I noticed today that slingshots sell from three to ten dollars at K-Mart and Walmart. Replacement bands are only three dollars.

That's so cheap every house in America can afford one.

So is there any point to having one?

I'm not looking for the philosopher to say, "It can't hurt to own one."

I'm looking for the opinions of those who have experience with them.

Is a slingshot merely a child's toy? If you hit a squirrel with a pebble, would it drop the squirrel? If you hit a thug from thirty yards, would he care?

I ask because I suppose that it is not a good idea to believe that one has a useful weapon which is in truth a toy.

-- GA Russell (garussell@russellga.com), March 16, 1999

Answers

When is it ever an error to have knowledge about any particular skill? How about learning to shoot a bow...I remember learning as a teen with a good bow...Resources are: what you know and who you know...go for it. You know the old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Answer: Practice, man, practice!

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 16, 1999.

worthless, eccept for entertainment. the bands on a wristrocket are made of surgical tubing, which begins to wear out after ten or fifteen pulls.

-- ed (edrider007@aol.com), March 16, 1999.

also, I hit a squirrel at about fifteen yards with a wristrocket, and it surely knocked the shit out of him, but then he looked right at me and started chattering like I never heard a squirrel chatter in my life! I thought he was gonna run right up to me and attack me!

-- ed (edrider007@aol.com), March 16, 1999.

I've owned a shot wrist rockets for years, and no,,,the tubeing doesn't wear out after 10-15 pulls,,,replace each year,,keep spares out of direct sun. A 9/16 nut will kill at 50' anywhere in the head,,,will penatrate the skull of a large dog,,I mean completely,,,crack it on the other side. A litte practise with a uniform ammo and you can hunt squrill and such.

-- CT (ct@no.yr), March 16, 1999.

So how bout rifle,..bow are backup...slingshot as backup for that...where are your brains?

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 16, 1999.

They're good for hoisting things up into tree branches, like radio antennas. Also good for directing water dogs to downed waterfowl on real windy days when dog can't hear verbal directions or smell the bird.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 16, 1999.

We made slingshots using strips (1/4 - 3/8" wide) of car inner tubes. However today's rubber may not be the same. Tied them to fork and leather "chamber" with string. Used roundish flat broken pieces of cast iron as ammo.

Be careful!

-- Not Again! (seenit@ww2.com), March 16, 1999.

It is possible to drop small game with a slingshot and quarter-inch steel bearings for ammunition. Of course the key ingredient is accuracy. As already noted, one could wear out a lot of slingshots before acquiring the necessary proficiency. But the only possibility of stopping, or slowing a thug would be to aim and hit an eye. At thirty yards, that's quite a shot with a firearm, to say nothing of a slingshot.

On a side note, an individual proficient with a true *sling* could kill a man at that distance a la David and Goliath. However, one does not use quarter-inch steel bearings with a sling either. :-)

OTOH, don't bring a sling to a gunfight.

-- Elbow Grease (Elbow_Grease@AutoShop.com), March 16, 1999.

When I was a kid I made mine out of inter tubes, tyeing the strips onto a Y stick with twine. Went through about 37 prototypes before I got it right.

I killed several rabbits with a sling shot. It is now 40 yrs later and I still will not admit anything about the nieghbors 2 cats. (But they will never eat a kids hampster again.)

I can also give you an approximation for shots on flying birds. It's somewhere in the area of 19,736 attempts to one hit. I know.

BTW, you can add to the total of direct hits - 1 window. Grandpa Bear showed me the wisdom of not doing that again. The experience also lead to a great inventiveness in me. I learned many things you can do without sitting down for 3-4 days.

Another memory about the window incident is that you can only ride a bicycle so far without sitting down or jumping off. It was during that period that I perfected my technique of riding till exhausted and jumping off, hitting the ground and rolling to spread the bruises around.

--Greybear, who never used anything but rocks. To this day I can't resist picking up a perfect round rock.

- Got String?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), March 16, 1999.

If an AR-15 and 5,000 rounds of .223 are not in your future, skip the slingshot and go straight to a pump, pellet gun. A good one will run $80+, but with practice can kill a squirrel or a rabbit. Be carefull if you buy a "Red Ryder", it can put your eye out!

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), March 16, 1999.

We hunted rabbits with slingshots when I was a kid...and yes, they were the inner tube home made kind. My dad made certain all four kids could make/bait/and use their own fishing pole with thorn hook...and make and use a sling shot to kill rabbit. We had to clean the fish, but I don't remember skinning the rabbit. I do remember eating it.

