hey guys scott reekers here with eastman's hunting journals and i am here today to review
the full curl rifle and 6'5 prc from in rut rifles
whack yo that thing's dialed
hey guys welcome to eastman's hunting journal's youtube channel and i am here
with the brains behind in-rut rifles and
i'm just going to turn it over mark can you introduce yourself and
tell me a little bit about the company and then he's also got chris next to him and
you know i'd like to have you guys do an introduction and share a little bit about yourselves
yeah sure my name's mark lemke i'm the owner of in-rut rifles we've been doing it for around four years now i'm guessing
um i've owned it for two Chris hamm is my best friend right here he's a hunter we hunt a lot together
he's a pro staff hunter he's bought a number of them
and he shot a number of them with me we shoot all the time so so tell me a little bit about
in-rut rifles the history and you know what what drove you to start building these these rifles
these high quality rifles i started back way back when it it's probably been well i bet 20 years ago
at that time i met chris a long time ago and he was an avid hunter and
anyway so i decided to do uh um advertising and marketing and i did a lot of companies i did some
videos for hornady some advertisement for them carl zeiss optics i did them for eight years um
hs precision i did them for around i think nine years when i got really into the accuracy part
of it was when i was working with hs precision so and i really did like the accuracy and i was
just amazed as how accurate a gun can be and i always wanted to own my own company
and have my own product and so i decided to go try after raising two boys my wife's a physician
here in rapid after that i decided to get back into something i really like and i love and i'm
an avid shooter and a reloader and i've been doing it forever and i just like accurate rifles that's
period i like it when they all touch or same hole so you know our model is three into one whole but
you know we try to most some of them a lot of them do it but as long as they're all touching though
and when i first met mark they said we've been good friends for 20 years we did a
lot of hunting together and back then we were shooting factory you know factory rifles and
you know you can get them shooting good you do some reloading and get them shooting pretty good
like you said when you went to work with hs we saw what custom guns can really do and shoot like and
that really impressed me and you is because we like you know everybody likes to go out and
shoot steal shoot targets and you know get groups that are super tight and then that rolls over to
your hunting too where you can reach out a little farther and make shots on things that
you know that maybe other things can't so i'm a hunter and i like shooting guns and i like
accurate guns and these things do the trick i've got two of them and they are absolute tack drivers
so first thing i want to highlight is this defiance action now to me
what stands out is there is no slop in this action at all because they harden the metal
before before they actually start doing all the milling and so what that does is that gives you
an action that is tight that means there's not going to be any wobble inside there
the bullet's not going to move as you as you fire it i'm a real practical guy i'm a layman
i know about 80 percent of you are like you know what advantage do i have in moving up to a rifle
like this well that's one of the advantages is that when you get into a defiance action like this
it has the hardened steel and that gets rid of all the little tiny gaps that are minute
little details that are the difference between something that comes say off a factory line
that's why one of the reasons you would want to move up to a rifle like this from in-rut rifles
there we go banging steel at 550. that's how easy this is and most of our guns we shoot are mostly
with factory ammo there the eldx shoots phenomenal i haven't seen one gun of his it doesn't shoot
just lights out so that's really something i've used the eldx and the precision hunter
it's amazing how far those factory loads have come or if they do if they want to do all that
stuff and be super technical you can order these barrels with whatever twist you want
so you go heavier bullets you can do whatever you want so he's really um got it figured out so he
can kind of help both people whoever's want to do the reloading technical stuff or just
buy a factory ammo that shoots under half inch groups all day yeah okay so you said it so i
i know this but i want our audience to hear it help our audience understand the correlation
between twist rate and bullet weight and why you'd buy what they just want to shoot the 143
eldx let's say you know um i know that a one and eight twist and a six five will shoot that fine
it shoots really well but if you want to go up to bumping up to the new 156 burger vld hunter
that's out there um you're going to have to have a one and seven and a half yeah a little bit
little twist for that heavier bullet
heavier bullets go lower twists and that's exactly what i did with my 65 prc because that's what i
wanted to do i wanted to reload the heavier grain bullet and then you get on the burger website and
they say these will stabilize in this twist of a barrel so when i say hey mark i want to do this
gun can we get this in a seven and a half yeah i can do it in seven eight and half whatever you
