I am not feeling super ‘tacticool’ today. I am getting buried in my remodeling project, school will no longer be in session this year and our exchange student’s year is done. He is making plans to leave within the next couple of weeks. This leaves a huge hole in our family dynamics. We knew the day would come, but we had planned on things going very differently.

Spring is a great time to get out the shotgun in a lot of southern and mid-western states in this country. It is, or will be the spring turkey season for hunting. Here in Oregon, we do have a spring season but it is a lottery draw. I would be inclined to try but truthfully we have a very sparse population in this area. I very rarely ever see a turkey.

Optics and shotguns… in areas where turkey hunting is popular, it has become common to use a red dot type sight. Choke patterns are very tight with turkey loads and you are looking for a head shot (precision) to kill a turkey so as not to spoil the meat like breast. Other reasons to add an optic to your shotgun are shotgun only deer hunting zones and the home defense setup.

But, lest you permanently add a scope to your only shotgun because federal law does not allow any sort of optic for migratory bird hunting. Those would be ducks, geese or any upland bird like grouse. Turkeys are not federally managed and are treated more or less like big game. Additionally, optics are prohibited in most shotgun games like trap, skeet and sporting clays. If you only have one shotgun and specifically if it is a pump or semi-auto, consider the saddle mount.

The saddle mount attaches by removing two pins that hold the trigger group into the shotgun. The mount is slid over the receiver and two new bolts are put in place of the pin.

I take mine on and off for various reasons that I will discuss in the future. I have not noticed a point of impact change but that has also been tested for typical shotgun payloads like buckshot. It very well might be more subtle for slugs, that is one of the things I plan on testing at the range this year.

There you have it, an inexpensive and tool-less way to add a scope to a shotgun that is flexible so that you can use one tool in different applications.