Die! Bowling Pin, Die!

As I spoke about yesterday, I spent most of my Sunday at the Central Whidbey Sportsman’s Association range with RNS reader, Mike, and his wife, shooting at those dastardly bowling pins.

And extreme fun was had by all!

Now, to be honest, I haven’t done timed events of either pins or metal in more years than I care to admit at this time, but I’ll tell you this; there is no better rush than going head to head with another shooter in a drag race of gun powder, coordination and accuracy.

I hadn’t realized how badly I missed it over the years, but within 15 minutes of arrival, watching the center fire pistol guys go at it, I got the itch back with a quickness.

The best part about the gathering was that everyone there was friendly. I have been to meets where you’ll get the one or two uber-competitive chuckleheads who are jackasses to everyone else, but at CWSA, not a chucklehead or jackass was to be found.

I had never met a single one of the people at this club, other than Mike, and I was treated like a regular. I’ll be going back again and I would like to invite any of the readers of RNS who live in the Bellingham/Everett/Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia area who would like to go. Just drop me an e-mail. If you don’t have a pistol to shoot with, let me know and I should be able to accommodate most requests.

I invited my friend Jon to come along along with me, as he had never attended anything like this. Needless to say, he’ll be coming back as well.

As I said before, I hadn’t done this style of shooting in years, so I only attended the rimfire portion. In rimfire, you do not shoot at a full sized bowling pin as the projectile would probably barely move the thing, but at just the top six inch portion of the pin that has been bandsawed off of a used pin.

Here is the process as laid out at CWSA (other clubs may differ slightly):

Everyone shoots four tables of five pins each to qualify. The table is 25ft away. You are being timed and your table must be clear of all pins before the clock stops. If you knock the pin top over and it is rolling around on the 8ftx4ft steel tabletop, you have to hit it and knock it off the table. Your time stops when the last one hits the ground.

Your slowest time is taken off and your other three are totaled together. Shooters are then bracketed by their times with their closest competitor.

And the fun begins.

Here is a pick of Jon drag racing with my Ruger 22/45

(click for supersize)

For being a novice at pistol shooting in general and competitive pistol shooting in particular, he did rather well. He was about ready to jump out of his shoes when he realized that he hadn’t qualified in last place. Myself, I qualed seventh out of eleven shooters, so not a bad showing on my part either.

Sadly though, I was bracketed with Mike. You know, RNS reader Mike, the guy with home indoor rimfire range who competes regularly. But I held my own. Kind of.

In the bracketed competition, it is single elimination, best two out of three tables. On our first set of tables, we tied with both of our last pins hitting the ground at the same time. The crowd did go wild. Still though, on the last three tables he grabbed his two and I was done for the day in the first round.

Here is Mike smoking his next competitor. Quite literally

(click for supersize)

The Sandman had my number though and I truly needed to get home for some pillow time after being up and moving for some 20 odd hours and I had to leave shortly after Jon was eliminated.

But neither Mike nor CWSA has seen the last of me. I’ll be back!

Mike, if you would be so kind as to detail how you and your wife faired later that afternoon in the comments, I’d appreciate it.