Snow,even if you can identify your gobblers as looking more like one specie than another it would still be impossible to say its a 100% rio,eastern,or merriam,if they've been inhabiting the same area over an extended period of time.A turkey is a turkey in their eyes.We've been dealing with this for years in the Sacramento valley of Calif and as a result have a healthy strain of rio/merriam crosses.I monitor and keep close watch of my birds on my leases and its consistent year in and year out that family groups vary in color some looking more merriam and there own siblings looking more rio.We do have isolated flocks of pure strain birds in other areas of the state out of the valley but when the two paths cross we end up with hybrids which is fine by me.They eat and hunt just as good as any other turkey I've hunted!You've probably already checked this out but here is a rough map of the staus of certain subpecies spread across the U.S.Look to the left of the page and it will give you a bio and pic of each specie too if you click on them.I personally feel the bird is even more widespread than the map shows but maybe it will help a little...Heres the link.. Post that pic of that 5 bearded gobbler when you get a chance it sounds like a dandy!!!
http://www.wildturkeyzone.com/wildturkey/species5.htm