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Bowling Pin Shooting


KILLERtj
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How many of y'all have shot and enjoy competitive bowling pin shoots?

Our club is hosting our 4th bowling pin shoot next Sunday!  So excited and nervous this year. A member of our club was paralyzed in a motorcycle/deer accident and we're donating all money to him.

KILLERtj20180612_105948.thumb.jpg.106b2d091bcdfd3fdf84bc62f2b995d5.jpg

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On 7/2/2018 at 9:23 PM, Exit Plan said:

Love the picture ,what 1911 is that?

It's an old Colt for the Argentine Navy ("Marina Argentina") from the 30's or 40's...

KILLERtj

Nevermind, looking again... its my Ruger SR1911.

Edited by KILLERtj
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Slow and heavy was the way to go.  I remember having loads of fun with my Glock 21, with its 5" Bar-Sto barrel. 

 

My plinking load was perfect for pin shoots, using a 230 grain FMJ RN, 5.0 grains of VV N320, COAL = 1.260". 

 

I also had some fun playing around with my 9mm Major loads out of a Glock 34.  Fun times, indeed, but not quite as successful. 

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I used to live for pin shooting.  Even had a Delta Elite specifically made for "bowling with bullets" after I wore out a Glock 20.  You wouldn't think it but the Delta outlasted the G20.  A thermonuclear 180gr JHP will remove a pin with great authority.

Edited by Boogieman
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6 hours ago, Boogieman said:

I still remember special gamer bullets for pin shooting.  I think I have a box or two somewhere.

box.jpg

I remember those! Full Wadcutters also work very well in a revolver. I used to compete with a Lew Horton special Model 24 44 Special and I loaded bullets that I cast from a Lyman 429348 mold over a stout charge of Unique. I think they were supposed to be 190 grains but they cast out to 200 grains using wheelweights.

For practice, I used to shoot at empty shotgun shells. After being able to hit a few of those, the bowling pins seemed easy.

Most competitors used 45 Autos and I guess I  liked being the underdog suing a six shooter. A couple of time I competed with a custom 5 1/2 inch Ruger Super Blackhawk with downloaded 44 magnums which produced about the same velocity as my "Uploaded" 44 special and used the same 200 grain full wadcutter bullet. With the Smith and Wesson I would Attempt a speed load if I didn't clear the table with six shots. But with the Blackhawk I wouldn't bother.

Some friends of mine had a couple of informal match a couple of years ago and even though I still have my 44 special "Pin Gun" I chose to compete with my GI 1911A1 Ithaca which as a custom barrel and NM bushing and a trigger job and I use 8 round Wilson mags in it. Again, I used reloads with a 230 grain Lee truncated cone flat nose cast bullet loaded on top of a stout charge of Unique which developed 900 fps. I did pretty good for being out of practice.  The Lee 230 grain bullet cast at a little over 240 grains when cast from a wheelweight/Linotype mix so 900 grains with that bullet was definitely Plus+P. A gunsmith told me once that the Ithaca's had the best heat treating of all the GI 1911A1's

Edited by Borg warner
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I used a 230 gr wadcutter cast out of a H&G mold loaded in WW 38 SPL case’s on top of 7.5 gr of Blue Dot with a MV a little over 1000ft/sec, pins would jump off the 4’ wide table set 1’ from the front edge. 

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25 minutes ago, jmax said:

I used a 230 gr wadcutter cast out of a H&G mold loaded in WW 38 SPL case’s on top of 7.5 gr of Blue Dot with a MV a little over 1000ft/sec, pins would jump off the 4’ wide table set 1’ from the front edge. 

Someone gave me some of those bullets to try once, and at the time I was doing pin shoots and I thought about using them in a Ruger speed six I had but never did. What gun did you use with them?

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I used a pair of 6” LFrames, one blue and the other stainless. In those days we could drop an empty revolver into a box and pickup the second from the rail instead of reloading.

Edited by jmax
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An indoor range I use to shoot at would run a Sunday pin shoot....... BUT we did it with a twist.

 

2 tables, 2 shooters going mano a mano in a series of 8 man single elimination relays. Cost $5 to enter a relay, first place got $20 second place got $10 range kept $10. We did a number of fund raisers with the range share going to the charity and reduced payouts $10 and $5 with $25 to charity and numerous winners failing to claim their prize money.

 

It could get down right hilarious when each shooter had a pin laying down on the table, have seen 2 top end shooters going through 3, 4, 5, 1911 mags, run out to the store to get more mags etc.

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  • 2 months later...
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The bowling pin thing is interesting.  I had a guy I went to school with.  He brought out a single stack sig .45 and we shot at the pins.  He wanted to get onto a local PD, got rejected and started selling cars.  Ironically,  I went on to a Federal Law Enforcement career.  It is weird how these things work out.   I wanted to be a University Professor, until I saw how cut throat it was, then made more money in an even more cut throat world.  He wanted to be a cop, and sold cars instead.  It is weird how things turn out.

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  • 1 month later...

My local dealer/gunsmith used to build a lot of guns that ended up in the hands of competitors up in Michigan, where the game began, I believe.  And a local guy named Eric Viers was a pretty fierce competitor back then.

At any rate, Eric and I discussed loading up some pure lead, soft cast mini balls to load light and shoot through a Ruger Redhawk. Our thought was that the soft lead would hit hard enough to break through the plastic coating but would stick to the wood, creating an imbalance that would spin the pins off the table.

I don’t remember how that ever turned out, and he brought the Redhawk back to me after the shoot.

Just another gun I should not have sold.

 

Edited by jame
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