What makes a 12 Gauges a GOOD TURKEY GUN

[natman]

What are critical commons points of a turkey gun in the 12 guage? -OR- at least explain what is your preferences or showstoppers for you forking out hundreds of dollars for a turkey gun?

SITES- Fiber optic open sights. I am a big fan of having something on your turkey gun. It's too easy to forget to have your head in the perfect position and open sights give you a clear reminder. I'm sure that scopes, red dots, etc work fine, but I don't see any improvement that they make to justify the extra weight, complication and cost. Calling a turkey into range is hard. Shooting one is easy - it's a stationary target at 50 yards or less with a shotgun.

BARREL LENGTH- I used a 28" barrel at first. I switched to a 20" and love it. So much easier to carry in the woods. Velocity loss is negligable. Patterning loss is a myth as far as I'm concerned until someone shows me some data to the contrary.

ACTION (single, double, pump, auto)- I use a pump but a single shot would work fine.

CAPACITY- Can't be more than 2 in the mag and one in the chamber in CA.

CHAMBER (2 3/4,3, 3 1/2)- 12 ga 3" chamber allows me to shoot 2oz of lead shot. That's plenty. If you can't get them close enough to kill them with that, you need to change your hunting tactics so you can. No matter what you shoot there's always going to be some turkey that hangs up too far away.

WEIGHT- As little as possible. My current Mossberg is 7 lbs. That's plenty.

MANUVERABILITY- See above.

RELIABILITY- Not a problem.

CAMO-  Not required, but nice to have.

Sling swivels are a must.

[retranger]

All good advice. What works for you is what you want. Advice I got from Mossberg before I bought my 935 was ,,long barrel or short barrel doesn't make the pattern,,,,it's the choke that you use. I use a red dot,,,,gobbler stopper,,,by truglo. I had fiber optic but at times hunt out of a blind in increment weather and the rear optic will not pick up the light.

[joeturkey]

All good advice! I personally like the short barreled pump 12 ga. Some areas where I hunt can get pretty thick in the latter part of May and it helps to have a shorter barrel, also less weight! Regarding sights I think there is a big advantage using red dot sight for 2 reasons. One it is very easy to adjust the pattern of your shot placement, your gun will not shoot 4 inches high or low as stated earlier with only beads to work with! Two in the heat of the battle toms very often catch you offguards,not quite ready for there approach or position. You don't have to perfectly align cheek on stock or align two sights on plane, wherever you see the red dot(on wattles) thats where load is going. Even if your off balance trying to shoot around foilage or obstacles. Another thing I like is a thumb saftey, which enables you to shoot right or left handed very easily. I have taken 15 to 20 % of my birds shooting opposite handed(left). It's really hard to shoot toms that circle you and come at you from a hard right direction, when youre a righty! Good luck and Good hunting!  Joe