Jon Collins and Gage Bohannon discuss pros and cons of AR's and Bolt guns.
welcome to the FoxPro podcast brought to you by FoxPro Game Calls welcome back to the FoxPro podcast we've got a great episode for you guys and gals we're going to be discussing ARS versus boat guns for predator hunting i'm John Collins and I'm joined by Fox Pro staffer Gage Bohannan how's it going Gage i've been pretty good buddy how are you doing pretty good of course our uh turkey season is has got wrapped up i'm kind of missing that pretty bad you know I love love love getting after the turkeys look like you had a pretty good season as well oh yes sir but it kind of went by too fast you do all that prep work and then I I literally hunted three mornings is all I got to hunt and I was I was done so it went by pretty fast well that means you that means your prep work was on point that means you did you did good job with the prep and scouting yeah it worked out great i mean we actually uh in all honesty some of the farms that I normally have really good success on I still killed one bird off of those farms but uh my numbers were honestly kind of down on some farms that I had uh but fortunately my second tag my cousin also tagged out super quick and I was able to go with Jake and and uh we hunted one of his places and made pretty quick work of that too yeah I think people all across the country been seeing that you know declining numbers in spots and then some some areas seem to be holding steady even even inside you know the same county you know some farms it's historically always held birds might might not have birds and then you go down a road to a place that that had few you know lower numbers and all a sudden it seems like they're booming so I don't it's hard to hard to say what the landscape of turkey populations actually is there but I think some areas is still holding holding pretty steady my area is kind of that way i've had a couple little sections that are just as good as they've ever been and I've got some other spots that have been that has historically have been absolutely awesome some of the best turkey hunting you'll ever see and then th those are maybe down a little bit yeah that that was the same way here here i mean me and him both are in the same county and you know like right around my house where I'm at is all just big egg and you know normally especially like right behind the house and stuff I always had just a ton of birds uh it was one of those you know if you wanted to take somebody and just hear gobbles it was a heck of a place and it seems like my big a ground stuff has fewer turkeys on it but then like where Jake is it's all big hills big woods and like cattle country yeah and I mean he was absolutely loaded so you know it just at same county 20 minutes apart but you know just completely two different terrains yep yep total different Yeah different terrain different habitat you know it all comes down to nesting habitat for these birds in the spring but uh you know don't get me started because we could talk on turkey stuff all day long and we're here to talk we're here to talk about coyote hunting and and and rifles firearms so well like I said earlier our topic for this episode is AR versus boat for predator hunting gage is perfect for this topic he loves both platforms and runs both consistently uh Gage is also very very knowledgeable on a wide range of cartridges and he's a he reloads all the time so he's very knowledgeable on the subject now for myself you might be thinking well John don't have any ARs he don't know nothing about ARs well that's that's close to being accurate i don't know a ton i don't know a ton but I do have some experience with ARs a lot of people might not know i've actually owned them um I probably bought my first AR before Gage could even spell AR easy now I think um let's see i think I bought my first AR rifle back in 2001 so I think it'd make you about nine 10 11 years old Gage i was I was 10 there you go so you might not even be able to spell AR i hope so by then i know I'm from Henry County for diamonds well like I said Gage you know I know you run both you're a night and day hunter and I know you kind of got your favorites for uh for different applications but uh uh tell us about it you do currently run ARs and boats is that correct yes still do yeah well do you have uh uh what what do you like about both and what type of applications do you like to uh uh to use them in like you know if when you're day hunting you're using one night hunting you're using the other or is it it depend on what type of terrain you're hunting what state you're hunting te tell us about it yeah so for me uh I was a diehard bolt guy like wouldn't even look at an automatic platform of any type um and then you know as night hunting came along and stuff like that um I noticed where and this was just all personal preference for me personally but I noticed with running a scanner running a call and then trying to get on coaches and follow-up shots and coordinate with other guys where you're night hunting normally in groups of two or three that it was easier for me to run an AR at night and then once you know in the last probably I guess five six seven years you've really seen a boom in some of these custom manufacturers making you know some of my favorite cartridges in AR platforms and so then it was kind of a no-brainer well hey I've got a you know a good load worked up for this round and I would love to run that like for myself I run a 22250 AR10 as my night gun absolutely love it it's been an awesome and just rock solid tough gun um but I still day hunt with a bolt action and I probably always will i definitely prefer running a bolt gun but just for my personal me running a call running a scanner and trying to coordinate and get people on coyotes it was easier for me to run an automatic at night so so that not having to work the boat is that the only reason that you tend to tend to go towards AR cuz like why not why not why don't you like the AR which I know all this is what we're talking about right now is personal preference yeah uh but but why not why not take the AR for for day and night why not why are you using just a bolt you know for daytime hunting and so in the daytime you know a lot of my guns are guns that I've had built for myself um and I just love the feel of uh not necessarily like I have anything against like your your chassis platforms or like pistol grip stock or anything because I've gotten to where I shoot them quite good but um personally for daytime hunting I like a a good optic on a a good uh I call