Welcome, Guest. Please Login
SLINGING.ORG
 
Home Help Search Login


Pages: 1 2 3 
Send Topic Print
Impact of sling stone (Read 13255 times)
MammotHunter
Interfector Viris Spurii
*****
Offline


Give me a rock, a sling,
and give me some room

Posts: 1020
virginia, for now
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #30 - Mar 20th, 2006 at 3:53pm
 
I heard that roman surgeons actually developed a  specialised instrument for pulling embedded glandes out of patients.
Back to top
 

Foolish is he who frets at night,&&And lies awake to worry'&&A weary man when morning comes,&&He finds all as bad as before&&-Excerpted from "The Havemal"
palaeoEvolution  
IP Logged
 
SlingWolf
Senior Member
****
Offline


Guns dont kill people...
Magic missles do!

Posts: 362
Kenmore, NY
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #31 - Mar 20th, 2006 at 5:48pm
 
Just to make you feel worse probably...
"Oh no... they're bringing out 'the tool'. Hey.... if you die.... Can i have your stuff?"

Grin SlingWolf Grin
Back to top
 

Ask not what you can do for your sling... But what your sling can do to an armored knight on horseback at over 50 yards! Shocked
 
IP Logged
 
Taiki
Interfector Viris Spurii
*****
Offline


Don't tell my mom i'm
here will you...

Posts: 1255
belgium
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #32 - Mar 21st, 2006 at 9:56am
 
i just took advantage of the nice weather to get out and lob some golfballs actually hit a some trees too Grin (jeej i feel good) not to the effect this thread talks about But it is a start  Grin
Back to top
 
Taiki  
IP Logged
 
alander
Novicius
*
Offline



Posts: 8
Sweden
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #33 - Apr 12th, 2006 at 8:01am
 
i just wonder how long is your sling,  and wich style do you use to get such power.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
lobohunter
Interfector Viris Spurii
*****
Offline


where be a rock and a
string there be a sling

Posts: 1944
Cottage Grove or
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #34 - Apr 17th, 2006 at 11:10am
 
good hit yurek. I have had many broken cedar fence bords to atest to the power of the sling. thanks for the pictures yurek
Back to top
 
Albert Scott C bigbadwolf41 77940+hwy+99+south,+Spc+22  
IP Logged
 
Stringman
Descens
***
Offline


Think meteorites, we are
not alone.

Posts: 172
England
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #35 - Oct 27th, 2006 at 5:17pm
 
I got back into slinging only a year and a halfish ago and am using a normal David style one, I still haven't mastered it but that smashes rotten stumps to peices at 30ish meter  ranges and cuts branches when I miss but not useully that big unless they are dry.( so good shot! ).  When I was in my early teens I used a an uneven lenth cord sling mounted on a short ( about forearm and a half lenth ) stick.  the retention cord was attached to the top and the releace cord ran down through a hook ( the sort used for net curtains ) next to the top in the side.  So about an inch apart, too much less than this and I had a problem with twisting.  I'd hold the stick at the bottom and the end of the releace cord with my thumb against the stick...and that did have power.  With it I could stick a stone an inch or two into a healthy sycamore ( I stopped doing that because they bled for days after and I felt guilty. ).  At short range, really short about ten or fifteen feet maximum,  if one shoots at a milk bottle with a handful of shingle, about pea sized, one gets lots of holes through the bottle but it doesn't smash.  So I guess that must be pretty good for velocity, my friends air gun at the same range smashed them.   It was one of those towns and people used to shoot at us with airguns ( .177 webblys ( sounds like that anyway ) with .22 springs in them., I still have a scar on my cheek just under my eye from then.  Well this annoyed me and rather rather spoiled playing in the feild so I slung back one time ( not to hit, even angry I wasn't insane ), one of them was by a tree which was about twoish cricket pitch lenths away and about half a cricket pitch up.  The rock buzzed into the tree not far from his head and stuck in quite deep, that sounds better than it really was as the tree was a soft bark poplar   Even so he, took one look at it and decided to amble away his mates left too,  occasionally taking potshots as they went but even when they got to the top of the hill and were shooting up at 45 degrees we were well out of their range but they still had my rocks falling from the sky around them.  After that we were ok playing in the feild.  I don't really know what range that was as for us a cricket pitch was 22 uncomfortable strides and a cricket bat and a handle either end for the creace, probably the air guns wern't all that good either but still it was easily the best ego trip of being fourteen that one.
Back to top
« Last Edit: Oct 27th, 2006 at 6:23pm by Stringman »  

Slings: bestowing the gift of flight on paralyised rocks from the textile age and before. It only takes a moment to help, please give your time generously.
 
IP Logged
 
Dale
Interfector Viris Spurii
*****
Offline



Posts: 1581
California, USA
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #36 - Oct 27th, 2006 at 6:01pm
 
Stringman,

What is the "normal David style"?  Do you mean the "helicopter" style where you wind up several turns over your head and then let fly?  Or the style shown in Bernini's statue (David is halfway through the windup, just about to let go of the rock)?

