TSS Penetration

[joey46]

I'm from a family that produced multiple engineers that would love this post.  I'm in the "huh?" category.  So far the only bad thing I've seen about TSS is the cost.  The patterns and killing power leaves little argument even for "real" turkey hunters that happen to fire a 41 yard shot.

[Old Timer]

Another factor that I'm not even capable of calculating is how deformation or shape of the shot affects penetration.  It's my understanding that TSS is "more spherical".  That would increase penetration.  It is also harder, so it would not deform like lead.  Deformation sucks up energy that is used for penetration, so the harder shot would not lose penetration capability due to deformation.

I'm not capable of calculating this, either.   But, just in layman's terms, think of the difference between a round nose jacketed bullet and a full metal jacket bullet.  "Mushrooming"..............or flattening eats up projectile energy.  Not to mention the resulting projectile (pellet) deflection effect due to the deformation.  Straight line penetration always wins.

I've never put a TSS pellet on a turkey.  I'm still old skool and shoot Hevi 7's.  You laid out, in great detail, some pretty convincing number theories............which I believe are very telling.  But, I can believe one thing, and KNOW the same........or another.  What I do KNOW is that the Hevi 7's will give exit wounds on a gobbler's head a LOOOOONG way farther away than will lead 5's or 6's.  Seen it.  Done it.  At 3-4 gm/cc MORE than Hevi 7's the TSS can't be anything other than more of the same.

Whether a guy can bring himself to foot the price tag of the tungsten shotshells or not is up to him.  Lead still kills convincingly as ever.  But the effectiveness of the expensive stuff is in NO WAY in question or even a topic for debate.

Hevi 7 is not made anymore is it ? Options?

[ChesterCopperpot]

Hevi 7 is not made anymore is it ? Options?

No, they don't make Hevi 13 anymore. Hevi-Shot got bought out and discontinued a bunch of stuff. Honestly, aside from the Hevi 18, which is TSS and which there's better options available, Hevi doesn't make any attractive turkey shells anymore. They came out with a Hevi XII load this year for ducks that I think could be interesting to pattern but #6s are as small as it goes. Bet they'd be killer loads though for turkeys through the right set up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[grayfox]

I'm just a dumb ol country boy so when I started messing with tss I put up a sheet of  tin at 40 yards and shot it with a 12 ga. 31/2 # 6, and a 20 ga. 2 3/4 # 9 tss after looking at the results I put the 12 ga. up for good.

Simple but effective.   

[GobbleNut]

In a lot of these discussions, I always fall back on how it applies to "average Joe turkey hunter".  I have seen a lot of them in that our turkey club used to host patterning days for folks that were, in essence, casual turkey hunters.  These were people that didn't have a designated turkey shotgun,...or knew anything about choke tubes and turkey loads and such.

Their patterns at 40 yards were often dismal with standard lead loads in the number 4 or 5 shot they found for $10 a box at WallyWorld.  Because of the expense, we never patterned their guns with TSS in the smaller sizes, but I can't help but believe shooting TSS would have made their marginal shotguns much more effective out to that magical forty yard mark. 

If for no other reason, THAT is why I encourage those casual, turkey-hunting folks to pay the extra cost and shoot TSS.   

[Gooserbat]

In a lot of these discussions, I always fall back on how it applies to "average Joe turkey hunter".  I have seen a lot of them in that our turkey club used to host patterning days for folks that were, in essence, casual turkey hunters.  These were people that didn't have a designated turkey shotgun,...or knew anything about choke tubes and turkey loads and such.

Their patterns at 40 yards were often dismal with standard lead loads in the number 4 or 5 shot they found for $10 a box at WallyWorld.  Because of the expense, we never patterned their guns with TSS in the smaller sizes, but I can't help but believe shooting TSS would have made their marginal shotguns much more effective out to that magical forty yard mark. 

If for no other reason, THAT is why I encourage those casual, turkey-hunting folks to pay the extra cost and shoot TSS.   

Exactly