I been working on this masterwork. I can't state enough how good this sling works for me, the way I use it.
I've never seen any historical sling ever build like this.  The core consists of a thin 3-ply twisted hemp cord. The split pouch and fingerloop are spliced. I've overlaid very thin tight twisted hemp cord whipping over the complete length of the sling. Done very tight and with care. It' has made the sling very twist resistant and extremely snappy and responsive. By far the best feeling sling I have ever used. It feels super efficient. It felt it deserves its own thread. It's rifles baseballs, tennisballs, clayballs like a laser, and biconicals perfect every time. I don't feel like settling for anything less ever again, she is a medium 75 cms long. I got to make a video on it. I am definitely going to make more of these.
:madmonkey:

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Looking great!

   Nice.  I've often considered whipping over the entire sling but never did because I was afraid it would make the sling too stiff.  Apparently not.

I used a very fine thread for the whipping, and the diameter of the central twisted 3 ply core is quite small, about 2-3 mm.

It's a very unique way to get round, thin, yet stiff natural cords, outside  the traditional paradigm of flat braid, round braid and twisted.

Very interesting J. So keeping in the theme of an instrument where does this fall? Woodwind? Brass? Strings etc.

I made another one out of jute, but it is not as stiff as hemp. The hemp one (outer) is nicer.

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A photo to show how stiff/pliable the whipping allows me to get a thin natural sling. The pouch orientation control is most excellent, of a quality I have never had with other slings, neither thought possible, and it doesn't require a thick/square braid that slows it down or interferes. And I tried so many. It's hard to put into words the magic. It almost made me cry. The symphony this hemp sling produces is like spring waltz.

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AncientCraftwork wrote on Mar 14^th, 2021 at 6:07am:

A photo to show how stiff/pliable the whipping allows me to get a thin natural sling. The pouch orientation control is most excellent, of a quality I have never had with other slings, neither thought possible, and it doesn't require a thick/square braid that slows it down or interferes. And I tried so many. It's hard to put into words the magic. It almost made me cry. The symphony this hemp sling produces is like spring waltz.

A tutorial would be most helpful especially for newer members if you are up to it. Perhaps adding it to the abstract sling design?

I've found that round braiding around a core makes a quite stiff sling too, might be another way to achieve a similar result.

Very interesting! What did you do for the release?
I can see that design working really well, and round split-pouches in general have very low friction. While my 'magic' sling turns out to not be that magical, yours looks promising.
Prime candidate for waxing I think, which would help glue the thing together, make the twist resistance even better, and greatly decrease the likelihood of the whipping getting torn in any location and unraveling. Because it's so thin it would probably only add ~10g in weight.

JudoP wrote on Mar 14^th, 2021 at 9:59am:

I've found that round braiding around a core makes a quite stiff sling too, might be another way to achieve a similar result.

it produces a very similar result. The slings I get closest to performance to this one are relatively stiff, machine round braided  polyester around a core, these are 5-6mm diameter cords. I simply stitch these together to form a split pouch, and then add some leather to cover up the stitchings

Archaic Arms wrote on Mar 14^th, 2021 at 11:06am:

Very interesting! What did you do for the release? I can see that design working really well, and round split-pouches in general have very low friction. While my 'magic' sling turns out to not be that magical, yours looks promising. Prime candidate for waxing I think, which would help glue the thing together, make the twist resistance even better, and greatly decrease the likelihood of the whipping getting torn in any location and unraveling. Because it's so thin it would probably only add ~10g in weight.

The grip I used on this sling is very wide, I place the retention loop over my pinkie and ring, so the cord basically exits from my ring finger. I use a middle, thumb and index grip on the release ''tab''. So all my fingers are used, 2 for the retention, 3 for the release. I don't really like the feeling of full-cord grip with a ring-finger wide grip. But I do love a ring finger wide grip whenever I can.

The split pouch is specifically sized for specific ammo- in this case tennisballs, baseballs, clay balls and biconicals. Because it's sized properly I have no rpoblems with a rotor and ammo dropping out of the pouch, even with a wide ring finger grip. I wouldn't use this sling for random stones of various shapes and sizes, the sling deserves better.

That looks really stiff J. Have you tried it with heavy ammo? And have you tried the lasso aiming method?

You're really onto something here J.
I have just made a small section with thick linen yarns and it's amazingly twist resistant if you wrap it correctly. 3-ply in the middle would be too thick with the yarns I'm using and 2 will probably be just as good. I can't do any normal braiding at the moment as I have a gargantuan blister on my left thumb, but I can twist cords, so I'll try and whip one together today.  ;)
I think it would make for a great target sling.

