Winchester: 2023, 2024 and into the future in clay target sports

[00:00:00] Welcome to Shotgun Sports USA, powered by Winchester Ammunition, the American legend. Listen to the best shotgun shooters from all over the world in every discipline. Championship winning coaches, gun clubs, target setters, vendors, as well as companies that make

[00:00:17] it all happen. Shotgun Sports USA is also driven by Beretta, the number one choice of champions. Also brought to you by Breyli, Rick Hemingway's chromatic trap sails, Cole Gunsmithing, Clay Target Vision, Castellani USA and Ultimate Shooting Accessories, Sound Gear,

[00:00:35] Clay Shooter Supply and Falcon Strike. Thanks for listening and remember to visit us online at ShotgunSportsUSA.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram. Today on the show I have two guys that are part of the team that help bring Winchester

[00:01:06] Ammunition to clay target sports every year. We're going to talk about Winchester in the future for the NSCA, the ATA and the SCTP. Hear about White Flyer and something brand new for the sub juniors. Welcome to the show Donnie Ballard and Nathan Robinson.

[00:01:35] Today I have a couple of the guys from Winchester on the show with me and we're going to cover several things involving Winchester and their support of clay target sports. The overwhelming support, time and dedication this company has for clay target

[00:01:51] sports is really unbelievable and we're going to talk about that. So I've got on with me Donnie Ballard, shooting sports marketing coordinator and I've got Nathan Robinson on. He's the marketing manager there at Winchester. What's up guys? How's it going Justin? Hey Justin good to be here. Thanks

[00:02:06] for taking the time to include us on the podcast today. Donnie and I've been talking about this for I don't know what a month Donnie and we finally got together so nationals is over let's talk about

[00:02:17] that. You know it's sad to have the season over for sure but it makes it slightly less sad when the last shoot was such a mud fest. Yeah. It was a mess. It was great obviously it's always fun to go

[00:02:30] to San Antonio and they put on such a great event and seeing all the people at nationals is awesome but I was happy to have the Winchester store to hang out in during the monsoon that was down there.

[00:02:44] Yeah I got pretty lucky too. I only shot one event and it was during the very driest portion of Saturday so I didn't get too muddy. When you walked out of the Winchester building I'm sure

[00:02:56] there was water everywhere had to have been. Yeah it just doesn't it just does not drain there. Yeah but it was it was fun I mean there was there was this little kid riding a bike the

[00:03:06] whole time down the lane and it was just like he was creating a core memory like you know it was just mud all up his back he was having a blast. So the nationals this year was the largest

[00:03:20] one held it was the largest one ever you know and I don't know how it keeps getting bigger every year but we're really excited to see it. Yeah you know you Winchester's been involved with the

[00:03:30] championship tour how long now? 2019 I believe was the first year. Okay so we're in year we're in year four going into year five. Yeah and it's not stopping there right? That's right yeah

[00:03:43] we're signed up, contracted out I think at least the next three years. Nice. And same with the Winchester ladies cup that was also re-upped also for another three years so that was a addition

[00:03:56] in year two of the championship tour. You know I kind of find myself when I go to look at scores looking at the you probably do the same thing because you're with Winchester but looking at

[00:04:08] the ladies cup you know you can go down and say who's winning you know each shoot of the ladies and who's going to win the ladies cup that's kind of what I do. That's great to hear because that's

[00:04:19] exactly the intent of it we wanted to bring a spotlight to the women who are out there shooting and increase interest both among ladies that weren't shooting but then also just around it in

[00:04:29] general so everybody's shooting pays a little more attention and maybe gets a little more excited about the ladies cup competition. And the ladies listening the way that works is every championship tour tournament so all the regionals nationals US Open I think world's in there right? Yeah the world

[00:04:46] english is included. Okay so you win that shoot or you're in the top three of the women you get a check. That's right the first place is 2,500 second place is 1,500 and third place is a thousand.

