looked like you were taking back wind, side wind.

Ryan Steacy: [00:40:57] A little bit yeah. Yeah. You know, in that Alberta match there, I, that’s kind of, when I sort of connected a bunch of dots, I was watching some of the better shooters.

[00:41:06] Travis Bader: [00:41:06] Okay.

Ryan Steacy: [00:41:06] And how they did it. The guys from team MDT, Dave, Gary, Annie, and Raul Rosa were on my squad. And so they were helping me quite a bit, figure out how to deal with the Kestrel. So put them sort of together for the Merritt match and sort of did it the way that they had sort of showed me and it worked out really good.

Travis Bader: [00:41:26] So what kind of tips would you have for somebody like myself, who’s still learning the process?

Ryan Steacy: [00:41:32] I would trust the Kestrel. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:34] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:41:34] That’s one thing that I see and I probably was guilty of it myself is, you would look at the dope or the wind colour or whatever on there and be like, no, it can’t be that much. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:43] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:41:44] 1.2 mils at 800 meters. There’s no way I can hold off that much. And then you get up there and you fire one and, Oh, that’s miss. So you’ll swing over to 1.2 and bing, guess what you hit. So trust the Kestrel is good, but try and make sure that the data that you enter into the Kestrel to get everything set up, because there’s a portion that you have to set up on your phone, right to get.

Travis Bader: [00:42:07] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:42:08] So you want the ballistic coefficient and all the other stuff that’s on there, the drag model to be as good as possible to get the best possible data out of it.

Travis Bader: [00:42:19] Right. So you’re using what, like a G7 drag model for the?

Ryan Steacy: [00:42:22] No, I use the, well I was using the G7, but Raul actually said you should use the custom curve on there and I’m like, Oh, okay. So I kind of monkeyed around with it a bit and sure enough, yeah, it seems to, seems to be a better option than either the G1 or the G7. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:38] Custom curve.

Ryan Steacy: [00:42:38] And that was, that was something that I didn’t, I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to employ it previously. So those guys 

Travis Bader: [00:42:44] told me. And I’m 

Ryan Steacy: [00:42:44] sure they probably learned it from somebody else as well, or maybe they figured it out on their own as possible.

Travis Bader: [00:42:48] Is it difficult to set up the custom curve? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:42:50] No, you don’t do anything. You just put it on. You’ve got now when you go into the drag model, it says G1, G7, AB custom. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:57] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:42:57] Just click on AB custom and it automatically does it for you. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:01] Got it. Okay. So that’s an applied ballistics one. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:43:04] Yup. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:04] Okay. So I don’t know if they have that on the, the Horus version, so I’ll have to check it.

Ryan Steacy: [00:43:08] You might not. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:09] Okay. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:43:10] Yeah. I would look on the, the 5700 elite that you have.

Travis Bader: [00:43:12] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:43:13] Yeah. Okay. It’s in there for sure. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:15] Okay. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:43:15] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:16] Okay. So that’s, that’s something Bryan Litz came up with hey? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:43:18] Yeah. Yeah. He’s a, yeah, he, I think he’s behind a lot of the custom stuff. That’s on the 5700. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:27] Okay. Well, that’s, that’s a pretty damn good tip. If I don’t have to do any math to figure it out, I just click it and go. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:43:32] It just seemed, if you did the G1 or the G7 drag model that you were always kind of adjusting, you had to true the Kestrel a little bit more. So basically on the six mil that I shoot, I would have to take it out to about 900. And then adjust either the feet per second, that it was running, or you had to adjust where it was hitting, to true it up to the distance that you were dealing with. And it seems like the custom curve is pretty much bang on. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:01] So.

Ryan Steacy: [00:44:01] Off the get-go.

Travis Bader: [00:44:02] So if somebody wants to get into PRS style shooting, what do they need? Like, let’s say bare minimum, just so they’re going to be able to be competitive and have fun. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:44:10] Okay. Well, the first thing you got to do is just, got to have is just a willingness to come out and just give it a kick, even though you might not be a hundred percent prepared because the easiest way to get prepared is to go out there and have all your stuff kind of. Have you realize that all the stuff that you have is either really good or not really good.

