I've seen u tube videos of slingers hitting targets from various distances. They ranged anywhere
from 10 to 50 feet. Got me wondering. Is this a fair test of the power? I mean, is the power of the stone the same at 10 feet, than say 50 or 100?

Here are a pair of handy wesites when trying to calculate the foot pounds of energy from a projectile.  The first is the energy calculator, and the second allows you to convert whatever weight measurment you use on you sling stone into grains for entering into the balistic calculator.
http://www.reloadammo.com/footpound2.htm
http://www.saveonscales.com/weight_converter.html

hehe, granted, but since I'm familiar with the balistic information from firearms, that's how I go about doing things.  Cumbersome I know, but it's what I'm used to 

aw, man....I was wondering if someone could get up enough Poundals to lob an 80 dram ball of 4 nails circumference more than 100 Ells!

[quote]This forum is not a political forum.Nobody really cares what unit of measurement is used,Let's spend our time reading and posting important information, and quit with the pissing contest.

  PLEASE. [/quote]

Someone have a bad day ?
What's politics got to do with it. I've just written up a recipe and realised at the end that I've used millitres, grams and ounces. lol
And i'm not going to change it either lol

As for the power at different distances - well I throw harder at targets that are further away.
So I suppose it depends on whether you are  intent on [u]just hitting a target[/u] - in which case you tend to throw as hard as needed and no harder. Given that the harder you throw the less accurate we tend to be.
Or whether you are intent on doing [u]as much damage to a target as possible [/u]in which case you throw as hard as you can at all distances.

In the first instance (just target shooting) targets further away will be hit with more power than targets close up. In the second instance it would be the reverse.
:-)

there is also the question though of gravity helping out with longer casts...

with guns, it is more or less straightforward.  the bullets travel in an almost straight line.  sling bullets over longer distances are travelling in arcs, so gravity adds to the accelleration as they start coming down...no?

so could you say that longer distance shots hit harder than short distance shots perhaps?  or is it more or less balanced out?

siguy wrote on May 17^th, 2008 at 11:39pm:


It's just the same as tossing a ball straight up into the air. It has maximum speed at the instant it leaves your hand. On the way up both air resistance and gravity slow it down until it stops and starts to come down again. Now gravity makes it accelerate but air drag still tries to slow it down so when you catch it the speed is slower than it was when it left your hand on the way up. If there was no air then the ball would actually regain all its speed and hit your hand with the same speed as it was thrown with. Of course this cannot happen in reality because even in high mountains there is always some air drag. Heavy, dense projectiles are less affected by air drag. That's why baseballs can be thrown a long way whereas tennis balls which are about the same size but much lighter don't go nearly as far. Also air drag varies as the square of the velocity ie. double the speed and air drag goes up 4 times. So a slower moving heavy projectile will retain a greater percentage of its original kinetic energy and "hit harder".

Somewhere I read about baseballs terminal velocity at 97 mph. A typical golf ball driven out to 250 yards will land at around 45 mph.

tom