[00:04:57] And at the end of the year I'm assuming that you combine efforts so yeah so the championship tour points race if you go on their website and you just sort by you know there's open there's there's

[00:05:09] lady there's sub junior if you just if you're looking at the ladies it's it's the the top five scores from the championship tour and that you know they take the top five and then that points

[00:05:22] race at the end of the year is decided at nationals and it's a good it's a lot it's a lot of added money that uh it really goes to help promote the sport. Yeah since we started that or since

[00:05:32] Winchester started that there's been a lot of if you notice how many ladies are shooting now? Yeah I just got the actual the surveys back from uh from nationals and it was it was well over 20

[00:05:43] percent so that was 20 percent. I know I know yeah I know it wasn't 20 percent you know 10 years ago so that's that's good to see that number keep growing. Yeah no wow yeah I think I think if

[00:05:55] this is nationals there was we we need to go to score chaser and look it up but it was if you look at the lady registrations for for nationals it was it was a lot yeah it was more than I think

[00:06:07] was 200 maybe somewhere in that range. That's crazy and I'll tell you something I mentioned this somewhere I've said it several times actually it's it's not going to be much longer and we're going to see the women start you know winning these shoots not just the concurrent but I'm

[00:06:26] talking about the whole shoot. Yeah for sure I mean there's a few there's been a few I think uh Karen has won the ladies cup three years in a row and I believe she won a FITAS

[00:06:36] slam outright either it was either earlier this year or late last year. I've heard something mentioned called the sub junior top shot and I'm gonna tell you I don't know what this is yet

[00:06:47] so I want you to tell me what it is. So that is the top five uh sub junior shooters on the NSCA championship tour points race at the end of the year so those top five shooters uh are getting

[00:06:59] a Winchester gear package as well as 25 cases of double-a target loads. Nice. So it really recognizes those those kids um and hopefully it keeps them keeps them in the game knowing that

[00:07:13] they at the end of the tunnel there's uh there's some some prizes. You know they NSCA mentioned they're they're gonna start including sub juniors right on the on the teams. Yeah that's right.

[00:07:27] Yep yep for the uh the national uh sporting and FITAS teams. So I think that it's I mean this is just adding to it's all the more reason to go to go after it you know. Yeah. All the stuff that's

[00:07:39] available for the for the ladies for the kids for young men and women whatever you want to call them and the and the adult I mean just everybody there's something for everybody Winchester offers

[00:07:51] in shooting sports and yeah the more the more we put into the game the more we we get out of it and if you want to grow the game you gotta you know you've got to grow the incentives for the shooters

[00:08:01] to want to go to those shoots and we've seen that be a success with ladies and obviously the SETP numbers and the youth numbers are growing every year uh so everybody's doing something right in

[00:08:12] that in that regard. So talking about the championship tour how was it for Winchester in 2023? Uh was it what you expected and and you know what were your highlights of the year? Yeah we actually

[00:08:26] because we're a company think of everything in metrics right and so we break it down into how our team did, how we did for merchandise sales, how the promotions went, how many uh boxes of

[00:08:39] double A's went out the door and I would say we're real happy across all of those this year and uh just a testament to the growth in the industry but then also that people are paying

[00:08:51] attention to the investments we've made and that it's important to Winchester and they're rewarding us by choosing double A's when they go to the ammo counter and so that percentage of sales has continued to increase for us and we're thrilled to see that because really not because

[00:09:08] we're trying to just make every dollar we can it's ultimately the best way to see do people see that Winchester cares about their sport and does that matter to them and uh they vote with

[00:09:20] their dollars and right now we're winning big in the clay target sports yeah oh yeah you're making I can remember when was it they came really strong back into sporting clothes was it 19 Donnie yeah 2018 2019 time frame and I thought oh my goodness this is going to be big

[00:09:37] and they had and you haven't stopped it's just like it's every year it's better and better and better so um you know and that's continuing into 2024 for sure yeah I was going to say 2024

[00:09:48] I know you're on the like you said you had a contract with them so what's what's in the future for 24 for sporting clothes so I mean it's a busy year everybody knows that I mean there's the world

[00:09:58] english and the world v task uh that are in the United States um we've already committed to be main event sponsors of the western region of the southeast regional uh the u.s open at north brook

[00:10:11] the north central regional um where the uh where the feed task parkour sponsor as well at the at the world v task so pretty much every major event next year we're going to be a part of it so

[00:10:26] the world english at anthony's is is powered by winchester so if you go on score chaser you can see the the winchester logo underneath the m&m world english logo looks pretty cool nice yeah

[00:10:37] I'm I'm probably going to go to that one I have never been to anthony's I mentioned that before and I'm gonna go and I want to see I want to see the place you know yeah you got you got to make it

[00:10:47] up there for sure winchester's not just involved in sporting clay so they're involved in a lot of stuff you know anything shooting sports related and the the one of the big things that we talk

[00:11:00] about all the time that's going to help the sport grow is the youth in the sport whether it be in schools or sctp or whatever it is that's the future of the sport and you also you put a lot

