hey guys scott reekers here with wingman by eastmans and today i am here
reviewing the three and a half inch shot shell tss from apex ammunition so first thing i want to talk
about is that with this tss ammunition you have a three and a half inch shelf but you have two and
a half ounces of number nine shot now that's a lot going down range and we just patterned this gun we
are actually out on our way to a turkey hunt so this is gonna be fun always pattern to your gun
especially with new ammunition that's one of the beauties of working with some brands like apex
ammunition we get to test out some pretty cool stuff and that's what we're doing but that means
you better pattern your gun and so that's why we do this you want to know where you're shooting
where you're going but because this is a three and a half i'm using the weatherby 18i for this and so
this is coming out at 1175 feet per second that's fast and it's very effective and let's go for a
ride and pattern this gun and let's pattern the shot shell so we understand what ammunition we're
using and see exactly how this is hitting down range so first up i've got this three inch shell
turkey ninja that i've got i'm going to pattern it at 25 yards then i'm gonna pull out the three and
a half tss and we're going to see how they pattern and compare them together first shot 25 yards
all right so we're gonna go take a look got a luxury i did two shots on the three inch turkey
ninja so this is pretty cool because you'll get to see the difference in me being able to adjust
and this is why you pattern your shotgun so this is the first shot and you can see i'm a little
high this still would have been a dead bird the difference here is that you can see like there's
dead bird right here you know but it may it may have taken a little bit there might have been a
little more flopping involved when you come right here and you can see i adjusted my shot because i
knew it was hot load it was a little high so you can see i broke the neck definitely brain done so
very ethical kill here this bird would be done and you're not worried about you know making a
bad shot or injuring anything like this this bird was definitely down so this is the three
inch turkey ninja at 25 yards and so now let's go take a look at what it looks like with the three
and a half inch and this is pretty crazy look at how much you have on target there's a lot of tss
that hit this bird definitely broke the neck you know we've got injuries here and so this is a very
solid group at 25 yards plenty of injury to the bird clean ethical kill now one thing i will say
just from a a strictly human standpoint looking this how this felt this thing kicked a lot so
definitely hold on tight because it is pumping it out fast and there is a lot of tss that is
going after that bird which is a good thing this is what you want you want to be able to
reach out and touch but also make sure your group stays tight so whole bird got hit so very good
situation with this ammunition from apex okay so now we've taken the targets out to 50 yards
to show what this apex ammunition can do out to distance first shot is a three inch turkey ninja
next shot we've got the three and a half inch and we are at 50 yards again
let's hope this guy can shoot straight
there we go let's go see the damage one of the beauties of what we have with this scenario is
this stuff's all hand loaded they they do this by hand huh here's a wad that's cool so you guys
can see this is a wad this is our 25 yard shot so you can you can see that they put a lot of effort
and time into understanding the science behind shock because there is a lot that actually goes
into these you know these loads and developing them understanding the metals that are used why
you use tss you know and then developing that and then wanting to make clean ethical kills
and also they just love turkey hunting culture and so that all that said man it's great to
work with companies that understand that and do that and look at look at this so
this is 50 yards dead bird not even not even a question this is a three inch shot again
the turkey ninja i use this now two years so i've been able to pattern this and really get
used to what this load looks like this is good this is a good opportunity at a bird
so i'm very comfortable if you were to you know shoot anywhere from 25 to 50 yards you're gonna
have no issue killing a turkey right there let's go see what it groups with the three and a half
so again you've got a dead bird right here with this three and a half inch load so you
know there's a few more i think this probably has a little bit as you can see it grouped a
little higher and so i think i probably didn't aim quite as low as i should have so that's user error
but still because of the amount of shot that you have this is a great illustration of why you'd
use a three and a half is because you can see now this is still definitely a dead bird right here
vertebrae is broken two others go right there then we got one center in brain one right under the eye
this is a dead bird no question asked but you can see if you go further up this is still nice
and tight so if i aimed a little bit lower instead of where i had it right about here
if i aim just a little bit lower this would be a dead bird no questions asked very ethical kill i
can tell you now that i just shot five rounds two of the three and a half and then i used the three
inch turkey ninja for our patterning down range i can tell you right now this is highly effective
you can see it from the patterns there that both are going to kill your turkey but why use a three
and a half over three inch the biggest reason is you're going to end up with more shot down range
and you can get a little bit more oomph to hit hit them everyone wants a clean one-shot kill when you're
hunting turkeys and everybody has the idea that you want to get them close and then you want to
shoot them in the face because that is the most ethical place that you want to hit them and you
just like with big game where you want to double lung and dead within 30 seconds with turkeys you
want to hit them in the neck and you want to hit them in the head where it ends their life
really quickly there's not a lot of suffering and so that is the point that's why you use tss
so seth tell me about this uh fighting tom that you just shot you know it's been a long day scott
it's been a lot of sitting and a lot of waiting a few hens kicking up here and there we knew they
were down here but it's just a matter of time of waiting them out and knowing we're trying to find
out where they're headed use this apex ammunition that you guys tested and it's did the job about
40 yards about 40 yards yeah got him down in the drainage didn't really think much of him at first
until he started moving and then i was like oh there he is so congratulations on your turkey and
make sure you subscribe to the eastmans hunting journal youtube channel for more tips and tricks
and gear reviews like what we just did on the apex ammunition three and a half inch