I USED to get tennis elbow, practice till it hurts then take a break and you will find it gets better.

Good shooting, lovely to impress onlookers. I am currently attracting a lot of gawpers. Last night I had about a dozen asian lads turn up on their bikes, they were very impressed, and I definitely got the feeling, given our local situation, that they were mentally imagining themselves using one from behind a barricade of burning cars. Two of them had a go.

I took the opportunity to quiz them about the situation. Two felt it was a Police set up, one that the bombers had no idea what they were carrying, suggesting they thought they were acting as drug mules, the rest were honest about the situation. Inter-marriage in the area means several were 'related' to bombers (Familes are very extended among the local asian community) and they were incredulous it could have happened. They were not a religious bunch, my worry in the past years has been in the opposite direction - the westernisation of the 2nd generation is destroying the tight rules of behaviour followed by their parents. Divorce, single parenthood, drug taking and Consumerism were unknown. The young lads are mimicking the nastiest form of Western Culture, the Black Gangsta ethic, and this aint good. I would prefer them going to the mosque to that.

Pleasingly, they agreed with me that they have not encountered any increase in racial tension in the area.

Pat

FunSlinger

Sorry if it came out wrong, but I am giving credit for inspiring me to make the longer sling that resulted in the increase of range. 

MammotHunter

I use the figure 8 style.

Regarding adding a bit of stretch to the cords, I want to braid the cords for about 5cm in the middle of the cord (need to experiment) that would hopefully give the slightest amount of stretch but will also aid in injury prevention. Has anybody ever tried this and what do you think about the plan?

My two cents worth:

On "slinger's elbow" -- make sure you warm up well before slinging.  When I go out in the morning and just start slinging, I get sore.  If I take five or ten minutes to warm up and stretch out (I wrote about my procedure

here

), then I don't hurt.  Or at least not as much, I still do something wrong sometimes and my muscles complain about that.

On stretchy cords -- I've never tried non-stretchy materials, all mine are nylon braid (either pre-braided courtesy of REI, or I braided it myself).  Braided nylon always has some stretch; my 26-incher stretches out another two inches when I pull hard on it.  But I always make my cords too long, and use a chain knot to shorten the cords; six inches of chain knot will stretch out another three-quarters inch when i pull hard on it.  Between the cord itself, and the extra stretch because of the chain knot, I guess I've got some pretty stretchy slings.

Well, anyway, the point of all this rambling is: if I get a sore arm from slinging, it's got to be my technique, not a too-stiff sling 'cause my slings are NOT stiff.

On where to put the "stretchy" section -- I normally put the chain knots right next to the pocket, so all the extra weight of cord is out at the end of the sling.  Once, I tried moving the chain knots so they were right next to the finger loop and the release knot.  My theory was that I'd get the rock moving better without that extra weight out there.  It's the same reason bicyclists use very very light aluminum rims and tires that are as near to being balloons as they can get away with: they are reducing the mass that undergoes the most acceleration.

All I accomplished was making my head hurt, when the release knot and extra cord whapped me in the side of the head.  No extra distance.

I haven't tried putting the chain knots in the middle of the cord.  Maybe I should try that...