Bowling Pins

if you can't round up some pins... just for fun, cut up several pieces of 4" X 4" into 14-16" sections, & wrap them in duct tape... that'll get ya playing "hillbilly bowling blocks"... & get you fairly close for informal shooters... if you had a wood lathe, you could turn them round & rough to shape & use the same duct tape coating ( the tape is needed to keep them from splitting ) I shot blocks for a couple years before I came across the 1/2 load of pins I mentioned earlier :D
 
Fat heavy bullets at reasonable velocity work better than smaller, high velocity. My favorite is a S&W 610, 6 1/2" with 180 gr. flatpoints at 1350 FPS. Makes 'em do a back-flip off the table. The heavy gun tames the muzzle jump as our club doesn't allow comps. Our top shooter uses a 627 (44 mag) loaded to 44 spl pressures and a 240 gr. cast bullet, also very effective. With the wheel guns the idea is to get all 5 pins without a reload. We generally do just that. I love it when we have 2 N frames shoot in the final.
Once, just to pporve a point as to how ineffective small HV bullets are, I used a CZ52 (7.62 x 25). Bullets went through the pins and didn't knock some over, just wiggled them a little. Also used a Super Blackhawk w/ 300 gr. hardcast flatnose @ about 700 FPS. Effective but damn slow to reload.
Can't wait for spring and a return to real pins. In winter, we use a plate rack with pin-shaped plates. Real pins shatter when shot @ below freezing temps.
 
FMJ Roundnose was not permitted, due to the high percentage of ricochets. JHP, JSP, FMJ-HP, SWC and lead RN were allowed. Lead RN just seemed to "bite" on the pins better than FMJ RN, with fewer ricochets, but JHP & SWC slugs were the preferred ones.
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+1. I remember several occasions before JRN and LRN bullets were banned from our local shoots where RN bullets would ricochet off of pins laying sideways or spinning. Once, I got nailed by one in the knee and it HURT - limped for a few days. I saw another guy get nailed in the testicles and he dropped like a bag of rocks. Another when a guy had his brand new pick up parked about 100 feet away and a bullet landed square in the middle of his hood. Ah the good old days.

Pin guns were built with compensators, hi-vis sights, and oversize levers for speed. All the other shooting games of the time also came to benefit, and as pin shooting declined, "pin guns" became "race guns", and other mods became more common, winding up with what we have today.
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Pics of my pin guns from 20 years ago that I still use. 45 and 10mm comped 1911s and a 6.5 "M610 with a slab comp.
 

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It's funny -- I know a bowling alley owner. When pin shooting got popular he had an outlet for awhile. Then it dropped off, and he has to put his old pins in the dumpster again....
 
I shot pins some back in the 1970's.I used a S&W 58 41mag with 240 swc's.My second gun was a 5in S&W M25 with 172 hard cast swc's loaded +p in 38 spec cases.The 38's would take them off if I did my part.I even made it to the Second Chance match once.It was a blast.Richard Davis put on a great shoot.I think I came in about #66,but it was much more about the fun than any prize.As I recall,Adisson Clark from Kalispell,Montana won shooting a pair of 8 in.S&W M29's.The guy that came in #10 had a pair of unmodified S&W 1917's.It,s the shooter not the gun that makes the difference.
 
Richard Davis is his name, I saw him do the self test of his bullet proof vest twice!
He put a phone book under the vest to minimize the brusing damage on his belly and then yes he turned the gun on the pins and knocked a couple of them off the table. The last year I attened he couldnt do it anymore because of his insurance company. :( Also watched him being shot with a .308 rifle while wearing his rifle proof outfit.
I had won the shotgun match my last year there, on friday drove all the way back to ohio to pick up my fiancee and brought her back in time for the awards party on saturday night. I dont think I slept until we got back home late sunday night. LOL
 
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