Ok, so manufacturing firearms and ammunition is definitely possible but still EXTREMELY cumbersome.


TOMBELAINE wrote on Oct 28^th, 2020 at 3:25am:
Bill Skinner wrote on Oct 28^th, 2020 at 10:05am:
From what I can gather a boomerang is just a local variant of a throwing stick?
Or lies the difference in those throwing sticks that are designed to aerodynamically create lift (like a boomerang) and those who don't?

Also, REALLY interesting study TOMBELAINE. I didn't know any bothered to research this stuff or that boomerangs could vary like that in the first place.

To my knowledge, there are roughly two types of throwing sticks that were used. 

Airfoils and non airfoils. 

Non airfoils are basically a stick, they are round in cross section and look similar to a bowling pin, some are more stretched but have that same basic shape.  These were, (are) generally a close range tool, usually used under 30 meters or so.  These were or are used on the edges of fields or brushy area.   

The airfoils are flat or wing shaped, some like the kylie do not return and some, like the boomerang may or may not, depending on how they are shaped.  They have a lot more range, in excess of 100 meters.  And, because the shape produces lift, if they are "tuned" correctly, they will sail at the same height they are thrown at for most of their trajectory instead of dropping.  These were used for hunting birds or waterfowl, they were also used in grass land plains or areas with little vegetation.

Both are thrown sidearm, so they spin on their long axis.   

Needless to say, both require lots and lots of practice.

For throwing stick in English 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/science/throwing-stick-hunting.html
I think is the oldest throwing stick in the world.
The original text in french with a beautiful drawing to see the scene.
https://www.news.uliege.be/cms/c_11727088/fr/un-baton-de-jet-vieux-de-300-000-an...
This stick is probably the easiest to make.

If I had a such weapon, I wouldn't want to throw it !
No good for survival   

Now you’ve done it. This is a post that can be debated endlessly, and if I have anything to say about it, it will be. 

Here’s the thing, there’s a lot of assumptions that are easy to make where in practice don’t end up being true.

A good example would be where you put ammunition specialization. Sling ammo is actually in many ways a bigger problem than it is for bow making. This is assuming you don’t live in one of those rare areas where perfect ammunition is all over the place ready to be picked up.

Slings are actually just as much if not more prone to inaccuracy when using less than perfect ammo. For all sorts of reasons, not the least of which being you are swinging it around your head at very high speeds so even an error of a tenth of a second can lead to meters off target.

We all know this but often like to tout the slings advantage of cheap ammo. Unfortunately if you’ve ever done a lot of serious target practice on “small” targets you will know without a good backstop and a very clean low cut area it’s very easy to lose any ammo that will actually have a chance of hitting small game size targets consistently. (Read: **perfect ammo**) This is much less true with arrows. So with a bow you have ammo that takes longer to build but lasts much longer and in practice, coming from a guy with a little experience in both those areas, it’s so much easier to maintain your set of perfect arrows than it is to keep track of your perfect glandes. Sad to say, but that’s been my experience. Now assume you are hunting rather than on your fancy sling target range and the odds of maintaining your perfect set of glandes is practically nil.

Let’s take bows for a second. Bows are moisture sponges. This is one thing you don’t see in the YouTube experts videos on using them in real world conditions. A 1% moisture content change in a bows limbs can translate to an astonishing drop in poundage, which leads to over spined arrows, potentially changing the tiller and all sorts of other issues. Bows difficulty of upkeep should be right at 1 imo. Doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out how but compared to most other weapons there’s a lot going on that can change. And unfortunately spar urethane is in short supply in the wilds so while grease can be used to add some protection to the wood it’s more like protection rather than protection. To be frank, it sucks and will let you down when you need it most.

I am currently compiling notes for a book on primitive weapons that I am planning on writing. I use a triangle system with these three categories: Economy, Ease of Use, Effectiveness.

Economy encapsulates difficulty of making, of maintaining, sourcing materials and so on and so forth.

Ease of Use: is how easy it is to learn, how easy is it to use under adverse conditions such as starvation, heat, cold, humidity, etc,

Effectiveness: is how powerful, how effective (not the same thing), how effective for a given game, environment, season etc.

So far as I can determine there is no such weapon that scores high in all three categories. Usually at best you will get 2 high categories and one so-so.

Case in point: A blow gun is extremely easy to use. It’s quite accurate and doesn’t take too long to learn. It also doesn’t require a lot of strength so the hungry hunter shouldn’t be as affected as say pulling the 60 lb bow you just had to make. But it’s effectiveness is very limited without poison and it’s economy sucks. As Bill said, they are horrible to make a legit one unless you are an absolute expert at it.

Sling:
Economy is so-so to very good depending on the ammo available.
Effectiveness is very high for the game you would be taking with it.
Ease of Use- is a steaming hot pile of week old baby diapers.

Anyways you get the point. Mine is a lazy man’s version. I think I like yours better but however you choose to categorize it, it’s a difficult question that requires answers from people who have spent a lot of time with the weapons in question under difficult circumstances. Fortunately this is probably the best place on the net for such a question so you are a step ahead of the curve.

Well you know this being the internet a disclaimer is probably never a bad idea lol. If you have to specify these days that hot coffee might be hot you'll probably need a disclaimer for this as well. 

The work you've already put into it is quite a lot as it is. The ideal environment would be one way to even out some of the variables I suppose. Just depends how specific you want to get.

The scariest throwing weapon I know of is the African throwing knife. It takes little skill to use, and has multiple blades at different angles. It's not a stealth finesse weapon. It's a nasty hit-them-anywhere-and-watch-them-bleed-out weapon.

All the African tribes had slightly different ones. Picture is from the British Museum collection.