[00:11:12] of time and effort in the youth that's right we are the also the official am of uh of the sctp so that's the scholastic clay target program they have over 20 000 kids and their big event is in

[00:11:24] july every year like the week after fourth of july out in the cardinal center in ohio so that event is getting bigger and bigger every year it's it's I mean it's crazy how big that's gotten

[00:11:36] I think in 2010 when we first kind of started supporting that event there was like 5 000 shooters nationwide and now they're at 20 000 plus and that's awesome why do you have both both eta and sctp we're making sure that youth are a priority and we're the dominant supporter of

[00:11:55] youth shooting across those organizations and just to kind of reference back to something donnie said earlier about core memories with the kid that was just having a blast out in the mud at nationals

[00:12:07] one of my core memories and what brought me to winchester is that my grandpa was a winchester shooter and when I was a little kid I would help him at the reloading bench and just thinking back

[00:12:20] to those early days of when I was first exposed to winchester and then when we'd go to the gun club he'd always hand me a box of his double a reloads probably because I was a kid he didn't

[00:12:31] want to waste the new ones on me but he always kept me supplied with reloads we want new shooters to have that same experience with winchester because that's what those memories build loyalty and so

[00:12:44] we're hoping that by being there for them and supporting their events and making cool gear for them to wear and having fun promotions that they'll interact with winchester and then become

[00:12:55] loyal to us and be part of the winchester family for life yeah what I know you've probably you guys probably look at this but what why do you think that the youth sports or youth shooting

[00:13:06] sports is getting as large as it is what's what's some contributing factors to that I think the one of the main things is there's nobody sits on the bench I mean I'm a youth coach

[00:13:18] myself I coach my local high school team and we've got 40-ish kids that shoot on the team and all 40 of those kids shoot every week I mean there's not a an a team and a b team and a c

[00:13:30] team it's everybody gets to shoot and I think that's what's awesome about it and it's something you can do with your parents you can do with your your grandpa it's it's something you can do when

[00:13:39] you're 12 years old it's something you can do when you're when you're 80 years old it's kind of like golf in that regard yeah yep except the scores are different if you shoot high in golf you're not

[00:13:48] you're not any good you shoot you know what if we're on a sporting clays course I'm gonna break an 87 if we're on a golf course I'm gonna break 87 so I'm pretty consistent are you yeah I would

[00:13:59] yeah I'd be 187 well speaking of that similar to golf it's an event that kids can do with their parents or grandparents I think that's part of what leads to the success because it's fun for

[00:14:12] everybody mom or dad can take their kids to the range and they'll have a good time instead of just being in a crowded gym watching basketball practice and I think that's a contributor it's also something that people of varying physical abilities can really excel at shooting and so

[00:14:32] they may not have found a home on the football team or the baseball team but they can shoot you know just as competitively with their peers on a trap team yep that's correct you know you don't

[00:14:44] have to be in shape or you don't have you know not everybody's built the same you know I mean there's a class at nationals uh that I don't know what they call it but I know you know the

[00:14:55] handicapped people shoot in it and it's it's really pretty cool to see that these guys you know if whether in a wheelchair or whatever it is being able to go out there and shoot with

[00:15:06] zach or whoever it is they're shooting with they can shoot right there with them and that's you can't do that in other sports you know I mean it doesn't work that way so but yeah so sctp going

[00:15:17] back to that winchester don't they have different programs from from the beginners all the way up to international teams aren't there some sort of programs that y'all offer for this for the sctp

[00:15:29] yeah so there's the sctp international team and they are chosen at nationals and then they compete as a group and they will go overseas as well I think there's 10 shooters on that team they get

[00:15:46] picked uh from how they place at at nationals so we always help them out with some gear and some vests and and that sort of thing and recognize that team yeah but there also is uh around this

[00:16:01] time every year the sctp will send out an email to all the coaches and we do have a youth ammo purchase program so if you're an sctp coach check your inbox nice how does that work if you're

[00:16:14] coached on you just they get like an email and you have to follow a link or something to sign up for how does that work yeah yeah just check your email and then the sctp uh they they facilitate all that

[00:16:26] for us we just kind of help them out and supply them with ammunition and uh yeah they yeah all those purchases are processed through sctp so they collect them and then they you know combine

[00:16:39] everything together and send it over to us and the goal there is that we do not want people to miss out on a shooting season because they can't find ammo and that was really happening around the

