Most hunters are always looking for that extra edge against their competition. This is usually the quarry they are pursuing. With spring turkey season upon us I thought it would be a good time to pattern my new Thompson/Center Encore turkey gun. I headed to the range with some Shoot.N.C turkey targets and plenty of shotgun shells. Here’s the results from patterning the gun with 3" Winchester Supreme High Velocity turkey loads and 3" Remington Premier Hevi-Shot Magnum turkey buffered loads in the traditional shot sizes of 4,5 & 6.

The Winchester Supreme copperplated, buffered shot has a velocity of 1300 feet per second @ 3 feet with 1 ¾ oz of shot.

The Remington Premier Hevi-Shot turkey loads are made up of an alloy of tungsten, nickel and iron. This combination allows for a 10% higher density than lead, which in turn means a denser pattern and higher energy. The Hevi-Shot shells have a velocity of 1225 feet per second @ 3 feet with 1 5/8 oz of shot.

After shooting 20-23 rounds through the Encore here are some pictures of the results. As you can see the combination of the turkey barrel with the factory screw-in turkey choke tube produces an extremely tight pattern. The #6 shot from the Hevi-Shot and the Winchesters both seemed to be the ideal shot size for my set-up.

When turkey hunting I like to place my decoys around 15 to 20 yards from where I’m setting. As you can see from the targets any of these shells would be adequate to make a clean kill on a turkey. I also tested the ammunition at 30 yards for those stubborn turkeys that just won’t come on in those last few steps.

The above targets show that the pattern starts to open up quite a bit at 30 yards on all the shells. With the number of pellets still in the kill zone I would not hesitate to take an open shot at a big gobbler out to 30 yards. This spring I will definitely be hunting with my Thompson/Center Encore and some #6 shells. And just for that extra punch I will use the Remington Hevi-Shot.