The Old Fashioned Turkey Shoot

[Der Gebirgsjager]

The one I used to attend shot trap. You paid the fee and got to shoot at 10 airborne clay birds. High score got a frozen turkey, with three winners. Then, the event gradually got larger and they wanted to encourage ladies and youth and have more winners, so they went to frozen chickens. Currently, considering that inflation makes everything smaller, they'll likely start awarding Cornish game hens, or maybe coupons.

DG

[contender1]

Like so many others,, I too recall the country turkey shoots. Some,, like above were "closest pellet to the center" winners,, and others were "most pellets in a circle winner" type.

And prizes were frozen turkeys, or a ham or even a few packs of bacon.

And of course,, there were the gamers & the cheaters. Cheaters, when discovered,, were barred & word was spread. Gamers,, well,, those folks were a bit harder to overcome. They often had a normal looking shotgun, and would use the provided shells. But they had spent money getting custom work done on a gun. Backboring, internal choking, or whatever they could try to make their gun shoot tighter than others.
Some folks had custom barrels made for certain guns, and others would have a gun just worked over real well. All while making it look "factory."

Other shoots also included a different type of competition. Using a .22 LR rifle. Open sights, standing not propped up, and shoot 3 rounds at a NRA target. Count score to see who had the highest. 30 points was perfect. Custom rifles not allowed. Factory configurations only. And to make it challenging,, the targets were placed at 40 yds. And they supplied the ammo. I used to use a Ruger M77/22 bolt gun and would manage a few wins. There was a teenage girl shooting a Browning bolt .22 that would beat me some. She shot on her school rimfire team.

And just for the guy with custom stuff,, after the main turkey shoot,, some guys would have a "side match." Place $5 in the pot,, and shoot your custom shotgun at 40 yds, and count the pellets in the circle. Winner takes the pot. I have a custom barrel,, off an 870,, that will remove the center of the circle with a wad of shot,, if I do my part. I swapped a guy out of it one day at one of the shoots. He was wanting a new H&R Topper I'd won. He wanted to "build a custom" and the Rem bbl, was "too obvious" as a custom. I swapped him,, then later in the day, first time I ever shot it,, I won the first money shoot. Made most of my boot money I'd spent. That barrel has made me more in side matches than I ever spent in shoots. He regretted swapping me that gun right after he did,, and until he passed. Apparently,, the sights on it are not "perfectly aligned" and I know where to hold it. At 60 yds,, it STILL holds a very tight wad of shot,, that can destroy a center area,, IF,, you know where to hold the sights.
I had a guy one day,, after taking (2) pots,, challenge me to a $20, long distance shot. We shot at 60 yds, and he wanted each of us to shoot the other guy's gun. I already knew his gun shot a bit "low." He did not know about my sights. I took his $20.

I NEVER tried to take the custom barreled 870 to a normal shoot. But it sure made a lot of folks want it,, when I'd side match it.

[Texas by God]

The ones I attended at the VFW involved pellet(s) closest to the X. They provided shells(AA#8) and your choice of three Remington 1100 12 gauge shotguns.
Myself,my 12 year old son, and my 86 year old mother in law all won a turkey or ham at one of these. The guys that believed that skill was the ticket were mistaken- the hits were always random as far as the X was concerned.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[gwpercle]

We’re having one in downtown Appling next year just before Thanksgiving.

Dang .....I wish I lived closer ... it would be a lot of fun not only to attend but I would have to take a shot or two ,
I'm going to do some checking around on the inter web and see if any are planned within driving distance of my house ... who knows what I'll find .
Gary

[Jim22]

I remember back in the 60's and 70's a local bar owner in Alaska called 'Scattter' would put on a turkey shoot once in a while. I won a ham once. I wish we could do it again. He also had paper targets and scoring was whoever managed to get one pellet closest to the aim point.

Jim

[WRideout]

The one I used to attend shot trap. You paid the fee and got to shoot at 10 airborne clay birds. High score got a frozen turkey, with three winners. Then, the event gradually got larger and they wanted to encourage ladies and youth and have more winners, so they went to frozen chickens. Currently, considering that inflation makes everything smaller, they'll likely start awarding Cornish game hens, or maybe coupons.

DG

Or maybe frozen chicken nuggets.

