Slingshot Hunting???

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Mokwepa

Member
Joined
May 2, 2009
Messages
307
Location
Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa
Hi Guys

Off the knife making thing for a short while, Trying my hand at hunting with a slingshot. I have the equiptment to hunt efectively (ie .22, shotguns etc) but choose to make life difficult for myself and am trying the fairly primitive styles of hunting. I have heard many stories of people hunting small game with slingshots and certainly believe it can be done however i have not met someone that can give me first hand advice. I need some help with aiming tecnique(ie: hold the slingshot at 12o'clock or at 3 o'clock as per the manual) and stratergies for hunting doves, guinnea fowl, francolin and maybe hares. Ive bought a Daisy P51 and am shooting .50cal lead balls from my BP rifle. This combo should certainly do the job if i can just get on target.

Ive met lots of people that have told me how to get it right without having done it themselves. If any of you have hunted with a slingshot, pleases share your thoughts and knowledge or a good website with some decent info.
 
Man I'm sorry I thought someone else responded. I like the tapered slingshots that fold. They all will shot a 5/16 steely hard enough. I could hit a shotgun shell at 25 yds , thats good enough. To practice use a corrugated box with a heavy piece of cloth in the center. I used pharmaceutical bottles to practice with and started at 10 and moved out two 25. If I only had two tools to take it would be a slingshot and big knife. Next two would be a sleeping bag and tarp.:)
 
When I was a junker, I used to hunt quite a bit with a Whamo Wrist Rocket. I used .45 caliber muzzleloader balls from my dad's Hawken, or my Kentucky. Get a mold, because the only way to get good is practice, and more practice. I could say use the space between the slingshot's uprights as an aiming point, and that would be good advice, but I'm sure you've figured that out already.
 
I had a wrist rocket too. Most accurate ammo I could find that didn't cost a fortune was plain old marbles. They'd hit plenty hard enough for small game, and were tough enough not to break on game, but were kinda spectacular when they hit cement...
 
Mokwepa, I used a Wrist Rocket for several years before I got my hands on a .20 cal Sheridan pump air rifle. Didn't use the Wrist Rocket much after that.
After much practice, typically using the 5/16" steel balls, I would center my target at the top of the fork the latex tubing was attached to. Based on distance away (and experience), I would drop the target lower between the fork. I considered them pretty close range tools (under 100').
I used lead balls if I could get them (up to .45 caliber in size), but usually was stuck with the smaller steel balls. I would want, based on seeing the size of a guinea fowl, something like a .45 or .50 lead ball, if I ever got to shoot one. BTW, I didn't shoot anything bigger than a couple pound cottontail rabbit, and I consider them fairly fragile. Mostly shot at pest birds like European Starlings and blackbirds.
 
I've used buckshot and marbles for hunting squirrels and rabbits. I rarely hunt birds, but the few that I have taken fell to hand-rolled and mostly-dried clay balls. Hey, it was a survival course. And it worked.
 
Have you thought about modifying a normal wristrocket into a SlingBow?

You can start out with this one on the cheap for less than a buck...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGIcCRJGYug

This version is a bit more expensive because it uses a Whisker Biscuit as the arrow rest, but I think it's faster and more accurate to boot...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6LxKfpAPYA&feature=channel

Here is how to add a fishing rig to the SlingBow for a few bucks...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyxjnDNHW7Y&feature=related
 
Now the big ?

With a .50 cal lead ball (weighed mine at 177gn) , what velocity should i work up to for hunting? I have different rubber to try out and obviously, faster is better but what would you guys considder to be minimum velocity? I have a chrono and will crono mine but want your opinions first (If i say that mine does 150fps(dont know yet), there will always be someone that has a SUPER slingshot that does 300fps. Realistic figures please. I would appreciate some help.

Regardless of what i hunt with, i want to be as efficient as possible. This is quite involved for a slingshot, i know, but i want to be the best i can not having to worry about the equiptment.:)
 
I tried using 50 cal lead balls. They are too heavy. Go with 32 caliber lead balls.
 
