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What are you shooting this spring?

deerfever said:
I am going to carry 3 different guns this year for the most part. The Stoeger 3020 with , Savage 301T 410 and The Mossberg Sa 20 Turkey thug. I shoot Federal TSS #9 out of each . I have too many! I may put a Tri star raptor 20 gauge in the classifieds but I hate to let it go, however it sit in the safe all last season!
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Pics n price on that Raptor?
 
For the last few years I have been hunting with 870 Remington 20 ga. Changed over to TSS 2 years ago---what a difference ! Shot a nice bird at 40 yards last year with #8 ...totally devastated it.. Have a Charles Daily 410 bore single shot going to hunt with this year. Shooting #9 TSS will see if it will do the job. I Think it will
 
Sp10! In a swamp... Hopefully I will burn off a few of this winter's duckblind breakfasts lugging that cannon around.
 
The old rattle can 835 started acting up last year. So I used my affinity all last season and it was a lot nicer carrying around than the 835. I prefer Win XX 5s but I've got a bit of a grab bag on hand to do some patterning. I've never struggled with any turkey load to be honest as long as I've done my job.

One of these days I'll downsize to a 20 or something but not this season.
 
Youth model camo 870 20 ga shooting hand rolled TSS #9s.

TSS is a game changer for the smaller gauges. Mine throws a pattern with 250 in the 10" and 250 more in the 10 to 20". The pattern, light weight, and reduced recoil is the reason that my 12 will probably never see the turkey woods again. My son is also shooting a youth 870 with the wood stock and TSS #9s with basically the same pattern.
 
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mike52 said:
For the last few years I have been hunting with 870 Remington 20 ga. Changed over to TSS 2 years ago---what a difference ! Shot a nice bird at 40 yards last year with #8 ...totally devastated it.. Have a Charles Daily 410 bore single shot going to hunt with this year. Shooting #9 TSS will see if it will do the job. I Think it will
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My single shot 410 got it done more than once..with #9 tss.
 

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My gun is a Mossberg 930 field edition with a burris fastfire 3 and the factory turkey choke. My boys are taking a Stevens 301 .410 with a Sig Sauer Romeo 5 and the factory choke. We are all shooting 3" Federal TSS #9's.
 
Southern Sportsman said:
You didn't ask, so forgive the unsolicited advice. But with TSS, shooting anything larger than 9s out of a 20 gauge is very counterproductive. The advantage of TSS is the ability to shoot much smaller shot which increases the number of pellets in a payload.

9s are more than adequate to kill a turkey farther than anyone should shoot at a turkey. With 7.5s, you'll have about 300 pellets. With 9s, you'll have about 540. So you'll gain nothing with 7.5s but lose 45% of your payload.
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Maybe it's just phycological, shooting lead #4,5 or 6s at turkey for years. My patterns at 40 yds with 7.5 TSS are better than my lead from my 12 ga. so I wouldn't call it counter productive. Would love to shoot 8s or 9s if I could convince myself they can kill (yes I've seen the data). Thanks for the info.
 
Granddaddy said:
Maybe it's just phycological, shooting lead #4,5 or 6s at turkey for years. My patterns at 40 yds with 7.5 TSS are better than my lead from my 12 ga. so I wouldn't call it counter productive. Would love to shoot 8s or 9s if I could convince myself they can kill (yes I've seen the data). Thanks for the info.
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Counterproductive is probably the wrong word. There are about the same number of pellets in an oz of TSS 7.5s as there are in an oz of lead 6 (~220). But TSS 7.5s will undoubtedly outpattern and outperform lead 6s. So you are gaining something over lead. But from a physics and performsnce standpoint, there is just no argument for 7.5s over 9s for turkeys.

I completely get the psychological aspect. I started hand loading tungsten in 2013 before it was sold commercially. Couldn't make myself shoot 9s. Thought about loading 7.5s but those who had more experience explained basically what I'm explaining here. Still couldn't do 9s, so I loaded 8s for a couple years. Eventually I started wrapping my head around it and moved down to 8.5s. Finally, 2-3 years ago I bought 9s. Last year I even shot one with #10s out of a .410.

Shoot what you're comfortable with. It took me years to become comfortable with 9s, and without a doubt, 7.5s will kill turkeys remarkably well. But 7.5s versus 9s is ultimately a choice between 310 lethal pellets or 540 lethal pellets going downrange.
 
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Yildiz youth SPZ ME 20 gauge, magnum butt pad added to make LOP equivalent to an adult stock. Sumtoy .570 choke in the top barrel and I ordered a Trulock improved modified for the bottom. Topped with a Fastfire III and loaded with hand rolled 1 5/8 oz 9s.
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High Standard Flite King K4111 .410. Factory full barrel, Fastfire III, hand rolled 13/16 oz 9.5s or 10s. I'm really fond of this gun, probably more for nostalgia than anything else, but it has performed admirably on turkeys along with several other species.
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