want seventy five percent of people that buy guns from us don't reload you know they're just average
guys that work for a living and they make enough money and they like shooting and and so we try
to make them happy with everything so so far it's we're doing okay well that's that's cool i like i
like hearing that explanation because relating it to relating it to the average joe i think is what
is really easy when you get into precision shooting especially with a lot of guys that
have a lot of knowledge it's very easy to shrink away from those conversations but hearing it put
in layman's terms rather than kind of jump into the fire like that is really cool so next thing
is this is the full curl model but you will notice on this we have the carbon fiber barrel
and i just absolutely love this the proof barrel the proof carbon barrel so this is something that
they've done a lot of experimenting on they know that people want carbon barrels i'm a lightweight
backpack hunter and i love getting as light as possible i would have no issues whatsoever taking
this rifle with me on a backpack hunt because its weight is just that light because of a combination
of the carbon barrel the stock that in-rut rifle itself actually produces and makes and you can see they
you know you've got this cool pattern on there every one of these patterns is unique and that
will fit your personality you can get what you want on this obviously mark sent it to us with
this this orange and gray are you seeing a lot of people wanting lighter rifles especially with the
popularity of back country hunting there's a lot of guys a lot of cheap hunters a lot of go hunters
i mean i'm getting older too so it starts wearing on you a little bit it's like
i'm going to go to a lighter gun that i can you know carry and not have the weight you know so
and we do a 24 inch barrel i mean we will do a full curl and a 26 if they really want to
so you know the lengthwise we can go all the way up to 28 but and you don't need it for
the accuracy you can shoot the 24 20 i mean if you want to go down or not you can shoot
you only lose a little bit of feet per second with the per inch so as far as accuracy it's not
you know the deer ain't gonna sit there and go oh geez i just got hit with you know 2800 3000
instead of 3000. the way some guys talk on forums you would think that the deer actually do that
i know it's like 2700 feet did you get the memo
so is that is that one of the reasons that you've moved to producing guns with a carbon barrel we
were doing the fluted barrel and these barrels are good we get the metal from germany so it's
really good metal and the guy makes a match great barrel the thing is a lot of guys got in this hype
thing about carbon and they shoot the same and you know and the thing about the carbon is you
know i just basically did it because i i like the look of them too i think they're kind of
cool you know it kind of gives an added touch to a gun and so we made a couple of them and uh
started putting them on and they shoot good and we just started selling them and
then there's a lot of guys that you know will buy most of the buy guys will go to the metal barrel
because the carbon's a little bit higher it's about a thousand dollars higher it's all personal
preference basically i mean they all shoot good i've got a stock guy we make our own stocks
and they're built in their custom you know length of pull and we do left-handed stocks too some
people want cheap pieces some don't they're made out of kevlar fiberglass and carbon the carbon
ones that the one you had is a that's a carbon one and i actually painted that one but anyway
i was an artist way back when i shoot a 300 win mag for the majority of my hunting
but i fell in love make fun of me all you want i fell in love with the 6'5 creedmoor when i
actually made a 480 yard shot on a mule deer not long ago and so this 65 prc that i shot
the other day i was actually thinking this would be a fun gun to make that same type of shot on
how did it shoot for you it shot fantastic it took it was user error is the only reason
because i did one tick too high on a thousand yard buffalo
right over the top of him that was really close yeah try it again
and then when i went back and recounted second shot i nailed it
whack yep that thing's dialed so we're but we're talking i missed the target by that much
you know and and so user error completely my own fault and i did three shots and it was lights out
like straight straight out of the box like i literally had not taken it out of the case man
i was thrilled it was fun i had a guy this year from michigan and he took one of his 24 years to
get his elf tag in colorado and so i was on my way down to go mule deer hunting and he calls me and
he goes i'll be leaving next week and i'm going oh my gosh where are we at with this so called
back we got it done but he was on his way down driving down to grand junction and i set him down
on v6 zeiss on it and i put the dial on it and i sighted it in with chris and we sent it to him and
he got it he went hunting and about three days later he started his texas man he supposed to
be this big elky shot at 692 one shot he dropped it he goes i just can't believe i never showed
a gun i never sighted the gun in and it actually shoot that so i think that's why the precision
has evolved so much the last few years is that so many people are seeing that we're capable of
making ethical shots ethically i personally have said i won't at an animal shoot farther than 500.
