I have always wondered how safe bowling pin matches are. I heard someone in the Atlanta area lost the use of an eye in the last few years. To me it seems like a huge risk. I get hit with bullet jacket fragments regularly at indoor matches from steel targets and the range backstop.
It seems from a physics perspective shooting several closely placed, partly reflective, partly soft objects with big heavy slow moving bullets is the perfect recipe to have a complete bullet coming back at you. The thing that saves us with steel targets is the inelastic collision. The bullet energy bleeds off quickly as it shatters or dramatically reduces velocity if it stays intact.
This does not seem like what would happen with bowling pins.
Can anyone speak from experience? I have never shot bowling pins.
It seems from a physics perspective shooting several closely placed, partly reflective, partly soft objects with big heavy slow moving bullets is the perfect recipe to have a complete bullet coming back at you. The thing that saves us with steel targets is the inelastic collision. The bullet energy bleeds off quickly as it shatters or dramatically reduces velocity if it stays intact.
This does not seem like what would happen with bowling pins.
Can anyone speak from experience? I have never shot bowling pins.