Hi!
My Dad got me into more serious hunting and while he hunts big game I would like to focus on....turkeys! It may matter that I love turkey meat and I am pretty good in making meals with it. Anyway! Guns! Dad says 12 gauge but I am more inclined to go with 20. It may not shoot as far but the recoil is smaller and that is a big deal. Also is Weatherby SA-459 a good gun? I like the way it looks and feels (had a chance to try it out). Or would you recommend something else?

Buy the gun that feels best to you, if your just getting into hunting, go to multiple stores and handle as many shotguns as you can. I’m assuming your quite young if recoil is a worry of yours. Until you start talking about goose loads, buckshot and slugs, I don’t notice that much of a recoil difference.

I like my 20 gauges with tss hand loads. They shoot farther than you should ever need to be shooting.

Personally, I prefer recoil operated guns over gas guns. They inherently have less cycling issues.

Stoeger 3020 is a good budget friendly 20 gauge that comes in a turkey model.

Also, get one that’s drilled and tapped so you can add a red dot sight. Very few gun/choke/shell combos shoot point of impact to point of aim. A red dot allows you to choose the best pattern choke/shell combo with your gun while giving you the ability to sight it in.

20 ga is fine for a 20 yd shot --------- if you need a scope for a 20 yd shot, you need to practice a lot more before you go hunting.!!

You obviously don’t have any knowledge to input accurately on this subject.

20 yard shots are where you will be most likely to miss a turkey with a tightly choked gun/shell combo. Regardless of gauge.

I have .410’s that are perfectly capable of killing turkeys consistently at yardages past 40 yards.

Got to call B/S on 40 yds + with 410 . I have hunted Turkey since 1982, but a 410 just will not do the job on a turkey at 40 +.yds. I have used the 410 only for dove quail since 1982 . I own three winchester o/u 410's and i have never missed a turkey with full choke in a winchester pigeon grade 20 ga . at distances from 10 - 30yds.

I've taken many a turkey and it appears some are willing to be more aggressive than I would ever think of being.

I have seen a lot of birds taken with a 20 gauge at 40-45 yards but not seen one taken with a .410 past 30 but not saying that it cannot happen. Just need one BB in the right spot.
For years, I would see anywhere from 30-35 birds called and killed with a variety of shotguns, loads and gauges and a few with archery. Longest shot I ever made was with a Mossberg 500 shooting 3 1/2" magnum #5 shot. The bird was 72 steps in rocky, uneven ground, so I am saying at least 65 yards. After a couple of shots with the Mossberg shooting 3 1/2" mags, I got where someone would have to hold a gun on me in order for me to pull the trigger...Never Again!!!
Adios,
Gary

Gary i hear you on the 3 1/2 mags fired two shots in an 870 pump ,luckly i did it at the range standing up. I said to myself sure glad i tried it there instead of leaned against a tree. left the range went straight to where i bought it and traded it off. still have teeth loose from it. Made me love my .410 even more!!!

#9 TSS Out of a 410 is a game changer.

I know what you mean. We used to convince all the young teenage and high school boys to test drive the Mossberg and the "skud missles". We called it a three stepper because everyone of them took three steps back after firing...
Adios,
Gary

Well, I’ve got to call BS that several of the responses on here are obviously quite willing to impart their ignorance of shotgun potential in response to someone who was intelligently trying to answer what appeared to be a serious question by the OP.

Had those posters (1) simply stuck to trying to answer the question asked by the Original Post, and (2) had they educated themselves on TSS, current Turkey gun configurations, choke/gun/load patterns shot from current production model shotguns with available turkey ammo, or just recognized the fact that they may not be the Texas authority on effective down range pattern density and energy needed to kill a grown turkey gobbler, then their obvious ignorance wouldn’t have been so unpolitely posted in responses that had nothing to do with the man’s original question.


Now to the original question.......

