Can you shoot steel shot through a turkey choke?

The answer, by maker

This question has no single answer, because it is set by the tube in your barrel rather than by physics alone. Here is what the four makers in our registry publish, in their own words.

• Carlson's: “Lead, Copper, Nickel, Bismuth, and Hevi-Shot can be used in any Carlson's Extended Turkey choke,” and “never shoot steel shot larger than #4 through any turkey choke.” So: small steel is permitted, big steel is not. Carlson's choke tube information page carries the rule.
• Patternmaster: its Code Black Turkey is “designed specifically for turkey loads” and “NOT safe for use with steel shot.” That is a flat no, in the maker's own capital letters.
• Primos: the Tight Wad “shoots lead, cooper-plated lead, and HEVI-SHOT” and is “not designed to shoot steel shot.” Its TSS turkey tube says “not to be used with Steel Shot.”
• Kick's: the Gobblin' Thunder “can be safely used with lead, TSS, or other non-toxic loads.” Note what that sentence does and does not say: non-toxic covers several materials, and the only way to know whether yours is included is to ask Kick's about your specific load rather than to assume.

Two makers permit small steel, two rule it out. That spread is the whole reason this page exists: there is no industry-wide standard you can apply to an unlabeled tube.

Why steel and a tight tube do not mix

Three things stack up here, and together they explain every warning above.

Steel is harder than lead and does not deform. A lead or tungsten pellet squeezes slightly as the shot column is forced through a constriction. A steel pellet does not; it transfers that force into the choke wall instead. The tighter the constriction, the more force there is to transfer.

A turkey choke is the tightest tube you own. Carlson's publishes Full as about 0.030 in of constriction and Turkey as 0.045 in or more — and its turkey tubes run to 0.640 in in a 12 gauge, against 0.700 in for a plain Full. You are asking undeformable pellets to funnel through a much smaller hole.

Velocity makes it worse. Carlson's own rule on its flush-mount tubes names speed as well as pellet size: “No Steel shot larger than #BB or speeds exceeding 1550 fps should be used in choke tubes tighter than full.” Modern steel waterfowl loads are fast.

Reading your own tube's limit

Do this before you shoot anything unusual through a turkey tube.

1. Take the tube out and read it. Most makers stamp the constriction and often a shot restriction on the tube itself. Carlson's prints “Do Not Use Any Steel Shot Larger Than #4, Slugs, Sabots, Rifled Slugs, or 00/000 Buckshot” on turkey-choke pages, and a tube may carry a short version of that.
2. Look the exact model up on the maker's site, not on a retailer listing. Retailers routinely copy the wrong restriction across a whole product family. We have seen Carlson's generic turkey-choke steel restriction printed on its own waterfowl tube page, which is a good illustration of how muddled this gets.
3. If the maker is silent, treat it as a no. No published rating is not permission. Several tubes in our registry publish nothing at all about loads — JEBS publishes no load rating on its Head Hunter product page, for instance — and the safe reading of silence is lead or tungsten only.
4. Ask the maker if you cannot tell. Both Carlson's and Indian Creek publish customer-service contacts and fitment guides. One email is cheaper than a barrel.

The other restrictions on the same label

Steel is not the only thing that should never go through a turkey tube, and the same label usually spells out the rest: slugs, sabots, rifled slugs and 00/000 buckshot are all on Carlson's exclusion list for turkey chokes.

That matters more than it sounds, because the gun you are shooting turkeys with is often the gun you shoot deer or clays with. Swapping the tube when you swap seasons is the whole habit. A turkey tube lives in a vest pocket or a gun case, not in the barrel year-round.

What to shoot instead

If your reason for asking is “I have steel shells and a turkey choke in the gun,” the fix costs less than a box of shells: fit an open tube for the steel and keep the turkey tube for turkeys.

• For ducks and geese: a waterfowl tube, which is built around steel. Carlson's Cremator waterfowl tubes run 0.725 to 0.705 in against 0.680 in or tighter for its turkey tubes in the same thread — the comparison is in turkey choke vs duck choke.
• For small game and clays: a plain replacement Modified or Full tube. Carlson's flush-mount line names steel, lead and HEVI-Shot as usable across its constrictions, within the #BB and 1550 fps limits.
• For turkeys: lead, copper-plated lead, HEVI-Shot-type tungsten blends or TSS, matched to what your tube is rated for. Which shot size, by gauge, is in what size shot for turkey.

Three tubes and what each one allows

These three are scored on the choke rubric published with our First-Season Score, and they are here as an illustration of three different published answers rather than as a ranking against each other. Every figure on their cards links to the maker page it came from.

Turkey loads are not steel anyway

Worth saying plainly, because it resolves the question for most people asking it: spring turkey loads are not sold in steel. The shot materials in the turkey aisle are lead, copper-plated lead, tungsten blends and TSS, and the reason is that steel is too light to carry the energy a turkey's head and neck requires at 40 yards. Density is the whole argument, and it is laid out in TSS vs lead turkey loads.

Two caveats where steel does enter turkey hunting. Some states restrict shot materials for spring turkey, and a few require non-toxic shot on certain properties, so your regulations digest may make this decision for you. And fall turkey hunting sometimes happens on ground with non-toxic requirements. In both cases the rule is the same: match the load to what your choke maker publishes, and pattern the combination before you hunt with it — Mississippi State Extension's patterning publication is the procedure.

What damage looks like

If you have already shot steel through a tight tube, stop and look at it before the next shot. Unscrew the choke and check for a visible bulge or ring at the constriction, scoring down the inside of the tube, cracks at the muzzle end, and whether the tube still threads smoothly. Look into the barrel at the threads as well.

Anything that is not smooth and round means the tube goes in the bin and a gunsmith looks at the barrel. Then re-pattern with the replacement tube, because your old target no longer describes your gun — the procedure is in how to pattern a turkey gun.