Re: High velocity vs.
Have changed the order of your questions a bit.
Woodsman10":1casz60v said:
So, what's yalls take on this?
Most our turkey-hunting related
"dilemmas" are more an issue of successful marketing by product sellers
than an issue of successful turkey hunting criteria.
Woodsman10":1casz60v said:
Just the amount of different choices now a days always makes myself second guess myself, even after I killed a dozen or so birds with an 1100 2-3/4" chamber with a fixed improved cylinder choke.
So, to be a successful turkey hunter, to what extent is
ANY gun/choke/shell combination a requirement?
At 35 yards or less (the actually range the majority of old Toms get shot), what difference does it make? Very little, or not much?
Personally, to this day, I believe I've killed more turkeys with 2 3/4" shells (average range being maybe 23 yards) than with what I've more recently started using (as I do believe HTL shot is generally superior to lead). No matter what I have in my hand, suspect that average range of the future turkeys I kill will still remain under 30 yards.
So again, in the big picture of turkey hunting, just what difference does it make, as to what shells we're shooting? Very little, or not much? And we should note that the better longer-range set-ups (tighter chokes/patterns) are in fact a
DISADVANTAGE at close range, possibly the ranges our average shots might be.
I have a friend who will tell you the difference is nil, as he limits out every year in TN, using a bow instead of a shotgun.
Woodsman10":1casz60v said:
It may not matter much. But I remember the old days where you pretty much just got whatever they had in number 4 or 6 shot. There was no HTL, TSS, and the shot buffer seemed new (if it wasn't I was just ignorant to it). There were copper and nickel plated shot.
Truth is, it doesn't matter much, provided you're keeping the shot under approximately 40 yards.
Plated shot will usually both pattern & penetrate slightly better than non-plated lead, so maybe, beyond about 40 yards, "plating" (copper or nickel) may give you an extra yard or two in effective range. Maybe plating alone might turn a 40-yard gun into a 42-yard gun, but no additional advantage at 35 yards?
HTL/TSS simply allow us to use smaller shot (since it's so much "heavier" than lead", thus get denser patterns with the same or better penetration of larger-sized lead pellets. This increases effective range. Just going to HTL/TSS might easily increase one's range from 40 yards (with lead) to 45-50 yards (with basically no other changes in the set-up). Just
takes a lot of pattern testing to find out the extent. But what difference does it make at 35 yards or less?
Woodsman10":1casz60v said:
In yalls opinion, what do you prefer? The heavier amount of shot or the lighter amount of shot with more velocity.
Kinda just "depends" on the circumstances. Again, under 40 yards or so, what difference will it make?
Generally speaking, the lower the velocity, the more uniform the pattern.
But if we carried that to an extreme of way too low, we might not get adequate penetration.
IMO, the main reason many of the HTL loads have relatively slow velocities is to help produce more reliable uniform patterns, and penetration is less an issue with HTL/TSS than with lead.
Generally speaking, if you take the same payload, then pattern it at various velocities, you'll typically find wider, less dense, less uniform patterns the higher the velocity. For a turkey shell, I'd tend to opt for lower velocity over higher velocity. But final say goes via pattern testing and adequacy of penetration for load.
