By Terry Houin
Is the CZ Drake .410 the perfect Turkey gun? No, of course not, and I’m not going to try and convince the average turkey hunter that’s looking for a 12-gauge semi-auto filled with 3.5-inch turkey loads that this lightweight, little gun will deliver the same performance. But what I will vouch for is how much fun this 7-pound over-under shotgun is to shoot.
Rolling into this turkey season I was looking for a different challenge for hunting our local birds. I’ve shot several with 12-gauge shotguns over the years of calling myself a turkey hunter. Back in the wonderful Covid days I challenged myself to bowhunting these wily birds to up the frustration levels as I had to let them work into the decoys, strut around, even letting them attack my decoys before they would present the shot angle needed for archery equipment.
Normally I would just shoot the big birds in the face as soon as they got into range and call it a successful day–not an option with the bow and arrow. This is what I was looking for, something to hamstring me slightly, as we only get one gobbler tag in Indiana, and I wanted to make it a little harder on myself, which is where the thought of using a .410 came to mind.
Like most of the crew at Field Ethos, I was on the road, so my turkey season prep was condensed into a few days of scouting and getting a plan together for what I wanted to hunt with. I happened to be at my local gun shop discussing my thoughts with Noah when he paused the conversation and stepped into the back of the shop, quickly returning with a brand new CZ Drake .410 that showed up that morning.
CZ Drake: Light-Recoiling Hunter
After opening up the package I was hooked. The Drake comes in a nice carrying case with the shotgun broken down for compact storage. The blued barrel and walnut stock ride in a soft gun sock, overall a nice setup for a gun most classify as a budget beginner gun. Needless to say, I was hooked and made an impulse buy along with a few boxes of Fiocchi shotshells for practice and hunting.
At the range my childish eagerness took over, and I spent the first handful of shells picking up walnuts or anything else I could find to toss into the air and shoot–light recoil is fun. Then I got a little more serious and set down to pattern this little killer and learn what it was capable of. It didn’t take long to confirm my range was going to be severely limited in comparison to my 12-gauge guns, but the .410’s range was similar to my archery range of 20-25 yards max.
Unlike the bigger bore versions of the CZ Drake, the .410 comes with fixed IC/MOD chokes with no markings to which barrel is which. This proved to be a little frustrating as it took some extra shots to figure it out. The Drake is a single trigger O/U, making a second shot very simple and quick, as I didn’t have to think about finding the second trigger in the event I missed on the first shot. Switching which barrel, top or bottom, is fired first is as simple as sliding the thumb switch on the tang safety to the left or right.
During testing, the left side provided the tightest pattern for the first shot. The one thing you’ll notice quickly is the Drake series shotguns use an extractor and not an ejector, so you have to remove the spent shells by hand.
On the Hunt
Don’t let me fool you into thinking I’m some stud turkey hunter getting it done on the smartest, highly pressured birds. I hunt on family ground with a decent population of turkeys and nobody else hunting them, kinda like the dumb birds you find in Montana. Since I was gone for the opening weekend I was rolling solo and found a couple of gobblers in a small woodlot one evening. I made a play, but they went out the back of the field. I figured they’d be roosting on the wooded ridge somewhere.
The next morning I overslept, not surprising, and made it to the woodlot at first light. Knowing where most of the animals liked to exit the ridge and enter the field, I made my way to the end of the ridge. As I was approaching, the first gobble rang out and he was close. I quickly switched over the crawl mode, dropped a decoy in the field on the way in and slid in behind a tree.
Thats’s when I noticed a Tom in the tree about 60 yards away, so I sat down where I was. The gobblers sounded off for about 30 minutes, and then the woods went quiet, meaning the hens probably drug the Toms out the other side. I sat still for 20 minutes or so to see if I could hear them again and make a play when all of a sudden I saw a head come out behind a brush pile. He was coming down the trail that would pass about 2 feet to my right if I let him. But he only made it to about 6 yards away before I let the CZ Drake .410 loaded with Fiocchi Turkey TSS do its job.
So the moral of the story, mix it up and have fun. Up to that point I hadn’t shot a .410 in ages and now I’m hooked. The next small bore is going to be the CZ Drake but in 28 gauge for ducks this fall.
Cost: $799
Pros – Super fun, lightweight, easy to use, quality gun for the price.
Cons – Could use a mid-barrel bead; length of pull for my stocky build is a little long.