them like Burggera style stocks you know where you got a good drop stock that's always been the most comfortable for me um and so I personally just like running those in the daytime i really like a lot of the guns I've built ammo for that I own and so you kind of get to where it's already set up for that and you know like I was talking about before up until five or six years ago you didn't really have the calibers that I was looking for in an AR platform you know I didn't want to run your typical you know your 223s or anything like that and then I guess your first kind of good to me personal cartridges when they started making like six Creed and 243 and AR platforms and then now you can get about any Wildcat you want in an AR if you're willing to pay for it and so that was just uh I'm still always probably going to run boat guns just because I have them i have nothing against running them in the daytime a lot of my bolt guns are lighter than my AR platform rifle is yeah and and that played another big factor into it and then I honestly I'm I'm a touch more accurate me personally nothing against like because there's plenty of guys that can shoot ARs phenomenally right yeah but for me I'm personally more accurate with a boat gun yeah yep well I totally understand that and you know talking about the personal preference stuff you know we might be people listening might be asking "Well well you used to have ARs John why don't you use them now?" Listen that the first one I had I didn't keep it for just a handful of months got rid of it then had one other in a smaller smaller cartridge 204 and it was kind of a twofold deal i wasn't crazy about I had a couple different 204 rifles and ended up getting away from that all you 204 shooters out there listening don't hate me but I'm not I'm not much on a 204 round you know just had coyotes get away from me so that was part of getting rid of uh rid of that two that 204 AR uh but it all came down to personal preference i I just felt so much more comfortable with a boat like you know I thought it was so much so much uh more comfortable to carry you know like if you strapping one over your shoulder or cross you know crossways on your back you didn't have that handle digging into you back and you didn't have to carry you know a lot of them have these detach deals where you actually attach your sling over on the side of the rail and stuff i know those are supposed to be you a little bit more comfortable but it's just something man i love boat guns i got a great appreciation for them and and it just like I don't even you know I don't even pay attention to an AR i got you know what I mean i just look right past them i could see I can see the junkiest boat laying there and the most you know bad a sitting there and I'm like I just look right over it over at that old cheap junky boat you know what I mean it's just something that I'm drawn to and nothing against them it's just pure personal preference uh but what I want to get into and with this podcast is just uh you know especially if we got some newer guys listening or whatever to help them decide which one might be best for them so I think to do that I think we got to talk about the pros and cons each gauge yeah for sure and I think what we'll do we'll just talk about the pros for both platforms and then follow it up with the cons for both plat both platforms we'll start with the boat i think the the number one thing that you that you've got to look at is is you know that stands out to me is is reliability you know you just chamber around in there and pull the trigger and they go bang yeah hands down for sure pull the boat pull the boat up pull it back slam it back forward bang every single time you know it's just it's just something that you can rely on and you know if you've got five coyotes running in if you can shuck the boat fast enough to put shots out there at them you know you're going to be able to shoot at every single coyote yeah and I mean that would definitely probably be my top pro because I think we're definitely now in a a day of age to where even your basic over-the-counter rifle manufacturers you just have completely just solid accurate rifles out of a box and so I think that would come down to more the trigger puller than the gun as far as you know you're going to have guys that are hop on here well they're way more accurate well you shoot it more accurate you know there's guys that can run some ARs and do some amazing things with them and I've met them you know but um reliability would definitely probably be at the top of my list for the bolt gun and another once again this comes back to personal preference but for me they are more comfortable as far as shooting and running i can run a bolt good and you know stay in a scope and I I personally shoot them better so that's why I would always probably lean towards one in the daytime they're typically lighter um and if you want an honest opinion I think they look better right right well you know one thing when you go go over towards the AR when you talk about more comfortable to shoot you know it's always going to be possible that you have these guys it's what they started out with um you know back when I was younger it was it was you was the oddball if you were you were shooting AR just when I was a kid you know I turned for I fix to turn 45 so when I was growing up squirrel hunting and all that type of stuff there you know I didn't I didn't know what AR was when I was a kid so I grew up you know shooting boat guns and went started deer hunting in the early early 90s so you know boat guns has always been part of my life now some of these newer generation hunters you know they probably start there's a good chance they started out with AR type stuff so if that's the only thing they know and then they try to transition over to a boat gun that AR might be more comfortable for them to shoot because that's what they know you know what I mean that's what they start off with and that was going to be a a heavy pro for me on the AR side is man you take a a kid that's just getting into hunting with some like I say with all the cartridge options available now you can shrink that stock down for your length of pull so far in an AR and where a kid doesn't have to work the bolt they just got to pull the trigger fit them better yeah it does it It tends to be you know a lot easier for that to get into but once again you know I think the bolt gun talk about reliability i don't care who's built it you know who's got it how good you are i'm lazy with taking care of my guns which is a shame they're they're