Another dumb question

[BirdNut]

Maybe dumb, maybe not.  Every year sometime after turkey season I break down my son's 20 ga. mossberg youth from its turkey set up for him or another kid to use for dove, quail, duck and whatever else might be pursued when its not turkey season.

When it's set-up I have a .555 Pure Gold choke and a Tru-Glo rifle-style fiber optic sight on it.  I have done this for 2 years running and am getting a little tired of spending big $$$ to sight it in again with the Fed Heavyweights we use.

My question to the ever-wise board: If I use say bird shot in 7-1/2 or 8 to get close on the sight-in after reinstalling the choke and sights, will I get a good idea as to POA/POI, walk the sights in, then switch over to a couple or three of the "expensive" shells to verify POA/POI?  Anybody else do this?  I know they are totally different shells, loads, velocities, etc. and will be different, but I have to think that it might get it close at say .25 cents a shell rather than $4 each...

I have been happy in years past with patterns, just not with the number of shells consumed in getting it sighted back in.  Thanks in advance for help and advice.

[TBab]

Yes sir. you can at least get your sights close with bird shot at 20 yards. That's how I sight in all my guns. Just walk in the bird shot until you get it where you want it then back it out and finish it up. Good luck my friend

[BandedSpur]

That's what I do. When I get ready to convert my turkey gun back to my grouse gun in the fall, I shoot a couple of light target loads, and write down the average of their POIs. That POI will be different from my turkey loads, but that's o.k. Then in the spring when I set it back up for turkeys, I shoot a couple of those same target shells. If the sight is grossly off, I can walk it back to the POI I wrote down back in the fall, ahoot one round of TSS to verify, and I'm done.

[SKFOOTER]

Just buy you another barrel for the non-turkey seasons and then just swap out the barrels.

[BirdNut]

thanks for the advice you all...will definitely save me some money and save the good shells for the boys to use.

[FullChoke]

Try this. Turkey and dove shells may have different POIs. After turkey season, with the sight still on-target, take a 20 yard shot at paper with a bullseye with a dove shell. Be very accurate and steady when shooting. Save the paper and use it to reset your sight before turkey season the following year. Shoot the dove shells to sight it in to the previous years pattern location, back out to 40 yards and verify that the turkey shells are hitting where you want them to.

That should help keep the costs down.