When you know at what yardage your gun and ammo is
patterning right and you want to keep it within that range,

Stick your arm out at 90*, stick up your thumb, close your
non-shooting eye and see how much of the target your
thumb nail covers the target or where the target is in relation
to your thumb nail. Remember your yardage and mental
sighting.It's not exact, but close.
Use in the woods to calculate that yardage on turkey's.
I see you want to shoot as soon you see the bird, so I would use
#5 or #4 for the killing power.

everyone one is right about pattern density and 6 will have more holes in the paper. but if you look at distance and ftlb of kenitic energy retained by per pellet to achieve a broken neck bone, then you have a different story.
but of course pattern density will again play a part, cause 2 #6's will hit harder than 1 #5 at any given distance. if i remember correctly i believe it takes 3.5 pounds to break a turkey bone and a single #6 pellet loses that past 32yds. a single #5 is like 42yds.

Mr. Longbeard, why do you ask me that?

i shoot #6 winchester supreme turkey 3'' loads with a 3x comp-n-choke and at 40 yards i got 36 hits in the head and neck but at 50 i only got 13 hit

I`m just curious about this because the Nitro loads use alot of #7 Hevi-shot and I`ve talked with alot of guys that have absolutely slammed birds at 45 yards. A number of these guys say the birds don`t even flop when hit with these loads. I hope so because I`m trying them this year and just patterned my gun, I get 320 pellets in a 10" circle at 40 yards. That gives me around 45-55 spine and brain hits.

i can remember 20 years ago,hunting with regular shot gun shells, 2 3/4 high power #6, and never had a problem killing a turkey at 40 yard or less.just my opinon, but it doesn't take all those fancey shells, but i guess it keeps those companys in business

Hey one on one what kind of gun/choke were you shooting back then???

Rebl H was not ment towards you[] How do you guys get that quote to come up in your post???

mr. longbeard, i used a winchester pump,30" full choke,no screw in ones, and a remington 1100,i think the only shell i used that was 3" was buck shot,

I can remember when I was a kid my brother telling me all these storys about my grandfathers Iver johnson single shot with a 30" full choke. He would tell me stories about how awsome this gun shot and how he could knock squirels out of trees 50 yards away. Well when I first got into turkey hunting I thought I had the perfect turkey gun. My grandfathers ol Iver Johnson. Well I camoed it up with tape bought some 2 3/4" Win XX #5's turkey loads. Set a target up at 20 yards and fired one into a turkey target. I think I got like 5 hits in the vitals

I learned something that day. Yesterdays shot guns don't shoot now were near as good as a special purpose turkey gun

i agree,i've got several different turkey guns with different chokes now,but i still enjoy taking my old sears and roebuck 12 ga. single barrel, and listen to my huntin buddy's laugh at me, until i return with the tom,