Quote:


Does your raquetball court have windows? 

Well we did it,

The other day my 11 year old son and I stopped by the driving range. I went up to the counter and said: " I'll bet nobody ever asked you to let them sling a bucket of golf balls?"  I showed him my slings and told him about some of you slinging golf balls 200-250 yards and that I wanted to try it. He said he was doubtful about slinging one that far, but said if we went to the far end and collected balls that were in the tall grass, we could sling for free since it would help him out.

We collected about 100 balls in 10 minutes and were ready to sling. As we walked by some people I held out my sling and anounced that I was going to try out my "new driver."

I had a 25 inch sling--braided cord of nylon with a 2 1/2' x 6" leather pouch and a 33" hemp braided cord with same size leather pouch.

I actually had the best distance using the shorter sling--probably due to the light weifgt golf ball and the extra drag of the longer sling cords.

They didn't have any markers beyond 200 yards. I am guessing that my longest shot may have been 250 and most of them at least 200yrds. My son was reaching 100yards.

I was using the overhand, no rotations style.

I think my arm needs a rest after throwing that many light weight  projectiles. I think I will make a very small pouch and try it again. I could almost feel the air drag on the pouch as I swung it around.

Wow David, we've got to get you slinging some engineered ammo to validate some of the physics we've been tossing around. If you can get a golf ball out to 250 yds, a simple 7/8" lead sphere shoud net you at least 375, which is nothing to sneer at! Do you think that the driving range guys would let you sling some of your own glandes? (although I don't suppose that it is long enough...)

What sort of range to you get with your concrete tennis balls?

In fact, if anyone else wants to chip in with data (anecdotal or otherwise) for ranges with different projectiles given their personal slinging style, I'd be very interested to tablulate the results. Lookin more for differences rather than absolute distances.

Matthias

If you are doing Roman re-enactment golf balls are a good stand-in for Roman lead glandes. At least in weight.
Most Roman glandes Types I (lemon shaped) weigh about 2oz (57g) rarer Type II (acorn shaped) are slightly lighter at around 1.75oz (50g) even rarer type III whistling ones about 1oz (30g). A golf ball typically weighs between 1.62oz & 1.86oz (45.93g & 52.71g) so you are in the right are of weight if not density.

By the Roman empire, there are no "professional slinger units" among the auxiliaries (but plenty of archer units). The slinging mentioned in narrative sources is presumably done by legionaries or auxiliaries in a skirmishing role (hence the training mentioned by Vegetius: hand-thrown stones and slinging), perhaps also using staff slings.

This is a debate that once raged in this forum, but fig-8 is not attested for the ancient world: ancient sources mention rotations above the head (Vegetius 2.23 recommends only one rotation):

Adsuescendum est etiam, ut semel tantum funda circa caput rotetur, cum ex ea emittitur saxum.