If you can do one thing to make your gobbler gun more deadly this spring, it's adding a red-dot optic. Many hunters agree with that, even the long-in-the-spurs John Zent. If you're not one of them, you can stop reading now and keep missing turkeys.
John makes a good case for optics on turkey guns in his blog, so I'm not going to repeat his points here. Instead, I'll suggest one optic that has helped me lay several longbeards low over the past few years: the Aimpoint Micro H-1.
Aimpoint was the first to introduce a red-dot sight, called the Electronic, to hunters in 1975. Since then its line of optics has expanded into the military, law enforcement and self-defense markets, but the company has never forgotten about hunters. In fact, its Hunter 34S optic is featured in the "Gear" department of the April 2014 print edition of American Hunter (in NRA members' mailboxes now).
I'm sure the Aimpoint Hunter is a good turkey optic, but I like the Micro H-1 better. Why? In a word, size. The Micro, as its name suggests, is tiny. It's less than 2.5 inches long, and it weighs about 3.5 ounces. The top of the Micro sits just 1.75 inches above the receiver when mounted on a Weaver or Picatinny rail. Unlike some red-dot optics and most shotgun scopes, the Micro doesn't make a turkey gun seem top heavy. And since the Micro is small, there's less of it to bang against trees, rocks and other hazards waiting in the predawn hours before fly down.
Despite its size, the Micro is one tough optic. It has to be to take the kind of punishment doled out by magnum loads in gobbler cannons. My Micro rides atop a Mossberg 500 Turkey with a 20-inch barrel. What the gun lacks in weight, it more than makes up for in recoil. My upper body takes a sudden and thrilling ride when I unleash a 3-inch swarm of Federal Heavyweight. The Micro handles the abuse much better than I. Haven't had to re-zero it yet. Hope I never do. While the Micro's precise, red dot helps put plenty of pellets in paper, I'd rather they be slamming a snood.
