The bad thing about cut down calls

[Ricky Spanish]

These old olts when cut are notorious for "bubbling the reed".
Mine did it in one season.
The reed tip splits basically.
This is a thin reed that hasn't split yet.

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The tip gets extra white looking when it's split.
When you wail on a cutdown it's hammering the hell out of the reed tip.

[Ricky Spanish]

This one is deep, loud, raspy and has potential.
I'll try it in Arkansas but probably will use my Illinois cut and the d2 keyhole cutdown.
This one has no keyhole.
It's not bakelite.

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Once you hear one of these old d2s tuned deep then see how well it works you're hooked.

[Anotherone]

There’s a sound file somewhere with a 380 reed in a mag hen that sounds like your Olt. I can’t remember which site I heard it on.

[PorkChop]

I got me one of them rolling thunder cut down calls two years ago for Christmas. First time I blew it I was like what the hell is this. I thought I was too old for this damn thing as it takes way more air that I’m used too but with some practice I am able to call birds with it.

That being said, for the most part North Dakota is not a place where you need to be a great duck caller and so it’s easy to get lazy. I know for a fact I couldn’t hold a candle to you southern guys right now. It’s actually embarrassing for me how bad my duck and goose calling has become over the years.

[Rick]

No one's going to come slap your hand if you tune a cutdown for better fit.

[PorkChop]

I can tune a goose call but I would not even know where to begin with a duck call. When I was a kid I would not even fathom about cutting up my PS Olt or messing with the reeds. Of course I was lucky to get a call and so it had to be taken care of. Honestly I think the first I ever heard of it was when I was listening to the end of the line podcast and the rolling thunder guy was on there it just blew me away! Made me wish I had a time machine and I could go back in time.

[Rick]

I can tune a goose call but I would not even know where to begin with a duck call.

Though you'll find they can vary by model, Rolling Thunder sells extra reeds for all of them. Three should be plenty, but get five in case you get impatient, try to skip using your current best as a template only and eff it up by cutting too much from it. And get some of the appropriate cork, as well.

Here's a quick course I recently posted elsewhere (twice?):

Since I'm not a collector and sell or give away nearly all calls that don't make the grade, I never cut the shop-tuned reed, but mark it with an "O" for original and save it to go with the call to its next owner. I use that original reed as a template to mark a starting place on a new, uncut reed with a fine point pen. If the "O" reed is too light/short to suit me, I make my fist cut on the mark's outside edge. If too heavy/long, as in the Singleton's (and most everything Jim's tuned for me) case, my first cut is along the mark's inside edge. I'll repeat that process using the last-cut reed as my new template and cutting the thinnest possible sliver from the appropriate edge of my new marks until the tuning gets worse, instead of better. The idea being to always use the current.best reed as a template, rather than cutting it again, so that when you eventually go too far, you'll still have that best possible reed.

Might oughta add here that you'll want to be cutting the base end of the reed, not the dagger tipped working end.

[PorkChop]

Might oughta add here that you'll want to be cutting the base end of the reed, not the dagger tipped working end.

See this right here is why you are the man! I definitely would’ve been cutting the wrong end

[Ricky Spanish]

Tossed my other light reed.
If it bubbles it will happen here.
Your reed can split too.

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[Ricky Spanish]

I got me one of them rolling thunder cut down calls two years ago for Christmas. First time I blew it I was like what the hell is this. I thought I was too old for this damn thing as it takes way more air that I’m used too but with some practice I am able to call birds with it.

That being said, for the most part North Dakota is not a place where you need to be a great duck caller and so it’s easy to get lazy. I know for a fact I couldn’t hold a candle to you southern guys right now. It’s actually embarrassing for me how bad my duck and goose calling has become over the years.

What actually matters is your confidence which is why we must establish a pecking order and put a mental beat-down on the competition so brutal that they just set in their blinds silently sobbing.

[PorkChop]

I have had my goose reeds split and bubble but never a duck reed.

