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Clay projectiles (Read 13385 times)

JudoP

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Clay projectiles
Apr 6^th, 2017 at 12:06pm

I've just had my first crack at making clay sling projectiles (see pictures).

I've made 32 in a wide variety of sizes, from 30g (1oz) upto 160g (5oz+). I've made most of them some variation of glande shaped and some round. I've also dimpled a few to see if I can replicate a golf ball effect.

Long term I think I'll try and find a good shape/size and then make a sort of clay cast so I can pump them out in large numbers. Already I can't wait to use these as my usual slinging spot has pretty bad stones and is running out fast.

clay1.jpg (3941 KB | 165 )

clay2.jpg (3664 KB | 119 )

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Kick Forum Moderation Offline Posts: 4451 Finland	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #1 - Apr 6^th, 2017 at 1:33pm Looking good. I'm guessing this is store bought clay? I want to have a go at clay ammunition but don't quite fancy stumping up the cash and there isn't anywhere around that has clay soil so I'm a bit stuck. It's been added to the pile labelled "Future Projects"
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paleryder Descens Offline Posts: 110 Le Roy, IL Gender:	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #2 - Apr 6^th, 2017 at 1:41pm Did you measure the weight before and after drying? If so, how much weight did they lose after drying?
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Curious Aardvark Forum Moderation Offline Taller than the average Dwarf Posts: 13965 Midlands England Gender:	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #3 - Apr 6^th, 2017 at 2:07pm please resize your images. some of us have crappy internet connections and 8mb in 2 pictures is ridiculous.
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Morphy Slinging.org Moderator Offline Checkmate Posts: 8102	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #4 - Apr 6^th, 2017 at 3:49pm Those are nice. Are you planning on firing them?
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Drakolith Funditor Offline Posts: 675 U.S.	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #5 - Apr 6^th, 2017 at 4:12pm CA. What size would be best?
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JudoP

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Re: Clay projectiles
Reply #6 - Apr 6^th, 2017 at 6:59pm

@Kick

I bought the clay online. Looked around for the cheapest option which turned out to be school clay. I got 20kg of it with delivery for about £15. Not too bad since it'll probably make around 300 decent sized projectiles.

@Pale

They aren't dry yet but I'll report back in a day or two

@CA

Will do, at some point my phone camera became good and I didn't realise...

@Morphy

Was planning to just air dry, I think I read something on here that if they air dried they retain a little moisture and therefore density.

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Drakolith Funditor Offline Posts: 675 U.S.	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #7 - Apr 6^th, 2017 at 8:18pm I remember reading somewhere on here, that natural clay is best. Since its not pretty, hobby stores don't display it, but if you ask they might have some
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slingbadger Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Don't Badger a Badger Posts: 3220 Akron NY Gender:	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #8 - Apr 7^th, 2017 at 7:06am I made natural clay glandes years ago. The clay had a lot of small pebbles and grit in it. When shattering, I imagine it would add to the chaos.
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JudoP

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Re: Clay projectiles
Reply #9 - Apr 7^th, 2017 at 1:59pm

I just got impatient and put them in the oven as they didn't appear to dry out that much overnight. 45 minutes at about 100 degrees C seemed to do the trick.

I've had about 15% loss of mass from what they were when fresh. Looking good though! Will report back when I've chucked a few.

I've also picked up a golf ball and am planning to make a golf ball mould so I can make clay golf balls.

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Curious Aardvark

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Re: Clay projectiles
Reply #10 - Apr 7^th, 2017 at 3:24pm

Drakolith wrote on Apr 6^th, 2017 at 4:12pm:

CA. What size would be best?

I usually go for 800x600.
plenty of detail and loads real quick.

The only reason you can load such large files at all is because over the years I've upped the size limit for things like video and pdf files. Unfortunately It won't let me just restrict jpgs.

Couple resizing programs in this post - I also have one on my android tablet I use. that I'll stick a link to when I get round to it.
http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1258292684

I did try and make a golfball mould a while back - but it just kept crashing my cad program.

I'm currently thinking moulds are too slow and fiddly.
Might be simpler to make a shaped 2 part rolling mould and clay measure. That way you could turn out perfectly identical clay missiles in a couple seconds.

Let you know when I've decided on a final design and printed some test parts

Do All things with Honour and Generosity: Regret Nothing, Envy None, Apologise Seldom and Bow your head to No One - works for me

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Drakolith Funditor Offline Posts: 675 U.S.	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #11 - Apr 7^th, 2017 at 4:09pm Thanks CA
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Bill Skinner

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Re: Clay projectiles
Reply #12 - Apr 8^th, 2017 at 1:46pm

I use dug clay for glandes because there aren't any rock naturally closer than 30 miles (60km) away.

You don't need pottery grade clay, if it sticks together and dries without cracking, that's all you need. If it has small pebbles in it, that will cause problems if you plan to fire it but not if you air dry it. And I put a batch in the oven at a temp just below boiling, usually overnight before use. And if you put them in the oven over night, you can fire them in a fire the next day.

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JudoP

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Re: Clay projectiles
Reply #13 - Apr 9^th, 2017 at 2:26pm

Went shooting with them today, overall I'm quite impressed with the balls but the glandes didn't quite work as well as I thought. It seemed to take them so long to orient correctly in the air that often they barrelled into the ground or lost significant speed before that point. It's possible I made most of them a bit too pointy/unstable though as I was trying to really stretch the limits. Will go for more 'fatter' american football style next time and see if it works better.

In fairness when one did orient it just appeared to abruptly stop falling and move instead in a straight horizontal line.

The plain clay spheres worked great though, every distance shot I went for, the ball actually went out of sight significantly before landing. I got a very impressed dog walking couple comment "Where did it even go!?" and "Whoaah".

In terms of durability they were fine, only the stupidly large glandes ended up disintegrating as they bounced across the ground from duff throws, although any contact with a solid surface will obviously shatter the shot into a million pieces.

Weight wise I think the best projectiles were around 100 grams pre-fired meaning around 85 grams as thrown or just a smidgen over 3oz. May need further experimentation on this though.

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Kick Forum Moderation Offline Posts: 4451 Finland	Re: Clay projectiles Reply #14 - Apr 10^th, 2017 at 6:50am What style of throw were you using? I would imagine the throw would affect how they are leaving the pouch which would affect their orientation.
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