Building A Hunter’s Rifle: The Heart of SOLUS - Aero precision
“The hunter that travels out into the woods is lost to the world, yet finds himself” – Unknown
With the impending launch of SOLUS, I wanted to get this rifle off our testing range and into the field. So, I called Matt, our creative director, and asked a simple question, “Do you want to go hunting”? Not surprisingly, it was a resounding yes, so we began to plan. I identified three goals for our trip. They were to test our product afield, get in the backcountry, and create memories with people we care about. If we can harvest some animals, that’s great; if not, we have still succeeded in our original goals.
Hunting is one of the oldest human pursuits and still lives in our DNA. Growing up on the Umatilla Indian Reservation outside Pendleton, Oregon, my love for hunting began early. I spent my summers with my grandmother, living on a scaffold over the tribal waters of the Columbia. Catching and selling salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon to urbanites from the surrounding Portland metro areas and learning cultural skills like hunting, primitive weapon making, and horsemanship at a tribal program called “Culture Camp.” The fall and winters were spent with my cousins chasing mule deer and rocky mountain elk on foot or by horseback. I walked logging roads to harvest fast-moving Black-tailed jackrabbits with my lever action rimfire, dreaming of how I would fare as Brian from the novel “Hatchet.” These core memories live with me forever.
