I have been shooting them with 200gr SWC Oregon Trail bullets from a 45ACP. They get the job done pretty well, but I was wondering if somebody had something a little bit better. I don't have the equipment to cast my own, so I have to stick to commercial stuff. Thanks for the help.

Knight, most the friends I have that shot pins used condom bullet and one inparticular. It was a big gaping hollow point and the edges of the jacket right at the mouth of the hollow had teeth like saw teeth. The idea was even if it wasn't a dead center hit the teeth grabbed in the pin and still knocked it off the table rather then just glance it. I don't know that to tell you to use for cast except that I wouldn't think a round nose would be worth a hoot. Probably something with as large flat nose you can get, and still be able to cycle through your gun.

Joe

My club dropped pin shoots because we got too many screaming ricochets. .45 ball and the cast equivalent are the worst. Brush that ogive against the rounded side of the pin, and the bullet is likely to take anything up to a sixty degree course change.

If you are gonna shoot cast on pins, take the biggest meplate your gun will feed.

200 grn cast SWC's are about as good as it gets IMO. The "pin grabbers" starmetal refers to *probably* help a little, but they're cost prohibitive for the practice bowling pin shooting requires. Roundnoses ricochet worse and don't perform any better than SWC's, in fact they may be a little worse. The shoulder on a SWC seems to offer a slight advantage on an off center hit, but that's hard to quantify. The main thing is something you can shoot a lot so you can hit the pins in the middle.

John

Shoot boolits with the largest meplat as possible, and as slow as possible. For sillywet and pins. "Stick" time on the target is most important. ... felix

I was watching a fellow shoot pins years ago with a .44 mag. He couldn't knock them over and if any fell, they stayed on the table. He was just blowing holes through them. A big flat slow boolit is the way to go.

For knocking stuff down, (I'm shooting steel primarily but pins should be similar), you want a large meplat heavier bullet going slow, and I think a sharp edge on the meplat is a big plus. The Saeco 220 grain SWC "Pin Bullet" or the 230 grain BDacp would be my choices. Unfortunately I don't think anyone commercially casts either one. BD