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Anybody roll their own. I love the 3" loads of blended 5,6,7 BUT $6 a pop is kinda steep! What kinda shot patterns are you getting? Lets hear it....

Thanks-G

I've been reloading mine for 3 years now. I started with the 12ga. reloading TSS. I didn't believe at first a #9 shot would ethically kill a turkey, so I started with #7's. Then I graduated to #8's, and then I ended up with #9's. If they made #10's I'd go to them. This stuff is flat lethal on turkeys. I ended up at 2oz of #9's and 1oz of #9's duplexed with 5/8oz Hevi-shot 7.5's. I was running my reloads thru a SBE with .665 Indian Creek choke. It was flat unfair hunting turkeys with it. Here are couple of patterns:





Seeing what those TSS #9's did as well as some patterns guys were getting in 20ga's set me on a path to build a light weight twenty for turkey hunting. Since building one, I haven't looked back at the 12ga. My new hunting rig (870 20ga with 21' barrel and Rem Super Full choke) walks around with 1 5/8oz TSS #9 reloads. Here are some patterns:







Last year I killed 9 turkeys with my 20ga set up. Like I said above, I'll never carry a 12ga again.

Awesome stuff SandMan! Looks like you did your homework. With patterns like that a bird is doomed at 65yds. Thats pretty amazing.

Thanks. I've done more patterning with this stuff than I care to admit, and I'm not even in the ball park with the dude I get the shot from who worked up the reloads. Before I was convinced to try it, there were claims of two turkeys killed at 90 yards with it. Granted the whole game of turkey hunting to me is getting them in close. If I wanted to kill one at 50+ yards, I'd just carry a rifle. Here are several kills personally that opened my eyes to the lethality of this shot:

1) First year carrying the 12ga with 2oz of #9's a friend and I were hunting in Western OK. We set up that morning a large field next to a roost that had 100+ turkeys. Turkeys started pitching out of the trees into that field, and I had seen nothing like it. Must have been 30+ strutters. Well, several of them are working their way to our set up. However, a few started to cross a dried out creek bed between us and the roost headed to another field. My friend couldn't stand it and said he was going to try and get on one of the crossing birds. I stayed on the field. I had a really nice strutter working his way to me. About the time he's getting in range, my buddy pops one and spooks the bird. The bird I was after came out of strut and was running from my left to right broadside if you will at 50 yards about to take flight. I shot him at a full run, and it looked like you pulled the life out of him. Never flopped and piled up like a ton of bricks. That #9 shot broke both legs, a wing, and the majority of the pattern entered his right breast went thru the breast bone, and exited the left breast. It was an eye opening experience.

2) Same hunt in Western Oklahoma. I had killed two birds while my dad was working on his first. I had been on a nice dominate bird with 17 hens and two other nice satellite toms as I call them. You know strutters, but they don't dare get close to the boss or his harem. They always stayed at a distance. I had played cat and mouse with these birds for two mornings and one evening. I finally thought I had them patterned and took my dad in to try and get his first Rio. I must mention here my dad is from the old school of turkey hunting. He taught me the art and is always laughing at my latest gadgets I come out with and try. So to say he was HIGHLY skeptical of this #9 TSS shot for turkeys was a severe understatement. Anyway, we are set up on these turkeys and are between where they want to be. As luck would have it the strutter with his hens crossed about 100 yards from us up the ridge and out of sight. I had three hens get interested and come to the decoys and walk right by me at 15 or so yards. I just knew the two satellite toms were going to follow them. I could have shot both directly to my right at 35-40 yards several times. However, dad was on the left and I wanted him to kill one of them. These birds keep just out of distance for him strutting in and out of some cedar trees that had grown up in the pasture. They finally decided they had enough and went to go out over the ridge the direction the big bird had headed. I knew it was now or never as this was the last evening we were hunting. I guessed the bird at about 50 yards. I put the red dot on the top of his head and squeezed. It smooth rolled the turkey walking away from me. Granted he flopped a little bit, but not much. I hadn�t noticed a 2-3� diameter mesquite tree directly in-between us when focusing on the bird and cut it almost in two. This took out the majority of my pattern. I was very lucky to hit the bird at all. I�ll never forget my dad standing up and telling me had he just not witnessed that shot he would have called me a liar. I�m 6�4� and the bird lay dead at 67 steps. Both of his legs were broken with the 9�s as well. Not one of my finer moments on judging the distance and taking an ethical shot.

