Ep. 6: Shotgunning Turkeys

this equation with Daniel Compton of Federal Ammunition. Our focus in today's conversation will be on shotgun shells while chasing turkeys. With so many options out there, I hope to dive into some of the things I want to know more about, such as shot size, shot material, shell link, choke options and everything in between and how they all interact with each other. So let's jump right in. Welcome to the show. Daniel, Hey, thanks for having me. It's good to be on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How's everything going there at Federal Ammunition. It's good, it's good. We're we're cranking it out as fast as we can. Very common question these days is like where's Aliamma? And I know it's been a little tough for people, but usually like to address it right away when when I get on with people. But I can assure you that we're we're making as fast as we can and getting as much out there for people so that they can

get out in the fields, especially you know, talking turkeys. Today, we've actually had we've shipped a lot of turkey rounds this year, so it should be easier to find than it has been in the last couple Yeah, I noticed, just browsing around a little bit, it seems to be, you know, there there's a lot more in stock than out of stock compared to years past. Yeah, we made

it very We started really early. Like a lot of people assume that when we're loading shells that you know, we'll start and we'll load turkey shows for one month, you know, like in January. But really to get ahead of it, what we actually started about mid October this year, and sometimes we'll even do some smaller runs in the summer just to just try to get ahead of it. But yeah, we're doing We're doing our best, good deal,

good deal, good good to hear that. Um, So, like all all of our episodes, we're gonna start with a h question and answers from our social email past episodes. If you want to submit your own questions to the podcast, email us at c t D at Phelps game Calls dot com. So I picked a couple um easy questions here kind of with the theme of the podcast today. What gun choke and ambo combination are using this year

for Turkey? So I'll uh, I'll say, in years past, I've used a moss Burgate thirty five with a compin choke six nine, and I've used um federal three and a half inch copper plate at number five's. It's just always throwing great patterns. Um. You know, I've got really

good success with that. My pattern is is pretty consistent. Um. With that said, this year, I'm going to switch to the weather be element with an Indian Creek choke and Federal TSS number nine's and I'm gonna be able to back down to just the three and shell and not take you necessarily the beating from the three and a halfs I have in the in the past. So that's that's my setup. Um, where are you gonna use this?

Yere Daniel, I'm running. I got a super Black Eagle two which is kind of my go to shotgun, and then this year I have UM. Two years ago we launched UH three, two, seven, and nine TSS combo loads, so it's about half sevens and half nines and it's kind of the best of both worlds to get up. You get your shot pellet count up with all the nines. The sevens can help you with a little bit of range. And so I'm gonna try that. I'm you know, I might. I don't. I get married to some loads that I

really really like. But in my job working on new products, and I always try to try out what we're what we're doing, and so I'll experiment quite a bit. And you know, if I can kill a turkey with every load we have, that's kind of my goal. UM, if

I can get my hands on one UM. But Nelly has launched twenty cages this year in the Super Black Eagle three, and if I can do that, I'll have some of our we load some you know, we have what's called a custom shop where we handload TSS for people, and I'll try to hunt turkey with the twenty gauge just to kind of check that box and say I did it. But if I don't get one in time. I got the twelve gauge at the ready. Nice nice, um. The next question is what is the ideal pattern? Um?

I remember when I was new to turkey hunting, you know, way back in high school, didn't know a whole lot about it. Out here in western Washington. It wasn't a thing. And everybody had turkey targets, right, and then you would see you need to put four or five of them in in the neck or in the head, you know, combination of And we went down that rabbit hole, and then you start to look at, well, what's your pattern doing, if you know, if you were left or right, like,

is it a consistent pattern? And so I've kind of, uh, you know, migrated to the tennant circle and twenty circle. How many pellets am I getting in there? And then I'm checking to make sure I don't have like big holes in that pattern, you know, could I is there a chance I would miss the neck or the head. I just want a very consistent pattern at ten and twenty.

And really why I checked my pattern at twenty with the twelve gauge is to just make sure how tight it is, like, how how good do I have to be you know at twenty, but then at forty yards, Like what's my lethality? Like how many how many rounds or how many pelts or babies am I getting inside of a tennant circle in a twenty circle? Um? You know, and there are some standard rules of thumb. You know, a hundred inside the ten you know at forty is a good enough load. Um, you know some people are

two inside of a twenty. Um. But but I just kind of look at that make sure it's consistent nowadays with TSS number you know, nines or as you said, seven by nines. Like the the ability to get that baby count up is is almost, I don't want to say too easy, but it's become a lot easier than it did back in the copper plated lead days. Yeah, we I always went with and kind of what we look for when we're developing products is kind of fifteen hits in the head and neck, no matter what range

you're at. So whether that's lead or copper lead, you know, if you're doing fifteen and you can't kill a bird with, you know, you can do under. But that's given you a lot of insurance, right, And I do like what you said about the forty in circle because we've always said like edge to edge pattern and and what that means is, you know, we want even coverage in those no holes. And so sometimes we do get so I patterned it and I'm getting holes and they get like, so, what,

so what do I do now? And that's what we recommend you start to kind of try that different choke, to try different shot size, because there could just be something with that relationship between that load in your choke to it that's just not giving you the even as you're looking for. But we always shoot, like all of our standard testing is a three ins target at forty yards. We'll shoot every load we have and then a turkey.

