Patterning Turkey Loads
Patterning your shotgun for turkey hunting is an important step if you want to be successful. A few years ago, I got an extended super full choke for my turkey gun as a gift. With all the guys on T.V. doing it, I thought a 50 yard shot was now as easy as aiming and squeezing. After 2 knocked down birds but zero kills, I decided that I needed to do some serious patterning work to figure out what the gun was capable of, and what a realistic distance would be for me. Turns out that the load I was using produced the least dense patterns of any I tried at every yardage (I tested them at 30, 40 and 50 yards). My new gun/choke/load combo is perfectly capable of killing turkeys at 50 yards, but after looking at the patterns on targets I can sure see why I didn’t kill those 2 turkeys with the old load. The photo above is the target shot with my Remington 870 Super Mag, with a Remington extended super full turkey choke shooting Federal Strut-Shok 3-1/2″ with 2 oz of #5s at 40 yards. While my 50 yard pattern would kill a bird, I think 40 yards is my personal range limit. As you can see, there are no holes in the pattern, and if I do my part that’s a dead bird every time. I was happy to find in my testing that the best patterning load in my gun was not the most expensive either. I tried 4 different loads from 3 manufacturers, and the one that worked best was the 2nd from the bottom as far as cost. The Super-Duper Spur Spanker Turkey Ninja Wad in the most expensive load didn’t work worth a crap in my gun past 30 yards. This is not to say that load won’t work in your gun. It is to say that you need to test different loads in your particular gun/choke combination to see which one patterns best. There are a ton of chokes out there, some costing $75.00 or more. I’ve never tried one myself, but I doubt that even they are ”silver bullets”. No matter the choke, pick at least 3 loads from a few ammo companies and put the lead downrange to make sure when you take a shot at that tom he goes down and stays down. Let me know what your favorite load and choke is.