3) After having those two experiences above and killing several more turkeys with the 12, I hung it up to look for a nice i.e. lighter/shorter gun for turkey hunting. Hence the reason I built my 870 youth 20ga. Last year in KS, I called up a dominate bird and two satellite toms into my decoys. All three were in full strut straight off the roost and the entire way into the decoys. I was pretty much pinned down on my set up and did not want to spoke the birds clucking to get them out of strut. See my dad had always taught me never shoot one in full strut because there head is tucked back in feathers and not as exposed when he sticks it up coming out of strut. Knowing what I knew about the penetration of the TSS 9�s I shot the biggest bird in full strut at 20 yards anyway. He dropped like a rock. The two other birds went 6-8� straight up in the air on the shot. Like a moron, I pumped and tried to kill one in the air. I missed. By the time I got the bird I shot at stopped from confusion with cutting, cackling, fighting purr, etc. he was a good distance from me. Put the red dot on the top of the head and squeezed. He fell like a ton of bricks as well. He was 54 steps from me.

Those are the 3 that stand out in my mind. There are numerous others, but those are the ones than convinced me to stick with these 9�s and never hunt with a 12ga again. FYI, my dad now has a 20ga built like mine by me with TSS, and I just built 3 more for friends who have been hunting with me and witnessed what my 20ga will do.

I know. Long winded; but it�s Friday, almost turkey season, and I love talking about turkey hunting.

Always figured a 20 would do well, but not that good!
Wow. That is a lot of birds. How many states?

stumpy

After having gone thru all this patterning and seeing how well the TSS kills, I can say without a doubt that a 20ga with TSS reloads will hang with if not do better than any 12ga with over the counter turkey loads.

9 turkeys last year were in 3 states..........TX, OK, and KS.

Those are awesome patterns Sand Man! I've read a little about TSS and guys using #9's.
Where does a guy start? I'd like to try it. I've loaded rifle ammunition for ever but have never loaded any shotgun shells. Is there a TSS manual or a site to go and get a guy on the right path.
I'd be as interested in it for ducks as well as turkeys. Plus the idea of toting a lighter shotgun sounds really good

Sand Man, I've responded here before to you and others with the same thing but I am also reloading the TSS like you, The stuff is just awesome. My patterns look just like yours and I have killed some birds at amazing distances as well.

Last year I had 2 toms with some hens and they were headed back to roost. They were walking a fence line which I had ranged at 60 yds. I have patterned my gun at 60 with TSS and I still have over 200 pellets in 10" with my 12ga. When they got to the fence, the hens kept coming thru but the gobblers stayed back. After about 15 min, the hens walked further down the fence towards the roost trees and I figured the Toms were about to head that way as well. I decided to go ahead and shoot when both were together (it's legal to get 2 birds in a day where I was hunting). I judged them at 65 and pulled the trigger. They both dropped like stones without even a flop. The next day I was with a buddy and we were ranging stuff and my RF kept reading shorter than his by about 10-15% so I got another one and it did the same. So my RF was reading short so those birds were closer to 75 yds than 60 yds. Stone dead. Impressive stuff.

I also switched to a 20 ga some and killed 6 birds with it last year. The TSS in the 20 is ridiculous. I killed 1 bird at 53 yds on my RF with the 20ga and it was likely 60 yds or more since the RF was bad. I got a Benelli M2 20ga and that thing is like a dream.

The TSS is expensive. It is $8-9 per shell. It is hard to break into the reloading as well b/c there are no manuals and most of the guys who are shooting it don't want to share the recipe's since they spent so much time and money doing it. I load mine by hand and then crimp them with a Lee Load All. Most guys are using roll crimps. It a slow, low volume process but fortunately you don't need many rounds.

