Turkey Loads

In order to be ready for my upcoming turkey hunt, a trip to the range to test some turkey loads was in order. This turned out to be a lot more revealing than I anticipated.

As I mentioned previously, I have planned a trip to go turkey hunting in Missouri this year. This will be my first time to turkey hunt. I am excited, but a touch nervous, too. I am nervous that this will become my new obsession and I will be adding turkey hunting to my list of ‘must-do’ each year. This is fine, but…wow, I already have so much to do!

The first thing I wanted to do was try a couple of different turkey loads in my shotgun. I picked up a box of Remington Nitro #4 and Winchester Supreme #5, put the Full choke in and headed to the range. I finally secured my place on a bench at the pistol range (?) and set up my turkey targets. This would be a really good time to voice my opinion on a certain pubic range, but…I think I will wait and discuss how all things work for the good! Back to this topic - I had 6 targets and planned on shooting each turkey load at least twice. The Remington #4’s were first up. I let one of my boys, Blake, take the first shot, me next and then…if anyone recalls, Saturday was very windy and the target actually blew off the frame. Another guy a couple of benches down had the same thing happen. Evidently, this is not reason enough to clear the range and allow us to fix it, so we had to wait. Wait some more. Then wait even longer. FINALLY, we were able to go and set it back up. Now the Winchester’s.

My other son, Nicholas, blasted off with the first of the Winchesters, then me and then Blake finished it off. This took no more than 5 minutes, but of course we had to wait again for the range to be cleared. I am not sure how long these are supposed to be, but it seemed like forever. The much anticipated call came for the range to be cleared and we headed to check the results. The Winchesters patterned beautifully in my gun. As you can see from the pictures above, there is some really good coverage with these particular loads. Happy with the results, but all with headaches (I am not sure if the recoil or the way this place is run is to blame!) we headed out.