Dear Chris,
Thank you for your kind welcome. I have been slinging for several years, and am always learning something new and exciting through my practice and study of slinging and its history.
Like most others here, I am interested in keeping our art alive, and improving my skill and knowledge of the subject. In fact, after many attempts, I have finally designed what I believe to be the smallest, fastest, lightest, practical and powerful synthetic slings I've ever seen or used. I can shatter hard rocks easily against boulders or other hard surfaces with it, and enjoy watching them explode dramatically as they hit with great speed and power, good acuracy, "anti-snag/hooking" resistance and pouch retention. Of course, for any experienced slinger, the importance these qualities tend to speak for themselves. As you can probably tell, I'm VERY happy with this sling design!
I nicknamed it my "ultra-light magnum" sling (hence my pseudonym
here). They look deceptively simple and slight, almost flimsy when you first see or hold one, but after you put a few rocks through it, I think you'd be impressed with how tough, durable, effective, well-though-out and potentially accurate its design is.
As I am typing this message, I'm wearing a short one (secured by a wrist retention loop rather than a finger loop) that I've nicknamed my "deringer" rolled comfortably up the velcro-secured sleeve of my Eisenneger winter coat with a decent-sized rock rolled up in the pouch. I've never been able to carry ANYTHING so useful so discretely and comfortably (literally) "up my sleeve" before. If I use my non-throwing hand to place the release cords between the thumb and forefinger of my non-throwing hand, and pull the velcro tie strap to open my sleeve cuff, the sling will unroll with the weight of the rock and dangle ready to hurl at the nearest unsuspecting soda can, tree or boulder! This makes the potential for everyday carry of this pretty cool tool a good addition to my wilderness survival kit.)
If you were interested, I could either tell you how to make one (although the materials may be a little hard to come across, depending on where you happen to live), or I could send you one of these to try out and see if you like the design, or not. You have my email, I believe, so if you want, you can send me a private email message with a convenient P.O. box address or whatever, and I will be glad to send you one or two to test, if you'd like me to. Of course, being raised to be a gentleman (well, MOST of the time, at least!
), I'll take care of any postage charges, etc. (and I don't charge anything anyway, for making them for special students, teachers, fellow rock shooters that I like, etc., since I do okay teaching for a university in East Asia, and don't really need the money). Thank you for running this great forum for keeping our ancient art of slinging alive!