going to shoot but a bolt action I mean I've shot them up until the carbon ring was so bad in the throat it wouldn't chamber around yeah and an AR you do that I can promise you it's not going to feed or it's going to have a failure right exactly and same thing just like you're talking about not cleaning them out you know I have seen stuff in boat guns where you've run them hard like that not cleaning them i've seen some you know maybe some brass shavings or some kind of junk get underneath the extractor and they don't extract good but man all it takes is a little little shot of some kind of spray and a brush and you're ready to go in like 5 seconds you know so reliability is definitely definitely key i think a I think another pro for the boat guns that we need to cover right after reliability and you talked about it a little bit there with accuracy from both both uh platforms for boat and AR but I think the accuracy for boat probably does have the edge and I think this is and this is an arguable point but I guess the best way to put it is you can get accuracy a lot cheaper out of a boat than you can an AR and I would 100% Yeah and I think I I think it's a good challenge to put out there go buy you go buy you a $500 $600 boat gun uh and then go buy you a $500 or $600 you know buy buy you a cheap cheap cheap cheap bolt gun go buy a cheap cheap cheap cheap AR see see which one you're going to be able to shoot better yeah and I will say that is 100% true because a lot of the ARs I'm talking about you know are they're going to be a a custom barreled rifle or just a fully customuilt rig whereas you know I've taken a whole lot of $500 bolt guns and I mean can flat out shoot them now I'm not saying there's not an exception there's some guy that went and bought the cheapest AR he could the guy was already a talented trigger puller and he's dinging steel at a thousand that's great for that one exception but I'm I'm definitely with you on the whole you can get into a cheaper more accurate platform with a bolt gun well you know we shoot Ruger rifles quite a bit we actually have a partnership with Rug Ruger there's no uh you know that's no secret but the truth is you can go buy a Ruger American original or Ruger Ruger American Gen 2 which are which are cheaply bought rifles they're not much money under 600 bucks and man things shoot you know what I mean and you can take a $600 AR and that that Ruger American is going to outperform it far as accuracy just ease of maintenance and run i mean you can take that Ruger out of the box and like you say I mean you know I have no I'm a completely unbiased here because I I think I might own one of them but the ones that I've shot making rounds for people or building ammo for people straight out of the box throw a scope on it and you can make it and to be honest you can buy like a factory Hornady ammo and throw in it and it shoots phenomenal as well i mean it's it's a good platform and you're in it for I mean but you could put a you know a triple the money scope on it and still be in really good money for a good gun you know yeah yeah yeah i Hey I think that's a great point too right there my dad told me that when I was a kid like when I first got where I could you know when I say a kid I'm talking about teenager and where I got where I could you know was kind of picking out my own stuff and maybe saving money and and wanting to you know was like hey when soon as I'm able I'm going to buy this gun and and this is what I'm going to do and he always would tell me say hey you need to spend about double on your optics that you do your your rifle always keep that in mind if not triple and I was like man that's stupid i want to buy this you know this high dollar gun i'll just put this Tasco on there i didn't you know I didn't have that that process when I was a kid but as I've got older I was like man I'm I'm pretty big on on going pretty large on my scope on you know qual when I say large on large on the quality right i definitely usually have my scope is usually worth more than than my firearm and that's another rabbit hole we could go down and talk about i don't even get started on that yeah because I mean like now I mean it's just like there's a million companies i mean you can take like Vortex is a great example you can buy a $600 Vortex and it will do I mean I've shot 13,400 yards with a $600 Vortex i'm here to tell you that I've also taken a $2,500 scope and shot that target much better and much clearer but you can do it with both but I'm with you i used to be man my first I guess you could say designated coyote rifle was a Savage 22250 with you remember the centerpoint scopes you could get at Walmart oh oh yeah well I bought mine used at the flea market like 20 bucks that somebody pulled out a trash can exactly and buddy I ran that scope probably I think I actually uh when I had that 22250 AR built I was out of day scopes and really wanted to go kill a coat i that scope I'm looking at it right now above my reloading table it is still there and I threw that scope on and went and killed a coyote after going back and looking through it it is the least light gathering thing and it's blurry as heck but buddy I killed a lot of coyotes with it yeah probably got junk floating around inside the scope and everything else yep well it's we'll move right along for that because like I said it's another rabbit hole there i'm sitting I got a rifle right there beside me and I'm sitting there staring at the scope and there's all kinds of things going through my head so man we could talk about that talk about that talk about that but we're talking about bolts and ARs hey one another point that I think we need to cover here for the bolt rifle pros and you kind of brought this up earlier about cartridges he was talking about on ARs that a lot better selection than there than there used to be but that is the huge st another huge standout pro for the boats is a boat gun is literally compatible with practically every cartridge that's out there i mean you it don't you know what I mean it don't matter you can get about as exotic as you want you make it work in a boat gun yeah and I mean that is the big thing because like I mean as you know I I like a lot of off-the-wall cartridges and and um one in particular that just always my buddy Dayton got me hooked on a 6284 y I mean I would never want to run that in an AR platform you couldn't pay me but I can promise you it is the rifle that I will grab every single time if like I have a 500 600 yard shot that my life depended on that's the rifle I'm grabbing right right and you can't