Some have said the AussiePOUCH is a myth. Others swear by it and yet others swear at it. How do you make one and is it worth the effort. Read this no holds barred expose and the truth will be revealed.

More and more I seem to be getting asked, "How do I make an Aussie Pouch?" First let me reiterate the Aussie pouch is not an original design. I have seen the concept used numerous times before. If I were to give it a generic name then I would call it a "twin crossover strap" design. What makes my Aussies distinctive is that I made them and that they are made from green and black reclaimed conveyor belting. Thats it!

It's a bit like asking how do you paint a Picasso? Only Picasso can paint a Picasso, but just about any first grader in art class can do a painting that looks as good if not better.

When I first came to the forum I noticed other newcomers asking about how to make a sling. Often I saw pictures of slings that people had posted that looked quite unsafe and inadequate for the task. Sure a sling is a very basic piece of equipment but it is not always easy to find a suitable piece of leather or other material to make one and not all people have the hand skills to make one either. So I decided to offer these sling pouches primarily to newcomers so that they could have ready access to a basic but good and functional sling. Once they had decided that slinging was for them they could then branch out and try making slings of different designs to suit their own tastes if they so desired.

The choice of the twin strap crossover design was based on two factors. Firstly many if not most of us live in urban environments which makes slinging stones dangerous. Tennis balls are far safer and non threatening; better all round, especially for beginners who are likely to sky shots when learning. Tennis balls falling on yor own head can hurt, but rocks could be fatal. Flat pouches do not hold round ammunition sufficiently securely for beginners. Secondly was the material itself. The majority of it is 1" wide belting which cannot be shaped to form a cup like leather. The twin strap design is perfect in this regard. It allows a wide cupped pouch to be formed from two narrow straps of material. So after some experimentation and fiddling around to get it right the AussiePOUCH was born. Originally I didn't call them anything and it was C-A who suggested they be called Aussie pouches. In a past life I used to be a draftsman and the capitalised POUCH is a blatant ripoff from AutoDESK who make AutoCAD, the world's most popular CAD drafting software.

So how do you make one? Most likely you won't have access to the same material as I do so you will have to use leather, the webbing off an old back pack, straps cut from an old truck tire inner tube, etc.

Cut two straps of material 7" long and 1" wide. and round off the ends neatly with a pair of scissors or similar. A half inch from each end punch a hole big enough to take your cord. If your finished pouch is to be even it is important that the holes in both straps be the same distance apart, ie when you lay the straps on top of each other the holes must line up exactly.

Initially don't glue them but use a couple of clothes pegs to hold everything in place be sure you have it right, line up two of the holes so you have a large V shape. Now cross the free ends over each other and line up the other pair of holes. In the middle there should be around a quarter inch gap betwen the straps, and the finished shape should resemble a football helmet chin strap or a small boat shape with no bottom.

When I make them from the old conveyor belt I use superglue to hold them together. What you use depends on the material you are making your pouch from. I have never made them from webbing but I imagine they would have to be stitched together. Experiment for yourselves. Actually the glue is not as important as you might think because the cords threaded through the holes hold the lot in place anyway. During inital testing I tried a pouch with no glue, just two straps held by the cords and it worked reasonably well but the gap closed up too much.

Not all AussiePOUCHes are the same. The early ones were a bit longer than the current ones and I also made a Mk.2 model which is a bit wider, which makes it very secure for tennis and other similar balls but too wide for golf balls and small stones. Nowdays unless you specifically ask or something in your request or post makes me think you will be best off with a Mk.2, you will get a universal shortened Mk.1. I feel these are the best allround, good for tennis ball, golf balls and stones as well.

So go ahead and make yourselves a "twin strap crossover" pouch. For round ammunition I think the design is very good. For irregular stones a flat pouch is probably just as good. But remember that good slinging is far more a function of the slinger than of the particular sling bing used. Also remember a genuine Picasso will cost you millions whereas a genuine AussiePOUCH can be had merely for the asking.


P.S This is the person that you are sending your personal details to. You have been warned.

OK, lets establish this,
every time this post gets to the second page, someone posts somthing to get it back to the top, so no more newcomers will ask!

evven a  will work

thats very similar to the slings i made.

[quote author=curious_aardvark link=1213024797/0#5 date=1213095342][...] loads of funny stuff here [...] [/quote]
Good to see, that the spirit of Monty Python is still among us, that would have been a great episode for the flying circus :D

[quote author=curious_aardvark link=1213024797/0#5 date=1213095342]ah you see he's gone and suckered you all in again.

The truth is that the aussiepouch is produced by a combination of old dreamtime aborigine magic and modern petrochemicals.
They are made in a secret underground factory populated entirely by intelligent koala bears.

At night the koalas scavenge the post offices for old conveyor belts. These are then handed over to an old aborigine medicine man who spends the next six months preparing the material for use - nobody knows how he does this but it is suspected that kangaroo gizzards and dunny spider venom  are involved.
After this period the koalas reclaim the material (which by the way now flouresces under intense argon lamps) and set to in their workshop.
Of course as koalas have a VERY slow metabolism it takes each individual koala 3 months to finish a single pouch.
There is a rumour that superglue is involved in the process - yet another clever blind by aussie. In actual fact the pouches are held together with the fermented spit of the deadly nighthawk caterpillar.

After this exhaustive and complex process the pouches are left under a rock outside Aussies house where he swaps them for bundles of sweetened eucalyptus leaves to which he addicted the koalas years ago.

You can't duplicate them - it would be foolish to even try :-)

[/quote]

lol you spent the time to actually type this down ;D ;D ;D

since recieving my aussie pouch a few weeks ago, aboriginal magic seems the best (and indeed only ) explanation for my impovement in accuracy etc.... Once again, thanks aussie slinger.