Boy oh boy do I feel like a moron as I see the sticky post above this one is called how to tune a duck call the Rick way

[Ricky Spanish]

I have had my goose reeds split and bubble but never a duck reed.

Boy oh boy do I feel like a moron as I see the sticky post above this one is called how to tune a duck call the Rick way

Some world champion guy made a real good video on tuning a duck call. Same guy is pretty full of himself.
I would be unbearable if I'd won a couple contests.

[Rick]

I have had my goose reeds split and bubble but never a duck reed.

Standard .010 J-frame reeds almost never, if ever, blister, but the thicker .014 mylar used goose and cutdown calls seems appreciably more prone to it - another reason to have extras on hand.

[Ricky Spanish]

Transitioning from jframe to a cutdown hurts.
If you try using j frame style air you come up weak.
You gotta push push push the air.
How I do it is to quit with the hut hut hut and go to kak kak kakking. To develop the throat muscles should hurt.
It did on me anyway.
I had to get kicked in the nuts a few times by champion duck callers I resisted this so hard...
Then one day I found this...
What does it say?
Kak kak kak kak
Ok?
Antique set of OLT instructions got me to try.

My father was the worst duck caller ever and he set me back years by interpreting the instructions as kaw kaw kaw kaw. ...he really sounded awful but I was 14 and he was using calls with real reeds when I first started hunting so naturally developing up to acrylics and cutdowns was never going to happen without help.
Finally I got it

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You know it took a court order to get my dad to take me duck hunting? Imagine that.

[Rick]

Running cutdowns seems a bit like dog training: the only thing two out of three practitioners will agree on is that the other one's doing it wrong. Some say "straight clean air," others say "straight clean air gated by your hand" and others initially gate their "straight clean air" with tongue-tip-to-roof-of-mouth reference sounds like that Olt "K", Bryce Decker's "T" or the "D" I finally stumbled on through trial and error before learning of other gating methods.

Seems to me that as long as one tunes his own to fit his air, all of the above, and likely whatever makes one's j-frames run to suit them, will probably work. Gating, by whatever means, to build a bit of initial pressure just lets one move a heavier (thicker or longer) reed with less wind. And I'm currently having some fun running a LA Cut Singleton that's bored for much more inherent volume than anything else I own and tuned light enough for me to find more ducks in by varying those presentations, instead of going for maximum cut-down crunch with a longer reed I'd have to gate for my tired old lungs to send way the hey down range for any length of time.

'Course, it might not prove anything special at all on game, but I'm getting my money's worth out of fun experimenting with this one and in anticipation of hunting it, rather than just the "now I know" return on most of the calls that have passed through my hands.

[Ricky Spanish]

Running cutdowns seems a bit like dog training: the only thing two out of three practitioners will agree on is that the other one's doing it wrong. Some say "straight clean air," others say "straight clean air gated by your hand" and others initially gate their "straight clean air" with tongue-tip-to-roof-of-mouth reference sounds like that Olt "K", Bryce Decker's "T" or the "D" I finally stumbled on through trial and error before learning of other gating methods.

Seems to me that as long as one tunes his own to fit his air, all of the above, and likely whatever makes one's j-frames run to suit them, will probably work. Gating, by whatever means, to build a bit of initial pressure just lets one move a heavier (thicker or longer) reed with less wind. And I'm currently having some fun running a LA Cut Singleton that's bored for much more inherent volume than anything else I own and tuned light enough for me to find more ducks in by varying those presentations, instead of going for maximum cut-down crunch with a longer reed I'd have to gate for my tired old lungs to send way the hey down range for any length of time.

'Course, it might not prove anything special at all on game, but I'm getting my money's worth out of fun experimenting with this one and in anticipation of hunting it, rather than just the "now I know" return on most of the calls that have passed through my hands.

The trick is tuning it heavy enough to wail on yet light enough to where you can flirt with over-blowing it.
Thats where the nice squeals come from.
I can't control it but close.
It'd be nice to squeal at the beginning or ends of quacks.
It gets fun playing with that.