Slinging.org Forum - Re: My early observations

Africa_Slinger

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Re: My early observations
Jul 5^th, 2005 at 3:30am

I agree with your statements. The approach to get to your ultimate sling lenth and ammo weight should be a sientific approach.

Keep the ammo weight as the non variable in your experiment (make some ammo in say 80/100/120gr) and see wich performs best with your current sling. Proceed to make your sling longer or shorter and perform the same experiment again trying to duplicate what you did in the first experiment. etc. I am sure you will find your ultimate sling and ammo.

Never change more than one varible at a time, otherwise you will not know wich changes brought on the best results. You will also find that you are one of the biggest variables.

I have like you, also felt that one sling release that felt just perfect and knew that the stone will just go and go.

This brings me to my summary.

Since we are one of the biggst variables in the whole action of slinging we should eliminate as many as possible variations (golfers use the same ball and clubs for many seasons wich teaches you muscle memory).

So, when you have a rough idea of what works best for you (sling lenth and ammo weight) stick to that for a season and get the muscle memory right and as anything in life, practice, practice, practice.

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Keep your shoulder to the wheel&&Your hand to the helm&&Your eye on the ball&&Your nose to the grindstone&&Your ear to the ground&&And you will not have time to put your foot in your mouth.&&&&(unknown)

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Douglas_The_Black

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Re: My early observations
Reply #1 - Jul 5^th, 2005 at 8:20am

"...I notice that I almost knew before I released the knot that the stone was really going to really go far."

i know before i relese the knot if im going to hit the target, or not. Its been a long time since i tryed for distance. i want to try hunting with the sling once so i need accurcy.

also i am very glad we have funslinger he always has lots of info on whatever he is doing

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me

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Re: My early observations
Reply #2 - Jul 5^th, 2005 at 1:38pm

"i know before i relese the knot if im going to hit the target, or not. Its been a long time since i tryed for distance. i want to try hunting with the sling once so i need accuracy.

also i am very glad we have funslinger he always has lots of info on whatever he is doing

"

I'll second that, He's brought more life to the forum for sure. I was going to bring up the hunting aspect but DTB beat me to it. There are so many variables its insane. Maybe once you get your perfect long-range sling figured out you can help us solve all the hunting/accuracy questions Funslinger. You are right though the length makes a huge difference. One of the reasons my range sucks is because I stopped using large marge my long range sling. She was 47 inches of good wholesome fun. In fact she is now dead as I used her leather pouch for a hunting style sling. R.I.P Marge.

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huckfin Tiro Offline aim, fire Posts: 12 East coast, central Va sumwer	Re: My early observations Reply #3 - Jul 5^th, 2005 at 8:49pm I've been toying with distance vs. accuracy and am wondering. Out of curiosity what size targets and at what distance do most of the people on this forum sling at. I've been using trees mostly but read (sorry I can't remember the members name) that he used oil can lids as targets. Any info on this would be very helpfull.
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huckfin

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Re: My early observations
Reply #4 - Jul 5^th, 2005 at 9:28pm

Just to say a little more on what I have observed on th topic of "accuracy." I shoot guns alot (mainly rifles) and can shoot them accuratley and in close groups. But what i've noticed of slinging is that it takes a completely different kind of aiming and (firing) to acheive an accurate shot with a sling. Sometimes frusterating as hell. Any words of wisdom or advice for accuracys sake??

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me

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Re: My early observations
Reply #5 - Jul 5^th, 2005 at 10:01pm

Quote:

Just to say a little more on what I have observed on th topic of "accuracy." I shoot guns alot (mainly rifles) and can shoot them accuratley and in close groups. But what i've noticed of slinging is that it takes a completely different kind of aiming and (firing) to acheive an accurate shot with a sling. Sometimes frusterating as hell. Any words of wisdom or advice for accuracys sake??

Huckfin, yes heres some advice for ya. First slings can be "extremely" accurate, almost unbelievably so, if you put in the time to learn them. Muscle memory is important. Second consistent ammo is also, dont under estimate the difference slinging with consistent ammo makes. Consistent ammo= near same weight and shape/size. You can get better 10 times faster with consistent ammo then you can just using any old rock you find. Dale mentioned today on another thread that you can go to Landscape materials and equipment yards to get good river stones. He picked through individual stones for the best , consistent ammo he could find and got 40 pounds worth for $2.50 US. Cant beat that. If that isnt possible go to your local hardware store and get some masonry mix/portland cement and make up some round balls. They are a tad on the light side, but work just fine for aiming practice. Barring all this you can use just what stones you can find. They will not be pin point accurate but at least you can sling, and thats what matters. Third, try a shorter sling. Not only will it help you build sling muscles, since your arm is doing more work, it also seems to help and it feels more natural on the throw. This is speaking only from my own expirence though. Fourth, try different styles of throwing with your sling, till you find one that works well for you, then stick with it. I recently changed to the figure-8 style and I'm pleasently suprised with how natural it feels now. My usual target is ethier a rectangle target made from duct tape , on the nylon canvas of a tennis court fence. It is about 1ft by 8 inches
from approx. 45 feet away.
My other target is just a broken branch on the side of a pecan tree from about 70 feet away. Good luck,keep practicing if you dont give up you will be really good someday.

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huckfin Tiro Offline aim, fire Posts: 12 East coast, central Va sumwer	Re: My early observations Reply #6 - Jul 5^th, 2005 at 11:12pm Thanks, I'll write somemore later but for now i'm tired.
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Matthias

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Re: My early observations
Reply #7 - Jul 5^th, 2005 at 11:54pm

Alright SunSlinger and Coenie (now that you're officially "in" it isn't cheating to add SA to the map anymore...) Nice to see some technical discussion again, though that monkey kind of freaks me out...

Projectile weight has everything to do efficent slinging. I started down a systematic path with the ballistic pendulum experiments and the sling ballistics simulator, but didn't finish up. My idea was to try a sequence of masses, and then work back to launch speed, and subsequently maximum range for a given length/style of sling. A slightly heavier glans might carry further then a lighter one thrown faster, for instance. This gets complicated quickly! My results would only have been directly applicably to my own slinging, but the trends would have been of wider interest.

Accuracy is a different beast all together. My knit sling (my favourite) "hangs" a little (hoping this will wear off as the tar gets less sticky). Without any regard to length, this is obviously an undesirable characteristic. I think part of the "accuracy" of shorter slings might be due to this effect. I guess I'll just have to make some more slings to test out the theory Wink

I'll try to move the slingsim back up near the top of "the list". It looks like a few of you might be able to make good use of it now. I'm still looking for empirical validation btw (hint hint), so if anyone with a decent test range wants to help fill in the data it would be much appreciated!

I'd also like to rub in the fact that anyone who spends this much time thinking about slinging (and knows about floating arm trebuchets!) doesn't have a snoballs hope in... of not breaking down and casting his own lead glandes... I think maybe we need a pool.

Matthias

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