I wrap 5 turns, then pull it down tight, repeat, you get better at it
the next sling. With care and skillful wrapping, it should not slide, Make it tight. And I do recommend
Thin Linen or hemp,. And not thick jute or sisal twine.
Its similar to a bowstring serving

Today I had this sling in a warm dry place. It has lost all almost all its stiffness and most of its twist resistance. It's more like a tight 2 ply sisal sling now. Many more oscillations now with the same ammo that previous showed almost none. Not that it's a bad sling now, just no reason for all this work if the end result has similar twist resistance as a tight 2 ply sisal sling in a dry environment. This is a tricky thing.. I don't know if this problem can be solved with natural fibres. I think it's time to just forget about technical improvements of the sling and the best way is to simply practice and accept the sling's shortcomings for what it is, and none of this discussion and experimentation and perfection to get perfect 0 degree angle of attack shots every time is going to happen. this is how I feel now anyway.
Moisture defeated me. Synthetics are calling me, and I refuse

J I am confused. What do you mean by “angle of attack”?  That term is usually used in reference to airfoils like wings or propellers... not rocks that are tumbling or spinning through the air.  How do you define angle of attack for a rock?

I believe he means the angle of the axis of rotation compared to it's direction of travel. If they are aligned, it is a angle of zero. That is how I would define it at least. i.e. a perfect rifled release.

IronGoober wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2021 at 11:03pm:

I believe he means the angle of the axis of rotation compared to it's direction of travel. If they are aligned, it is a angle of zero. That is how I would define it at least. i.e. a perfect rifled release.

Ok, that makes sense I suppose.  I have a hard time imagining a release sequence that could ever achieve this though. The only way I can think to do it is mid-air with an aerodynamic self-stabilizing shape. Elongated ammo rolls out of the pouch perpendicular to the pointy ends. You would need the ammo to begin rifling, then rotate to where the pointy end is facing forward without inhibiting the rifled spin.

My theory is, when you use the perfectly weighted and balanced ammo for a specific sling, and a consistent wide grip and throwing style, a near perfect rifled release is possible consistently. I shared my theories on how to come near this perfect  ammo weight for your sling. Just like bows that have a set of arrows that perfectly match it. This bow and arrow set is harmonious to each other, or at least as close to it as possible.
Similarily this can be achieved with the sling and projectile, But to achieve this near-perfect harmony is tough. It depends a lot on the construction of the sling. But it's important that your sling is consistent. That this what happened to me does not happen, variable-stiffness depending on humidity. It screws it all up.
It may be possible with a synthetic sling because it's less effected by weather. I lost my interest to perfect it, because my interest is with natural fibres, and I am not saying technically thinked through aspects for natural fibres slings are completely futile, but its near impossible to perfect.
The intricate complexity of the internal ballistics of the friction sling baffled me and put me off tremendously. It wasn't why I got into slings. I threw the baby out with the bathwater. Now I got back into slings, I took on this challenge to find this perfection. I know how to come near it, and those few shots feel incredible. Just like shooting a perfectly matched arrow is a joy. Anyway, I'm done with perfecting this, and just keep the sling the simple thing it was and accept its shortcomings. The old ''practice is everything'' challenge and ''chock the odd rock'' is more fun than the ''harmonious sling challenge'' for me. Throw out most rules and dogmas of the sling and how to use it I made up in my head, and just rely on the instinct and practice. Although I will keep the wide grip.

J, I wouldn't be totally discouraged. There could still be something to your theory. Just like a bow, tuning doesn't matter if you can't hit your target anyway. I mean you wouldn't worry about giving a 6 year old a well matched bow and spined arrow, because it wouldn't make that much difference. But for the archer who has been training hard, but just can't quite get that last little bit of precision, spining the arrows correctly can be the key to achieving that final needed bit of accuracy. In my own experience, only at the end of bow hunting season does paper tuning my shooting make a big enough difference to notice improvement in my accuracy. Perhaps it is similar to the sling.

Perhaps the tuning issue you speak of is for a skill level you just haven't quite reached yet (that is probably the case for many of us). I don't know what level of precision would be required, but probably being capable of trick-shot level accuracy within a just a handful of tries is likely required.  Food for thought anyway.

IronGoober wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2021 at 10:34am:

J, I wouldn't be totally discouraged. There could still be something to your theory. Just like a bow, tuning doesn't matter if you can't hit your target anyway. I mean you wouldn't worry about giving a 6 year old a well matched bow and spined arrow, because it wouldn't make that much difference. But for the archer who has been training hard, but just can't quite get that last little bit of precision, spining the arrows right can be the key . In my own experience, only at the end of bow hunting season does paper tuning my shooting make a big enough difference to notice improvement in my accuracy. Perhaps it is similar to the sling. Perhaps the tuning issue you speak of is for a skill level you just haven't quite reached yet(that is probably the case for many of us). Food for thought anyway.

