Will shooting tungsten through a tight turkey choke hurt anything?

Check with the maker of your tube.

As pointed out above, some tubes can handle harder than lead shot, some can't. That is the same for any choke tube. There may be caveats when using harder than lead shot too- I've seen some chokes that where a maximum velocity was listed, anything higher was not recommended. Same for buffering though that advisory was in regards to non-buffered shot.

There is no blanket answer other than use lead (or bismuth or tungsten/poly) shot. Anything else you would need to refer to the tube manufacturer.

Thanks for the advice. I have a Briley choke designed for Hevi-Shot, that I've been shooting out of my gun. I called Briley and they said tungsten was safe to shoot through that choke too. Thanks again.

Shooting tungsten will wear a choke down faster since the shot metal is harder than the choke material. In my couple of Indian Creeks I can see some wear on the ridges of the wad catchers.

TSS is harder than the choke and will deform the metal of even chokes meant to handle TSS. An appropriate choke will still work as designed even though it is dinged up inside.

You don't really need high dollar chokes for TSS unless you're trying to snipe them at long range.

I’m definitely interested in this. My first shot with federal tss #9’s in a 20guage was a 200 pellet count. My ninth shot through it was a 302! IC .555. Only thing I can figure is I’m breaking in the choke.

Some gun/choke combos like to be clean. Some like a degree of fouling.

When I had Briley put tubes in my 1967 A5, I popped for the steel-compatible ones just in case I wanted to shoot a duck someday. Winchester steel target loads did well on doves through those. If I wanted to try tungsten, I'd check with Briley; those puppies are thin!

Any steel rated choke should have no problems with Tungsten. I won't do it again but it even shot fine in a poly choke. Anything not rated for steel check with the manufacturer.

Briley uses some good steel in their chokes. I think 410 for the stainless ones and the standards are comparable to rifle barrel steel and may be tempered..

I just bought a carlson TSS tube at .640 to try and that is tighter than any other choke I own.

That seems almost too tight so it will be interesting when I get to the pattern board

I mostly use Indian Creek chokes and don't worry about it. My guns are dedicated turkey guns and as such, see very little shooting. I check zero before the season (1 hopefully no more than 2 shells) and then however many during the season. In TN we are allowed 4 birds.
With the sighting and hunting, maybe 6 shells per year.
I have been shooting TSS for about 10 years now and my chokes are still putting up high numbers and good patterns when I shoot the paper to check zero.
Even if I had to buy a new choke every year, that would be the cheapest part of turkey hunting for me. By the time you figure gas, time, calls, etc. a $60 choke is not at the top of the cost list. Having said that, I would not want to buy one every year and based on my situation, I have gotten my money's worth out of my chokes and they are still going strong.

pullit:

How much choke are you using? I haven't gotten it worked out yet and don't want to buy multiple tubes and do endless patterning. Already did this with steel when it first became mandatory. I have just been using improved modified and its doing good but maybe could be better.

A lot of people say .562 (for a 20 ga. which is what I shoot) works good, but I have a .555 in all 3 of my turkey guns.