The requirement we had was we're depending on the load we wanted like of those targets within a tenant circle, so it's always going to be tight. I love what you said about shooting at twenty yards because man, if you're choking tight, you know, you're you're throwing a tennis ball at them, and it's and it's hard to it's hard to. You know, you hear a lot of guys talking about missing turkeys. It's not that it's not as

hard as its sounds. So yeah, yeah, exactly, And that was always my concern, especially hunting in Western Washington, and stuff is is that bird's gonna most likely be at fifteen or twenty. And as tough as these Easterns are to hunt in western Washington, because there's just not very many of them, I didn't want it to, you know, come down to two tight of a pattern being the reason. You know, so in that instance, we're just trying to get him to open up. Those are kind of the

two questions we had today. And now I'm going to kind of jump in selfishly to like my own own questions I have about you know, everything, um, you know, shotgun loads for turkeys. So the first thing is some of this new shot material. I know it's been around um for a little bit, but you know, shot material and shot size. I grew up, you know, everything was copperplated lead back. Then heavy shot started to pick up towards you know the end of when I just like

I'm done developing my load. I'm just gonna keep buying these three and a half inch number five federals um and and you know some of these day choke companies, you know, like Compin Choke, which I was shooting back then they advised again shooting heavy shot, and so I just didn't even want to like test that um you know,

issue out. But let's jump into shot material and shot size and what some of the new materials have allowed us to do to all, you know, denser heavier to basically allow a BB that's you know, a third of the diameter you know, or two thirds of diameter to weigh the same, and how that's changing the way you're designing um, you know, turkey loads. Yeah, like getting into you know, tunguesten you kind of hit on it with heavy shots. Thirteen density um metals is all, like you know,

ammunition is all. It's mass and velocity together. So it all comes down to energy. So the denser you can make something, the more entered, the further it's going to carry its energy. And I've used an example of a million times, but they go like tennis balls and baseballs, you know, they're they're roughly the same size, but there's just an awful lot more mass to that baseball. And if you're gonna fire both those at fifty miles or you know, miles per hour, which one's gonna hit the

target harder? And it's the baseball because there's just more mass to it. So that's what the tungsten is in the analogy. So it allows you to use like you said, you can use a much small or pellets. So if you think like because it is fifty six dens, or think of like a number five copper plated lead and a number nine ts s tungs of supershot. Those two have the same amount of density. So if you push them out of the gun at second, they're gonna hit the turkey just as hard as they do, even though

that number nine is so much smaller. And then the wind of the equation is will in announce at three quarter you have almost three times of pellets as you did in that copper number five, and you probably went to a three and a half inch because it's gonna you can do a little heavier payload and get more

pellets on target. Right, So you know, now tungsten allows you to get just as many pellets as you did for a triple what you had before, the same amount of energy, and you can either come at them with like a freight train of a two ounce load, or the trend is really going the other way. You know, twenty gauge, four ten and sub gauges, and it really allows you to to take a bird with a lot lesser recoil on the shoulder, ye pack a smaller gun

around less recoil. Um, we'll get into a little bit, you know, about how it's made some of these smaller, smaller gauged you know shotguns. A great turkey off should know. Um. With that said, is there anything that goes into the equation dan of you know, air resistance and all that. I mean, it all adds up, but I think it has to do more with you know, like wait, but you're shooting a little number nine. It doesn't have near

as much wind resistance I've heard. You know, your comparison to number five copper plated versus number nine is that when you do get out to forty fift yards that that number nine might be flying at two feet per second faster by then or you know number three then plus once they hit the bird for penetration, you're really you're able to drive that number nine farther one based on um, you know, the speed that it's able to

potentially keep going. But then number two less resistance as it travels through you know, the bird's neck and head and whatnot. Yeah, absolutely less did that diameter you have, the easier it is gonna penetrate, So you're gonna get more. You're gonna get into the vitals as it flies through the air. Um Like kind of a rule of thumb is as shot gets smaller, it does disperse quicker. So think of like as it scatters to the left and

right of the pattern as it flies. So if we're going to lead to lead, absolutely it's a lot you'll find no matter how much you choke, you gotta choke really fine shot a lot tighter than you do bigger shot you know, number five or number nine and lead. But they do kind of fly on on par because of that increased density, because it's harder to pull it off track even though it is a smaller pellet. So I don't know if that answers the question, but do you you do see you know, and you really sit

