Federal Doesn’t Miss: New 28-Gauge TSS Exceeds Expectations
Is shooting a 28-gauge shotgun shooting TSS going to provide more pellets down range to a turkey than a 12-gauge shotgun shooting TSS? No. Are 28-gauge shotguns light to carry, fun to shoot and increasingly effective at killing turkeys? Yes.
With more turkey-specific 28-gauge shotguns hitting the market and more TSS loads to pair them up with, the 28-gauge trend might be here to stay, and for good reason.
Among the various brands, camo patterns and barrel sizes that exist, there are many options for selecting a 28-gauge shotgun. This spring, I’ve been hunting with a Benelli Super Black Eagle 3, chambered for 2¾- and 3-inch shells.
Paired with Benelli’s factory full choke and Federal’s new 28-gauge TSS load, this combo patterned exceptionally well.
I patterned Federal Premium’s new 28-gauge Heavyweight TSS in both 2¾- and 3-inch shells. I also patterned Federal Custom Shop’s loads of the same varieties, all with #9 shot.
I shot each of these four loads twice at 20 yards and twice at 50 yards, and the results were impressive. Federal’s Custom Shop 3-inch provided the deadliest shot. They shot wide holes out of the paper target at 20 yards, mangling the target so I couldn’t even count the pellets accurately.
I would not readily take a shot at a bird at 50 yards, but the 3-inch Custom Shop loads still had well over 100 pellets within a 10-inch circle. Knowing that distances can be misjudged sometimes, it is nice to know that these loads are lethal if you accidentally underestimate your distance.
The 2¾-inch Custom Shop loads nearly mirrored the 3-inch loads, blowing the paper off the target with a tight, deadly pattern at 20 yards and still providing over 100 pellets in a 10-inch circle at 50 yards. The 3-inch shells naturally had a little more recoil; the difference being nearly 1 ounce shot weight in the 2¾-inch load versus the 1-11/16 ounce, 3-inch load.
And while Federal’s Custom Shop performed well, so too did the Premium Heavyweight TSS. At 20 yards, both the Heavyweight TSS 2¾- and 3-inch loads provided pellet counts of over 300 in a 10-inch circle. That’s a dead turkey.
I reached out to a representative from Federal to get the average pellet count for each of the loads I was patterning:
Heavyweight TSS 28 Gauge 2¾-inch: Approximately 359 pellets. (I was shooting Federal’s first iteration of this load that had a 1-ounce shot size. If you order Federal’s Custom Shop 2¾ now, it comes with a 1¼-ounce shot size, equating to approximately 448 pellets.)
Heavyweight TSS 28 Gauge 3-inch: Approximately 538 pellets.
Custom Shop TSS 28 Guage 2¾-inch: Approximately 538 pellets.
Custom Shop TSS 28 Guage 3-inch: Approximately 602 pellets.
All four of these loads patterned exceptionally well with a full choke; however, with such tight patterns at 20 yards, missing a bird at closer ranges becomes easier.
All four loads are incredibly lethal to a wild turkey, at close range and at a poke. Depending on what your price point is would factor into which of these loads you would purchase. For the Benelli 28-gauge SBE3 I’ve been hunting with, the pattern with the 3-inch Custom Shop TSS is awesome, and it helps compensate for my inevitable bad shot or misjudged distance.
Purchase or learn more about each of these 28-gauge loads offered by Federal:
Overall, with sub-gauges gaining in popularity, turkey hunters who appreciate Federal’s exceptional performance and want to run and gun with a lighter-weight turkey gun can now do so, not to mention helping support the NWTF’s conservation efforts with the purchase of each box of the Premium Heavyweight TSS that has the NWTF logo on the box.