I was curious to check out the article about Roman sling bullets of lead.  I had always assumed tat the shape increased range and accuracy and all that.  But reading the article, I saw that the results were inconclusive.  And that got me thinking as to why they would make them that shape.  I then went out and was using my split pouch sling, of two pieces of long cord split in the middle, and occasionally, if the stone was a slightly awkward shape, it would just come out of the back of the sling rather than being released when I let go.  I had made some blu-tac glandes shapes, which I intended to sling.  I put one in my pouch and was interested to see that no matter how vigorously I swung the sling, no matter how badly positioned the blu tac bullet, it never came out.  I also saw that Balearic slingers, the mainstay of the Roman slinging force, used split pouch slings similar to mine.  Perhaps that is why the shape is the way it is.  Anyway, that is my view.  Anyone else got suggestions, because I was going to make some out of clay (I cannot afford lead or anything like that) and I wanted to be certain before I made them.

I don't think that the projectiles do orient themselves; I know I was only using blu-tac, but it was the right shape, and it is heavier than it looks.  ALL my projectiles stayed the same in terms of orientation after being released; they stayed on their sides.

Well, I slung them really, really high, in a nice arc; when it started to come down, and even before then, I could see them perfectly outlined.  I mean, they were travelling quite slowly, so it wasn't difficult.  I was in the middle of a large field, so I had plenty of room, and I wasn't shooting at a target, once I started to do some real tests.  And basically what I saw was a rugby ball shaped object, from the side, flying through the air.

Wouldn´t a droplette-shape turn the heaviest side first after some seconds, even if you let it go with the point first?? Or am I thinking totally wrong here?

If I remember it correct from school ( long, long time ago) when we dropped a thing, with a heavy end up, it turned on the way down, so the heavy end reched the floor first...

Or is it a question about balance...

Well, I´m too tired for these kind of questions right now

Ulrica

And I remain defiant in my insistence that the reason they are flat is to make that gawdawful buzzing sound like a bee ready to sting and scare the beejesus outta the opposing troops.  That's my theory and I'm sticking (stuck) with it.  

Don't you just love the sound the flat ones make! Of course it means there is a lot of drag-- but if you're not going for distance, who cares.

During my first play with the lead projectiles I used 5 "droplets" and 5 "footbals". But I can't say which of them were really better. I only know that one of all them surely exeeded the intentional distance, the others... maybe yes or maybe no.  There was too little throws in order to generalize, but the "droplets" flied turbulently more often than the "footballs". There was no wind, so I heard their gentle hum and saw the twinkle. I suppose it was a result of their asymetrical shape. They veer durring rolling in the pouch, simillar like a cone on a plane. They had a ratio about 0.52 (~1:2). Most probably this is too big ratio for that velocity, and doesn't give a proper aerodynamic adventage in relation to "footballs"

Durring second and the best my try I used only the "footballs" and the most of them seemed to fly calmly and far.

Jurek

I'm not ready to give up on an airfoil shape yet. It is clear that they have the best inflight performance if only they can be released well with no tumbling. So, the secret lies in the sling, not the stone. Dan

fyi:  Water droplets don't look like the NACA airfoil shape I posted. They look like squashed spheres.