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bamaranger · April 10, 2014, 01:58 AM

I hate to even start on this, cause the shot size argument for gobblers has raged for ever, and likely always will, but........ There are quite a few folks (me being one of them) that believe that somewhere past 35 yds, #6 lead shot begins to run out of steam and will not consistently break gobbler bones. Seems like a read where a major ammo company actually did some calculating on the whole matter and went on record about it. Consider the steadily increasing payloads of mag shotshells, and the shortening of turkey gun barrels, and velocity of the load may well suffer and add to the problem.

Now....before the scorching starts, I shot #6 lead for a good many years, and have killed a goodly number of birds with #6 lead past that distance. But I've also had to stomp more than one that, though well perforated, was not really dead either. Lead #6 loads have always patterned well in my guns, there's a lot of pellets in the typical 2 oz load.

So #5 seems like a good compromise. More pellet energy than #6, more pellets than #4.

I'm hoping to find somebody to swap a few of these XR shells with and see how they shoot in my guns. But $20.00 a box of 10 is about all the higher I ever wanna go on gobbler shells.

April 10, 2014, 01:58 AM	#7
bamaranger Senior Member Join Date: October 9, 2009 Location: North Alabama Posts: 8,308	#6 v.#5 shot size I hate to even start on this, cause the shot size argument for gobblers has raged for ever, and likely always will, but........ There are quite a few folks (me being one of them) that believe that somewhere past 35 yds, #6 lead shot begins to run out of steam and will not consistently break gobbler bones. Seems like a read where a major ammo company actually did some calculating on the whole matter and went on record about it. Consider the steadily increasing payloads of mag shotshells, and the shortening of turkey gun barrels, and velocity of the load may well suffer and add to the problem. Now....before the scorching starts, I shot #6 lead for a good many years, and have killed a goodly number of birds with #6 lead past that distance. But I've also had to stomp more than one that, though well perforated, was not really dead either. Lead #6 loads have always patterned well in my guns, there's a lot of pellets in the typical 2 oz load. So #5 seems like a good compromise. More pellet energy than #6, more pellets than #4. I'm hoping to find somebody to swap a few of these XR shells with and see how they shoot in my guns. But $20.00 a box of 10 is about all the higher I ever wanna go on gobbler shells.