The Smithsonian channel is running a series called the world of weapons. They analyze weapons mostly from the past and explain their advantages and disadvantages. The sling will be on the series.

Interesting to see what they say and who they get on to say it. I'm going to go ahead and guess it will be an archaeologist that's used a sling for 30 mins 15 years ago :D

yeah - no-one contacted me, so they probably haven't done much research.

Still you never know - think positive :-)

30 whole mins? You don’t give them enough credit. They used that thing for a  45 mins Kick. They are practically an expert.  ::)

Watching the sling segment now. Very well researched. The slinger their using is Luis Pons Livermore, champion slinger.

any link ??

https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/world-of-weapons/1006412

I found it here but I'm not able to watch it over here (still haven't got myself a VPN).

Thanks for sharing.  This series also did an episode that had a trebuchet.  I will have to figure out how to watch this show.  I am very interested now.

I watched the series.  I thought the sling segment was great.  They had Luis make a sling, attempt to train some people with tennis balls, and they took some footage of Balearic slingers from David Morningstar's Youtube channel (I think).  But best of all, they filmed Luis throwing and had him put a stone through a chronograph, shoot a ballistic gel dummy, and put a glans (glandes) into the dummy.  I think they even mentioned the weight of the stone and the meters per second, but I can't remember how much the stone weighed.  It was going 52 meters per second I think.

I liked the trebuchet segment too.  But overall I found the series kind of bland, disappointing, and with very poor writing.  The episodes didn't tie together at all, and each episode had three different weapons which sometimes didn't tie together either.  It would have been better focused entirely on the ancient and medieval worlds.  Or at least if it had left out the 20th century.  It had too wide of a scope in trying to cover weapons from the stone age to the future and thus left out a lot of cool ancient weapons.  And the show made some attempts to moralize war by showing the human cost of the weapons, but while showing the human cost of weapons is generally a good thing, it just didn't seem to fit in with the overall narrative.  And it didn't give any single weapon enough time to be really worthwhile.  Jack of all trades, master of nothing.  A person would be better off doing their own research into things they are interested in.

The best part was the experiments and the hands-on stuff, like with the sling and the trebuchet.  But a lot of the experiments were kind of poorly designed and hasty.  They made a cannon and then shot it through a "ship" which wasn't nearly as thick as a real ship.  Especially the catapult segment was poor.  The ballista was very underpowered and weak and the bolts weren't flying properly.  They did an accuracy test and half of the shots missed a large tower shield at like 20 meters.  Then they said, "for the ancient world this is remarkably accurate."  Thus they did poor tests and overvalued their tests.

But the Mike Loades stuff was great.  Because Mike Loades.

I just bought the episode on Google Play for $2. Worth it to watch Luis absolutely obliterate some stuff.  52 m/s at that small of a target is no joke. That's incredible.

Brandon F on YouTube just made a good video talking about the series.  Maybe his breakdown of the problems with just one of the experiments (with rifles) will help to clarify what I was saying earlier about how the experimentation is poor.  The experimentation is indeed entertaining, but it could be SO much better by making it more historical and scientific.  You can't really call it either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdx0Fe5QtWM

Even the slinging segment could have been improved easily with better writing, more specific conclusions, and more scientifically conducted experiments.

IronGoober wrote on Jun 12^th, 2020 at 6:17pm:

I just bought the episode on Google Play for $2. Worth it to watch Luis absolutely obliterate some stuff.  52 m/s at that small of a target is no joke. That's incredible.

Always knew when Luis was slinging during the competition in Mallorca.
CRACK! BANG! "Yep Luis is up again..."

52m/s with the size of stones he used is insane power.

Morphy wrote on Jun 13^th, 2020 at 9:15am:

52m/s with the size of stones he used is insane power.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the sling and stones he was using were different than his usual setup. It looked like the sling was lighter and the stone looked smaller.  Doesn't detract from the fact that I'm not sure I could hit 116 MPH, EVER.

IronGoober wrote on Jun 28^th, 2020 at 2:11am:

Morphy wrote on Jun 13th, 2020 at 9:15am: 52m/s with the size of stones he used is insane power. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the sling and stones he was using were different than his usual setup. It looked like the sling was lighter and the stone looked smaller.  Doesn't detract from the fact that I'm not sure I could hit 116 MPH, EVER.

Ya with accuracy makes it even more amazing. Throwing slow and accurate is great but that degree of speed and accuracy is a whole other level.

The numbers are crazy
Out throws me in every aspect

wow I remember when they were making the video.

Talked to luis about it at the time.
He reckoned his biggest problem was actually balancing something as small as a lead glande on his sling.
The fact that he managed to do it at all and hit something - tells you how good he is.

yeah he is an awesome slinger, and a thoroughly good bloke as well :-)
He's one of those that slings full power for targets.
Has a really neat technique where he partially crouches and uses the uncoiling power from his knees and leg muscles to add to the throw.

I think diego has video of me copying it during a slighlty inebriated evening when I was doing slinger style impressions.
Not entirely sure my knees could take it any more :-(

And david was over the moon when they asked to use his video footage.

It was sometime either last year or the year before.

And I wouldn't worry about being outclassed by luis - there are maybe a half dozen guys in the world as accurate and none who sling as accurately and as hard as he does. 

And No I STILL won't stand against a wall while he slings tennis balls between my legs :-)
Having him and Raul (new generation menorcan no1) target me when we were just slinging sea sponges at each other, was bad enough lol

He is a powerhouse

Tried various ways to get in but cannot watch it.  :-/
VPN don't work unless you have a US billing address

I think I found it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG0alkUXyKE0alkUXyKE

Saying Luis is the best slinger in the world is controversial ;D He's a much better slinger than me (and better than I'll ever be) but I think Jaegoor might have him beat.