in steel um. If you're shooting steel shot like a water follower. As your shot sizes go smaller, typically you may your pattern's gonna start to wind out. And it's because those smaller pellets they lose the energy quicker, but they're a lot easier to kick to the left or right. You know, um one thing you know that that kind of piggybacks on that point is uh there, there's always gotta be callins right, and we'll get into the main one, which is costing a little bit, but the safety become

any bigger issue. I mean, ultimately we should always know our our target, identify or backdrop. But with these extended ranges that we're getting out of, you know, especially if you're down in those heavier loads of you know, six or number five TSS, like is that has that been an issue or something we think about her? Like I said, as long as we're identifying targets, you know, looking at it backdrops and where that that you know that shot is ultimately gonna land, is it? Is it not? It

should be a non issue. It should be because you know your typical hunting rules apply. You know, you know what's behind your target beyond. But it is. I mean if you're using a bigger you know, we don't load anything bigger in a seven in TSS and kind of part of that reason, it's going to carry its energy a long way, So you really got to know what's

behind you and you don't like think of. You know, if I was gonna shoot a turkey with number six lead at forty yards and there's another turkey about two yards away, you know, in the field behind it, I probably don't gotta worry about it. With the TSS, it very well could carry its energy enough to to hit something behind it. So, you know, other animals, you have to make sure your safety there. But for for other hunter, you sure. So it is something to be to be

aware of. We've seen it on we have some tongue stint in um goose loads and and heavy shot has stories of this as well. Where you know, guys are in the few old the Parker trucks, you know, foreigner yards away. I think it's plenty fine, and they'll find pepper holes from the hardness of the tongues and actually penetrating the windshield at foreigner yards. No, that's a much higher trajectory. But you know, you do got to be careful for sure, gotcha with the you know, the introduction

of TSS and catching a bunch of steam. You can't jump on a turkey hunting form right now and not see everybody. You know that shooting at TSS load is bismuth and and heavy shot and even comperplated lead is. I mean, we're gonna start to see that phase out. I mean, why has bismuth not caught on, you know, as much for for sharing very similar densities the TSS is it costs it. They both seem to be environmental friendly. But it seems like everybody's migrated towards t s S. Yeah,

it seems you know. The when we first launched the t S S I, you know, we were talking internally and we'd always had a productoled Heavyweight, which is fifteen density tongues and which was great and people loved it, um, but you know, our sales weren't as high as we kind of wanted, and we just assumed that market is what it is. And so my boss was like, what do we got do in Turkey? And I said, you know, if we want to load the best Turkey loads on

the market, will load this ts S stuff. It's super expensive, We'll only sell, you know a little bit, but we will have the best Turkey load on the market. And that first year we sold four times what we thought and now we sell almost four times what we ever did in Turkey loads. So it is a price barrier. It's a lot higher um. But it seems that I don't know it had like this mythic kind of reputation

before that. You know, a couple of smaller animal companies were doing it, or normally you had a handloader buddy who knew somebody you could, you know, load you up TSS. So it is a lot more costly. It seems like people have accepted it. In terms of Bismus, It's it's kind of tough to say, and I think it's still kind of a new, a new thing where people are looking. I know it's one place in our lineup. We haven't had a bismus offering yet. We're looking at doing that

for turkey. I know some like I will say, have you shot a lot? There a sister company of ours now and I know that they offer it and it does sell well, especially states like California where everything is required to be let free. I think there's always going to be the market for the price point, and some people, you know, get turned off by it. If if turkey hunting was more like waterfowl hunting or the volume you know, you're you're burning through shells left and right, there might

be somewhat of a barrier. But most people, if you're shooting over five rounds a turkey a year, you know you're shooting a lot. So I think it's I think it's a little easier for people to bite off. Yeah, so you you kind of touched on it there a little bit. Is you know, I would say maybe the only con I can find with UM TSS is either you know, your choke not allowing it a little bit of scarring of the barrel. But the number one I think would be the cost of the material. Um it's

fairly expensive ammunition. But when you go to buy just I believe it was a pound of number nine shot, you're like in the five dollar range, you know, and it's just it's expensive, expensive babies, and uh so you want to jump into that a little bit and then maybe roll that into you know why maybe third degree is a great alternative where you're not feeling your entire payload of shot with as you're able to mix and get a you know, as you mentioned earlier, some of

the reasons why number seven and five and six lead may work. But can you touch on the cost of the TSS loads and then why third degree might be a a good alternative for a turkey load. Yeah. Absolutely, I'm gonna hit us that you you said quick though you said about scoring the barrel. Uh, we really design

our wads to be incredibly robust to prevent that. So just so some people know, even even like on something like a four ten or twenty gage though, it's everything is we make specific wads to event that, so that's not not as much of a risk. I can't speak for all the choke to companies out there. Um, And sometimes we'll get into chokes a little bit later. We'll talk about constricting tight, I guess, but if you're gonna go really tight, some some companies may recommend it, but

