Turkey choke constriction question.

[Ringbill27]

Morning all,

Now the gun/choke really isn’t important to my question. But I have two turkey shotguns.
1). Citadel Warthog 20” 12ga w/ beretta Mobil chokes
2). Silver Eagle Alpha 2 18” 12ga w/ benelli chokes
I took them out and patterned both 0.665 chokes and a variety of ammo the other day and wasn’t that happy with the 40yard patterns.

So I started looking at tighter chokes and it has me wondering if I should go to a .650 or just go to .640. I can’t really afford to keep buying $60-$100 chokes to find out I should have went tighter or they don’t shoot.

How much difference in pattern are you all seeing when steping down .015”?

PS. I run 12gas and lead it is what it is.

 

[OneGunTex]

Both Carlsons and Rob Roberts have a great return policy. Buy a couple of each, try them, and only keep the best one.

 

[eamyrick]

My Benelli with apex #9s and factory full is all I would ever want out of a turkey gun to 40. I know the apex or whatever tungsten stuff is expensive but for my one a year turkey trip it’s awesome.

 

[dtrkyman]

It depends on the gun but I have had great luck with .660.

Dumb question, did you use a big enough paper to make sure you are seeing the full pattern?
I see too many guys using a small turkey target not realizing they are not seeing the bulk of their pattern!

Long beard XR in the king in lead, it is not even close at 40!

 

[Ringbill27]

It depends on the gun but I have had great luck with .660.

Dumb question, did you use a big enough paper to make sure you are seeing the full pattern?
I see too many guys using a small turkey target not realizing they are not seeing the bulk of their pattern!

Long beard XR in the king in lead, it is not even close at 40!

I was using fresh sheets of 2’x2’ paper with a turkey target overlaying it every shot. I recognize some shot was leaving the outsides of the target. I’m looking to bring them in with tighter choke.

The citadel seems to like the Longbeard the best.

 

[TAGPUNCHER]

What shells are you shooting? Have you tried longbeard xr's if so a kicks .665
Has done well for me. If shooting tss a carlsons outshot every choke I tried in a rem 870. With apex#9s in the xr's I always shot# 5 shot.

 

[juju]

Short barrels are more work to get right. Always have been. They'r also stupid loud and have a bad habits of pointing at your head. But I digress.

The thing you have in your favor is 12ga can throw so many TSS pellets that it's hard to not get a sufficient pattern with a factory full choke. Buy a box of the heaviest load of T9s you can stand, It'll almost certainly work well enough for a turkey at 40 yards. 2oz of lead sixes is 440 pellets. 2oz of T9s are 660 pellets. Can't beat math.

Be careful of what is downrange. TSS does not lose ability to penetrate a person anywhere near so quickly as lead.

 

[OneGunTex]

I shoot Longbeards too. Carlsons sells a branded Longbeard choke and that combination won out over 4 other ammos and 2 other turkey chokes. And in my testing with my shotgun, the 3.5s did not significantly outperform the 3" shells

 

[Davyalabama]

Did you try just your guns’s full choke tube? Sometimes you can restrict them too much.

Also, how far do you plan on shooting, really?