you know so I Yes 100% you if you can dream it you can put it in a bolt-action rifle that's exactly right and you can't do it with an AR but but with ARs we ain't covered too many pros on them yet did touch on it there a little bit um I think you know going you know segueing over to the pros for an AR style rifle and this is AR-15s and AR10s you know a lot of times people are just thinking about the 15s but you know the the you can't leave out the 10s just because the calibers that's that's in those are just suited so perfect for um you know coyote hunting like your 243 six stuff like that but I think the biggest standout huge pro of the AR over the boat is fast follow-up shots just you're just talking about rate of fire it i think it's just you know it overshadows the boat so much that it is a a huge pro for an AR well and I was going to touch on that as a pro but also in some spaces just in it's a con it's a con for some people yeah well like say you know the guys that I hunt with chances are I've hunted with them since the beginning we know each other's you know shooting styles hunting styles and everything like that but you know you might go with you know a group of guys that after that first shot instead of trying to get that coyote to stop it's just mag dump until they're out of the field and so you know that's I could see it yes and that is when I go back to talking about why I picked an AR for nighttime hunting it was because I did not have to come out of the scope while I was running the remote trying to get a coyote stopped for a follow-up shot versus coming off the scope racking a bolt and getting back in it with the remote um now you know that was a big pro for me quick follow-up shot but then the con also like I say is you got guys that might mag dump them until they're out of the field and you know chances are if you would have just held out that coyote might have stopped or you could have called it back or just read body language and seen what was going on so you know yeah that's a tick for both sides yeah and I totally agree and and I you pretty much just went right into what I thought is the is the other huge pro for an AR you talking about not not having to leave the scope and just stay right there in it that that is a huge especially for night hunting you know with the thermals and stuff you know cuz if you come off that thermal you're just you know one thing that thermal is going to be playing with your vision anyway because you're looking at you know you're going to be looking at a bright image inside that scope well you come up out of it you're just staring at the dark you know what I mean so you could it could be a a hard transition with that boat trying to lift that boat up and working then getting back down in that thermal heck you might have trouble finding finding that next coyote or maybe the coyote that you missed you know I miss every once in a while gage the same here and like I say you're going to have your guys that are just straight up just operators with a boat gun you know they'll stay down in the scope run a boat but 90% of your guys are going to come off that scope and then get back in it and a lot of times especially in night hunting that field of view is very small and so then it goes back to hey we're trying to find this coat maybe he's already stopped you know and so that's just a that's definitely a big big check for the AR there too but and then I liked your I liked your term operate i was actually reading a post on Facebook this is a rabbit hole guys sorry oh yeah but uh I saw a post on Facebook earlier and a guy was talking about he asked a question about uh you know I won't get into it too deep but he used the term what whatever are you running well you had these two or three guys jump on there and say "I ain't running nothing i'm shooting this." Yeah you know running you know it's saying it's a it's a stupid term well it probably has to do with ge you know wherever you are in the in the in the world i think different slang goes with different people we use the term run and operate all the time it's like u you know my dad's got some excavating equipment and I don't get on and drive his bulldozer i've always pride and say I operate it i'm an operator son i operate that I operate that thing i run it same thing with rifles um I don't shoot a rifle i run it i operate it i make it do what it's supposed to do i don't don't pull the trigger and let it shoot i operate it make it do what it's meant to do and that is shoot coyotes punch fur that's you know I'm always talking about you talked about somebody that's a good shot or something you know I straight up if I'm like "Yeah man that guy he's a shooter." You know he can run the heck out of a boat gun you know it's I always lean on man he can run he can run that rifle better than anybody yeah yeah it's a And got some other buddies in in the excavating world i I did a lot of excavating work when I was younger and I've heard that I've heard that thrown out there so many times man we need a we need an operator on that dozer we need an operator on that uh you know on that trackhole we don't need a driver we need an operator so anyway that I've been thinking about that all morning when you brought it up it just kind of reminded me of it i run stuff i run stuff and I operate stuff i just don't shoot it
oh man see what kind of rabbit holes we can get down on this type of stuff yeah it's a big broad topic you start breaking off of it well let's uh we'll get right back to the topic at hand and uh I think we got we got to go to the get right into the cons what would you think would be a con of the boat guns uh and I think probably the con that I think about would be what we just left off uh with with the ARs is you got a slower rate of fire you know slower follow-up shots even though that like you kind of just said too that could be better for some people but it I think that you could definitely is a con yeah and I mean don't get me wrong you got back to guys that can just run a bolt rifle like their life depends on it those guys have no problem with this but when you talk about your overall 90% of people yeah I mean that's a it's a slower follow-up shot and for a lot of people they're coming out of the scope and then getting back into it and so it's kind of a you have to think about what you're doing it's not just doing it for you yeah yeah yeah just And I think that's that's the other con you've got you literally have to work the boat you know you don't have to do that with AR but you literally have to reach up there and grab it so you're no matter