im one of the school shot putters in my school, and while talking about slinging with a few of my friends, they started to joke about slinging a 12 pound shot. that got me thinking, how heavy is to heavy when it comes to slinging?

I am sure it would work with a really strong sling and 2 hands.  So not much accuracy or distance.  I find anything more than a few oz throws my old shoulders and joins out of wack.

Maybe a staff sling?

I'm not sure of the exact weight, but when the rock projectile starts to approach the size of my fist (bigger than average, but not huge) it does a number on my shoulder.  I'm sure a slinging a shot put would cause a lot of us serious injury.  
  I was a shot putter for a while back in high school.  Great sport! I still remember the proper form. Funny how some things stay with you.

It's been an Olympic sport for years; called Hammer Throwing. The hammer is a 16 lb steel ball on a steel cable and is thrown using a pirouetting spinning style. There's no pouch, the thrower lets fly with ball cable and handle. World record distances are around 80 m. Needless to say hammer throwers are all built like King Kong.

Aussie wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 12:40am:

It's been an Olympic sport for years; called Hammer Throwing. The hammer is a 16 lb steel ball on a steel cable and is thrown using a pirouetting spinning style. There's no pouch, the thrower lets fly with ball cable and handle. World record distances are around 80 m. Needless to say hammer throwers are all built like King Kong.

Except the ones who can manage only about 5m. ...  ;)

Aussie wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 12:40am:

It's been an Olympic sport for years; called Hammer Throwing. The hammer is a 16 lb steel ball on a steel cable and is thrown using a pirouetting spinning style. There's no pouch, the thrower lets fly with ball cable and handle. World record distances are around 80 m. Needless to say hammer throwers are all built like King Kong.

Or Queen Kong. In some countries during the Cold War days, you sometimes couldn't tell the female hammer throwers from the male. There was a great scene on this in the 80s Top Secret! movie.

Also, they have a similar sport in the Highland games.
 The most weight I have ever heard of  being launched from a sling was from the Balearics, whose limestone balls could weigh up to 1 Greek mina, or about 1.25 pounds. :o
Stick to catapults beyond that

What about a trebuchet?

Youd prolly need a catapult. Anything over 8 oz with even my long sling only goes about 90 yards, (4-5 oz is perfect ammo for my sling). But 12 pounds? Id be amazed to see somone sling a 12 pound object. :o

Although I did see a sling on timothy potters site meant for slinging cannonballs...

Here's a link to a video of my favorite hammer thrower:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EODZjWudw4E

I believe that highland games weight throwing might be a better model for slinging a shotput:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZswCEaOjHcA  

hmm, well you could do it with a modified hammer throwing style and a heavy duty sling.

If you wanted to do it one handed it would have to be underam and using a very short sling, or you'd just blow your elbow.
we're only talking about just over 5kg here. So not massively heavy.
Use a thick wrist strap for retention cord  and short thick sling and it's doable.
ON no accout attempt with afinger loop - that could be nasty.

I'm not advocating everyone try - lol - you could end up with a dislocated shoulder.
But it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility for someone with decent shoulder and arm strength.

Also should be pretty easy with a heavy duty staff sling.
I think I'm correct in saying that lobohunter has slung sledge hammer heads of similiar weight (but then he's 6'6 and a blacksmith :-)
Isn't he currently hiking across another set of mountains somewhere ?
(any recent sasquatch sightings in the states ?)

I don’t think it would really be possible for one of that size, but I guess it could be possible for a good slinger to sling one of the little athletics under six year old 1kg Shotput balls, still massive for a sling projectile but I guess it could be done, and quite easily if using a staff sling. Sorry for being 13 years later lol

no, 5kg shot is slingable.
You just have to do it sensibly :-)

Go take a look at the size of rocks Joe meadmaker was slinging one handed last year.

If I'm not mistaken, I think he has been watching my videos on big stones.  Welcome to the forum.  :thumb:

To date, the biggest stone I've thrown with a sling was a bit over 3.2 kg (7.2 lb).  It was at the end of my 2021 Pumpkin Challenge video.  That was a two-handed throw though.  I think 5 kg is completely doable.  The biggest concern I would have is just making sure the sling is strong enough to hold it.

I don't think I would want to try a 5 kg projectile one-handed, but two hands actually works quite well once you get use to the difference in how the torso rotates.  Or if someone was able to use a style similar to a hammer throw, some pretty good distance could likely be achieved.  I don't know if I have the coordination for that.  Or the time to learn it.

yeah, that whole spinning round on one leg business.
You'd need more than a net cage if I tried that !

An ambulance on site would probably be a good idea as well :-)

But get the right technique, and it's definitely doable.