Best semi-automatic turkey shotguns, compared on what the makers publish

What a semi-auto actually buys you

Two things, and it is worth being precise about them because they are the only reasons to pay the difference over a pump.

Less felt recoil. A gas gun bleeds some of the shell's energy into cycling the action, and that energy does not reach your shoulder. On a gun you will fire two dozen times a year, that matters less for comfort than for flinch: a hunter who flinches at a 2 oz turkey load will shoot worse patterns and, eventually, miss birds.

A faster second shot. Honest version: you rarely need it. A turkey is shot once, deliberately, from a seated position. Where it earns its place is the follow-up on a bird that is down but moving, and for that a semi-auto is genuinely faster than working a pump from a sitting position with a bird flopping in front of you.

What you pay: money, weight, and a dependency on the action cycling the load you chose. Everything below is published specification — we have not fired, carried or patterned any of these guns, and nothing on this page has a buy button, because Amazon sells no firearms or ammunition. If a pump is the better answer for you, the pumps are in best turkey shotguns for beginners.

The five, side by side

Gaps in that table are real gaps. Mossberg's product pages return an error to us, so its figures come from Mossberg's own journal, which does not print a weight. Beretta's site returns an empty document, so the A300 figures are a named dealer's spec copy. Stoeger's site blocks us, so its figures are as reported by American Rifleman. We would rather show you where a number came from than pretend we read it somewhere we did not.

Gas or inertia, and why it matters for turkey loads

Two different ways to cycle an autoloader, and the difference is not marketing.

Gas (Mossberg 940 Pro, Winchester SX4's Active Valve, Beretta A300, TriStar Viper G2) taps gas from the barrel to work the action. It spreads the recoil impulse out, which is why gas guns feel softest, and it is more tolerant of light target loads. The cost is fouling: gas systems get dirty, which is exactly why Mossberg advertises 1,500 rounds between cleanings on the 940 Pro as a feature.

Inertia (Stoeger's Turkey Editions) uses the gun's own recoil and a spring. It runs cleaner and lighter — 5.4 lb for the 20-gauge M3020 Turkey Edition is the lightest semi here by a wide margin — and it transmits more felt recoil, which matters when the load is 1.5 to 2 oz of tungsten. Inertia guns are also fussier about very light loads, which is a clay-shooting problem more than a turkey problem.

For turkey specifically: gas if recoil is your concern, inertia if weight is. Neither system has a turkey-hunting advantage beyond that.

How each one takes an optic

This is where these five genuinely differ, and it is worth deciding before you buy, because the mount is not a detail you can fix later for free:

• Mossberg 940 Pro Turkey — a cut receiver. Mossberg says the receiver “features cuts that accept low-profile, direct mounting of microdot sights (Shield RMSc pattern),” and a Holosun HS407K combo comes fitted from the factory. The simplest, lowest, most turkey-appropriate optic setup here.
• Winchester SX4 NWTF — a Weaver-style cantilever. The rail is part of the gun and hangs over the receiver, which is the one factory setup where a magnified scope mounts cleanly. If a scope is your plan, this is the gun; the scopes themselves are in best turkey shotgun scopes.
• Beretta A300 Ultima Turkey — a Picatinny rail in the box. A 7-slot rail comes with the gun, so a red dot or a scope in rings both work, with the trade-off that a rail sits higher than a cut receiver.
• Stoeger Turkey Editions — drilled and tapped (12 ga) or a Picatinny rail (20 ga). American Rifleman reports the M3000 as drilled and tapped for red dots using Stoeger's mounting plates, and the M3020 with a Picatinny rail.
• TriStar Viper G2 Turkey — a Picatinny rail. The NWTF's reviewer notes the rail and a fiber-optic bead on the barrel.

Every one of these guns ships with a usable fiber-optic sight, so an optic is an upgrade rather than a requirement. Whether it is worth it at all is red dot vs bead, and the sights are ranked in best red dots for turkey hunting.