some people do recommend it as well. Um. But yeah, it's you know, like you said, at eighty bucks a pound, we buy you know, we buy our lead and steel off the kind of world market prices of the lead that we use a federal comes from recycled car batteries. A lot of people don't necessarily know that, so we um, you know, we try to get a break on the

price there. But you know, they break the batteries down, they melt it down, they make it into the alloys we want and you know world market price and letters deals like a buck twenty, we're still a pound dollar a pound, and we're buying tungsten anywhere between forty and sixty bucks a pound, So that's like significant costs increase. It's a lot harder to work with, and once it's formed, it's really hard to melt it back down and reuse

it into something. So um, so that adds some of the price, you know, um, and we've out, we've we're always searching for you know, less of uh more inexpensive ways to obtain it, but so far that just seems to be kind of where we are. So and then so when you get in a third degree, like it's like a great part of all the properly third degree it's about a third TSS and two thirds of lead,

So it's a combo load for us. And what you're doing with that kind of dovetails into what we're talking about with the really tight patterns to when we came up with third degree, like in our brain is the best pattern would almost kind of like veer out to the left and right like a baseball diamond and then turn into a rectail rectangle and go straightforward you know, you it would open up real quick and then fly

and never disperse any further. Because if you are you got a really tight bird, and you know, hopefully you've got decoys in tight you can call them in clothes because I mean that's the funnest part of turkey hunting. And uh and so we thirty, we're like, what if we can make the pattern open up quicker but still

give us effective lethality at forty yards. So we put in number seven tunks in at the fifteen density tungs and at the time now it's t s S. We have number seven t s s. We have number five comperplated the lead which people have been hunting with forever as the core of the pattern, and then we have number six flight stopper lead it's called which has this little ring around it, and that stuff scatters a little faster.

So your pattern between you know, it is about twenty and thirty percent bigger at ten to fifteen yards, and then after that it just kind of rounds out into this nice even turke and pattern, you know, to to get you out to forty and those ones. The third degree seems to run at about half of the T S is even less than that thirty ninety nine compared to like say you know your your nine for the

same size. You know, yeah, absolutely, it's it's a lot more of a lot more affordable version to to bite off and you're you know, so you're getting tungsten performance with it. So it does pretty well for us. It was. If you're you know, there's there's different kind of turkey hunters out there's some people want as many pellets as possible in that tennant circle. Some people want like like you were talking, a nice even pattern if you're even

you know, we didn't. We've always said we didn't make third degree to win pattern caught you pellet count contest. We've built it to kill turkeys, and it's it's proved itself to do that. Um, I'm gonna throw a little curveball. I yes, since it wasn't on our my list of questions here. But when we talk about lethality and range, you know where these shots are, Um, you're gonna be lethal. What's your standard? And then if you can maybe give me an example of like what's the number nine T

S S good for? Like can you kill out to sixty yards? We're you know, compared to like, uh, number five lead you know it's good out to fifty yards max. You know what we used to always go on MAX is like well, if you shoot number six is don't shoot past thirty five. And if you shoot number five, don't shoot past forty and if you shoot number four as you can kill a bird, you know, And so we used to just go by the old you know, rules of thumb. But what does that new UM range do?

You know? As far as TSS, I know you guys only have number seven is your biggest. You know nine is your smallest. But what would you say, like the the average ranges are for those? Yeah, we any leadload, you know, we'll stick to that forty UM if it's a twenty gage in little lighter you know, maybe a little in it, and then pattern your gun and see

what your patterns are doing. You're gonna carry inn you know, at the velocities we're going, you're gonna have moren enough energy to kill a turkey out to forty And we've always heard stories of people who go beyond that. With TSS. You I will easily say fifty fifty is easy, and I know you can go beyond that and I've heard stories of outrageous, outlandish type of ranges that people have

shot turkeys at. As a company stance, and personally, I'll probably always stick to that fifty and then anything else is up kind of the hunter to decide beyond that. You know, we still want to promote you know, ethical hunting in you know, just as you start to get further out, things can start to just you know, variables change,

everything can start to expand. I know, if you were to pattern your gun, you're gonna see you know, lead number five, Like let's say you're stuting announce in three quarter number nine out of a twelve age, your pattern density is probably gonna match a copper plate at number five out to seventy yards more than likely, and that pellet would have enough energy to kill a turkey that far.

I would never tell anybody to go out and do I know, I know people do, but what it really does is like one of the first, the first turkey ever shot. I was out with a good friend of mine's dad and he was one of my teachers and kind of a mentor, you know that you kind of taught me out of turkey on which was great. But we were out and uh, we'd set up on them and they they hung out or you know, we got a gobble and we didn't hear anything. It never came back.

