Access decides more elk hunts than gear, calling, or strategy combined. Private land, resident tags, draw odds, generations of local knowledge. That one variable is why comparing yourself to other hunters is mostly useless, and why the only real measure is for you to calculate

Coffee with Cliff, mostly unedited. Assessing your own progress is a harder, but more useful way to judge whether you're actually getting better, plus why the hunting content world keeps getting people in legal trouble chasing the same scoreboard.

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FOLLOW CLIFF
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/CliffGray
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/Cliffgry/
Facebook - https://facebook.com/PursuitWithCliff

Pursuit With Cliff Podcast
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/interviews-and-podcasts/

Cliff's Hunt Planning and Strategy Membership
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/membership/

Hunt. Fish. Spear. (Experiences, Courses and Seminars)
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/Experiences

Merch
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/shop/

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Double rifles are the least understood firearms in hunting. They cost more than most trucks, the two barrels are regulated by hand one pair at a time, and most guys buy one for a charge that is never going to happen. I brought in Chris from Heym USA to explain the whole thing from the ground up. Why they cost what they cost. What barrel regulation actually is and why lasers cannot shortcut it. Why 50% of the weight has to sit between your hands. Why a 26 inch barreled double carries shorter than the 22 inch bolt gun in your truck.

Then we get into the part that applies to anybody shooting a big bore. Why the 450/400 Nitro Express is the first double rifle cartridge he tells guys to buy. Why the professional hunter's rifle and the client's rifle are two completely different tools. Why the honest answer on recoil is the one nobody wants to hear. We finish on red dots, grizzly handguns, one hole versus two on a Cape buffalo, and my great great grandfather's Damascus barreled Francotte 12 gauge.

In this episode:
- Why barrel regulation makes a double rifle expensive, explained without the mystique
- The 450/400 Nitro Express, 400 grains at 2100 fps, at roughly 375 H&H recoil
- Weight between the hands, five frame sizes, and why barrel length is about balance, not velocity
- Kinetic energy versus shot placement, and what a 700 Nitro Express actually did to an elephant skull
- PH rifle versus client rifle, and the aspirational marketing that sells you recoil you will never practice with
- Soft point in the right barrel, solid in the left, and why two holes beat one

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FOLLOW CLIFF
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/CliffGray
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/Cliffgry/
Facebook - https://facebook.com/PursuitWithCliff

Pursuit With Cliff Podcast
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/interviews-and-podcasts/

Cliff's Hunt Planning and Strategy Membership
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/membership/

Hunt. Fish. Spear. (Experiences, Courses and Seminars)
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/Experiences

Merch
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/shop/

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https://PursuitWithCliff.com/#Newsletter

Most elk hunters don't lose animals because they don't know enough. They lose them because they bugle in the middle of a meadow, creep at 800 yards, sprint at 200, and talk themselves out of the stalk halfway up the mountain. Cliff sits down with outfitter Cade Cole and Eric to break down what actually went wrong, and right, for the guys who came through the in-person Elk Hunting Masterclass in Wyoming this season.

This is the unfiltered debrief: pacing, careless vocalization, wind discipline, onX habits, and the trailhead bubble that leaves miles of glassable elk country untouched every September. Not theory. Every scenario in the course came from a hunt one of us blew.

The elk class discussed - https://pursuitwithcliff.com/elk-hunting-master-class/

Eric Wilson's Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/do-not-go-quietly-w-eric-wilson

In this episode:

• Why the biggest barrier to the course isn't experience, it's ego
• How five days of scenarios stack more reps than five years of hunting
• The pacing inversion: too slow at 800 yards, too fast inside 200
• Why guys bail halfway through a well-planned stalk, and the football parallel that explains it
• The trailhead bubble and the outfitter bubble, and the unhunted elk between them
• Why the overnight spike stalk works far more often than hunters believe
• What a Level 2 course would look like: spike camps and long stalks with no onX

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FOLLOW CLIFF
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/CliffGray
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/Cliffgry/
Facebook - https://facebook.com/PursuitWithCliff

Pursuit With Cliff Podcast
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/interviews-and-podcasts/

Cliff's Hunt Planning and Strategy Membership
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/membership/

Hunt. Fish. Spear. (Experiences, Courses and Seminars)
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/Experiences

Merch
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/shop/

SUBSCRIBE TO CLIFF'S NEWSLETTER:
https://PursuitWithCliff.com/#Newsletter