Carlson's vs Indian Creek turkey chokes: which tube fits your first season?

The short verdict

These two brands come up in nearly every turkey choke conversation, and they sell very different things to a first-season hunter. Nobody here has patterned either one, so this page compares what the two companies publish — load ratings, exit diameters, fit charts, materials, warranties and instructions — against the choke rubric in our published scoring method. If you have not yet worked out what constriction even means, read what choke to use for turkey hunting first, or start at the guns and loads hub.

Side by side, on published numbers only

Two pairs: first the head-to-head 12 ga tubes, then Carlson's lead-load specialist against Indian Creek's 20 ga. Every value links to the page it came from, and a dash means the maker does not publish it.

What each one will actually shoot

This is the difference that decides most purchases. Carlson's splits its turkey tubes by load and tells you so on the box. The TSS Turkey is “optimized for Federal Premium Heavyweight TSS Turkey Loads” and works with other makers' turkey ammunition in “Smaller shot size 7-9.” The Long Beard was “specially designed to produce the best patterns when shooting Winchester's New Long Beard Turkey loads,” which are copper-plated lead. The Extended Turkey takes “Lead, Copper, Nickel, Bismuth, and Hevi-Shot.” Pick your shell, and Carlson's has already picked your tube.

Indian Creek runs one turkey tube for everything and states its limit plainly: the Strike “will accommodate all lead and hybrid heavy loads with shot sizes from #2 through #10.” For tungsten it steps back — “If you are considering TSS shells, check the shell manufacturers' website (i.e. Nitro, Apex, Federal) for their recommendations with our choke tubes.” That is honest, and it is also an extra phone call you may not want to make in your first season.

Neither company publishes head-to-head pattern data, so neither gets a pattern claim from us. Indian Creek says the Strike “has been proven to increase pattern density by 40% or better” without publishing the test behind it; treat that the way you would any maker's number. Our TSS choke picks cover the tungsten lane in more detail.

One size per gun, or three

Carlson's TSS and Long Beard lines give you exactly one exit diameter for your thread: 0.640 in for the TSS tube in the Winchester/Browning Invector/Mossberg 500 and Remington threads, 0.660 in for the Long Beard in the same two. Carlson's answer to choice lives in a different line, the Extended Turkey, which reaches six diameters in one thread.

Indian Creek builds choice into the turkey tube itself. Most 12 ga models offer 0.660, 0.665 and 0.670 in, the Mossberg 500 model (#0001) offers 0.660 and 0.670 in, and every 20 ga model offers 0.555, 0.562 and 0.570 in. If your first pattern is disappointing, you can step one size without changing brands or lines — which is precisely what both companies' own instructions tell you patterning is for.

Finding your gun on the chart

Carlson's sorts by gun. Its interchange guide has a page per shotgun family telling you which Carlson's thread it takes, which is how a Mossberg 500 owner learns to buy a tube labeled “Winchester / Browning Invector / Moss 500,” and how an 870 owner learns that a Bone Collector is a Pro Bore gun instead.

Indian Creek sorts by model number. Its 12 ga fitment table runs from #0001 (Browning Invector, Win 1300, Mossberg 500, 9200, 535, 930, 940) through #0002 (“ALL REMINGTON”), #0004 (Mossberg 835/935) and on to #0100 (CZ), with a separate 20 ga table and a .410 table. It is quick once you know your gun, and vaguer when you do not: “all Remington” does not tell a Versa Max owner that they want #0008 instead, though the company's interchange sheet does. Indian Creek also notes that a tube bought for the wrong thread may carry a restocking fee, so check twice.

One line where Carlson's is broader: it publishes turkey tubes in Remington Pro Bore, and Indian Creek covers those guns with a single model. One line where Indian Creek is broader: every one of its models is a turkey tube, so you never have to work out which of four product families you are in.

Ports, material and weight

Carlson's publishes what its tubes are made of: “the finest corrosion-resistant 17-4 PH stainless steel available,” with the Extended Turkey described as 17-4 heat-treated stainless in a matte blue finish. Its TSS and Long Beard product pages list no porting and no extension length.

Indian Creek publishes the opposite set. It does not name a material anywhere on its site — only that the tubes are CNC machined to tight tolerances — but it does describe “30 parallel ports which quickly ventilate gasses release and stop wad rotation” and says its Black Diamond tubes “require no tools and are easily hand-tightened.” It also lists a weight, 0.5 lb in 12 ga and 0.375 lb in 20 ga, which Carlson's does not.

In our scoring, an unnamed material costs Indian Creek more than the ports earn it back, which is why the two 12 ga tubes land on the same 7.4 from opposite directions. If ports and no-tools installation are what you want, that tie is yours to break.

What each maker teaches you after the sale

Both publish patterning instructions, which is rarer than it should be. Carlson's choke tube information page asks for a target that holds a 30 in circle, says 40 yards “is a good start,” and recommends averaging three to five targets. It also carries the chart that matches exit diameter to shot size, with the caveat that it is “a starting point; there are exceptions for every shotgun and load.”

Indian Creek's tips and tactics page runs a nine-step routine: a 4 ft square target at 40 yards, find the center of the pattern rather than your aiming point, trace a 10 in circle there, count the hits, repeat for every choke and shell combination, then sight in. It adds the warning most new hunters need to hear — a new tube is very likely to move your point of impact — and says its turkey tubes do their best work with an optic on the gun, which is a claim about aiming, not about patterns. The NWTF says much the same thing about re-checking a pattern every time you change anything. Our patterning walkthrough puts both routines into one afternoon at the range.

What neither brand publishes

Both companies are more forthcoming than most, and both stop at the same wall: neither publishes pattern results for a given tube, load and gun. That is not evasiveness. It is that the result depends on a variable neither of them controls, your barrel's bore diameter. Trulock, a third choke maker, explains it in print better than anyone: “a choke of a given exit diameter is usually going to give a different pattern when used in guns of different bore diameters. Take a Beretta at .723 a Remington at .727 a Browning I.P. at .740 and using a .660 in all three guns normally gives three different patterns.”

So a smaller number on the tube is not automatically a tighter pattern in your gun, and a brand comparison cannot settle what an afternoon at the range settles in an hour. Carlson's says its own chart is “a starting point; there are exceptions for every shotgun and load.” Indian Creek sells alternates so you can move a size. Both are telling you the same thing: buy a starting point, then let paper choose. That is also why we score maker guidance at 15% of a choke's total — the instructions you get are part of the product.

One more thing neither brand can do for you: put the pattern where you are looking. If your gun has only a bead, a new tube may shift the point of impact enough to matter, and the head-and-neck target a turkey gives you is small. Where to aim on a turkey covers the aiming half of this.

Warranty and returns

Carlson's backs its choke tubes with a lifetime warranty and says a damaged tube can be mailed back for a replacement. Indian Creek guarantees its tubes “against manufacturer and material defects” without stating a length, takes returns within 30 days, and applies a restocking fee to tubes ordered for the wrong gun. For a buyer who plans to own one turkey gun for twenty years, that gap is worth more than it looks.

Which one for your gun

Both brands cover the two most common first turkey guns, and we rank them side by side on the gun-specific pages: see the best turkey choke for a Mossberg 500 and the best turkey choke for a Remington 870, where Carlson's takes the top spot in both threads on the strength of its size range and its chart, with Indian Creek close behind. For the wider field — Kick's, Primos, Patternmaster and JEBS included — start with our best turkey chokes roundup.