Hello,
If you look for " guet-apens en bord de seine" with Google, you find a french website.
More of four hundred slinstones made with chalk during the age of bronze in Normandy (France) had been found by archeologists.
I do a work about them. And so, as soon as possible, I say you the results.
For a good day.

It will depend on how dense the chalk is.  If it is light and crumbly, it may come apart in the cast or throw.  If it is of the same density as the chalk used to draw and write with on chalkboards, it should work fine.  Plus, it would be easy to shape by grinding, and if it stays together, it can be given additional weigh by soaking in water for a period of time.

So, it would make rather good ammunition for hunting something like birds, waterfowl, marmots or possibly for herding animals and driving off predators from the same flocks or herds. 

The ammunition would be made with the expectation that it would be used only once, so it would probably be rather roughly shaped to make the projectiles roughly the same shape and size.  Chalk is rather soft, so a lot of projectiles could be made rather quickly.

If it's used for target shooting it would leave a good mark on whatever you're throwing at as well so you can see your accuracy.

Hello,
Chalk is a hard stone. For exemple, the castels of the LOIRE valley had made with chalk. And many houses also.

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Sorry for the size of the photo. It is more large.

limestone, not chalk. probably a translation issue.
:-)

Still, limestone can be made much softer by soaking, so small chunks can be ground to size and shape.  And weight.  It will just take longer to amass a large supply of ammunition.

Hello,
Chalk is a limestone (general word) like Sandstone.
The density of chalk is between 1.4 and 2.2. It's depend the site. For exemple, the density of concrete is 2.2, (2.5 for armed concrete).
It's possible in the nature, find crumbly chalk but it's possible also find compact chalk.
Until I read this archeologic discovery, I search on the net what is chalk in reality.
Today, I think chalk is a good stone to make ammunition.
:)

My English is not perfect.
It isn't "until I read.." but "since I read..."
:-[

Hello,
I think ; use the unbranded word : limestone or use the geologic word : chalk isn't important.

The only important thing is the real stones. I'm not a geek but at this adress, you can see a photo of them.
https://www.inrap.fr/des-traces-de-pas-millenaires-en-normandie-13086
;)

Hello,
The archaeologists find a site of violent confrontation. They think that because they find more four hundred slingstones in two fords.
The time is at beginning of the bronze age, ( about 2000 before Christ).
People lives on a island on the river Seine. They had built a "village" with a "landing stage" and a bridge. There were also two fords at the other side of the island.
Archaeologists think today, people wait that the adversaries cross the fords to bomb them. Walking with the feet in the water is difficult and it's the good moment to bomb the group.
This is an abstract for the members who don't read french.
:)

that website is also in english :-)
what article am I looking for ?
got it - link to the article in english: https://www.inrap.fr/en/millennial-footprints-normandy-13107
https://www.inrap.fr/sites/inrap.fr/files/styles/album/public/thumbnails/image/fullsizerender_0.jpg

I would think that they would shatter on impact.

This is an interesting article. I wonder why the inhabitants used slings instead of (or more extensively than) bows or other missile weapons. They put a lot of time and effort into making these glandes so the sling wasn't a convenient weapon for them to use. The best explanations I can think of are: 1. They didn't know how to make/use or other missile weapons (unlikely); 2. Making other missile weapons was far more labor intensive (e.g. because the materials were difficult to obtain); 3. The sling was a more effective weapon for their purposes; 4. Cultural/historical reasons. Of course, it could also have been a combination of factors.

Hello, Slingbadger, Curious Aardvark, Shale and the others.
The photo shows the most beautiful of the bullets.
There are two splinters upside the stone. This shape like an egg is solid. The reason is geometric. But I'm not able to explain well. Perhaps, one of you ?
:)

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Follow-up,
This other photo to answer (for a small part) to Shale.
With a bloc of chalk and an axe, it's possible to make quickly many bullets like the others.
:)

I suspect the guys getting bombarded weren't wearing hard armor.  Not too much plate armor or maile in those times.  Their armor was probably made of leather.  And while, if they had them, their shields could have been made of wood, they could also have been a leather shield or a wooden framed shield with a stiffened leather face.  Either way, probably not going to make the projectiles shatter.

As far as why use a sling over a bow and arrow, you have to make arrows.  And first, you have to collect the materials to make the arrow.  So, after the fight, you went out and collected as many arrows as you could find.  These arrows weren't semi mass produced for an army, they were made by an individual for his own use. 

The only sling projectiles that were recovered are probably not the only ones thrown, those are just the ones that can be recognized as a sling stone.  The rest of the sling stones were just rocks.

The projectiles had on average a similar weight as the ten thousands of Maiden Castle slingstones,. Both I assume used blut force against unprotected body areas. That is quite a long time span for this concept to be applied. Shields would not be penetrated by either, but Joints or blnes with only thin tissue layers would surely be broken, not talking about an unprotected skull.  The chalk tiips are probably only for aerodynamics, not for piercing. Still I suspect they would aid in piercing unprotected skin, or concentrating the force on the impact site on a

Recently I made some replicas using my bronze axe to be authentic. The rocks were chalk from a nearby quarry, rather soft and coarse. The estimate is that the time of manufacture decreases significantly with every piece made. Compare to clay you have the projectiles ready quite fast, no need to dry and/or fire them. Also what I noticed with the replicas, the density of chalk is lower than clay, but they absorb water fast, you could even store them underwater to increase the density to increase the impact force. And remember, these things were found on a river bank, so they could have been thrown wet.

TOMBELAINE wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2018 at 5:14am:

Hello, Slingbadger, Curious Aardvark, Shale and the others. The photo shows the most beautiful of the bullets. There are two splinters upside the stone. This shape like an egg is solid. The reason is geometric. But I'm not able to explain well. Perhaps, one of you ? :)

My reproductions are all in a not that beautiful shape  :D :D ;D  Sometime just large fractions would brake off the rock when shaving over with the edge of the bronze axe blade...

Tombelaine, do you happen a weight table or diagram, or histogram, to get a better feeling for the weight distribution of the bullet weights and lengths/diameters?

Hello,
Yes, Funditor.
To make replicas is the most important to get feeling the problem.
But, it's necessary for me to drive minimum 1 hour to find chalk. :(

Sorry for my English !
I think it's better to say : "selfmade replicas is most important to feel the slingstones".