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How Much Is Too Much Gun?
By Dave Henderson

"Line up both beads with the bull's eye, Ron, and exhale slowly while squeezing the trigger," I said, coaching a buddy through his first - ever patterning experience with a 31/2 inch, 12-gauge turkey load.

"BOOM!"

Ron lurched violently backward and moaned while jacking the empty hull from his pump gun.

"Okay, that one was pretty much centered," I said, looking at the patterning board.  "Let's put up more paper and shoot a couple more times to get a good pellet count."

"Forget it!" said Ron, rubbing his shoulder.  "We'll have to go with what we got off the first target.  I'm not shooting this thing again until it's absolutely necessary."

"The guy at the store told me the 31/2 inch, 12 gauge is the most powerful turkey gun you can get.  After this I'm not so sure I need that much power just to kill a bird."

The 31/2 inch, 12 gauge shotgun is definitely devastating on targets - but it also hits hard on the other end.

The Mossberg 835 was the first of a plethora of 12 gauge pump shotguns chambered for 31/2 inch shells.  At 7 pounds, 12 ounces, the 835 is about standard weight for a 12 gauge pump, but that's little mass to absorb the punishing recoil dealt out by 31/2 inch turkey loads.

William Wellington Greener's The Gun and Its Development was written in 1881, and is still regarded as the bible of shotgunning.  Greener's Rule of 96 was a calculation to determine the ultimate charge size for a specific gun.  His research showed that a shotgun should be 96 times heavier than the weight of the shot charge it fires to ensure good patterns, the shooter's comfort and the longevity of the firearm.

If this rule is applied correctly, a shotgun firing 1 ounce of shot should weigh 6 pounds.  A load of 11/8 ounces is better suited for a 63/4 pound gun and 71/2 pounds is needed to handle 11/4 ounce loads.  According to Greener, to shoot a 21/4 ounce charge efficiently and comfortably, you'll need a 131/2 pound gun.

A lighter gun will not pattern as well and will also eventually shake itself, and its shooter, apart.  Recoil is definitely a consideration with the ultimate big bore turkey guns.

Consider that the average 2 ounce, 3 inch 12 gauge load - the most popular turkey load sold - shoves the butt of a 7 pound pump gun into your shoulder at 19.265 feet per second for a measured recoil of 43 foot pounds.  Most readers can coordinate these figures with experience and know that 3 inch turkey loads certainly get your attention.

Elephant Power
The 31/2 inch turkey load in the 7 pound, 12 ounce Mossberg 835 pump develops a whopping 60.3 foot pounds of recoil, hitting your shoulder at a speed of 22.31 feet per second.  That's more than two foot pounds more than a .458 Winchester Magnum with a 600 grain bullet - the gun's suggested load for elephants.  The 31/2 inch, 12 gauges are the brutes of the shotgun set.  The mentality is that bigger is stronger, but, bigger can mean slower - and velocity is a key ingredient in a load's energy at impact.

When I do shotgun seminars I open by asking if people in the audience would rather get hit by two No. 6 pellets from a .410 or two No. 6 pellets from a 10 gauge, both fired from the same distance.  Most prefer the perceived lesser punishment of the smallbore gun's load.  But actually the .410 throws its load slightly faster than the 10 gauge.  With the size and mass of the pellets identical, the tiny .410 actually hits harder.

The advantage of the larger gauges is more room for payload and propellant.  They don't shoot any farther than small bores - there's just more pellets in the big bore string when it reaches the longer distances.  But velocity is still a major factor.

Consider the 31/2 inch, 21/4 ounce 12 gauge Winchester, Federal and Remington loads are 125 feet per second slower than the 15/8 or 11/2 ounce 23/4 inch loads of the same make.

In America, however, it's all about muscle.

The 31/2 inch, 12 gauge is a modern substitute for the 10 gauge, which itself still maintains a presence among older turkey hunters.  Both guns 

Gun	Gun Weight	Load	Recoil
Mossberg 835	7 pounds 12ounces	31/2 inch 21/4 ounce shot	60.3 foot pounds
Average 12 Gauge Pump	7 pounds	3 inch 2 ounce shot	43 foot pounds
.458 Winchester Magnum	12 pounds	600 grain bullet	58.1 foot pounds
Average 20 gauge	7 pounds	3 inch 15/16 ounce shot	27.2 foot pounds

shoot essentially the same 21/4 ounce load of No.'s 4, 5 or 6 shot, but the 10 gauges larger bore and greater mass helps absorb some of the felt recoil.

There is no argument that the 21/4 ounce payload offers more pellets than the conventional 3 inch, 12 gauge shell.  That means 34 more No. 4 pellets (or 42 more No. 5s or 50 more No. 6s) in the longer hull.

But, is the 12 gauge bore large enough to efficiently funnel the extra pellets?  Greener says no, and if you've patterned long shots, you've probably seen that a dense-centered patter isn't a common trait of the 31/2 inch, 12 gauge.

When all the information is considered, the 21/4 ounce payloads from 31/2 inch, 12 and 10 gauge guns are indeed the biggest and most powerful loads available for turkey hunting.  The question is, what price are turkey hunters willing to pay for a few more pellets?