Requiem for a Turkey Load

I really cannot remember the last time I blew my wad at paper. It must have been ten years ago. I’ve been shooting pretty much the same load at turkeys since 1996, Federal Premium 3-inch 12 Gauge 2-ounce #4. The boxes have changed. The load has changed– twice in 25 years. Once, the load itself changed. That was when they introduced the Flitecontrol Wad. I got an idea about 8 years ago that Federal might be dropping it from their inventory, so I stocked up. I was right. I have not seen the load listed in several years. It’s a shame.

In the course of the those 25 years, I have taken dozens of gobblers, and missed on a several more. I have to say that I missed more of them at under 10 yards than over 30– that Flitecontrol Wad is rather unforgiving at close distances. It will stick itself in the gobbler at 15 yards. I have accidentally killed gobblers at 60 and 80 yards with this load. It was accidental in that I totally misjudged distances for reasons I will explain later in this missive. I managed to bag both birds, but the latter required hand-to-hand combat to finish the job.

My reasons for picking this load was that I once hunted with a rather illustrious bunch of turkey hunters out of Hernando, Mississippi whose patriarch was the late Bobby Leatherman. I got to hunt with Bobby himself once. This was near the dawn of my turkey hunting career, and I was still quite green and impressionable. Bobby’s whole clan shot the 3-Inch Federal Premium #4’s in those days. Yes, it was old-school, but it worked.

I still have several boxes of the 2-inch loads, but I decided I should try something else. My stock won’t last forever. I managed to score 3 boxes of the 1 3/4-ounce Federal Grand Slam– that’s what they’re calling them now. They’re still copper-plated lead and still have the Flite-Control Wad. However, having over 12% less lead showed both at my shoulder and on the paper. I was less than enthused. The pattern is still tight, but there are fewer pellets. This is 2022, however. Federal makes 2-Ounce turkey loads only in 3 1/2 inches. Everyone is going for those fancy heavier-than-lead rounds that cost $10 a pop. With a Carlson’s Dead Coyote choke tube, this is an old-school rig start-to-finish. I admit it. I am resisting the trend to make a box of shells as expensive as the gun. I’m sure such things make the turkeys laugh.

A New Scope

The other reason I was out patterning my turkey gun was that I finally decided to change out my scope. While the rest of the world has been moving towards red dots and reflexes and what-not, I have stuck with a standard 1.5-4.5X32 scope. I’ve got bad eyes. I need about 2-3X magnification, and most of the optics I have seen for turkey guns are also too dark for my taste. I actually have a decent Red-Dot and a Bushnell that I tried out on other firearms, but they just are not right for me. Last year, on one of the gobs I called in, I noticed that the old BSA scope just was not cutting it anymore– at least not in comparison to all the nice Bushnell scopes I have acquired in the intervening decade. The BSA looked muddy in comparison. I had a couple of the 1.5-4.5X32 Bushnell Banner scopes become surplus, so decided to mount it on my Mossberg 500. The change was tremendous. That Dawn-to-Dusk coating really makes these scopes bright. I mounted it over the winter, and this was my first chance to try it out.

Look, I am not going to try and tell you that this is the ultimate solution in turkey optics. It is compensation for bad eyesight. Optical scopes on a turkey gun are great, but they are not for everyone. They have one huge flaw; once your eye is settled in, you are completely oblivious to range. Normally this is not a problem, but sometimes it can be decisive. Here is an example:

Last Tag Filled Amid Mortal Combat

Since that episode in 2016, I’ve learned to raise my head a bit and get a final range estimate with both eyes. A turkey in a scope, surrounded by green grass can be at 20 or 80 yards, and it all looks the same.

The Rest of the Trip

This was a great trip. Moose and Mooselette came down Friday night. Moose fixed some great burgers for us. Blacksmith had originally been going to take me to the auction in Mount Olivet, but we threw those plans out the window as soon as we heard Team Moose was on their way. Mooselette and I got in a trip to the Honey Hole and The Hand to scope out the birds. There were quite a few gobblers within earshot, but nothing on the property that we could hear. I am bringing home the board I put up at Honey Hole– The Fake Stump. The squirrels had gnawed off a corner, and I’m going to shorten it by about a quarter and then remount it before season. I had trouble getting myself turned around on last year’s Opener for a surprise gobbler coming in at my 3 O’Clock. The new board will just cover the width between the two trees and nothing more.

Dolly got her first chance at a rabbit while we were sitting out at the thoughtful spot at sundown Friday. For a short-legged Bassett/Dachshund/Beagle mix, she can really fly when she wants to. The rabbit got lucky. Dolly stayed up on the porch while I went about patterning the shotgun behind the Curing Shed. She was somewhat miffed about the gunfire, but not panicky. This is good news. The Bassett Rescue people said they thought she had been abandoned due to extreme gun-shyness.

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