[00:16:51] coveted years and so we thought it was important to have a way for them to you know get direct to winchester and get the best deal that they could uh so that they'd be shooting winchester when

[00:17:03] they're ready to hit the ranges again i was talking to donny the other day about the double a one ounce loads and the uh super target one ounce loads and how that

[00:17:14] the super target loads didn't you tell me donny that they won a trap tournament with them the super target right keith ditto who uh he's one of our sponsored trap shooters he loved he loves the

[00:17:25] super targets and he's he's ran several 200 traits with him so yeah there's from kentucky and he's many time all american yeah they're routinely at the top of the ata finalists yeah there's no detriment shooting shooting those i mean you can you can break 200 straight with them particularly

[00:17:42] with singles i mean when you're at 16 yard range yeah um it is a lower anemone level so there will be more pellet deformation so your long distance patterns will maybe have more holes in the pattern

[00:17:58] or won't be quite as tight but uh 16 yards i think it's a great round for people to choose it may actually even help them because their pattern might be a little bit wider than it is

[00:18:08] with the double a so it's always good to shoot at a pattern board and see what your ammo is doing so that you can make decisions on what you prefer to shoot at the different disciplines that you're

[00:18:18] going to be participating in why do y'all keep bringing up trap i'm a man that's how i grew up it's the sporting clays shooters uh and friends they're always kind of like man traps traps kind

[00:18:32] of boring and i'm like trap's a great game and like 70 of the shooters are shooting trap so it by the numbers trap is trap is massive i love i love the trap i love the grand american i mean

[00:18:44] i love all the games i'll shoot anything anytime they come out the new game i'm shooting it but and i can make a comparison to sport and clays if you go to nationals and you're shooting the k cup

[00:18:54] super target might be a good one for it because those targets are generally really close and in your face but if you're shooting those long crossing midis out in the open field then you

[00:19:05] want your super handicap or your diamond grade because that's going to give you the best possible pattern at those longer distances why did you avoid the trap question nathan i didn't i'm proud to shoot in all disciplines nathan every every year nathan shoots the grand american winchester

[00:19:20] singles event with me so yeah i was gonna bring that up did y'all tie or did he went who won oh that's a sore subject yeah this is a source so uh donnie and i shot against each other last

[00:19:33] i guess it's two years ago and tied and we were very aware of our scores throughout the whole thing and congratulating each other on how well we were shooting and then what was it two weeks later

[00:19:45] the scores were posted and donnie looked him up and my take on it is that the scorekeeper must have made a mistake because the scores that were posted did not reflect what we thought we shot

[00:19:58] that day but donnie was very excited to rub it in that he actually beat me it was actually foster barthelot's fault he doesn't know how to count yeah was he taking score he was yeah he was sort

[00:20:10] of trying to keep track i think well speaking of you brought up ata being as big as it is how big is the ata so the grand american for instance just that single event is four and a half million

[00:20:21] targets an ammo shot so it's it's the largest clay target event in the world four and a half million yes those are the the four and a half million that's the registered targets for that event

[00:20:33] so that's basically a little over i mean double nationals of sporting clays yeah and also trapped to that event is is like 17 days i think that includes the aim shoot and then there's the

[00:20:46] prelim week for the grand and then there's the grand week so if you want to get all that you have to take a month off of work basically a lot of yeah a lot of shooters will like the kids a lot

[00:20:57] of shooters will just come in and for the kids we can shoot and then a lot of people will just shoot the grand week and if you just want to shoot what is considered the the championship events it's

[00:21:07] thursday friday saturday so thursday is uh singles friday is the doubles and then handicap um on that last that last saturday so you can so yeah you don't need to be you don't need to shoot all 2600

[00:21:22] targets but you can so you've got some pretty good trap shooters under winchester right we do so yeah so dagon voigtman he's the ata clay target champion this year so he broke a 200 straight and then he

[00:21:36] shot 800 straight in the shoot off to finally win all right that's what i wanted to ask you about this i keep hearing about these shoot offs that are like massive numbers like you just said 800

[00:21:47] straight yeah and it takes like two or three nights yeah so how does that work so they'll probably be around 50 to 60 shooters that'll break the 200 straight and then they'll they'll shoot off

[00:22:01] uh that night they'll shoot off the next night and then finally it gets whittled down to two shooters and they uh you know they decide who wins i feel really bad for the guy that broke

[00:22:12] you know 975 and didn't win uh so to win at the shoot a thousand straight that's that's pretty impressive yes it is what how how so the shoot offs were they just until somebody gets tired

