Are you sure about the single shot ?
It surprises me other states allow turkey to be taken with boolits. Here you must use #4 shot. In which case I'd have recommended PBBA 20 gauge shotgun that quickly converts to .457 with insert.You can hand pump but will soon want a 4.5K carbon fiber tank to refill. Being in Florida you've got plenty of access to have that filled at dive shops. How big are the deer in Florida? If on the smaller side you could use Sam Yang Recluse which is .357 (actually think it's 9mm/.355). If the deer are bigger I'd have a Recluse tuned by Saddle Mountain, Will Piatt, has a website and will take direct shipment from dealer. Or just get a stock Sam Yang Light Hunter, .457, but that would be overkill for turkey. Their are a lot of nice guns on the market now a days. If you're able to do a little work yourself to open up the port the Benjamin Bulldog is another great gun for your needs. It's a little anemic stock. It's also another .357.The Sam Yangs shoot round ball very well. Cheap and easy ammo. You can purchase quality light ammo to shoot deer from places like NSA. .457 roundball is just fine for deer but if .357 I'd go with a boolit with meplait and around 120 grain. The Bulldog if port is enlarged will easily send out 140 grain boolit for deer. Those are my opinions, leaning toward .357 and two inexpensive highly rated guns- Recluse and Bulldog. They just need a power tune, one you send out to do and the Bulldog can be done yourself if your inclined and have the tools.Then if money is not an object and you want what many consider awesome, no tune needed, look at AAA Slayer. I'd use a gun of that power in .308 to take deer without worry. Just use a good weight slug (120-130 grain) with around 70% meplait.
Or just get a stock Sam Yang Light Hunter, .457, but that would be overkill for turkey.
Quote from: Gut2Fish on March 05, 2019, 04:07:18 PMOr just get a stock Sam Yang Light Hunter, .457, but that would be overkill for turkey.So if I did not hunt turkey would this be a more solid air rifle to hunt deer/hogs?is the Seneca Big Bore 44 909S Light Hunter Air Rifle the same thing?and is this the same or is the other better? "Seneca Big Bore 44 909 Light Hunter 500cc Tank"Also, is the .50 cal version any good? because the bolts could be used for turkey. also does the .45 cal version shot bolts?
Hope it works out and enjoy the hunting.Mike
Air Venturi makes 35 cal air bolts. Turkey is on the table!Makes the Recluse better and better. Get it power tuned then shoot bolts on low power.
Quote from: buldawg76 on March 05, 2019, 05:22:58 PMHope it works out and enjoy the hunting.Mike Awesome story man, thank you so much for sharing. And yeah I hear you man, we plan to stay away from any trophy size hogs and hunt for smaller meat hogs. If i see one of those big boys I will be sure and pass them by
Quote from: Gut2Fish on March 05, 2019, 05:51:24 PMAir Venturi makes 35 cal air bolts. Turkey is on the table!Makes the Recluse better and better. Get it power tuned then shoot bolts on low power. very cool, thank you. So i figure they must have bolts for the .45 version as well then.
I am not sure about the game animals in the green swamp area nowadays but I used to hunt hogs there back in the 70s with a buddy that had a hog claim on 450 acres of timber company land in the green swamp area between Cross city and Perry FL off highway 19 out to Horseshoe bend area on the gulf coast.
Quote from: buldawg76 on March 05, 2019, 05:22:58 PMI am not sure about the game animals in the green swamp area nowadays but I used to hunt hogs there back in the 70s with a buddy that had a hog claim on 450 acres of timber company land in the green swamp area between Cross city and Perry FL off highway 19 out to Horseshoe bend area on the gulf coast. You're thinking of Gulf Hammock, which is where my ancestors have been slinking around since the 1830s. Green Swamp is way to the south near Tampa. I used to keep 10 acres at Rosewood that was the family base camp for the 200k or so acres we used to lease west of 19 and Otter Creek. You would have been north of us. I have some family from Cross City and Perry. Most of my family is from Otter Creek though. Gulf Hammock is some of the most untouched woods in north Florida. Primeval. If there's any more real, living, skunk apes left, that's where they are. That was also the last holdout for panthers in the north into the 1980s. There may be a local area around Cross City called Green Swamp, but the OP is talking about the Wildlife Management Area.
And you will really need to get to know Green Swamp. That's hard core and it gets a lot of hunting pressure. You won't be able to just walk out and hunt and be successful. Go over to Florida Sportsman and check out the hunting section. Do a search for Green Swamp, there will be hours worth of reading material. I also have a long Airgun FAQ there for my fellow Florida hunters. Don't ask questions though about any hunting area until you've done some of your own research. Hunting competition is very serious in Florida. People don't freely give advise as to where to go or how to be successful on public land, especially if its their stomping grounds where you'll be competing for the same deer they're hunting. But if you search thru enough threads you'll find tidbits, and if you get to know some old timers they'll open up and help you out with knowledge once they see you aren't trying to steal their spots.
The airgun does not need to be single shot. The requirement you're looking at is meant to prohibit air shotguns shooting something like buckshot or multiple BBs. In other words, it has to shoot a single projectile, not multiple, per shot. A magazine-fed airgun is just fine.On public land, the airgun may only shoot arrows when turkey hunting. This is for human safety, as there is no hunter orange requirement on public land during turkey season and hunters are walking around with decoys. They don't want hunters shooting rifle projectiles 100 yards across a cut at movement they think is a turkey. On private land, you can use pellets and bullets for turkeys.
Have you ever deer hunted in Florida before, or is the hunting aspect new to you as well? I see the wildlife officer told you what to expect in terms of shot range, so I presume that hunting here is new to you. Hunting deer is Florida is different than anywhere else in the US. Florida whitetails superficially look like traditional whitetails in all but the size but they might as well be a separate species in terms of habits. You'll have to hunt harder than you've ever hunted in your life to see a Florida buck with any spread to him, and its hard to have access to areas to legally shoot does, especially in south Florida.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with Manny about a .45 and turkeys. Often high-powered firearm rifles are overkill on turkeys at close range because the projectile will punch thru their thin little bodies without expanding. Then you'll get a turkey that will run off. I've only ever lost one turkey of the many I have killed with a firearm rifle (actually it was my wife's turkey that got lost), but there's been many I've had to spend hours searching for because I used too much gun. The best rifles for turkeys are light little rounds like a .22 magnum with a ballistic tip like you'd shoot prairie dogs with. You want something that will go inside the turkey and "blow up" for lack of a better word. Smaller, faster, longer, projectiles will accomplish that. Maybe if you can find a .45 round that's flimsy and likely to fragment on little resistance that might be ok. If you want to err on the side of caution in terms of caliber, you might look instead at a .357 that you can hunt ballistic tip pellets with on turkeys (Predator Polymags).
I'd say a .308 airgun would be a good all-purpose airgun for Florida. I've seen .308 airgun rounds devastate whitetails this past season and also a fall gobbler on a body shot. I like the .308 Texan SS. It also shoot pellets well, so that's a plus if you want to also walk the woods with it and use it as a squirrel gun. A gun that gets you near 200fpe will be fine for deer out to 100 yards. And I've cleanly killed deer with much less power than that.
In terms of how you hunt with an airgun, you really need to think of them as bows. You take the same shot and put in the same practice with an airgun as you would a bow. You can't rely on the shock of an airgun hit to cause hydrostatic shock to happen. You have to rely on the mechanical wound channel of the projectile itself to kill your target. So you need to make sure you hit the vitals from any angle you shoot, and that you pick angles that take you straight to the vitals and avoid unnecessary chances of deflection or meat shielding as much as possible.
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