how you how well you can run that boat you're still going to be moving that gun just a little bit to do it whether you're coming out of the scope or not and that could that could lead to half a second uh that could cost you whether you get a coyote or not I guess yeah and you know for me another I guess you would say and it's not even really a a con I wouldn't think you know uh when we talk about oh it's bad but where we were talking about fitment before like you know you talk about having you know say well when I was a kid you know dad just had a rifle and if you wanted to go hunt you were going to shoot that rifle it wasn't about fitting it to the kid you know but now especially if you're wanting to get you know I I've got three kids myself and I like to get them on shooting table and so you know I've I've been fortunate and bought some rifles that fit them here and there but you know with an AR like we talked about before you could shrink that stock down with a bolt gun you know a lot of it you got some modular stuff you can change out but in most just factory sporter stock platforms there's no adjustment for length of pull right yep yep yep that totally totally agree with that you know I've I've raised two young ones and they both youth hunted when they were younger and you know I experienced that struggle too and you have to go buy firearms that fit them and then of course when you buy the firearm it fits them it don't fit you because you're a lot bigger so definitely definitely a con there and like you said with the uh adjustments you can make on some of these AR style rifles I can definitely see where or that's a con for the boat and a pro for the AR yeah um do you can you think of any other cons for a boat gun i mean really there's not many cons to a boat gun when you sit there in my eyes when I You're not going to get many out of me on cons for a bolt gun there yeah I'm sure there's somebody else can think of one but I I really cannot think of and you know they just I can't really think of any more cons now with ARs I can think of a few cons i can definitely think of more cons for an AR than I can a boat now again I am a little biased but this is the reason we got Gage on here he loves both uh but we talked about one of the big pros for the bow guns were was reliability well even though this is can be arguable but like I said arguably they're just ARs are less reliable it's just like you can go buy any bolt gun and take it out of the box and shoot shoot it just how it is screw a suppressor on the end of it and shoot it that way and you won't have a bit of problem usually won't have a bit of problem you might have a little problem not much problem with AR you might shoot it just straight out of the box and you decide to put a put a suppressor on it well guess what now the thing won't cycle or won't do something right is that is that a fair statement no for sure i mean you definitely got to play with gas a lot and and what about weather type stuff and moisture how does that come in play when it comes in with ARS so yeah I can go on for this just because and I mean this is this is not like a a biased argument i own it i run them great guns but this is problems that I have had with hunting with ARs and where you were talking about um changing gas well for me where I'm a reloader say if I change up ammo or want to try a new bullet a lot of times I have to go back and adjust gas for different pressures and things like that uh so that would be a check that I would say is obviously far more complicated than for the the bolt gun another big thing is where I talked about before I'm horrible about taking care and cleaning a rifle you better stay on top of it or you're going to have some failure to feeds or maybe an extraction issue but something is going to you know something's going to sit up and it's going to leave you hanging if you don't take care of it right now once again that's not necessarily negative for the gun you know that's obviously me as the owner and the person that should be taking care of it just got to be more mindful that you got to that it just requires more maintenance yeah you got to stay on top of it and then you know uh you were talking about weather conditions man uh you know and it was a dirty gun but I had seen a super high humidity cold you know where like the fog starts freezing oh yeah oh yeah we've had uh we've had some failures with like a freezing fog mixed with like different types of like lubricants that were used on guns and now I know somebody will hop on there and talk about will they make this lube that's good forgative 20 you know whatever that's great right but this was just a hey man we cleaned the gun before we went on the hunt and she tried to freeze up right that was a very rare circumstance it's happened one time in like seven years but it was still a con that I've never had happen with a bolt gun right so for a con less reliable but can still be very reliable if you're just on top of your maintenance yeah if you got a guy that's gonna take like pride and carry in his guns which I mean I take pride in my guns but I take very little care of them they're tools and I use them yeah um and so you know with that being said if I had you know some big old you know high dollar hunt that I was going on to where you know there was a lot of money at stake as far as like winning a tournament or something yeah I'm going to be on top of it but man you know just riding around shooting stuff with your buddies it's not something that I stay on top of a whole lot and most time I'm doing the calling instead of the shooting anyway so it's not a big thing but that is I mean at the end of the day those are cons they will get suited up on you they need to be cleaned they need to be maintained at a lot higher rate and um dealing with you know gas changes for cycles that's that's another big thing for them yeah yeah another con and we kind of talked this about this as a pro for the boat uh when we we used the term earlier about you can get uh both of them can be accurate we talked about the boat gun you can get accuracy fairly cheap yeah yeah well well they are i mean you could still have a accurate enough rifle cheap especially for coyotes and stuff like that but when you want to get what I would call topnotch accuracy you're probably going to be spending spending more money to have that AR is that fair and yeah that is fair and don't get me wrong that's another one that some guys going to come back and talk about he put together a $700 AR yeah that's great you put it together he probably bought a really good