[00:22:25] we're going to finish the rest of mar and if we don't finish it we'll finish the next day is that how that works yeah yeah it's up to the the shoot off you know director discretion sometimes they'll

[00:22:34] they'll they'll stop it you know noon or midnight or one o'clock somewhere in that that time frame some of the events carry over to the next day so if there's a singles event for example each day

[00:22:46] the shoot offs from monday will carry over into the normal shooting on tuesday so their shooting then counts towards that shoot off but eventually the it's the last singles event and they just have

[00:22:57] to sit there and keep shooting until they're done and uh one of the more famous times that that happened it was leo harrison and foster barthelot back in i think like 2009 or 8 yeah and um they

[00:23:12] shot a ridiculous number of targets late into the early morning hours and finally the director of the ata came out to him and said hey we've never done this before but what do you guys think about

[00:23:24] just sharing the championship title this year and so it's the only time that's ever been done but who knows they could have still been out there shooting today if they hadn't done that so we're

[00:23:35] glad that they were able to do that you talk about you know mental that's got to be mental a bunch of yeah you you have to be making the right move every shot you have to be i mean you have to

[00:23:49] be hydrated you have to be you just have to be ready and you know if you if you get up there and just put your gun up and say pull and you're you're just kind of in a not in a good mindset

[00:24:01] eventually you'll miss so to just mentally be able to do that a thousand times and care about a thousand shots is is what's impressive about trap yes yes it is i've broken 200 in a row and

[00:24:14] i think my longest run is like 287 and when i finally missed i was kind of like relieved it was over yeah it got to the point where it was just kind of like wow and matt barthelow says that

[00:24:24] too and you know he's uh won the ata world doubles three years in a row and i i was lucky enough to shoot with him and foster at this grand they had a they had a squad mate that had gotten sick so

[00:24:36] they needed they needed basically just a body there to kind of knew sort of what they were doing and he didn't really i think he had a streak of like 500 straight and he finally missed the and

[00:24:49] won the event before uh the big event and it was just kind of like you know he was relieved that that that one was over and now he could focus on on uh just the world doubles championship the next

[00:25:00] day i know hitting targets is fun right you want to have a high score but when you're talking about 700 800 targets i mean i i would think i would be to the point where i'm like all right i'm just

[00:25:11] gonna miss one so i don't have to keep doing this yeah you know what i'm saying that's why we're not at that level though because i'm with you i'd start to lose interest yeah my add starts to kick in

[00:25:23] but those guys can just do it for all day and night it seems yeah what part what does winchester do in ata what are they what is their i know we've talked about supporting clays and sctp what

[00:25:37] do they do for the ata yeah so we're the official ammo of the ata and white flyer is the official target of the ata um so you know and that is a newer designation of being the official ammo

[00:25:52] but we've been there supporting them for over 100 years and so it's you know part of winchester's history too that early days of ata we were there supporting them and have been consistent in that

[00:26:05] and uh you know plan to for as long as they stick around i didn't know this but you've been a part of it for 100 years yeah we actually so lynn gibson who's the executive director of the ata we were

[00:26:16] kind of like going back and forth because uh we we just recently re-upped our official ammo and target designation for another three years with the ata just i think it was last week we did

[00:26:26] that um and we were trying to figure out what year it really was and i believe it's somewhere around 1900 or to where we became involved what was that i was ever shooting glass balls back

[00:26:37] then weren't they they were back in like the 1880s and 90s they had the glass balls that were that were filled with like the feathers but at the 1900 there there was at the 1900 is whenever they

[00:26:49] had kind of similar targets to what we what we see now so you said you're the ammo sponsor and target sponsor white flyer for the ata that's a new part of winchester right and not just a sponsor

[00:27:04] we're the official ammunition and the official clay target um which i mean the only reason that they were interested in giving us that is because of that long history of support and just the scale

[00:27:18] of the support um you know they've seen that we're heavily invested in the shooting sports and wanted to reward us for that but we've worked with white flyer for a long time there was actually a

[00:27:29] period of time where winchester olin corporation owned white flyer and we produced them ourselves and during a point they divested of the company and sold it to regent chemicals and now we're

[00:27:42] coming full circle and we've brought them back in-house and so we're really proud to not only be you know the big shot shell that's used but now the target as well so does the name change does it

[00:27:55] still say white flyer oh absolutely it's going to stay white yeah so the white flyer target they there's if you look on the top of them there's a double a on it right uh so that that double a

