Nice thread on skinny vs fat cords.

I agree that fat cords are less likely to tangle and are more efficient to use for accurate close to medium range throws.

My early slinging buddies had some Lebanese shepherd slings woven of wool.  They were short ~50 cm and had cords ~1cm dia with a heavy shank on the retention side. 

This ~2cm dia shank extended  from the pouch then tapered to 1 cm for the rest of the cord.  Seems that the shank provided extra stability which was helpful during our hairy early slinging days.  A tightly woven cup shaped pouch was also helpful.

The Assyrian slinger bas reliefs also show short slings with fat cords (and very redundant length of release cord as discussed on a prior thread.)

The Roman soldier on Trajan's column also has pretty fat cords of moderate length to throw his cape full of stones.

For the hard working "Utility Slinger," short fat cords are the way to go.  Heave a lot of heavy rock at your opponents or accurately guide your sheep without premature slaughter.  If your sheep have wandered so far astray that you need a long skinny hurl to reach them, then they are probably in a lot of trouble already.

Long skinny cords certainly have their place.  If Roman slingers were truly hurling lead glandes at targets 600 yd away, they must have been using long skinny cords and light pouches.

Once again function follows form.

The more slings and tricks a slinger has up his sleeve or in his pocket, the better.

AjlouniBoy

Maybe a sling with both types of cord would work. It could have thick cord near the pouch, but thin cord for most of the sling. This way the pouch end would be heavy enough and the rest thin enough to not be too air resistant.
An advantage I can think of for thick cord is that it is easier to untie if you want to. You could adjust your sling this way, maybe changing a 4' sling to a 2' one.

don't worry, it made sense. no, i dont know what the knot's called. for a headband/belt/anything that comes undone with a simple pull just use a chain knot. i think thats what it's called anyway. you just make a loop in the cord, and make another that pulls through the first. a third through the second and so on. another benefit of this method is that you could tie the sling this way with just as many loops as made the perfect length for a headband or belt.

that not the knot i'm thinking of....


anyway, i think that this might be it. the knot used on the white strings, he calls it a chain knot too. http://www.slinging.org/forum2/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=1;action=display;num=11005923...

anyway, i used this knot to shorten my sling, and using a method i can describe with words, i used my toggle, to keep it from coming undone, meaning no knots to untie. I'm wearing it right now about my head. let's see how long it takes to undo...
fifteen seconds! that includes taking it off and trying to figure out how i made it stay so perfectly. i think that with a bit of practice it would be about three seconds max. just pull the loop off of the toggle, and tug.

quite awesome. i should note that i'm using paracord. this method wouldn't work so well witha thicker sling. and i'd never do it to a nice sling braided from alpaca fiber/wool, that sort of thing, though i suppose you could.

the 'chain knot' makes it look kind of cool too. if it were split pouch, you'd never guess it was a sling. ok well maybe we would, but definitely not anyone else.

btw, my sling is ~70" end to end. this would be even easier with a shorter sling.

i'll get pics up apprx thirty hours from this post, then this will make some sense.

right, what i'm thinking of isn't a chain knot then. it's a very strong knot, but if you unsecure it, one tug and the whole thing comes apart, i'll be able to post pictures in ~18 hours

Skinny release cords are my personal favorite

my post on the headband sling became very large, and since it dosn't belong here anyway, i posted it at http://www.slinging.org/forum2/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=1;action=display;num=11414485...

the past couple of days we have been having very nice weather here, and i have been slinging alot.  i have noticed that it is easier to hit closer things with my slightly shorter, thicker corded sling, and that my longer, thinner corded sling is good for distances.  i also notice that i am far more accurate using a sort of over head throw that i use, and i get much more distance using an underhand throw.  obviously, everyone's results will vary, but maybe this is a sort of rule of thumb that everyone can try out?