12 ga turkey load

[Taylor]

Mornin all,

I have on hand, federal 3" hulls, marked "00 buck", TPI 3" white lightening wads from Ballistic Products.
Universal, Longshot and HS6 powders.

The wad will hold 1.75 oz of #5 shot.

OK...anything I find as far as load books go, calls for 800x...ain't got none.

Any ideas, opinions, thoughts or input?

[megasupermagnum]

There are two kinds of Federal 3" hulls; paper base and plastic base. Most now are plastic base. Any chance you can get bluedot powder? I can help a lot more if you can. For turkey loads, you will want to use buffered load data. Without buffer, you are wasting your time. You will never beat a buffered factory load without using buffer yourself. I like PSB buffer from precision reloading best. I know there is data with longshot powder out there, however, it gets harder and harder to find every year.

[Taylor]

The hulls are plastic base. I have "some" blue dot, not much though. Will look into this buffer. I normally use winchester longbeard, good round, for me anyway. Not trying to duplicate it. Just trying to use what I have on hand.

[Hogtamer]

1 5/8 oz w/32 gr Longshot and win 209 =1280 fps and 10,600 psi
OR 30 gr Longshot w/Fed 209a = 1225 fps and 10,300 psi

As for buffer, if you can’t kill a turkey with an unbuffered 1 5/8 oz load out of a full choke at 40 yds you need to find another hobby. Yes, a few stray pellets so....

[Tripplebeards]

I'm sure you can use HS6 with less payload. I wanted to load my 10 gauge at 2 1/4oz...or more and ran into the same issue. I found a 2 oz load listing with HS 6. I don't use buffer and had almost 70 #6 pellets in my turkey head target at 25 yards. Close to 40 pellets at 40 yards.

I just killed a double bearded Gobbler last week with 1 5/8 oz of #6's and a 100 grains of Fg. I was told my load was only 900fps muzzle velocity....dont tell the turkeys! I dont use buffer either. BTW I had 40 pellets with a Damascus barreled gun at 25 yards, 17 pellets 40 yards, and 7 pellets at 50 yards. I'd tell you to see if there are any 1.5 oz.loads you can use with HS 6. Pick up some pyrodex or black powder and really have fun!

[ackleyman]

I like PSB buffer from precision reloading best.

Those with ears, let them hear!!!

[megasupermagnum]

You can certainly kill turkeys with non-buffered loads. The problem is that you will not match a buffered factory load. If you load pretty much all your shotgun shells. Sure, go for it. If you don't load much shotgun, and figured it might be worth trying one for a special turkey load, don't bother.

I load all my own shotgun shells. It has been a long time since I've shot a turkey with a cartridge gun, but for what it is worth, my backup gun for the past few years was a 12 gauge with my do-all load of 1 3/8 oz of #5 shot, good to 30 yards with my extra full choke.

Another way you can think about this is to make less recoil turkey loads. You could use your 3" federals if you want, but a 2 3/4" might offer a better fit for such loads. Something like 1 1/4 oz to 1 3/8 oz of #7.5 would make a good turkey load to 35 maybe 40 yards, and it won't beat you up in the process. The key difference in this and say "pheasant loads", is that you would want to keep the velocity down. Longshot would not be the powder for this.

A quick search brings up the following candidate.

Federal gold medal 2 3/4"
Federal 209A
24.6 gr HS6
Federal 12S4
1 3/8 oz shot

1185 fps
9,500 psi