[00:28:05] logo has been with both of our brands for going back to at least the mid-1960s yeah will winchester be on the box will it say winchester just staying just like it's been

[00:28:17] a lot of those conversations are still happening we're going to try to put our spin on the packaging and make some improvements where we think they can be made but honestly white flyer

[00:28:27] has been doing it right that's part of why we were interested in acquiring them is that they dominate the clay target space and they had great people they've got great products and so we're not

[00:28:39] making any big changes we're just trying to benefit from combining forces and being that one-stop shop for ranges around the country so that the same guy they deal with on their clay

[00:28:51] target purchases now can also sell them ammunition all right i know you guys know this how many clay targets were sold last year a lot a lot i mean that's a ton if you think about that the people

[00:29:03] the amount of people that shoot those those things are just to give you some scale though i'm on the ata website and it says that more than 55 million targets are shot annually as part of the ata so if

[00:29:17] you add in skeet and sporting clays i'm sure that number probably doubles yeah that's that's that's amazing you know and then you think of the shotgun shells that shoot at them so that's just that's

[00:29:30] crazy and that kind of it brings us to this something else you're involved with is called shoot united and that's getting all these people involved in shooting so they can go out and have

[00:29:39] fun with these things that you offer right that's right i mean you've got you've got the shotgun shells i mean you got rifles you got you know rifle ammunition you got now you've got the clay targets

[00:29:49] everything that you offer is something that people can enjoy and that's basically what shoot united is right yeah and i guess to back up we talked a bit about how i got interested in the shooting

[00:30:01] sports i know donny's dad worked at a company that was tied to olin winchester and so he's been involved since he was a little kid i'm sure you probably have some story justin of how you were

[00:30:13] introduced but what we saw in the data for new shooters is that there's a lot of people that don't have that kind of background they didn't have a grandpa to take them to the range or

[00:30:25] they didn't work at a range like donny did when he was in high school and so we wanted a resource to help educate people on how to get involved if they're interested and then teach them the

[00:30:36] basics so that they're comfortable and they're safe when they get out there and to your point that spans beyond just clay targets because centerfire pistol and rifle is a big deal to us

[00:30:47] also and a lot of the new participation in our industry is coming about it from self-defense or pistol shooting whether that's recreational or competitive and so we want to put resources out

[00:31:01] there just to inspire people to try it out and to educate them so they do it safely and have a good experience when they get to the range where are the where is this taking place at how does how

[00:31:12] does it work do they go to your website and like sure just fill out some information and someone contacts them how does that work so the interesting thing about this is that while winchester started

[00:31:23] it and is the driving force behind it we don't want it to stay that way and from day one we've kind of kept our distance from a branding perspective and shoot united is a standalone

[00:31:36] entity that also has support from other companies in the industry like springfield and browning and gsm and some of our big distributors there's a whole bunch of companies that have stepped up

[00:31:50] to be a part of this initiative and so because of that there's a lot of ways you can make your way to shoot united either through something that they have on their website or through some kind

[00:32:01] of outdoor media talking about it but it does have a website it does have social media pages it does have a lot of youtube videos and so whatever way people get there what they'll find

[00:32:13] is a lot of resources and it's just aimed to equip people and help them feel comfortable getting into a new hobby and so that could be through watching a video on somebody like amy

[00:32:26] collie uh she's a young collegiate shooter who we did a special interest film about or somebody like becky yakley who's a three-gun mom and she has her whole family out at the range shooting

[00:32:37] three-gun competitions and really excelling just as a way to inspire people and give them an example of what their story could turn out to look like if they get involved in the shooting sports yeah

[00:32:48] and i would i would recommend this to the people listening becky yakley and and amy and all these people that are are part of team winchester it's really cool to go on and follow their

[00:32:59] their social media pages because yeah example becky what she's been on the show before it's like watching a story with her she's always doing something she's shooting she's building something she's always doing something and it's like you get to know her you know what i mean and

[00:33:16] you can see how she does things same thing with everybody uh everybody that's that i have looked at as part of team winchester really has a cool uh social media presence and it's something to go

[00:33:30] check out if if that's something you're into go check check those people out and and you can learn a lot by just watching what they do you know absolutely so i think it's really neat that

[00:33:40] every i mean i don't think it's neat about social media i think it's neat that people put what they put on social media and share it with people so that they can see that they're just normal people