I like my 20 gauges because of their weight versus most 12 gauges. When utilizing TSS, I can extend my range to yardages I won’t mention on here. If I am utilizing the gun for uses other than turkey hunting, I can buy light loads that do not leave me with a headache after a good dose of clays or dove shooting. 20 gauges feel better to me when I handle a typical semi auto. I like 26” barrels on utility guns that are used for multi purpose. If I am buying a turkey specific gun just to set up for that purpose, then the shorter the barrel the better.

There are multiple manufacturers you can purchase TSS from.
Foxtrot Ammo is a good one.
Browning, Federal, Apex, and Nitro are all companies that sell TSS.

Many companies make specific chokes for TSS. I prefer a choke in the .575 to the .587 range because they provide a good medium between ultra tight patterns and good hunting patterns for closer shots. 40 yards is not a problem with these setups.

As already mentioned, 12 or 20, pick the gun that fits your preference to feel and your budget. Either gauge is fine, but a 20 is not nearly as limited as some on here might think.

jstock ------ if you need a scope for a 20 yrd shot with a shotgun you need to practice more-------- for the avg or below avg hunter I would say it is basically impossible to miss a bird standing still at 20 yds. Let me guess, you shoot 4 boxes of shells on a duck hunt trying to get your limit of 6 birds ?? I wont let my son bring more than 10 shells to kill 6 ducks --shooting o/u 20 ga. ------- and no, he is not allowed to shoot them on the water.

A great detailed discussion. If you are incapable of calling a Gobbler to within 40 yards, I certainly understand the dilemma.

A red dot isnt a scope. My 20ga pattern at 20 yes with hanload tss is about as big as a quarter so yea...you can miss kn a running Turkey. I can and also have killed birds a hell of a lot further than one should with this 20 ga and tss loads. Have also seen birds taken with a 410 with hand loaded tss at 45+. For the comments about if you cant get hired within 40 and all this...apparently you havent Turkey hunted very long or ventured outside of Texas. There are birds that hang up and they wont come any closer. Its nice to be able to reach out and touch them. I will also challenged any of yall that are shooting this big bad 12 ga to a challenge. Let's compare your 3.5in pattern shooting lead shot Turkey load to my 20 ga pattern at 40. Let's see who has the densest pattern. Then let's get some ballistic gel and set it up at 60 yds and see which gets the most penetration and most pellets in gel.

Some of the comments yall make are ridiculous because you are utterly and completely uneducated. Like I said whenever yall want to take me up on this challenge let's set up a time and place and bring your $100 for each challenge. Then after that get back on here and post and tell everyone you were utterly and completely wrong about your original assessment because you were clueless.

No one ever said anything about a scope.

You obviously don’t have any idea what you are talking about, and seem to be on a mission to announce your ignorance openly on an Internet forum. Hopefully you focus on teaching your mentioned son better so that when he becomes old enough to post we don’t have to endure this type ignorance as you have tried to pass along through your posts. I’ll add this, it s not in just this post that I’ve seen you so openly display your thought processes as facts and try to attack someone else who has a different opinion supported with facts.

I’m glad you are at least teaching your son good financial practices. I’m sure you are a fun guy to hunt with ....

As far as your “guessing” how many shots it takes me to shoot at whatever to kill my limit, I haven’t made any suggestions on here to my personal level of effectiveness at wingshooting.

I guess you also think that any shotgun you buy that you just slap a turkey choke in it and some number 6’s and it shoots true to the bead at 20 yards?

Let me answer my own question before you impart more infinite wisdom on someone trying to educate themselves with facts and doing internet research.

The answer is no, most turkey guns regardless of gauge need to be patterned with the load and choke you plan on hunting with before you hunt with them because they do not always pattern true to aim.


As far as Hudbone goes, you don’t know me either. I’m not coming on here to discuss my calling skills or accomplishments about turkey hunting. I came on here and answered a man’s question about what Turkey gun to buy and what gauge. If all you have ever hunted is Texas half tame Rios, then I can see why you may make the statement you do. However, the Original Poster never asked or added any details that he was only shooting turkeys over feeders out of a blind. Why waste shells? I’m quite certain I could kill one of those with a .223 while I’m deer hunting, but again.... I issued facts to the poster to help him make a decision. Those facts came from a lot of experience with the topic he asked about.

