How many slingers?

I just started up again. I made one out of paracord just a few months ago. Sure is fun once you figure out what not to do. I like to use it to throw tennis balls for my dogs.

I tried it and could never hit the tree I was aiming at. I would spin the sling in a circle and try to get the most velocity but the release was always off. It was lots of fun tossing rocks that went over the tree line, the things must have traveled 200 yards.

It must take a lot of practice or there is a technique that I have not learned.

There is a forum on slinging!

http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl

I used to play at it, decades ago. A couple of boot laces and a pouch made from an old shoe tongue. Never got very accurate, but could achieve some pretty respectable distances. I didn't know then that slingers of old often used uniform cast lead bullets - the idea of military logistics hadn't sunk in then either .

There's an interesting overview of the sling through history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_(weapon)

Casting Lead Sling Bullets - Paul Elliott
http://slinging.org/index.php?page=casting-lead-sling-bullets---paul-elliott

http://www.roman-artifacts.com/military accessories/Lead Sling Bullet/Lead Sling Bullet.htm

I played at it as a kid, though spent more hours throwing a hammer I made from a big old lag bolt and a bunch of nuts. Same concept except you let everything go. OK I was a Mighty Thor Fan when comics were 15 cents alright already what can I say. Cotton Tail I hit with it did not even kick.

Long about 1988 I got asked to do a primitive weapons class for of all things a 4-H state event and had several weeks of lead time. got out the "blue suede tennis shoe tongue and attached two stage lines thusly" and had a couple of weeks worth of selecting good rocks and hurling them. No doubt I would have starved to death even after all that but I could hit a 3 foot by 3 foot square at 50 feet most every time which was enough for the kids.

Unfortunately a decade back I developed "shoulder problems" including bone spurs. This past year I tried the similar bolo throwing. After about forty throws with few getting near to my stick target at 30'feet I quit after my three bits of string and three socket wrench sockets wound up around my son's left shin.....and he was standing 90 degrees out from the target on my left...still not sure how I did not hit myself in the face on that one.

Good luck to all you would be Peltists. Oh and try the golfers learning driving "trick" by using golf balls as ammo and hurling into a heavy blanket hung over a clothes line fairly close until you get some control....also helps to be able to recover your standardized ammo from the bottom edge of the blanket at ten yards rather than wandering the neighbor hood hoping not to see any broken glass. Once you can keep them o the blanket hang a pie plate in the middle of the blanket. When you can hit the pie plate most of the time and darned close the rest....move back another ten yards.

-kBob

Fred Fuller said:

Never got very accurate, but could achieve some pretty respectable distances.

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Pretty much my experience too.

I recon minute of phalanx is good enough for gub'ment work though.

I would spin the sling in a circle and try to get the most velocity but the release was always off.

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Well ther's yer problum

The spinning round and round to "build up speed" I have been told is neither historically accurate, nor effective even with modern equipment. Nobody's really sure where anybody got this idea, though if I were a betting man I'd say it was Victorian-age historians (they made up a surprising amount of stuff we accept as "historical.")
The spinning thing causes the strings to twist, making the release unreliable. Also the revolutions often exceed the human reaction time, making timing of the release almost impossible. It's more accurate to make a single, partial rotation, such as the overhand throw (like a trebuchet), using a the length of the sling as a mechanical extension of the arm.

I made my first sling around 1965, when I was in the army. Took me a few tries to keep from flinging stones into the ground or directly overhead, but I soon got to the point I could get them going more-or-less in the right direction and achieve very impressive distances.

I joined the "slinging.org" site a few years ago... We have a lot of discussions on all sorts of primitive weapons.

Lately, I have been slinging tennis balls in the back yard for the dogs, who dutifully chase them down and save dad some running...
My accuracy has greatly improved since I adopted the "Apache" style....

My target is the padlock/hasp on my outbuilding and I can hit it a few times out of ten most days from about 50 feet.

I've been to slinging.org before. Awesome site. I have been trying to get into slinging, but rocks are strangers to my area. I do own and have used several paracord and socket/nut bolas that I have found to be fairly handy to have around.