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Pingun45 is right. Even factory hardball is kinda marginal on pins, at least in high-end competition. The 210 PF is right on as a minimum... OK, you can get by with a little less. I go to just over 215, myself. Wide-open hollow points or flat-nosed, Keith-style wadcutters will give you and edge over FMJ. I use the National Bullet 215 copperized SWC in .45, at about 1,020 FPS, using Blue Dot. Not gonna give you the exact load since it varies between lots of Blue Dot, but if this load interests you, I'd say start with 9 grains and work your way up. I prefer WW cases for this load.
I've seen plenty of people, and myself, get whacked with bounce-backs. Never, ever, shoot or be around pinshooting without great eye protection, with side coverage. If you have to wear the nerdiest-looking safety glasses ever made, well, it beats a white cane. I don't even like to stand near when I'm not shooting, and I either face the action or away from it, I never give the pins a "side view" of me, where a bounceback could come in the side.
Bouncebacks aren't the wierdest things to happen in pinshooting. Once I saw a pin go up on its edge, and do a slow, perfectly stable roll forward while the shooter was finishing up the table-- it lazily made its way to the front of the table and tumbled off just as he hit the last pin. Another time, at an indoor range with a nice smooth floor, I was watching the action and saw what I thought must be a drunken cockroach weaving its way toward me from in front of one of the tables. It went left, right, back again, always more or less in my direction. I walked forward to meet it and see what the heck it was. Turned out to be a .45 FMJ, spinning like a top on its nose! Just as I got to it, it ran out of gas and went unstable, and spun out. I still laugh when I think about it!
I've seen plenty of people, and myself, get whacked with bounce-backs. Never, ever, shoot or be around pinshooting without great eye protection, with side coverage. If you have to wear the nerdiest-looking safety glasses ever made, well, it beats a white cane. I don't even like to stand near when I'm not shooting, and I either face the action or away from it, I never give the pins a "side view" of me, where a bounceback could come in the side.
Bouncebacks aren't the wierdest things to happen in pinshooting. Once I saw a pin go up on its edge, and do a slow, perfectly stable roll forward while the shooter was finishing up the table-- it lazily made its way to the front of the table and tumbled off just as he hit the last pin. Another time, at an indoor range with a nice smooth floor, I was watching the action and saw what I thought must be a drunken cockroach weaving its way toward me from in front of one of the tables. It went left, right, back again, always more or less in my direction. I walked forward to meet it and see what the heck it was. Turned out to be a .45 FMJ, spinning like a top on its nose! Just as I got to it, it ran out of gas and went unstable, and spun out. I still laugh when I think about it!