but that's because i made that decision right here you know that's for me that's a personal but you
know i won't i won't disparage somebody else who's learned how to effectively shoot those distances
but i believe that's a deeply personal decision on what your limits are so that's what's nice about
it the guns will do the job it's just like you said we've got to decide us as a hunter what if
it's 500 for me and 700 good but the guns will do the trick i mean the guns are going to shoot out
as far as you know you need them to go i'm a big fan of what the precision shooting is that a lot
of people just gotten better overall what they're shooting far more people are at the range and
it used to be for a lot of hunters throw that plate up on the target at 100 yards call it good
if you hit the plate you're good yeah seriously yeah I remember those days
i i don't see that nearly as often anymore i'm impressed that that's that mentality has changed
because i hope that more people are taking better shots as a result of that that's cool
to see that a brand like in-rut gives gives people the tools to be able to make those better shots
whatever your comfortable distance is
hear that
so one other point i wanted to hit on this is a jewel trigger so this is set for three pounds i believe is what he told us
i reserve the right to be wrong we can correct that in the lower third but this is a light trigger
but it's right off the bat but you can get it the way you want it you can adjust this to your particular weight and needs
some guys like a little more resistance and so personally i like the light trigger i'm
a big fan of of being able to just pop into the trigger guard and then squeeze it off real gentle
the more gentle it is to me the less likely you are to jerk it the harder it gets but
some guys like a little bit of resistance there is no slop in this trigger whatsoever
so when you when you go to squeeze man it's here it's going to go this is one of those
things that you will absolutely love having a trigger that it's very easy to maintain as
well and you can get the right weight that you want all right so let's test out this trigger
got my phone set up here
you can see it
all right time for some fire in the hole
that's right at 400. so i have now done a grand total of eight shots through this rifle
you know how many i've missed one and it was 100
user error this is a fun rifle to shoot i got to be careful i don't go through this ammo too quick
so one thing that's kind of been cool i have seen some in-rut rifles in the magazine quite a bit
in fact i've seen a video i believe gary english used a in-rut rifle on one of his hunts have you seen
a lot a lot of guys using your rifles strictly for hunting are they most of the guys that call me are
either got a hunt that's coming up or they've been waiting for it like the guy from michigan
and they want something that they can count on you know i personally shoot every one of them
before they go so i make sure they're all set up and we get a lot of people calling and right now
it's about an eight eight month wait so we're a small company we're not big we're here to help you
and if there's a problem you know we'll take care of it what's the future hold for in-rut what are
some things that you're you're kind of hoping and dreaming to be able to do in the next few years
i don't want to get really big i don't want to get to a point where it's a conglomerate and
we still want to be able to do some hunting and dudes hopefully work with another gunsmith
down the road is what i'd like to do you know i i'd like to just do so many a year
and then just say okay we're done for this year and i don't know what that number is yet
i don't know we'll see right now i'm just having fun you know it's fun i mean it's a fun job
there we go banging steel at 550. that's how easy this is and so that's the beauty of this this is
set up he takes your altitude all the different variables and he builds you what you want look
below you can see the website to inrutrifles.com thanks for coming along and make sure you
subscribe to eastman's youtube channel there we go that's crazy 946. that is pretty stinking cool