[00:44:31] Travis Bader: [00:44:31] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:44:32] And what you need to sort of correct to get there, but you just need a rifle of some type. You could shoot anything from a .223 up to .308. I probably wouldn’t go too much heavier than a .308, just because part of the process with PRS shooting is that you need to be able to see where your rounds are going in order to make a correction.

Travis Bader: [00:44:53] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:44:53] So you have nobody spotting for you. The person spotting for you is you. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:57] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:44:58] So if you’re trying to manage the recoil of a big, heavy duty calibre, and still see where your shot impacted, it’s going to be difficult, and that’s a bit of a setback. I know you’re a big dude, so the .308, I’m sure probably, you could manage the recoil on it without too much problem. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:13] It’s not and the thing came with a muzzle break, I mean it was just. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:45:17] Yeah, sure. But I mean, it’s still not super easy to see your impacts. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:21] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:45:21] You know, if you’re on a 300 metre target or something it’s, doesn’t take long for that round to get there. And if you’re still in recoil.

Travis Bader: [00:45:29] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:45:29] When that thing hits, you might miss the whole thing. Especially if you’re shooting into a target that doesn’t really have a good backstop, like there’s grass or bush behind it.

Travis Bader: [00:45:38] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:45:38] All you might get is just a little flinch of the bush or the grass parting, or, or, you know, a little poof of dirt or whatnot, for you to make that adjustment off of. So you need some sort of a, a rifle that you can manage the recoil on. So a good muzzle break is a good idea, it’s not a hundred percent necessary. You’ll need a stalker chassis of some type.

Travis Bader: [00:46:00] A lot of MDT chassises there. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:01] Lot of MDT. Yeah. I think the, the benefit to the MDT ACC is that you can put a pile of weights in it. And if you have a 25 pound gun, you can definitely manage the recoil on that a lot better because the gun helps you with that much weight on it. So that’s, that’s a huge one. The ACC I, I like the ACC and I think my rifle probably weighs around 25 pounds altogether when it’s all said and.

Travis Bader: [00:46:24] Wow.

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:24] All put together. Yeah, it’s super heavy but. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:26] No kidding. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:27] You’re never really moving more than what? Like 5 metres, 10 metres at the most.

Travis Bader: [00:46:31] I thought I had a heavy rifle until then.

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:33] No. I got mine in the truck, you should pick it up. It’s, it’s stupid how heavy it is.

Travis Bader: [00:46:38] Yeah. Fair enough. That’s.

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:39] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:46:40] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:40] Yeah, but it’s good. But yeah, so any of the chassises that you can add weights into, will help you out does this, but not a hundred percent necessary. See people shooting with all kinds of different stocks and chassises and stuff. It doesn’t necessarily have to be weighted. You know, if you’re a good shooter and you’re used to shooting with a certain type of stock. Fill your boots. Like, you know, as long as you’re making good hits and, and you’re able to see your impacts, your carry on.

Travis Bader: [00:47:08] And having a bi-pod or a bag or something that you can rest it on is helpful.

Ryan Steacy: [00:47:11] Yeah. So probably both. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:13] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:47:13] You need some sort of a bag because there’s a lot of obstacles that you’re going to have to support the gun with, that you’re not going to be able to use a bi-pod. Actually probably the last two matches for me, I barely used the bi-pod. In Alberta I think I used it twice or three times out of like 20 stages.

Travis Bader: [00:47:34] Really?

Ryan Steacy: [00:47:34] 22 stages. Yeah, maybe two or three times the rest was all off the bag. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:39] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:47:39] Off an obstacle because they try and mess with you right. Now okay, here’s the chain link fence, this is one in Alberta, you’ve gotta, you gotta poke your, your rifle has to be through the chain link fence. But it’s high enough off the ground that you can’t run on a bi-pod so now you’re into a tripod.

Travis Bader: [00:47:56] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:47:56] Or you got to find another way to sort of poke it through there and so yeah. You know, challenging stuff like that, a lot of fun. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:03] That sounds fun.

Ryan Steacy: [00:48:04] Trying to figure it out, but yeah, so you need a bi-pod of some type. The more adjustability you have on a bi-pod, the better it’s going to be for you. MDT has the Ckye-Pod, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s pro-, I got the gut to use it the first time in Alberta there. And up until then, I was like, Oh, I’ll just run Harris’ bi-pod, be fine. But there were times when we were shooting off of sloped roofs and stuff, and it was very challenging with Harris bi-pod, but the Ckye-Pod just has so much adjustability to it that you can basically manage it on any obstacle.