I also have a wrist rocket and it comes into the treestand often times during archery season and sometimes even rifle season. I can't really explain how to aim one. Practice will be the most important thing you can do. I use 5/16" ball bearings and hold it at 9 o'clock (I'm left handed). I really try and find the same anchor point time after time. Very similar to shooting archery instictive you repeat the same thing over and over. I have picked off several tree rats and rabbits and even a couple of possums from my stand. I even take it into the ground blind during turkey season. Works well to drive off unwanted animals that might scare off the turkey.
 
I never forget, when I was a young child, watchin an older Kid make his first, pardon the term, "****** Shooter", as they were called then. Any way, after much construction, he placed his marble in the pouch, an proceed to stick his thumb up between the limbs, to use as a sight. Needless to say, I leaned what not to do. He did make that funny face though.
 
I use .45 lead balls and .38 steel ones in my Barnett folder, don't use it that much, but I was a better shot with one a made as a kid.

I found the perfect "Y" shape growing in a tree, climbed up with a saw and relieved the tree of it. Combined it with a strip of inner tube and a leather patch from the local shoe mender and I made a wicked new toy:evil:

Although I must say, getting chased by the police through the woods was highly educational in being more selective with my targets....:eek:
 
When I was 8, my grandfather and I made a slingshot from a cedar Y-branch on his ranch. It is almost identical to the one he carried as a kid, and I still have both under glass. I carried that slingshot for 10+ years, and got VERY good with it. At the time, we had flower beds in our yard topped with landscape gravel, and those pebbles were the perfect size. I used to sit in my grandfathers yard in Fredericskburg, TX, and in a few hours would have a bucket full of dead sparrows, shot from the canopy of oaks covering the yard.

As for the hold, I am left eye dominate and right handed, so I canted the sling with the right hand at 10 O'Clock. No aiming was ever involved, unless I wanted to miss. Slingshots are all about having the same repeated hold and a quick release. After a few thousand shots, muscle memory will put your shots on target. Not a fan of the wrist rockets; the cross support inflicts quite a bit of pain on the forearm.

Those were VERY Good times---
 
Last edited:
<Bob Brister voice>

Slingshots are pointed- not aimed.

I come up with homemade slingshots, and still prefer them.
Just...It is darn difficult to find red inner tubes now-a-days. *wink*

It is a eye-hand coordination bit , so don't try to overcome the natural "human computer".
Don't think, just focus on target and shoot the darn thing!!

Marbles, ball bearings, rocks...have taken lots game for me.
Slingshots have also been a very very effective non-firearm defensive weapon as well.
Along with being part of the "tool box" for ... "offensive strategy and tactics".


s
 
Back when i was a bit younger i carried my wrist rocket every where. With enough practice anything small and some things not so small can be brought down. Would shoot rabbits, squirrels, coon, turkeys, and even ducks when they would land on the pond. It worked to kill em all.
 
I agree with those above:

1. A slingshot should be shot instinctively like a recurve or longbow--not aimed.

2. A .50 lead ball seems too heavy. The .32 lead sounds very good. Maybe the .45 in lead. A marble is pretty fair--perhaps a bit light. Steel ball bearings are good--the 5/16 (.31 cal.) are marginal in size/weight--Maybe 3/8" (.37 cal.) steel would be ideal.

Definitely the "heavy duty" bands for hunting. I wish they made heavier commercial bands that were about 45 lbs pull.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Appalachiannative
Want to try sporting clays
2 3
Replies
64
Views
3K
d2wing
d2wing
A
  • Locked
Truly Primitive Hunting Without Firearms
Replies
18
Views
1K
MCgunner
M
B
  • Locked
Is this typical of coyote hunting?
Replies
24
Views
2K
litman252
L
H&Hhunter
  • Locked
Most relaxing, enjoyable hunts in North America.
2
Replies
27
Views
1K
allaroundhunter
A
Z
  • Locked
Hunting Grizzly Bear with a Spear
2 3
Replies
63
Views
5K
Art Eatman
A
Back
Top