Does size matter with TSS?

[goindeep]

Having a conversation with a buddy. He is shooting Nitro 7.5x9 and I am running Apex 8.5x9s. His turkeys seem more dead than mine, every time and at every distance. His simply dont flop and mine do. Granted they are all dead, but is there something to the 7.5s hitting that much harder?

[Dtrkyman]

Doubt it, I killed one bird with straight 7.5s and it flopped all over the place!

Occasionally you stone one but rarely!

I flattened one out last season at 40 with nines, could only see his head when I shot, wasn't sure if I even connected, walked up the hill and he was laid out!


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[Marc]

I have shot the heads off a couple of birds, and they all flopped.  I remain confident they were dead.

The flopping is due to the spinal cord and nerve endings remaining intact which causes involuntary muscle contractions (reflexive actions) rather than the bird being alive....  His birds are no more dead than yours.

If you are wounding birds that are not recovered, you need to make some changes...

[Greg Massey]

I agree, I had some not flop and others that have flopped all over the place...

I will say probably less of the ones that didn't flop... LOL

[goindeep]

LOL...no they are all dead. Love me some TSS

[Dougas]

I can count the number of non floppers for me on one hand. The numerous of floppers I have killed were just as dead, missing a few more feathers, but just as dead.

[Dougas]

I use #9s. The non floppers were 12 to 48 yards as well as the floppers.

[GobbleNut]

Having a conversation with a buddy. He is shooting Nitro 7.5x9 and I am running Apex 8.5x9s. His turkeys seem more dead than mine, every time and at every distance. His simply dont flop and mine do. Granted they are all dead, but is there something to the 7.5s hitting that much harder?

Ah, yes...the age-old turkey-hunter debate as to how dead they must be for us to be satisfied. Kind of falls into the same category of whether fifty pellets in the head at forty yards is better or worser than twenty pellets...     

[Bowguy]

I was about to say the same thing about the seeming "deader" thing.

[Gooserbat]

I've killed around 50 birds with tss and id say more don't flop than do but I don't think it matters.  For what its worth I've used 8, 8.5, and 9 shot and my favorite is 8.

[Marc]

Not sure I understand how a non-flopping bird is a better kill???

If you substantially damage the brain-stem of a bird, it is generally going to flop.  While I do not have the bird count that many on here have, I would say I have killed about 80 or so birds total, and been present for a bunch of others...

I have seen two birds that fell over without flopping...  One I killed, and upon breaking the neck, the bird started flopping...  The other my daughter killed (and she shot low with several pellets to the head and neck).  Bird fell over (seemingly) dead, and I used a pithing device (to make sure), and the bird immediately started flopping.

If you disengage the central nervous system of a turkey, it generally generally cause the involuntary muscle reaction of flopping.

I once shot a bird at extremely close range early in my turkey hunting career...  I completely removed it's head with the shot, and I chased that bird around like a drunk monkey chasing a greased football (as I did not realize the degree of damage I had caused)...

What would be the theory about TSS killing a bird without flopping?

[Ranman]

I'm wondering if it has to do with shot placement?? Is shooting them in the head vs the wattles the deciding factor? Not sure. #9 for me with no complaints.. dead is dead, flop or not.

[GobbleNut]

Not sure I understand how a non-flopping bird is a better kill???

What would be the theory about TSS killing a bird without flopping?

I read an article about this some years back where the "theory" of floppage versus non-floppage was discussed. Marc's take on it is exactly what the article concluded.  That is, floppage will occur if the bird is shot primarily in the head/neck area while non-floppage is more prevalent in birds that are paralyzed by shot hitting the spinal column somewhere along the body (or something to that effect). 

I have found that, quite often, I will shoot a gobbler that goes down without flopping, will lay there a few seconds or longer, and then start flopping some.  Curiously, I have also found that a non-flopping gobbler will stay still until the moment I touch him...and then all h*ll breaks loose.  Consequently, if I shoot a gobbler and he is laying still, I generally just leave him alone to see what happens for a while.  Regardless, it seems at some point, even a still gobbler will reach the flopping stage after being shot. 

[Gobble!]

No. Anything larger than #9s are a waste of space.

[TrackeySauresRex]

I usually don't drop em stone cold....

But when I do..

It's with a lead load of #4's