Slinging.org Forum - Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accuracy

Whipartist

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #15 - Oct 11^th, 2011 at 10:10pm

It's interesting that nobody has yet voted for the weight ranges described by Korfmann. What are we doing differently from the ancients that we prefer so much heavier stones than so many of them did?

I would find the economics argument convincing if Korfmann were only describing lead glandes. But he's also describing stones and clay projectiles. At least with stones there is not point to having them smaller. If economics is the issue, why shape them or select them at all. Just sling what you find at the river. I think the weight range being so precise and narrow is probably a reflection upon an attempt to increase accuracy.

I experimented myself today with some lighter stones. I was able to sling accurately down to about 35 grams out of my sling. Below that the cradle is too stiff to release consistently. Even at 35 I was having some trouble. A 60 gram stones felt great however. A lighter or shorter sling than mine would still do well down to 20 grams I think.

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Bill Skinner past-moderator Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 3292	Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu Reply #16 - Oct 11^th, 2011 at 10:24pm I weighed some of my clay projectiles, they are golf ball sized and weighed around 1 ounce (30g), more or less, most slightly more if the scale was correct. Bill
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DeeNewcum

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #17 - Oct 11^th, 2011 at 11:53pm

Whipartist wrote on Oct 11^th, 2011 at 10:10pm:

What are we doing differently from the ancients that we prefer so much heavier stones than so many of them did?

Using longer slings?

The "sweet spot" for projectile weight varies considerably with sling length. 500g is a good weight for a 10' sling, but completely impractical for a 24" sling.

My math says that optimal weight scales linearly with sling length, but I'd like to do some empirical trials to see if that's true.

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jlasud

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #18 - Oct 12^th, 2011 at 1:28am

Indeed DeeNewcum,longer slings require heavier ammo to put tension on the cords and be effective.
Short,thin,lightweight slings are the most appropriate for the lightest projectiles combined with styles that put great tension on cords.Short,quick styles like byzantine,apache,overshoulder are more efficient with heavier ammo.

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Rockman Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 1267 Lima, Peru Gender:	Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu Reply #19 - Oct 12^th, 2011 at 5:07pm Could it be that the ancients were simply full of it? Remember that this are the same people who claimed lead melts in air and that sword can cleave through armor and helmets.
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Rat Man

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #20 - Oct 12^th, 2011 at 5:23pm

jlasud wrote on Oct 11^th, 2011 at 3:09pm:

Rat Man wrote on Oct 11^th, 2011 at 2:50pm:

I checked 60-90 grams. I use stones somewhere around the size of a chicken's egg but I never weighed one. I'm guessing that's approximately what one weighs. Has anyone ever weighted an egg sized stone?

I did and a it's usually heavier.A denser type would be about 150g a less dense egg size about 100g. Of course it depends what the chickens eat,how much eggs they lay,how close your stones are in volume to them,what type of stone etc Cheesy

If you usually sling chicken egg sized limestone than the 60-90g should be accurate,if you use denser stones your slinging heavier stones

Then my vote is incorrect. I never sling limestone. I sling more dense stones. Basalt stones are my favorite when I can find them.

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Thearos

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #21 - Oct 13^th, 2011 at 4:35am

Hi Whipartist-- are you sure the weights Korfmann gives are for stones and bullets together ? (I mostly remember the histogam of bullets from Olynthos). If it's all projectiles combined, does he explicitly say that there are slingstones weighing 25 g, rather than "lead and stones range from 25 g to 200 g", but not making clear that e.g. 25 g proj. are lead, 200g are stones ?

At any rate, what would a 25 g archaeologically recognizable sling stone look like ?

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Dan Interfector Viris Spurii SlingingGuide Moderator Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 3974 Gender:	Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu Reply #22 - Oct 13^th, 2011 at 10:06am Archeologicaly, I believe the term is a pebble.
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Thearos Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Take that Posts: 3370	Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu Reply #23 - Oct 13^th, 2011 at 1:06pm And how do we say "This pebble was used for slings" ? At maiden castle in Dorset, the huge ammo dumps are almost certainly for slings, so we get a good idea for ancient celtic slingstones-- big things.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #24 - Oct 13^th, 2011 at 4:57pm

DeeNewcum wrote on Oct 11^th, 2011 at 11:53pm:

Whipartist wrote on Oct 11^th, 2011 at 10:10pm:

What are we doing differently from the ancients that we prefer so much heavier stones than so many of them did?

