What (Still) Makes a Great Turkey Gun

First off, I’d like to draw your attention to:

What Makes a Great Turkey Gun?

What Makes a Great Turkey Gun?

March 18, 2011.

It’s been the better part of a decade since I wrote that. I see everyone talking about their new turkey rigs. I decided to go back and look at what I said, and see if it still held up.

Do I still believe it? Yes.

But Shaman! What about all those nice 20 gauges? What about all those fancy heavier than lead turkey loads?

My answer to that is, what about all the turkeys? They have not changed.

Look, I’m not going to fight with anyone that says their $800 super-duper turkey rig is the best thing out there. I wrote that piece after 30 years of turkey hunting, and it is now getting on to 40. When I started, there were no dedicated turkey shotguns. There were no screw-in choke systems. A good trap gun was a good turkey gun, but folks made do with what was out there. A 12 GA 2 3/4″ high-brass pheasant load was about as good as it got. Nobody faulted you if you took a 16 GA or a 20 GA out, so long as it would throw a pattern that would put a couple of pellets into a dixie cup at a given yardage. None of that has changed.

What’s changed is the technology at the far end. Guys put together rigs that can shoot 80 yards. My personal feeling is “why bother?” However, that seems to be the fashion nowadays. Truth? up until a few years ago, my shots on a gobbler were averaging 17.5 yards. Recently, it’s gone up to 20. I can still claim I’ve taken more birds inside 10 yards as outside 40. I’m not a troglodyte that says it’s not the way it’s done. It just happens that way.

Let’s go through my 2011 specs for a turkey gun point by point:

Pump: A semi is heavy, a single-shot is light. Pumps give you more than one shot without too much fuss. Some people like a heavier gun to stave off recoil. Some want one that is light to carry long distances. I walk about a half-mile to the blind. I find a pump is just right. The other thing to consider is that a double-barrel Side-by-Side may be great for swinging on clays, but try holding that sucker up to your face for 5 minutes, before saying it is the best for turkey. My old Rem 1100 auto used to feel like a lead brick in a very small amount of time.

Gauge: 12. ’nuff said. Price out a lead high brass load like a Remington Nitro-Mag Buffered Magnums in #4,5 or 6 and compare it to any dedicated turkey load. I use a 3-inch. A 2 3/4-inch is just fine. Look at availability. Look at recoil. Let me be honest: I haven’t shot Rem Nitro-Mags at turkeys in 20 years, but my sons do. I use Federal lead #4 3-inch 2oz, but they’re not made anymore. I still have a stash that may last me 10 years. The closest Federal product?

. . . and I’d be the first to tell you these are way over the top. This load and most others deliver more punishment to your shoulder as an elephant gun. Exaggeration?

From Chuck Hawk’s Website:

Load	Weight	Lbs Recoil	Velocity fps
12 gauge, 3″ (1 7/8 at 1210)	8.75	54.0	18.0
.416 Rem. Mag. (400 at 2400)	10.0	52.9	18.5

. . . all this to take out a 20 lb bird! The heydey of the 3.5 inch turkey gun is gone. Folks are now going for 20 gauge and even .410, and they’re compensating for it by buying extravagantly expensive heavier-than-lead shot. Frankly, I don’t see it.

Choke: I’ve used a Carlson’s Dead Coyote for over a decade. No complaints. It’s not a super-tight choke and coupled with #4 lead, it works quite well beyond 40 yards.

I still like a screw-in choke system to dial in the right pattern, but I don’t fiddle with it anymore. My sons do not have dedicated turkey guns, and they adjust chokes for whatever they may be hunting. I used to have to do the same with different barrels when I was using my Remington 1100 TB trap gun for turkey.

The key to this all is not trying to see how far you can get. The trick is finding something that is going to work in a reasonable distance and then gauging your setups and your shots to work within that range.

Sights: For $20, you can put a glue-on fiber optics on the rib of your shotgun. For people with normal sight, that’s enough. When I went to a dedicated turkey gun, I went with a scope. My eyes were bad enough that I couldn’t see the pin and the turkey at the same time. After 50 or so, my eyes started to get better. However, I keep the scope on, just because. . . well, because. That scope cost me a whopping $50 bucks. Don’t think you have to put a $300 scope on a turkey shotgun.

Sling: Definitely. Use padded nylon, not leather. It rains a lot in the spring– ‘Nuff said.

Paint:

For the low-down on painting a turkey gun read this:

Bubba Paints His Turkey Gun

The shaman’s Mossy 500

The guide that helped me get my first turkey carried an old WIN 1200 with strips of green spray paint going down the gun. That was all you needed. I painted my shotgun with Krylon Fusion in 2009– two years before I wrote the article. It’s now 2020. Yeah, I’ve got a few scratches on it, but nothing worth patching. SuperCore and Moose have the same rig I have– Mossy 500. Angus has a Remington Express 12 GA. I painted SuperCore’s gun. Moose and Angus carry them in original wood/blued finish. None of us have any real advantage over the others. The takeaway here is that spending extra for a dipped camo finish is an unnecessary extravagance.

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