Quote:
Originally Posted by id10t
The clays games got too expensive for me so my shotguns collected dust until I got into turkey hunting, and now I shoot a shot or two to confirm pattern pre-season and then a shot or two on birds, two seasons per year.
Gonna experiment with my muzzle loading shotgun set up, if I can get a decent pattern out of it I'll use it for turkey during ML season.
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I don't think you will be able to get a tight enough pattern for turkey hunting from your muzzle loader. Most have a cylinder choke in the right and an improved cylinder in the left at best. The problems start when we need to load the charge past any choke. The tighter the choke, the harder it is to load.
Even though I have the CZ shown above, my main hunting shotgun has always been my side by side ten gauge built from a Dixie Gun Works kit in the early 1980's. It works great as an upland gun, marginal for waterfowl unless called in really close over decoys.
Here is what I use for my upland and waterfowl shooting. From left to right, powder, thick over powder cardboard wad, thick paper cushion wad, shot, thin cardboard over shot wad. The cut down shotgun shell in the background is my powder and shot measure. It is used for both, these guns typically shoot their best patterns with equal
volumes of powder and shot. And really coarse powder, like 1Fg or, in this case, 1 1/2 Fg.
This shotgun has a really inventive, cool little trick - while nominally a ten gauge, the bores actually mic out at eleven gauge. The reason for this is that they will accept plastic shot cups and cushion wads meant to go inside of modern ten gauge shells. If your shotgun is similarly bored, say a twelve gauge that is really a thirteen, you can take advantage of that and use those plastic cushion wads and shot cups. They are probably your best bet at getting "turkey patterns" from your muzzle loader.
Good luck, I would be very interested to hear what you come up with.