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Question: What Is Your Ideal Ammo Weight?

20-40 grams    
  0 (0.0%)
30-60 grams    
  3 (5.9%)
40-70 grams    
  3 (5.9%)
50-80 grams    
  6 (11.8%)
60-90 grams    
  10 (19.6%)
80-120 grams    
  7 (13.7%)
100-140 grams    
  9 (17.6%)
120-160 grams    
  7 (13.7%)
160-200 grams    
  3 (5.9%)
200+ grams    
  3 (5.9%)




Total votes: 51
« Last Modified by: Whipartist on: Oct 11th, 2011 at 3:46am »

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Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accuracy (Read 15166 times)
Whipartist
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Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accuracy
Oct 11th, 2011 at 3:45am
 
I am unsure if this type of poll has been on slinging.org before.  Probably so.  It's always an interesting sort of thing though so let's do a fresh one.  Maybe it will be surprising.

Here is a conversion chart if you are unsure of grams but know the ounces.

http://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/grams-to-ounces-table.htm

Slinging has always been a diverse activity world wide, where different styles, projectile weights and levels of skill existed in different regions.   Yet I have always found it shocking that most sling stones found are considerably lighter than what I believe the average weight used today by the world wide slinging community.  They are certainly lighter than my own preferences have been over the years.  And this has bothered me for years since I first learned it.

Manfred Korfmann's The Sling As A Weapon, references sling stone weights in the Near East as ranging from 13 grams to 180 grams.  Quite a range!  I am sure our pole will show the same.

But the range is usually much much narrower than this he states.  Usually 20 grams is the bottom threshold and 50 grams the upper threshold for sling stone weight.  In different regions average weights were 24 grams.  47 grams at another site. About 25 grams was not just the average weight but the vast majority of stones fell right on this weight, with very few diverging far from it.  According to one chart, the vast majority of stones weighed between 24 and 33 grams with most of those weighing about 24 grams.  It seems 25 grams is some sort of ancient ideal weight.    

I have two questions about this:

1)  Why were the ancients so picky about this narrow range of weights in their sling stones?  The most plausible explanation to me as to why their stones were of such uniform weight, was because they were trying to obtain high level accuracy with them and a narrow weight range was necessary to do this.


2)  Why were these stones so light in weight?  I know it has been discussed before and yes ancient people's were a bit smaller then we are so we have to factor that in, but still, isn't 25 grams really light?

I am sure the poll will either bear out question 2 or make it nonsense.  

Why did the ancients prefer stones that were so light and uniform in weight?  Could this reflect upon the technique they used?  




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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #1 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 4:31am
 
I ticked 160-200 grs; ideal weight for me. Everything under 100 is too light and does not provide a good energy transfer.

As for super-small and super-light projectiles in antiquity, I think they were not used as single shots, but several of them together in a pouch, like buckshot.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #2 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 8:31am
 
I work mostly with tennis balls.with stones, I prefer to 100g.But I must confess that I use stones with more than 150g very rare and therefore I just missing the exercise.

of the reasons why have been used from early antiquity often quite small weights, can speculate a lot.one can observe, however, there was a trend toward more serious bullet.which could mean a rough estimate, the better the armor were heavier were the bullet.

a recordable:if you fight against farmers whose protection was no more than a braided shield just before the battle from willow.25g would be enough to cause serious harm glands.But if you are driving against heavily armored opponents, it should be a bit more weight on.

but also, perhaps, were their Resurse very limited.

or perhaps should demoralize the glans simply because of the small diameter, they receive a very high torque, which makes shooting at a correspondingly shaped a lot of noise.

But I think the truth lies somewhere in between. Wink

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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #3 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 9:24am
 
Note that it's not stones which were light-- ancient sling stones were big affairs, the "hand-filling stone" which must have weighed 200 g. It's the specialized hi-velocity projectile, the sling bullet, which weights bts. says 25 g and 50 g, with outliers around 100 g.