Using longer slings?

The "sweet spot" for projectile weight varies considerably with sling length. 500g is a good weight for a 10' sling, but completely impractical for a 24" sling.

My math says that optimal weight scales linearly with sling length, but I'd like to do some empirical trials to see if that's true.

Friend, The underlined statement has really piqued my interest. Would you like to elaborate on this math is?

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Rat Man

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #25 - Oct 13^th, 2011 at 4:58pm

If I were going to war using just a sling, in ancient times of course, I'd want to use stones no smaller than half the size of my fist (fairly large fist). I wouldn't want projectiles suited for hunting birds and rabbits. I'd want to be able to kill anyone without armor and rattle the hell out of anyone wearing it. Big slings, big stones, or better yet, heavy lead. Nothing lighter than 4 oz. or approximately 113 grams. If able to I'd prefer to use a staff sling. Then I could double the weight easily.

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Whipartist

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #26 - Oct 14^th, 2011 at 1:39am

Quote:

Hi Whipartist-- are you sure the weights Korfmann gives are for stones and bullets together ? (I mostly remember the histogam of bullets from Olynthos). If it's all projectiles combined, does he explicitly say that there are slingstones weighing 25 g, rather than "lead and stones range from 25 g to 200 g", but not making clear that e.g. 25 g proj. are lead, 200g are stones ?

He says that the range for all of the above is about 20-50 grams and shows pictures of all, including the stones. I would presume the majority were stones

Quote:

At any rate, what would a 25 g archaeologically recognizable sling stone look like ?

Ovoid like an acorn and presumably carved or shaped. Oddly one end is slightly larger than the other. Not so odd if you've ever tried to sling perfectly symmetrical stones without loading them sligthly off center.

I believe this weight range represents shorter slings and fast throws quite different to the Balearic styles or the quick styles. That is not to say that ancient people's didn't use all sorts of slings and sling stone sizes world wide. I'm just saying that it's curious that we aren't spending much time with something they apparently spent a lot of time with. Small sling stones. Pebbles, if you will.

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Fundibularius Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Sultan of Sling Posts: 1385 Inter Mosam ac Rhenum Gender:	Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu Reply #27 - Oct 14^th, 2011 at 2:31am 25 grams - that's the weight of a pack of cigarettes - or less. A small pack of tissues.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #28 - Oct 14^th, 2011 at 8:21am

Whipartist-- ah, that's helpful. If the chart is for "all of the above", not distinguishing, it is not a valid assumption that "most are stones". For a projectile to be archaeologically detectable, it can't just be a pebble--it has to be a pebble for which we have good reason to think it's a sling stone-- that takes us to Maiden Castle.The "small shaped pebbles which must be sling stones" are rare, not necessarily sling stones, and to be considered as oddities.

Archaeologically, most sling projectiles that are detectable are in fact either clay, or lead. Therefore, it's likely that the chart in Korfmann is mostly about lead bullets; the high range (200 g +) must be stones.

Therefore, we should not be slinging very light stones. We should be slinging big stones, or small lead bullets-- if we want to imitate the ancients.

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Dan

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #29 - Oct 14^th, 2011 at 10:00am

Rat Man wrote on Oct 13^th, 2011 at 4:58pm:

If I were going to war using just a sling, in ancient times of course, I'd want to use stones no smaller than half the size of my fist (fairly large fist). I wouldn't want projectiles suited for hunting birds and rabbits. I'd want to be able to kill anyone without armor and rattle the hell out of anyone wearing it. Big slings, big stones, or better yet, heavy lead. Nothing lighter than 4 oz. or approximately 113 grams. If able to I'd prefer to use a staff sling. Then I could double the weight easily.

I would still prefer the hand sling but everything else, to me, seemed right on.

Couldn't agree more.

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I was pretty good at slinging like 10 years ago.

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Poll
Question: What Is Your Ideal Ammo Weight?
20-40 grams 0 (0.0%) 30-60 grams 3 (6.2%) 40-70 grams 3 (6.2%) 50-80 grams 6 (12.5%) 60-90 grams 9 (18.8%) 80-120 grams 7 (14.6%) 100-140 grams 7 (14.6%) 120-160 grams 7 (14.6%) 160-200 grams 3 (6.2%) 200+ grams 3 (6.2%) Total votes: 48 « Last Modified by: Whipartist on: Oct 11^th, 2011 at 3:46am »