For the guys running the Single Shot .410s

[champ198]

Really wanting to move to a sub gauge gun for turkeys after this season.
Really like all of the info I am seeing on the Stevens 301 and the Rossi Tuffy guns.

The thing that keeps me at this point from going this route is they are single shots.
For those guys that do use them, have you ever had an issue where the single shot has cost you a bird?
Maybe missing the first shot etc.

Just something that gets in my head.
I know there are pump and semis out there for Turkey in 410.
But at quite a bit more cost also.
So I am a bit torn.

 

[Wild Bill]

I shot two turkeys out of the same flock in about 5 seconds last year with my Tuffy.
Practice reloading the gun and you should be fine.

 

[jpc01101]

Dad has a Stevens. Amazing gun for like $200. We killed 6 birds with it this year. Amazing little gun. Maybe it’s from bird hunting with a single shot when I was young but I can get another shell in pretty darn quick. That being said I picked up a Mossberg 500 Turkey with the red dot in .410 yesterday. We patterned it last night and I was pretty impressed. Will post back as I get more experience with it.

 

[Gellar]

Really wanting to move to a sub gauge gun for turkeys after this season.
Really like all of the info I am seeing on the Stevens 301 and the Rossi Tuffy guns.

The thing that keeps me at this point from going this route is they are single shots.
For those guys that do use them, have you ever had an issue where the single shot has cost you a bird?
Maybe missing the first shot etc.

Just something that gets in my head.
I know there are pump and semis out there for Turkey in 410.
But at quite a bit more cost also.
So I am a bit torn.

I'm not going to lie, this thought has crossed my mind as well.

 

[Mica Man]

Easy enough for a 10 and now 11 yr old girl with minimal hunting experience. Just don't miss with your first shot. We were NOT hunting out of a blind on either of these birds. Fun little guns.

 

[Jbotto]

No experience with these for hunting turkeys, but every farm kid I knew growing up had a single shot .410 or 20gauge that they could keep barnyard birds falling with their own technique of reloading “fast.” I pulled doubles on flocks of birds more than a few times with the gun loaded and a shell between each of my fingers holding the forend. Ejectors work better than extractors on this. By the time a new shell was in the gun, closing the action was part of remounting the gun. Stock hit my shoulder, and the action was closed as I was lining up on the next bird. Not fast, but it never really slowed me down either.

Like anything else, you just have to practice a bit to get familiar.

 

[Hem]

I shot two birds last week on one set up with my Stevens 301. First bird went down, then the other gobbler jumped on him to spur his azz. Somebody whispered in my ear to shoot him. I fumbled for a shell, but made it happen.
Last year I lined up two heads and popped the birds with one shot. Even better.

 

[cwitherow]

I have a Stevens 301 with a cheap red dot. With TSS, it is a sweet little package.

 

[Hem]

I have a Stevens 301 with a cheap red dot. With TSS, it is a sweet little package.

I had a smith tune the trigger, only gripe I had in the beginning.

 

[cwitherow]

I had a smith tune the trigger, only gripe I had in the beginning.

I don't think I've shot it enough to notice one way or the other. few shots to sight in the red dot and a few to pattern. Been a few years since I've been turkey hunting too.

 

[howl]

I've missed one with the .410. Having another shot wouldn't have helped in that situation. Either I missed or I did a poor job loading that shell. .410 load building is more critical than the larger gauges. I prefer to think I just missed than messed up loading. I have a dog that is good at finding turkeys. And I'm pretty sure I heard that gobbler on a few different occasions thereafter. So.

What a .410 gets you is a lighter gun if you use one of the 3# ones. The Yildiz single is the only .410 I'd use. Anything else and you may as well use a larger gauge. You can do a 4# 28ga or a 5.5# 20ga.

A 4# 28ga is probably the best choice for turkeys. Check the KOFS/ATI/Stevens 28ga compact O/Us. Depending on wood density, you can find a 4# one. There are loads with enough pellets you can just use the full choke. That's a plenty open, harder to miss with pattern relative to turkey guns in general.

Just FYI, the range at which you can kill a gobbler with a .410 and TSS is the same as 12ga with lead loads. So it's not really an accomplishment to have done it with a .410. It's really just over-complicating the same old thing unless you save weight.