Portland Oregon Pin Shoot

Rivrdog and I are still working out the details for putting on a indoor bowling pin shoot in Portland, Oregon. The date has been set for March 11th.

All of the details, range location, and so forth will all be posted here, on Rivrdog's site, and at the club itself.

Rivrdog requested an informational letter to his club on some of the details, and that letter to them is below:

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I have been a regular and enthusiastic gun owner and shooter since the 50’s, but only in the last five years have I started seriously competing in handgun events.

Although I regularly shoot in postal matches, hanging plate matches, and once in a while a silhouette handgun match, by far my favorite is head-to-head bowling pin shooting.

At the present there are two clubs putting on bowling pin shoots in Washington State, the Custer Sportsman’s Assn. In Custer, and the Central Whidbey Sportsman’s Assn. in Coupeville. Once a year there is a huge pin shoot in shoot in Missoula that I also attend.

The challenge of pin shooting is trying to shoot quickly, but accurately, while dealing with adrenaline induced “buck fever”, since you are shooting head to head with another shooter.

I have volunteered to help you all to put on an indoor pin shoot, hoping that everyone has a good time, and perhaps more shoots will follow.

For obvious reasons, absolute safety is a must, and for this reason I have modified the outdoor rules a bit.

Beyond normal range safety, a couple of other factors need to be addressed.

When shooting pins outdoors, usually you must get all of the pins off of the table, not just knocked over. That means shooting pins when they are lying on their side. Unfortunately, if you hit high on a pin on its side, the bullet can be deflected steeply upward.

Setting the pins close to the berm and/or overhead steel plates solves this problem, but that isn’t always practical in an indoor range.

For indoor pin shooting, I have designed a modified version of a saw horse as a pin table, narrow enough that a pin knocked over will fall to the floor, and won’t require a second shot.

A second concern is that of bullet bounce-back. Fully metal jacketed bullets (FMJ), especially in .38 or 9mm., rather than penetrating or mushrooming, will sometimes bounce back with quite a bit of velocity.

Several years ago a guy sitting next to me at CWSA had his safety glasses shattered and we had to take him to the hospital to remove the pieces of safely glass from his eye. Fortunately there was no permanent damage, but he wore an eye patch for about a month.

FMJ bullets have not been allowed either at Custer or at Central Whidbey for several years. Plated bullets, hollow points, or lead bullets are not a problem.

KeeWee and I are both looking forward to coming down and helping to introduce pin shooting in your area, and I hope we have a good turn-out to give it a try. I will try to bring several Coupeville pin shooters along for the fun.

Feel free to pass this letter around amongst your members, board, and officers, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Hope to see you all at the pin shoot!

..........Mr. Completely