AncientCraftwork wrote on Dec 14^th, 2020 at 8:42am:


At the risk of sounding like a complete jackass while I do think there's a lot of good about the Balearic sling there was a time long ago when I felt I could keep up with just about anyone target wise with my paracord and leather Apache sling. My standard distance was 25-30 meters on a target smaller than a paper plate. Hits were quite common.

The only reason I bring this up is because it is one of the two main reasons I don't buy into sling superiority as we know it today. My experience has proven to me that many sling types can work. Not theory here, real experience.

The other is that I've been a member here an awfully long time and I've seen people who are very outspoken on slings and throwing styles have to back track multiple times on what can and can't be done with various throwing styles/slings.

The traditional bowyers Bible has a wonderful quote that I always try to remind myself of. The gist of it is basically - "The absolute certainty you feel about your current theory is the same certainty you felt about your last one right before realizing you were wrong."

So that being said my current position which I've held for years now is that everyone's right and everyone's wrong until we can prove scientifically what the truth is. Opinions mean nothing when it comes to understanding truth.

Oooh... them’s fightin’ words Morphy!
How dare you say that the paracord and leather sling you made in 5 minutes is just as effective as my masterpiece Balearic made from the finest of yarns spun from the hair of a thousand Persian kittens, then inlaid with goldleaf and emerald encrusted tiger hide and beaded with antique narwhal ivory. Your dead cow on a string is inferior in every way!  Also... you smell bad, and you are the effigeal love child of Hitler’s ghost and Queen Jezebel, so neener, neener, neener!

At least I didn’t call you “literally Hitler”
Considering that my signature sling is a piece of leather attached to some paracord, I may also be overcompensating a bit in my jest.

Also, I really wonder how Google Translate is going to handle my last post

Morphy wrote on Dec 14^th, 2020 at 8:57am:


I agree that I don't think there is anything magical about balearics. I think their benefits and drawbacks are all explainable and other well made slings are also perfectly capable of top notch accuracy. For example many of my apaches I've made have what I consider pretty much perfect releases. Even plain paracord slings with good pouches can have excellent release since the release cord is so light.

Balearics:
+ Stiffness and thickness give good control and responsiveness to pouch orientation
+ Stiffness and thickness give excellent stability against rolling and thus improved retention of large ammo especially
+ Tapering stiffness and thickness, as well as a smooth transition to the release cord give smooth and clean release on all ammo sizes
- Thickness/stiffness make a relatively heavy sling which reduces achievable projectile speed, especially with light ammo

There may be more points but these seem the mainline uncontroversial(?) qualities of balearic slings.

Many of these benefits can be achieved by similar or very different designs, however the combined benefits make balearic slings pretty much the ideal sling for throwing heavier ammo (120g+) for accuracy IMO.

Morphy wrote on Dec 16^th, 2020 at 6:29pm:


Hah, I will have to try harder to get some innuendo in next time!

I hadn't considered overarm throws actually, that's an interesting angle. I really like figure-8 but I will rarely use it with a balearic sling, usually saving it for paracord or thinner braided slings. Do you think this is a case of weight of the sling+ammo that is poorly suited to overarm throwing? I have considered it may also be gripping a release cord instead of knot- for some reason release cord grip+ overarm throw disagrees with me.

JudoP wrote on Dec 17^th, 2020 at 6:54am:

Hopefully it won't be too hard to stick it in.

NooneOfConsequence wrote on Dec 17^th, 2020 at 1:26pm:


Yeah, I mean between the extremely niche, combat-focused hobby, the relative scarcity of even male active slingers and the strange, frustrating, mild torture that is the first few weeks of learning to sling you'd think we'd have to beat them away with a stick hey.

As long as the release cord releases cleanly from the hand the moment pressure on it is let go, it is fine. How ever this is achieved is between the person and his sling and it differs also between the materials used in construction