It might be worth the trouble......

[scn]

It purely sucks to shoot a TSS shell at a pattern board. In sighting in an optical scope, you can get close by using cheaper lead shells. But, to get it RIGHT, you need to fine tune with the shell you will be hunting with.

I killed the last bird I shot at last year, but, didn't obliterate his head like I would have thought at the range I was shooting. I obviously caught him with the fringe of the pattern. I had a fogged scope, so I attributed some to that. But, for months, I have had a nagging suspicion that I may have knocked my scope off at some point.

So, this past week, I decided to bite the bullet and "waste" some of my hunting shells. The first shot showed me that most of my pattern was 3-4" to the right of center. It took a couple of adjustments (and $20) to get it where it needed to be. But, I will head into the season a lot more confident than I would have been.

YMMV

 

[TheLBLman]

To get it RIGHT, you need to fine tune with the shell you will be hunting with.

For sure.

Also, most shotguns do not have the tighter tolerances between receivers and barrels as do most rifles. If your optical sight is receiver mounted on either a typical pump action or autoloading shotgun, you may never actually get it perfect due to the "play" between the receiver & barrel.

When fine-tuning your turkey gun with the hunting load, it may be better to hold the gun exactly as you typically would when shooting at a turkey while hunting.

As with rifle rounds, shotgun patterns do not impact the same spot(s) with each round fired. You may be doing well just to get pattern centers consistently hitting either 2 or 3 inches left to 2 or 3 inches right from from one round to the next. Same for the up & down, and there is considerable trajectory drop from 40 to 55 yds. All this just adds to why it may not be high-odds to take those longer range shots, even when the gun "patterns" ok, say at 50 yds.

If you want to see a real revelation, pattern test your 40-yd sighted in gun at 60 yds, but do so on different days under different conditions. Your pattern center may be all over the place, and not at your aim point.

 

[Gravey]

I've zero'd every turkey gun I've ever had by shooting it with 2 3/4" lead shells first and then fine tuned with the ammo I was gonna use to hunt.

 

[Antioch_Hunter]

I've zero'd every turkey gun I've ever had by shooting it with 2 3/4" lead shells first and then fine tuned with the ammo I was gonna use to hunt.

I do the same.

 

[ruger7mag]

I always use a pair of channel locks and old t-shirt to get an extra couple of "clicks" on the magazine tube. Cold weather can really cause your pattern to deteriorate. Also, if you plan on shooting a lot of tss at targets, a shot trap may be a good investment. We built one for when we were testing/sighting in our 20 gauges. I think it caught about 90% of the shot.

 

[Trey13]

Going to shoot mine Monday

 

[Terrier]

I shoot a TC Encore with a 20ga barrel for turkeys. I found that after sighting in dead-on with slugs (deer load) at 50 yards, my Turkey load POI was about 6" lower at 25 yards. Rather than futz with the scope, I shot a few birds by aiming a bit over their heads. Worked out perfectly! Dead bird, and very few shot in the breast meat.

I recently scored a few boxes of TSS, so I need to check my zeros again. I want to keep it dead on with slugs, so I'll start with a couple of slugs, then regular Turkey shot, then spend another $20 or so with TSS to see how it compares.