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?

 

[Chaser96]

With lead I believe you may actually have too tight of a choke and it’s hurting the pattern. I would try a .660 or .665


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[Macintosh]

Be careful extrapolating too much with chokes from different tube systems, each system starts with a nominal bore diamter that is almost always different from system to system—sometime very different. That means a .665 mobil choke is a totally different constriction than a .665 optima choke. The larger bore of the optima barrel means a .665 choke will have significantly more constriction than it will in a mobil choke barrel.
.640 is DOUBLE the constriction of a extra-full choke in mobilchoke, and even the .665 you are shooting is .06 constriction—thats a lot. (EF is .04)
A mobil choke full is .695, xf is .685. Carlsons makes turkey tubes from .680 down to .640. Since you are shooting lead it is possible you are blowing out your pattern with too tight a choke. Maybe try a standard full tube if you have it and compare? Its possible its just as good at 40. If so an xf or something in-between may give you a little tighter pattern, but it will likely be incremental with any lead shot.

At some point lead just isnt going to give you a crazy tight pattern at 40+ yards. It wasnt long ago that the only way to get effective range beyond 40 yards was extensive back-boring, custom fixed chokes with super long forcing cones, etc. A lot of the newer fancy autos come backbored, specifically for this, so you likely wont ever get the same pattern from lead shot as one of the barrels with a larger bore diameter.

 

[juju]

The internals of a choke are another variable in addition to constriction alone. One of the best lead chokes ever designed was .643. You could put 1.75oz of lead through it and get a killing pattern at 50 yards. Matter of fact, I have one on a 20" Mossberg. It took some experimentation to find a load that combo liked.

I don't know what's available in 12ga lead today. I have not shot a turkey with a 12ga or lead in over ten years. I killed quite a few with a 26" full choke barrel and the Flite Control 2oz of lead fives. That gun would reach 50 on a bad day. But, every so often I'd get a pattern that didn't appear as good in effect. I think you need a choke made for that was. I never lost a turkey because of it. I never shot past 40 yards. Keeping a buffer to account for variables is necessary insurance against wasting turkeys by wounding. I've read the Winchester Longbeard load can be erratic as well.

The which is why I say TSS is the easy button. It's just such an overwhelming number of pellets. It's often the case with 20ga as well. A forty yard killing pattern is near guaranteed with your factory choke.

 

[Ringbill27]

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.

I am running .665 choke in both guns. And have tried the longbeard 5s. The pattern master like them but the Carlson longbeard didn’t. I pick up long beard 6s to try.

With lead I believe you may actually have too tight of a choke and it’s hurting the pattern. I would try a .660 or .665


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What I have it .665 choke.