And as soon as we stood up the walk, we looked out and wail out in this field was a top working his way towards us. So we belly crawled to the edge of the field and he's like, how far is And I'm like, God's far, you know, and uh and so it was like the last hour, last day. It took a season. So I popped up and I thought, I'm thinking it's fifty yards and boom, and I smoked him and just dropped him on the site. And that

was with our old heavyweight sixes. And when we ranged it off, it was sixty five yards that I killed the bird. Had Now, if he would have said your sixty five yards, I would have belly crawled fifteen yards closer because I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to do it. So what what it kind of allows you to do is this that forgiveness factor. You know, we're excited or we don't have good ranging, and so it's gonna make up some of that your your potential error

for rangings. One of the things that I'm most excited about UM with TSS and some of these new movements, and we touched on a little bit, is that the twelve gauge is a little less required now. You know, back in the day, everybody was shooting you know, big twelve gauges, you know, three and a half inch magnums. And I feel that with you know, youth becoming more involved and maybe being a little bit nervous to shoot twelve gauges and you know they'm wanting to shoot, you know,

youth youth twenty gauges or even four tens. I feel like that's been the biggest positive from this, aside from getting better patterns with our our bigger twelve gages, is that now these kids can go out in a four ten is a very good option for for killing turkeys now, you know, and you know, twenty eight and twenty gauges are you know, performed very similar to the old twelve gauges. UM have you guys noticed a big movement in in the four ten market and the turkey UM ammunition world?

UM is is it picks up steam and allows these youth to shoot a gun. They're a lot more comfortable with um out in the Turkey Woods. Yeah, it's been. It's been remarkable and one of like the you know, we knew it's the right of possible. Looked at all the energy in your your four ten at a you know, our load is thirteen sixteen silence of number nine' that is uh if I remember at two pellets and an ounce in three quarter of number five lead is two

hundred and sixty eight pellets, give or take. So it's a little higher pellet count, but their speeds put them at the same energy, So you're basically shooting with your old twelve gage load at you know, a lot less recoil. So we we put out the four ten and even some of the because of the price barrier, you know, even some of our retailers that first. So like you guys are sounding turkey loads at four ten, you know what I mean, what are you? What are you doing?

And you know it's gonna cost as much And it's been like, you know, the real shining star of the lineup. We we sell almost as much four ten and one skew as we do of the four or five twelve gage loads that we have in TSS. And I know some of that's carrying over you know, well, well your stories of you know, kids shooting the four ten, you know, goose hunting, you know, they're using the same low to you know, or they're taking the kid duck hunting, or or adults you know, or are using it. So we

know there's some crossover and to other stuff. But it's really like it's kind of like this, you know, I said, check the box with twenty cages. A lot of people are saying, I'm gonna kill turkey with the four ten, and you know, gun companies are coming up with a lot of single shots with red dots that are making you know, super light gun, making it really easy. You know, companies are coming out with four ten chokes. So it's really you know, created this kind of submarket within it.

And I'm I'm like you, I don't own a twenty gauge right now that you know fits me. You know, I have. I still had to use one from when I was a kid. Um, but that's probably gonna be my next purchase is a like a four ten single shot that I'll that I'll use as a little little turkey sniper. Yeah, my buddy Randy Milligan, who we going hunt without there in Kansas. He's always given me grief. He's like, don't shoot this twenty gauge because you'll never

shoot your twelve gauge ever. Again, you know, he's just amazing patterns um with some of that new and then and that's like you said, it's a shining star. Like if if this is able to get you know, more youth out there with them more effective round shooting a gun, they're more comfortable with. It's it's only positives, um, you know, from from some of this new ammunition. So kudos there.

I was just at the end of w t F show last week, and uh, I mean a majority we we had we were fortunate to get quite a few shells shipped in there and a majority of what people were seeking out was four ten um coming up just for for that story. So yeah, it's been, it's been. Uh, it's been. It's been really cool. That's awesome. I'm gonna touch on wads a little bit and and what the

heck do those things matter? And I always kind of joke is that they just seemed to be a little piece of plastic that I step over to go check my target or to you know that that pile up, you know, on a waterfall shoot that'll end up about the same range from you. Um the some of these new TSS loads are using UM flight control flex wads. You know, some of your older AMMO and maybe some of your stuff still is using like the flight control and you know, you know the way that these things

open up. You know, they've got the mid body slits and then they opened from the rear with the petals, and you can you give us a little education because to be honest, like I've never paid that much attention to to what those are actually doing, and they may be probably you know, the most important part of the whole, you know, equation. Yeah, it really is. Like for people who don't understand what wad is is inside your shotgun shell.

