A friend of mine has come up with what he thinks is a wonderful idea (he is having them made now) for steel bowling pins. He is tired of replacing the true plastic covered wooden bowling pins. All other considerations aside (and there are alot, I know) does anyway with range management experience know what the safety considerations might be? Before I decide to stand on the range for his first experience, will there be a ricochet problem?

He hasn't yet told me if he is talking about 3D pins of steel or just silhouettes. Anybody out there made either?

Wink,the place I work at cuts parts out of steel plate from 12 gauge sheet to 1" thick.
I gather up the drop(scrap parts) and weld small pads to the bottoms .This lets the plates stand by themselves.
Some are 1/2"thick,4" wide and 12" tall.Some larger,some smaller.
The make great reative targets and the best part is they are free.
As they fall backwards,the bullets tend to go up and back instead of coming back at the shooter.

At our shotgun club we use heavy steel targets, from a foot or so tall to man sized.
They get shot with .12ga slugs, lead shot, pistol calibre carbines and Rimfire. I haven't tried steel shot. As long as they are not fixed down, we don't have a problem, they absorb most of the energy, just make sure everyone is wearing eye protection.

The steel pin sihouettes have now been tried on top of a steel table we used for our pin shoots. The first problem was lead splatter ricochet. Copper coated and lead bullets when splattering against the target release some lead particle which rebound off the table straight back at the firing line. We solved the problem by placing a wooden beam accross the table and placed the pin silhouettes up against and behind the beam. The lead particles hit the wooden beam and are absorbed/stopped and no more ricochet. Lots of fun, easier to set up than true bowling pins and we're looking at long life as well. Thanks for you input.

i have a steel bowling pin my friend made for me a few yrs ago.....it's a swinger hung on an old realty sign frame..........i take it to the range or just shoot it with my air rifle in my back yd......... i get the B.C. stick on orange targets for an aiming point...........as it hangs it directs most of the bullet spatter down into the dirt....so very little problem with that..............


THE 2ND AMENDMENT PROTECTS US ALL.....