Recoil systems, and the 3.5 in question

Mossberg is the only maker here that publishes a fit range on this gun — a user-configurable stock from 13 to 14.25 in of length of pull, plus drop and cast — and Beretta is the only one with a named recoil-reduction system in the stock: the dealer copy lists Kick-Off, which Beretta says “provides enhanced stability, comfort, and control.” If recoil is the reason you are shopping for a semi-auto, that is the feature to look at, along with the A300's 3 in chamber — which is a limitation and a mercy at the same time.

Only the Winchester SX4 NWTF here takes 3.5 in shells. Whether you want them is a separate question. A 3.5 in shell buys payload — Federal lists HEAVYWEIGHT TSS in 12 ga 3.5 in at 2.25 oz against 1.75 oz in 3 in — and it charges you in recoil, price and, in some guns, patterning consistency. Plenty of turkeys die to 3 in shells every spring. The payload-by-shell-length numbers are in best turkey loads for 12 gauge.

Weight: the cost of an action

Published weights here run 5.4 lb (Stoeger M3020 Turkey Edition, 20 ga) and 6.9 lb (M3000, 12 ga) to 7 lb 4 oz and 7 lb 8 oz for the Winchester SX4 NWTF in 20 and 12 gauge. Beretta and Mossberg do not publish weights in the sources we could read for these configurations.

For a hunter who sits in one spot, none of this matters. For a hunter who covers ground calling — the style described in the NWTF's all-day game plan — two pounds of gun is two pounds you carry up every ridge. The vests for that style, ranked by weight, are in best turkey vests for run-and-gun.

Choke threads: the spec nobody checks

An aftermarket turkey choke is thread-specific, and semi-autos are where people get this wrong, because the receiver brand and the thread pattern are not the same thing. Three of these five use a Beretta/Benelli Mobil-pattern thread:

• Beretta A300 Ultima Turkey: extended Beretta Mobilchoke, per the dealer copy.
• Stoeger M3000 / M3020 Turkey Edition: extra-full extended thread-in chokes on the Beretta/Benelli Mobil pattern, as reported.
• TriStar Viper G2 Turkey: Beretta/Benelli-style chokes, per TriStar's own line and the NWTF review.
• Winchester SX4 NWTF: Invector-Plus.
• Mossberg 940 Pro Turkey: Mossberg's own system, shipping with the X-Factor XX-Full.

Benelli buyers have an extra trap worth knowing about, because Benelli runs two thread systems (Crio Plus and Mobil) across its line — we cover that in best turkey choke for a Benelli. Whatever you own, read the choke maker's interchange chart before you order, and if the chart and your gun disagree, believe the gun.

Will it cycle a turkey load?

This is the one failure mode a pump does not have, and it is worth testing rather than assuming. Heavy turkey loads are high-pressure and slow-moving, and a gun tuned for light field loads does not always like them — the NWTF's reviewer of the TriStar Viper G2 Turkey found the opposite version of the same problem: the gun “wouldn't eject target loads,” being designed for higher payload shells, and noted “more intense recoil than I am used to.”

So: buy the shells you intend to hunt with, and fire enough of them at paper to know the gun runs them. That is the same session you were going to shoot anyway to prove the pattern, so it costs nothing extra beyond the shells. Also read your gun's manual on break-in; several gas guns want a specific cleaning routine out of the box.

Then pattern it

Gun, choke and shell are one system. Mississippi State University Extension publishes the procedure in How to Pattern a Shotgun for Turkey Hunting; the NWTF's Is the Age-Old Pattern Rule Still Viable? covers how to judge what you see on the paper. Our step-by-step is how to pattern a turkey gun, and the choke side is what choke for turkey hunting.

Capacity, plugs and state rules

A semi-auto raises one legal question a pump usually does not: magazine capacity. Several states cap the number of shells a turkey gun may hold, which means a plug. Published capacities here are 3+1 (Beretta A300 Ultima Turkey) and 4 rounds (Winchester SX4 NWTF and the Stoeger Turkey Editions).

Missouri's Department of Conservation publishes its turkey hunting equipment guidance and New York's DEC its turkey regulations; both are examples of how specific a state gets, not a national rule. Check your own state on capacity and shot size before opening morning, and if you are new to hunting, IHEA-USA lists hunter-education courses by state.