barrel and probably bought you know a good upper to go with it and a good trigger to drop in it and that was great um and I've got you know I've got friends that that heck that's that's all they'll run is you know AR style rifles and have no problem with them they shoot them great i mean buddy Andy can probably outshoot most people with a boat gun with an AR any day of the week he loves them to death it's just you know I mean that's still going to be a a con for the AR you know I mean it it's definitely a and like I say all of it comes down to personal preference but you do have to say that they they do have more cons than the bolt guns right right well I mean u Yeah I think it's spot on and another con in my eyes it seems like we're hammering the cons for an AR but I just think it's just just is what it is but uh we talked about this earlier with with a boat as a pro was talking about it's literally you know practically every cartridge you can think of you can you know I'm not talking about you know semi-auto pistol rounds you know something that you'd actually want to use but you can practically take every cartridge and make it work in a boat um with AR even though there's a great a nice selection of stuff nowadays and you you touched on that you said there's a lot of good stuff in ARs now but let's let's be honest the it's still limited it's limited on the calibers and cartridges that you can choose from and it's just like you know there's been some manufacturers really trying to get ahead of this type stuff it's like I know you've got a 22 250 AR yeah but historically everybody's had trouble getting a 22 250 to work how it's supposed to work in an AR it just is what it is uh so that's not for the masses so what they have done for the masses they've come out with rounds such as a 22 Nosler and a 22 ARC i don't have nothing bad to say about those rounds i no nothing bad at all but let's face it the 22 nozzle and 22 arc is not a 22250 or a 22 Creed it is not the same they're they're inferior i um now with the uh the 22 Nosler I'm probably a I'm well not probably i'm a much huger fan of it than the Arc base cartridges i'm not a huge ARC guy never really have been i've got friends that shoot them love them to death it's just not for me the 22 Nosler I will say I've watched them kill more coyotes than probably most people have got to see in their life uh Andy actually runs one it's not a 250 but in a 15 platform with the ballistics you get it is a great cartridge but yes you are 100% right and I'm not going to lie to you when I first got uh my 250 AR built you know that was before um well Scott had come up with that feed for the mags and so running it out of just a stock style mag I didn't load any more than five rounds in it because you know a lot of guys said seven but I noticed you know a lot of failures to feed or jam-ups or something like that and until we went to these new style mags that was a huge problem and it wasn't for the everyday guy that you know wanted to work through the problems i mean I did it just cuz I love a 250 that much right right well another thing we mentioned too is that 22 Creed and this is something I have experience with 22 Creed in boat guns i got two of them own two of them uh haven't shot them in a long time y'all heard me say that it's not because I don't like them they're they're great rifles great round i think a lot of it um it seems like I've never even shot I don't even know if I've ever even touched a 22 Creed AR um but one thing that seems like I notice seems like they're not near as popular in a AR platform as they are in a boat and you'll have to touch on that i have I don't know why and it see like you'll never you hardly ever see anybody that's owned a 22 Creed boat gun that say they don't like it it's usually one of their top favorite guns if not their top their top favorite but sometimes when you see these people that try them in AR they're like "Ain't much on it." You know I don't know if they've had trouble with feeding issues or some kind of performance deal or accuracy but there's something about And I'm sure there's some great 22 Creed ARs out there but why is that Gay do you know the answer to that uh personally for me my reasoning behind it would be velocity issues um you can push a 22 Creed a lot harder in a bolt gun in my opinion um as far as getting your V's up to what they need to be for that Creed to perform because most people still lean on those heavier bullets i remember you were a fan of the 75 75s i'm I shoot a shortbarreled boltaction Creed i had problems getting velocity without hitting pressure and so I actually dropped to low grains i experimented with the 55s and 60s um had great success i still run a 60 grain V-Max in mine but I think a lot of the guys in the AR platform chew away from them uh mainly because they don't feel like running like a 22 or 24 or you know longer barrel to get the velocities that they were hoping for i believe a lot of those guys probably buy factory ammo and the factory 80 stuff is pretty slow so then when you you know throw it in an AR platform with say a a 20-in tube or an 18inch tube I think it slows that down a lot to where it's inefficient um and I believe that's why the six creed is so popular in the AR platform is just because you take like a factory 87 grain V-Max it'll still run around 3,000 in that AR that's 20 in and it'll perform very well over that 22 yeah yeah yeah it's good stuff it's uh so like I said it's always been something I've I've wondered about cuz I'll see that like I you know I'm on one of the 22 Creed pages and and everybody loves their 23 22 Creed boats but they you know you'll see some complaints on the AR side i just never really knew why because I have zero experience with it but and maybe there's not as many as I think but they just kind of stand out to me you know what I mean yeah and and like I say I think uh I think you could definitely make it efficient because I mean at the end of the day it's still a Creedmore case it's going to feed it's straight walled you know I don't think you'll have any issues there and if you've got a guy that wanted to run like a a 12 twist with a 55 53 60 somewhere in that ballpark or a 10 twist something like that man that you could make a mean little AR out of it i'm not going to I'm not going to sit here and say you can't but I think uh the leg work that it takes in that AR platform to make it do what you need it to do is a lot more than it is in that bolt gun bolt gun you could go buy that factory 22 Creed ammo with a 20-in tube and it's going to perform good enough