Participated in my first falling plate match today, what a great time. Took my S&W 1911 as I wasn't sure how tough the plates were to knock back, my first practice round made me wish I had the extra 7 rounds of my 5906. The second, I ended up using almost 2 mags, but the last training round and the 2 rounds of competition I managed to knock all 5 down with just 1 mag. Was a nice change from plinking paper targets.

Plates are second only to bowling pins in fun shooting IMO.

Would love to try bowling pins too, right now I shoot my immitation pins "Coffee Creamer bottles" filled with water and frozen-works rather well. I didn't think I did too bad on the falling plates, wasn't blazing fast but was happy I could knock over all 5 plates in one mag. through my 1911, saw a few people with double stacks blasting away full magazines, and still not knocking all the plates down.

At the old Second Chance Bowling Pin Shoot one of the frequent "wise
sayings" was "You can't miss fast enough to win."

True for plates too.

We have found that steel plates will fall to a 158 grain reload from a
snubby .38. I used my S&W M15 to prove that.
They will also drop when shot by a .32 ACP round from a Walther PP.
But they go down very slooooooooooowly.

Fun either way.

Then you would love an event like the PSA Shootout in PA. 6 stages of a total of about 150 knockdown steel, Texas Stars, and steel plate racks over 4 days. You can only load 10 in each mag regardless of class (max 6 for revolvers), with penalties if you do.They shoot more lead at that event than at the US Steel Nationals and World Steel Shoot combined. Last year it was 7 stages (almost 200 plates) with no side match. This year they are going back to 6 with a side match. The side match will be a mini version of their 3rd annual PSA Rimfire Shootout this fall with about 50-70 rimfire steel targets. Can be shot pistol or rifle, open or limited, or 2 man teams using one of each, .22LR only.
Last year had over 600 entries and BJ came up and won the Stock Auto title but he could do no better than 5th in the open, which was won by world team junior shooter Ben Thompson. In 2008 Jerry can in and took both revolver titles.
Even though I have an STI open gun I will be shooting Stock Auto with my Limited division Bul Custom M-5 IPSC in 9x23mm. I have a sweet low recoil load made up of a Ranier 124g plated RN with 5.7g of Unique behind it. They have a limit of 150PF and I don't have a load that low for my open gun right now. Last year they had a really nasty stage with a 5 and a 6 arm Texas star and 24 other falling steel plates. So with a 10 round limit you had to do at least 3 mag changes also. Some stages only have sliders on them while others have multiple plate racks. Had a shotgun division last year also also with a max of 10 round loaded to start.