Fine Tuning Your Turkey Gun

You’ve spent countless hours getting ready for turkey season.  You’ve scouted a great location with plenty of gobblers. But what about your turkey gun?

There are some very important aspects of shooting a turkey gun accurately that need your attention before the season rolls around. After you’ve found a load that patterns well… one that will put more than 100 pellets in a 10-inch circle at 40 yards… it’s time to do some fine tuning.

Trijicon’s SRO mounted on a new Sauer & Sohn SL5 turkey gun is bad medicine on gobblers.

When you’re shooting a tight-patterning shotgun at a small target—like a gobbler’s head and neck— you must be sure the core of the load is hitting precisely where you aim. 

Just like when shooting a rifle, changing loads from one brand to the next can change the point of impact down range.  Switching choke tubes can change point of impact, too.

I have found that 40 yards is the optimal range for testing the performance of turkey loads. A range setup comprised of a sturdy bench or other rest and a target frame about three feet square is essential. Several years ago the Winchester ammunition company offered a patterning target with several overlapping 30-inch circles printed around a drawing of a gobbler’s head and neck.

Though they are hard to find these days, the 30-inch targets are the best I’ve ever seen for the primary stages of shotgun pattern testing. If you can’t find the Winchester targets begin your shooting session by taping two full sheets of newspaper together to give you an area that will allow you to draw a 30-inch circle. Whichever target you use, the results will be the same. With the target in place mark a center aiming point, take careful aim and fire.

Shooting at a large target will tell you more about where your gun is shooting than smaller targets can reveal. Targets such as the National Wild Turkey Federation’s official Still-Target work well for fine-tuning, but are not large enough to register the entire pattern. Seeing where the entire pattern strikes is essential to telling if your gun and load combination is putting every shot where you aim. Multiple shots at new targets will minimize any human error in your testing.

Prior to the convenience of a backyard range I frequented a public range on the Sumter National Forest near Edgefield, S.C. A new Browning turkey gun arrived for testing a few days prior to turkey season, so I was obliged to join several other turkey hunters as they patterned their gun at the range. One chap, who was suffering from the recoil produced by his Mossberg 835 12 ga., decided that shooting from one of the available benches was more than he could endure.

After the first shot the recoil-shy hunter stood and fired his gun offhand to pattern and fine tune his shotgun sight. To his chagrin, he did little more than put shots all over the paper. I learned the hard way that shooting from a bench is not the only way to test a heavy kicking gun.

A tall camera tripod is the next best thing to a benchrest. I tape a piece of foam padding to the tripod head to cushion the gun and shoot from a standing position. Recoil is more tolerable when shooting from a standing position. Taking pity on the fellow turkey hunter, I walked to my truck and returned with my slightly modified camera tripod. I loaned the fellow my “standing bench” and he finished his patterning and sighting-in session with success.

Over the past several years I have found that about half of the turkey guns I fire don’t place the center of the best patterning loads where the gun is aimed. Consistency is the key, so if your turkey gun has bead sights, make sure you go through a mental checklist every time you get ready to shoot:

  • Face tight to the stock every time
  • Beads in perfect alignment
  • Your shooting eye focused on the front sight, which should slightly blur the target.

Essentially, your eye is the back sight when using bead sights, so cheeking the gun the same way every time is just as important for turkey hunters and Olympic trap competitors alike. Following this regimen will give you quicker, more successful results when collecting shooting data, too.

Better than bead sights

What if your shotgun doesn’t center the pattern where you’re aiming?  One option is to have the barrel bent by a competent gunsmith so that it shoots where it is aimed. On the other hand, adjustable rifle-type sights can get you on target with little fuss and expense. 

Several models available clamp onto your shotgun barrel rib, or you can have a gunsmith install a set.  Many of the fiber optic sights offered today work well, but are rather fragile under field conditions. I have no doubt that I am not the only turkey hunter who has had these sights get bumped off and missed shots at turkeys. At least one shotgun manufacturer will be going back to plain bead sights on their turkey guns this spring to counter complaints of weak fiber optic sights.

Whether you go with an after-market addition or factory sights, it’s a simple matter to do some fine-tuning to get everything lined up.

In the crosshairs

Another option is a low-powered scope.  A zero to 3X magnification will work the best. Some scopes have standard crosshairs, while others offer various range-finding reticles. Either diamond-shaped or circular, the center of the reticle covers a specified area, which corresponds to different measurements at different ranges. With practice, you can gauge the range to a gobbler by comparing the reticle’s center area to a part of the bird’s body, such as the distance from the top of his head to his beard.

Pentax,  Bushnell, Leupold and Burris scopes have proven to be top performers on my turkey guns over the years. Pentax took the most aggressive approach to the turkey hunting market when they released their 0X-4X variable Lightseeker SG Plus. This gun was created with still-target competition and actual hunting situations in mind. Whichever scope you chose, make sure that the eye relief is long enough to keep your face away from the rear of the scope. Although I’ve been lucky, I have seen a few turkey hunters who got too close to their scope and got some nasty cuts when the scope came back in recoil.

Several years ago, I recall the best example of how short eye-relief scopes and turkey loads don’t mix. Turkey Call Television Field Producer Jason Morrow and I were tasked with prepping guns for guests who would be hunting with the Turkey Call camera crew. I mounted a Simmons low-power variable turkey scope on Jason’s 835 Mossberg. The first shots with dove loads for short-range sighters posed no problems. I told Jason that I felt that the scope didn’t have enough eye relief, but he shrugged it off as he chambered a 3 1/2-inch hi-velocity Winchester turkey load. When he pulled the trigger the result was sad, but predictable. He still has a crescent shaped scar across the bridge of his nose.

Over the past few seasons, I’ve had success with “dot”  scopes. I’ve had equal success with Simmons, Aimpoint and Burris models. My new favorite is Trijicon’s SRO, which I deployed on a J.P. Sauer & Sohn SL5 turkey gun for a Texas Rio Grande turkey hunt a few days ago.

It’s simple to adjust the crosshairs or dot to cover the center of your shot pattern. And, it’s easier to keep your gun on target… even in odd shooting positions.  A real big advantage is that your sights AND your target are in perfect focus at the same time. 

Last Steps

  • Wear hunting clothes to make sure the gun fits the same way it does in the field. 
  • Try a few shots from a sitting position with the gun propped on your knee to make sure your eye—your rear sight—is lining up the same as it did from a shooting bench.

Once you get accustomed to shooting with a scope or rifle sights, you’ll learned what I have… getting lined up on a cagey old gobbler is every bit as fast as shooting with standard bead sights. So, when opening day rolls around, make sure ALL of your equipment, especially your turkey gun, is ready to go hunting.

You Might Also Like:
Pattern Your Turkey Gun to Get in the Kill Zone
A Turkey Hunter’s Range Estimation Tune-Up
A Turkey Hunter’s Worst Nightmare: Needing One More Shot
The Popularity of Pistol-Grip Turkey Guns
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