The objective of the present paper is to perform numerical simulations of a high-speed water jet impinging on rotating Pelton buckets using the finite volume particle method (FVPM), which combines attractive features of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) and conventional grid-based finite volume. The particles resolution is first validated by a convergence study. Then, the FVPM results are validated with available measurements and volume of fluid (VOF) simulations. It is shown that the pressure field in the buckets inner wall is in good agreement with the experimental and numerical data and the evolution of the flow pattern matches the high-speed visualization.