With Turkey season virtually on top of us, we thought it might be a good time to get our hands on Remington’s V3 Turkey Pro, new for 2019. Given its drop here while many turkey hunters are already mid way through hunt preparation, the question is, “Who has time to get to know a new gun, wring it out, pattern a variety of ammo…?” Or better yet, “If I’m going to buy a new turkey just before opening day, can I just open the box and go hunting?” The V3 System capabilities are already proven. It will relentlessly cycle anything from lightweight 2 3⁄4” target loads to the hardest-hitting 3” magnums. Check that box, we weren’t out to re-prove the V3’s reliability in this story and video. Instead, our goal was to take a look at the enhancements made by Remington for their new V3 Turkey Pro Model, see whether or not these enhancements made a difference and answer that most pressing question above. There’s a lot of detail here that didn’t make it into the video we placed at the end of the this story, so be sure to read and watch…
The V3 Turkey Pro is a 12 gauge that comes beautifully wrapped, from end to end, in Realtree Timber Camo. The next thing that you will notice is the TruGlo Optic sitting on top of this shotgun. It is attached to the preinstalled picatinny rail. Conveniently, Remington techs mount and laser bore sight the TruGlo at 40 yards before your gun ships. I found the TruGlo more than adequate and you can choose between a red or a green dot as the optic includes both. Both colors have five brightness levels. The adjustment knob has positive clicks in between the brightness settings and is easy to operate. It comes standard with flip up scope caps. As you will see in our video that accompanies this article, the caps had trouble staying in place with the recoil of three inch magnums. An easy solution to this is to stick a piece of Gorilla Tape on the interior of the scope cap ring. The added thickness from the tape will cause the cap to fit tighter and not shake loose under recoil. Now, if for some reason you decide that the TruGlo optic isn’t for you there is still the preinstalled rail waiting for you to mount the optic of your choice. Or…
The barrel features a full length vented rib, with a mid-bead and green fiber-optic front sight. I was happy to see that Remington didn’t cut a corner here and leave you with only the optic to rely on. Even though this is a dedicated turkey gun, it would be easy to take off the optic and have this shotgun flex into other roles. Also, it’s nice to know that if you have a bad astigmatism that doesn’t play nice with reflex optics, you can go old-fashioned easily enough.
Turkey hunting requires a good choke, and as you look to the front of the barrel you will notice the TruGlo Headbanger Choke Tube. We patterned 5 different turkey loads at 40 yards to see how this setup performed. We only counted the hits in the vital area of the skull and vertebrae. Our zero could have been brought a little lower for better results, but all the shots taken would have resulted in dead birds. Here are our results:
Ammo: Remington Premier Magnum
Gauge: 12
Shell Length: 3 inch
Shot Size: 6
Ounce Load: 2
No. of Hits: 5
Ammo: Remington Nitro Turkey
Gauge: 12
Shell Length: 3 inch
Shot Size: 6
Ounce Load: 1 ⅞
No. of Hits: 7
Ammo: Remington Premier Magnum
Gauge: 12
Shell Length: 3 inch
Shot Size: 4
Ounce Load: 2
No. of Hits: 8
Ammo: Winchester Long Beard XR
Gauge: 12
Shell Length: 3 inch
Shot Size: 6
Ounce Load: 1 ¾
No. of Hits: 19
Ammo: Winchester Long Beard XR
Gauge: 12
Shell Length: 3 inch
Shot Size: 4
Ounce Load: 1 ⅞
No. of Hits: 23
I only did one round of each load, with no reshoots. Except for the Winchester Long Beard 4 Shot. I was really impressed with the 23 hits on this load so I shot 2 more shells and my results were 23 hits a second time, and 20 hits the third time. There is no need for me to test other loads; when turkey season rolls around, I’ll be going with the Long Beard.
Remington’s V3 Turkey Pro came standard with a few other features I was excited about. It comes with an oversized bolt handle, oversized bolt release, and oversized safety. These features make firearms manipulations easier and faster to perform, especially with gloved hands. Since starting to shoot 3-gun competitions, I find myself adding these features on my personal hunting guns. Having the gun come with them is a nice touch and I am happy to see Remington taking some cues from the competition world.
Those receiver cuts are a nice improvement!
Remington has also enlarged the loading port on this V3. I was able to carelessly and successfully slide shells into the mag tube without getting my thumb pinched even once. Every shotgunner knows this feeling all too well, so I don’t think I need to explain why this is a plus.
Right out of the box, I found the V3 Turkey Pro points very naturally for me. If you don’t find that to be true for you, it has additional shims included for drop and cast adjustments. Other than my issue of the scope caps flying off, I couldn’t find anything to complain about on the new V3 Turkey Pro. The VersaPort gas system combined with the Supercell Recoil Pad did a great job of taming the recoil and the gun ate everything I fed it. What Remington did on this gun is take their V3 and add all of the modifications I would normally have to do myself. That’s a big win in my book. So, back to the questions above – Yes, you can bring home a Remington V3 Turkey Pro, pull it out of the box, check the TruGlo for zero and pattern simultaneously, and then go hunt. I’m ready! Now, enjoy the video!
