Best slingshot ammo/projectile?

I've had good luck with glass marbles.

For target shooting / pratice - i shoot 3/8 steel ball bearings. Most guys use for hunting. There are some better choices for the bands that come on the Crossman. I like flat bans but there are some good tube bands out there now - Use goggle & You Tube to find out more -
Tom Hudson

My roommate has the same Crosman slingshot - we use .50 cal LRB, the swaged Hornady. I used to have a flintlock, but sold it, so I have hundreds of the balls still around. They go PLENTY fast - bust right through a 2x4.

LawDog

I seem to remember from a LawDog post long ago that he made reference to using 3/8 nuts (as in "nuts and bolts") as slingshot ammo when he were a mere lad.

You might want to check out the ballistic characteristics of various standard sizes of nuts.

I had a wrist rocket when they first came out. I went through my dad's miscellaneous bolt and nut collection in pretty short order!

We had an obnoxious neighbor who had this metal storage shed about 90 feet away. I remember I got the front doors to that shed down to a T, I could hit it with any nut or bolt out of dad's collection!

The neighbor approached me and told me when his metal shed starts to heat up with the sun in the morning and cool down in the evening, the metal makes these loud popping noises! Honestly, I kept a straight face, thinking "the guy doesn't even notice the dents in the white metal doors?"

LOL

I was quite the prankster.
I have mellowed with age (thank God), I still have all my teeth.

Maybe some day I will have another good story from my past. I like it that way, in my PAST!

i used to fire .22 blanks out of mine at a cinder block, they make one heck of a bang! you can make shotgun shells for your slingshot if you put some BBs into a water bottle cap and put paper over the top and seal it by tucking the edges of the paper into the sides of the cap, you can make small lengths of aluminum pipe and pour molten lead into them, they are incredibly powerful and incredibly heavy! i used to launch smoke bombs out of mine, they would emit a stream of smoke while they flew, and my personal favorite when i was young was cherry bombs. you could have your buddy light one and you let go of the pouch, the thing a couple hundred feet before it blows up. it's pretty cool. also you can tape a bunch of short lengths of sparklers together and have aerial flares! also you may get a musket ball mold and make them for free. you can also cut a solid 1/2 inch steel re-bar into short lengths, those are devastating! i have broken cinder blocks with that type of ammo, it is serious stuff!

I always used the neighbor's lava rocks.
When we weren't there, we shot whatever we could find. Always plenty of rocks around. I was pretty good with that little sucker.

I think you get more velocity from 00 or 000 buckshot than from the larger .44+ size lead muzzleloader balls, and they're cheaper, too.

so what is a cheap source for ball bearings, or do you all think nuts work out to cheaper?
any idea how marbles compare price wise?

Ive been trying to decide for some time what i might buy for mine, been using random rocks which do not work very well.

From the Crossman Folder I am using glass marbles from the Dollar Store I seem to recall we got 30 plus a big shooter for a Buck. At 12 to 15 feet my ten year old has shot a marble through a water filled aluminum soda can. They bury themselves so deep in my styrofoam arrow stop I can not recoverthem without destroying the block and will no longer shoot arrows at it.

As a kid I used a lot of "quartz" pebbles always trying for the most uniform rocks of about the size of a marble.

-kBob

Tungsten balls, approx pea sized. I believe it is illegal to use tungsten in bullets for firearms. But legal to use them for slingshots. you can buy them over the internet. Tungsten is something like 3 or 4 times heavier than lead. Harder than lead too.

I believe it is illegal to use tungsten in bullets for firearms.

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Perfectly legal in longarms.

Tungsten-Iron alloy shot is common for shotguns.

Tungsten

Tungsten is something like 3 or 4 times heavier than lead.

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As much as I really wish that were true, the actual relation is


Tungsten just happens to be the heaviest, most stable, easily available, reasonably affordable, relatively non-toxic metal within spitting distance of lead. Gold is heavier than Tungsten (at 196.97) but hardly affordable to shoot. Now, if you could find a good source for metalic Bismuth, that would be awesome, since it is, in fact, heavier (at 208.98) than lead.

Maybe a nice Tungsten-Bismuth alloy. Perhaps our resident Materials Scientist (hso) would be kind enough to comment on the practicalities of using Bismuth for hunting rather than upset stomach remedies. (Yes, stomach remedies. You know, "Pepto Bismol?")

Bismuth is too dang expensive... other than that, it's good. I stick with lead because it's heavy and deforms, reducing the chances of a ricochet.

Bismuth Bronze

Didn't expect this:

Bismuth was also known to the Incas and used (along with the usual copper and tin) in a special bronze alloy for knives.

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Interesting metal. "About twice as abundant as gold." Yeah, that'll drive the price up.

Interesting that it has, in fact, been used in bullets.

But a bismuth-bronze knife blade would be too kewl.

Atomic weight is not the same as specific gravity. Tungsten's specific gravity is around 19.6, lead's is around 11.34, bismuth is around 9.75, and steel is around 7.85.

Well, Well . . .

Indeed.

Atomic weight is not the same as specific gravity. Tungsten's specific gravity is around 19.6, lead's is around 11.34, bismuth is around 9.75, and steel is around 7.85.

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I did a little reading. You are quite correct.

While lead has a higher atomic number and atomic mass, the actual weight-by-volume of a substance is also a function of its molecular structure, so that a metal having heavy atoms may not have as many of those atoms in a given molecular/crystaline structure. Therefore, a metal made of heavy atoms, but having lots of empty space between them, will not be as dense (mass-per-volume) as another metal having somewhat lighter atoms, but packing more of them into its molecular/crystaline structures.

This accounts for tungsten having almost the same density as gold, though gold's atoms "weigh more," tungsten crams more of its "slightly lighter" atoms into the same space.

It turns out, then, that a given volume of tungsten is a little over one and a half times as heavy as that same volume of lead (1.7 times, actually).


Gentelmen, I stand corrected.

Thank you.

interesting read.

So a steel-jacketed tungsten projectile would be
a logical product?

So a steel-jacketed tungsten projectile would be
a logical product?

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Well, maybe not steel jacketed... but tungsten cored small arms ammunition exists.

M995 is tungsten cored AP 5.56 fer'instance

Buy yourself a bag of 00 buck. It'll last 20 years or so, unless your Wrist Rocket goes full auto!

I am told that my wife's uncle used to collect .45 ACP bullets off the ground at the shooting range, and use those for his slingshot. Apparently, they were used to encourage nighttime loiterers near his house to move along.

Regards,
Tom

I like shooting M80s and firecrackers through them! LOL Also like 00 buck!