Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED
Turkey season is fast approaching. For some, youth seasons are already here. The gobble of a big ol’ tom strutting into the decoys is a sound that is helping many keep away the duck depression. But as you get ready for this spring, and you go searching for a shell to use, remember, a good turkey load is engineered a bit different from a good waterfowl load. Density and pattern retention play into things more than one might think, even for a waterfowler. No matter what type of choke or shotgun you’re planning to take into the field with you, Apex Ammunition has the perfect turkey shell for you.
Apex Ammunition burst onto the shotgun shell scene in the Spring of 2017 with some hard-hitting turkey loads. So hard-hitting, in fact, that they sold out of everything they had in about 15 minutes on their initial launch. That’s what happens when you’re a Veteran-owned company, that does all their work by hand. Yes, you read that correctly; Apex Ammo is owned and operated by veterans, who take the time to hand load their shotgun shells. Nick Charney from Apex says “We’ve always prided ourselves in our consistency. We’ve also always prided ourselves in hand-making our stuff. There are a few extra steps that we take, that your typical, fast producing machines can’t account for, whether it be utilizing certain components or other processes. So we continue to hand-build them, and that tends to be the difference between us and the competition.” Apex works off of a weight-based scale, not a volume-based scale. That means they make sure their shells are plus or minus .01 grains of powder, and everything is plus or minus one pellet in the shell. This equates to you not getting cheated anything when you decide to pull the trigger when that big tom comes fanned out into your sights.
One key component to making a hard-hitting, lethal turkey load, is having a dense pattern. What better way to accomplish that than by using the densest material on Earth? Tungsten. “We specialize in tungsten super shot. That’s where we cut our teeth. The process incorporates using a tungsten-nickel-iron alloy” says Charney. “The density of the shot is 18.1 grams per cubic centimeter, or greater. Our shot is highly-polished, ultra-consistent, and it’s to ball-bearing tolerances”. When asked about the most important elements of making an effective turkey load, Charney says, “It has to be a consistent firing shell, that also has to pattern well time and time again” to Apex, that comes from scrutinizing different components, how the shot is loaded, which components are used, and how it all interacts when the firing pin meets the primer.
But people shoot different guns. Some shoot 12 gauges, some prefer the benefits of having the lighter 20 gauge. Nick chooses to hunt his turkeys with a 10 gauge, while the author of this article uses both a 20 and 12 gauge as his guns of choice for turkeys. With so many different gauges of shotgun, ranging from .410 to 28, to 16, to the more common guns, how do you still maintain making a lethal shotshell across the board? Especially with all the different choke tubes out there. According to Charney, there are a few components, one of which is a ‘ proprietary buffer’. “A buffer allows us to keep those high friction pellets from bouncing around under setback and reducing some of their unwanted energy, so when they come out of the choke tube, you don’t get a lot of flyers,” says Nick, which in turn equates to more pellets headed to that turkey’s head; if you’re shooting straight.
“We certainly don’t promote taking long, unethical, shots,” Charney says, talking about the distance capabilities of Apex’s turkey loads, “but I can speak from experience when you’re out in more open terrain and what you think is 40 yards can sometimes be 50, and you don’t know it. You just have to use your best guess estimate. You can’t range anything in the heat of the moment sometimes, so you’re relying on eyesight, and if you’re like me, your eyesight isn’t that great and you get tunnel vision. That 40 yards or that 45 yards ends up being 50 or 55 yards. So what we tell folks is ‘take the shot that’s most comfortable to you’ however the actual physics behind the shot, a #9 TSS pellet will actually penetrate ballistics gel the same at 40 yards as a #4 lead will.” What’s the importance of that? You don’t need to go to an extreme shot size to kill birds, and you can also saturate your pattern with pellets, to create a more consistent and lethal pattern every time at normal ranges, and maintain a better pattern at extended ranges as well. So no, Apex isn’t giving you the green light to go out and be like the sky-buster on the opening day of the duck hunt, crippling birds at drastically long distances with unethical shots, however, they do give you the ability to give that long-bearded tom a lethal hit that might have been just a touch too far for your old shotgun shell.
