With spring turkey season at hand I thought I would post a opinion piece on the subject.
It’s always a good idea to pattern your shotgun. It gives you a gun POI and will show pattern density on a fixed distance target. I think for turkey its very important because it lets you know what your combo of gun, shell, and choke, will do down range. I understand that what you read below is a very limited testing and could be incorrect.
I recently added 2 new Browning Maxus guns to my collection. One ‘ultimate’ and one camo ‘hunter’. The first for upland hunting and the second for turkey. The turkey gun was a impulse buy due to a great price.
I have never messed with ‘ported’ chokes and really did not believe they reduced recoil, improved pattern, and some of the other claims. My testing did not change that opinion. That said the 2 guns came with a number of different chokes and again on impulse I purchased a Browning Invector Plus ‘Full Strut’ extended length and ported choke to go with the standard length chokes.
My new turkey gun is chambered for 12ga. 3.5" shells. My choice of shells in that size was by brand/shot size that I have used in my 870 turkey gun. I picked Federal ‘Gran Slam’ #5’s and Winchester ‘Long Beard’ #5’s. Again on impulse I also purchased a box of Federal 3rd Degree Turkey loads which are a combo of a mix of FLITESTOPPER lead, copper-plated lead and high-performance HEAVYWEIGHT alloy in different shot sizes in single shell. BTW-- they really ‘like’ these shells since they sell around 3X as much as the normal high priced ‘turkey’ loads. You really pay whenever the word turkey comes into the description. I won’t bore you with the energy and velocity claims about the 3rd degree stuff, mostly since I could not test for that.
With all that out of the way here’s what I found in my totally unscientific pattern test. I wanted to get a idea of how my new gun patterned and to see if the different loads and chokes made a noticeable difference.
My test was done at 40 and 60 yards. I used a standard length extra full choke and the extended length ported choke. There was NOT a major difference between loads and chokes as far as pattern coverage/density was concerned. The very high priced 3rd Degree shells were not all that impressive at 60 yards, in fact the #5’s of both brands had a higher density of shot in the kill zone. However as the guy on ‘forged in fire’ likes to say, “it will kill”. The new gun is capable of clean kills out to 60 yards, maybe more, but for me my shots will be under 40. I’ll be loading the #5’s of either brand, using a standard extra full choke, when I head out to the turkey woods this next weekend.
The wife says Mars, but I claim Alabama.
Hey! We have a lot in common then ! 
I will say, I’ve been all types of hunting but never Turkey…It sounds fun!
Matter of fact, I didn’t get to go this last season with everything in my life but man I sure am missing the woods about now!
Hunting and fishing are just plain good for the soul. A person needs that in their life. It gives us a better perspective for living. I’m very fortunate to have a wife the does not complain and is happy eating what I bring home from the woods, fields, streams, lakes, and oceans,
Amen brother! Sounds like your blessed!
On that note, Think I need to go fishing just to get out! I appreciate that! Think I might do that today!!!
People that know how to hunt and fish, are the most likely to survive. When the food runs out, you go kill/catch more food.
I guess I am blessed with having property in the first “rifle” county heading west in South VA. I never liked shotguns for game critters and don’t do much “on the wing” hunting so I never got down in the weeds about them. I’ve been able to effectively harvest several Turkeys with a .22 LR with a shot to the base of the neck or head. I tend to spend a lot more time wandering the woods with a gun logging in all the cool sights I’ve seen than I do killing stuff. This year I may have to do a meat hunt as the freezers are getting below half. That’s not hunting that is just work.
Cheers,
Craig6
No legal rifle Turkey hunting here.
Our freezer is stocked about 80% wild game. I kill/catch it, process it, package it, and we cook and eat it.
That’s what I miss ^^^^^^
Correction, I checked the freezer to see what I might be low on and it urns out it is within 2% of not holding anything more and it is 90+% wild game. Just a week ago I took a whole venison shoulder out. I had put a dry rub on it before I vacuumed sealed and froze it. After letting it thaw I injected it with a apple cider vinegar, apple juice mix and put it on my BGE to smoke for 10 hours or so. I then cut most of it into small 1/4" chunks and made both a chili and a noodle soup which each simmered for a solid 10 hours. It was probably some 2 gals of each. The wife made homemade cornbread and that made up our dinner and suppers for more than a long week, We did make a few other things for some meals, I fixed stuffed venison backstrap on the BGE one night and had enough leftover for a second meal and a breakfast. The venison would rival any prime grade beef in tenderness, but then I know how to handle it from the woods to the table.