Recently I've indulged myself and bought a Hennessey Hammock for some true solo camping. I've had great fun and plenty of good sleeps but it has lead me to think about the limitations of the sling where hammocking is viable. More specifically in the trees, where visibility is limited and your sling may catch on branches. I've been successful in some small game hunting out in the open but this is easy because depending on the range I'm at I can either choose from the figure 8 style overhand for distance or the greek throw modified to a side arm for high accuracy. I've had success with both these styles but that all came to an end when I slung for a porcupine in the trees.

I had seen it upwind as it was minding its own business so I circled it about 45 degrees to get into an open clearing. At 25 yards the porcupine was certainly looking like dinner but I was mistaken. I used the sidearm to save space but alas my face was greeted by my pouch ( thankfully empty) with a painful sting! It has clipped the branches on either side of me and ejected the stone and left my pride stinging.  Now I know that I could have used a shorter sling but who wants to spend the time redoing your knots  or carrying another one all together.

Heres my solution: Larger stones and shorter sling lines. I've found that you can compensate for the momentum you loose using shorter lines by increasing the mass orbiting your release point. That means slinging almost as far and as hard with more accuracy thanks to the  shorter lines. This unfortunately means you have to carry two slings. One for accuracy and tight quarters and another for power and distance, unless your quick with your knots that is.....
I found a good fix for this thats quick and easy! Using a single loop chain (attached photo) I shorten only my release line, leaving the fastened line long but wrapped about my hand in the appropriate manner to equal the length of the release. This means that you can change one sling into any number of lengths making it ever more useful and less deadly to the thrower in dense bush!

okay - so how do you shorten or lengthen the chain thingy ?
(I'm not a knot expert

curious_aardvark wrote on May 17^th, 2012 at 7:18am:


You start by knotting a basic slipping loop, and then you make another loop inside this one. From here, you can either stop the chain by pulling the rest of your cord through the last loop or creating another loop. To lenghten the chain, you continue creating loops as long as you have cord / as you want.

To shorten it, you pull back the free end and you keep pulling this end free of your loops, which will be undoing themself, until your chain is short enough. Then, you pull the free end through the last loop.

That's how I finish my release cords, and how I shorten my slings to let children try it, or when my girlfriend forgot hers...

If I'm not clear enough, ask for more


And on a bonus note, you now know how to crochet.

I've gotten a surprising amount of power with the Over Shoulder throw and an 18 inch sling in the past couple weeks. Can't beat it for hunting in forests.

I use mostly paracord slings so I just use overhand knots. It's never a problem for me. Cool idea with the loop chain thingy though. If I remember correctly Yurek had a similar solution to shortening his slings.

I'll try the underhand throw. Its one that I really haven't put too much time into yet. I still feel really awkward on the release!

Yurek gave me a nice sling made from synthetic cords ~3-4mm thick and sliding knots that slide only if you pull by the knot and cannot slide while rotating the sling.I can make it about 50% longer from it's shortest setting.Very ingenious  Ask him the details...