Spring turkey season is off to the races, and this year Team Realtree is outfitting its shotguns with new Vortex red dot optics. There are a number of reasons why many serious turkey hunters now gravitate to red-dot sights.

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A compact, low-profile red dot like the Vortex Viper is ideal for turkey hunting.

For starters, it’s probably easier to miss a turkey now than it’s ever been, thanks to new load and choke tube combinations that throw incredibly tight, rifle-like patterns. Pair that with factory barrels and beads that are often regulated to shoot slightly high, and you have a recipe for sending a load of tungsten super shot right over a gobbler’s head.

With a properly sighted red dot, precise shooting is much easier. Sights like the Vortex Viper provide unlimited eye relief, meaning that you can still get the dot on a gobbler’s head when it catches you in a contorted shooting position. The Viper is also lightweight (less than 3 ounces), and extremely low profile, thanks to an integrated mounting system that works with just about any drilled-and-tapped shotgun receiver.

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Realtree’s David Blanton dials in his trusty CVA Scout .410 with a new Vortex optic.

In this video, Realtree’s Cole Barthel, David Blanton, Tyler Jordan, and Bryan Brown each walk you through the steps they take for setting up their personal turkey guns, from mounting and bore-sighting their red-dot sights to getting “on paper” with small game loads, to fine-tuning their setups with Federal TSS turkey loads. With these setups, it’s sure to be a productive spring.