Turkey Techniques

Time To Pattern Your Gun

Here is a little analysis on why you need to pattern your gun. The example gun is a Mossberg 835 12 gauge with a Carlson ported extra full choke shooting Federal Premium copper plated lead with flight control wads Number 5 shot 3 ½ mags with 2 1/4 oz of shot.  This shell has aprox 350 pellets.  First shot should be at 20 yards.  You may ask, “Why waist the shot it is so close I can’t miss”.  Here is the reasoning.  At 20 yards with extra full chokes and specialized shells the pattern is still very tight.  The majority of the pellets hit within an 8 inch circle.  The fixed sites on a barrel may not be right on and a little pull left or right by the shooter can move this 8 inch pattern off target. The 20 yard shot will let you know where your sights are and show you how much room for error you have. Notice the blown out part of the target to the right of the head.  This shot was not right on the mark but still instantly lethal to ol’ Tom.

20 Yard Target
 

Now that we know the gun is sighted in lets see the percentages for 30, 40 and 50 yard shots.

At 30 yards the majority of the shot lands in a 15 inch circle.  On the test shot the shooter pulled a little left and still managed to get 22 pellets in the spine and brain. Still the percentage of shot that are instant killers is only 6.3% of the pellets.  With a better placed shot you could get 10%-12% instant kill pellets.  At this range there is still a large amout of knock down power from the amount of hits and the force it has on the bird.

30 Yard Target
 

At 40 yards the majority of the pattern is still on the 20 X 20 target 100 pellets are in a 12 inch circle and 8 have hit spine or brain. This equates to 2.3 % of the pellets are instant killers.  With the amount of pellets in the 12 inch circle this set up is fairly effective at the 40 yard range.

40 Yard Target

At 50 yards the pattern has spread well beyond the 20 X 20 target only about 50 pellets landed in the 12 inch circle and 3 have hit the spine or brain. This equates to 0.9 % of the pellets are instant killers.  With that stat I would not shoot at a bird at the 50 yard range.  With less than 1% chance of an instant kill it is not worth the wounded bird running away.  I will probably kill the bird but retrieval probability is low.  The amount of pellets that hit the bird is low and the energy transfer to knock the bird down is minimal.  Some pellets may not penetrate the heavy feathers of the bird.