You gotta usually some kind of carrier mechanism that you are shot is inside of, and that carry mechanism carry it, helps carry it down the barrel and then as it exits separates from the shot lets it fly through the air. UM Old shotgun shells would just have a felt wad and if you didn't have any sort of choke system, it would disperse really quickly. You know, like are like kind of the minimum acceptable pattern, you know, for a

target load or a hunting load. You know, the standard that we're looking for as an industry is like sev of your pellets are within a forty in circlet circle at forty yards. So wad design can make a big effect on how many pellets fit in there and also the size of the pellets. So a typical WAD goes open and it opens up like a flower pedal, you know, it just breads out like you're opening up the fingers of your hand. You can't see me on camera, but um,

and then that can fly through your pattern. It can allow just nice dispersion. It can disrupt the pattern potentially. It just depends on the WAD system. So the flight control wad, and you mentioned the flake control flex wad. The flake control WAD was designed so that the gun

goes off, the wad comes out the barrel. It's a fixed tube on the front and on the back it has these petals and as the muzzle pressure that big muzzle blash boom, it flares the petals out and it acts like a parachute or an air brake, and it makes the wad kind of slow down and lets the shot go forward in this really uniform way, and so that's how you get nice even patterns, and that's what the flack control wad is known for. When you hear

flake control Flex, which is in all of our loads. Now, when we first came out with you know, um Turkey loads in flag control and then you know, black Cloud was our steel load and Prairie STRM is lead. If you were using a ported choke tube, you're kind of directing some of that muzzle last the side before the ammal gets out the barrel. And so by reducing that muzzle pressure, it wouldn't open the fins up on the

back of the of the wad. And if the fin don't don't open up, then the wad doesn't necessarily slow down. It all just kind of flies with the shot and it's really tight erratic clump. So the flex squad was designed so that if you are using like you know, there was a day where I would say, no, you can't use that Indian Creek con Federal it's just not gonna work, you know, But now you can. We've made it so that you can use any port of choke tube on any one of our flight control products. That

says flight the flex bad. You know your beIN takeaway from this. You can shoot it through any choke too, and it really helps you get tight and consistent edge to edge pattern. Gotcha. So the analogy is like you know, some of the other uh wads out there, you're like hitting a tree going sixty to zero, you know, very very quickly, as soon as those petals open up, the walls gonna breakaway. Versus what you're saying with maybe like the flight control flex is you're gonna slowly just apply

the brakes to slow down to zero. You're not gonna just like smash in, you know, and it goes to sixty to zero, You're gonna slow, slowly back away and and then that way you can control that that pattern a little more. You know, you wanted to be tight, but you don't want it to like you said, if if that shot stayed in the cup, you don't want it to be basically a slug, you know, acting like a slug as it goes down range. So it's just a better way to control that process. Yeah, it's a

great it's a great analogy. When when I was working before I worked at Federal, I remember a guy told me he had turkey hunted with some of our copper plate and lead and uh. And when I worked, I work three Like a moment, he goes man, I hit the turkey, I flipped them over and he got up and ran away. And when he went over there, he picked up the wad and he was able to pour the shot out of it. And then he researched a little bit and he had a really heavy ported tube.

And that was kind of my first lesson before I was even a company guy, on on what choke tubes to shoot with, federal or not. So part of my mission when I got on the shot Cell products was working with development team and say how can we make this thing work through any choke tube, no matter what. We just want to make it easy on any consumer. And then it just comes down to, you know, choke tube combinations with the right gun you happen, and so one it might be a little different. I'm gonna ask

you just a personal question for myself. I got that Indian tree. You know we're gonna get into chokes here in a second, but um, you know they have what their their wad stripper or whatever. It basically a very very minute constriction as it goes through that choke. Um, does that have any effect on your guys water? Is it designed to kind of work with that? Or if you guys did any testings without specific you know, design idea.

We did a lot. I don't know the specific model that that you have off top of my head, but the Indian Creek, I believe at six diameter was one of our core development chokes that we used when we went through because they had a you know, they had a pretty good name. A lot of people in the Turkey market were familiar with them, and we tested a lot of others, but that was one that that I wanted to make sure that we got through. So I think you're gonna be just fine. Yeah, perfect, perfect. That's

that's reassuring. Since it's a brand new setup, so I haven't put it all together yet, but let's use that as our say way right into patterning. Um, you know, choking constriction. Um, you know the question which kind of goes back what we've already talked about, can too much choke be a bad thing? Everything you've always heard about Turkey chokes, you know, they're considered extra extra extra fool

or extra extra fool. Um. And then some of the new advice out there, especially with like you know, TSS is like, well, maybe just want to go full or you know, modified or whatever it may be. So what can you kind of tell us about, um, you know, your your understanding of chokes, how much is too much? You know TSS versus letting just kind of give us the rundown of what works best with federal turkey loads.

