Won a turkey shoot! I'm hooked

Status
Not open for further replies.

il_10

Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2009
Messages
440
Location
Virginia
I shot in my first turkey shoot last weekend, and won 2 out of the 6 rounds I shot using a friend's 870 as my long barreled shotguns were all set up with IC chokes for clays. I walked away with about 30lbs of various local meats, and I'm hooked!

I'm putting together a turkey shoot build or several for the next few weekends' worth of tournaments. Anyone have any tips or tricks? Sight recommendations, choke recommendations, etc.?

My friend won one round, so 3 for 6 with a plane Jane 870 vs. everyone's custom setups leads me to believe it's an "indian, not the arrow" proposition, but I always love an excuse to build a niche gun.
 
Cool. What is a turkey shoot exactly?
Its a competition with other shotgunners shooting clay pigeons. The one who has the highest score gets a turkey/ham/other as a prize.

They do one near me, though its with 22.s and its shooting hard boiled eggs at 25-50 yards.
 
The two I shot in this weekend were both shooting at target cards at a fixed distance (50') about like these:

View attachment 871480

Whoever gets closest to the X wins.


I'd bet it's regional what the actual competition is, now that I think about it.

Nice. Guess every gun range has their different ways of doing a turkey shoot. I was only aware of the two I mentioned.
 
Congratulations, 30 lbs of meat is no small prize.
Tomorrow night is the local BPOEs turkey raffle. LOL no skill involved, just luck. Prizes are all meats or groceries.
 
Sure, that's all well & good until you forget to factor a new freezer into your expenses as your involvement and success increase.:)

I know a lot of folk donate it back to keep from being overloaded with their winnings.


Todd.
 
Another version is called a Card Shoot where the person who best obliterates the center of a playing card (such as the ace of spades) wins; tight chokes for that game.
best thing to do is pattern your gun with the ammo you are using to make sure it patterns the way you like.
 
Last edited:
In the turkey shoots I've shot in everyone used the same ammunition so it was as much luck as skill depending on whether your gun liked the ammo or not.

I won once with a friend's Marlin bolt-action goose gun. Only time I ever shot one. He won first, then me, then another friend, then they banned the gun1 (laughing)
 
In the turkey shoots I've shot in everyone used the same ammunition so it was as much luck as skill depending on whether your gun liked the ammo or not.

I won once with a friend's Marlin bolt-action goose gun. Only time I ever shot one. He won first, then me, then another friend, then they banned the gun1 (laughing)

Yes, we were using 'house' ammo, the cheapest white box estate. I have some of that in the house, so that's what I've been patterning with.

I gave 1/3 of the meat to the buddy who let me use his gun, and 1/3 to my parents. The hamburger and pork chops I was happy to share, but I kept all the fresh ground sausage...
 
Congratulations.

For a build: Loooooong barrel - 32". An old Savage bolt gun or Marlin "Goose Gun" would be good places to start. An old Topper H&R/NEF shotgun with one of the "delux" 28 inch ribbed barrel would also be a good base. Lengthened, slow taper, forcing cone. Long tight choke with a good bit of parallel after the constriction (I'd be on the phone to Sumtoy about the choke). Lots of time at the patterning board.
 
Many of the turkey shoots near me they supply the ammunition, usually the cheapest shells they can find, and they have a choke gauge that fits down the barrel of your shotgun, usually set at a a tight full choke. If the gauge won't fit in your 12gauge barrel, you can't use it. It keeps the custom guns out of the competition. They don't check the smaller gauges if I recall.
 
The two I shot in this weekend were both shooting at target cards at a fixed distance (50') about like these:

View attachment 871480

Whoever gets closest to the X wins.


I'd bet it's regional what the actual competition is, now that I think about it.

That is the kind of match I have shot. Some matches that I have been to allowed only factory guns others matches had people using custom guns. I know a machinist that has made a good reputation for himself by putting together turkey shoot guns.
 