The bullet retains its initial high velocity, because of its shape and the density of lead-- it flies very far, outranging the 200 m which sling stones achieve-- and inflicts its damage by virtue of its speed. The smallness of the projectile means you can pack more in battle, cast more with less lead. The ideal size of the sling bullet may have been found by trial and error.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #4 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 9:47am
 
I prefer around 4-6oz or so for most slinging but most rocks that weight around here are a little larger than a baseball (some kind of sand stone). But when I get river rocks or clay ammo I usually make them that around that weight. Though If I want serious distance I might go for more around 3oz or so. But if I have a nice dence 8oz rock that fits in the sling I'll probably use that too but only at around 100yds or less and it will have tremendous power at that distance.

  I am faimliar with the ancient records and would assume that it was beacuse they slung so much lead it would be incredibly exspensive to have them around 4-5oz glands. And this army also used a strategy where the archers made them lift their sheilds and the slingers would hit their lesser aromored bodies. and then the send in the infantry to finsh them off. Also I belive, within certain parameters, the bigger the ammo the more effecent because when you square the SA you cube the weight therefore having less air resistance and being more effecient. Another eson they used smaller ammo is they were foucusing more on penetration than BFT kind of like how an arrow works. Perhaps for this army the just figgured a sling gland should be just a little heavier than arrow and it would get the necessary penetration for a lower cost and faster production.



Simple concersion unit btw. 1 Ounce = 28.3495231 Grams or about 1oz=30grams
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I was pretty good at slinging like 10 years ago.
 
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #5 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 12:46pm
 
Not my ideal but the general weight around 100-140g.This weight for me is ideal for mid range and accuracy slinging.For long distances 50-60g is ideal.For short range demolition 150-200g.
Agreed with Thearos about the ancient stones and glandes.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #6 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 1:55pm
 
Dan-- which ancient records are these ? And where does this "archers make people raise shields, etc" idea come from ? I've seen it aired before on this forum, but don't know of any ancient source for it.

It matters-- people read this forum for info, so well-sourced statements should go on it.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #7 - Oct 11th, 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?
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #8 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 3:07pm
 
Rat Man wrote on Oct 11th, 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?


150 gram approx for the granites and other igneous rocks that are common here.

I voted 100- 140 gr.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #9 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 3:09pm
 
Rat Man wrote on Oct 11th, 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
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #10 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 4:54pm
 
Thearos wrote on Oct 11th, 2011 at 1:55pm:
Dan-- which ancient records are these ? And where does this "archers make people raise shields, etc" idea come from ? I've seen it aired before on this forum, but don't know of any ancient source for it.

It matters-- people read this forum for info, so well-sourced statements should go on it.


I also read the "archers make people raise shields" from someone else on this form when discussing the same topic of why lead ammo was so light back in the day.

The records were that of an ancient greek general I think it started with an X or T, also from one of the few comprised slinging books today. I considerd this forum well sourced (still do) when I read those statements so I pass them down so that others may be well informed.

To be honest I will sling just about anythin over half inch across and up to anything the size of a soft ball just to get some practice in. However the classic chicken egg sized rocks have been my prefered ammo for quite awhile.
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I was pretty good at slinging like 10 years ago.
 
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #11 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 5:19pm
 
Rat Man wrote on Oct 11th, 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?


Eggs vary of course but large ones have a volume of around 45 ml. So depending on the density of the stone but typically around 3gm/ml will mean your stone will weigh around 135 gm. (Ball park figure only)
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #12 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 5:22pm
 
150 - 250g
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #13 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 6:41pm
 
50-80, usually around 70ish, although i'm completely fine with less than 50. as long as it has some amount of density i can sling it. i don't like too heavy ammo however, and i think 4 ounces is already a little too heavy. i'd go with golfballs any day if they weren't so darned slippery.
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Re: Your Ideal Ammo Weight, The Ancients, And Accu
Reply #14 - Oct 11th, 2011 at 8:45pm
 
OK, Dan seems to be referring to the well-known discussion of Xenophon, Anabasis, which is the most complete account of lead in action (3.3.16-18, 3.4.16), easy to find online and well discussed in this forum. Nothing there about weight, but clear indications about range (self bow outranged by sling with stone, sling with stone outranged by sling with lead by a good margin).

The "archers make people raise shields and then slingers hit them in the body" meme has been floating on this forum for a while. But who can point me to an ancient source ? It sounds like something straight out of Rome Total War. Don't spread the meme without a source ! Don't "pass it on" as "information you get on the internet" !
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