joe_meadmaker wrote on Aug 14^th, 2020 at 2:26pm:

I am confused by this result. What are those made from? Punching into cardboard shouldn't be that difficult... er.. provide that much resistance. I'm confused how they broke unless they are very fragile or brittle to begin with.

joe_meadmaker wrote on Aug 14^th, 2020 at 2:26pm:


Nicely done Joe!  Welcome to the nail challenge, and impressive shooting on that tiny target!  If you’re going to fail, then hitting the target repeatedly but having the ammo fail is a great way to do it

Morphy wrote on Aug 15^th, 2020 at 6:51pm:

That's a good point Morphy.  I didn't think about the weight of the entire setup.  I weighed my archery target and it's 32.8 lb.  I think that should be enough.  We'll see on the next round.  I'm hoping to try again tomorrow or the next day.

And I did a closer examination of the street hockey balls, and think I see something that contributed to the damage they took.  When I filled them up with silicone, there were gaps where the silicone didn't reach.  So certain areas on the surface of the ball had to deal with the addition impact (because the weight of the ball was much higher), but didn't have the silicone behind the plastic for additional strength.  Both of the balls broke in an area that had a gap in the silicone.  This is visible for the second broken ball in the video.

Morphy wrote on Aug 16^th, 2020 at 3:28pm:


I've been using lacrosse balls and hoping they catch on. They are heavy (~143g), but solid rubber, so they are pretty durable. Sling them against a hard backstop and you might wish you hadn't though, I was just throwing them and the bounce back was severe, hurt to catch. There is a hacky-sack like version that I used in my recent videos that are the same weight and size, but don't bounce. They are meant for indoor lacrosse practice.

Actually, recently, I've been doing a lot of practice at 25 yards using a balearic circle for a target and I switched to rusty balls. They work way better than what I thought. I am throwing at >80 mph against a wooden backstop and they just keep taking the beating. I've had to replace the outer balloon on some after about a month of slinging everyday.

Joe, I really think Kick is right though, gotta go with rocks. You just need to find something to stop the rocks, or paint them so you can find them later.  I was going to try to get to the challenge this weekend, but it's been 105 F outside everyday and isn't getting below 80 at night, so I've been lying low. It's also uncharacteristically humid...

I actually went and bought a net for catching stones, but haven't set it up yet. It is built for catching golf drives. It should hold up well for missed shots, if I have another target to take the main brunt of the shots.  It was sort of expensive, but I don't mind since this is one of my major hobbies.  I ordered it from "Just for nets". Amazon has a few of them ready to order, but I went to their main website to get a thicker cord, 3mm I think, and 0.75" spacing between knots.

With all of the space that you have, I think it would work well. You could just hang in on your swing-thingy. You certainly wouldn't need to worry about losing stones then.  You can also put a baseball pitching mat in front of it, or just a standard balearic target. Eventually, I will find a better way to hang my net and do something similar (it's 10' x 10').

A simple pvc frame fillled with sand should be good enough to hold a backstop if you don’t want to dig holes.

Good hits Joe!
Could always fill the balls with ice, which would certainly drive a nail in!
Will have to get around to the nail challenge myself. 
Attempted the 10 feet step back challenge the other day with my 22" sling, and got to 120ft around the 45 minute mark where I just stopped. More practice is in order, as my 15" is still a lot more accurate even at that distance...

Morphy wrote on Aug 17^th, 2020 at 2:18pm:


I tried that, but my kids started hiding all my ammo in the weeds because they wanted to see the dinosaurs.