I've decided to get back into Slingshots

[brucered]

Looking for an activity to get me and the kids outside and enjoying the great outdoors, we decided to get the kids Slingshots for Christmas.

We picked up a couple Trumark FS-1, extra bands, based on some online research and reviews, as well as some marbles. We had a blast and are looking forward to our next outing. We also ordered some metal shot (2 sizes) from Cabelas but are still waiting for it to arrive. No animal shooting, just targets and boxes etc. I may pick up one of those metal targets for .22s that self reset when you hit the last one.

Does anyone have any inside tips or tricks to get a few rookie slingshot users hitting their targets consistently? Brands to look for or ammo to use?

Lots of fun for cheap.

 

[Big Fish]

Loads of good old fashioned fun for the whole family.
As a youngster I had a wrist rocket slingshot which was kinda just like the Trumark
only less refined. Glass marbles and pebbles were our ammo of choice.
Be safe ad have fun.

 

[Legion]

Get the kids making their own! That makes it much more fun.

I was very interested in it some years back (I enjoy target shooting, but firearms are way too difficult to own here)


I started with trying to perfect tree fork catapults, then moved into custom, board cut, carved slingshots, with tapered latex bands when I
wanted to step up my accuracy. They are carved to fit my hand, like the grip on a target pistol.

 

[Slash McCoy]

I second homemade for the kids. It is a lot cooler to use something they made themselves out of found stuff. I got to say though, surgical rubber works a lot better than the inner tube rubber I used as a kid. I do like the idea of using eye protection... something we would have never even imagined when I was a bullet-proof 9yo. If a band comes loose and smacks you in the eyeball you will definitely notice! Maybe get the kids some cheap amber tinted shooting glasses so eye protection doesnt seem like such a sissy thing. You know how kids are.

Now you got me thinking about it. I have a sudden urge to make a more extreme slingshot, something in the 90lb pull range, with multiple bands, with maybe a crude sight of some sort. Or a shoulder fired one with rifle type sights with graduated range. I suppose it could even be built on an old rifle stock. Mauser? .03 Springfield? LOL Uh-oh, danger! Rabbit hole ahead!

 

[Ad Astra]

Yes.

1. Marbles from the dollar store. Buy all of them!

2. Buckshot. Lead, comes in many sizes; if you reload, may have on hand.

There are many cool slingshot ammo tricks, shot cartridges etc. It is fun.


AA

 

[mglindo]

You should watch this guy on the Tube:

Carolina Camera: The Sling Shot Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ieWrWLjii0

He is Da Man!

 

[brucered]

[MENTION=19423]Legion[/MENTION] [MENTION=30791]Slash McCoy[/MENTION] Making our own is something we will most definitely look into doing. We are surrounded by trees, forest and would be a fun camping activity. As for eye protection, the timing was perfect. We had just introduced the kids to "A Christmas Story" and with my wife seeing kids accidents on a daily basis (pediatric nurse), safety is always first.

The funniest part was, I ran into the Dollar Store to get some marbles. Grabbed three packs and told the 50+ y old male cashier that I was "going slingshotting with the kids". He said "that sounds dangerous!". Really? I grew up on slingshots, BB guns, pocket knives, magnifying glass fires and doing boys will be boys things. I know in this day and age, kids don't so the same things us 40+ guys did, but there is no reason they can't.

I don't reload, but will look into buckshot at the local Cabellas and Outdoor sports store. For now, marbles seem to be working well.

When the snow clears, we can venture into rocks and acorns if those are viable options that won't damage the leather or be destructive.

 

[Billski]

I shot a sling shot not long ago.

Rufus in #6 can sure hit the targets , but I wasn't worth a darn at it.

If anyone in this group is a good shot with a sling shot, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[brucered]

If anyone in this group is a good shot with a sling shot, I'd love to hear about it.

I can hit a "Cap'n Crunch - Oops All Berries" box from about 20 paces

 

[Ad Astra]

I remember hitting a squirrel with a .451 lead ball (beside buckshot, check muzzleloader section for .45, .40 & .36 rounds).

Lead carries more kinetic energy than glass or steel projectiles. Better for hunting.

You can get some neat sparks off concrete with steel, IIRC.

It's easier to just pick up a rifle, but a slingshot has its place- scare crows away, etc.


AA

 

[Slash McCoy]

Rufus is a GOD.

 

[jzuzphreek]

I can hit a "Cap'n Crunch - Oops All Berries" box from about 20 paces

I'm pretty sure Olympic qualifications require hitting Fruit Loops from 30 paces! You're on your way.

 

[Legion]

00 lead shot works very well as target ammo, and I used it all the time, since it is consistent and cheap. I did worry a bit about the safety of handling the lead for long periods though.

Marbles are good for kids to shoot outdoors, and you can make another game of getting them to hunt around for the ammo after so they can reuse it.

