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I used to shoot in weekly bowling pin match. Ours was in a head-to-head, double elimination format at 25 feet where you had to put all your pins on the ground before the guy you were shooting against. The winner advanced; the loser went to the loser's bracket.

At one point I was fairly determined to find the perfect bullet and began experimenting to see what worked. Here's a few of my thoughts (right or wrong):

Bowling pins shooting is first and foremost an ACCURACY competition, and then a SPEED competition. If you can hit where you aim every time, you'll only get beat by guys who can do the same, but at a faster pace. Remember: You can miss as fast as you want, but you can only hit as fast as you are able.

To practice for pins, you don't need pins. You need targets no bigger than the size of the logo on a bowing pin. I used small sticky notes about 1.5 inches square. Use 3 of them to make a triangle, with about 18" between each sticky note, and just practice rotating around, hitting each one. It helps in target acquisition and accuracy. I used to put 3 rounds in each of about 5 1911 magazines and incorporate mag changes into the drill.

I think the best bowling pin cartridge is the 10mm Auto. Bigger, more powerful cartridges will put you into a revolver, and only the most excellent shooters can beat an auto with a revolver. If you're a great shot and can quickly reload your revolver, then you might be OK. However, you'll be shooting against guys with autos who are great shots and can quickly reload too. Our format allowed 6 rounds per magazine for autos, so that auto guys wouldn't have a numbers advantage over the revolver guys.

The 10mm seemed to be the cartridge that gave the best transfer of momentum but remained "shootable." Guys shooting anything heavier were slower getting back on target and heavy recoil seemed to affect their accuracy. The second best cartridge IMHO is the 45 ACP in an automatic of your choosing. I shoot a 5" steel frame 1911 in .45 ACP. While I think the .45 ACP is the second best cartridge, it is easily the number one choice of pin shooters. 95% of the guys I know use a .45 ACP. Most of the rest shoot .40 S&W. Very few shoot 10mm--probably because they aren't that common and many matches are "lost brass" matches and that would get expensive! (Ours is not a lost brass match, but still, about everybody uses a .45 ACP).

As for bullet choice, I don't think the bullet shape gives you any discernible advantage--bullet weight and speed are what make the most difference. Shoot the heaviest bullet and the fastest speed. I shot a BUNCH of different bullets and finally settled on the 230gr Truncated Cone by Penn Bullets. It's cheap and very effective. I like a bullet that expands just enough that it either barely goes through the pin or doesn't quite make it all the way through. You want a bullet that transfers its momentum to the pin so that it moves the pin. The Penn bullet was perfect for me. I loaded it over 4.6gr of TiteGroup. I don't think I ever lost a pin match only because somebody had a better powder/bullet combo. Frankly, guys also do pretty well shooting FMJ bullets. I just don't like FMJ bullets on new pins, because they seem to go through too easily, but really, a lot of guys do just fine with FMJ ball ammo.

Hit a pin right in the middle of the logo. It'll move the pin back and off the table when you do that. If you miss a little, you're still high enough on the pin to make it roll after it gets knocked over. Again, it's an accuracy competition way before it becomes a speed competition.

Well I think that's most of it. My wife wants to walk out the door for dinner, so I'll follow up later if needed.

Good luck!