to kill anything you want to pull the trigger on yeah and I guess that's the thing it's like when you see guys that try 22 Creed in a boat they love it and they always keep it around but you'll see some guys I've noticed that I know personally they try AR and they're like I went back to my 243 you know it's like you know I like 243 better and I just always like well I never asked them why but we'll move on away from that we spent enough time on that uh I've only got one more con for the AR um and this is something you touched on there a little bit earlier and it was about that uh fast uh fast rate of fire and that fast follow-up shots i think it it that is definitely a con for some people i've hunted with some people that it was definitely a con for it's like I would use the term reckless abandonment it's almost like they know they've got several more rounds right behind that next one that they can just shoot just as fast as they pull the trigger and they just want to go shoot at those coyotes as they're running off and stuffing and some of these guys are really good at that you know they can call in doubles triples quads you know these bigger family groups and and once they get called in they just go to firing and they mow a bunch of them down you know pick up those doubles triples quads quints and all that type of stuff um then you see these other guys that call in these big groups and they shoot the first one and then they they shoot $100 worth of ammo it seems like you know I watch the videos and they just never clip nothing sometimes you're looking like I bet that coyote would have stopped and they could have got a good second shot in there at it if they just took their time and it's like they they don't even think about that you know because I've always been that type person if you call in multiples usually I'm reading body language right off the bat and I'm putting another round in and usually getting on my remote for my second and third shots either calling coyotes back in or stopping them uh it's like a last last last resort thing for me to shoot at these running off coyotes uh so I think that's the reason I use that term reckless abandonment it seems like that type of thought process goes out the window and not everybody's a good enough shot to be shooting at those running coyotes you could probably pick up more coyotes at the end of the year you know shooting at standing still coyotes it's ran back in or you've got stopped out there instead of run shooting at them running 30 mph yeah and I mean don't get me wrong we've I've been part of both sides of that i mean you know we've I've had a lot of nights where we've cleaned up multiple triples shooting runners you know yeah oh yeah but it was always and that's one thing we've always done is like a group um I'll kind of call shots and everything and you know if if I think that the coaches are just boogered body language says that they're going to just tail out and never come back by all means you know and Andy is pretty good at shooting runners and so yeah fire away but you know you definitely get in those spots where it's like dang man if you didn't pull that trigger another 10 times you know we probably would have cleaned that second coyote up or called him back or But I think that also that's another thing that could just lean over to the you know just experiencing coyote hunting i mean you know I think everybody when they first started if that multiple came in you know grabbing the remote and trying to pick another sound to get him to stop was the last thing you were doing it was trying to get on that exactly exactly you you hit nail right on the head with that I think yeah and so I think that just comes with you know discipline of the hunter and you know how deep they are into their career and you know different opportunities i mean if you're if you're somewhere you're never going to be and you don't care about burning the ground say you were out west on public or something you know you know he's out there you just picked up a double and the third one's running for the heels at 600 ah go ahead if you got the money for the ammo dump it you know right and so I think uh you know there's definitely different scenarios that play into that and I'm not going to sit here and say that everybody that runs an AR just absolutely tries to mow everything down with their you know 10 round mag but yeah and I'm and I'm not either i'm not either it's definitely a a con in more places than it's not well and that's the that's the thing you know when I do bring that up as a con it it's not a con for everybody cuz I know some some really good tournament hunters that they view like getting like say they call in a quad you know getting back on a remote is seconds you know and you might you know if one runs off they don't want to wait because it might take a couple minutes before you call the coyotes back in say they run into a wood lot and you change sounds a few times and all a sudden they come back you're burning up time so I know some of these tournament guys that are that are you know the best in the business at I'm going to use this term running and operating an AR and those coyotes when they take off running they ain't got a chance to escape they're just going to burn them to the ground with them follow-up shots but not everybody is as good of a shot as the next person so for some people that's a con yeah and that's like I say I think like we talked about before you know it different strokes for different folks there but definitely in in more ways could be a con yeah yeah can you think of any other cons for an AR or a bolt no i mean I'm I've actually got a a bolt gun that I'm working on right next to me right now and I don't Man like I say I've been I was die hard bolt for so long it's hard to dig cons out of me and we were talking about failures i actually just recently out west I had a failure i pulled an extractor out of a bolt on a coyote stand in the middle of Nebraska there this year and uh you know that was the first bolt gun failure in my entire coyote hunting career that I believe I've ever had and it was just a dumb luck you know I'm not saying that they don't happen but that's one in what 20 years and you know it's a big difference when you start talking about it like that so I can I don't have a whole lot of bad to say about the boat well there there is some you know just to be fair we and when I say that it just seems like we really harped on the cons on AR and it really on a boat and there is there can be feeding issues and stuff like that with boat guns you know I've