We used stones...and you bet they will kill at least a rabbit. I think I'd bet on the before I'd use those dinky little pellets. I bought one at Walmart... My thought is it'll be good for dog control, or cats. Wild dogs are not a pretty sight.

-- Shelia (shelia@active-stream.com), March 17, 1999.

I meant to say, 'I'd bet on the stones before the pellets...

-- Shelia (shelia@active-stream.com), March 17, 1999.

SlingSHOT or "wrist rocket" shoots because of stretch of the bands contracting. Shoots pellet, rock, etc. from the pad at one end of the bands through the "Y" holding the other ends of the bands.

David's (of Goliath fame) was a sling (period). Nothing stretchy in it. Rock goes in the pad attached to two long leather strips. Hold the ends of the two strips (in one hand), swirl/twirl the thing in a circle, release ONE of the strip ends, freeing the projectile, at the proper moment from the pad. Takes more practice, but probably deadlier. But also probably slower to "reload" and fire.

-- A (A@AisA.com), March 17, 1999.

Crossbows, both full-size and "pistol" size could be better than nothing at short range if you don't have multiple targets.

Crossbow was the cause of the end of the medieval armoured knight. Crossbow bolts could penetrate where longbow arrows couldn't, is my recolletion. Of course, guns superseded them, but something is better than nothing.

Remember, the ancient asian despots made it illegal for peasants to have swords. So, things like nunchucks used in martial arts are nothing more than a farmer's tool of the time for flaying grain. Etc.

-- A (A@AisA.com), March 17, 1999.

Thanks for your responses. I'll be sure to pick one up.

Dear A,

The story I read about the end of the suit of armor was this:

The English approached the Battle of Agincourt with longbows. The longbow was made from the wood of the yew tree, and to shoot the longbow was called "plucking yew".

The French commander was so confident of victory that he promised that his men would sever the middle finger of the few surviving English archers. The middle finger was required to properly draw and aim the longbow.

The big day came, and the arrows of the English longbows were found to be able to pierce the French armor, so that the French soldiers were unable to get close enough to the English to engage in the swordplay and hand to hand combat in which they excelled.

As the English soldiers routed the French in retreat, the English waved their middle fingers at the French and shouted, "I can still pluck yew!"

This proud tale was told throughout England, and the populace developed the habit of showing defiance in their daily lives by waving their middle finger and saying "Pluck yew".

I imagine that such an act of defiance was considered much more mild than saying "Go to hell".

Anyway, we all know how centuries later adulterers were placed in the public stockades with the sign hanging from their necks stating "For Unlawful Carnal Knowldege", and what term arose from that practice. So it is easy to imagine that the uneducated of Britain unknowingly transformed a prideful show of disdain into something vulgar.

That's the story I read, anyway. So it was the longbow, not the crossbow, which ended the suit of armor.

Got a middle finger?

-- GA Russell (garussell@russellga.com), March 17, 1999.

I have a Crosman American Classic 1377 pistol pellet gun in standard .177 caliber I bought several years ago. It's a pneumatic pump- compression (ten pump) pistol with a 13" rifled barrel and it's accurate as can be for an airgun out to 75 yards or more. (I can consistently bullseye a 1" target at 75 yds. with no scope, etc. on six pumps with a BB. For an airgun that ain't at all bad. It's almost as accurate as an average .22 pistol for targets at 30 yards I found in benchfire tests.)

Rated muzzle velocity with a fieldpoint pellet reaches 560 fps, and it gets 510 fps with a BB. (Compare to a CO2-powered BB gun that typically maxes out at 300-ish fps for a pellet. It is a manual- loader, though, with no cartridge or ammo-bin of any sort, so you have to load for each shot. This is the only real disadvantage I find with it.

Crosman makes a rifle-stock for it that replaces the grips in case you want a bit more stability. They also have a .22 version for the bigger pellets.