I was a pretty competitive shooter with a regular, non wrist braced slingshot. I could usually shoot 5cm groups from 10m.

My slingshots shoot 00 buckshot about 250fps.

 

[Legion]

I was going through some old writing and I found a tutorial I wrote for some other place, some years back, on making and using classic tree fork slingshots, or Shanghais, as they used to be called here in Oz. Might be some useful info here for when you want to get the kids constructing their own.




We live in a crazy age. It is an age of machines, computer chips and TV. It is a cerebral age, not one of doing things but one of having things done. As technology progresses the old ways of doing things become lost and things that were once common place become arts, remembered by only a few, or forgotten completely.

Children seem to become more and more attached to the cool glow of a screen. It provides them with entertainment, education and company. I envision a future of an atrophied pale society, short sighted, brain tumour’d and violent. Bodies sagging under their own weight save for massive thumb muscles driving game controllers at the speed of thought.

Pull the plug. Let’s go back to the days of my youth. Out catching frogs, building forts and shooting things. Back to a time when a kid turned eight and was given a knife to take to Cub Scout camps. When an air rifle was an acceptable toy and no-one called in the swat team. When accidents happened, they taught you a lesson and nobody got sued.

With these thoughts in mind I present The Tao of the Shanghai, an instruction in the manufacture and use of the good, old fashioned slingshot.

Selecting materials and assembly.


A shanghai is a primitive weapon, it can be hand made from found materials and accuracy should be through careful construction and practice. In fact the word shanghai, in relation to the catapult, means “a stick, cleft at one end”. It probably derives from the Scots dialect, “shangan” or “shangy”.

The fun of shanghais is as much in the making as the shooting. It’s taking pride in the knowledge that you built yours to last and shoot straight and the other kids will shoot ‘round corners. It’s a DYI kind of thing.

The Fork.

With that in mind, selection of the parts is very important. You may have to spend hours searching trees for that perfect forked stick. The right type of rubber can be bought, the leather can always be salvaged but the stick must be hunted. Good forked sticks are surprisingly rare, not many trees grow that way. What you will generally find is that one prong will sort of grow sideways from a bigger limb. This will work but is not so aesthetically pleasing and must be made either right or left handed. Even if you can find a branch that has divided equally in two directions, odds are the two arms of the fork will be different thicknesses.

In the USA, word has it, the tree of choice to look for is the dogwood. Now, I’m not sure what a dogwood looks like but I’m pretty sure they’re not that common in Australia. My favourite wood would have to be willow. It is easy to work with, looks nice and, if treated properly, very resilient. The problem is willow does not naturally produce nicely shaped forks so, if you see one, cut it off quick.


Ok, so we’ll go with willow for our first stick. What do we look for in a good willow fork? Well symmetry is very important. If the stick is not straight it will just make it harder to shoot straight. Also the wood should be of appropriate thickness, baring in mind it will lose up to a third of its diameter once you strip the bark off. The length of the fork prongs should be about 15cm long x 1.5cm thick and the handle long and thick enough to comfortably grip. And the wood must be green and alive. Willow rots very quickly once it’s dead and will become brittle and dangerous to use.

Once you find that perfect branch (see, I told you it wouldn’t be easy) you will need to cut it of with some sort of pruning saw. When I am going for walks I will take a Victorinox Swiss Army knife with me. It has lots of handy tools and the wood saw will rip through wet willow in no time. It is important to always cut the Y a fair bit bigger than you will need, that way, if the wood splits while you are cutting it off, the split will not travel into the wood we want to use. I allow at least 5 or 6 cm on each prong. You don’t have to be neat at this point, we’ll tidy it up back at home.

Try to get your cutting home as quickly as you can, we want to avoid letting the wood dry out. This will make the wood harder to work on and increases the risk of it splitting and warping. Once home take a saw and cut the Y to your final dimensions. Go slowly, get it right. Nothing is more annoying than ruining a hard found stick with a careless saw. Once cut, strip the bark off using your hands. If the wood is still wet it should strip off very easily leaving a nice white, slimy stick. Take that stick and pop it on a plate. Here’s the secret to drying it without it rotting, splitting or warping. Microwave it. Put it in the microwave, on high, for about two minutes. Once done, it should not be hissing any more and there should be a reduced amount of steam coming off. Put it on some dry paper and let it cool. If you are not in a hurry it wouldn’t hurt to let it sit for a day or two just to get rid of any residual moisture.

Next you want to remove all the lumps and bumps on the Y that may snag anything or just doesn’t look tidy. For this job I use the small sanding drum on a Dremel roto-tool. I will also use this to remove a section from the top of each prong that stops the rubber slipping up or down once fastened. These are just grooves, about 5mm down the fork, on the side facing away from the body, and about 4 or 5 mm deep. Finally, take a medium grit sand paper and give the whole thing the once over to get it nice and smooth.

