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I go by a 10" circle and look for an even pattern that covers the circle at 40 yards. A good pattern will have no holes in it and will put a consistant number of pellets in that circle. I never go by a smaller circle because lets face it, holding on a turkeys head at 40 yards is hard enough and turkeys heads are always moving anyways.

I dont worry about how many I can put in a circle. I am more concerened about how many I can consistently put in the vitals (brain & neck vertebra). I like to get a minimum of 5 hits at 40 yards

You could try using a turkey paper target. They display the head/neck region, so you really know how good your patterns will be.

I do it like Turk Man said. A pattern with strings in it can yield good counts in the vitals of a target, but what happens when the real thing is facing the other way?

The problem with using a circle to pattern your shotgun is that you could get dense patterns in some places of the circle that would never touch the vitals of a bird. Part of having a good pattern is not only a high pellet count, but also having an even distribution of pellets that will cover an area the size of a turkeys brain and vertebrae (to handle different head positions, moves, turns, ect.) The only way to check for an even distribution of pellets, is to check the pattern at several different locations. Using the vitals allows you to do this, because you are taking samples from small areas throughout the total pattern.

When most hunters pattern their gun using the vitals, they take an average of several targets and list their pattern with a range (e.g. 8-10 pellets in the vitals). Since a shotgun never patterns exactly the same every shot, it is importatant to figure out the range of results it will produce at a given distance.

To each his own, but the above post is EXACTLY why I use a circle INSTEAD of a turkey target. If your pattern is dense and has holes in it, then you are shooting too tight of choke. Open it up .005 and see what it does. An even but sparse pattern is indicative of a choke that is too open