If your strings already stay taut with just the tension of the stone laying in the pouch
your strings will stay even more taut when they are under the tension of the slinging action.

The way I test the tautness is by placing a stone in the cradle of the sling, letting it hang from my hand
and then twisting my wrist, and seeing how immediately the cradle+stone reacts to the movement of the wrist

joe_meadmaker wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2021 at 1:18pm:



I hadn't seen your reply. You performed the test correctly. You indeed also have to note difference after the wrist rotation stops, that is equally important to this test. Ideally you want your sling to have a near immediate response to the wrist and very little oscillation afterwards. I believe there is an optimal projectile weight and density for every sling where this response to the wrist is near immediate and the oscillations afterwards nearly non existent. This optimal projectile weight would again change if you were to change the length of your length, and its thickness and stiffness.

I made a sling for 90 gram wrought iron balls. The cords are of paracord and the pouch is a tiny, just two overlapping pieces of leather that forms a small cup that holds the small iron ball. Performing this test the sling shows it to be very fit for this ammo, there is immediate response to the wrist and almost zero osscilation afterwards. However, if I were to make the sling twice as long, results may differ and for optimalization the cord might have to be made stiffer again. Same if I were to use a heavier steel ball.  The density of the projectile and center of gravity of the projectile also plays a role in this.

A sphere is by all means the most stable projectile on the sling cords, due to the center of gravity being exactly in the middle, with equal weight division in all directions. A sphere does not have ''weight hanging outside the pouch'', it's all concentrated in the center of the pouch. A sling made for spheres however tend to be different from a sling made for glandes which again can be different than a sling made solely for stones. A sling made for smooth spheres can and should utilize some sort of cupping for reasons of internal ballistics and the rolling nature of a sphere. Preponed releases usually happen in the final flick of the wrist, which can send a shockwave to the sling's pouch. If the projectile is not cradled securely enough to handle this final acceleration, a dangerous preponed release can happen. The only way to cradle a round iron ball securely enough in my experience is a cupped pouch.

Again if you increase the density of the projectile, this seems to tolerate the useage of thinner-strings for equal optimal performance regarding pouch orientation. This also explains why Balearic slings are very thick, and some roman sling depictions also, and also why people prefer to use big stones for strap slings. If you are throwing low density stones you tend to go for a heavier weight, which then again requires the use of a thicker sling for optimalization regarding wrist control of the string twist and oscillation afterwards. Lower density stones are larger, and if they are oblong, have more weight ''hanging outside the pouch''. The more oblong a projectile is, the less stable the sling cords become, thus the thicker and/or stiffer they have to be. I once tried to make 400g long oblong clay glandes. These were like 15-20 cm long so a very large part of their ends were hanging outside the pouch. It was impossible to prevent the sling cords from twisting on themselves during the slinging, so control over the pouch orientation was impossible.

This is why for fist sized projectiles. I prefer them to be more in shape of the 'Assyrian sling stones found at Lachish' and not oblong like we would like for lower weight stones and glandes. The  cords of a sling would have to be very very thick and stiff to prevent 400g clay pointy obloids from twisting the cords. A small high density sphere on the other hand seems to handle the thinnest cords when it comes to pouch orientation control, because of the high density and the spherical shape. So technically its possible for a thin, round corded sling to provide more pouch angle orientation control than even the thickest stiffest Balearic sling, granted that the former uses high density spheres and the latter uses crude stones.

If you want to achieve peak accuracy, it would require this technically superior and well thought-out sling, perfectly fine tuned to the uniform ammo you would be slinging, so that the pouch orientation control is to the wrist is immediate, and there are zero twist-oscilliations afterwards. Not too much, not too little, just perfect. Combine that sling with a lot of practice and you could become mythically accurate. But you sacrifice being able to sling the crude stone laying in the dirt. and that latter aspect may be worth more than the mythical accuracy.

AncientCraftwork wrote on Feb 1^st, 2021 at 6:48am:


I have a plan for a very in depth video (from a layman's point of view) on what I've learned about slinging. It will go into detail. I agree with some of the points you've said. In fact some points sound very familiar lol. This is a good topic.

So question for you Jauke, why would a sphere need a different style pouch than a glande? Just curious about your thoughts.

AncientCraftwork wrote on Feb 1^st, 2021 at 6:48am:


In my opinion the sling is far, far more complicated than archery!

What this very interesting thread is now tackling is deeply bound up with interactions between a whole host of rotational degrees of behavior which are unavoidable in the sling, at least as used by a human being. The balance between all these behaviors (ie. how much they matter) depends on very individual slinger and sling and projectile characteristics, so we have to ponder very carefully which of those behaviors we are discussing

Some of the features are fairly easy to state in a way that we might all be able to agree on. I think the easiest to get a handle on is the tendency of the cords to twist.

I think we might all agree that twisting under tension is bad - I'm not sure I can see an benefit to it, at any rate.

We all know that if we put a weight on the end of a hanging old-fashioned ie. 'laid' rope it will untwist and the suspended rope will untwist more the heavier the weight we put on it. So we are converting a tension in the rope to a twisting movement or motion.

We still get the same effect if you hang a weight from a pair of parallel ropes with the same direction of lay, but now the amount of twist depends on how far apart the ropes are. You could, however, kill the tendency to twist by using a pair of oppositely laid but otherwise identical ropes!

Now look at what a braided sling cord is. It's a set of almost invariably pre-twisted strands all with the same direction of lay.

When we put them into a braid, the braid structure itself usually cancels the twisting tendencies of the individual strands to a great extent, but there is usually some left over - for an odd number of strands it's virtually certain there is. This does, however, result in much less twist under the same weight. because the tendency is now spread over the cross-section of the braid, analogous to having the pair of ropes mentioned above being further apart.

Sorry if this comes across as confusing or pointless, or excites any other number of adverse reactions. I'm doing the best I can to explain my thinking!

AncientCraftwork wrote on Feb 1^st, 2021 at 10:30am:


Here is an example. This is a crap sling by all definitions, it has thin uneven twisted cords, with a 300g oblong rock loaded in it, which is way too heavy for it.

Trying to use a multiple-rotation Balearic style with this crap sling and this rock is a complete disaster. Keeping the cords taut and separated is an impossible task during the wind up.

But when I use a no-wind up Greek-style, this terrible sling deals with this big stone much better. Not perfect, but still noticeable better than trying to use this oversized rock in this undersized sling with multiple rotations.

If you don't have access to a good braided sling or well-weighted rocks, switching to a no-wind up Greek style seems only logical and very pragmatic too, because you can make use of more rocks in your sling. This is probably why this style was quite popular in the past. It seems to make up for some issues that are innate to simple slings, issues which proper Balearic slings engineered away, but not all peoples had this technology.

There is a case to be made for multiple wind ups too. I read that it can be helpful in gauging the stone weight and this helps accuracy. The Balearic sling approached this problem so well and it's probably the best trad design ever for multiple rotation styles.

J you have a lot of interesting insight so maybe I can get your opinion on something? Have you used beeswax and if so do you feel like it helps with more than durability? I've wondered for awhile, and ya this might sound strange, but perhaps it cuts down on wind resistance and increases speed. Sort of like waxing a surfboard to make it slip through the water better? Any thoughts? Anyone can respond just curious.

If these sounds plausible is there a way to test how much faster it throws? I once waxed a sling a ton, it had layers built up on it and I swear it must have thrown a good 20% further. Didn't understand it then but it makes sense no?

NooneOfConsequence wrote on Feb 1^st, 2021 at 3:18pm:


You know as crazy as that sounds that is a fascinating theory.