Picture of the newest version of it is here:

http://www.crosman.com/cgi- bin/carbo.dll?icatcommand=itempg2&passitemid=157&secid=1&subsecid=16&e flag=0&itmcnt=9&catalogname=Gunshop&orderidentifier=204.49.91.142- 921686773

The .22 version is here:

http://www.crosman.com/cgi- bin/carbo.dll?icatcommand=itempg2&passitemid=158&secid=1&subsecid=16&e flag=0&itmcnt=10&catalogname=Gunshop&orderidentifier=204.49.91.142- 921686773

If you want a great short-range plinker with power that's a hell of a lot more rugged and more accurate than a slingshot, pick up one of these for about $50 and a few 5,000-round boxes of Copperhead BBs. Awesome for small-game hunting, capable of killing medium-sized animals and small dogs and wounding larger dogs severely enough to sometimes disuade an attack (I know, I shot a Rott in the side with it that was trying to attack my cat and the massive mutt ran screaming from the wound. Those little BBs sting something fierce!) Easy to handle, easy to load, pretty damn accurate, ruggedly built, and easy to find (Try SmallMart, which often stocks one or two.)

Best of all, airgun laws are MUCH more relaxed than firearm laws and you can usually leave the store with one immediately. :-)

OddOne, who's had his American Classic plinker for almost eight years now and it's still awesome for a BB pistol.

-- OddOne (mocklamer@geocities.com), March 17, 1999.

My father made a slingshot from a pail handle. It was bent to look like a steel "U" with a handle out the bottom. The pail handle already comes equipped with the loops at the ends to tie the rubber strips. The rubber was cut from an inner tube and there was a leather pocket between them to hold a large nut or bearing. The pull was about 2 feet and it was very deadly. He used it, among other things, to knock off the rats around my grandmothers chicken pen. They were totally deformed in the process.

Me.

p.s. Don't forget blow guns. There was a previous thread on these things. Four feet of 1/2 inch aluminum tubing with knitting kneedles pressed over golf tees for darts.

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), March 17, 1999.

I own a Marksman (not Crosman) 30.06. And I think that it`s relative. By the time I pull the pouch back far enough to do anything, my arm is shaking so bad I can`t hit anything anyway. But I still like to try.

Doug Mueller

-- Doug Mueller (THESUNMAN@webtv.com), October 09, 1999.

You could kill someone with a wrist rocket and a lugnut. No problem. The bigger your target, the less accurate you need be, obviously. I guarantee that even if you didn't hit them in the head, you'd most definitely slow them down and make them think twice about attacking. My husband claims he put a lugnut through a junk car door with one, I wasn't there, but I've never known him to lie about anything. Plenty of cheap or free ammo. ed has no clue what he's talking about. Surgical tubing lasts a long time. My dad seldom replaced his on his fishing spear, in salt water and lots of sun.

My son's pump rifle could kill someone at a fair distance too. I use it alot for vermin, snakes and chicken-stealing neighbor's dogs. Pumped ten times, it would kill a large dog with a head shot. Pretty darn accurate as stated before. Cheap ammo.

Silent weapons can do the job without 'announcing' you have one to the world, and it would be a *desperate* individual who would continue to rush your property after taking a lugnut to the chest. My guess is, they'd retreat to locate a less aggressive target, even if he had one or two partners with him. We also intend to use them to hunt game without running off everything else around our property. My husband bow hunts. We've stocked salt blocks to draw in deer, and our turkeys and ducks have attracted their wild counterparts.

We had a family gathering once that my brother brought a PVC 'potato' gun to. We were all impressed with it's distance. That was one of the most fun picnics we ever had. It still makes me chuckle just thinking about it. We all decided we wouldn't want to be the 'recipient' of one of those potatoes. He later sent me a book that gave instructions for various styles (including a shoulder mount launcher) using hairspray, butane, propane. Of course, it would be much more economical to grow your own ammo, and if fired into a crowd, you could disable untold numbers with the laughter they'd suffer from witnessing the victim layed out on your lawn! :)

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), October 09, 1999.

I've found marbles to work quite well ;-)

regards, Tim

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), October 09, 1999.

'Tater guns', that brings back some memories. I did however think about them as a deterrent a few days ago. As an aside, nothing to do with this thread, try putting a hollow log in a fire, insert 1 can of green peas into the log, stand back and watch (and listen).

PS - we have several slingshots and extra bands

-- BH (silentvoice@pobox.com), October 09, 1999.

one thing for.....slingshots kick ass!

-- Danny Kim (LiQuiD C02@aol.com), December 11, 1999.

You are right, the sling and slingshot are totally different animals. The slingshot will deliver a small projectile in a relatively flat arc at decent velocity. The sling can be used to deliver larger presents.

I have heard that some people have used slings to deliver hand grenades and other devices to greater distances than otherwise possible. I wonder if anyone has delivered cocktails, bottles of ammonia, etc?

-- tree (thetrees@bigfoot.com), December 11, 1999.