Tips before my first pin match?

[Rudukai13]

Anyone have any last-minute tips on a pin shooting match? My local range is putting one on tomorrow night and I've signed up. It's the first time I'll ever be shooting competitively. I've been practicing my ass off for the last week, making sure I'm reacting well to a start signal, keeping trigger and safety under control (I'm shooting a Sig 1911 Extreme), and above all else accuracy and speed!

Any thoughts or advice would be very much appreciated, thank you in advance!

[Toolguy]

Any reactive target draws your eyes to it when it moves. This is just survival instinct. You have to learn to keep your eyes on the sights and move on to the next target whether hit or miss. Hold on each target just longh enough to see the sights (or dot) lift, then quickly move on. One shot for each target, then sweep back across the table to pick up any spares. If you wait to see whether you got it or not you're burnin' daylight. If you're looking at the last one, you're missing the next one.

[photoracer]

For bowling pins, depending on your caliber, sights, and if you are shooting real pins, use the label below the neck as an aiming point (AMF triangle or the big blue B for Brunswick). Especially for rimfire. For a .45 or a big revolver aim at the fattest part of the pin. Everything else is somewhere in between.

There is little uniformity on pin match rules so until you know them your strategy might be different. For instance our rules allow any size mag capacity and reloads, no magnum loads (10mm is OK but revolver magnums above .357 need to be downloaded), if a pin is standing after you declare you are done it is a 10 second penalty per pin and if it is knocked over but still on the table it is a 5 second penalty per pin. We shoot at 5 pins of which for centerfire 3 are on the table itself and 2 are on shelves above the other three. For rimfire the pins are lined up straight across the back 8 inches from the back edge of the table.

I have shot at matches where they shoot at 6 pins, max gun capacity is 6 and reloads are allowed and must also be loaded to 6. I have shot at matches where the centerfire guns shoot at regular pins and the rimfires shoot at just the cutoff tops. It varies widely on how many runs you are allowed also. Some allow 3 and all count and some allow many and only the best three count. I am sure there are more variations than just these.

Like most targets they teach you to fire a fast string at all of them and then go back for any misses. That is generally faster than stopping and waiting to see it falls and if you need to reshoot. For rimfire, at least ours, its as much a timing thing so as to get the pin to fall perfectly backwards. A slightly off center hit that would be fine for a centerfire will often cause it to spin and maybe fall forward instead of off the table. And then there is the dreaded off center hit that causes it to fall and hit another pin and leaves you with 2 lying on the table. Often impossible to get off with just a .22. So your first pass over the pins has to be perfect. For centerfire shooting with a 9mm can be frustrating unless you load 147-158g flat tip bullets (I shot .357 Sig in my early days). Heavy bullets trump fast ones in pins every time. The rounder the nose of your bullet the more precise hit you need to make. I used to shoot .41 magnum in pins, a favorite caliber for many. I loaded a minimum of a 200g Keith SWC flatnose lead or Remington HP round at around 900 FPS. The slower speed was for faster followup shots. You want to punch them off the table. If they spin it means your hit was offcenter. The best centerfire shooters are our club use either .45 1911s including old single stack race guns or 10mm semi-autos (10mm Glocks even valthough the .40 works with 180g bullets) or S&W 625 revolvers. Plus a few others added in.

Good luck. Ours is popular enough that you don't get to shoot that close together so many shoot 2 guns in different divisions just so they can shoot more often during the match.

[Service Desk]

Shoot fast and don't miss.

[mwx40x40]

Completely focus on your pins. If possible completely block the other shooter out of your mind. If you start hearing them shoot faster, some have a tendency to feel rushed and shoot beyond their ability to hit. Keep a cool head and heed the good advice of the above post .

As far as loads are concerned , heavy is generally the best rule. I started with 255SWC in 45acp, but sizing and overall length were very touchy in my 1911, so I finally settled on 230 JHP's. That being said my favorite pin gun was a S&W 610 10mm with 220 grain LTC's. over Bluedot.

[goldfieldshooter]

Take plenty of ammo.