Not trying to stir things up but here goes, been turkey hunting only once in my life and just found out that it is legal to use a rifle in my county for turkey. With that being said, would a 17 HMR do the trick with a shot to the breast. They say the best part is calling in the turkey close but I like rifle hunting and figure this way I could take one out to a 100 yards.

If you're going to use a rifle I wouldn'taim forthe breast.[:'(] You would ruin most of the meat and make a BIG mess of things.[:'(]IMO

I would try to aim for the head. No mess, and no tracking required...IMO

We just had this discussion here on this thread and even had mention of this gun. Check out what was said about it here >>---> http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=2447022

A .17 will take a turkey down, but there is nothing better than taking one with a shotgun from 20 yards away. Everytime I have a gobbler running in to me, it seems like my heart is about to jump out of my chest. My father-in-law shoot two nice sized jakes a week before thanksgiving. He body shot them and we didn't have any big messes when cleaning the birds for the thanksgiving meal. He did have to walk up on one and shot it again becuase it was not completely dead.

I guess long range shooting (100 or over and only whacking at the head)with a lite caliber - that would be fun!

Just - IMO

JW

I would not recomend a 17 HMR for turkeys unless you were strickly aiming for head or neckI body shot a gobbler with a 22 mag a few years back and the bird just took to the air and soored off a big ridge and glided out of sightLearned my lesson and will never do that again... If your that desperate to kill a turkey, use a high powered rifle

Ya,and if your not that desperate to kill one and that worried about the meat than just go to Safeway and buy a butterball its whole lot safer!!!!IMHO

Long time no see... How you be???

There is no fun or excitment inshooting a turkey with a rifle...To me the allure of the sport is going one on one with a tom...Using my woodsmenship to find the best set up, listening to him gobble as Icall him in close and make a good clean kill with ashotgun loadto the head...Aftermore then20 years of doing this I still get a rush of adrenillin and shake like a leaf...That's turkey hunting...

I think with a head or neck shot you would kill it but with that small of gun a breast shot would be a very low percentage kill unless you hit the heart. The turkey will eventually die but you probably wont find it.
I would use a shotgun unless I could shootlike Annie Oakley.