Trying to pattern a shotgun for Turkey.

Well, Turkey season starts Saturday so I've been trying to get things ready to do a little Turkey hunting. I have a Mossberg 835 12 gauge shotgun that I'm wanting to pattern to be able to shoot effectively out to 40 yards. It came with a full choke already so I was hoping that it would work without having to change anything else.

Monday evening I went out and shot some paper plates at various yardages hoping I could get out to 40 yards with a good pattern. I should have used a larger target, especially after seeing what happened when I did use a larger target, now I probably need to go back and shoot the stock choke again just to make sure. Anyway here were the results. The top left was at 25 yards and the bottom 2 were at 40 yards. The top right was the last shot and it was at 35 yards and was pretty much a clean miss. Shooting 3 1/2" Magnum 12 gauge shells at paper targets actually hurts. So after researching several different chokes, I bought a Primos Jellyhead and a Truglo Gobbler Stobber to try out. They have colorful names if nothing else! I also bought another box of shotgun shells to try out as well. Some Remington NitroTurkey shells that were also 3 1/2" Magnums.

I used some packaging paper from work to give me a larger target so I could see the hits better and drew some 8.5" by 11" squares on it and put tape in the middle. The packaging paper is 24" tall. I thought I was going to be able to shoot 3 times on each target, but I changed to only 2 times on each target after seeing how wide the spray of the pellets was. All shots were at 40 yards measured with a rangefinder.

This is with the Truglo choke. Winchester Supreme 3.5" #5 shot on the left and Remington NitroTurkey 3.5" on the right. Both shots with the Remington NitroTurkey in the Truglo choke ended up pulling left. Could easily have just been poor aim though, I was mimicking actual conditions using shooting sticks and the wind was blowing pretty good.I didn't bother to draw a circle or a square on any of the other targets, just the tape where I was aiming. I think you can still get a pretty good feel for the pattern though.

This target was both with 3" Hevishot 1.5 oz. Left was the Truglo and right is the Jellyhead. Again, not a for sure because I wasn't on a bench, but every shot with the Jellyhead ended up a little high. Both of these shots are with the Jellyhead. Winchester supreme 3.5" #5 on the left and Remington 3.5" NitroTurkey on the right. Both shots were a little high.
On this one, I used the Jellyhead with the Winchester supreme 3.5" # 5 on the left and the Truglo with Remington 3.5" NitroTurkey on the right. Again the Jellyhead was a little high and the Remington NitroTurkey out of the Truglo was a little to the left.
Last target I stuck with the Truglo and shot Winchester 3.5" #5 on the left and the 3" Hevishot on the right.
When it is all said and done I think I'm going to go with the Truglo with the Winchester 3.5" #5 for now. I'm probably going to try a few more with a better target and make sure it is hitting where I want it, but it seemed to be the best pattern out of all of them. I might try a couple shots with the stock choke as well just to make sure my first test shots with the paper plates were actually showing the true pattern and weren't actually misses in one direction or the other.

I also put a Limbsaver recoil pad on the shotgun and while it still kicked like a mule, I don't think I could have shot 10 times at paper targets with the factory recoil pad on there.

Not very exciting, but hey, no one ever said this blog was exciting!

That's it for now, who knows, maybe I'll have a Turkey on the ground Saturday.

Nathan