Our American legion has one every Saturday from September to December and another in the spring. I use a 28" or 30" barrel 12ga with colonial gunsmith chokes .635 (Brownells I think is where they came from), I also hone and polish the forcing cone using a 2 stone brake hone with lubricant, a brush with steel wool wrapped around it, then a cleaning mop and polishing compounds. I use rifle sights (I think true glo) that helps me. At 58'6" I pattern on a legal paper. I purchased a "card" choke from ebay and like the colonial better. I purchase a couple of boxes of the same ammo they use and pattern them with each gun to see which is best. The Remington 1100 patterns the 1350fps shells the best
Yesterday I bought a Mossberg 500 with 28" barrel and 2 beads that I am going to start working on and see how it patterns, so far I've won with a NEF pardner, Winchester 1300 and 1400, and Remington 1100, the forcing cone polish helps the paterns stay together, my SIL has my Pardner pump and is using it at a shoot near his house. All my freezers are full and the 2 big shoots are still coming up
 
Turkey/Spot/Card shoots are great fun, best part locally is the food sold at the shoots. Here in Southern Indiana there big crowds. Single rounds are sold for hams and beef shoots can go up to over $500 worth of beef.
 
My clubs one and only is our field day in September. Only one gun is used, the clubs 410. It’s shot at swinging steel plate with a hole in it with a plain sheet of white paper showing thru the hole. Pellet count is recorded. Several prizes awarded at end of day.
 
Our club has annual Turkey shoots. Rules and targets vary but the first rounds at printed turkey target shot at 25 yards with 22's. Best group and closest to a mark on the target wins, rounds are shoot until everyone wins. Sometimes the targets get harder as the shoot goes on, like swinging targets and longer ranges. I have won the first round a few years in a row. In the past you could use any firearm. Now it's .22 LR only.
 
We used to do card shoots, shoot what you bring. I had a 97 with a Cutts and the fullest tube of the set. 1 1/4 oz of magnum grade 7 1/2 shot. 40 yards and I always got 50 or more hits. Changed rules to club shells. Still won 50% of the time. Changed to a target with a bunch of two inch circles. $2/circle, most hits wins. Sold the gun and tubes to a guy in KY who is still winning.
 
I have a Magnum 1100 Remington 12 gauge with a 30" full choke barrel that I swap in instead of the rifled slug barrel . It has a Weaver quick detach Scope Mount on it with a 1-3x Weaver scope which I leave on and it was sighted in for the slug barrel but works real good for the 100 foot range the local turkey shoot is fired at. You do get the #6 Field loads given to you and it's $10 each . Most pellets in the 1 inch center goes to the shoot off, the rules of which change every year . My gun works well.
 
I've been working on my setup this week to see what I could put together without buying a whole new gun. My 870s get super sticky with light brass cheap shells, so I've landed on one of my mossberg 500 set up with:
28" ported vent rib accu choke barrel
extended full choke (tighter won't pass their test gauge)
TruGlo ghost ring sights that mount to the rib. I'm not sold on the mounting of the front sight, but the rear is fantastic. I'll have to do some fiddling to make sure the front will stay like I want it.

I'll take it out and pattern it on my lunch break tomorrow and report back, the rear sight is fully adjustable so I should be able to get it dialed in.
 
I've been working on my setup this week to see what I could put together without buying a whole new gun. My 870s get super sticky with light brass cheap shells, so I've landed on one of my mossberg 500 set up with:
28" ported vent rib accu choke barrel
extended full choke (tighter won't pass their test gauge)
TruGlo ghost ring sights that mount to the rib. I'm not sold on the mounting of the front sight, but the rear is fantastic. I'll have to do some fiddling to make sure the front will stay like I want it.

I'll take it out and pattern it on my lunch break tomorrow and report back, the rear sight is fully adjustable so I should be able to get it dialed in.
I'll bet if you take a magnet to those light brass cheap shells, you'll find out they are steel base hulls; and if your 870s are Expresses and not Wingmaster, they are known for rough chambers allowoing steel hulls to expand and stick. The solution is to wrap some 0000 steel wool around a dowel in a cordless drill and use a little oil to smooth the chamber
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top