Travis Bader: [00:48:38] Oh okay.

Ryan Steacy: [00:48:39] It adjusts in so many different ways. So that’s pretty cool. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:42] I saw a number of people using the Ckye-Pod over there. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:48:44] Did you?

Travis Bader: [00:48:45] Yeah. Yeah. Actually I had a Ckye-Pod.

Ryan Steacy: [00:48:46] You did?

Travis Bader: [00:48:47] In Merritt. Yeah. The boys lent me another one. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:48:49] Oh okay.

[00:48:50] So I got to buy one here pretty quick, it’s a pretty good bi-pod. Yeah, so you need that. You need a bi-pod, you need a decent chassis, a rifle of whatever calibre, as long as it’s manageable, probably with a muzzle break, if you can, and then you’ll need some optics.

[00:49:05] You’ll probably need a 20 or 30 MOA rail on top of your rifle to give you that extra distance, because in some of the longer, the, the higher end PRS matches, you’re going to be shooting out to 12, 1400 metres. So you need the ability, well it’s, it’s good if you can dial that far, but you may have to end up holding over and that’s another point. The optic that you’ve run, you probably need something with one of those Christmas tree style reticles. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:36] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:49:36] You can do it without it, but you’re not doing yourself any favours. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:40] Well, I found, so I’ve got one of those Christmas trees style, what is it? The H32 or something like that? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:49:45] H59. No horse.

Travis Bader: [00:49:47] Yeah. Is it the 59? Yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:49:50] Yeah, that’s the same one I’m running. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:51] Oh, is it? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:49:51] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:52] Man, that thing was fantastic. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:49:54] Is easy eh?

Travis Bader: [00:49:55] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:49:55] Yeah. You know what? I held off on.

Travis Bader: [00:50:00] There’s a lot of haters.

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:00] Christmas tree reticles for a long time cause I’m like, I don’t want all that busy crap in my.

Travis Bader: [00:50:06] Totally. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:06] I’m used to, you know, like mil dots and all that other stuff. But as soon as I played with it and employed it. It was like, okay, I got to switch. Cause it just way too easy to get it sorted out. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:20] That’s what I found.  I’ve had a lot of people will get behind the rifle and they look at it like, ah, there’s too much going on in there, agh, that’s no good right? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:26] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:26] But I mean, some of the stages there was like, okay, you can’t, you can’t touch your dial.

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:30] That’s right.

 Travis Bader: [00:50:31] But you’ve got to hold over for. I mean, it’s just dead easy, I’ll just put it on this one here. Click, click, click. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:36] Yep. Yeah that one stage, I think, where we had targets from 300 to 600 and you couldn’t touch the dials.

Travis Bader: [00:50:43] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:44] I just did it all with holdovers and I think I hit 11 out of 12 shots. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:48] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:48] On that so. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:50] I think that was my best stage as well.

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:52] Was it? Yeah. You know what’s funny is I’ve been practicing a lot with the holdovers because, when I went and shot in Hanna, Alberta last year and in Meford last year, the two PRS matches I shot there. There were a few stages of the holdovers and I really hadn’t played with it a lot and I problems. It was just another one of the things tacked onto all the complicated stuff that screwed me up in those matches.

[00:51:15] So when came back. I’m like, okay, well clearly holdovers is going to be a thins, so I’m going to have to play with it. So I started shooting a lot of 22 and running holdovers.

Travis Bader: [00:51:24] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:51:24] And I’m way more comfortable with it now. You gotta remember that I come from a service rifle background where there’s no holdovers, there’s no nothing. You just dial everything in away you go. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:35] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:51:35] So for me to get to that point was, you know, you try and do what you know. So for me, I was trying to dial everything and make it as good as I could, which is what I’m used to. And then, you know, obviously the flaws in my game plan came out and okay well, here we go, I gotta, I gotta make it happen the way it needs to happen right. 

 Travis Bader: [00:51:54] Yeah. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:51:55] You know, there’s matches where you don’t have enough time to dial. You’re going to time out. So you better be able to do it with holdovers. So having having each mill or MOA, or hopefully you’re running Milrads. Are you running Mils? 

 Travis Bader: [00:52:08] I am.