heard seen people talking about it i've had people contact me about hey I've got this search and so rifle it it feeds the first you know the second third round good but when you go to the fourth it skips over it what you know what can I do you got eaten tips so there there's definitely sometimes feeding issues with ARs and I think it usually comes down to what style magazine uh that's being ran and stuff like that but uh I think that's both AR and bolt guns down to what quality mag you're running and what the feed ramp in the rifle's like exa Exactly um and I have had fa failures with boats and it just remind me you was talking talking about your deal there um I actually kind of alluded to it earlier when I said something about brass getting underneath an extractor and causing extraction problems i actually had that happen once before we were on a trip filming trip it didn't cost us no coyotes but we shoot coyotes and we go to jerk that shell out you know work the boat and it instead of throwing it out it would leave it you know leave it right there inside the laying right on top of the magazine so you had got to flip it out and then put the next one in and I was like man why is this gun doing that you know what's going on and we pulled the boat out of it looked like a little shaven of of brass is what it looked like i don't know what happened how it got there but it was like right up underneath that extractor and what was happening that extractor wasn't getting a good bite on that casing to throw it out so took something brushed it right out of there went back to running like a brand new yeah i mean there normally the you know the things are I mean for both sides normally the failures are easy to fix i mean I'm not hating on either one there and both do have failures but I've had one bolt gun failure in a whole lot of years and you know I've had multiple AR and you know not even call them failures but failure to feed or failure to cycle or you know some just silly piddly stuff yeah yeah well there's a there's a lot of good firearms out there on the boat gun side and AR side and I think it just simply comes down to personal preference and what you're most comfortable with running and what you shoot the best you know so I mean I think it's just that yeah I would never try to if a guy can man I have I just started coyote hunting last year i went 10 for 10 i shoot this AR amazing man keep shooting that AR you shoot it great it fits you great by all means keep running that gun because it's comfortable for you yep yep hey well I got a I got a question for you before we get off here it's kind of goes right on the line with if your life dependent on it stuff you've had that question for you before but this time I am going to drop you off on a some kind of deserted island where there's no escape unless I come back and get you and what you got to do instead of killing one coyote you got to kill two coyotes you got to kill two coyotes and you get five rounds to do this i'm going to give you five rounds of ammo okay you can choose what we ain't going to pick caliber you just whatever your favorite caliber is that you're going to take um you going to take a AR or you going to take a bolt if your life depended on you killing two coyotes for me to come back and save your life you got to kill two guy two coyotes you got five rounds of ammo to do it in now I know that Gage just needs two rounds of ammo the reason I'm throwing five in here is because you know just to make it a little bit more interesting because if you was just you know if we was just going to shoot one coyote you just got one shell it don't matter if you got a quick follow-up shot or not right so that's right you got five rounds kill two coyotes you get to choose between a AR style rifle or a boat rifle if your life depended on it to kill those two coyotes which one you taking i'm gonna take the boat gun for sure i think you'd have been fine with either one but I know that it'll be more reliable for you and I know I can come back and get you Gage you're a good friend i want to make sure I come back in there and save your life
oh I appreciate you coming on here Gage for this one just just to to finish this off guys again really no bias either way for boats and uh ARs if when people come and ask me you know what they should go with I just tell them it's personal preference and me myself I like boats but I know a lot of people that care nothing about a boat gun and and love running ARs and are very proven coyote hunters coyote killers contest hunters and and they've they've made you know livings off AR rifles they've made money off AR rifles and they've just had a lot of fun with AR rifles shooting coyotes so don't think where I've harpen on cons for for the AR so much that I'm trying to run them in the ground they're they're excellent choices i think it just simply comes down to personal preference and what's most comfortable with you but I figured we'd talk about this topic and kind of just put it out there and and that way you can see the pros and the cons in case you're somebody that's out there trying to decide which one you want to run you got anything you want to leave us with Gage no I'm I'm with you on that like I say if if you shoot one type of rifle you know better than the other that's that's on you and and if you like it and if you answered that same question if your life depended on it what would you take and it happened to be an AR for you by all means that's great i It all comes down to what you shoot the best yep yep no doubt i s trying to I'm looking through my text i ain't gonna say his name but uh let's see here i I got a good friend that went down to Texas the other day he listens to the podcast so if he listens to this point on this episode he'll get a kick out of this because he knows where where it came from but they went down to Texas the other day um he's going to go kill pigs is pig hunting he's a big AR big AR guy he's a AR10 243 man that's all he shoots all he cares to shoot all he'll ever shoot well first night in Texas killed 94 hogs texas so they would burn them up i guarantee you they had hogs running everywhere and they was letting letting ammo fly i guarantee you shooting a bunch of them burn them down as they running off oh yeah but uh hey I got to do another apology too spring allergies are kicking my butt so I know I've been sniffing and snuffing and coughing and crap on this podcast sorry about it i will be better for the next one but Gage thanks for coming on here hope everyone enjoyed this episode join us again right here on the FoxPro podcast