The Best Turkey Load

Mount Sweetness said:
The new stuff is TSS.
Federal has it, check it out, denser than HeviShot. Might be hard to find #7’s, most is even smaller!
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That's it....Tungsten Super shot. A friend in Georgia who is a fanatical turkey hunter swears by it. Shoots most of his turkey with handloads of this stuff in #9 out of a .410. Of course not legal to do that here.
 
#5 Winchester XR Longbeard is pretty much up there.

Buy a few brands and pattern your shotgun. Also, try some 3 inch shells if you shoot 3 1/2 inch, you could be surprised, some shotguns will shoot tighter patterns with a 3 inch at the same distance.
 
Down in Texas, where this is legal, a friend just got a nice tom with a 1 ounce load of #9 lead 2 1/2” shell out of a 16 gauge full choke SxS.

Just sayin’........learn to hunt and what you have is probably fine.
 
The longbeard xr was designed to pattern tightest out of the longbeard choke. If you aren't shooting that choke/cartridge combo in my experience they pattern like most other cartridges. Even the sales clerk at my local shop agrees it's a lot of hype that's driven the sales up. So much so that they longbeard outsells the other brands almost 4 to 1. In my 870 its not worth the money. It's a full 10 bucks a Box more expensive than the next most expensive shell. I don't like ruining meat so I keep my shots close so my groups are nice and tight. Last year my old man decapitated a turkey at about 20 yards. Any turkey shell works exceptionally well at ranges up to 30 yards
 
TSPIRI said:
The longbeard xr was designed to pattern tightest out of the longbeard choke. If you aren't shooting that choke/cartridge combo in my experience they pattern like most other cartridges. Even the sales clerk at my local shop agrees it's a lot of hype that's driven the sales up. So much so that they longbeard outsells the other brands almost 4 to 1. In my 870 its not worth the money. It's a full 10 bucks a Box more expensive than the next most expensive shell. I don't like ruining meat so I keep my shots close so my groups are nice and tight. Last year my old man decapitated a turkey at about 20 yards. Any turkey shell works exceptionally well at ranges up to 30 yards
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We switched from federal flight controlled was shells to ling beard and have seen great improvements in many guns and choke combos.. no need to spend 80 plus dollars on a ling beard choke if you are only shooting to 40 yards. Long beard has improved all are patterns out to 40 .I shot three inch out if a 870 turkey with a factory xfull choke.also ling beard is only priced at about 20$ for 10 shells a lot cheaper then most premium brands
 
Longbeard is a bargain, you get 10 shells for the price of 5 (HeviShot and Fed Heavyweight).
With Longbeard you can buy one box, do some patterning and still have enough left to hunt two seasons.
Having said that, I prefer Federal Heavyweight #7’s.... :)
 
My Browning Maxus with a kicks choke tube shoots amazing tight patterns with the Winchester long beards, and I have tried at least 5 different specialty turkey loads, and the long beards always come out on top. Never even heard of a special Win long beard choke.
 
TSPIRI said:
The longbeard xr was designed to pattern tightest out of the longbeard choke. If you aren't shooting that choke/cartridge combo in my experience they pattern like most other cartridges. Even the sales clerk at my local shop agrees it's a lot of hype that's driven the sales up. So much so that they longbeard outsells the other brands almost 4 to 1. In my 870 its not worth the money. It's a full 10 bucks a Box more expensive than the next most expensive shell. I don't like ruining meat so I keep my shots close so my groups are nice and tight. Last year my old man decapitated a turkey at about 20 yards. Any turkey shell works exceptionally well at ranges up to 30 yards
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It may pattern tightest out of a specific choke but I don't have one and it still patterned the best out of roughly a dozen other ammos I tried. I'm perfectly happy with the pattern I got out to 50 yds and I'm very sure I won't need to take a shot that far anyways in the areas I'm planning on frequenting this season. Additionally Longbeard stuff was a LOT cheaper than a bunch of other ammos I tried out this year on the patterning board.
 
In Montreal the challenger turkey is 13$ Remington nitro turkey is about 15$ browning is at about 17$ and longbeard is over 25 bucks a box. I agree that next to hevi shot, tungsten or the other companies selling 5 rounds for 20+ bucks the longbeard is not horribly expensive. It's just my opinion that longbeard may not be worth the extra money in most cases.

I liked the silver box winchester turkey but they don't stock it any more. That basic Winchester turkey was by far the tightest pattern of my gun
 
I have killed all of my turkey with grey box Winchester #5’s......then I got into patterning my gun and found it was the absolute worst pattern of all ammo available. We over think some of this stuff, but it sure is fun to shoot and experiment.
 
In reality your basic 1 1/8 oz 12ga load will kill a turkey at reasonable ranges. But if you want maximum range out of your gun then the specialty turkey loads are the way to go. Kinda like comparing soft point vs bonded rifle cartridges, they work fine in a perfect situation but you can only push them so far.
 
Think of how far you can break a clay target with trap load and most ppl use im or just a full choke

It is fun playing though. I got turkey chokes for guns ill likely never use for turkey hunting
 
For years ive used 7/8 oz #6 and ive never lost a bird. In fact the only one needing a second shot is the one i missed with a 2oz 3.5" load at 15 yards. Damn white bead on my mossberg was bigger then the toms head and my choke was to tight. Tom moved his head and i left an impressive mark on the bank behind him
 
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