[00:33:51] that shoot you know and and have a good time just like everybody else does so uh shoot united something i think is great everybody can learn even if you know how to shoot you know yeah so

[00:34:02] yeah and there's a lot of things too like you know they they're like becky's at the top of her game which is pretty radically different from trap and skeet and sporting clay so you know if you're if

[00:34:12] you're wanting to learn and get into that mindset i mean you can learn just as much from or pick up something that she might do in her preparation that would help you and

[00:34:20] you know the clay target game too so you know i think the most important thing for listeners to know is that occasionally i still beat donnie when we're shooting clay target sports he is more

[00:34:32] present at the events and gets to shoot more registered birds than i do but uh you know just like the participants out there at winchester we're really competitive and we have a lot of fun

[00:34:43] at the range and so we know how it is for some friends to go out and shoot together and that camaraderie and the relationships that are built and so it's fun for us to mix that hobby and

[00:34:55] career together but we very much can still relate to that experience and hopefully i'll best him at an event sometime this year but it gets harder and harder every year because he keeps getting better

[00:35:06] you know it's definitely it's definitely awesome when uh you work at a company that really encourages you to to shoot and be active in the outdoor sports um there's a lot of people

[00:35:17] that were that work here behind the scenes that are just as active in the clay target game as nathan and i so you know when your employees are shooting a lot and really enjoying it

[00:35:27] you know that's going to make your ammo better that's that's going to make the whole winchester experience better when everybody feels like they're invested to make a great product so that's very cool how do y'all determine who gets to take off and who doesn't you mean take

[00:35:39] off to go to events yeah or you well are you just automatically donnie's core responsibility his job is shooting promotions so that's why he gets to go to the larger amount um i still get to go to

[00:35:51] some of them but i also have to do all of the consumer events like nra show and turkey federation and stuff like that so i'm on the road more but it's a bigger variety of things that i'm doing

[00:36:04] so you're saying donnie gets to shoot more than you do but you can still shoot as good as he can occasionally well it's sure nice when it comes together now i've seen you nathan at sporting clay shoots

[00:36:18] but i don't know that i've seen you shoot do you shoot at those when you go yeah i'll usually do a side event something like the k cup yeah yeah i used to do the main event uh when i was there for the full

[00:36:31] length of because i used to have donnie's job and i shot with some really great shooters back in the early 2010 to 14 era but uh now i get pulled a lot of different directions so donnie is the one

[00:36:46] that we've kind of trusted to lead the ship at the events and my main role is to come in and make sure that we're stocked up on gear in the store and help out with any interviews and media stuff and

[00:36:59] he takes on the shooting yeah the events have really evolved to like at this last nationals i mean we had film crews we were supporting the nsca film crews so there was i think there was two or

[00:37:12] three film crews at that whole shoot so uh it used to just be kind of like a hangout and now it's it's turned into just getting a lot of content a lot of stuff that we can use in our media

[00:37:22] just really valuable time having everybody at one spot and you can get a lot of stuff knocked out you're talking about the k cup nathan you brought that up a few times it moved this year did

[00:37:32] you like where it moved to i didn't shoot it this year i was down uh just helping with the filming so where did they move it they take it out of the woods yeah it was all the way all the way in the

[00:37:40] back where like the five stand usually is yeah way back that hurts me a little to hear that because i like being in the woods i'm more of an instinctive shooter my real passion if we're gonna

[00:37:50] be honest is shooting upland birds and so i kind of look at the sporting clays time as practice for when i get out and can chase pheasants and quail and so being in the woods and have those

[00:38:02] real quick instinctive shots my bread and butter if i have to think about leads i'm in trouble because i overthink them and then end up making mistakes i have several people all the time ask

[00:38:13] me hey where can i get a winchester shirt and you've got a winchester store online that's yeah we do so winchestergear.com is your home for any winchester merchandise year-round 24 7 and we've got a great selection of stuff there that changes almost weekly it's pretty frequent that we add

[00:38:32] new items and so check that out often if there's not something you really want today next month there probably will be and we run pretty frequent specials and sales and limited time opportunities

[00:38:45] to buy stuff and so that's a great place but then we also have three different retail facilities that are open at key ranges around the country and one of those is in san antonio at the national

[00:38:57] shooting complex one is in ohio at the cardinal center which is the home of sctp nationals and the buckeye classic and ohio state trap shoot and then the third one is at the world shooting

[00:39:11] complex in sparta illinois and that one is open for the ata uh u.s open and the grand american and they've got everything gun cases i think you have rugs i mean signs everything's on there

