Planning on my first turkey hunt

[bullseye]

It has arrived!! I got the first choice of April 19 -23rd. Guess I'm going turkey hunting!!!

[Jack]

Congratulations, Bullseye !
And good luck !

[jimh]

bullseye what choke (i assume it is a fixed choke model) constriction does your remington have? if it is safe to shoot steel through i would give hard thought to going with the heavy shot in #6's. it should shoot very tight and with heavy shot you would have killing range easily out to 40 yds with a mod. or full choke. they aint cheap but you'll only need a box, a few shells for pattering and the rest for those turkeys. good luck keep us posted come hunt time. my son goes on his first turkey hunt this spring and i'm more pumped for it than he is. ;D he'll be shooting my win. 1400 in 20 ga and i plan on going with heavy shot for him in 2 3/4" loads. i figure he'll be good to 30yds with that settup but once we pattern it we'll then determin his range based on shotgun performance and his shooting skills.

[bullseye]

I have a full choked 30" barrel for the old 870 and I would think that would do the trick, even with 2/3-4" as some have mentioned. A couple of years ago I put my old 1.5-4x scope on the top of it for use as a backup deer gun in case the .270 gave me grief. I have been thinking that it may also work fairly well for turkey with the scope on it. Thoughts?

[Purebred Redneck]

NONONONONONONO
I'm going to have a heart attack!!!
I retract my statement last month regarding that if you only choose to listen to one thing out of my mouth this year that it was to sit side by side with someone.
[glow=red,2,300]I knew january was too early[/glow]

I had a scope on my 870 for 3 years. While I did shoot 3 birds (two jump shot and one that actually came in), I would strongly NOT use a regular scope on a shotgun turkey hunting. When you site the gun in, you are in a well defined position (and the same is normally true when deer hunting); but when you're turkey hunting you have the tendency to actually sit on your back instead of your butt. It's the damnest thing actually sitting on your back but you actually do because the longer you sit still waiting for the bird - you will actually slide and sloutch down into an incrediably uncomfortable position.

Now try to shoot a shotgun like that.
Trick question - you actually can.
But try to shoot a scoped shotgun like that
You can't !!!!!
The eye relief is all F'd up.

[Jack]

Well, turkey guns are actually being aimed, like a rifle, rather than swung at a flying bird. So, rifle type aiming devices make some sense- iron sights, scopes, red dots, etc.
Now Red has a fair point about the eye relief (Holy Crap! I'm agreeing with Red !) If you're kind of slouched in a semi lying down position, you will likely have eye relief problems. If you find a spot to set up where you're sitting up, you should be OK.
FWIW, my turkey gun has a red dot type sight on it- any eye relief works. Good set up, IME.

[bullseye]

So Red does that mean I have to listen to TWO things this year??

[jimh]

bullseye if you're shooting a factory full choke you should be fine but you wont know for sure until you pattern it with your turkey loads. it's supprising how diff. any shotgun may shoot with those heavy high loads. if it don't shoot reasonably to your point of aim then maybe a fiber optic site might not be a bad idea. now you get yourself some super xxfull turkey choke and you really need to look to getting one. but with your fixed choke shotgun it don't look like your choke is getting changed anytime soon. be carefull if you do try shooting heavy shot though as it tends to pattern tight, real tight.

[Bill]

Don't use the Heavy-Shot in the fixed choke barrel Bullseye. It can make it look like an Anaconda that swallowed a Rabbit but hasn't got it all the way down yet. Big Bulg. Heavy-Shot is harder than steel, remember that. Plus Heavy-Shot hates overchoking and anything tighter than Mod is too much choke.
Full choke on a fixed choke will do just fine with lead, SO, try some of the Remington Duplex Turkey lead loads or the Federal Turkey lead loads. Both of them have buffering and shoot very tight in a fixed choke gun. Plenty tight enough for what your doing. Keep your shots at under 40 yds and before you go hunting pattern it at differant yardages so you will know where its hitting.

