My experience W/12ga 3" Federal TSS thus far.

[DMTJAGER]

I previously posted a rather less than hoped for performance shooting some 12ga 3" #7 Federal TSS shells.

Some time ago while shooting my turkey guns at my rifle club a member offered to trade me 10 TSS shells for a box of 10 WLBXR 3.5" shells. I suggested he sell them as he should have no problem doing so but he said he couldn't find any of the type of WLBXR shells I had and trading me for a box was essentially his only option.

So I traded 10 WLBXR's for five shell box of Federal 12ga 3" #7 TSS and five shell box of Federal 12ga 3" #9 TSS. Some weeks ago I fired on round of the 12ga 3" #7 TSS at a 10" circle target at 40 yards and the pattern was so poor I couldn't ethically hunt with that shell and choke combed.
I posted my results here and those failure with TSS suggested the .665" constriction of the Carlson's WLBXR choke was to tight and I should try a less constricting choke which to day I did.

I fired the fallowing Federal 12ga 3" TSS out of the fallowing shotguns and choke combinations. All barrels  and chokes were 100% clean and I fired 1 fouling shot of dove load. Dry patched between each shot.
Range conditions were nearly perfect with a very mild tail wind and I did have a a DIY wind flag out to allow me to shoot when the wind was little to none. I used 3'x3' pieces of construction paper as my target with a 10" circle around a centered 2.5" blackened target. Used a 3MOA circle dot Swampfox Kingslayer RMR sight.
Liked to add used an awesome laser sighting shell to confirm my Swampfox was within 95%+ of dead center of target at 30 yards on both my 870 and BSN.

Fired one 12ga 3" Fed #7 TSS out of my 12ga 870 ESM using a Remington Factory choke ID of 0.676 at 40 yards. Results were as bad as using the Carlson's .665 WLBXR choke essentially a blown pattern.

Then same gun and choke one round of Fed #9 TSS at 40 yards again same very poor pattern unacceptable to hunt with.

Moved onto my Benelli Super Nova.
One #7 and one #9 12ga 3" Fed TSS with a Carlson's .650 WLBXR choke same patter results as the 870 unacceptable to hunt with.
Installed the Benelli factory full choke again one each of the Fed #7 and #9 12ga 3" TSS again same type of poor pattern shot dispersion.
Lastly tried my Mossberg 835 with a Carlson's .683 WLBXR choke and one each #7 and #9 3" Fed TSS again patterns that would not give me confidence to hunt with either the #7 or #9 Fed TSS.

So I ended up using three different 12ga shotguns and six different chokes from .665 up to .690 and none gave satisfactory results.

I have included one pic from a 12ga 3" federal #7 TSS fired from my Benelli using the .650 WLBXR. I am posting only this pic as this was how they all pretty much looked like. Fired at 40 yards from a sand bag bench rest.

I have no explanation other than none of the chokes I used are most definitely NOT the correct ID for TSS.

Thoughts?

[DMTJAGER]

Benelli SN 12ga 3" Federal #9 TSS 40 yards.

Unfortunately for some reason I can not post the pic of the target.
Best I can describe the target is very evenly but very very wide spread pattern. I could kill a turkey at 40 yards but the #9 TSS are putting best guess well under 100 pellets in a 10" circle and I would have at best bare minimum meant maximum of under 10 lethal hits and the WLBXR's are putting 2.5-2.5x as many pellets in the kill zone as the Federal #9 TSS and that makes absolutely zero sense to me as there are at least 2x more pellets in the #9 TSS VS #5 WLBXR's.

Essentially the WLBXR's were patterning at 60 yards SLIGHTLY better than the TSS was patterning at 40.

[USMC0331]

I have not heard a lot of positive   results of factory loaded tss. I do know in all of my shotguns I'm using a pretty open choke compaired to lead loads.

