weather or not its a clean kill depends on where you hit it, if you hit it in the head yes, the leg, no. it is humane though, just as much as hunting with a bow or a gun

no first hand experience here, but i read the original hunting use of the sling was shooting at a flock of birds as they pass overhead, a hit would be much easier since your shooting into a large group. for a rabbit id rather use a throwing stick, easier to be accurate with and covers more area.

Corvid wrote on Jun 14^th, 2009 at 10:04am:


None of the above, therefor is a sling an unaccaptable hunting weapon in my book.

We eat rabbit (snowshoe hare) a couple times a month and I give a lot of rabbits away, so I hunt them frequently.  Mostly I use a .22 rifle as that is simply the most efficient way to harvest rabbits.  But once in awhile I do take a sling and see if I knock one down.

When using a sling I don’t worry about headshots.  A 4oz rock hitting a rabbit in the thorax (at accurate velocities) will knock it down, if it’s not killed on impact a person is right there to dispatch it quickly.

The challenges that I face are:

A).  Stalking the rabbit until I’m in what I feel to be reasonable / responsible range . . . that is, getting close enough so that I’m reasonably confident that if I hit it, it will be knocked down and not merely injured and thus escape.  I follow that same personal rule with a rifle too – if I can’t be pretty darned certain of the shot, I don’t take it.  Stalking rabbit in brushy terrain takes some practice – you not only need to learn how to move through the brush, how to use cover/concealment, you also have to learn a bit about rabbit behavior.  But all of that comes with practice and it’s certainly not an impossible skill set to learn..

B).  The real challenge for me anyway is that I’m in the brush.  Getting close to the rabbits is doable quite a bit of the time.  However, getting close and having brush-free / obstruction free space to sling a rock is a different story.

Obviously it would much easier to sling in open country, but closing on the target is much harder in the open.  Sometimes I walk the trails and come upon rabbits feeding at the brush line along side the trail . . . sometimes I get close enough to sling a rock . . . once in a while I get the rabbit.

As far as the ethics of it goes, my thought is the same standards apply whatever weapons/tools you employ.  And these are just standards I hold for myself, I’m not trying to shove them off on anyone else.

- -Don’t shoot unless your intention is to harvest the animal.
- -If you don’t have a high degree of confidence that you can make the shot, don’t take it.
- -Don’t waste game.  If someone isn’t going to eat what you kill (or utilize the pelt/hide, etc), don’t take the shot.
- - If you hit something and it gets away, be prepared to spend some time and effort to try and find the wounded animal.

Anyway, I personally feel that a person can responsibly and humanely hunt small game with a sling – you just need to think it through and develop some personal standards and hold to them.

Pleased to meet you, btw.

Hey cool to hear from you all - Interesting that Neander97 speaks of stalking rabbits, where i live the rabbits are everywhere and you can in a lot of cases walk within a few feet of them, There not Horrible swollen eyed Miximtosis rabbits, which i used to see a lot of when i was younger, I think their just used to humans and not being hunted.

I think i agree with Rat man, I dont have the skill, at the moment to feel comfortable using a sling to hunt, but having that skill must be grand. I have very little hunting experience at all but i agree that respect for prey is important - Do you think that respect makes for a better hunter?

I don’t want to go on and on about this and make it sound like I think I own this thread  . . . but I would like to point out that is something else that is very much worth considering.  

Slinging rocks is a great way to pass some time in the great out-of-doors.  Stalking small game is challenging and fun.  

But there’s no rule that says you have to sling rocks at what you stalk.

A person can have a great time in the country slinging rocks, stalking small animals and enjoying being out doors without actually harvesting game.