This is pretty awesome Teg!  I'm only about 15 minutes into the video, but look forward to seeing the rest of it.

When you opened the package, I had the exact same reaction you did.  Wow, that's a big pouch! 

So my first question when seeing pouches made of that size is- Is this meant to be used?

I have a traditionally made sling from Bolivia or Peru and it is massive. Probably slighlty smaller in dimension but much heavier in construction. I cant imagine its meant to be used but who knows.

To me it looks more like a bad souvenir than a serious sling. Those cords are not even plied tightly. I have made slings with losely plied cords like that for testing, , and they'll twist around each other multiple times especially with heavy projectiles, very impractical and frustrating and feels like crap

cords only twine around each other if you use a very narrow grip.
With the pouch like that you'd be using a wide grip.
Well, I would

Don't want to sound too grumpy. The weft is well done. And such a sling even with bad cords will still chuck what you put into it. Maybe not as well and refined or accurate, but nonetheless further and faster than by hand. But this sling seems not very good for a more advanced slinger.

First, thanks for the positive replies!

About the sling: I must admit, I have not yet found the time to shoot with it. And probably I'll  also not use it very much in order to avoid damaging it. But from to couple whirls I gave it, I had no issue with the cords twining around each other. So I expect it to perform well with decently sized rocks. My only issue is that there is no finger loop. The string might be a bit on the thinner side, so that it might not be too comfortable.

I think this sling has to be seen in its context, as CA already pointed at. It is not a high end artistic piece, but a sling with the economics clearly in mind, which often gets overlooked here.  It is very fast to make. We are talking of less than an hour. It requires no permanent tools / frames. Just a few sticks and maybe a needle. Pouch and cords are replaceable, the material is inexpensive and easy to acquire.

As I already mentioned, the design is quite clever. Also, the risk of cupping the shot / not having a clean release is greatly reduced by the fact that the load bearing strings on which the projectile will rest and roll out of the pouch, are the ones forming the attachment loops for retention and release cord. These run in the middle of each "wing" of the pouch, thus giving similar contact points with the projectile as a pouch half its size, meaning about ~4.5 cm in width. 4.5 cm is, give or take, what you would also see in the width of a balearic sling when a stone is in the pouch.

As CA said, it is not a high end sling, but it will likely throw anything you put into it reasonably well. Would I have made it smaller? Probably yes.  But I'll let you know how it performs once I had the time to shoot it.


Morphy wrote on May 11^th, 2021 at 7:07am:

Would you mind posting a picture? Dance slings definitively exist.

The cords look like they come right off a sisal twine ball from a dollar store. Sorry.  I am not going to say lie and they it looks good. It doesn't. Using the twine off the ball without retwining tigher or braiding is terrible. 

Can you make a bow by putting a string on a green untillered stick? Yes.
Would anyone in the archery community treat it as a professional well made bow? No.

Just because a sling is made by a Mexican, Arab or China man doesn't mean we now have to treat it as some sort of magical item.

What makes the Mexican who made this sling a true slinger , and us not true slingers?
I am of scandinavian descent. Are my slings now special viking slings?

Honestly, I don't care even if its 5000 years old. This looks like a beginners sling to me. Calling it ''great'' is wrong when it isn't. I don't like it.