.... and I think with my gun/choke combo, I think I have a 30 yard gun. I'm using an 870 express magnum with a cabela's super-full choke (.665) with 28 inch barrel and non-adjustible fiber optic sights. I tried 3 different shotgun loads; Winchester HV 3" magnum #5 shot at 25 yards, Federal Mag-shok 3 " mag #4 shot at 25 yards and Remington heavi-shot 3" magnum #4 shot at 37.5 yards. Here are the results of the 3 different loads:





Winchester HV 3" mag at 25 yards; 125 hits in a 6 inch circle (33 hits in the vitals), back and front of target




Federal Mag-shok 3" mag at 25 yards; 128 hits in a 6 inch circle (25 hits in the vitals), back and front of target



Remington heavi-shot 3 " mag at 37.5 yards; 54 hits in a 6 inch circle, only 8 hits in the vitals; back and front

I know I can kill the bird with only 8 hits to the vitals but I don't want to chance wounding a bird. I'm not going to buy a new choke or gun this year so I think I'm safe if I keep it under 30 yards. I wish I could have had a larger target (like swampcollie suggested) to get a bigger picture of what my gun was doing at 37.5 yards but i was at a public rifle range with smallish target blocks barely big enough for my turkey targets. What do you guys think? Am I beingtoo conservative with the effective range estimate on my gun?

IMO, you haven't found the right load for that choke. You will surely kill a bird out to 30 with that set-up, but you should be able to take one at 35-40 effectively with the right set-up. I know you don't want to hear this, but you might want to invest in another choke. I used to shoot my fathers gun that had a Hastings choke. It was just a Winchester 1300 3" gun and I've taken birds just over 40 yards without a problem. Try shooting the Federal Flight Control out of your current setup. I shot them last year and found they added about 7 yards to my effective range.

Edit: Just realized that you were shooting hevi-shot. Is that choke hevi-shot friendly. That may be part of your problem.

That was the federal flight control that I shot (in the second set of pictures) and yes the choke is hevi-shot friendly. I'm not sure what the problem is exactly, maybe I do need a different choke....

You got a pretty good pattern out of the Winchester load. I would be safe to say you are good out to 35 yrds with the Winchester. If that is good enough for you then I wouldn't worry about it. I promise you that you could do better with a diffent choke. I've never had a Remington, so I couldn't tell you what they like.

You could also try stepping down to #6 shot to put more pellets downrange, it should fatten your grouping enough to stretch out to 40 yards confidently.

I was thinking the same thing. I will probably go get a box of hevi-shot #6 and try that. One thing just occurred to me though, if hevi-shot is supposed to be 20% denser than lead, then for a given 2 ozload, does that mean there is 20% less shot?

I'm not sure about that. I've never shot or experienced with heavi-shot since my gun can't shoot them. I did just realize that you were shooting #4's. That pretty big shot IMO for Turkeys. I would never recommend anything smaller than #5's. Look at your difference between the 5's and 4's. Like Kevin said, I think you will get the results your looking for with 6's

The more and more I've been doing research, the more I think I would like the Indian creek black diamond choke with #6 hevi-shot.It's a hundred bucks or so for both of those things so I might have to think about it for a bit.

I don't think you will be disappointed in the Indian Creek. Not knocking you, but I'm not real impressed with Cabela's chokes.

That's allright, it was a Christmas present from dad. He got it on the suggestion from a Cabela's employee [&:][8D]