Travel & Places Hunting/Shooting

Winchester Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Turkey Hunting Ammo Review

Saturday, April/06/2019
58
Winchester Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Turkey Hunting Ammo

When I discovered Winchester Long Beard XR (XR = Extended Range) Shot-Lok turkey ammo at the 2015 SHOT Show Range Day, I was immediately interested - especially because I enjoy hunting with Dad's old over-under shotgun.

This well-worn old twin-stacker was made in the 1930s, when choke tubes were decidely not an option. My old 12 gauge has full and modified chokes and three-inch chambers, which tends to reduce its reach in comparison with modern 3.5-inch behemoths wearing super-full turkey chokes.

Therefore, I was excited by the promise of ammo that hits hard with reasonable patterns both near and far.

The shot charge is encased (or encapsulated, to use Winchester's terminology) in a hard transparent resin, which protects the shot from deformation as the shot charge accelerates in the shotgun's bore when the shell is fired. Upon exiting the muzzle, the much-lighter, now-shattered resin separates from the shot charge.

The first thought most hunters will have is this: If it's so tight at long range, it must be too tight at close range - meaning that a slight wavering off-target at a close bird could result in a miss. And it's pretty tight... but is it too tight? In this article, we'll see just how tight it patterned at various ranges with a number of different shot sizes and shell lengths.

When I shot it on Range Day, I was impressed - cautiously. I could barely wait for the chance to try it in my old gun.

More of This Article
  • Page 1: Introduction to Winchester Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Turkey Hunting Ammo


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 4 at 10 and 20 Yards

Okay, let's get down to business here. First, we'll look at Shot-Lok Long Beard XR 3" shells, 1200 fps, 1 3/4 oz of number 4 shot.

These shots were fired through a full-choked barrel on a Browning Superposed 12 gauge over/under shotgun.

The 10 yard pattern is on the left, while the 20 yard pattern is on the right. As you can see, there's not a lot of margin for error at 10 yards, but it's not as tight as you might imagine, considering the resin-encapsulated shot charge.

At 20 yards we see a good turkey-killing pattern. Yeah, it's off-center... but that's my fault.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 4 at 30 and 40 Yards

At 30 and 40 yards, I managed to kill the gobbler - but not with a real big margin for error. Performance is still impressive, though, considering that my previous maximum range was just 30 yards, using 3" magnum turkey shells in this shotgun (Browning Superposed 12 gauge, full choke).

More of This Article




Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 4 at 50 and 60 Yards

At 50 and 60 yards, the Winchester Shot-Lok Longbeard really shows its stuff. Although these birds are not fully tenderized, they'd both be dead if they were sure-nuff gobblers. And the patterns almost feel better than the 40-yard pattern - or at least as good.

Already, Shot-Lok has doubled my shotgun's effective reach in the turkey woods - but so far we have only looked at 3-inch number 4 shells (1-3/4 ounce).

We're far from done with this.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 5 at 10 and 20 Yards

Now we'll see what I can do with Shot-Lok Long Beard XR 3" shells, 1200 fps, 1 3/4 oz of number 5 shot. This shot is a bit smaller than the number 4s we've been looking at, so you get more pellets per shotshell.

Once again, these shells were fired through a full-choked barrel on a Browning Superposed 12 gauge over/under shotgun.

At 10 and 20 yards, the number 5s pattern about the same as the 4s - but since we have more pellets, we can naturally expect more hits.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 5 at 30 and 40 Yards

The 3-inch number 5 Shot-Lok Long Beard XR shells continue to produce patterns of about the same size as the number 4s - but with better results due to the greater number of pellets. I'm definitely preferring the 5s over the 4s at this point.

More of This Article




Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 5 at 50 and 60 Yards

At 50 and 60 yards, the 3" Shot-Lok Long Beard XR number 5 clearly beats the equivalent number 4 load in this 3"-chamber, full-choke shotgun.

At 50 yards, the number 5 shot almost doubled the number of effective "vital" hits in the target bird's head and neck. And at 60 yards, I counted 9 good hits with the number 5 shot while the number 4 placed just 2 or (arguably) 3 pellets where they needed to be.

So far, the three-inch fives have it - but we're not done yet.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 6 at 10 and 20 Yards

Moving on, we'll now see what number 6 can do. Again, these are Winchester Shot-Lok Long Beard XR 3" shells, 1200 fps, with 1 3/4 ounces of shot.

Number 6 shot is smaller yet, so each number 6 shell carries a greater number of pellets than the 4s and 5s we've been looking at.

I'm still firing the ammo using the full-choked barrel of an old Browning Superposed 12 gauge over/under shotgun.

At 10 yards, all of these shells pattern tightly.

If I had to pick a favorite 3" Shot-Lok at 10 yards, it would be number 5 - but the difference isn't significant.

At 20 yards, I greatly prefer the pattern produced by the number 6 shot. It seems to be a bit larger than what the 4s and 5s did, while packing plenty of gobbler-killing punch in every square inch of the pattern.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3" No. 6 at 30 and 40 Yards

Now looking at 3" number 6 at 30 yards vs. number 4 and 5 at the same distance, the pattern is again about the same size, but denser. The number of kill shots is comparable to number 5, and both exceed number 4 in kill shots by a good margin.

