Here I go again, sounding like one of those dried up old school turds.  I’m not.  I just sound like one, because I can still remember.

Back when I started turkey hunting in the early 80’s, nobody talked about 3.5″ shells, hevi-shot, screw-in chokes and all that other stuff.  I can still remember the advice I got:

1) You got a trap gun?  Good, use that.
2) Anything with a full or modified (!) choke will work
3)  Get some #4 high brass.  If that does not print well, try something between #2 and #6

The way I was told to figure out what your maximum shooting distance was as follows:

1) Set up Dixie cups on a stick. 8 should be enough
2) Start at 10 yards. Shoot a round at a dixie cup.
3) Back up 5 yards and shoot the next cup
4) Repeat
5) The last cup that has 2 pellets through represents your maximum shooting distance.

Anything past 20 yards was worthy of  being a turkey gun.   My Dad’s Model 12 trap gun did it quite well, so that is what I took on my first turkey trip.  I bought 2 boxes of #4 Remington Nitro Buffered Magnums for $8 bucks apiece. I still have some of them left.

So if you are looking for how turkey hunting was meant to be before the ammo companies, shotgun companies, magazine publishers, cable networks,  and the marketing companies started turning turkey hunting into a cargo cult, there you have it.

Oh, by the way, I left out the main culprit:  us. We kept going to the store and looking for that special edge. We did not have the time to go out scouting every day.  We could only hunt a few days a year back then.  We wanted that extra few yards, and we were willing to pay for it.

Now, do you really want the truth about how much gun you need?  It’s easy. Nobody likes it. I can truthfully say it is my least favorite contribution to the sport– less appreciated than my cover scent gum for deer hunters.

The Working Comfort Zone

If you bother to wade through it, you will see that I am trying to get folks to actually focus on the shots they have made, or would have taken as a benchmark for making decisions about shotguns, loads, chokes, and whatever for turkey.  I got a lot of flak from folks, telling me I was trying to tell them how far to shoot.  Quite the contrary, I was trying to get to folks to focus on their own history, rather than what a magazine had told them.  I was trying to  say that although we may spend the season getting ready for 60 yard shots, we may only ever take 25 yard shots.  My other point was to actually sit down and do the ciphering, because we  grossly inflate the need for distance.  Our own pride and the marketing folks have taught us that.

Me?  If you had asked me before I did the figuring, I would have estimated my “Working Comfort Zone” was 25 yards.  I hunt in a place that is filled with cedar thickets and the ground is hilly and uneven.  A turkey can easily be 40 yards away and be invisible due to a fold in the terrain or 10 yards away and still be hidden by an oak.  Yep 25 was my number.

14 yards–that was my Working Comfort Zone. I was stunned when I did it for myself.    Please don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying I meant it that way.  I’m not saying you should limit your shots to 14 yards. What I am saying is that everyone thinks about getting out to some long distance, when most hunters actually shoot their birds at much closer ranges.  Sure I’ve taken birds out to 40 yards and beyond.  The point of all this is usually I do not get a chance to shoot until they are much closer.

money they blew on ammo and chokes back during sighting in.

I’m looking back now on 30-some years of turkey hunting in several states.  I’m thinking of all the turkeys I’ve shot at, or put my gun to.  You can throw out the 65 yard panic shot I took in 2005, or the 80 yard shot I took at the gobbler back in 2011, because I misjudged the distance.  There are probably a couple more there that I’d like to take mulligans on if I thought this out more completely.   I can think of one honest bird taken at exactly 40 yards, and a couple at 30, and all the rest have been climbing up my legs. I don’t  mean this as a boast .   I don’t think I’m that good of a caller. That’s just how it is.

I  have  watched a few come from over 200 yards out across the field, and I took them at 15 yards, but I’ve had probably a dozen or more poke their heads out inside 10 yards and it was the first I had seen or heard of them.  If you take the entire body of my turkey hunting career. I could have taken all but one bird with my original rig, my Dad’s 12 GA trap gun and high brass #4’s.   90 % could have been taken with a modified choke and #6 squirrel loads.

For a beginner, I would be hesitant to do any real work towards a shotgun that shot more than 40 yards, until I had demonstrable proof I needed such a gun. My son is turning 17 during Opening Week.  He has an Rem 870 Trap and shoots 2 3/4″ and never felt the need for anything bigger.   His last gobbler was nearly pecking at his boot laces when he shot.

It is a rare circumstance when I have a shot at a gobbler hung up at 50 yards, let alone 60 or 70.  That’s not to say I don’t have hunting venues that would afford that kind of shot.  The thing of it is, for most hunters, for most turkeys that get hunted,  ranges past 40 yards are moot.  Either the terrain does not allow it, or the cover does not allow it, or the gobbler is coming in and will keep coming in.   I see guys every year that are touting their long range guns in March, but in May all their kill photos include details  like “. . .took his head off at 10 yards,” “Blew him away at 20 yards,”  etc.   I wonder if they’re disappointed they didn’t kill them farther out for all the