Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting $5 a round Turkey Loads

Somebody was asking me the other day about Nitro shells. I said I'd shot Remington Nitro Buffered Magnums for years until switching to Federals. No, he didn't mean that. He meant those new Nitro custom shells. They are custom built turkey loads that run you about $5 apiece. Nope, never heard of them. Color me old-fashioned, I've been shooting at turkeys since the premium stuff was $5 a box--a box of 25!

The Nitro Company

See, the way it is with me, I figure as long as I keep it on the cheap side, those old turkeys can't really hurt my feelings. If I go out there on Opening day and I hear all those turkeys laughing at me, I can stand up and yell at them "Oh, yeah! Go ahead and laugh. All I've got here is a cheap gun and a few cheap calls, but if you don't watch yerselves, I'll blow y'all stinking heads off!" That always shuts them up, at least for a little while.

Turkeys just can't stand the thought of being shot with 25-cent loads by a man wearing old, worn out camo. They find it demeaning, and they do everything they can to avoid it. I know, I've watched them for years and made a study of it. Their only way to foil you, when you're shooting cheap loads is to come in on you in strange ways and screw with your head, and hope you blow the shot. What those $5 loads do is get the turkeys to stand out at 75 yards and dare you to try a shot. They think it's cool, and they goad those 2-year olds into doing it to prove they're worthy gobblers.

If I was to get all duded up in a set of brand new camo, and get me a fancy imported shotgun and shoot fancy shot and pay some guy a lot of money to go sit in his field, when his turkeys came around to laugh at me, I'd really have nothing else to do but join in and laugh right along with them.

Y'all mark my words: those turkeys catch you out in the woods all fancied up and shooting shells costing $5 apiece, they'll be laughing louder. You listen. You'll hear them.

Ain't it the truth.

CK

Have killed'um at 50yds or so with the set up I have now,see no reason to fix what ain't broke.$10 a box is good nuff,Winchester high velocity #5 do the trick without the big $ for me.Besides I like to have'um close enough to touch YMMV

Yep, them 20 cent 30/06 loads seem more and more attractive everyday.....

Course it ain't sporting cracking one with a rifle at 29 yards....

the patterns i get with the nitro triplex loads and rhino chokes damn near will decapitate a bird at 40 yds, so yeah i use them. I only go through about 5 to confrm patterns and that my eotech hasnt moved from POI, then 2 shells for birds. With all the money i have into the gun ( fabarms 21" O/U, Eotech 511) the cost of the tubes and shells doesnt phase me. the rhino chokes do very well with Win High vel 3 1/2 #6's as well

Many turkey loads kill with authority at 40 yards.

I've made a study of all this for well over 20 years.

The shaman's list of things that will get the turkey's laughing at you:

1) Fancy new calls
2) $5/round ammo
3) Fancy new matching camo
4) $140 knee-hi snake boots where there ain't no snakes, especially if the pattern matches the pants and jacket.
5) 10 GA shotguns
6) 3.5" shotgun shells
7) Turkey vests. Have you ever tried to get a turkey to wear one of them things?
8) Turkey seats. I tried for years to get a turkey to sit in one, but they laughed so hard they kept falling off before I could shoot.

What get turkeys shaking in their knees:

1) Old farts armed with a full-choked 12 GA Winnie, Mossy, or Ithaca pump gun spray painted with Krylon, shooting 2 3/4" shells of unknown age and shot size. Extra fear is instilled if the shotgun wears the private label of a tire store or hardware store chain that has been out of business for more than 40 years.

2) Box calls carried in Wonder Bread Bags

3) A seat made from a wheelbarrow tire inner tube.

4) A Vietnam War -era olive drab jacket over faded denim bibs.

5) A baseball cap where you can't tell if it is/was camo or if it just has a lot of grease stains. Ditto on the gloves.

6) Lunches carried in burlap sacks.