Sure like like around that that six six seems to be pretty solid, but I know people go tighter and and there's a big relationship between you know, how is the are the forcing cones of this model of shotgun versus that shotgun, and that's gonna affect the amount of pressure. You know, your pattern is greatly affected by the length of barrel on the gun. And then you know how much the forcing gun is redirecting the amount of pressure as the load comes down the barrel, and how amount

of time that takes um. So there's always a relationship there. But you'll find that your typical turkey choke constrictions in all. So, like if you're if your gun came with a turkey choke, I don't know what that diameter might be. It's a good place to start it'll probably work pretty well through it. Now, if you want to get more specialized and try other things. I know that like the guys from truelock have told

us you can choke number nine's really really tight. Like I think there might be be down to like a six forty, which is really really tight. You know, we're kind of talking to industry jargon in a way that's incredibly tight constriction um. But sevens they wouldn't go below six fifty because they said if they did that, the pattern started to blow up. So you're you're like over

you know, you're overcompressing it. So it's kind of a you do got to experiment a little bit, and it does make it tricky with something like TSS because every time you experiments, costing your money as you go do you know. So what I'd recommend to people is if reach out to the choke tube companies that you're thinking about.

You know, we may we may have not have shot all their loads, but they've more than likely shot hors um and they'll they'll be happy to tell you, hey, I think you know what with your set up here, you're gonna do this, you know, I know, like like Rob Roberts out there if you if you've got a vanilla or a Bretta gun, I mean he really specializes in those. Reach out to Robin. He'll tell you and your gun, you're probably gonna use a T too, you know, and he'll say that's going to give you the best

pattern with federal number nine's or or whatever. So yeah, I mean there's a lot of reputable chokes out there. You know, You've got Carlson's True Luck, Jeb's Rhino, you know, all of these specialty chokes um that are out there. And one thing I had, just as you mentioned earlier, UM, it's just in my research, I didn't want to go

too tight, you know. I think I ended up with a six sixty for that invector, which you know fit some of those Winchesters, the Mossberg's, the you know, it's kind of that universal choke that a lot of companies

were using and ended up there at six sixty. UM, it looks like people were having It's almost if you're out there looking for like what choke to get and what constriction, I almost can guarantee you that if you type into you know, the Google, um, you know what load you're gonna shoot what choke you want to use and what gun you have that you're gonna get some pretty good rect commendations. Now with that said, I also want to put the asterisk next to it that every

gun and every load shoots different. You know, I had a massprogate thirty five with the compent choke. My buddy did, and they shot different shells differently. You know, I polished my barrel um with some the old Scotch Bright trick you know, all the way through the choke. He didn't, and we were just getting different, you know, different results.

So there there's a lot out there on choke constriction, you know, the patterns that people are getting that that may save you a whole lot of money versus you know, just firing you know, a bunch of TSS down the barrel to figure it out at least a good starting point, you're still gonna have to prove it and make sure

it works um with your exact set up. Though, Yeah, use you know, always start with the target load, especially if you're trying to get a red dot dialed in, you know, start with the cheapest load you can find and and that it should get you close. And now the new velocity change, and you know subtleties may come from there. But um, it's just you know, Turkey hunt has gotten like loads are so advanced, optics are so advanced, guns are so much better. It's almost gotten to be

like a like a rifle honor. You know, you have to you gotta die your equipment in because you're you're you're we're giving you more lethality. But everything is getting a little tighter and tighter with the way technology is going, so you've got to be a little more on. Yeah, I'm gonna ask you a little side question as far

as like, you know, barrel cleaning. You know, I shoot some customer rifles, and you know, the builder said, you know, once you shoot your first five, you know, check for copper foiling, shoot five or ten more, check one last time, and then from then like don't clean your gun anymore until something's happening, Like just let that gun basically be foul. Um, as long as your shots don't move, what do you what's your recommendation for cleaning shotguns? Is it similar? Does

it not really matter at all? Um? When it comes to like load performance and patterning. From my experience, it it doesn't but you know, there could be people out there and more specialized than I am. You know, I'm probably your average like if I'm if I'm on a hard duck hunter or a wet, rainy day. You know, I usually tear my gun down every time I get home if it's not wet and dirty. Like I've shot my Vanilli most a trap season last year, I cleaned

it one, I think. So I'm not a source of but I do know if you're shooting a lot of lead, like as a trapshooter, um, some of those pellets kind of bubble over the top of the wad, you will get lead following build up in the barrel. So you do want to you do want to clean it out in terms of a turkey you know gun and getting better patterns, you know, doing like what you did to the scratch bite. I've heard of things like that. Um. But yeah, you're you're getting a little beyond my expertise.

And I know that you know, we have guns here that we you know, they've been test guns for years and years and years, will you know, And I don't think we do any special regiment to clean them. And they're probably getting shot more than most people's shotguns and you know in the country. You know, I can imagine you guys pulled the trigger a little a little more lea those test guns. Um. Yeah, some of that stuff.

