Spring 2023 is set to be our oldest daughter’s first turkey hunting season. Being that she is nine years old, she can’t just borrow my 12 gauge. So the first thing that we needed to do to make turkey hunting a possibility for her was get a shotgun that is both effective and user friendly for her small frame. It also had to be budget friendly. However, the nice part about purchasing things like this, is that I know it will get handed down throughout the years to come. So if she grows out of it, that isn’t a big deal. As I am guessing my seven year old will be itching to grow into it.
After a lot of research, I settled on a combination that I believe should work great. It is a Stevens 301 Single Shot Compact .410 gauge. I liked this option because it weighs only 4.6 lbs., has a length of pull (distance from the trigger to the end of the stock) of 12.8 inches, is ambidextrous, and being that you have to physically pull the hammer back yourself while also having a safety on the side you essentially have a double safety. Combined with being a single shot, makes this shotgun a quite safe option for youth hunting. My first impressions of the recoil pad on it are also quite surprising. It seems to have quite a bit of give. I went with a .410 to try and minimize recoil as much as I possibly could. Here is the best part. I got it for less than $200 brand new.
This is the base setup. In order to make this shotgun more effective for harvesting a turkey, I did make one modification to it. One of the things I really liked about his gun was the fact that it has a removable choke. It didn’t take long to find a turkey choke for it. Trulock, which I have used in two of my other hunting shotgun setups and have only had great results with, makes a .410 TSS #9 choke for it.
Now I know there might be some of you scratching your heads on if a .410 can really be effective in turkey hunting, but thanks to the advances in shot shell technology specifically tungsten super shot, it can be. I am trusting my research on this, as I have yet to actually try it. But I did order a box of #9 TSS. Tungsten is a dense pellet that in this load can be shot at 1100 feet per second, and still has 294 pellets in it! When I saw the size of the shells, the entire box of five fit easily into my hand, I couldn’t believe it can still hold that many pellets. Hopefully soon we will have some time to pattern this setup and I will report back the results.
The shotgun has the ability for a sling and I have one that I can put on it but after some consideration, I have decided to keep it off for now. The reasoning behind this is because in order to assist in being easy to use I purchased a tripod with a clamp on it. This should help keep the gun in a safe and ready position when out hunting, allow my daughter to more easily aim, and also to help reduce recoil. All of this is to do whatever I can to make this experience enjoyable for her. Again, I am hoping we have some free time for us to take this gun out and get familiar with it before going hunting. More to come on our spring turkey hunting adventures!
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