10mm bullet for pin shooting

[pacecars]

One of our local ranges now has weekly bowling pin shoots and I want to play! I plan on using my S&W Model 610 10mm and need a suggestion for a good bullet.

[lbaize3]

Midway has 180 grain Rainer HP bullets that you can drive at 1250fps easily. My 610 shoots them with excellent accuracy.

[Oreo]

MiHec group buy mold currently taking orders.

[ReloaderFred]

My experience shooting bowling pins has been that you want the heaviest bullet and the sharpest shoulder. Those pins are made from hard maple, so you need something that will grab and hold on.

My S&W 610 shoots 200 gr. SWC bullets really accurately, so that's what I'd recommend.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Oreo]

MiHec group buy mold. 220gr wfn with shallow hp. Can't do any better then that.

[44man]

Never shot pins but watched a lot. Fella had a .44 mag and was hitting them fast but could not clear the table because he just shot through them. I would not go for velocity, heavy, slow boolit and a HP would help.

[bhn22]

For a 10mm, a 180 or 200 gr SWC or TC with a sharp edge on the meplat. Heavy for caliber bullets worked best for me, avoiding round nose because they can deflect a bit when striking a hard, rounded surface. My best 357 load was a 200 gr SWC going about 900 FPS tops. I also used 45 ACP 230 gr LFN, anything over about 800 FPS worked well. Hollowpoints would be a plus. Avoid really heavy loads for the reason Jim mentioned. You can shoot through the pins. We've also used bowling pins as 200 yard rifle targets. FMJ 223 still shoot through them at that distance, you'd need varmint bullets to transfer enough energy to knock the pin over. Since you're only shooting revolver, a 200 gr wadcutter, cast medium hard, and traveling around 8-900 fps would work well too.

[reed1911]

I agree, the 200g WFN has worked very well for me, I run mine right at 1000FPS from a 6" barrel.

[pacecars]

This is the delivery vehicle that I have posted a lot of pictures of but I am proud of it:

[bruce drake]

Lee has a pretty decent 175gr Truncated Cone mold (my alloy comes out at 180gr) that may be an affordable entry mold for the experiments. I use it for my 400 Corbon loads and my father-in-law's 40S&W loads. Nice loading boolit for both cartridges. That 10mm should love that boolit.

[gamedog53]

I love the Lee 175 TC mold, drops the boolits like butter. Mine will throw 180 grain consistently.

[TheDoctor]

Would a HP be preferable to a DEWC for this application?

[country gent]

I used a 220 grn wadcutter in 45 for pins and it cleared them off the table when hit solid. I used the lee 255 grn flat point in 45 colt and got the same results. A wide flat point worked best for me. You need to dump energy into the pin not behind it into the back stop. Both the loads mentioned above would leave a knot on the back side of the pin in the plastic. This meant that ALL the energy was dumped into the pin.

[Oreo]

This is the delivery vehicle that I have posted a lot of pictures of but I am proud of it:

That's a stunning 610. Is it a no-dash or a -1? I am jealous. I had an opportunity to purchase one like that a couple years ago but opted for a 629-4 instead. One of these days I do intend to pick up a 610 no-dash also. Going to be a while though.

[warboar_21]

Where I used to live they had a local indoor range that had both steel and pin matches. I was using my 45acp at the time with 230gr fmj and had a few pins return fire. A guy I was shooting with gave me some of his 200gr SWC to try out and they worked a lot better. He had switched to a 10mm Colt Delta Elite and was using the RCBS 200gr SWC. It hit the pins with authority. When I bought my Kimber 10mm that is the mold I bought. Haven't shot in a pin match in years though.

[Petrol & Powder]

A little off topic.. several years ago a bunch of us were shooting pins with 9mm"s ! Despite the reduced weight and round nose bullet, you could be competitive if you were only shooting against guys with the same gun/bullet combination. Given a level playing field it came down to speed and accuracy. However, that all evaporated if you put someone on the line shooting a heavier bullet. A shooter that could put a heavy bullet into the center of that pin every shot could slow down and still clear the table faster! It was very informal but fun!

