Bowling Pin Shoots

Otasan said "If you are a good pin shooter (i.e. if you can knock over five pins with five shots at 50 feet) then you are going to be made to feel very unwelcome there. They have a serious case or shooter envy. .....a very challenging match - pins at 50 feet instead of the national-standard 25 feet.

Yesterday I watched a guy SPEED shoot five white pins over on a sawhorse table 50 feet to his left then a dozen white pins elevated on a sawhorse table 50 feet in front of him and then took out one solitary white pin sitting behind two red pins at 65 feet to his right.

He never missed a pin on any shot and changed his 10-clip once in the middle of the shooting round and finished all in less than 20 seconds.

Amazing shot he was !!! :eek:
 
If you get down to Southern Mass.,

go to Independent Sportsmen in Foxborough. It has a Pin & Plate shoot pretty much every month. :D
 
mandark,
I'll try and answer your questions.
The tables I was refering to in Iowa are made of 3/8 inch steel and they are quite heavy. If one was to try and shipped them it would have to be by a truck line. It may be easier to take a truck and trailer and go get the tables, depending on how many you need. Now I'm not sure Steve will sell the tables, I was told they are still at the range all grown up in weeds.
My table in the picture is made of 1/2 inch plate and very heavy. A big 4 wheel drive tractor with a large high loader is what set it in place for me.
Depending on what steel cost and the labor for welding in your area it may be cheaper to have the tables made on location. When I had my table made the prices for material and labor were quoted at $600.00.

As for why pin shooting is a thing of the past I believe it's several reasons. I do believe pin shooting is one of the best action pistol sports going and an excellent spectator sport.
First to put a pin shoot of any size on the right way takes a lot of work and a lot of help. At all the major pin shoots your time does not stop until the last pin from the table hits the ground. To do this right you need at least three timers with stop watches per shooter to get a fair and more accurate time for the shooter. Also the timers should not be competitors. Keep in mind that at the major matches each shooter had three tables of pins (they shot twice) and some ranges could shoot 10 shooters at the same time. So finding and hiring enough help is a problem for a major match.
Lack of a good organization with set rules was another down fall of pin shooting. When I was pin shooting most of the major matches set down and agreed on shooter classifications, pin sets, equipment to be used and distance the pins were to be shot. Then one of the major matches in PA decided they were going to do things different on shooter classification and they had A class shooters competing against C class shooters. This created some bad feelings and it seems it really hurt pin shooting as a sport. Plus Steve Dixon and his brother who put on the Pin Nationals decided it was to much work and time from their schedule (which I understand their feelings) so the Pin Nationals was stopped.
Rich Davis who put on Second Chance got involved in a lawsuit so Second Chance was no longer a major match.
As for the 25 foot distance, it's measured from the front of the table.
Also with the exception of Second Chance at all the major matches, raceguns like the ones in the picture was your main gun, as the competitor shot the main event and most of their optional events using a racegun.
Good luck with your pin shooting I hope the info helps. As I used to say, keep the brass flying and the pins moving. ;)
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com
 
Bigborekindaguy said, "Yesterday I watched a guy SPEED shoot five white pins over on a sawhorse table 50 feet to his left then a dozen white pins elevated on a sawhorse table 50 feet in front of him and then took out one solitary white pin sitting behind two red pins at 65 feet to his right.

He never missed a pin on any shot and changed his 10-clip once in the middle of the shooting round and finished all in less than 20 seconds.

Amazing shot he was !!!

Did the match director start giving him three extra pins? Did the other shooters start to grumble about him "prancing around?" Was he using a clip-fed handgun or a magazine-fed handgun?
 
One of the biggest down falls in regulation pin shooting was the way the matches were timed. People do not have the same reaction time, so if you are lucky enough to have a timer with a fast reaction time your total of your five runs could be as much as a second faster than if you had a slow timer timing you, a full second taken from a five run total could very easily win the match. This is why you need three timers per competitor thats on the line shooting at the time.
Near the end of my pin shooting career I discussed with a electronics engineer the possibility of setting the tables up where they timed the last shot that passed through them. He assured me this could be done and I believe it would be the most accurate way of timing the shooter. After all you would be timing the shooters speed (which is what the game is all about) and not the reaction of the pins. If pin shooting had not died out I was going to introduce this information to some of the larger shoots to see what they thought. I really hated to see pin shooting die, I introduced a lot of new shooters to the sport and everyone of them liked it.
It amazes me that I still get request from customers to build them a pin gun, however I build a lot more USPSA and Steel match guns nowadays.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com
 
What are you using, a stop watch ?

Our events are timed with a sound-actuated timer. The RO hits a button; the timer beeps somewhere between 1 and 3 seconds later, and the clock is running. It keeps running from shot to shot and stops when the shooting does.

There is no "reaction time" issue - other than the shooter's! ;)
 
Buzz timers work great if you are timing one shooter at a time. At most regulation matches you will have 5 to 10 shooters on the line shooting at the same time, buzz timers do not work well in this situation. At Second Chance and the Pin Nationals they had 30 tables and could have 10 shooters shooting at the same time. :)
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com
 
Bob and 'Otasan', we still have a couple of small Pin matches in the SW Ohio area, but the same problem plagues them too: A lot of people like to shoot (at) bowling pins, very few like to go downrange and set them up.

Btw the monthly outdoor match is held at Miami Rifle and Pistol Club east of Cincinnati, on the 2nd Sunday of the month, 9am. There are divisions for centerfire pistol, .22 pistol (pin heads placed up front) and .22 rifle, which uses full size pins 1 foot from the back. Also a shotgun match (5 tables of 5 pins, no extra shots allowed, time penalties for misses and down-but-not-off pins.)

The indoor range in northern Ky. (Mark's Guns) shoots pins on Wed. evenings. The indoor range north of Cincy (Target World) has a slightly larger affair on Thursdays, but it doesn't start until 9pm. TW does centerfire iron sights, CF scope, and .22 pistol, using full size pins on the back edge. Now, that event pulls in some fast times!

All shooting listed above utilizes good old single tier, 4'x8' tables. Nobody around here except those of us who'd been to Second Chance, Iowa, etc. ever saw the need to build/store/carry double deckers..
 
No real post on topic right now

I'm contiplating moving for other reasons.
I have encountered a personal derailment to life as I know it upon returning home following the last shoot. I probally wont be able to focus on this or any other topic I have had involvement with on this board while I deal with my personal issues.
This does not mean I won't be back after some of the mess has been cleared from ther tracks.
To all inputting to anything I've posted, this probally will be the last post for a brief time while I get other issues in my life back on track. Please keep the momentum going, I will return soom and I will catch up. I dont have time to add this comment to all my threads right now.
Regards
Mandark
 
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