Bowling Pin Shoot

[redwoods]

There is a new bowling alley in town and I was wondering if I could start up a bowling pin shoot. I have never been to a bp match but it sounds like fun. How do I go about getting pins? Do I buy them from the alley?

Redwoods

[shred]

Bowling alleys use up pins. Once they get too beat to run through the machinery or look too ugly, they retire them. You want to get those used pins when they replace them. Sometimes they're free, but once they figure out somebody wants them, they start to see dollar-signs, so be a little cautious.

Then you take those pins and set them on a table and try to shoot them off. We had a man-on-man version for years, but other places do timed-fire (it's easier to 'classifiy' shooters by skill with timed-fire, but man-on-man has a great anything-can-happen fun-factor). The tables vary from plain wood tables to fancy multilevel steel ones (steel is by far superior), and the number of pins from 5 to 9 or 10.

When the pin 'bodies' get too shot up to be useful anymore, saw off any good 'pin heads' and go after those with a .22.

Mucho fun.

[Carlos]

Then you take those pins and set them on a table and try to shoot them off. We had a man-on-man version for years, but other places do timed-fire (it's easier to 'classifiy' shooters by skill with timed-fire, but man-on-man has a great anything-can-happen fun-factor). The tables vary from plain wood tables to fancy multilevel steel ones (steel is by far superior), and the number of pins from 5 to 9 or 10.

When the pin 'bodies' get too shot up to be useful anymore, saw off any good 'pin heads' and go after those with a .22.

Mucho fun.

EDIT: The pinshooting site is back up:

http://www.sportshooter.com/compete/dro_pinshooting.asp

Did not know that the site had returned. Take a look for more info.

Good summary. There were once loose sets of "rules" for pin shooting but those days are long gone. I imagine steel tables would be a bit pricey for start up, so wood will have to do.

Thought: a .22 will knock over a full sized pin at the back edge of a table. Pin tops (cut at top line) will really fly when hit with a .22

One of the "points" of pin shooting (if there still is one) is to set the pins at the FRONT of the table to get the shooters to use a powerful enough gun so that the pin flys clear accross and off the back of the table when hit in the center. Fallen pins require extra hits to clear the table.

Five or six pins are common. Some clubs limit the rounds in a mag to force accuracy ro risk a reload. Six, 8 & 10 rounds are common. Most places use a "low ready" or touching the rail start position. No reason not to allow holsters though.

Regards,

D.C. Johnson

Edited April 19, 2007 by Carlos

[chuckbradley]

You want bowling pins? I have about 300 you can have, just come get em. Some are even brand spanking new. We found them in a connected storage building to the old bowling alley I bought to house Shooters Connection. In fact just tonight my son and nephew moved them and stacked them on a shelf.

[redwoods]

Chuck,

I would love to take those pins off your hands, but I live in Colorado, but I might consider coming to Kentucky for some free bullets. Do you have pallets of them that you need to get rid of?

[standles]

I got some by going to the bowling alley and asking nicely. We ot all we wanted for free with minimal issues.

We had to pick them up ourselves.... DUH

And I offered to put a sponsor banner on the table for his Bowling ally.

What was funny was watching the guy wit ht .44 mag flinching so bad he was hitting dirt under the table.

[chuckbradley]

I am thinking the local clubs may want them. At first I thought I would keep them to use for bowling pin shoots in the new range. But I dont think i want to have the mess inside to deal with. I used to shoot at an indoor range that did it and they did create a mess for indoors.

[Steve J]

Here's another acticle I found a while back.

The Joys of Pin Shooting

And a French site that has extremely good detals, rules of the International Pin Shooting Association, table dimensions and pin set ups for the various games. This is the most detailed information I found when I was searching for such things.

International Pin Shooting Association

By the way, this is a warm weather sport. Most pins are very brittle when cold. They crack, chip and split completely in half. When warm they're more likely to just absorb multiple hits.

[joecichlid]

Pin shooting is very fun, adictive and humbling. The club I shoot with is the oldest continuous running club in the US, if not the world. Feel free to stop by our clubs web site and download a copy of our rules, hopefully in the near future we will get them updated to include different classes.

Mid-West Pinblasters.com

Joe W.

[grassy knoll]

we are having our first pin shoot next week, I am very interested to see what kind of times we are going to get for clearing 5 pins,

[joecichlid]

grassy knoll, you will have a great time.

Joe W.

[Patrick Sweeney]

You can also send the shot-up ones to the shotgun events. Buckshot doesn't care that a pin is lumpy.

Just don't let the competitors use anything smaller in diameter than #4 shot, or you'll be treated to the joys of bounce-back city.