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Sling Speed???????????????????? (Read 39267 times)
Gan Banor
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Sling Speed????????????????????
Jul 6th, 2008 at 4:48pm
 
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
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #1 - Jul 6th, 2008 at 5:54pm
 
This topic has come up so many times it isn't funny. If you loook through some old posts I'm sure you could find some info.
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wanderer
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #2 - Jul 6th, 2008 at 5:57pm
 
Gan Banor wrote on Jul 6th, 2008 at 4:48pm:
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


No idea where you found your interesting fact Wink. 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 Smiley.
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #3 - Jul 6th, 2008 at 6:09pm
 
Damn wanderer you do have good computer speed. I suck at finding and organizing threads.
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wanderer
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #4 - Jul 6th, 2008 at 7:09pm
 
dork wrote on Jul 6th, 2008 at 6:09pm:
Damn wanderer you do have good computer speed. I suck at finding and organizing threads.

Well, I just got there first Wink - and I bet I missed lots Grin
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #5 - Jul 7th, 2008 at 7:12am
 
Also check out the balearic-sling initiated david and goliath thread over on the project goliath section.

Balearic-slinger is a balearic slinging champion who took part in a recent discovery channel program where they measured his slinging and also the force of impact it had on a goliath head shaped target.
http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1208522774
We're all waiting for the program to air to see just how much info they'll be broadcasting.

But, it's definitely been measured. ALso look up some of aussieslingers posts on measuring projectile speed using a simple stopwatch and sound recording program.
:-)

There is an outside chance that you might alight on a slinging related subject that has not been so far discussed in the 5 years the forum has been running - but it's unlikely :-)
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #6 - Jul 7th, 2008 at 7:51am
 
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 Wink
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #7 - Jul 7th, 2008 at 9:16am
 
One of our long time members, TechStuf, has made a demonstrational video of himself slinging at a plywood cutout of a Goliath figure. You will be able to see the stones deeply imbedded into the 3/4" thick timber. Of course not all of us are as strong or comptent as TechStuf but this video proves beyond all doubt that in the hands of a good exponent the sling is potentially lethal with shots that hit the body as well as the head.

As I recall using the sound track to measure the elapsed time the stone speed was around 135 fps.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5648598808576881556&hl=en
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #8 - Jul 7th, 2008 at 1:09pm
 
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?
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #9 - Jul 7th, 2008 at 6:43pm
 
Bear with me because I have illuminated this before. So far the only sling speed testing I’ve done was in the early 1990’s using a standard baseball. The radar measurements were done in a large indoor area by a professional who stood behind a hanging net about 10m away. My sling was about 1.3m long folded and of standard 3mm braided nylon. The pouch was integral with the sling cords (split), similar to a ladder pouch but the lateral connectors did not form coils. My best time was 128mph (about 57m/s). It takes at least 49m/s to drive a baseball to 122m (400ft).    

I imagine the experienced slingers we have can easily beat this speed using ordinary stones which are more massive and have less air resistance.
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Gan Banor
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #10 - Jul 8th, 2008 at 5:05am
 
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
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #11 - Jul 8th, 2008 at 5:33am
 
lmao - well bear in mind the greatest repository for information on slings is here at slinging.org.

Whether or not it's anywhere else on the internet, the odds are good it's round here somewhere :-)
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #12 - Jul 8th, 2008 at 8:49am
 
Gan Banor wrote on Jul 8th, 2008 at 5:05am:
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

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' Wink ) 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 Grin.


Thomas,
I just didn't pick up your thread on speed measurement in my quick 'grab' of threads - I hadn't forgotten Wink
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #13 - Jul 9th, 2008 at 9:39am
 
Well, if you know the distance of the projectile and the angle at which it was released you can calculate the speed.

The formula is
Velocity=sqrt(a*d/(2*cosx*sinx))   x is the angle of release, a is the gravitational constant (9.8 m/s^2), d is the distance

This is assuming that there is no air resistance

I was messing around with some distances from the "Sling Ranges" page on this site and calculated Mr. Engvall's throw to be around 73 m/s, assuming a 30 degree release angle.  This means it had an energy of about 167 Joules, which is about a quarter of a .45 colt(~630 joules).

But looking at Mr. Gaylor's throw, which was a much heavier object, the energy of it comes out to be 364 joules (assuming a 45degree angle, the energy is even greater if the angle was less!). According to a few websites I checked, this is more energy than a .38 special round!!!(~200 joules).  Now that packs some punch!
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Re: Sling Speed????????????????????
Reply #14 - Jul 9th, 2008 at 11:37am
 
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.
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