The 2 3/4" shells will work just fine for you. They still pack more of a punch than a 20 gauge and a lot of guys use the 20 Ga in 2 3/4" and do just fine. I know one guy that uses a .410 and gets his bird with one shot every year. You just have to know where the center of your pattern is hitting is all.

[jimh]

hey bill, i thought remington said it was ok to shoot their heavy shot out of a factory full barrel. is this not true?

[donnie]

Tom,
I like a scope on a turkey gun as Jack says, A turkey gun is aimed not pointed, the scope gives you the ability to sight in your gun so that the densest part of your pattern is centered in the head/neck area.
I have also killed several birds with the hevishot pellets. They are very lethal, however I would not personally shoot them through your gun. You are shooting extremely heavy payloads of a shot that as Bill says is harder than steel. I used a Cabelas choke tube manufactured as a turkey extra full hevishot tube in my 11/87. WOW! very nice kills on 2 Kansas toms. One of which was 40 odd paces out and simply never twitched after the shot. That said I have killed birds in S.D Wi. and Iowa with Federal premium turkey loads in #6 shot lead that were every bit as dead as the birds I killed with hevishot. You know the drill........ find a load that shoots well in your particular gun and don't look back. Hope you have a great time! Turkeys are a real blast!

[Bill]

The definition of Full choke is often lost on a lot of people. Do some reading on chokes or better yet do some readings with a mic on the constriction of a choke. It will really shock you what you find out.

Chokes for steel shot will also differ greatly than chokes for lead shot. If you read the chokes (some manufactures do print this on the sides of their chokes) some will say Full Steel, Mod Lead.

Another factor is that you must know the bore diameter of a barrel to reliabley be able to check and see what choke your shooting
The reason for this is that I have seen barrels bored .721 and seen chokes installed on them that used a theoretical Mod choke which when measured was a .725. So what was the guy shooting??? Cylinder ;D Boy that gun could hit anything

Now Tom who has a know factor of An Actual Lead Full Choke is bored too tight for a steel shot Full choke. He also has a barrel thats chambered for 2 3/4" shells.
Not a problem. ;D You buy 2 3/4" Lead Turkey Loads and go hunting

What happens if he used say Heavy-Shot in that gun. Its really hard to say. Most times when I have seen this done the patterns were horrible in the fact that the pattern had holes all over it. Mostly from the Heavy-Shot being squeezed down too much and the shot basicaly hitting each other comming out of the choke and pushing (for want of a better word) other shot out of the pattern. They ricochet around really giveing you screwy patterns
Heavy-Shot when shot threw a barrels like this can also cut thru the shotcup and scratch the heck out of your guns bore. Heavy shot is not round and has lots of sharp edges

But when you shoot heavy shot thru a choke/barrel combination thats matched up right you have the makings of a totally awsome pattern at super long ranges for a shotgun. (Remember, heavy-shot has the world record for the tightest pattern according to Remington) ;D

Ok kids thats the lesson of the day. ;D ;D

[deputydon]

?? just kidding Bill

[Bill]

Thats the reaction I usually get D-D ;D
HHhhhUuuuuuu
Most people don't study internal ballistics on shotguns as it gets a bit on the side and really mixes you up till you finally plow thru it enough that you understand it.
I did it because I had a shotgun that kept hitting clear out to 50 yds on pheasants and was bored Skt1 and Skt2. Couldn't figure out why it kept killing birds when my full choke didn't do a thing. It was all patterns D-D All patterns.

[bullseye]

To keep PBR from having a heart attack I have decided to borrow my buddy's turkey gun. An all camo Rem 870 that shoots 3" shells. I need to visit the local sporting goods store and pick up some 3" shells in #6 as 54 suggested.

I have all of the camo I need but was up by my brother's a couple of weekends ago and found out he can't hunt the entire time. That means I if I don't bag a turkey in the first couple of days I will be hunting alone and probably need to purchase a turkey call.

Any suggestions?