I wouldn't say that it's perfect, but I feel I would be nit picking to point some things out. Overall it's good to see the sling being treated seriously and hopefully it will get more people interested in slinging.

AncientCraftwork wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2020 at 3:40am:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG0alkUXyKE0alkUXyKE

it takes him 30minutes to make a balearic sling? pretty fast

Kick wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2020 at 4:21am:

I wouldn't say that it's perfect, but I feel I would be nit picking to point some things out. Overall it's good to see the sling being treated seriously and hopefully it will get more people interested in slinging.

I think it's hard to avoid that with popular format. It's just not so catchy to give nuanced points, or say "Probably this, but we don't really know".

Hmm, jaegoor versus luis.
Luis throws a lot harder - always.
So in a combat situation - I'd always give luis the edge.

Jaegoor on the other hand is unmatched at low power snap accuracy - he does train almost every single day !
It shows :-)

Certainly luis is one of the top 5 in the world.

As there's never been a competition that tests all the aspects of a total slinger.
It's impossibble to say who is world number 1
There are certainly a good half dozen who would be in the running.

Some are better at short distance accuracy, some better at distance.
There's never been any competition for distance accuracy - say 100-200 metres.
So that would be a fascinating competition.
If I ever winf the lottery I'll stage it :-)

It's fairly safe to say that luis is the most consistently hard throwing slinger currently in the world.
I mean when you're 6 feet 5 inches tall, built like a tank and a professional fitness expert - you do have a certain natural advantage :-)

Sarosh wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2020 at 10:31am:

AncientCraftwork wrote on Jul 23rd, 2020 at 3:40am: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG0alkUXyKE0alkUXyKE it takes him 30minutes to make a balearic sling? pretty fast

If you have the fibers all ready then I guess you can braid a simple one together really fast.
For his personal ones I think he spends at least 10 hours, and that is excluding fibre processing

i will put my my money on RS as the best slinger in the world

He really did make those rocks explode on the dianas at the international. I really wouldn't want to get hit by anything he's slinging.

AncientCraftwork wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2020 at 12:54pm:

i will put my my money on RS as the best slinger in the world

That goes with out saying.  ;D

AncientCraftwork wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2020 at 12:54pm:

i will put my my money on RS as the best slinger in the world

Well now we’re going to have to add another test. We have short distance accuracy, power, long range throwing... but now we must add stone fishing!

I’d be willing to bet that neither Jaegoor nor Luis can use a one-piece noodle sling to throw a flat stone turkey style at a pond and make all the fish float to the surface like RS can!

Anyone else notice the stone slipping out of the sling early at 26:40?

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IronGoober wrote on Jul 24^th, 2020 at 2:39am:

Anyone else notice the stone slipping out of the sling early at 26:40?

Yes! Stood out like a sore thumb

AncientCraftwork wrote on Jul 24^th, 2020 at 3:25am:

IronGoober wrote on Jul 24th, 2020 at 2:39am: Anyone else notice the stone slipping out of the sling early at 26:40? Yes, that's what happens when you have thin cords tied to a flexible pouch at the middle. They flex sideways. If he used a cradle pouch instead he would not have that problem like on this staff sling. Cradle pouches allow very good sideways stability even with very flexible thin slings. I no longer use this type of staff but i still use the cradle pouch depicted here as a hand sling It works wonderfully well even with 500G+ rocks and as a hand sling. It made me realize that thick stiff cords are really not a neccesity for heavy rock slinging, it's the sideways stability that matters, not the stiffness or weight. I can throw heavy rocks much further and farther with this thin cord cradle pouch sling than with a heavy stiff balearic sling of this size. The rock depicted here is a 500g rock and I have no trouble throwing it as a hand sling pirouette style. In fact I throw it further that way than using the staff. I only get very dizzy  :o

The sideways stability you speak of is a crucial factor for retention of large and odd shaped stones. I call it pouch rolling when the pouch rolls over and dumps the stone out sideways, and roll resistance or stability the characteristic of a sling which resists this. Seems to account for nearly all premature stone drops.

It is why I mainly favour balearic or thicker apache for larger stones. You can also replicate some of the effect by whipping either side of the pouch to increase stiffness, or using a stiff connection method. Not tried a cradle type pouch before.

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I use a split pouch sling nearly 100% of the time (only recently have I tried out new slings). I have very rarely had a problem with stones falling out unless I have a weird wind-up. While some sling designs this can be problematic, split pouches I have used fit almost everything quite snugly.

And I was only pointing it out because I thought it was funny to have a "highlight" picture of someone throwing an errant shot. Probably put in the reel because the person didn't know much about slinging.

I Alsation don’t have any issues with slipping stones, polished steel balls however are a different story, need them to be perfect

IronGoober wrote on Jul 26^th, 2020 at 11:53pm:

I use a split pouch sling nearly 100% of the time (only recently have I tried out new slings). I have very rarely had a problem with stones falling out unless I have a weird wind-up. While some sling designs this can be problematic, split pouches I have used fit almost everything quite snugly.

I found the same thing. Where I have run into problems however, is when each side of the split pouch is too narrow or slippery. Apart from that, I have found the design to suit my purposes perfectly (throwing different size river stones) without any safety concerns.

You can get good reliability with many slings, but specifically large and oddly shaped rocks will often slip out of pouches that are not stable against rolling (or that aren't long enough).

To have near perfect reliability and smooth release on all types of rocks I think is quite challenging for a sling. There are always trade-offs, and even then you might also want to consider the efficiency/weight of a sling.

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