Bowling Pin Shoots

[Hunter Customs]

One of the biggest down falls in regulation pin shooting was the way the matches were timed. People do not have the same reaction time, so if you are lucky enough to have a timer with a fast reaction time your total of your five runs could be as much as a second faster than if you had a slow timer timing you, a full second taken from a five run total could very easily win the match. This is why you need three timers per competitor thats on the line shooting at the time.
Near the end of my pin shooting career I discussed with a electronics engineer the possibility of setting the tables up where they timed the last shot that passed through them. He assured me this could be done and I believe it would be the most accurate way of timing the shooter. After all you would be timing the shooters speed (which is what the game is all about) and not the reaction of the pins. If pin shooting had not died out I was going to introduce this information to some of the larger shoots to see what they thought. I really hated to see pin shooting die, I introduced a lot of new shooters to the sport and everyone of them liked it.
It amazes me that I still get request from customers to build them a pin gun, however I build a lot more USPSA and Steel match guns nowadays.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

[Number 6]

Our events are timed with a sound-actuated timer. The RO hits a button; the timer beeps somewhere between 1 and 3 seconds later, and the clock is running. It keeps running from shot to shot and stops when the shooting does.

There is no "reaction time" issue - other than the shooter's!

[Hunter Customs]

Buzz timers work great if you are timing one shooter at a time. At most regulation matches you will have 5 to 10 shooters on the line shooting at the same time, buzz timers do not work well in this situation. At Second Chance and the Pin Nationals they had 30 tables and could have 10 shooters shooting at the same time.
Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

[Brian D.]

Bob and 'Otasan', we still have a couple of small Pin matches in the SW Ohio area, but the same problem plagues them too: A lot of people like to shoot (at) bowling pins, very few like to go downrange and set them up.

Btw the monthly outdoor match is held at Miami Rifle and Pistol Club east of Cincinnati, on the 2nd Sunday of the month, 9am. There are divisions for centerfire pistol, .22 pistol (pin heads placed up front) and .22 rifle, which uses full size pins 1 foot from the back. Also a shotgun match (5 tables of 5 pins, no extra shots allowed, time penalties for misses and down-but-not-off pins.)

The indoor range in northern Ky. (Mark's Guns) shoots pins on Wed. evenings. The indoor range north of Cincy (Target World) has a slightly larger affair on Thursdays, but it doesn't start until 9pm. TW does centerfire iron sights, CF scope, and .22 pistol, using full size pins on the back edge. Now, that event pulls in some fast times!

All shooting listed above utilizes good old single tier, 4'x8' tables. Nobody around here except those of us who'd been to Second Chance, Iowa, etc. ever saw the need to build/store/carry double deckers..

[otasan]

over there in the Cincy/Ky area.

I think that I'll move there!

[mandark]

I'm contiplating moving for other reasons.
I have encountered a personal derailment to life as I know it upon returning home following the last shoot. I probally wont be able to focus on this or any other topic I have had involvement with on this board while I deal with my personal issues.
This does not mean I won't be back after some of the mess has been cleared from ther tracks.
To all inputting to anything I've posted, this probally will be the last post for a brief time while I get other issues in my life back on track. Please keep the momentum going, I will return soom and I will catch up. I dont have time to add this comment to all my threads right now.
Regards
Mandark