My local club has holds a
monthly pin match. The pins make excellent reactive targets. The idea behind a pin match is to knock the pin off a table (not just knock it down). The pin is placed at varying distances from the back of the table based on the caliber you shoot. Hit too high or low, the pin just flips back, stays on the table, and is now a much smaller and more difficult target. Hit to the left or to the right, the pin starts to spin and may or may not fall off. So it emphasizes good shot placement.
A bowling pin can take a lot of pistol shots, but becomes HEAVY after a while (filled with lead). It's no longer good for competition, but is still a good target for just knocking down in front of a berm.
30 caliber rifles will blow a pin to pieces in relatively short order (quicker if you're using soft points, but in all cases they're good for more than one shot). 223s aren't so bad.
I'm told that August is the best time to acquire old pins, as this is when the alleys get new pins for the fall tournament season. Our club used to be able to get free pins easily, but it's now a struggle. We got our last batch for free from a bowling alley at a local Navy base (thanks to club contacts I assume). All the commercial lanes want to sell them for around $1 a piece (we go through 100 pins a match, and $1/pin is way too high for us). Commercial lanes are leary of giving pins away because a) they can sell all the old ones to people who make lamps, trophies, etc. (so they say
), and perhaps more importantly b) there are companies out there which re-condition old bowling pins. If you find that your only option is to buy old pins, my advice is to let the manager know that you'll be paying for them in CASH (if you catch my drift). A case of 10 new bowling pins is insanely expensive, so it's not surprising that alleys want to sell the used ones.
Failing that, you might try to find a club that conducts pin matches. There are always lots of used pins left over at our matches which, due to their weight, are no longer good for competition but still make fine in-front-of-berm targets. Some of our competitors (myself included) take these old pins back with them.
At about $30.00 case for new ones
Uhh... try *at least* $150 (I've looked into it!)