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[BandedSpur]

My only conclusion is that you need to move on from Federal ammunition. Their flight control wad is very poor, but they are too stubborn and heavily invested to admit it. I have only shot hand loaded TSS for the last 13 years, but have heard much better results using Foxtrot or Apex loads compared to Federal. It is really easy to get more than 300/10" @ 40 with handloads with 1&5/8 or more TSS 9s. TSS 7s are not an appropriate shot size for turkeys in my opinion. Foxtrot is essentially handloaded ammo, and I have not heard of any negative experiences.

[USMC0331]

Out of my on ignorance why do you think tss # 7 is inappropriate for turkey?

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[BandedSpur]

Out of my on ignorance why do you think tss # 7 is inappropriate for turkey?

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TSS 7s have the pellet penetration ability to kill a turkey to 118 yards at the expense of a huge amount of pattern density. A 2 oz load of 7s only contains 365 pellets, whereas the same 2 oz load of 9s has 720, and the 9s still have the ability to kill way farther than I will shoot. TSS 7s for turkeys would be like shooting lead 2s for doves. Yes, a lead 2 would kill a dove way out there (122 yds) if you get lucky enough for a pellet to hit it. Same principle.

[owlhoot]

Benelli SN 12ga 3" Federal #9 TSS 40 yards.

Unfortunately for some reason I can not post the pic of the target.
Best I can describe the target is very evenly but very very wide spread pattern. I could kill a turkey at 40 yards but the #9 TSS are putting best guess well under 100 pellets in a 10" circle and I would have at best bare minimum meant maximum of under 10 lethal hits and the WLBXR's are putting 2.5-2.5x as many pellets in the kill zone as the Federal #9 TSS and that makes absolutely zero sense to me as there are at least 2x more pellets in the #9 TSS VS #5 WLBXR's.

Essentially the WLBXR's were patterning at 60 yards SLIGHTLY better than the TSS was patterning at 40.

Thats nuts, every Federal Tss 9's shell i have patterned out of many 20 gauges have never shot below 200 in the 10" at 40. Even fixed full choke guns. 12 gauges at 300 in the 10. The only Federal TSS load that didn't shoot over 100 was a yildez fixed full . It is  a .410. And does around 95 in the 10" at 40.
Where did you get those shells?

[USMC0331]

Out of my on ignorance why do you think tss # 7 is inappropriate for turkey?

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TSS 7s have the pellet penetration ability to kill a turkey to 118 yards at the expense of a huge amount of pattern density. A 2 oz load of 7s only contains 365 pellets, whereas the same 2 oz load of 9s has 720, and the 9s still have the ability to kill way farther than I will shoot. TSS 7s for turkeys would be like shooting lead 2s for doves. Yes, a lead 2 would kill a dove way out there (122 yds) if you get lucky enough for a pellet to hit it. Same principle.

Thanks for the info.

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[Old Gobbler]

General rule of thumb with turkey shells is that if your gun is shooting "well" it will deliver about %50 of your TOTAL PELLET Payload in a 10 inch cir at 40 yds  ...some will even go tighter

It was mentioned that the #7 tss shell has 365 ...so essentially if you were to get 180 that should be in the whereabouts of "optimum" performance

IMO the most important thing is that a turkey hunters. gun shoots accurately..if your off by even 6 inches that 180 will now look like 100 to 70 .....off by a foot ...it will look like 40 ...winds blowing the pattern ....fowled up barrel etc....it starts going south fast

[crow]

Money wise this trade was way off in your favor

Your patterns don't sound like tss patterns

if you have any left I'd look at them close to see if he may have dumped the tss and put some other type of pellet in and recrimped, or open 1 up and check it out

[DMTJAGER]

Money wise this trade was way off in your favor

Your patterns don't sound like tss patterns

if you have any left I'd look at them close to see if he may have dumped the tss and put some other type of pellet in and recrimped, or open 1 up and check it out

I know the guy who traded me well enough to know such an underhanded act is not possible. I actually offered to sell him a box at my cost of $25 but he insisted to trade the Federal TSS shells as a way to say thanks as 12ga 3.5" #4's WLBXR's have not been available OTC anywhere near where either he or I live since I can not recall when. Of the last 150 WLBXR's I have bought all have been from online suppliers.
I just so happen to have several more boxes of the 12ga 3.5" 2oz #4's but he only wanted one box.
WLBXR's 2oz #4 shot patterns well in my guns but the shells with 2oz #5 pattern just better enough I use them instead.