Ryan Steacy: [00:52:08] Yeah okay. So me too. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:10] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:52:10] But having each number with at least a half hash in between, sort of gives you a really easy reference to hold on when you know, you’re engaging a target at 300 and it’s like two mills, and then you’ve got another target at like 600 and you got to hold at seven and a half and. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:26] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:52:26] So you just go from two to seven and a half and back to two, and there’s no dialling, there’s no nothing. But then you have the challenge of different wind calls in there as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:35] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:52:35] So you may have to be holding left or right or whatever the case may be. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:38] Yeah. That’s something I still, I’m gonna have a lot of learning on that one. I basically just held as dead centre.

Ryan Steacy: [00:52:45] Did ya?

Travis Bader: [00:52:45] And if I didn’t see it splash where I wanted, then I had made my adjustment from there.

Ryan Steacy: [00:52:49] Well you know what, there’s, there’s probably a valid argument like in some of the 22 matches those little 40 grain bullets get blown off really far and we’re shooting them to crazy distance, like four or 500 metres. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:00] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:53:01] So occasionally you will get up there and I’ve had this happen a couple of times, where the wind is just, it’s hauling ass. And even the Kestrel is probably not going to give you, even though I say trust it.

Travis Bader: [00:53:13] Right, right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:53:14] Is probably, the wind may be way different down there or at you or whatever the case may be. So sometimes what I’ll do, is I’ll instead of getting up there and attempting to find the target with the wind call, I’ll just aim at the bottom of the target and if there’s a nice backsplash there, I will shoot one into the dirt right off the get-go to see what the wind’s doing. I know where I held and then I can see where the splash lands and it’s basically grid referenced in those reticle. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:43] Totally. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:53:43] So then you just haul it over and put where it’s splashed as the centre of the target and hold there and carry on. And it works like a charm. Field expedience cider. 

[00:53:52] Travis Bader: [00:53:52] I love it. I love it. So we’ve got PRS style shooting.

[00:53:56] Ryan Steacy: [00:53:56] Yep.

[00:53:56] Travis Bader: [00:53:56] And then we’ve got, and by the way, anyone who’s listening to it, what a fantastic a group of people. 

[00:54:01] Ryan Steacy: [00:54:01] Yeah. Yeah it really is. You know, all the style of shooting, the people are super helpful. 

[00:54:07] Travis Bader: [00:54:07] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:54:07] You’re, you’re going to be in a squad of anywhere from, well, it could be as low as four or five to 12 people. You all help each other out, borrow bags, borrow bipods, tripods, whatever the case may be. Hey, how did you do this? You know, even to the point sometimes where it’s like, why are we holding for when there.

Travis Bader: [00:54:27] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:54:27] You know, there’s, there’s times when there’s some challenging conditions and you know, it is, you may not do it for everybody. Like, if you got, you know, you’re running one and two with buddy and he asks you what your wind call is, you’re probably not going to tell him. But you know, if it’s somebody that hasn’t really shot very much, well, you might want to try. You know point, you know, 0.7 or seven tenths or whatever the case may be.

Travis Bader: [00:54:49] I saw some people, brand new to the sport up there, like myself was my first match I’ve ever shot, but I don’t really consider myself new behind a rifle. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:54:58] No, but for that type of shooting it’s.

Travis Bader: [00:55:00] Definitely.

Ryan Steacy: [00:55:00] It’s a different thing altogether. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:02] It is and super supportive, super great group of people and anyone who’s thinking about doing it, who might be a little unsure about trying something new and what’s the crowd like. Put your fears at rest.

Ryan Steacy: [00:55:15] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:15] Yeah, totally. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:55:16] You know, it’s funny. I try and get people to come out and shoot as much as possible. And, and lots of people are interested. A lot of people seem to want to come and just watch. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:25] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:55:26] I’ll just come and watch one. Okay, you’re going to drive three hours to watch a match. Are you out of your mind? Just bring your rifle and shoot it. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:32] Right. People don’t like to fail though. They don’t want to fail in front of other people. They don’t. And that’s, that’s where having a good group of guys and gals makes it easy because nobody cares. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:55:41] Yeah. Nobody, nobody cares whether you fail. It’s not even a fail, the fact that you’re out there is not a fail at all. The fact that you’re there trying and learning is not a failure whatsoever. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:54] Come with the right attitude.