At 40 yards, number 6 again did well and approximated the performance of number 5 - and once again, both produced significantly more killing hits than the number 4 shot.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3.5" No. 4 at 10, 30, and 50 Yards

Now that we've gotten out to 50 yards, the number 6 begins to lose its edge. It produces about the same number of vital hits, but each pellet would hit with less energy than those of number 4 or 5 shot.

At 50 yards in this test of 3" Shot-Lok turkey shells in a full choke, I have to declare number 5 to be my favorite. At closer ranges, number 6 seems to be as good as or better than number 5. Both have number 4 beaten by a good margin.

If you're wondering why I didn't shoot it at 60 yards, it's because I was running short on time, shells, targets, and tenacity. My shoulder and cheek took one heck of a beating in firing all of these shells, and more.

Next, I punished myself with some 3.5" Shot-Lok Long Beard XR shells.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3.5" No. 5 at 10, 30, and 50 Yards

No test of Winchester Shot-Lok Long Beard XR turkey ammo would be complete without firing some of the big honking 3-1/2-inch shells - and so I did.

For this, I used a Benelli SuperNova 12 gauge shotgun with a factory full choke tube.

The shells patterned above are 3.5", 1200 fps, packing a full 2 ounces of number 4 shot.

At 10 yards, we see the same old tight killing pattern we've gotten used to during this process.

At 30 yards, the pattern is a good one - but not markedly better than that of a 3" shell.

At 50 yards, this shell placed about 8 pellets into the bird's head and neck, which is a slight improvement over the pattern I got at 50 yards with 3" number 4 shot.

More of This Article


Shot-Lok Long Beard XR Pattern: 3.5" No. 6 at 10, 30, and 50 Yards

Here are patterns of Long Beard XR 3.5" shells, 1200 fps, with 2 ounces of number 5 shot.

The shotgun was a Benelli SuperNova pump with a factory full choke tube.

Comparing with the 3.5-inch number 4s on the previous page, the 10-yard and 30-yard patterns are comparable - but once again, number 5 outshines number 4 by quite a bit at longer range.

It's pretty good, but once more performance is not notably better than three-inch shells with the same size shot and velocity.

More of This Article


Favorite Winchester Longbeard XR Load and Conclusion

Finally, check out these patterns of Long Beard XR 3.5" shells, 1200 fps, with 2 ounces of number 6 shot. Same shotgun that I used for all 3.5-inch shells: Benelli SuperNova pump with factory full choke tube.

This load produced what may be the best close-range pattern in all of my tests. The 10-yard 3.5-inch number 6 target shows a more widespread pattern, providing a little more margin of error than any other Shot-Lok pattern I could get.

The number 6 3.5-inch 30-yard pattern seems more sparse than the other 3.5s, but I think this was probably operator error. And it still killed the heck out of that bird.

At 50 yards, the pattern from the 3.5" number 6 seems better than that of the 3" number 6. I think this may be the only place where I saw an improvement in pattern from 3.5-inch compared with the same shot size in a 3" shell... but both loads killed their birds, and you can't kill 'em deader than dead.

More of This Article


Clearly, Winchester's Shot-Lok technology performs very well. Every one of their Longbeard XR loads allowed me to reach out much farther than I ever could before, and place multiple pellets into the head and neck of a turkey target.

For my part, I have to pick the 3 inch number 5, 1-3/4 ounce load as my favorite among those I tried. With this load, the effective reach of my 3" full choke turkey gun has doubled from 30 yards to 60 yards - and that is a massive improvement.

Barring something large and unforeseen, I will be using these shells anytime I hit the woods in pursuit of turkeys - or shotgunning for predators.

Too Close For Comfort?

I had the opportunity to shoot at a gobbler with this ammunition on two different occasions. Both were at very close range, both of the birds were spooked because we'd spotted each other at the same time, and both of the birds got away from me - apparently without my ever cutting a feather. Oh, and both shots were left-handed - and I'm no southpaw.

I suppose I could blame these misses on the tight close-range pattern of this ammo, but in reality there were too many variables involved. The birds were close and I had to shoot quickly - I would have been better off with a blunderbuss than a shotgun.

Conclusion

Winchester Long Beard XR ammo using Shot-Lok technology is unquestionably good. I never thought I would be able to confidently take a shot at a turkey 50 to 60 yards away with my old all-purpose scattergun, but these new groceries have made it a reality.

It's not fluke, because I was able to do so repeatedly.

I like this stuff, a lot. Great job, Winchester.

- Russ Chastain

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.

Manufacturer's Site: Winchester Ammunition

I've got to add a shout-out to Battenfeld Technologies for providing the Caldwell Orange Peel turkey patterning targets used in this article. Thanks guys!

More of This Article

Tags
Share:
Previous Article

Next Article

You might also like on "Travel & Places"

Leave a reply

Copyright©2025 - ThatBiz. All Rights Reserved. Contact: webmaster@thatbiz.org - 677.734