Now you should have your fork looking pretty much how you want it to look. It’s clean, white and smooth with no cracks or knots that will cause problems later. There are several products available to finish the wood, I choose an old fashion beeswax polish available at hardware stores. It does not stain the wood but gives a small amount of protection and polish. It consists of a liquid, mainly turpentine with natural beeswax suspended in it. You just give the bottle a shake and rub it into the wood, then buff off. Give it a couple of coats, its not expensive. That’s about it. Your ready to attach the rubber.



The bands.

In the “good old days” bicycle tire inner tubes were made of red, pure gum rubber. They were very stretchy, like a rubber band, and provided children with an endless supply of slingshot rubber. These days the tubes are made from black rubber which does not perish like the old stuff but is not very stretchy. So what do we use for the bands? Well, if you somehow have access to some strips of pure gum rubber from another source use that. If nothing else, it’s traditional. Apart from tying rubber bands together, which will not give enough power, I haven’t been able to find a reliable supply. On the prefabricated, bought slingshots, they use a latex rubber tubing. This works well but, again, hard to get.

What you can get fairly easily in Australia is spear-gun rubber. Just pop into a dive shop and purchase it by the meter. You will want to get the thinnest gauge tubing they have, even then it will be to thick. Unless you have a Y with a three inch diameter and arms like Arnold Swartznagger, you will not be able to aim straight using the whole tube. What you need to do is, take a pair of sharp scissors, the sewing kind that your mum wouldn’t let you use as a kid, and carefully cut the tube down the middle. You have to use scissors, for some reason a blade will not slice this rubber very easily. Be very careful to keep both sides of the tube an even thickness otherwise the stretch on each side wont be the same.

Time to tie the bands on. You want something very strong that will not let anything slip once it’s all together. The best thing, I have found, is the waxed whipping twine they use for whipping the ends of rope. You can get rolls of it in shops that sell boating supplies. It’s kind of a thin nylon cord that has been coated in wax so it binds to itself when you wrap it around stuff. This stops it from slipping. Just what we need.


Stretch the band as tightly as you can around the fork with the notches in the front. Now clamp the back keeping the rubber very tight. What you clamp with is up to you. In the past I have used cable ties, they work ok. The best thing I’ve found so far is a thing called a haemostat. It’s like a needle nosed clamp surgeons use to clamp arteries during operations. In fact, if you have ever had major surgery in a public hospital, you may still be in possession of one and don’t know it.

Clamp the rubber and start winding the cord, as tightly as you can, between the clamp and the stick. After giving about six or seven turns the best way to tie it off is to place a loop of twine underneath the part you are lashing. When you finish your seven turns put the free end through the loop. Take the two strands on the other side of the loop and pull them so the free end travels underneath the lashed turns. Cut any untidy ends and burn them to stop fraying. Lightly melt the wax on the rest of the twine to help bind it and you’re finished. Providing you kept everything tight enough it should never come undone.

Pouch

For the pouch which your projectile sits in when fired, leather is the best material. The leather should be strong but not so thick that it is not supple enough to hold the ammo securely. The tongue of an old boot is about right, Australian army boots are about perfect.

Cut a rectangle of around 8cm x 3cm and round the corners. Use a leather punch to put a 5mm diameter hole in each end. Now wet the leather and take a ball bearing a little bigger than the ammo you will be shooting in the centre of the pouch. Place the bearing and pouch under a table leg or something heavy until it dries. This will put a dent into the leather, helping placement of the ammo when firing. Use the whipping twine to attach the rubber to the leather in the same manor as you attached it to the stick.

You are now ready to start shooting!



Some people may like to add certain personal touches to their shanghai, carving the wood with initials, etc. I like to tie some suede around the handle with whipping twine to improve the grip when shooting for long periods. If your hands get sweaty it may affect your aim and the extra grip will help. Apart from that you’re good to go.

Shooting

The following are just a few hints on getting started with your shooting. At the end of the day the main factor in how accurate you are is natural instinct and how much you practice. There are stories of old guys in the south of America who can shoot a quarter out of the air from ten yards. These stories may be true but I bet those guys don’t have much “book learnin”. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to hit a tin can, two times out of three, from ten paces if you want to hunt. And, providing you are only going after small game, a shanghai is deadly up to 30 meters. It is not a toy, use caution. Don’t think that it would be funny to “ping” the neighbours cat.

Safety

Now before we go out a quick word on safety. I know, I know, you’re a big boy now and if you want to maim yourself and others that’s your right. But let’s get real, do you really want to go through life known as “bung eye” or something? Get yourself some protective glasses. Now. Before you test out your new toy. Also, every time, before you shoot, check your bands. If they look cut or worn, replace them. They are being put under a lot of strain while, at one end, there is a lump of wood and the other end is your face.