[00:39:26] all kinds of cabin or um reloading room decor we got a whole bunch of clothing and usually at really good deals because our goal there is to get as much branding out as possible and for people to

[00:39:39] have a fun interaction with winchester it's not a profit engine for winchester it's really all about just people taking a winchester shirt home back to their local club and hopefully having some positive experiences with winchester while they were there yeah and we have a lot of really good

[00:39:56] winchester licensees as well um winchester safes is a great part partner for of ours uh we just recently signed a licensing agreement with bear pelt the vest company so they've got five or six custom winchester vests uh on their website and then as well as now everybody that

[00:40:14] custom makes a bear pelt vest our logos are available for them to put on their vests so how does someone go about doing that say there's somebody that's interested in that do they need to contact you in general for licensing say they have a company they want

[00:40:27] to get involved with in with winchester is that something that they need to contact you about or how does that work do you pick and choose who you want to do that some of both we get approached by

[00:40:36] companies and then there's times where we find a company that we want to work with and approach them but yeah there's always opportunities in different categories like donnie said we've got

[00:40:46] some that are locked up like safes and we've got knives and we've got wood boxes and stuff like that covered but if there's a new product that would be a good fit with the winchester brand and their

[00:41:01] leadership team is similarly minded then absolutely we'd like to talk to them and see if we can work something out all about advancing in the world right getting getting your name out there and and helping people do well that's it they all support each other so

[00:41:19] if somebody has a good experience with winchester ammo they're more likely to buy a winchester safe and then hopefully they have a good experience there and they want to buy a winchester shirt

[00:41:28] or hat or you know kind of just blossoms we were looking at the at the usa sporting clays teams uh here recently they've released who's who made the team uh yeah i mean i'm looking at this list and

[00:41:41] these teams are stacked do you have it in front of you i do i'm looking i'm looking at it right in front of me so the seniors team for sporting we've got uh captain brandon powell braxton oliver

[00:41:53] zach keenbaum gavin miles kevin to michael and derrick mine is your alternate and when derrick mind your alternate that's a pretty tough team yes and then the junior team is like very stacked

[00:42:05] it's todd hitch's captain joe fenezi connor daniel and turner parcel for the senior super vet team we've got donnie graneman jim bellows bill hogg john markle uh the lady team karen miles is the captain shelby moon madison sharp haylen hanks the veteran team uh team winchester captain

[00:42:28] mike wilgus is on that one with uh bill mcguire window cherry and rodney dispro that's going to be a hard team to beat did you say mike wilgus is on the veteran team yeah this is his first year

[00:42:38] as the veteran so there's going to be a lot of a lot of dubs for mike wilgus i think this next year i heard a lot of winchester names so you know there's a lot of there's a lot of good shooters

[00:42:48] on this list yes there is and for the people listening that don't know in order to make that team you have to do very well on the championship tour in order to make the usa team so you know

[00:43:02] regionals nationals u.s opens again what we talked about earlier you have to compete and and finish up up at the top to be able to be on this team so it's literally the best the best in the in the

[00:43:16] country yeah and it's very competitive and if you look at the the list of the you know let's say the the next 10 shooters that didn't make the team i mean you you could you could you could make a case

[00:43:27] that they deserve to be on the team also because there's a lot of there's a lot of people that have won regionals recently that that uh just came up a little bit short and they do it every year so

[00:43:37] so if you want to be on one you better get to shooting starts the season starts in february i think don't it yeah go to all the regionals and uh put up some some big scores that might

[00:43:47] be you on the list next year yeah i you know i've i've went to all the regionals one time i never got on that list so i don't know you you know you and i are maybe we're just a little unique

[00:43:58] i don't know well maybe next year we'll figure it out we like talking about it instead of going right we'd rather just talk about it and talk how how you know i really wish i could go all you have

[00:44:09] to do that's still fun too there's a lot of people that watch espn that aren't ever going to be on a professional field i like the way nathan he always brings the positive out and things right i'm sure

[00:44:19] if they if somebody were to go on the my nsca website and to look up uh justin barker and donny ballard they probably realize why we're not on that team yeah we've been we've been to a lot of

[00:44:31] them we just haven't made the team yet we're still practicing well hey listen guys i appreciate you coming on i learned a lot today and and i've always enjoyed talking to you guys anyway so

[00:44:42] likewise yeah thanks for having us yeah and go check them out winchester ammunition that's the real