Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting Anyone handload their own turkey loads?

If you have reloaded your own turkey loads.......what was your load?

TSS #9 over Lil Gun 29 gr.....1.5/8 oz.

Yes
Reloader’s Lil Hammer is a good one to get started with.

It's been a while, but I used to load my 12ga 3" turkey loads. I got all my supplies, and data, from Ballistic Products in Minnesota, what they called their turkey ranger. The hulls were Chedite skived hulls with their turkey ranger wad that you would slit to whatever length you wanted the wad petals to be, great way to control your pattern. An 1/8" felt cushion wad inside the wad cup with 1-1/2oz of buffered nickle plated #5 on top of it followed by a Teflon wrap around the wad as it was put into the hull. Powder was a weighed 35gr charge of Blue Dot. Once all assembled, an over shot card and then roll crimped. When I would put the buffer in the shot, I would just touch the hull to the side of my vibratory tumbler to mix it in. I had a hull vise and set up my benchtop drill press for quick and easy crimping. Took some time to get the slitting of the wads dialed in, but once I did, I had a great turkey load that has served me well. The first couple rounds I didn't slit enough and was just like shooting a slug! Lol! Nice round hole at 30 yards... I guess you could say it sounds like a lot of work, but it really wasn't and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Shotgun loading is a simple process compared to Precision rifle loading.

Dean,

How many "Slits" did you place on the BGS wad and how far down the wad?

I experimented with splitting wads years ago trying to extend the range of a vintage William Powell 13 ga. muzzle loader.....I found that the shorter the slits the more slug like your pattern will be...but as the slits grew longer it didnt seem to make much difference....I really saw no in between with my patterns.

As high as TSs is I'd experiment with lead shot the results should be similar....or build a shot trap to catch the fAiry dust.

Most of the time the slits stop about a 1/4" from the bottom of the shot cup. This was true when I was loading 12 ga and is true on 20 ga as well. I don't know what people are doing on 28 or 410 as I have never used them.

As far as a shot trap, I built one back when I was patterning and changing chokes and chasing the 10" circle. When I found my combo for my guns I got rid of it. It does work but trying to find the right kind of material to stop the shot and still be able to recover it was a pain in the butt. The best stuff I found to hang in the shot trap was the thin black carpet runner stuff. The TSS would shred it up pretty quick so you had to replace it every 15-20 shots.

The wad, if I remember correctly, was a 4 petal wad, maybe 5?, and had indentations in it where you would slit it. As LFC said, the shorter the slits, the more slug like the load was and that's a fact. In the end, I pretty much slit the entire indentation. And honestly, if I had a fixed choke barrel, I would have messed with the wad more. But since the shotgun barrel had a choke tube system in it, decided to just let the choke tube determine the pattern. I guess I was chasing something that didn't need chasing! Lol! But I did/do enjoy messing with this stuff.

Rolling 1oz of 9’s under 5/8oz of 8’s, and 29gn of lil gun. Have one gun that likes 2 3/4” 1 5/8oz 9’s and 39 gn of 300mp.

Been loading tss for about 10 years now, in the 10 gauge, 12 gauge, and 20 gauge. I've also loaded hevishot, and heavyweight, as well as duplex loads of both. I use to mess with lead as well but time constraints have brought that to a hault

My opinion is not the “in” opinion these days. I’ve killed a few turkeys with a shotgun, years ago. And I’ve killed about 40 with a bow.
My shotgun loads were 1 3/8 ounces of #5 or #6 shot, with a modified choke 12 ga.
That’s worked very well, I never lost a bird to it.
It seems todays turkeys required super tight, ported chokes, more than one size of exotic metal shot at a very high speed.
I’m sure those work, but are un necessary, in my experience.

I usually shoot a factory load with buffered copper plated 6 shot but did buy some nickel plated 5 shot and buffer powder to load some light loads for a Model 1897 Winchester that was manufactured in 1910. The load was 1 ounce of shot in AA hulls with a Winchester wad and powered by Unique. Worked just fine!

To me, turkey hunting, or any hunting, isn't about what you "need", it's about what you want to make of it. If you want to use "old" reliable, go for it! If you want to use "new" techy stuff, go for it!

^^^THIS^^^
Some get wrapped up in the way someone else hunts or what they use, because it is different than what they use. If it make a more enjoyable hunt to use old school or newer high tech, use it and enjoy the hunt.

Buffer .... Just a granulated rosin or is it something different than that?

That's true....

Two questions....

How many pellets does it take to kill a turkey ?

How many pellets does it take to ruin your turkey meat ?

Don't know that I have ever seen totally ruined meat but one time. Someone body shot a bird (I am guessing that is what happened) and it lived, when I killed it the breast were covered in a slim green stuff. You could see where it had been shot before, I threw the whole bird away as I was not eating that.
Now if you are talking a little blood shot area, that is different. I have seen that and had that with whatever type shell I have shot. I cut around that and go on. I like to get my birds in at about 20-30 yards and I shoot a really tight pattern on my guns. At 20-30 yards, I feel I have a little wiggle room if I am off a hair with my shot and the pattern is still small enough that I don't have to worry about a stray pellet in the meat.

I have cleaned and watched a buddy clean his birds that he shot with #4-6 duplex loads and there was the same little bit of blood shot meat.

Ounce and a quarter magnum load of #4's has always worked just fine for me.

BUT I HUNT turkeys, I don't snipe them from across a football field.

I have killed turkeys that had buck shot in the breast which had totally healed over.