20 Gauge Turkey Loads?

frankwright

Senior Member
Santa(Me) brought me a nice new Remington 870 20 gauge and I want to hunt turkeys with it this year.
I have always used Winchester or Remingtons in my 12ga but I am not sure about this 20ga.

I have a hard time spending $2-4 bucks per shell but if I had to...

What are you using in your 20 to get the turkeys?

Thanks!
 

Uncle Dawg Bone

Senior Member
I'm just using Winchester Supremes 4 or 5 shot and I'm 2 for 3 and the one I lost was over 50 yards away
 

icdedturkes

Senior Member
In my testing if you want a gun that will a turkey at 40 with a 20 gauge Lead is Dead.. I have tested the Rem, Win and Fed (pre FC wad) lead shells and none gave me a pattern that I would feel comfortable with at 40 let alone a margin for error. If you want a 30 yard gun lead will work, but will only produce adequate patterns to 35.

If you want a gun that is good to 40 with a buffer you are going to have to move to HTL loads. H13 6s have suffered in recent years but their waterfowl load produces a quality 40 yard pattern. The new Heavyweight Fed 7s are producing good patterns. Their are always Nitros as well.

In my identical gun I have had best luck with the Pure Gold 555 and the Tru Glo SSX 550.
 

nhancedsvt

Banned
Are Nitros really worth the money? I just find a hard time swallowing $6 a shell!
 

Kwaksmoka

Senior Member
All this talk has me thinking about getting a 20ga for turkeys, if you had to pick a gun what would you get?
 

icdedturkes

Senior Member
Nitros essentially leave for no comparison of ammo, they are that good.. Buy yourself a Pure Gold 555 or 570 or Tru Glo SSX for the Remington and a box of Nitros, sight in and go hunting.

The downside of Nitro is:
A. Obviously the cost, but they save money in the initial testing

B. Their lack of answering the phone and lead time to receiving your order is a PIA

With this being said, I will be switching from Nitro this year mainly due to B, if I can get 140 evenly dispersed pellets in a ten inch circle at 40 yds with a good margin for error outside of that with either Fed HW 7s or H 13 7s at 40 yards.
 

hawglips

Banned
What makes Nitros so good is their patterns, which are a result of their pellet counts. Nobody else puts near as many pellets in a 20 gauge turkey shell.

If you're going to get a 20 gauge, and if you can't get 150 or so of the Fed HWT #7s in a 10" at 40, then you're probably better off going with Nitros. The Fed HWT #7 pellets carry a much bigger wallop than the Nitro #7 hevishot pellets, but you've got to have a good pattern density or the advantage is negated.

Short of loading your own, those are the best options out there. I hear EM is coming up with some 20 gauge hevi-13 #7 shells, but I think they will only be 1-1/4 oz.
 

returntoarchery

Senior Member
Fed HW #7 number one for me in pattering. Hevi-13 #6 is my backup.

With my pattering tests any shot larger than that, at least in my 20ga guns, don't produce the shot patterns dense enough with sufficient number of hits in the kill/disable zone beyond 25-30 yards for me to feel comfortable using them.

BTW: if the Fed HW #7 hadn't been able I would have gone to Nitros this year.
 
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hawglips

Banned
Fed HW #7 number one for me in pattering. Hevi-13 #6 is my backup.

This is the first I've heard of Fed HWs out-patterning Nitros. There just aren't near the number of pellets in the shell. I'd be very excited to see your Fed HW #7 pattern if you have any pictures of them.
 

returntoarchery

Senior Member
This is the first I've heard of Fed HWs out-patterning Nitros. There just aren't near the number of pellets in the shell. I'd be very excited to see your Fed HW #7 pattern if you have any pictures of them.

To be clear, I haven't tested the Nitros. From what I've seen of other folks tests, the Nitros pattern better. The reason I selected the Fed HW #7 over Nitros was economic rather than pattern performance. I'll eventually try the Nitros but quite frankly my barrel needs some TLC from the Gun Docc before I could get the added benefits of the Nitros to justify the extra expense.

My numbers aren't up to what others are getting from Fed HW #7 but a good bit better than the Hevi-13 and other lead loads.

Check www.oldgobbler.com. there's a bunch of patterning photos there from other folks. I'm gaboy there and you'll see my patterns there. I don't recall if I posted them here.
 
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returntoarchery

Senior Member
Once again my barrel needs some work and there are folks getting better patterns from their 20ga guns. YMMV. The wind was gusting from 2 o'clock and temp was 85-90 degs. Also the only digital camera I have is crappy cell phone camera so the images are pretty bad. There are holes in the orange sticker but the camera saturated them out.
 

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returntoarchery

Senior Member
All this talk has me thinking about getting a 20ga for turkeys, if you had to pick a gun what would you get?

A lot of folks are using the Rem 870 youth with good results. There are lot of good options out there. MKW is the 20ga guru here maybe he'll chime in.
 

returntoarchery

Senior Member
I'm bored today hence the number of posts. :D

Here's the measured 30 yard numbers for Kent, Win, & Rem lead shot shells. Same Ithaca M37 setup as previous post. 3 shots per target with average. I know the avg isn't always a good representative of good pattern performance due to possible inconsistency from shell to shell but I was in a hurry that day and was doing those for fun. The results were in line with single shot numbers from a Win 1300 I patterned last year.

Kent Ultimate Turkey Diamond Shot 3” 1-1/4” #6:

Total 260
Avg 86.7

Remington Premium Turkey Magnum Copper Plated buffered 3” 1-1/4” #6:

Total 246
Avg 82

Winchester Supreme HV Turkey Mag 3” 1-5/16” #5:

Total 179
Avg 59.7

Winchester Super X Magnum 3” 1-1/4” #4:


Total 177
Avg 59
 

frankwright

Senior Member
I just picked up a Remington Youth, I liked the light weight and short barrel. I am not that big so the 1" shorter youth stock fits me pretty good.

I hunted for a used one and finally gave up and bought new for $320 out the door with a $30 rebate from Remington.

I read on Old Gobbler about problems with the hevi 13, what waterfowl load is better to try, the Goose Load?
 

returntoarchery

Senior Member
I read on Old Gobbler about problems with the hevi 13....

Same here. The issue as I recall was different wads were used from batch to batch due to availability issues. I think the EM Hevi folk acknowledged the problem and were working on a better more consistent source of wads.
 

dawg2

AWOL ADMINISTRATOR
I'm just using Winchester Supremes 4 or 5 shot and I'm 2 for 3 and the one I lost was over 50 yards away

Same here. Great shells, I use them in a 20 and a 12.
 
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