Has anyone tried it? Where is the best place to hit a bowling pin?

Yes, a 1911A1 with Federal "Flying Ashtrays" OR a 625 with the same load. Nines and 357s are low powered for this game.

Hit the pin, hopefully 1/3 of the way down between the neck (smallest diameter) and the body (largest diameter).

Hitting them low takes their "feet out" and won't clear it from the table. And then they are a real bitch to clear off.

Thank's, I'm giving it a try this week.

Looking at my trophy case would quickly disabuse you of the notion that a .357 Mag. is underpowered for pin shooting.

We have six classes at our shoots -----

1. auto's, over .356 bore
2. auto's, bore .356 and under
3. revolvers, bore over .22 but under .357
4. revolvers, bore over.357
5. .22 caliber, any action type
6. OPEN, any action or caliber

I have won MANY open shoots with my Smith & Wesson Model 66, 4", with 158 SWC handloads, and with 158 factory JHP's.

My range had to bar pin shooting. You need either a high close backstop or a really big impact area.

Bullets of the edge of the round pin give really nasty richocets.

Fun while it lasted, though.

I just picked up some pins and was wondering how big is the table and away do you shoot at them.

Pins are a gas. My favorite pin guns were S&W Model 41's, and my scoped 10/22. I shot with a 45 and a 357 but the 22s are much more fun for me.

Before the range shut down, we had a Wed. nite pin nite. It was a bring anything that you wanted and I decided one night to bring my 10/22. I got a lot of strange looks that night but the next week we had enough 22 rifles to make a class out of. Of course we set the pins back closer to the back of the table with 22s.

Gads, I yearn for the good old days when shooting was a lot more fun.

Jim B.

http://www.pinshooting.com/Rules.html

I think the lay out for tables is on this sight. The worst part is I still haven't made it. I had the flu and now the .22 league is back in action. Still sounds like a blast.

We shoot three or four layouts at our club.

Five-pin is typical. The 4'x8' tables (1/4' steel plate tops) are 25 feet away. Five pins are set up across the front of the table. We use three time keepers with stopwatches. The shooter holds the gun so it's touching the rail in front of him until he gets the start signal.

At the start signal, the shooter starts shooting, and the time keepers start their watches. The time keepers stop their stopwatches when the last pin hits the ground. The shooter's official score is the average of the best three out of four tables. Factory 357 loads defeinitely do the job. IDPA minimum power factor 357 loads are marginal.

Birdshot is a disaster, and we don't let people use it. One guy sneeked a few bird shot shells in, and you could hear it raining off the parked cars. Buckshot or slugs work very well, and we bring a case of 12 ga. 00 buck (cheap) in case anyone runs out.

We run an 8-pin event with the pins set up halfway back on the table. 9mm or 38 Spl. is all the power you need here. You start with 6 in the gun, so a reload is rwquired. The 10-pin rimfire event (back edge of the table) is popular with kids. We also run an improvised 50-yard centrfire rifle event.

Safety-wise, we've got a mountain for our backstop, and I designed some table buffers to eliminate ricochets off the front edges of the tables.

We shoot from under a roof, but it's hard to get a good turnout until the weather gets warm. We start in April, and the last match is in September or October (I've forgotten which, and I don't have this last season's schedule in front of me).

Oh, to answer your question: as the title of Massad Ayoob's book says, "Hit the White Part".

H. C.

[ 11-30-2002, 10:58: Message edited by: HenryC470 ]

We found a 1/2 dozen pins in the desert at a 'shooting spot'. Obviously, the desert floor is no even surface, but I had no trouble knocking them over with my .22. I could even get a second hit on once occasionally as it was 'easing' it's way over backward.