What passed as acceptable in the '80s, and how things have improved

[RMP]

Sorry for the big pics.

Back when I started turkey hunting with my grandad in the '70s, I usually shot his Charles Daly Miroku side by side.  Choked full and modified.  Pretty much the only instruction on shooting from him was "aim for the head."  I even managed to hit one now and then.  Then he gave my my first shotgun that could be considered anything close to being an acceptable turkey gun, along with a Lynch World Champion call.  That gun was a New Haven 600AT with a C-Lect choke, which was nothing more than a relabled Mossberg 500.  I would turn the choke to full, and use whatever hi-brass #4 or #6 I happened to have on hand, usually 2 3/4".  I even managed to kill birds with that.  And I used it for yearts.  But I sold the gun when I read how terrible my set up was.  (No one told that to the turkeys.)  I regretted selling that gun soon after parting with it.  I had been on the lookout for one just like it until a couple of month ago I came across one on the used gun rack at a store in Richmond, Va.  It looked like it has scacely been used.  So I bought it.  It's exactly like what my grandad had given me, except this one was in better shape.

So I took some of my turkey guns out to pattern and decided to haul this one along to see how it would do using shells similar to what I used back in the '80s.  Back then my "patterning" was pretty much shooting a piece of cardboard stuck inside an old tire and shooting it from 40 paces and seeing how it did.  Now, I have a measured range and proper targets.  This is how it turned out:

The gun:



The choke:


40 yards with 2 3/4" Winchester Super X #4 1 1/4oz 1220fps


40 yard with 2 3/4"  Federal Hi Bird #6 1 1/4oz 1330fps


Not great at 40 yards.  But a hit can kill and it does hit.

And with 3" Winchester Long Beard XR #5 1 3/4oz 1200fps


Modern shells help, but not by much.

Compare that to a modern Browning BPS with a Code Black Turkey choke at the same distance.

The gun:


The choke:


3" Winchester Long Beard XR #5  1 3/4oz  1200fps


We've come a long way.

[Teamblue]

Nice find! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[silvestris]

Sorry, I didn't look.  I don't look at oversized photos. Too much of a headache.

[Ohiowoodchuck]

I remember everyone used a 10 gauge with number 4's around here. Then when mossberg came out with the 835 and the 3.5" shell that was the rage. If I remember at the time Hastings was the only one making choke tubes for them. Most opted for a .690 constriction and away they went. I remember federal making a 3.5" premium Turkey shell at the time. Then Remington came out with the super mag and Hastings made the .665 for it. If I remember right putting 50-60 pellets in the head and neck at 30 yards and you had a very good gun. I remember when kicks came out and the Winchester supremes. I remember the remingtons with a kicks .665 were putting around 135 hits in the head and neck at 30 yards with 5's and some got upwards of 150 with 6's. I remember getting 50 some hits in the head and neck at 50 yards with these setups and just being in amazement. I think I still have some of my dads old patterns when all this was going on in the day. I was just a kid but paid attention to everything that man did. I remember them shooting at the old Winchester Turkey target that showed the spine, brain and all the lethal hit areas of a Turkey.

[Longshanks]

The most important thing I remember was letting the turkey get inside 30yds. Ocassionalky we shot one at 35 yds no problem. Today we let them get inside 40yds.  Not much difference. This misses today inside 30yds have increased exponentially with the new equipment. The fixed full choke pattern guns we shot back then shot much better than the pattern you posted. 35yds they were killer patterns.

[RMP]

Yeah, all those were 40 yard patterns.  No doubt, the closer the better.  But that was what I used when I had nothing else, and still managed to kill birds with it, using ammo that was far from ideal.  When I was a kid, that's all I had, and what I knew was what I rewad in magazines.

The upside to that Mossberg is that it hits to point of aim.  Up close, it will shoot a 50/50 pattern, dead center - neither a bit left or right. 

[paboxcall]

...Hastings was the only one making choke tubes for them....

Remember that well. Buddy who taught me to turkey hunt back in the day, he and I were some of the first in this region to buy .660 Hasting tubes for our 1300s.

We'd hit the different block shoots every weekend. Beat the couple guys who showed up with their 30" long "goose guns."

Can't count the number of frozen turkeys, hams, slabs of bacon and blocks of cheese we'd bring home LOL.

Most of the clubs wised up quick, made participants shoot the "club gun."