TDE

Good advice.

The density and overall width of your pattern will change from shell to shell and choke to choke. Finding the best combination is the search and the fun! The location of the center mass of your shot should not change much from right to left and up and down. This is the human element. A shooting rest of some sort will eliminate the people issue. I have one of these https://www.cabelas.com/product/shoo...7.uts?slotId=2 It's not very expensive but does the job.

Some form of dependable sights is a good idea. I have used the tape on style with reasonable success. I agree the magnet ones are a bad idea.

CalHunter

Zach, I've been running a Benelli Nova pump for turkeys for 5+ years now with the factory full choke and factory sights. Lead shells worked okay but CA outlawed them. Steel shot sucked for me so I started using Hevishot #'s 2's which work pretty well out to about 52 yards or so. I got all my toms this Spring and the factory combo has been pretty successful for me. But I wanted to do better. And will.

After this season, I decided to check the pattern with lead, steel and Hevishot just to fine tune things. Crap! Now I'm not happy with the pattern for any of them! And this stock buttpad sucks. I am slowly testing different turkey chokes, a different buttpad (Benelli pads suck for patterning), different shells (TSS looks really intriguing) and am now considering some of the other sights these guys are suggesting. I tried one of the magnetic sights before and it promptly fell off like JW mentioned. I also noticed the magnetic sight had me shooting high and missing. Once the magnetic sight fell off, I stopped missing toms and started nailing them again. I'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to shotgun sights. The Truglo's look intriguing but I am honestly willing to try out one of these red dot sights if that makes a bigger difference. I suspect using a turkey choke with a Limbsaver buttpad will likely make the biggest difference but recognize that I will probably try everything recommended just to wring out that last few yards of performance.

mrbb

ported chokes can help tame recoil too and still get you good patterns too, if your not liking the recoil on this gun!

CalHunter

I've read that about the turkey chokes designed for lead and steel shot. The chokes designed specifically for TSS don't seem to be ported but they're usually using a 3" shell instead of a 3.5. For hunting purposes, it wouldn't be an issue and performance would be my top requirement. I hope to read more posts about TSS because that stuff sounds pretty impressive so far.

Wingbone

You didn't mention wind. I have found that a crosswind when you're shooting will affect the pattern. That's the only thing that I can think of that's variable enough to do that.

mrbb

I know a lot of very die hard turkey hunters that spend a LOT of money on special made ammo and custom chokes using 3.5 inch 12 ga. or some using 10 gauges, to get MAX range and patterns
I can understand getting caught up in things and feeling a desire to MAX all one can
but to be honest, again, I never had any problems killing a turkey with a plain Jane stock choke and calling them in to under 40 yards
YES some birds will hang up and some will never come closer, but to me that's just hunting, and allowed me more chances to be outdoors and learn more about turkey and hunting them

so, I again am just saying, its not really needed to go over board here, unless you just want to play more than hunt
as you will use up a lot of money on ammo, and choke combo's trying to find a perfect pattern at LONG range, and then your having very small patterns at closer ranges, increasing your odds at missing a bird in close?
this is where them guys above get into having very good optic's on there shotguns, to be very precise in aiming up close(more $$ to the game LOL)

as really, in hunting its normally a 1 shot deal on a turkey
so all that money spent on ammo, chokes, optic's mounts, time at ranges, (some of the 3.5's recoil too LOL)
shoulder pains
to gain an extra +++% of hits in a circle, and gain them extra yards
ME< I just learned to call better and set up better, and if need be, go home some days without one and , get to come back again till one comes in closer(for me that's under 40 yards and my gun shoots nice pattern at 50 and still don;t go there, NO bash here, just giving my 2 cents)
and I won't even go into teh costs my friends have spent on decoys and HOW many of them they have now, as better one's come out and they HAVE to HAVE one or 2 every spring

Good thing they have good jobs and make lots of $$$ to buy all this stuff, Turkeys at local grocery store were like 0.59 cents a lb when I was there last < HAHA!
they could buy a whole life time of supply of store bought turkey' , for what they spent on decoys I know that , HAHA!
OH< how hobbies get crazy some times, , and how us hunters are such suckers for marketing of things to try! (and I am more than guilty of spending $$ on things this way too over my yrs)

and I also, didn;t even mention the cost of ALL the different guns they have tried , trying to find best what they have every pother yr!
some turkey hunters get WAY deep in the game !
all over a little feathered bird that talks to them SOME times,.~~! Haha !!

CalHunter

That is some wise advice. I will freely admit that I'm addicted to turkey hunting. Just like a lot of other people on here.

From what I've seen, most of the guys on here call in turkeys and often use toms. I know that's the prevalent method for turkey hunting and don't disparage or knock it. In some situations, it might be the only way a guy can get a shot at a turkey on a smaller piece of hunting property. I've turkey hunted in a blind, sitting in front of a tree with decoys while calling and my favorite, run and gun. I'm lucky in that I hunt on about a half square mile home ranch surrounded by other ranches with little to no hunting pressure other than coyotes, lions, etc. I've had luck with all of these hunting methods but have found run and gun is an absolute rush. Sometimes you get busted but those are learning experiences where you replay it in your head numerous times and then talk it over with your buddy to fine tune a stalk.

Most of my turkeys have been taken at 30 yards or less. There's a few longer ones I've taken at 50-60 yards. I rarely miss and it's always 1-shot. I was happy with lead and then CA outlawed lead. I tried steel and absolutely hated it. Admittedly, I didn't try different chokes and didn't pattern it. I tried Hevishot and it was effective out to 50-60 yards. I was back to my 1-shot stops and that works for me. After this season, however, I decided to pattern my shotgun from 20- 60 yards and was disappointed in the patterns. A few pellets at each yardage were kill shots and would have worked but none of them had those nice big patterns like you see in people's posts, etc.

I started researching and reading blogs, reviews, articles, HuntingNet posts, etc. Other people have fine tuned their shotguns to get better performance so I know it's possible. Now it's just a challenge. Like putting a different scope on my coyote rifle and hand lapping it for that nth degree of extra fit and performance. I don't need those 70-100 yard shots some people brag about with TSS although I'm still going to try TSS because their patterns look amazing. I'm still going to sneak up on the toms and try to get within 30 yards for a shot because it's the toms (usually there's more than 1 in a group) skill against mine and it's so much fun. I'll try different equipment on my Benelli Nova because I am a gear junky and it's fun to see how much I can improve the platform. When I saw the title of this topic, I read all of the posts and was wishing for more because I'm working out similar things with my Nova.

For the OP, post away and ask all the questions you want. There's a lot of experience, expertise, knowledge and wisdom in this forum. Hopefully all of the responses are getting you thinking about other things to try and do because that's half the fun. Good luck on figuring our your patterning and let us know how the patterning works and also your hunts.