If you can affect this sort of rig, and walk across a pasture with some air of authenticity, turkeys will line up at the closest strand of barbed wire and cut their own throats rather than face the music. As a result, you must slip in quietly so the gobblers don't all commit suicide before you can get a bead on one.

The list of things that get turkeys shaking describes an old fellow I know. This gentleman kills his share & more every year.

Something you might add to the list of things that get turkeys laughing would be a scope on a shotgun.

Shaman I tried out a silent turkey whistle (yeah, knew better before hand, but coming from the school of dumb stunts, sometimes you do get surprised) one season.

Swear it dropped every turkey dead that heard it.

Well, all but one, think he came running in cause he wanted to be closer to the whistle when he died. Swear it killed the rest though, as that the only turkey seen or heard.

Had to quit using it in order to save the turkey population.

Edit for an aside: My first question to the "source" was "How the h**l do I know whether it is tuned or not?"

Probably one of the most "at loss for words" looks I've ever seen on a human face.

Those $5.00 loads tear 'em up too bad at 29 Steelhead. You got to shoot them "out" there with those $5.00 shells.

Now hold on there! I've got a scope on my turkey gun.

It's a 1.5 to 4.5 variable, and it usually stays at 1.5 for turkey and 2.5 for deer.

It's just my poor old eyes have a hard time seeing the end of the gun and the bird's head.

BTW: The turkeys cut me slack on that scope. It's just a BSA. Now if it were a Leupy-- then they'd be laughing.

Stupid things for a turkey hunter?

The stupidest thing I ever saw was the bottle of turkey scent that was being marketed a few years ago. But your silent whistle one belongs in the Jon-EE Handwarmer Memorial Museum if I can ever build it.

The stupidest thing I ever heard of was a story I heard from David Hale. He said that he heard turkeys gobbling to a riverboat whistle one time and decided to market a camo-covered pocket freon horn as a turkey locator. The next thing he knew, folks were walking through the woods tooting this horn thing left and right. He was so embarassed, he removed it from the market before the next season. David is right. I've heard gobblers sound off to the barge horns coming into Markland Dam. I've also heard them respond to freight chimes near a railroad bed.

My eyes are getting the same way, and if I need to I'll have a scope sitting on top of my shotgun too one of these days. Turkeys can laugh if they want to!

I bought a new Winchester Super X2 yesterday. It is the NWTF edition with fiber optic sights but it is drilled and tapped for a scope. I thought what the heck, I'd buy a scope to put on it to see how it would be. The only problem is I can't find a scope base that will fit this gun. I may just have to stick with the fiber optics.

Spot on. I hunt turkey during the fall season with a Ruger Mini-14, and use the Winchester 45 grain SPs. Works great on those longer shots.

Five dollars a shot? Heavens above. Turkey hunting and flyfishing have a lot in common don't they?

I don't know how to hunt turkeys. I've caught the fever the last few springs and go out to provide entertainment to the local turkey population. I get some fresh air, they get to enjoy playing around with one of the woods dumbest animals -- "He's got good hearing but he really isn't very smart."

Being that I know my limitations five dollar shotshells are the least of my worries. Besides which, as punishing as regular Remington Nitro mags are and as few turkeys as I usually get a shot at, the one box I have will probably last the rest of my turkey hunting career. I almost smiled when I realized I had lost my new box of Hevi-Shots from last year.

Will

Will, your post made me smile. Old gobblers can leave even the most experienced hunter feeling a little foolish and frustrated at times. Don't sweat it, keep after them and eventually you'll knock one down. After that first one they seem to get a little easier.

How many people are actually using these shells?

I used to use 'em in my 12ga 3 1/2", untill I smoked on at 30 yds with a mod. choke 20ga 870 el cheapo a while back. Just as dead as the rest of them. In fact the darn thing did not even twitch.

I used to have my vest full of all the newest crap. I spent a lot of money to figure out I needed about $15 dollars worth of stuff, hell now I don't even use my vest. I carry a box call and a diaphram call, the three shells in my gun and my tag.

tzone