+1

It’s a lot easier to get that perfect spiral with aerodynamics instead of internal ballistics:

https://youtu.be/DuIuVO2nUeU

... actually I slowed it down even more here:

https://youtu.be/Slaoyw3hceQ

Interesting, but not my cup of tea.

Natural fibre puts a limit on what kind of control is possible, as I laid out in the above posts, because different levels of humidity can greatly change the ''tiller'' of the sling, from floppy to stiff.

But there's no better sling feeling than slinging a well balanced sling, without big oscillations, without big twists, and with a perfect turning with the wrists. The consistency I can get with a fine tuned setup, is incredible, and so would many here.

@irongoober I was discouraged because humidity was spoling my efforts in perfecting the natural fibre design for me. Not because I don't have the skill to notice the differents. I definitely do. I think even someone who has only been slinging for a month would notice.

I made a synthetic variant of this hemp sling, to overcome this issues over humidity, even though I love natural fibre.  Either way, this is my current precision sling design. Somehow this hemp type seems to retain its level of stiffness/pliability in variable humid atmospheres better than the a twisted/whipped hemp sling I posted in the OP, but not to the degree a synthetic sling does. I think the whipping + twisting combination is more affected by humidity levels than a braid.

This design with clay biconicals weighted for it is an absolute rifle sling. I can even use a full fist pinch grip (both cords side to side in the hand, no cord seperated in the hand!)  and get great orientated shots.

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Archaic Arms wrote on Mar 14^th, 2021 at 11:06am:

Very interesting! What did you do for the release? I can see that design working really well, and round split-pouches in general have very low friction. While my 'magic' sling turns out to not be that magical, yours looks promising. Prime candidate for waxing I think, which would help glue the thing together, make the twist resistance even better, and greatly decrease the likelihood of the whipping getting torn in any location and unraveling. Because it's so thin it would probably only add ~10g in weight.

What are some good sources for beeswax? All I have is a chapstick sized container, mustache wax, but seems like it would be emptied to coat one sling.

AncientCraftwork wrote on Mar 25^th, 2021 at 11:43am:

Interesting, but not my cup of tea. Natural fibre puts a limit on what kind of control is possible, as I laid out in the above posts, because different levels of humidity can greatly change the ''tiller'' of the sling, from floppy to stiff. But there's no better sling feeling than slinging a well balanced sling, without big oscillations, without big twists, and with a perfect turning with the wrists. The consistency I can get with a fine tuned setup, is incredible, and so would many here. @irongoober I was discouraged because humidity was spoling my efforts in perfecting the natural fibre design for me. Not because I don't have the skill to notice the differents. I definitely do. I think even someone who has only been slinging for a month would notice. I made a synthetic variant of this hemp sling, to overcome this issues over humidity, even though I love natural fibre.  Either way, this is my current precision sling design. Somehow this hemp type seems to retain its level of stiffness/pliability in variable humid atmospheres better than the a twisted/whipped hemp sling I posted in the OP, but not to the degree a synthetic sling does. I think the whipping + twisting combination is more affected by humidity levels than a braid. This design with clay biconicals weighted for it is an absolute rifle sling. I can even use a full fist pinch grip (both cords side to side in the hand, no cord seperated in the hand!)  and get great orientated shots.

I am a bit new to the hobby, but I am already chasing that perfect material, size, weave/braid type, efficiency/accuracy balance point as well. Don't give up hope. There is ALWAYS a better way to do things. Just like there is always someone more skilled. It will happen just gotta keep chugging through the frustration of failure, learning from the problems. Sorry for the basic pep talk lol. Just trying to be encouraging

Whooaaaaaaaaaaa that is sleek.
I am feeling comfortable merely by looking at that thing.

Duckhands wrote on Mar 25^th, 2021 at 7:27pm:

What are some good sources for beeswax? All I have is a chapstick sized container, mustache wax, but seems like it would be emptied to coat one sling.

100% beeswax candles can always be bought if that's all you can find. Farmers markets or any places that sell produce from local beekeepers often have 1lb blocks of wax, which are more value for money.

Archaic Arms wrote on Mar 26^th, 2021 at 10:53pm:

Duckhands wrote on Mar 25th, 2021 at 7:27pm: What are some good sources for beeswax? All I have is a chapstick sized container, mustache wax, but seems like it would be emptied to coat one sling. 100% beeswax candles can always be bought if that's all you can find. Farmers markets or any places that sell produce from local beekeepers often have 1lb blocks of wax, which are more value for money.

Agreed.  And if you can't find anything local, just look on ebay or Etsy.  Plenty of sellers with blocks of beeswax.