Now for those of you who live in states that have shot size restrictions, or you’re still trying to figure out which size of pellet shoots best out of your gun, Apex can help you out. With a variety of different shot sizes in multiple different gauges, you have a wide variety of choices at your disposal to help you figure out which is the right choice to help you this turkey season. Whether that’s due to legalities of your hunting area, or you just want to make sure you can find something that’s not going to be too hard on your ol’ reliable turkey killer. “We offer as many shot sizes as possible to our customers that we can, so they can use the shells they want in an effective and legal manner if they hunt in a state that has shot size restrictions,” says Charney. So how has Apex been able to create such an effective shell that can be used with so many different gauges of shotgun? Especially using something like Tungsten to create the pellet? According to Charney a lot of it comes down to countless hours studying which components work well with tungsten, which a lot of components don’t. The compilation of components creates the right amount of speed, payload as well as manageable recoil. “We balance all of those things together to get the best pattern, that’s, of course, the safest round for our customer”, says Charney.
So how does speed play into creating a good turkey load? Nick explains it all by saying, “With speed, you’re trying to find a manageable, good speed between 1,000 and 1,200 feet-per-second, you really can’t try to get any faster with the powder you need to use for turkey shells”, he continues on, “you don’t really need to throw a turkey shell as fast anyways because the density of the material is so great, you don’t lose the energy downrange.” This is different from waterfowl loads, where we’re used to seeing shells anywhere from 1200 to 1600 FPS, “they’re essentially trying to make up for the loss of energy because of the lack of density in the load, by increasing the speed to increase that kinetic energy, to be able to penetrate, and have that knock-down power” says Charney. But what are some of the major differences between waterfowl shells and turkey shells? “From a price-point perspective, a lot of your waterfowl loads are a lot more economical, buyer-friendly because it’s steel. But with Steel, you can still focus on your pattern to create the most efficient shell possible. You can also manage the appropriate speed of them to create a consistent tight pattern and maintain the required energy to kill. A lot of bigger pellets like 4’s, 2’s, and BB’s in steel can then make up for the weight difference in order to maintain that downrange energy. When you look back to a heavier-than-lead alternative, you can capitalize on the physics of the weight of the shot, because traditionally, across the board, the faster you throw a pellet, the less likely it is to pattern as well” Charney then says that difference in comparison to a turkey load is that the optimum speed for a good pattern is around 1100-1150 FPS, “you’re not sacrificing anything because of the density, and actually, the slower you throw it, the better the pattern you’re going to get”.
One thing that has made Apex such a powerhouse in the ammunition game is their ability to create such a hard-hitting shell capitalizing on material density with tungsten. But what does increasing the density of a shell really matter? Well for starters it allows you to gain more knockdown power, with less necessity for speed, which in turn allows you to have tighter patterns, with more dead birds, and fewer misses. “We use about 95 to 96% Tungsten, and then mix the rest with nickel and iron to increase the density.” Now that’s all fine and good, but does it really make a difference? “Yes, absolutely!” Nick responds, when asked if there’s any evidence that these shells are leading to more dead birds, less cripples and more humane kills, “it hits so much harder than anything out there, it saturates the pattern so when there’s that little branch in the way, you’re not sacrificing losing some of your on-target pellets, it will stay saturated at a longer distance- or should you misjudge the distance, that extra 10 yards is not going to be the difference in losing that energy you need to hit them hard and knock them down”
When asked about how to prepare for turkey season using Apex Ammo, Nick gives an adamant response, “We can’t stress pre-season prep enough” he says, “We really try to get into it with waterfowlers as well, because waterfowlers seem to never ever want to pattern their guns. They just buy a shell and assume it works. They’ve never seen on paper what they’re pattern looks like at a myriad of distances. So with turkey season and turkey hunting, knowing what your equipment capabilities can do, and knowing what your pattern looks like, and putting that into your confidence cannot be overstated enough!” What Apex recommends to their new customers is to go out and pattern a shell. Nick gives the advice to go to a home hardware store and buy some 35” wide x 140” tall contractor paper, go find a safe place to shoot your gun, and go set it up at about 40 yards, and get a dead rest, so you’re not shooting free-hand. Mark a black dot on the paper, and shoot it. Go out and look for the highest concentration of pellets, draw a 10” circle around that, and count how many pellets you’re getting, and determine whether or not you’re on par with what you should be getting by comparing other shells. You can also adjust the different distances to figure out where your gun is patterning the best at. For optimal performance out of Apex Ammo’s shells, their desired results are 88-93% payload retention in a 20” circle at 40 yards.
So, as turkey season comes strutting in, and the anticipation begins to boil over for those mornings trying to call in that elusive tom, remember, you hardly ever get 2 shots. And you don’t ever want to say “I was so close”. Get yourself a shell that will get the job done! Look up Apex Ammunition and get you a box of shells that will have you packing out your trophy bird this Spring.