I love chasing the birds. Like Sandman, I go all over. I killed 12 last year in 8 states and will hunt 9 states this year if I can pull it off.

Lee

Zeke, I'll PM you a guys e-mail that can get you the shot and all the reloading data. He's the only one I know of now in the US you can buy the shot from. If you've reloaded rifle then shotgun will be a breeze in my opinion. Warning the shot is expensive to the tune of $49/lb the last time I checked. Unless you don't duck hunt much then it wouldn't be cost effective on ducks. Yes, I'd love to shoot it at ducks as well. However, my pocketbook can't handle that. I did got to a Benelli Ultralight 28ga this year. I reloaded some Hevi-shot 7.5's which is a little better on the wallet. It flat out hammers decoying ducks. I never once felt undergunned with it.

I've been handloading my turkey shells for years. You can really get some good performance for sure, far better than any factory production ammo(including Nitro). The problem is the lack of data, most is wildcatting plain and simple. I run a pressure trace to develop my loads and have spent thousands on development. It's a hobby in itself more or less. For someone wanting long range shells without the expense involved in developing them, I would suggest going straight to Hal for the shot and data as Sand Man suggests. I luckily bought my TSS back when they were still in business and you could buy it for $24/lb. I choose hevi shot for most of my loads, but also load lead, 15g, and TSS. I don't like TSS as the close range patterns are terribly small, but it does give stellar long range performance. IMO it is better suited for guys that want to run smaller gauges such as 410-20. I get kill patterns to 65+ with hevi and just past 50 with lead, so see no reason to run the higher density shot when I kill most all of my birds at less than 40 and consider 60 the max. 60 is a long poke. I have about 10lbs of 15g 7s on hand right now as well, so may kill some birds with it this year for a change. I'll probably primarily run hevi mostly.

Thanks for the info !

Been turkey hunting for 14 years and aways used factory. I handload all my firle ammo. Want to start with my turkey loads. I guess i"ll start with "what is TSS?".

TSS is "tungsten super shot". Very dense heavy metal. That allows you to use smaller shot sizes to get the same amount of penetration as lead. In turn, you can get a lot more pellets in the shell. The tss density is about 17.5gm/cc where lead is about 10gm/cc. TSS is also a little harder and doesn't deform as easily. All of that means that a #9 TSS pellet will penetrate about like a #4 lead when driven at the same velocity. You can get enough penetration in ft/lbs or inches in ballistic gel to kill a bird out to about 85-90 yds with a #9 tss. You obviously can't get a reliable pattern out that so far but it's nice to know that anything short of that distance with a reliable pattern will get it done. The fact that you can get so many more pellets in the shell, most guys can get reliable patterns (i.e more than 100 pellets in a 10" circle) out to 65-70 yds. Most of my lead patterns get less than 100 pellets around 40-45 yds.

It's just like rifle "looneyism" and chasing the 1/4" group. It's not really necessary and most of my turkeys are killed within 30yds but it's a nice hobby and nice to know that if you just have to, you can reach out to 60 yds or so and know that it will get the job done.

Lee

Very interesting!


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Sounds a lot like my factory "Heavy shot" stuff?

Much denser than Hevi shot. Hevi is 11.5 gm/cc. I like Hevi shot but the TSS is a different animal.

Got a bunch loaded, gonna try and shoot some today and check some new loads.


Here goes a few hundred dollars.

My last batches of Hevi have mostly been 12-12.8g/cc, the last TSS I checked was 17.3 IIRC. TSS is much more dense. TS or HW comes in around 15 and performs quite well.

These pattern's were accadentally measured with a 30" outer and a 15" inner ring. This 20 ga patterns plenty good, but not quite as good as the pics indicate.

Correct. I forgot it had 10 and 20 on the board in the picture, but I'm curious how the diameter of a circle changes the pattern in the picture? 11 turkeys last year didn't seem to know the difference in how I drew my circles.