Ryan Steacy: [00:55:55] Yeah. Come with the right attitude and we’ll give you as much help as you could possibly need. You know, even there’s even, I’ve, I’ve seen cases where, guys that I know are good shooters, you know, in service rifle or 3gun or whatever the case may be, in another style of shooting. Yeah, I’ll come and watch. Dude, just bring your rifle.

Travis Bader: [00:56:15] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:56:15] Shoot it. You can squad up with us and we’ll walk you through it. You can use my bags, you can use my tripod, you can use my bi-pod any, I’ll give you the dope.

Travis Bader: [00:56:24] Right.

Ryan Steacy: [00:56:24] Like I don’t care, I’ll give you the wind call. Just come and shoot, because as soon as you shoot, you’re addicted.

Travis Bader: [00:56:29] Totally.

Ryan Steacy: [00:56:30] Because it’s so much fun. 

Travis Bader: [00:56:31] It is.

Ryan Steacy: [00:56:31] Yeah. Yeah. It’s really incredible to think about what we’re actually doing. We’re sending a teeny little inch long projectile, not even an inch long in a lot of cases. Over ridiculous distances at, you know, like you shoot a thousand meters, you’ll shoot it at a 10 inch target, that’s one MOA. And you’re sending this less than an inch long thing to hit this 10 inch target in a 16 mile an hour wind. And you guys are hitting them on the first shot like. 

Travis Bader: [00:57:04] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:57:04] It’s unbelievable. I think what this sport in particular has done to long range shooting, and I think you’ll start to see it in, well,  in future wars, you’re going to see a lot more toll taken by long range shooters than, I think what we’ve probably seen previously. Snipers are a thing, but I think with the amount of technology and the things that are going on with long range shooting right now they’re going to be, and they’re already a four force multiplier, but they’re going to be a massive force multiplier in the future.

Travis Bader: [00:57:33] Mhmm.

Ryan Steacy: [00:57:34] It’s unbelievable that you can shoot and hit at like these crazy long distances and it’s a first round hit every time. 

Travis Bader: [00:57:41] And it’s a fantastic feeling. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:57:42] It’s so fun on steel too, right? Like.

Travis Bader: [00:57:45] Totally.

Ryan Steacy: [00:57:45] You just get that immediate feedback. And quite often on the longer targets, they have a hit indicator on there so you see. You shoot and you’re like 20 mile an hour raging wind and you’re making a first round hit on this target at a thousand metres and the light flashes. And you’re like, yes, I shot the net target at the long range.

Travis Bader: [00:58:04] I noticed at that match that of the top place shooters. They were all running.

Ryan Steacy: [00:58:10] IBI Barrels.

Travis Bader: [00:58:11] They were.

Ryan Steacy: [00:58:12] Yeah, I think it was eight out of the top 10 at that match were all shooting IBI Barrels. Which is great. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:19] Yeah. I mean, they perform real world. They perform. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:58:23] Yeah, totally. It goes back to the mental management thing where you want the barrels to perform as good or better as any of the other barrels on the market. But the way to get there is simply just to manage the processes that we put into the barrels. So that that end result just happens. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:40] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:58:40] And we’re starting to get there now. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:41] Well, I think you’ve been there for a bit and on the mental management side, knowing that you’ve got something that can shoot. Man that helps.

Ryan Steacy: [00:58:50] Confidence in your equipment is a massive thing, in any kind of shooting sport.

Travis Bader: [00:58:54] Sure.

Ryan Steacy: [00:58:54] Or hunting for that matter, you know.

Travis Bader: [00:58:55] Sure.

Ryan Steacy: [00:58:56] You’re out on a goat hunt and you gotta make a 400 metre shot across an open valley. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:00] Yeah.

Ryan Steacy: [00:59:00] You want to know that your, your rifle and all your kit is sorted and good to go. So, yeah, that’s, we’re hoping that the barrels shoot really, really well for everybody, man, we’re getting some pretty good results back. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:13] Well, Ryan, thank you very much for taking.

Ryan Steacy: [00:59:14] Thanks Travis.

Travis Bader: [00:59:15] The time to be on the podcast. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:59:16] Of course, anytime. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:17] And I appreciate it. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:59:18] Always enjoy it.