Wayne

[dale2242]

I attended turkey shoots back in the early 60s, maybe sooner.
I graduated high school in 1960 and remember going to them while in school.
One of the matches remembered was to shoot 2 shots and person with the 2 bullets closest together won.
Entry fees were $1 each as I recall. With 5 entries the prize was a turkey.
More than 5 and the prize was a ham.
Other turkey shoots were typical trap shoots.
The shooter breaking the most targets won.
One of the shoots was called Annie Oakley.
Two shooters were involved.
If the first shooter missed the clay bird the second shooter got a shot.
If the first shooter hit the bird and the backup shooter fired it was called a miss.
I remember winning my share of the turkeys and hams as a kid shooting against the adults.
Those were good times.

[GregLaROCHE]

I always remember the one in Sergeant York. I’m sure it’s not done like that anymore. The animal activists would probably freak out today if you did.

[gwpercle]

The last Turkey shoot I attended was by accident , about 1985 , Me , the wife and two kids driving way out in the country ...middle o nowhere piney woods and we come upon a VFW Hall or maybey it was a Baptist Church (memory fades) Turkey Shoot Fundraiser , people and cars everywhere , selling soft drinks , snowballs etc . so we stop . Sitting on the table next to the shooting table was a cage with the biggest live turkey in it I've ever seen ...the kids were all around that Godzilla Bird looking in amazement ...How often you see large Tom Turkeys up close . So I decide to contribute to the fund and let my 8 year old boy shoot too ...learning experience . We both shoot and I win squat but the kid ... wins a Turkey ...one pellet dead center of the turkey head target with bullseye target on it !

The man at the prize table pulls out an ice chest with frozen birds and tells my boy to pick one ...
... But Joe ...he don't want no frozen turkey he tells the man he wants the Live one !!!
I don't know , I wasn't sure I was up to killing and cleaning that big rascal ... He looked mean too .
But Joe had other ideas ...he wanted to keep it as a pet ... Oh Man I didn't know what to say ...
about then the man behind the table told Joe that the live turkey was his and his name was Tom lived on his farm and was just for show not a prize , he said if Tom didn't come home his granddaughter would be sad ... so Joe agreed to take a frozen turkey ...
I was soooo glad that fellow got me out of that ... I was the kind of father who had trouble saying no,
much to my wife's consternation ... and if he hadn't had that excuse ... me and joe would probably have came home with a big pet Turkey and no place to keep it .
That was my last turkey shoot ... I need to do it again ...they was fun !
Gary

[Thin Man]

We had regular annual Turkey Shoots in East TN., about Thanksgiving time until the Covid 19 changed that for all of us. The shoots here are usually presented by a VFW or American Legion, then occasionally a local church would hold one. I'm really looking forward to next year's Thanksgiving season and have all intentions of going to a shoot. During the last shoot I attended I was firing a Winchester model 12 in 12 gauge with full choke. My target showed that the shotgun had a serious full choke as the target paper was littered with holes from shot, just none of then were close to the center of the target. This was not a true "blown pattern", just what their cartridge gave me with my shotgun. Next time out I may try aiming slightly right or left of the center of the target and hope for the best.

[brassrat]

My club has had ham and turkey shoots for 50 yrs. Its open to the public and really draws the townfolk and kids in. We had fresh turkeys to hand out the last couple yrs.

[wch]

We had dynamite shoots; 1/4 stick taped to a welding rod and fired at offhand at 50 yards if iron sights, 100 yards if a scoped rifle.
Most men shot small caliber but the guy to watch out for was the one with only one gun, he would be the one who most often took home his choice of a turkey or a ham.
There was no doubt of a "win" by the way!

[M-Tecs]

My home trap club holds an annual turkey shoot. You would win either hams or frozen turkeys. They play several different games. The most common was a standard 5-man squad each firing 5 rounds at the 16-yard line. Normally if you dropped a bird there you were out. The shooters tied for high score would began a game of sudden death "follow the leader". If the station one shooter was in the shoot off they would pick anywhere they wanted to shoot from as long as it was safe. That could be on top of the trap house or on top of the outhouse. Normally it would be well behind the 27-yard line. One that string fired one shot the shooter on the next station picked the spot to shoot from. This would continue till all shooters were eliminated via sudden dead.

Next game was a variant of above. It was called "backup". It was a two-person team. If the first missed the second could take the shot however if both shot and the first hit it was a miss. When your shooting from about the 35-yard line it takes a long time for the shot to get there so is was common that the second shooter would fire.

While that was going on the would also have various types of splatter boards. One version was a white paper plate with a bunch of very small dots. Yopu would put your name on as many dots as you wanted to pay for. Someone would shoot the plate and the closest hole to the dot won. Other versions were an X on full sheet of paper again the closest to the X won. Each shooter shot their own but the game players killed it off.