Some people hit ever branch of the ignorant tree falling out.

The great Rio hunters have spoken.... Y’all ain’t much of Eastern guys are yall


Y’all are getting seriously heated over gauges and corn buzzards


I’ve killed greaters over 40 with a 410 and tungsten, TSS is pretty impressive when patterned. Biggest issues is $$$$$ and availability. I doubt the op reloads


To OP I pretty much hunt exclusively with 24” featherweight Citori 20ga. When I say exclusively, turkeys, dove, quail, coons, squirrels, pheasants, geese, ducks, chuckers and rattle bugs. Don’t over think it pick one and master it. I have four12Ga’s that are pretty much safe queens and three 20 gauges that get used all the time.

There are advantages to a 12ga, such as more shot in the air and generally more shell options/availability then the others, but 99% of the time if you can find 12 you can find 20ga.

20ga tend to be lighter guns though

Title of Thread - "12 gauge or 20 gauge". "Had those posters (1) simply stuck to trying to answer the question asked by the Original Post"

Would you tell us more about the 410's please?

Like most modern projectiles it’s the bullet(s) not head stamp. TSS is pretty interesting stuff. I have a couple friends that duck and turkey hunt with 410’s and 28 ga’s with them.

It’s pretty impressive but at a price.

Not that bad if you reload yourself and it's quite fun to do so.

I used to call in birds for paid hunters who would fly in to Corpus. Ran into Rob Keck while I was wearing an NWTF sponsor hat at the CC airport. I never had a hunter pull out a 410 and wondering how I would have responded if one had done so.

The same way you should respond if they pulled out a 12 ga shooting ol winchester turkey loads. Patterns being put up by the 410 is just as good, if not better, than what a lot of people used to consider awesome patterns for a 12ga. The times do change and so does capability.

Guess so. Just not the way I learned. My double barrel never failed me. Never.

Lots of tried and true turkey hunters moving to lower gauge shotguns. I believe this is in large part due to the advancement in shotgun
ammo. I know that I like to use both a 20 gauge and .410 shotgun but only with Hevishot shotgun ammunition.

If I don't shoot 3 or 4 boxes to get a limit I feel cheated...

Having hunted turkeys for many, many years including our Rio and Eastern and traveling to collect a "grand slam" , I have done it all with a 20 gauge black powder shotgun. This varied from a single barrel flintlock to a double barrel (SxS) percussion gun. First, I pattern the shotgun with whatever I want to shoot. In these guns its been lead shot of #5 or #6 size. I have used from 6-10 BB's (the copper BB gun kind) on top of the smaller shot if it patterned ok. These loads have always been 7/8 to 1-ounce but never more. I have no idea of the actual velocity but most data shows from 1100-1275 fps depending on powder and barrel length. The guns with choke are IC/Mod and the rest essentially have none. Second, I set a limit of range to where the pattern becomes too loose (or less dense) that it could cause a miss or wound. Typically this is 35-yards max but one gun is just 25-yards. Why all the talk about a muzzleloader? I have taken turkeys every year with loads that mimic a standard 20-guage 2.5 or 2.75-inch shell. I use good camo, good decoys and good calling techniques and have gotten multiple birds of various turkey sub-species for years. You will be totally fine with a standard 20-guage if you follow my #1) and #2) and use similar good gear and technique.

In reference to the .410, my son's used a single shot from the time they could shoot it "accurately" until they felt they outgrew it. Same deal, pattern and figure out the range and then take good measure with gear and technique. Wait for the bird to get within your threshold. My oldest boys .410 had a good enough pattern for several BB's in the head and neck at 30-yards with a standard 3-inch shell with lead shot. The youngers gun was a little different and he was limited to 25-yards with a different ammo but still conventional load.