[Petrol & Powder]

BTW, that's a sharp looking 610!
I think any lead 180 grain(ish) bullet with a flat nose would work in a 10mm revolver for knocking pins off a table. If you can shoot a 200 grain bullet accurately and just as fast, that may give you a little advantage but as previously stated, energy in the berm is wasted. There's more than enough energy in a 180 gr / 10mm load to knock a bowling pin off the table and a slow hit beats a fast miss.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

the Lee 175 TC standard lube groove drops them so nice and fast for a very reasonable entry price , make sure you get it pre heated well they like to cast a little on the hot side I am running mine in 10 short = 40S&W I haven't tried pins but they hit steel with authority and make those poppers drop very nice


I am seeing a trend that for the shooting games a heavy for caliber bullet works better on plats and things that need to fall or move

this goes back to a physics question , how much energy are you wasting splattering the bullet and sending pieces flying back vs flattening it against a target

so here was the question we were asked to solve back in school , your sitting in a room and your getting cool but are too lazy and busy holding a beer in your other hand (all physics questions including this one involved beer) to get up and close the 1/2 open door the rest of the way
you have 2 equal weight balls one soft clay , the other steel for the sake of the problem the door is in the exact same place the hinges have no resistance and both balls are thrown and arrive with the same energy witch ball transfers more energy to the door

I will save you the equations but the concept is that the steel ball bounces back taking with it some of the forward energy as reflected energy , the clay hits deforms and sticks to the door and transfers 100% of it's energy to the door

the load that will displace the pin most efficiently with the least extra wasted power probably why the sport of pin shooting is very dominated by big heavy relatively slow 45 cal bullets but I don't see 50gr making a huge difference if you can shoot he 180s with a nice flat nose to plow the pin over

having shot 2x4s sandwiched together and taped with he lee 175 tc actually 180gr ish as dropped 40 cal it bowls through 2 and splits the 3rd 9mm zips through all 3 like an electric drill if you can figure out what load stays in the pin and shoot loads till you start blowing through a pin watching for split time and how fast you can get a fairly low recoil load in 10mm is likely to be faster shooting taking down pins than a higher velocity round

[Petrol & Powder]

I love physics that involves beer!

You obviously want to transfer as much energy to the pin as possible and as GREENCOUNTYPETE stated, the split times are important. Increased muzzle velocity and bullet weight will increase recoil and increases recovery time between shots. Using a flat bullet profile and a softer alloy will help transfer energy to the pin with no degradation of split times. So to achieve the optimal load the question is: "Given a solid hit, what is the minimum amount of kinetic energy needed to consistently knock the pin off the table"?
Using more bullet weight and velocity will improve the odds of knocking the pin off the table with a marginal shot but also will increase recovery time due to increased recoil. Going to low on bullet weight and/or velocity will decrease the effectiveness of good hits.
The sweet spot is the lightest bullet at the slowest velocity that will consistently remove pins from the table.
Therein lies the quandary

[warf73]

Never shot pins with a 10mm but have with 22lr (auto class), 357mag (single and DA class), 45acp (auto class) and 12ga shotgun (pump class). IF I could find a pin game around I would do it in a heartbeat loved the game. The key for me is running a heavy slow (want to get back on the next pin) bullet and of course hitting the pin head on. Speed will come with more pins you shoot, just hit them square. I've seen pins spin all over the table in all the classes I mentioned above (I've spun my share that’s for sure).

One of the matches we had several LEO’s come in and shoot there duty guns (9mm can't remember if they were Glock or not). It’s scary watching folks that are paid to protect you dump 3 mags and have to forfeit the table because they ran out of ammo. Seen 2 of the guys clean out 3 mags (20 or 21 rounds per mag) and forfeit the table all 3 rounds. Our rounds varied from min 3 max 5 always depended on how many people showed up.

It's a very fun game but around (unless someone is doing it again) it pretty much dried up. The bowling pins were a wood middle with a thin plastic cover. The newer ones we got had very hard plastic outer cover.
The timers, RO, folks behind the blast shield (covered from about knee level to 1 foot over your head) and the shooter were hit with bounce backs in the 22 class. I had a piece of jacket from an auto class shooter stick me in the thigh (was timer) to high up for comfort. So shortly after that it was shut down being deemed to dangerous for all involved.

Good luck with your new game and please post about your events and how well you’re doing