And welcome back to slinging!
Back to top
 

No, I don't live in a glass house.&&&&"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."&&&&Context matters!  "Nothing but net" is a BAD thing in tennis...
WWW  
IP Logged
 
Stringman
Descens
***
Offline


Think meteorites, we are
not alone.

Posts: 172
England
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #37 - Oct 27th, 2006 at 7:10pm
 
Thanks for the welcome Dale.  By David style I mean the usual type of sling, two lenths of cord with a pocket, the sort most people use.  The thing I made wasn't quite a staff sling as the cords were as long from the pocket to the end of the stick as the stick was long.  The thing was  I ddn't know any slingers or have any referance on slings bar a tiny entry in an encyclopedia which only used the term staff sling and mentioned that ancient celts used to get a longer range with them than with a shepards sling so I just made it up. I got it wrong as now that I've read around I know that a staff sling is more on the principle of flicking peas with a spoon, but I got it wrong in a pretty good way.  So I don't know a proper term, if there is one, but as it is effectivly a sheperds sling on the end of a stick with a longer release cord to reach down the stich to the hand, I called it a mounted sling.   Whatever it is it is pretty powerful.  As to technique it is little differant.  What I favoured was to bring it round once as one does with a shepards sling for low side arm but at the end one also whips the wrist round  for a bit extra power, the trick is to start the movement in the body but have the shoulder then the elbow and near the end the wrist all whip together at releace.  Easier than it sounds.  So far I haven't made a mounted sling again but think I must soon ( might even try putting it on a quarter staff and see if the extra leverage makes up for loseing the wrist action ), trouble is one can't just roll one up and keep it in the pocket.  So in a way I'm actully new to slinging with a "proper sling" and so far am still playing with style, I tend not to use wind ups except for larger rocks as it seems to make me less accurate for very little gain in power but that could simply be because I haven't practiced enough yet.  I favour bringing the rock from above my shoulder on the left, diagonally behind me  me and releasing low on the right, but that may be because it is nearest to my old mounted sling method.  Tried apache and find it is vertically pretty accurate but haven't managed much power with it yet.  Side arm is ok but if I miss, or the stone catches in the pocket it is to the side and that is generally a more dangerous miss as I do most of my slinging in woods and in company.
Back to top
 

Slings: bestowing the gift of flight on paralyised rocks from the textile age and before. It only takes a moment to help, please give your time generously.
 
IP Logged
 
Dale
Interfector Viris Spurii
*****
Offline



Posts: 1581
California, USA
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #38 - Oct 27th, 2006 at 8:56pm
 
Stringman,

You are on the right track.  Much windup leads to much error.  Most of the slingers here favor a small amount of windup; the sling swings through only a couple of circles, or even less.  My best style is the Apache style, which starts with the sling hanging at my side and a bit behind me, and the sling is swung through only about 180 degrees before I release the rock.

I mis-read what you wrote; I thought you were talking about the style of slingING, but you were talking about the style of SLING.  Actually, your miniature staff sling sounds quite powerful.  I would like to see a picture of it, so I could make a replica and try it out.
Back to top
 

No, I don't live in a glass house.&&&&"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."&&&&Context matters!  "Nothing but net" is a BAD thing in tennis...
WWW  
IP Logged
 
dork
Funditor
****
Offline


I feel Smurfy when I'm
smurfing!!!! You too?

Posts: 995
In Beautiful Wisconsin
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #39 - Oct 29th, 2006 at 9:24pm
 
Imagine if that were bone...  Ouch
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Stringman
Descens
***
Offline


Think meteorites, we are
not alone.

Posts: 172
England
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #40 - Nov 4th, 2006 at 1:17am
 
Dale

Wish I could oblige but it was quite some time ago, three decades, I moved away from the place at 15 and one of the farewell swaps was the sling, I got a catapult.  It was the move that put the pause in my slinging probably, just life stuff.  To be honest it wasn't a masterpiece of craftsman ship but for the record I'll describe it anyway.  The stick was about the diameter of the second joint of my thumb after I'd stripped the bark off, I think it was old wood elderberry.  Dead and well seasoned, beautifully straight hardly any taper at all.  Probably any wood that doesn't flex would do.  I whipped one end of it with string for a good grip in exactly the same way one would whip a rope end to stop fraying.  Not counting the string grip the length was from my wrist to halfway between my shoulder and my elbow   I then scraped the stick smooth with a piece of copper I'd sharpened ( my parents wouldn't let me have a knife then )and crushed the surface of it with the side of a screwdriver to make it smoother finally I buffed it with a handkerchief and ,this is maybe where you give up on the EXACT replica idea, some ear wax.  I had got hold of a brass hook from somewhere, I think it was designed to screw to the bottom of shelves for holding cups, it had a long deep  tapered thread.  I screwed this down the center, where in most other woods the knot would be.  I also screwed a small eye into the side at the top, later I changed this to a small hook for faster loading.  Both the latter fittings were the sort used to hold the wire for net curtains.  The fabric bit was really simple, the pocket was a strong canvas on one side and leather cloth ( plastic side out ) one the other, I put seams all the way round both materials and then put them, seams together and stitched them together. I'd left long square ended tails either side of the pocket and simply stitched these back on themselves to become loops.  The cords were just cotton string which I fed through the loops and tied, I thickened the retention cord with chain hitching for it's entire length.  I also thickened the release cord the same way but only to half an inch  short of the top of the stick, about half it's length, after which it was single.  I've missed out several of the slings evolutions as it took a while to get it just right but that part is important as the release cord has to run smoothly through the loop or hook. In fact a knot on the release cord is a bad idea as if it catches on the loop the stone can catch on the string and it's random shot time, I learned that the hard way.  I tried whipping the end of the cord with cotton which helped but as it was only string I often just let it fray, it was good for a few hundred shots anyway.  Bear in mind that I was a ten or eleven year old with little knowledge and feeble skills when I made this. 

