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Comfortably pattern your turkey gun
Taming recoil on the range helps maintain accuracy throughout hunting season and is better for your health
The scene repeats itself year after year: A turkey hunter purchases a new 12-gauge shotgun and takes it to a range to pattern his or her favorite turkey load. Either from a standing position or from a sandbag rest, he or she fires a shot at a target set 40 yards downrange. The recoil punches the shoulder, and muzzle jump causes the stock to bruise the shooter's cheek.
The remainder of the session — if it continues beyond that one, punishing shot — is flawed with flinching and a tender shooting arm. Add sighting in a new scope or aiming device, which often requires several shots, and the process can be extra grueling.
Arm-pounding recoil prevents many turkey hunters from spending time on the range necessary to accurately pattern their guns with various turkey loads. The results are often sights not adjusted as they should be and, ultimately, missed gobblers.
Turkey Gun = Heavy Recoil
Most turkey hunters know 12-gauge turkey loads kick hard, but I wonder how many realize how hard the recoil really is.
I asked my friends at Federal Premium Ammunition to equate the recoil of their PFC139 Mag Shock (3½ inch, 12-gauge, 2 oz., No. 4 turkey load with 1,300fps muzzle velocity) to a similar-hitting big game rifle cartridge. This turkey load has a free-recoil rating of 72.7 foot-pounds of force with each shot.
The closest they found was the .458 Win. Mag. rifle shooting a Federal P458T2 load with a 500-grain bullet and a muzzle velocity of 2,090fps. It has a free-recoil rating of 76.7 foot-pounds.
The .458 Win. Mag., a popular elephant rifle, has just four pounds more felt recoil than a turkey gun. No wonder turkey hunters find excuses not to pattern or sight in their shotguns. It hurts.
Compare the turkey gun to a .30-06 deer rifle, which has only 20 foot-pounds of free-recoil energy; the turkey gun has 50 foot-pounds more recoil. Based on experience, most shooters start to flinch at 15 foot-pounds of recoil.
Not only does heavy recoil cause you to flinch, it also hurts the shoulder, and constant, heavy recoil can cause detached retinas in the eye, especially in older shooters.
Taming the Recoil Beast
No longer does any shooter have to endure torturing sessions on the range to sight in optics or pattern a shotgun. Several companies offer shooting rests that take the recoil away from the shooter by using weights. Here are two of my favorites:
Caldwell Lead Sled DFT
Caldwell "beefed-up" the original Lead Sled rest, replacing the single rail connecting the forearm rest to the butt rest with two heavy rails. This Dual Frame Technology provides increased stability and allows 22 inches of adjustment to accommodate nearly any long gun. Its padded rests are fully adjustable for windage and elevation, which easily can be locked or unlocked from the shooting position.
There's a large metal pan at the bottom of the rest's frame, designed to hold up to four 25-pound bags of lead shot — the heart of the recoil-reduction system. (I have never needed to add more than 50 pounds for turkey gun work.) The DFT rest has no-skid, rubber-tipped feet and is advertised to reduce free recoil by 98 percent.
The MidwayUSA catalog lists the Lead Sled DFT at $205.99. It weighs 22 pounds without any additional weight.
Shooters Ridge Zero Kick Shooting Rest
This rest uses a barbell weight to take the kick out of a rifle or shotgun. It features padded front and rear rests and is fully adjustable for windage and elevation. Elevation adjustments are in the front and rear. It has non-slip rubber feet, and a strap secures the butt of the gun in the rear rest.
The heart of the system holds 25-pound barbell weights. They can can be stacked and clamped to the frame or use shot bags instead. Shooters Ridge states that the rest reduces up to 90 percent of felt recoil. The Zero Kick Shooters Rest sells for around $181.95.
Both rests are well made and offer years of recoil taming service with little care. With one of these rests, you no longer have a reason to skip patterning your turkey gun or dialing in your optics, so when that old gobbler steps out at 40 yards, you can take him with one, well-placed shot. — J. Wayne Fears