Published in 2016

https://be-ja.org/index.php/journal/article/view/be-ja-6-2-2016-191-201

Heavy sling bullet, Hellenistic period (early C2nd BCE), Macedonian. Lots of flashing and part of the casting branch, so weighs 136g; even so, it's pretty big (8.3cm) compared to others (say 3cm and around 40g), and the original perhaps weighed around 100g. Some thing these "heavies" were used in engines but they could just be big ammo

Staff sling ammo? I know it's very obscure exactly when and where staff slings turned up, but could that be a possibility?

Interesting b/c the staff sling is only really well attested in the Roman period but it's main advantage is that is allows you to throw heavier ammo (not further) so who knows ! In any case I onder if anyone here has experience with slinging "big" lead bullets (100+g)

I've only used stones, but I was just out today with my newest staff sling and I have to say, someone using a staff sling with lead ammo would be terrifying. I hit 3 times out of the first 5 throws on my first time testing it out with good ammo. Someone with practice throwing 100g lead glandes... Ouch.

Yes quite unlike the tennis balls which a lot of people seem to use to start off with staff slings. But I also wonder what it's like to hand sling an aerodynamic 100g lead bullet. I mean a "hand-filling" stone must weigh about 120g, so this is like a heavy punch in a compact package

actually a 120gm stone is pretty small.
And a decent weight for both distance and target slinging.

So I would imagine the heavier lead glandes would have been used with longer slings and against armoured soldiers.

I reckon you could probably get 250-300 metres fairly easily with a 120gm lead bullet without tearing anything. 

I fear I usually sling around 80-90 g (stones) and yes, I do have problems with drag overcoming energy when slinging long.

Would a 100-120g bullet shoot further than a 45g one ?

250-300m will out range most bows, even most composite bows. 

I think it’s a reasonable weight for a standard sling.

Size of a 200g lead fishing sinker

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Gosh, that's only 1.5x longer than an "average" bullet (say 30-40 g)

Thearos wrote on Jun 5^th, 2020 at 9:35am:

Gosh, that's only 1.5x longer than an "average" bullet (say 30-40 g)

Yes, they still really compact for their weight. And I got pretty compact hands.
I would say these qualify as -knight killers-.

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.

Considering Balearics like heavy projectiles.  :)

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.

AncientCraftwork wrote on Jun 5^th, 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...

That is quite extraordinary. It makes sense why there slings are so stiff and thick if they are slinging 200+ g rocks at those speeds. My jute slings probably wouldn't hold up a 20 shots with rocks that heavy slung that hard.

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 :D With natural materials acting the way they do and how powerfully he slings, I completely believe it.

Bill Skinner wrote on Jun 5^th, 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.

Archaic Arms wrote on Jun 6^th, 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?

Kick wrote on Jun 6^th, 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 :D 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.

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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