Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting What's your favorite load?

I began the search for the best 3" load a few years back. I didn't try every load on the market, but I bought enough to get a good idea of what my 3" gun liked. The loads consisted of:
Federal Premium 1-7/8oz #6
Federal Premium 1-7/8oz #5
Federal premium 2oz #6
Winchester Supreme HiVel 1-3/4oz #6
Winchester Super X 1-7/8oz #6
Remington Nitro Turkey 1-7/8oz #4
Remington Nitro Turkey 1-7/8oz #6
Remington Premium 2oz #6
2-3/4" Handloaded 1-1/2oz #6
2-3/4" handloaded 1-1/4oz #6
I thought I'd spent enough at the time to get a feel for what my guns/chokes like best.

What I found from the above loads and tinkering with reloading loads was the wad was the key element to a uniform pattern. The best wads from examining these above loads were the Winchester followed by Federal. The winchester wads were longer than the others providing protection from the shot directly touching the barrel where some of the loads had short wads and a good bit of the shot was in direct contact with the barrel and the patterns were quite bad with many flyers. I actually had better patterns with 1-1/4oz hand loads than some of the Remington 3" loads.

I started gathering components for 3" reloading and gave up on the chase as it was costing more to buy the components than what the factory loads were costing.

The best patterns I recieved came from the 1-7/8oz Win loads followed buy the 1-3/4oz Win and the Federal loads. The wins give me 40 hits at 40 yards and 15+ hits at 50 yards on HS Strut targets.

I've taken quite a few Gobblers with the 1-7/8oz Win Super X #6 loads at 50 yards and one good tom past 60(luck and misjudgement of range).

I probably have enough turkey loads to last a lifetime of turkey hunting but, I'm always open for something better.

What loads, chokes, and guns have you all had the best luck with on paper? What's your usual kill zone hit count at 50 with said load?

Thanks,

Reloader7RM

Funny, I was thinking of starting a thread just like this. I am looking for a set up for a 3" Remington 870 and was wondering what everyone was using, choke, shell ect.

The best my browning is doing is with a Comp-U-Choke XXX full with Federal 2oz of #5. I have about 14 hits (if I remember right) in the kill zone on the winchester turkey head target at 40 yrds.

Carried the 870 to the range yesterday and tried some Remington 1 7/8 oz #5, Winchester SupremeXX 2 oz #5, and some Federel 2 oz #5 without a lot of luck. All my patterns were shot at 40 yrds and were nice and round but just not tight. I only had one choke with me to try and it was a factory turkey full.
I will be getting some chokes and going back to try other shell/choke combos but I think I will wait on buying chokes and see what others here are using first.

Good post

Great thread and I�m looking forward to all the posts. I haven�t taken the time to test very many over the counter loads. I reload my own and have used data that was developed by my family for geese. Surprisingly some of these loads have translated into great turkey loads. The down side is the cost. All the components for the wad column, shot, and shooting buffered loads don�t translate into good economics.

Some of the better patters are:
Handload 2 3/4 with 1 1/4 #5 lead buffered.
Handload 2 3/4 with 1 3/8 #5 lead.
Handload 10ga with 1 7/8 Hevi-shot

I know everybody is shooting something....come on and tell us what it is. What is working for you?

I can't find anything better for my Benelli M1S90 3" .12 gauge with the Kick's Gobblin' Thunder .660" choke than Winchester Supreme High Velocity no. 5's. This being the 3" .12 gauge loading of 1 3/4 ounce of copper plated lead shot at 1,300 fps. Knock's em' stiff to the mid-field mark.

Remington 1187 3" 12 gauge with Truglo (Bansner) choke - everything within 40 yards has been DRT with Federal 3" 2 oz #4's.
Remington SP10 with Kick's gobblin thunder .695 shoots both Winchester and Federal 3 1/2" 2 oz #5's quite well out to 50 yards, which is as far as I've patterned them. Put my South Dakota gobbler down real quick at 46 yards!

My buddy loves this Nitro ammo but I'm still on the standard $10-$15 per box high velocity loads.

Love the Remington HeviShot loads that they quit selling!!! #6

shouldershot,

There are still quite a few boxes left out there.

I've heard of a dealer that has plenty available and he will ship it to you.

I think he's getting around 19-20 a box for it. May want to stock up.

If you need me to get the contact info, let me know.

Good Luck

Reloader

Fiocchi turkey thunder. 2 3/8 ounce of number 5's.

Used the Remington Heavy Shot #5 with mod choke in my SBE w/3.5" loads for the last 3 years. Killed 5 birds with them but switched to the Federal Premium with Heavyweight shot, Flitecontrol Wad in #6's also 3.5" loads. As of Thursday, it is my FAVORITE load!

Against everything I do, I did not pattern before hunting with them. I used the mod. choke again and they worked fine on my bird but the range was only 35 yards. Will try and pattern them late next week. Price is out of site on this stuff, $45/box.

Reloader,

I would be interested. Email is best frgeymanexcite.com