I found an interesting fact..... no one has yet measured the speed on an object thrown from a sling and therefor how effective it is. we know that it can kill but how deadly it is over distance and on someone like Goliath. Do you need a head shot to have a fatal wound or will one to the chest kill or to the arm break a bone...... all in my opinion vital facts to understand how a sling preforms in an engament.

I agree they were a common force in armies but was this due to its scattering effect and relitive cheapness to arm herders who were a fair shot with one


Any comments on how to establish this will be welcome and hopefully someday we can find out these facts

Gan Banor wrote on Jul 6^th, 2008 at 4:48pm:


No idea where you found your interesting fact . Do a search on 'speed'. What we don't really have any idea of is how much better ancient slingers might have been than the best of current times.

 http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1067904262/0
 http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1195572094/0
 http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1129613270/0
 http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1162715332/0

Those of us who are interested have several times posted methods to measure speed, and have measured our own. The main trouble is that the fact that I can sling at a particular speed is of very little interest to you, particularly since I might not be a particularly strong slinger. Most slingers here are not that interested in measuring such things.

It is possible to make estimates from sling distances also, and I think these all lead to similar figures, of somewhere around 50m/s upwards for those of us who have used the sling for a reasonable time.

Matthias posted his ideas of general sling speeds among contemporary slingers, the figures are in the threads above. I agree with his figures.

I realise there is a lot of information around here, and it is not arranged in to some 'convenient' digest - but we kind of expect people to spend some time looking .

dork wrote on Jul 6^th, 2008 at 6:09pm:

Well, I just got there first - and I bet I missed lots

Just as an addendum to this.

The published velocities, in Thom Richardson's article and in Korfmann's Sci Am article are most certainly hopelessly under the real values. In the first case the problems probably came about because it's not easy to sling full speed through a tight space as needed for a chronograph.

Always worth remembering that 90mph = 40m/s is a decent bare-handed 'throw' in baseball pitching or cricket bowling.

I'd second C_A's pointer to Balearic Slinger. He is part of a tradition dating back at least to Roman times. Have a look at him, and ask yourself whether a 200g stone hurled by him needs to hit you in the head to hurt you really bad

If a radar gun can pick up a thrown baseball, couldn't one also pick up a slingstone of moderate size? Accuracy wouldn't be as great as with a chronograph, but should be sufficient. Heck, you could just sling a baseball, though those may be a tad heavy (5+ ounces). Maybe a handball or racquetball?

hmmmmm thats very true.

Thanks for the comments on this.
Why i posted this was that i found a site with balistics of bows etc but no sling and i searched the internet for it. i couldnt find any data recorded that related

Gan Banor wrote on Jul 8^th, 2008 at 5:05am:

I think the specific ballistics of slings is much harder than for bows and arrows. It depends what kind of questions you want to answer, and in what kind of detail. There are a few of us who think about this, but it rapidly becomes far more complex than most people want to know about, particularly since it involves math.

The sling has received nothing like the attention which the bow has, so it's hardly surprising you can't find anything much. You can find discussions on a number of these matters (look up dangerous words like 'physics' ) on the threads, but these are mostly quite old. Actually they often give you an idea of how much people on this forum were rediscovering the possibilities, which is interesting of itself.

The kind of thing you are looking for may eventually appear in the WIKI, but don't hold your breath .


Thomas,
I just didn't pick up your thread on speed measurement in my quick 'grab' of threads - I hadn't forgotten

The achievements of the long distance slingers are all the more impressive when the effects of air resistance are taken into account. This post is, I think, the earliest to deal with this matter.

http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1091676756/6#6

The post also gives a very good idea of the uncertainties in the calculations. It's difficult to say with any certainty, but I think Larry Bray probably exceeded Engvall's 'muzzle velocity' by a significant amount in making his throw. Whatever the effective drag coefficient for his stone, it was likely rather higher than Engvall's dart.