[crow]

 

[owlhoot]

Money wise this trade was way off in your favor

Your patterns don't sound like tss patterns

if you have any left I'd look at them close to see if he may have dumped the tss and put some other type of pellet in and recrimped, or open 1 up and check it out

I know the guy who traded me well enough to know such an underhanded act is not possible. I actually offered to sell him a box at my cost of $25 but he insisted to trade the Federal TSS shells as a way to say thanks as 12ga 3.5" #4's WLBXR's have not been available OTC anywhere near where either he or I live since I can not recall when. Of the last 150 WLBXR's I have bought all have been from online suppliers.
I just so happen to have several more boxes of the 12ga 3.5" 2oz #4's but he only wanted one box.
WLBXR's 2oz #4 shot patterns well in my guns but the shells with 2oz #5 pattern just better enough I use them instead.

You know it sure seems like you got a hold of some TSS 3rd degree shells.
Could be wrong shells in the boxes. from the factory or someone in the store swapped the shells.
Since they are no good patterns , you could cut one open, one of those 9's and measure or count those pellets.

[DMTJAGER]

Money wise this trade was way off in your favor

Your patterns don't sound like tss patterns

if you have any left I'd look at them close to see if he may have dumped the tss and put some other type of pellet in and recrimped, or open 1 up and check it out

I know the guy who traded me well enough to know such an underhanded act is not possible. I actually offered to sell him a box at my cost of $25 but he insisted to trade the Federal TSS shells as a way to say thanks as 12ga 3.5" #4's WLBXR's have not been available OTC anywhere near where either he or I live since I can not recall when. Of the last 150 WLBXR's I have bought all have been from online suppliers.
I just so happen to have several more boxes of the 12ga 3.5" 2oz #4's but he only wanted one box.
WLBXR's 2oz #4 shot patterns well in my guns but the shells with 2oz #5 pattern just better enough I use them instead.

You know it sure seems like you got a hold of some TSS 3rd degree shells.
Could be wrong shells in the boxes. from the factory or someone in the store swapped the shells.
Since they are no good patterns , you could cut one open, one of those 9's and measure or count those pellets.

The shells were red and had "TSS" printed on each one so they were legit Federal TSS shells.

[owlhoot]

Money wise this trade was way off in your favor

Your patterns don't sound like tss patterns

if you have any left I'd look at them close to see if he may have dumped the tss and put some other type of pellet in and recrimped, or open 1 up and check it out

I know the guy who traded me well enough to know such an underhanded act is not possible. I actually offered to sell him a box at my cost of $25 but he insisted to trade the Federal TSS shells as a way to say thanks as 12ga 3.5" #4's WLBXR's have not been available OTC anywhere near where either he or I live since I can not recall when. Of the last 150 WLBXR's I have bought all have been from online suppliers.
I just so happen to have several more boxes of the 12ga 3.5" 2oz #4's but he only wanted one box.
WLBXR's 2oz #4 shot patterns well in my guns but the shells with 2oz #5 pattern just better enough I use them instead.

You know it sure seems like you got a hold of some TSS 3rd degree shells.
Could be wrong shells in the boxes. from the factory or someone in the store swapped the shells.
Since they are no good patterns , you could cut one open, one of those 9's and measure or count those pellets.

The shells were red and had "TSS" printed on each one so they were legit Federal TSS shells.

Yep, 3rd degree shells I've seen are marked pretty large 3rd degree.