You don't have to shoot turkeys the minute they come into view. If things go right, they will come to you. The closer they are the better odds of a kill. I will also recommend the HECS suit. Since using HECS I have shot several birds at 10-yards or less while sitting on the ground in the open.

Good luck!

3 and 1/2 inch 12 gauge for sure..you can do it with a 20 gauge and theyre lighter to carry but i like the extra punch and range i get with a 3 and 1/2. Also look into TSS shells.

I thought all pellets travel at the same speed regardless of the gauge,so...if something gets hit with 5 pellets, it doesn't matter if the pellets came from a 410 or a 12 gauge. I thought the big benefit of larger gauges is more pellets. If a 20 patterns better than a 12, the 20 might be better. Depends on the gun.

Yep, correct. A #4 at 1200 fps from a 12 gauge is identical to a #4 from a 20 gauge, just more of them.

Yes Gary those 31/2 will sure ratle ya. I remember a mag article about felt recoil from said ammo. It was somewhere same as 300 Win Mag. yep. and i have a 870 that can shoot em.. NOT anymore overkill.

If you have a 12ga, why wouldn’t you take it. You aren’t going to shoot more than a couple of times. I prefer a 22 for turkey hunting. It gives me more range if the bird doesn’t do what I want. When I kill a turkey it’s because I like fried turkey strips. It’s not some life altering experience for me. I also never bow hunted deer during rifle season. I use the best tool for the job. When quail hunting I do take the 20 just because the gun and shells are lighter, and they aren’t that hard to hit. I also don’t understand the need for a red dot on a shotgun.

Dave and jeffbird have it right, it’s the size and speed of the pellets, not the gauge.

scalebuster, a Red Dot is used to ensure the gun is shooting where it is aimed (more accurate would be ‘aimed where shooting’). This is rarely necessary when shooting game with ‘open’ patterns but often needed with very tight patterns.

It is true that many turkey hunters are opting for smaller gauge shotguns. I think this is due in large part to BETTER SHOTGUN AMMO. I have really enjoyed using my Beretta 20 gauge for both waterfowl and turkey hunting. The best shotgun shell offerings that I have found are from HeviShot. For turkeys, I use both the Magnum Blends and Hevi 18 TSS shotgun shells. I have the ability, using those shells, to take gobblers out to what would normally be considered a 12 gauge range. The shells hit with more energy due to their density and they pattern great. For me, it's a great bonus to be able to use these sub gauge shotguns for hunting as opposed to using them for clay shooting

Wow?! 18 posts & no one on this board knows as much as you do.

Tried Squirrel hunting with a 20 ga once. once the shot charge reached the top of the 85 ft pine trees & penetrated all the foliage there just wasn't enough pellets left to terminate the Squirrel.

And, since 12 ga handles all of my hunting needs it is much easier to keep up with but one type of ammo.

I can promise you JSTOCKS knows his stuff when it comes to reloading with tss and killing turkeys. I didnt know post count showcased how much you knew. I learn something new everyday.

I'm from the old school that says the more pellets you can put in the direction of your target the better off you are. Regardless of gauge, though, you need to take the time to find out what your particular shotgun/choke combination likes best and got with it. A .410 bore, with the right load and choke that will put its pellets inside a paper plate at 30 yards will work just fine.

When you reload this 410 with 9.5s using TSS you have ample pellets that will penetrate just as good if not better than #6 lead shot to kill birds at 40 yards easily. When a 410 is putting 150-190 pellets in a 10in cricle at 40 yds thats better than some people shooting said 12gas with 3.5in shells.

I saw some tss and some hevi-shot on the shelf the other day and pooped in my pants. For less than the price of Five 12 gauge cartridges I can get a hundred rounds of high velocity 3” steel.

I think the real reason for the resurgence of the .410 is because the .410 tss is about all most people can afford!

I’d like to know how number of internet posts on any particular forum equates to knowledge held on any given subject.

Blake -- First off, welcome to the forum. You seem like a younger guy (sorry if I'm assuming), and I'm glad you're getting into turkeys.

