Hi,

I was in a bowling pin shoot last Saturday.  See the photos.  What fun that was.  The day was beautiful day so a lot of shooter showed up for the morning.  In bowling pin shoots, at least this one, you have 10 rounds in either your rim fire or your center fire gun for each of the two sets of six bowling pin targets.  The first set of targets are real bowling pins, set on a table about 10 yards from the bench.  The second set of targets are steel plates shaped like bowling pins. They are on a metal rail at 15 yards.  These will fall back when hit.  There are six pins on each set, so you shoot at a total of 12 pins.  You shoot at the real bowling pins first.  When you've shot all of them off the table, or you run out of bullets, time is called.  You then reload and shoot at the steel plates, again knock all plates down or run out of bullets. So, with 10 rounds for each run you can miss yet still have enough bullets to take down all the targets.  If a real bowling pin falls over but not off the table you must shoot it off the table or incur a 3 second penalty. The object of the game is to shoot fast, and knock down all the pins.

Last Saturday, I had a good score of 4.1 sec plus 4.08 sec with my Ruger 22 semi-auto pistol for a total of 8.18 seconds hitting all the targets!! On my second round I used my Ruger 9mm semi-auto.  I shot a 8.2 seconds and a 8.4 seconds for a total score or 16.6 seconds. The official scores will not come out until later this week, but I kept an eye on the other ladies scores at the match to see how we all were doing. I am almost positive my 22 and 9mm where the quickest and best scores.

In the photos, the first two show the actual bowling pins, the the rest you can just barely make out the steel plate bowling pins at the 15 yard range.  You will have to scroll to the right to see all the pictures.

If you get a chance, contact your local gun shop, or shooting range to see if they do or know of an organization that does bowling pin shoots.  You may also try a "Google" , and watch "YouTube" for shoots.

They really are fun, and good for the whole family.  At this shoot there are normally 4 to 5 youngsters, both boys and girls.  Several ladies from the club, and the Shooting Divas in Northern Virginia also join in.  The men have a great time, shooting over and over and over trying to get the best score.

Take care.  Good shooting and good hunting.
M.