9mm 'nuff to take down bowling pins??

G

grapeshad

New member
Hey all-

Just started to shoot more than paper and man is it fun :)

On Wednesday nights we shoot lead pins like you would shoot at a carnival and my 9mm Beretta Elite takes them down with no problem at all....

Tomorrow morning I'm going to shoot the Beretta at real 10 pin bowling pins for the first time. I'm sure the 9mm with knock them over but the trick is to clear the table not just knock them over...

I shot a couple of weeks ago with my Glock 30 but find myself way more accurate with the Elite... So......

Will the 9 do the trick?

(I have no intentions of competeing with the race gun .45 guys :), this is just for fun for me )
 
9X32 with 180 grain goes through the fat part of em and they hit the floor bout three feet behind the table. Lot of fun out of a 2.5" snubby.

Sam...my favorite 9mm is the 9X32R
 
It all depends if you're shooting a "real" pin shoot where you have to clear them off of the table or the kind where knocking them over is good enough.
If it's the "real" shoot, better use a .45, otherwise anything down to a .22 will knock them over, it just takes longer ;)
 
Nukem is right on the money. A 9 will knock them over, but not off of the table. The key to pinshooting is a clean hit that takes the pin off of the table. Once the pin falls over on to the table, it presents a much smaller surface area to hit, especially if the head or butt of the pin is facing you. Most pinshoots will not allow hi-cap mags, regardless of caliber. Shoot a .45, preferrably hollowpoints or flatpoints, it will make things much easier for you.

Here is some other unsolicited advise: one shot, one pin. What I mean by this is that you take one shot at the first pin and move on to the second pin regardless of whether or not the first pin was a hit or miss. Continue this way for 5 shots-5 pins and then go back and clean-up the hangers on.

You should also try to determine a shot pattern that is the most comfortable for you. Most shooters start at the bottom (left or right, whichever you prefer) and save the top to pins for last. I start at the bottom and go counter-clockwise.

Take your time and focus on your front sight. It can be difficult to do because you want to see "the action" of the pin after you hit it. Remember, slow and smooth will end up yielding faster times than if you rush yourself.

Good luck and enjoy, pinshooting is a blast (pun intended) ;).

Regards,
Frank
 
If the shoot is following the Second Chance magazine rules (7 rounds in the magazine and 1 in teh chamber) for the standard 5 pin set up, it doesn't matter if the shooters are all shooting hi cap 9's, they still only have 8 rounds. Richard Davis found that the 9 m/m, in any of the various bullet types, did not have the power to take a 2#=/- bowling pin off a 4 foot wide table with any gusto. That is why he came up with the 9 pin event that set more pins closer to the back edge of the tables. More that 8 rounds were allowed in the magazines. When the last few SCCS's were held, there were a large number of .45 shooters using 10/11/15 round magazines on the 9 pin event and were doing rather well.

Will a 9 m/m take a pin off the table in a standard set? If the tables are either new wood or steel, y-e-a-a-a-a, maybe if there is a good hit and the pin gods are smiling. If the tables are wooden and have been shot up. Nope.

------------------
Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
Go with the 45acp. As the pins get heavier from accumulated lead they get harder to knock off the table. I am being honest when I say I didn't have a whole lot of luck shooting pins with a 40 S&W. The 45acp is the king of this game. Regards, Richard.
 
My best pin load is an 8.5-inch caliber, 84,000-grain Brunswick at about 20 feet per second. :D
 
Trust me, use a 45ACP. I been shooting pin matches for over 12 years now and have tried everything from 9mm to .44mag and settled on 45ACP (200gr SWC lead at 950fps) and 357mag (158gr JHP at 1,200fps) as being best for this game.
 
In a word, NO.

You have to get absolutely PERFECT shot placement with the 9 to get clean removal from the table, and even then it's not guaranteed.

147s loaded as hot as you can safely get them will get you close, but it's still no guarantee.

I've shot in quite a few bowling pin matches over the past several years, and have used a 9mm a couple of times just for fun.

In revolvers, a .357 with a 158-gr. bullet loaded to about 1,000 fps. is pretty marginal, too.

A quick and dirty rule of thumb for bowling pins is to multiply the bullet weight times the velocity, and divide by 1000.

Ideally you want to be right around 200. Much less than that and things start to become really iffy.

A 125-gr. 9mm bullet moving at 1200 fps. scores 150.

A 158-gr. .357 bullet moving at 1,000 fps. scores a 158.

A 230-gr. .45 bullet moving at 850 fps. scores 195.

A 180-gr. .357 moving at 1,000 fps. scores 180.

Bowling pin shooting is truly a sport that favors the larger, heavier bullets.

I just got a .41 Mag. a couple of months ago, and I'm going to load up some 220s at about 900 fps. That should remove the pins from the table with absolutely no problem.

A friend of mine shot a match earlier this summer with 240-gr. .44s moving at 1,100 or so fps. A solid hit would toss the things 10 to 15 feet back onto the berm!


------------------
Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
Mike, just a little while back I tried .44spec with 220gr SWC at bout 9oo, not overly impressed. .357 (9X32)with 180gr JHP at bout 1200 was very impressive. That gets power factor of 216 and it shows.

Sam....Recoil tells us deaf uns that it went off.
 
Sam,

I wondered what this 9x32 stuff was.

Expressed as 9x32, that's a semi-auto cartridge...

If you express it as 9x32R, then I know what you're talking about. :)

------------------
Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
Nukem....You dirty dawg. I would like to have one, but me cheep ol fat. Found one in great shape couple months ago but seller had horrible attitude.

How sensitive is yours to loaded cartridge lingth?

Sam
 
How about a Glock 20 10mm for pin shooting? 200 grains at 1200 fps. Using the rough formula above that gives a score of 240. That knocks the "king" of pinshooting down a few notches eh?

BTW if standard cap mags are allowed in your shoot then they are made to take 15 +1.
 
C.R.Sam, As long as they fit in the mag they are OK. It does seem to want a good roll crimp or the case mouth jams on the chamber step for the rim.
 
Well, I have not seen any of the big name shooters use either 10m/m or Glocks in any pin shoots.

------------------
Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
Jim V, I wouldn't think twice about using a Glock 21 for pins if I owned one. I might even give my Glock 30 a try if it would feed 200 gr lswc bullets. It won't so I don't although I could try jacketed flat nosed 230 gr bullets. Regards, Richard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top