Hi all!

I'm an ancient history student who recently got into slinging because of a lecture I saw that mentioned inscribed sling bullets. I've been slinging as a hobby for around a year now, and am currently doing research for an undergraduate thesis on slings and their use as a psychological weapon during the late Republican / Early Imperial Roman period. I finally decided to create an account so that I could ask for support if I hit any walls. Please feel free to ask questions about the thesis so far or offer any thoughts. I attach an (slightly terrible) image of the slings I've made in the past year - looking forward to making many more in future!

Greetings from England,
Mark

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Welcome Mark! Awesome collection of slings!

Hello from Florida! Great sling collection!

Happy to see another scholar jumping into the fray! You should try to make it to the slinging world cup if at all possible - in addition to the competition itself, there is always tons of historical discussion and usually even some presentations by others who have studied the history of the sling. Last year we had three people present who had written papers in university, and one active shepherd who has published two books on his shepherding where the sling plays a major part. Not to mention those who love the historical aspect as a hobby, but still are positive fountains of information!

Anyways, it's a fairly short hop from the UK and you've still got two months to book flights ;)

https://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1767836413/0

Hello Mark;
   Welcome aboard from New Jersey.

Welcome from Pennsylvania, USA!

Great arsenal, Mark!!

Welcome from Vienna!
What an impressive collection! And your field of expertise sounds really exciting!
My uncle (who has sadly passed away) was a university professor of ancient Roman history at the University of Vienna, and his additional area of expertise was the Celts in Austria!
He would have been a fantastic resource for you, since he was a walking encyclopedia and, on top of that, could not only translate but also speak Latin and Ancient Greek!

Dobi wrote on Aug 26^th, 2026 at 4:11am:

Welcome from Vienna! What an impressive collection! And your field of expertise sounds really exciting! My uncle (who has sadly passed away) was a university professor of ancient Roman history at the University of Vienna, and his additional area of expertise was the Celts in Austria! He would have been a fantastic resource for you, since he was a walking encyclopedia and, on top of that, could not only translate but also speak Latin and Ancient Greek!

Sorry to hear about your uncle - he sounds like a fascinating person. Thank you for your kind words and welcome to the forum :)

Mark1 wrote on Aug 26^th, 2026 at 6:14am:

[…] - he sounds like a fascinating person. […]

Thank you so much! Yes, we were never bored as kids when he was around, because he could tell the most interesting stories for hours on end!
And during our school years, he was a tremendous help with our Latin homework! He was even able to help our boys with Ancient Greek, which they both studied in school in addition to Latin!
And since he was also extremely knowledgeable about history in general, literature, and art, he was basically our Wikipedia back when the internet didn’t even exist yet! ;-)

Welcome from a newbie in the UK to this forum.  Great slings.

@Mark1
I was hoping that you could potentially use the data on our recent distance competition. It's the first time I've seen that much data from different slingers all gathered in one place.

IronGoober wrote on Sep 4^th, 2026 at 12:01am:

@Mark1 I was hoping that you could potentially use the data on our recent distance competition. It's the first time I've seen that much data from different slingers all gathered in one place.

Hey IG! Thanks for your comment - I watched some of your videos when I was starting out and they were very helpful. :)
That's a great idea! I did have a look at the thread and was impressed by the distances (certainly better than what the academics are capable of on the whole, bless them). Nice to have some varying data from experienced slingers in a format like that - certainly helps demonstrate some of the claims on potential efficacy I hope to make. If I end up using it (which I may well do!) I'll be sure to credit you all. Wish we had something like this in the UK, but I'm not sure where we could hold a distance event safely!

Thanks very much for your help and best of luck with that elusive world record...
Mark1

"Experienced" is a very generous way to describe my distance slinging ;D but I suppose you want some variance in your data anyway right? I'll bring it up to snuff for next year.

Don't forget you're just a short hop away from the world cup mid-october! Endless amounts of good data(objective and subjective) to be had there in just a couple days' stay!

erricrice wrote on Sep 4^th, 2026 at 6:51pm:

"Experienced" is a very generous way to describe my distance slinging ;D but I suppose you want some variance in your data anyway right? I'll bring it up to snuff for next year. Don't forget you're just a short hop away from the world cup mid-october! Endless amounts of good data(objective and subjective) to be had there in just a couple days' stay!

200 metres is nothing to sniff at! It's still incredibly useful evidence as it proves that Vegetius isn't talking nonsense when he says that Roman legionaries ought to train with targets 180 metres away.
I would love to come to the world cup but unfortunately I won't know my university schedule until I get back in early October - if by some miracle I happen to have that weekend free I'll absolutely look at popping over! It would be a very useful experience I'm sure - and it would present an excellent opportunity to talk at length about my thesis without people yawning! I'll look into it as soon as I know my schedule.

Thanks for your reply :)
Mark1