I don't think it was a miniature staff sling though, it's not like any staff sling I've read about anyway; the cords are of uneven length, the release cord runs right down the shaft, not to a toggle in a notch at the top, and is released by hand at the bottom. Doesn't work quite the same way.  Until I know better I'll stick to the term mounted sling.  If bow type weapons can be subdivided into bows, crossbows, arabesques etc why shouldn't we have slings, mounted slings, staff slings and trebouches ( does that put us one up?)   

Much as I'd like to claim the credit for inventing some new sort of sling it probably isn't. Aside from being such a simple idea that it probably gets “invented” a dozen times a year by someone, I've read somewhere that the ancient Greeks had many lewd pantomimes in which staffs carved into the shape of phallus's figured.  ALL these plays have been lost, unlike the tragedies, and apart from a few critical references and many of the staffs nothing remains of them. I have also read that slings with uneven length cords have also been found and that the manner of their use is unknown.  Well could it be that the archaeologists are finding two parts of the same thing?  The staffs would be just the right shape for a slipknot with a fixed loop (perhaps around a ring with a groove around the outer side)in the loop.  But who am I to suggest that given a slightly phallus shaped bit of kit the lower ranks in the Greek army would be crude enough to make them even ruder.  I apologize to any modern armed forces types who are shocked by such a suggestion.

Also sorry for the length of this post but hope it makes up for the lack of image.  Just writing this makes me want to have one again so I'll pack my wire saw just in case I happen on the right bit of wood when I'm out.  To return the subject to impact.  This is unfair as I used a mounted sling a lot over four or five years and a standard sling only a year and a half about an afternoon a week but inches equal, folded length of sling compared to stick plus retention cord lined up in a mounted sling. I got more power out of the mounted.
Back to top
 

Slings: bestowing the gift of flight on paralyised rocks from the textile age and before. It only takes a moment to help, please give your time generously.
 
IP Logged
 
southpaw
Descens
***
Offline



Posts: 161
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #41 - Nov 6th, 2006 at 5:26pm
 
Hi, this is a question for Yurek. (or Jurek, not sure which you prefer...)

I really like your pouch idea, but I seem to have some difficulties.

First, the cup made by the folding held the stone too well, making the release rather painful. (besides losing power)

So, could that be fixed by making it more narrow? my pouch was almost twice your pictured width as well as length. Also, I didn't use leather, so the cup was rather deep. Does leather tend to be shallower?

Next, Do you use knots to attach the pouch to the cords? Or is it just tight binding?

And lastly, I didn't make the slit in the middle. Does that make a difference?

Thanks,

8)
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
LKH9
Funditor
****
Offline



Posts: 824
Malaysia
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #42 - Nov 6th, 2006 at 6:46pm
 
Bring your sling to an archery range and surprise the archers, if allowed. Roll Eyes
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Dale
Interfector Viris Spurii
*****
Offline



Posts: 1581
California, USA
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #43 - Nov 7th, 2006 at 11:01am
 
Southpaw,

Jurek has given us a lot of details about how he makes his slings.  If he doesn't reply, you can still read what he said in the past in this way:

  • Click on the "Members" link at the top of the page.
  • At the top of each page of the members list, there is a link labeled "View by Letter"; click that link.
  • Click on the "Y" link.
  • Click on "Yurek".  Yeah, it's different from his name, but he chose that user name so that we Americans would SAY his name correctly.
  • At the bottom of his profile, there is a line that reads "Show the last <list> posts of this person."  Select "All" and click "GO!"
  • The list is presented with the newest items first.  Happy reading!
Back to top
 

No, I don't live in a glass house.&&&&"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."&&&&Context matters!  "Nothing but net" is a BAD thing in tennis...
WWW  
IP Logged
 
southpaw
Descens
***
Offline



Posts: 161
Gender: male
Re: Impact of sling stone
Reply #44 - Nov 7th, 2006 at 7:48pm
 
Sweet, thanks Dale.

This will probably stop my endless flow of questions. Wink

8)
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Pages: 1 2 3 
Send Topic Print
(Moderators: Kick, joe_meadmaker, Rat Man, Morphy, Chris, vetryan15, Curious Aardvark)