I would say you should grab the gun you feel the most comfortable with. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what anyone else says if you run the risk of pulling a shot. It also sounds like you may be on a budget, and I would look for a "do all" gun if I was in the same situation. Sometimes that means it isn't optimal for everything, but with a little hard work and trial/error you'll get it where it needs to be. I learned the same way with an old Browning fixed choke semi that was passed down to me from my dad.

Its really not expensive to reload 410, 20, or 12 ga. Not to mention, the QC is much better than the crap you buy off the shelves.

Sub gauge turkey hunting seems to be really coming on in popularity. I think the challenge is a big part of it as well as the improvements
and availability of high end quality shotgun shells. It's amazing the performance you can get out of a 20 gauge or .410 if you use a premium
shotgun shell like the Hevi-18 Turkey TSS. At 18g/cc and 1250 FPS you will not give a more lethal shell and the patterns are incredible.
I can shoot with any 12 gauge shooter and feel quite comfortable shooting at a gobbler at 50 + yards.

I will still pass. I was looking at tungsten shot on BP and it works out to like $2-something per ounce. I’ll stick to my 40 cents a pop federal speed shocks. I don’t need the advantage of tungsten for my shooting.

12

my best friend growing up used a .410 on every thing, didn't miss many, so don't say it can't be done.

I went to a 20 ga Winchester SX3 this year and these 20yd, 30yd, 40yd, & 50yd pattern shots are with Apex TSS 3inch 8.5 shot. I have not killed one yet with this setup, but based on these patterns I shouldn't have any problem as long as I do my part. I like the lighter weight of the gun and the lighter kick also.

Nice patterns

That patterning looks good even at 50, love my 12ga for turkeys

With todays sells and chokes the 20ga is every bit as effective as the 12ga of years past. Heck with TSS 410 and 28 are good to at least 40 yards with TSS, with lighter weight and less recoil

I have never hunted a turkey in my life. This is the most confusing thread ever.

My first time in turkey section. It is a little spicy over here.

You would need a 12 for this one.

I love this

I have seen some absolutely devastating patterns thrown out by the 28ga. I almost bought one last year, but don't need another Turkey gun lol

Han around it can get fun. Turkey hunting is lots of fun and the weather can be nice during Spring turkey season. Getting a gobbler or gobblers strutting and showing off at close range, calling them in close and shooting them in the face

One more thing. With shotguns, everyone is concerned with gauge and with rifles its foot pounds of energy at the muzzle. There doesn't seem to be enough focus on the terminal ballistics. The heavi shot is denser that lead and extends the range. Pellet penetration is critical. The first gobbler I ever shot was right at 50 yards and he suddenly stopped strutting and stuck his neck out and looked right at me. That was almost 30 years ago and I took the shot. I could see the hit, feathers flying etc. in the neck area but I was using 6's and I should have had 5's or 4's. It any event it took off and I never found it. It still bothers me. Get the best pellets possible.

I'd say pattern is all important. If you have a 20 gauge that puts more pellets into a head/neck area than a 12 gauge that doesn't pattern as well- then use the 20. With wing shooting it is a different thing, you want a nice evenly dispersed pattern in a 30" circle and since a 12 can send more pellets than a 20, in almost all situations a 12 gives you a better chance3 of hitting a bird on the wing. In turkey hunting all those other pellets in a 12 over the 20 might not do much good since you generally shoot the shotgun liker a rifle and only the most dense pattern to cover the head/neck is critical.
\Next, look to the pellets, I'd get the best down range pellets your pocket book can afford.

With TSS you are essentially increasing the amount of pellets in a hull and increasing the amount of penetration further out there. I dont want to shoot a bird over 20 yds, but sometimes you have to. Knowing you have the capability to do so at 50+ is outstanding. A 12 ga loaded with TSS is a monster. You have tons more pellets than the standard lead turkey load and once again, better penetration down range. However, IMO...the 12ga with TSS is overkill. You can do more with the 20ga and TSS than the 12ga with any shot that is bought over the counter and not TSS.