MammotHunter
Interfector Viris Spurii
Offline
Give me a rock, a sling, and give me some room
Posts: 1020
virginia, for now
Gender:
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And so I make my triumphant return to slinging.org! I like this new forum; it's a good look, and a nice update! Anyhow, I've slung with a shield before, and I want to share my findings with you all to see if anyone else ever had the same problems I did. I was using a 28" diametre round plywood shield on my left arm (hand was free because of how I positioned the straps to go over my forearm and wrist), and a sling in my right. I noticed that the heavy weight of the 1 cm thick shield tended to pull my weight to the left so my left side of my body would drop during the throw and all my shots would go far left of where I was aiming. Now, admittedly, I was using tennis balls, which seem to be directionally affected if you so much as sneeze in their direction, but I also had trouble relaoding the sling. Normally, I can grab the sling on the way back around, and untangle the cords, slam a stone in the pouch and be ready to fire in about 5 seconds, but even with my left hand free of the straps behind the shield, I had trouble getting my hand into position to reload the sling. I would have to drop the pouch on the ground and toss a ball from my right hand to my left (not easy to catch when you have a 10 lb shield on your arm; hard to make those fast movements you take for granted catching a flying object when your arm weighs twice as much, and then I would drop the ball into the pouch and grab the release cord of the sling with my right hand, and then have to aim over the top of the shield to fire. Thsi all took roughly 2-3 times longer than it would without a shield. I think a metal shield, of the same height and of significantlt lessened thickness would alleviate much of the weight problem that seemed to be a factor, if you were even going to use a shield at all while slinging. Perhaps more practice would be needed in this area before I would be comfortable using that combination, but it seems that others have had better luck than I have, so perhaps its my form, my technique?
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