Donald Trump Jr. & the Field Ethos Crew Talk First Gun, Last Gun & What’s Next

We got to sit down with Donald Trump Jr., Field Ethos President Ron Dan, and COO Mike Schoby for a very impromptu episode of First Last Next.

Don talked boarding-school skeet ranges, his grandfather’s woods in communist Czechoslovakia, and his ongoing love affair with weird loophole guns. Ron and Mike brought first-gun stories that hit just as hard, from a $250 Sports Authority shotgun to a 1909 Stevens single shot that was equal parts family heirloom and sketchy field hazard.

The crew dropped by between meetings, fresh off a Chipotle run, and pulled up to the table for a rapid-fire conversation about guns, hunting, family, Field Ethos, and the kind of outdoor lifestyle you don’t have to apologize for.

Meet the Table: Three Industry Legends

Donald Trump Jr. needs no introduction. Big gun guy. Lifelong hunter. Long-range shooter. The kind of guy who buys land with his brother for the sole purpose of having a rifle range that stretches past a mile.

Ron Dan is the President of Field Ethos and, in his own words, the company’s “former director of equity and inclusion.” Promotion noted.

Mike Schoby is the elder statesman of the bunch. Thirty-plus years in the industry, a writer’s writer, and the guy quietly building a collection of esoteric firearms most people have only read about in old hunting books.

As Mike said about Ron, he has forgotten more about handguns than most people on that floor will ever know.

That kind of table.

Don’s First Gun: A Remington 1100 and a Grandfather in the Woods

Don grew up on the 70th floor of Trump Tower. His real childhood, though, happened in Czechoslovakia.

His mother had escaped communism there. Every summer, his grandfather would take him back, drop him at the edge of the woods, and tell him in fluent Czech that he’d see him at dark.

Don described it as the complete opposite of everything he knew growing up in New York City. He fell in love with it instantly.

By eighth grade, he was at boarding school in central Pennsylvania, where the campus had its own skeet and trap range. There was no YouTube. No shortcut. Just books, mentors, and a lot of trial and error.

His first real upland walk-up came courtesy of an old-school dean of students who pulled him aside one afternoon and told him to meet in the parking lot at 6 a.m. Dress warm.

That walk set the hook. From there Don decided his free time would be spent in the wilderness.

Ron’s First Gun: A $250 Winchester From Sports Authority

Ron didn’t grow up in gun culture. His family didn’t have a lot of money. But shooting was the thing he loved most.

So, when he turned 18, his parents took him to Sports Authority, “where you bought guns back then,” and they picked out the cheapest 12 gauge on the rack.

A Winchester 1300 Black Shadow. About 250 bucks and it rocks.

He still has it.

It started life as a trap and skeet gun. Now it’s his go-to turkey gun, knocking down longbeards at 90 yards with the right load.

Elliot mentioned that it was Ron who talked him out of selling his first gun, and how thankful for that he was.

Don commented “You’d never forgive yourself.”

He was right.

Mike’s First Gun: A 1909 Stevens Single Shot

Mike’s first gun was his grandfather’s: a 1909 Stevens single shot. Straight-pull. No safety to speak of.

As a kid, Mike would accidentally pull the pin loose and have to lower the hammer in the field.

Don’s response: “Field Ethos’ motto. Safety third.”

The smoothbore had been shot out decades before Mike ever held it. It would keyhole at 25 yards.

It didn’t matter. It was his grandfather’s. And now it belongs to his son, even though Mike has plenty of nicer guns he could have passed along.

As Mike put it, his son doesn’t realize it doesn’t shoot very well and is kind of dangerous.

But it’s still in the family. That counts for a lot.

Don’s Last Gun: A Watch for a Rigby Highland Stalker

Don’s most recent gun came from a trade. A watch for a .30-06 Rigby Highland Stalker from Jason Vinson.

There wasn’t much of a thought process, he liked it, he wanted it, now he has it.

What there is, though, is a long history of creative workarounds. Coming up in New York meant living inside a maze of restrictions, and Don’s collection still reflects it.

He has 15 or 20 Remington XPs, the old bolt-action handguns, scoped with high-end glass and Nightforce optics because, in much of New York, he couldn’t hunt with a rifle.

As Don put it, if you’re covering a 500-yard field, how do you do that?

You throw a tactical scope on a handgun and call it a handgun.

He killed a deer at 450 yards with one.

