So, I've used the same Mossberg pump, a 535 for the last... oh, maybe 15 years or so. It works great for me. It came with a regular barrel and a "turkey" barrel with a "turkey" choke.
The set up worked great with Hevi shot. I could pattern really tight groups with 4's, 5's, and a duplex load from Hevi shot - and get those patterns dialed in fast with the red dot. This is good, because those frigging things are almost as expensive per shell as my axis arrows are per arrow!
Last year I decided to try Winchester's turkey loads. 5's if I recall correctly. MUCH harder to get dialed in. Probably took 15 shots and it was ok, but I was not loving it. I feel like the ammo is fine, just that it may not have liked the mossberg choke.
I've pondered an aftermarket choke for years now - just because. But this shift in ammo raised my thoughts there.
So, number 1.) am I nuts or can different turkey chokes really impact Pattern and pattern location; and 2.) are there specific chokes that you all feel are well made and a good option to try - assuming you were to suggest choke can play a big role and finally 3.) are choke's universal or do I need a specific choke for a 535's barrel (meaning - are the thread's different?).
Thanks guys!
Silly Man!
In a nutshell, everything affects everything. For example, you can take two different 535's and shoot the same ammo through the same choke and they could very well pattern differently. That's why patterning the gun/choke combination is so important and can be so expensive. Figuring out what your gun/choke combo prefers is sometimes difficult. For this reason I think people are typically reluctant to change when they find something that patterns the way they want it to.
Not sure that really answers your questions but hopefully helps somewhat.
Just curious, why the change if you already had something that worked?
Bruce, I believe that. Great point. My change was two fold. 1.) I was thinking about it and 2.) I was standing in Cabelas last March or April looking at ammo knowing I needed some more turkey loads - and they didnt have Hevi Shot 12ga 3" #5's. They had a bunch of Hevi Shot in 20ga, and 3.5"... But I didnt want to go there, (3.5")... The Hevi shot is also like 30 bucks for 5. Right near the Hevi Shot, was a big Box of like 15 or so of 3" #5's "Turkey" loads from Winchester. Some sort of special stuff around the pellets and a coating on the pellets to help them fly well. The big old box was half the cost of 5 Hevi Shot... And oddly (for me) the Yankee won and I bought it. I may still have if they had the Hevi shot that I liked... for some reason that day the cost thing made sense to me.
But, after shooting a bunch I was ok with the pattern, not stoked.
just looked at Cab's the other day after taking the kids to the fish tank there for fun, and they had minimal to no hevi shot in 12ga... I'm going to check again in February, but I'm thinking I may just be better off at this point given availability and cost, trying a new choke... Of course, spending 80-100 bucks on a choke would be 3 boxes of Hevi Shot - more than enough to get dialed in if it works as it always has for me... so maybe I'm thinking about this poorly!
The choke I'm using is a turkey choke - extra tight. With the Hevishot, at 20yds, I had to be careful becuase I had a grapefruit size hole in the target, not a lot of fliers. A 40yds it was still annihilating the turkey neck on the target, even 50 yds on paper the results suggested I could have taken an ethical shot at a bird out there.
With the Winchester stuff it was more of a vertical line - I never got a "ball" of a pattern. It was tight, but not as consistent shell to shell, and 30-35yds was about as far as I'd have felt good shooting.
This was shooting off a stand for consistency, with a red dot as the sighting system on the gun - I should go shoot open sights on a shot gun for you all some day. You guys would love it. "Will, here is a watermellon, at 10yards. here's the shot gun with a 3.5" shell of #8's. If you hit it with one pellet you can have a new Halon on us..."
I'd miss aiming down the bead or open sights :)
And we'd all get a laugh out of what just happened!
http://www.choketube.com/
