I know I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating.

Back when I started turkey hunting– we’re talking Regan’s first term– A good turkey gun was any gun that could put 2 pellets through a Dixie cup at 40 yards. You put a Dixie cup on a stake and backed up given yardage and shot. 2 or more holes through the cup meant you were good to go. Someone had figured out that was enough to kill a turkey. It had probably been a measure for pheasant or geese and they just adapted it. I went the extra mile and put up newspaper behind the Dixie cup to check my overall pattern.

It didn’t matter the gauge 12, 16, or 20 was fine. 10 GA existed, but nobody had one. The shot size decision went something like this: the longer the shot, the bigger the shot had to be. You shot what patterned best, but you were mindful that as you went up in shot size, the usable distance decreased. I can’t tell you why I picked #4 except that probably 3 guys: two buddies and the store manager said to try them first.

There was not much written about turkeys in the rags. I did have my trusty 1942 Outdoor Life ‘Cyclopedia as a guide. Just about everything I learned from it was complete bunk. I’ve posted this here before; it just gives you a flavor for how bad the overall advice was:

Turkey Hunting Circa 1942

As a result, you tended to lean on your buddies and store managers for advice. If you could find someone who knew what they were talking about, you did everything you could to suck them dry. Luckily, one of my best friends was the shotgun editor for Gun Dog Magazine. He and I went on my first turkey hunt together. Bob picked an Ithaca 37 12 GA for the trip, but could only find the deer barrel for it. At the last minute, he called up a friend and borrowed a Charles Day O/U in 12 choked Ful/Full.

Notice that the article says only 12 GA / full choke. I suspect that this was because the state of the art in shell manufacture was still fairly primitive. I started 40 years on from this. Things had progressed to copper-plated shot, in plastic buffers and plastic wads. The overshot card was gone. My loads were star crimped. The card used to disrupt the center of the pattern and cause it to be doughnut-shaped.

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