When I was a kid and my dad took me to the fire hall for the annual turkey shoot, I would hear storied along those lines. A turkey shoot back then was 25 paper plates stapled to a board some yards away from the firing line. Each plate had an "x", in light pencil, somewhere near the center of the plate. Shooters would buy a position on the line for a buck or two and fire their shotgun at their designated plate. The plate with a hole nearest the "x" won a turkey.

After attending for a few years the rules changed. Shooters could not use their own shells and when they paid for a position at the line, the "official" would give them the shell they had to shoot. It seemed that someone was caught putting something in their shot shell that held the pellets together longer, placing more concentrated pellets on the plate.... giving them a better chance to win.

The talk around town was that people would put molasses, or some kind of thick goo in the shell. I have no idea if its local BS or not, but to this day, when I get back "home", they still hand out shells at turkey shoots.

Aren't the new Winchester turkey loads somewhat like the molasses concept? I thought I read that instead of dropping granular buffer in, something was poured (or injected?) into the shot. I shot a turkey on Monday with one of these loads, and I found out by the gobbler what looked like the base of whatever cushioned and surrounded the shot. It looked something like the papery material of a wasp nest. I assumed it was what the poured substance turned into that then holds the shot together for some distance from the muzzle.

Also, I don't know about constrictor loads, but I do know that you can achieve varying patterns in the same gun by altering the loads. I discovered this when patterning guns with different hand loads...and commercial loads. Some barrels "like" certain loads better than others and the change in density from one load to another was noticeable. I'm not patient enough to plot all this out, but I was able to make a cylinder choke shoot close to a modified pattern by altering the speed, size of shot, and shot itself (copper plated). I know there is nothing new here, but I've seen results that suggest you can tighten patterns (I can't say the loads were more effective!).

Robin, I like your turkey shoot anecdote. Although we did not participate in turkey shoots when I was growing up, my Dad took me to some and there was much theorizing about why someone won consistently. I also recall that when you paid your entry fee, you bought your shells also.

BTW, just curious, where is "home?"

The turkey shoots I observed in my youth saw guys showing up with guns like the bolt action Marlin goose gun with 36" barrels because they supposedly shot tighter and harder. Withing the last year I saw a shoot advertised that limited barrel length. Maybe the sponsors of the shoot wanted to make sure everyone was shooting from the same distance. Some wives tales just never die, i.e. damascus barrels.

A guy I worked with attended a lot of turkey shoots. They were shooting Federal paper shells. He wanted an advantage over the 1 1/8 ounce #9 shells and asked if I could help. I loaded 1 1/2 ounces of #9 for him, and you could not tell by looking at the paper Federal. He would pocket the shell given to him and put my load in. Needless to say, his gun was quite loud and had a lot of recoil compared to the others. I don't know if he won but I'm sure they caught on to him.

The new Winchesters have a resin holding the shot at the back of the shot column, supposedly to keep them cushioned and keeping the shot from being deformed. I killed a turkey with the 3" shells this spring. But they only have 1 3/4 ounce compared to the 2 ounce maximum you can get in the 3". I watched a video on you tube and the Winchesters beat the Hevi-shots at 60 yards, even though less shot. Shell construction, wad, shot size, buffer do make a difference. I've found a lot of the large gauge guns shoot bigger size shot better than they do the smaller shot for some reason I don't know. I can get as many 4s in the target as I can 6s at the same distance.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...1638&FORM=VIRE

"Home" was in Beaver county, Pennsylvania.

Years ago, I started to load 12 gauge Turkey loads, and ran some tests to compare similar #6 shot with and without "Grex". The "Grex" increased pattern density by about 25%

Please explain Grex




.

Grex is powdered polyethylene. I thought I got it from Ballistic Products years ago, but I just checked and appears they no longer carry it

Tom Roster put out a booklet on long range loads some years ago. I tried some of them using 3 in. 12 ga cases, steel shot wads and buffer from precision reloading. The results were very good, used for called fox and coyote with # 2 shot. It's easier to make them shoot tighter than open them up but the various spreader from Polywad and Ballistic products work well along with the softest shot you can find.

Here's the best I can find for info on Grex

http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/view...?f=13&t=145058