Basically, a hand-rifle. And honestly, that’s awesome.

Florida has been a relief. The suppressor laws actually work like suppressor laws should.

Ron’s Last Gun: Smith & Wesson 2.0 Metal HD

Ron picked it up Thursday. Took it to the ranch Saturday. First ten rounds at seven yards were all touching.

The 5-inch steel-frame compact is Smith & Wesson’s new entry into the heavier-duty carry class. Ron, who runs the handgun side of Field Ethos’ editorial coverage, got it as part of a work test.

He’s impressed, which means that gun should be considered, he’s tough to make happy.

Mike’s Last Gun: A Blaser K95 Single Shot

Mike already has a stack of Blaser R8s and every red-dot configuration imaginable. But he didn’t have a single shot, and he’d always wanted a K95.

So he ordered himself one for Christmas.

As Mike put it, we’ve got all these wonderful repeating guns. Give me a single shot.

Practical? Sure.

Necessary? Probably not.

Cool? Absolutely.

Don’s Next Gun: Long Range. Always Long Range.

Don and his brother bought a piece of land for one reason: to have a rifle range long enough to shoot past a mile.

Long range is his golf.

As he put it, give him four or five long-range guns and he’s happy. He loves shooting small things at really long distances.

Caliber depends on the day. He’ll shoot .22 long range at 350 yards just for fun. But if he’s working a tight three-day window on a tag and his travel schedule is jammed, he wants enough gun to come home with meat from a long shot.

Suppressors? Now, yes. Don’s suppressor collection is catching up to his gun collection quickly, which we highly approve of.

New York made him gun-shy on cans for years. Florida has thankfully changed that.

Ron’s Next Gun: Smith & Wesson Night Guard .44 Special

As Ron put it: “I’m a revolver nerd, and everybody knows that.”

Smith & Wesson re-released the Night Guard line at SHOT this year, the L-frame revolvers they originally produced in the late 2000s. Ron sold them when he worked in retail as a college kid. He could never afford one back then.

Now they’re back. Upgraded with a 3-inch barrel. No internal lock.

He wants the five-shot .44 Special.

Of course he does.

Mike’s Next Gun: A Custom .62 Caliber Muzzleloader

Mike is meeting with a custom builder in Reno to commission a Hopkins & Allen-style under-hammer muzzleloader in .62 caliber, complete with an engraved round action.

It’s the kind of esoteric choice that only makes sense if you’ve already gone all the way down the traditional muzzleloader rabbit hole.

Montana opened a heritage muzzleloader season a few years back, and Mike is all the way in. The under-hammer design also lets him run Blackhorn 209, a small piece of system-gaming Don was quick to appreciate.

As Don said, “What are the rules, and how do I skirt the edge?”

That’s half the fun.

More Than Guns: Politics, Friendships, and the Next Generation

One of the best stretches of the episode had very little to do with guns.

Don talked about the political fight ahead. With midterms on the horizon, he’s heading back on the trail to fight for the issues he believes in, including the Second Amendment and First Amendment.

To him, those fights are connected. We agree.

The goal is simple: leave the country in a better place than he found it and make sure his kids get to experience the America he knows and loves.

Field Ethos lives in that same lane. It’s about preserving the heritage, conservation of the outdoors, and giving people a place where the outdoor lifestyle doesn’t need to be watered down.

Ron’s line was simpler: iron sharpens iron. He works for a company made up of his closest friends, and he wants to be the kind of guy who deserves to be in that room.

Mike took it home.

He had taken his eight-year-old daughter on her first hunt the week before. She killed a great deer. After a year of mostly solo hunts, all he can think about now is the next one with her.

Turkey season. Another deer. A coyote stand.

As Mike put it, it relit a fire in him.

Don jumped on that point. Our generation skipped a step, he said. The dads went hunting to get away from the kids.

Bringing the next generation out is how the whole thing survives.

Final Shot

This is why we love doing the podcast, of course we get to hear about awesome people and the guns they own, but more importantly we get to dive into what makes them tick.

A kid from Manhattan who found the woods through his grandfather. An 18-year-old with a $250 shotgun from Sports Authority. An old-school writer who learned on a smoothbore that barely had a safety.

Different paths all led them to the same table, that’s what we love about this industry.

And now, all three are doing the same thing: passing it on to readers, friends, and their kids.

That’s the whole point.

Thanks to Don, Ron, and Mike for the time. Y’all always have a spot around our campfire.