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Heavy sling bullet from Bulgaria (Read 3839 times)
Kick
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Re: Heavy sling bullet from Bulgaria
Reply #15 - Jun 6th, 2020 at 2:44am
 
I heard a story about Luis that I cannot confirm to be true, but that I do not find surprising. I was told by one of his team mates at the Mallorcan competition that in a lot of the competitions there are certain max lengths the slings have to be to be allowed into the competition. Luis made a sling that was very close to the limit, but still within the bounds. After some practice with it though he had stretched it out significantly past the limit so it was then barred from being used Cheesy With natural materials acting the way they do and how powerfully he slings, I completely believe it.
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You are a great guy Kick but also slightly scary at times. - Morphy
"Nothing matters, but it’s perhaps more comfortable to keep calm and not interfere with other people." - H.P. Lovecraft, in a letter to Frank Belknap Long, 7 October, 1923
 
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Thearos
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Re: Heavy sling bullet from Bulgaria
Reply #16 - Jun 6th, 2020 at 6:21pm
 
Bill Skinner wrote on Jun 5th, 2020 at 3:35pm:
Theros, didn't you publish an article on here about some slingers smashing up some armored formations?  I don't think it killed anyone but it forced the armored formation to retreat. 

Seems like these would be the preferred projectile for doing just that.



It was a find by Caldou, at Uxellodunum; I interpreted the results (2 Aug 2015)

http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1400267951

Not using lead (which the Gauls don't use, they prefer clay) but heavy round stones-- "smashers" as used for war-slinging. It was Aussie who taught me that: light stones (<100g) soon lose velocity b/c of drag, so big, 250-300 g stones are the mininum to keep energy over distance.

I would like to sling a lead bullet of 150-200g to see what it's like.
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KnollSlinger
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Re: Heavy sling bullet from Bulgaria
Reply #17 - Aug 4th, 2020 at 2:26pm
 
Archaic Arms wrote on Jun 6th, 2020 at 1:25am:
AncientCraftwork wrote on Jun 5th, 2020 at 3:13pm:
Would love to see how much joule a strong slinger like Luis could get out of one of these.
I'd think at the least warbow territory.

Luis said that he throws 250g stones at 200km/h with a short/medium length sling (that's 386J)
A 160lb English Warbow in the hands of Joe Gibbs comes in at 123J...
That is over three times more powerful. Now imagine the energy associated with a long sling!
In the right hands, slings are generally a lot more powerful than even the heaviest bows.
And don't get me started on momentum...


You are doing well discovering the ancient powers
Now and imagine a fragile toxic mineral crystal hitting a rock wall near a group. Can you say grenade?
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The Davidson Road KnollSlinger&&Who can beat me?
 
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IronGoober
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Re: Heavy sling bullet from Bulgaria
Reply #18 - Aug 4th, 2020 at 2:57pm
 
Kick wrote on Jun 6th, 2020 at 2:44am:
I heard a story about Luis that I cannot confirm to be true, but that I do not find surprising. I was told by one of his team mates at the Mallorcan competition that in a lot of the competitions there are certain max lengths the slings have to be to be allowed into the competition. Luis made a sling that was very close to the limit, but still within the bounds. After some practice with it though he had stretched it out significantly past the limit so it was then barred from being used Cheesy With natural materials acting the way they do and how powerfully he slings, I completely believe it.

So the sling itself lengthened past the legal limit?  That isn't surprising. My slings always stretch out a bit before settling into their natural length. It's kind of like set with self-bows.
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John R.
 
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Re: Heavy sling bullet from Bulgaria
Reply #19 - Aug 7th, 2020 at 1:14pm
 
I like collecting outliers, so have a few of these large ancient sling projectiles. I'd like to think they were deployed against high-value targets like war elephants and armored mounted troops but can only speculate. My hunch is that up to around 100 grams was the limit for "standard" ammo but the heavier projectiles were designated for harder targets.

Clockwise from bottom left:
- a standard-size 25 gram c. 348 BC bullet of Namertes. Bullets generally got heavier as time went on.
- an Iberian projectile weighing 147 grams, probably Sertorian or Caesar's Civil War era.
- a 99 gram Hellenistic bullet from the Balkans.
- a 171 gram Hellenistic bullet embossed with a thunderbolt to "smite" the enemy, Bulgaria or Turkey.
- a presumably Seleucid bullet from Jordan or Israel emblazoned with another nice thunderbolt, 52 grams, more standard for later Hellenistic/Roman era projectiles.
- bottom center is my heaviest, a massive 249 gram lead projectile from Cyprus. Do the math, this would have been brutal!!
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