With so many shotguns on the market for turkey hunters, which one is the best? It is hard to pick the very best, but Brad Fitzpatrick with Outdoor Life has picked the top eight.
Remington 870 Express ShurShot Synthetic Turkey
MSRP: $536
Ideal for those who want an affordable, dependable turkey gun, the 870 Express ShurShot offers Remington’s classic 870 action with a short (21-inch) barrel and a comfortable ShurShot synthetic pistol grip stock. The matte finish on the metalwork and Mossy Oak Obsession camo dip on the stock won’t bust birds, and the receiver is drilled and tapped if you elect to mount an optic. The chamber accommodates shells up to 3 inches and a Turkey Extra Full Rem Choke comes standard.
Browning BPS NWTF
MSRP: $949-$1,029.
The BPS turned 40 years old last year, and the NWTF model is a favorite among turkey hunters because it combines the rugged reliability of a pump-action with the concealment of a Mossy Oak Break-Up Country camo dip. The Browning’s bottom feeding/ejection and tang-mounted safety make this a truly ambidextrous gobbler gun. This is a hefty shotgun—the 3 ½-inch model weighs 7 pounds, 14 ounces—but that weight helps manage felt recoil from magnum turkey loads. The 24-inch barrel is topped with a HI-VIZ 4-in-1 fiber optic bead and the receiver is drilled and tapped for mounting an optic. If the 12-gauge version doesn’t offer enough oomph for you, there’s also a 10-gauge model that tips the scales at a shade over 10 pounds.
Stoeger M3000/M3500 SteadyGrip
MSRP: M3000: $669, M3500: $799.
In 2015, I was part of a group of hunters that used Stoeger M3000 shotguns to hunt doves in Argentina. Over the course of three days, I fired roughly 4,000 rounds through the M3000 without an issue. Very, very few turkey hunters will ever put that many shells through their gobbler gun but that test speaks to the reliability of these Stoegers. The M3000 and its 3 ½-inch, 12-gauge counterpart the M3500 utilize the Inertia-Driven action perfected by parent company Benelli, and a dearth of moving parts is one of the factors that makes these guns so reliable. The turkey hunting models of the M3000 and M3500 both come with a Realtree APG camo dip and SteadyGrip pistol grip for added comfort and stability when touching off magnum loads, and both guns have 24-inch barrels with red fiber optic front sights and three choke tubes (IC, M, XFT). The 3-inch gun weighs 7.3 pounds, and the 3 ½-inch version weighs 7.5
Photo: Remington