I just I was like completely you know, involved with turkey hunting, and like it consumed my life a little bit. And so it was like every little thing I could do like that, let's let's pullish the barrel the day with a bunch of gun oil and you know, an ss pad And you know, it didn't prove it. It doesn't. It didn't make a difference back then. But you know, nowadays, it seems like there's there's even a market for basically people you know, quote unquote like turkey I sing or

however you would say that word. Um, you know, basically making a gun a dedicated like turkey gun, turkey killing gun. Um. You know, I don't know what all goes in that, but I've seen a lot of people talk about like having your gun sent off to get this or that

done or you know, make this modification. So yeah, I kind of mentioned Rob Roberts before, and that's like he'll blow they call it blow out the forcing cones and it's it's kind of that back portion of the shotgun where the where the shell comes out of the chamber and where the shot first hits. And you can optimize that angle of the cone, and if you make it a little bigger, it's gonna it's less of a harder recoil, you know when you first get hit, because you're not

running into like that. It's like wider, I don't know, it's the best. You're going into a wider hallway, right, so there's less there's resistance for you're a little to go down. It helps even it out as it goes down the barrel. So it's gonna help even as it goes out to barrel. And that's about the extensive I that I know. I've been the rob shop and have to act any kind of blew my mind when you're talking,

so gotcha, gotcha? Yeah you could. You can go down the rabbit hole with you know, trying to get the perfect load. But that's what's nice about what we've been talking about. It seems like TSS has kind of taken a lot of that um extracurriculars and just put your minded ease that this is going to be you know, a good enough, a good enough you know pattern and without doing all that extra work that we used to do back in the day on on lead or copper plated leads. So all right, so I want to jump

into some state regulations. And we did a lot of talking about number nine's. I know back in um, you know, there were six states back then that weren't allowing you know, number nine's to be used or sub gate shotguns such as the twenty eight or the four ten. So do your own research, make sure the state that you're hunting in, everything that you're you know, you're set up is legal. Yeah,

we've done We've done an extensive effort. You know, we got a good relationship with the game in Vicious too, and they like to expand with with technologies, and you know nine was was the big one where it's it's legal in most states. Like I said, I wish I knew that number right off top of my head, but I don't. But if you should be able to use it almost anywhere. And then same with the sub gauges, and a lot of it just came down to information,

you know, like, hey, you're like everything I said. You know, they could just listen to this podcast and they would you know, they'd be filled in to show. So we just try to share that and say, hey, we're still killing turkeys ethnically. Some states it's easier, you know. Sometimes it's a full legislative regulation change or a wording change, statute change, and some of just the Game of Fish

department signs off on it. So if there is somewhere if you're gunning the shoot a turkey with a four ten and it's not legal, you know, just politely reach out to your you know, your congress people or your Game of Fish people and just say, hey, we're doing it a different where else, Why why aren't we doing it here? And just kind of let your let your voice be heard. Um, what we're talking about state regulations is there are still a pretty big push as far

as like lead moving forward, especially whether it's copperplated or not. Um, can you give us any information kind of on that front and how long we can expect lead the beer around in Turkey? Turkey loads are kind of you probably have a more up to date understanding of where that movement's going. Yeah, so since since California changed, um, you know, it's kind of assumed that it looks like Washington and Oregon. We'll follow suit. You know, we we do follow that situation.

We we have we try to have a lead free solution everywhere in our lineup. We do and I do in almost every product category I have, with the exception of rifle slugs and uh, that's not a huge demand

item for US. UM. If California required, you know, a slug zone, which they don't, UM, i'd probably have And even though we're working on right now, so we're very cognitive of but we we work with the NSSF, the National Shooting Sports Federation, you know, to stay of tabs with that, and you know, be informed ourselves and be as informational as we can to the industry too. You know, in terms of lead turkey shells, I think as long as there's a market forum, we'll have lead turkey in

our lineup. And if if legislation requires us a change, you know, we'll be we'll be ready to support. Hopefully. That answered as a bunch of your questions through my questions I had, and I'm gonna close this out, Dan with if you could help a new turkey hunter with one tip, what would it be. Let's get your best turkey hunting tip MM hmm, don't call too much, um,

and that's really gonna be um. I guess gotta have two tips to be like, find a good turkey hunter Taki hunting would be one, but if you don't have that option, don't call too much. Especially when I'm up in Minnesota, we had a lot of Eastern birds. You gobble at them and then you gotta give him some time to calm down and hopefully you'll hear them a little closer. And I've spooked more birds off because I've

been too aggressive going for it. And uh, I was finally able to go hunt real turkeys, which you can gobble your head off, and it's fantastic. It's way gratifying when you're going after him. But I would just be very cognizant of how much calling you're doing, and you know, the birds will will let you know when you should be done, and you're probably gonna have to learn that lesson on your next hunts because you're already blew it. So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's same thing we've talked about

a lot. As you know, hunting Eastern's compared to your Merriam's and Rio's are just a different you know, you put your run and choose on for Rio's Merriams and you can call a lot more versus Easterns. You you better be patient, sit still and don't call near as much. It's so hard. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate having you on today, Daniel, and uh hopefully you've you have a good springer. You've already had a good spring since we're

probably right in the middle of Turkey season. And uh yeah, thank you for for your knowledge on everything Turkey shotgun shows. All right, I appreciate anytime