And, this is not directed at megalomaniac who by far is one of my favorite posters.
Unless the hunter has spent little or no time at a pattern board seeing what his gun and load actually does, the gun/load is normally not the problem. Unless the combo is blowing the pattern where there are major holes in the pattern, most are capable of putting the 10-12 shot in a gobbler's neck and head that is required to kill him in his tracks. An ethical hunter will spend some time actually shooting at a turkey head/neck profile to see just how far out there he/she is getting the needed number of pellets to make him DRT.
So, why do we miss? Here are a few MAJOR problems:
1. We badly misjudge the range in the heat of the moment. Guilty as charged on a couple.
2. We raise our head up off the stock to watch the bird go down (more on this later).
3. We flinch like hades. This is more common than most will admit. A 12 ga. shotgun shooting a 3 or 3.5" magnum shell with a heavy shot load generates as much or more recoil than some of the rifles used to hunt elephants. It is brutal. There have been instances of people breaking their collar bone from the recoil.
But, no one wants to admit it because it makes us feel less "manly". As a LEO trainer, I used to see it all the time. Part of our annual or semi-annual firearms qualification required shooting five rounds of rifled slugs and five rounds of buckshot both day and night. After 20 rounds of that, it was pretty common to have a nice bruise the next day. When we had officers having trouble qualifying with their shotgun, it was very often a bad case of flinching. Most wouldn't believe it, but a simple drill usually opened their eyes. By having someone load three rounds up with one of the three being a dummy shell, it was VERY apparent when the flinch occurred.
IMO, that is one of the reasons that the 20 ga and reduced recoil has been so deadly for a lot of folks.
4. We let birds get in TOO close before shooting. A shot at 10 yds probably has a pattern about the size of a baseball. If #2 or #3 is coming into play, it is easy to miss at that range.
Unless the hunter has spent little or no time at a pattern board seeing what his gun and load actually does, the gun/load is normally not the problem. Unless the combo is blowing the pattern where there are major holes in the pattern, most are capable of putting the 10-12 shot in a gobbler's neck and head that is required to kill him in his tracks. An ethical hunter will spend some time actually shooting at a turkey head/neck profile to see just how far out there he/she is getting the needed number of pellets to make him DRT.
So, why do we miss? Here are a few MAJOR problems:
1. We badly misjudge the range in the heat of the moment. Guilty as charged on a couple.
2. We raise our head up off the stock to watch the bird go down (more on this later).
3. We flinch like hades. This is more common than most will admit. A 12 ga. shotgun shooting a 3 or 3.5" magnum shell with a heavy shot load generates as much or more recoil than some of the rifles used to hunt elephants. It is brutal. There have been instances of people breaking their collar bone from the recoil.
But, no one wants to admit it because it makes us feel less "manly". As a LEO trainer, I used to see it all the time. Part of our annual or semi-annual firearms qualification required shooting five rounds of rifled slugs and five rounds of buckshot both day and night. After 20 rounds of that, it was pretty common to have a nice bruise the next day. When we had officers having trouble qualifying with their shotgun, it was very often a bad case of flinching. Most wouldn't believe it, but a simple drill usually opened their eyes. By having someone load three rounds up with one of the three being a dummy shell, it was VERY apparent when the flinch occurred.
IMO, that is one of the reasons that the 20 ga and reduced recoil has been so deadly for a lot of folks.
4. We let birds get in TOO close before shooting. A shot at 10 yds probably has a pattern about the size of a baseball. If #2 or #3 is coming into play, it is easy to miss at that range.