It also goes without saying that you should not shoot anybody, or anything you do not want to maim. A lead ball traveling at speed will maim. Same goes for property. Enough said.


Ammo

The first thing I should say on this subject is, don’t use rocks. For one thing, it is impossible to find a perfectly round one so they will never be accurate. Also, if they have any rough edges, they will chew the bands up, which is a pain in the arse.

The best thing I have found, for target shooting, is marbles. They are perfectly round, about the right weight and shiny. This last factor will help you see how much you are missing by when you start out. If you can be bothered you can then walk around, picking them up for another go.

For hunting something heavy but small in diameter works better. Ball bearings are nice but expensive if you shoot them all the time. A good substitute is large buckshot, the kind used to kill large animals and people. 00 size. You can buy containers of the stuff in gun stores for people who like to load there own shotgun shells. It costs a bit to buy the container but you get 10 kilos of the stuff which will last ages. They are harder to see when you shoot them but, when you’re hunting, missing by an inch is the same as a mile. When you hit the target, believe me, you will know.

For a more non lethal ammo you want something light that will give when it hits. Green berries work quite well. They will still take out an eye, though, so butt shots only.

Technique


The operation of a shanghai is pretty damn basic. Put the ammo in the pouch, stretch the rubber and let it fling the ammo at the target. That’s about it really. Some tips that may help, though;

Always have a constant anchor point. No matter where you draw the rubber back too, be it the corner of your mouth, your chin or whatever, make it the same for each shot.

Keep the arm holding the stick straight. this helps keep consistency in aiming and allows the rubber maximum stretch.

Some people hold the shanghai straight up and down, some hold it on its side. Whatever works, just pick one and stick with it. If held on its side (the method recommended for machine made, mass produced slingshots) you may be able to use the top prong as sort of a sight. It doesn’t work for me but see how you go.

Keep both eyes open when shooting. There is no proper sight on a shanghai, it’s not a rifle. Keep both eyes on the target so you have depth perception. You may need to adjust elevation depending on how far away the target is.

Apart from that it is all down to instinct and practice. Take your shanghai with you whenever you go for a walk, either in a bag or stuck in your back pocket, Dennis the Menace style. Whenever you see a tin can sitting there, looking at you funny, kill it. Before long you will be amazed how accurate such a primitive weapon can be.



I’ll leave you with the immortal words of my father,

“It’s all fun and games until someone losses an eye!”

Keep shooting straight,

-Dave

 

[brucered]

That's awesome and will be a huge help when the time comes [MENTION=19423]Legion[/MENTION]

Thanks for posting!

 

[tlentz]

Man I had a wrist rocket too when I was a kid and my parents had a ton of massive oak trees. Every few years they would drop the large acorns and I would use them as ammo to blast the neighbors apples out of his tree. What great fun that was. Sorry for the run on sentence.

 

[Kit Walker]

If you're going to be traditional, you need to learn to use one of these:

I played with one of these as a kid, made from the laces and tongue of a worn out boot. You need lots of room, because you can easily chuck a stone the length of a football field (and sometime miss by almost that much when you're learning how).

 

[Legion]

If you're going to be traditional, you need to learn to use one of these:

I played with one of these as a kid, made from the laces and tongue of a worn out boot. You need lots of room, because you can easily chuck a stone the length of a football field (and sometime miss by almost that much when you're learning how).

I had a big stone quarry we used to break into. Like a huge, hollow mountain, which they took the inside out of to use for bluestone for roads. I could lob a rock from one side to the other with a sling. I can see how they would have been good weapons for opposing armies, back in historic times. I doubt I could hit Goliath between the eyes with one though.

 

[simon1]

Bruce, how long did it take to get your permit for that in Canada, and are they legal for your kids?

Really though, I have an old deer horn looking one that Dad bought me when we went to visit caves in Missouri when I was about 10-12 years old and another wooden one from...I don't remember. The bands and pouches are long gone now though.

I used to just use rocks...marbles cost money.

I may have to dig them out and resurrect them. And I did snatch a good looking branch out of one of the hickory trees several years ago when the granddaughter was younger but didn't get 'er done. I may try that route also.

Although the wrist rocket type looks interesting.

Pics. (and video would be better) of the results of a target shooting session with your kids are mandatory. Let's see the tin cans getting knocked over.

 

[brucered]

[MENTION=27468]simon1[/MENTION] We got some strange looks from a few sets of folks, like we were bandits going to rob a bank, even though we weren't even shooting. I think there are actually some laws about shooting them in Provincial Parks, so I'll have to make sure where we shoot when camping.

Once the snow clears, probably by August, we'll get the tin cans out and have some video.

We're probably going to head out again tomorrow as it is supposed to be quite warm at 16*F and maybe Friday when it soars up to 21*F