Probably putting it the wrong place, but I do have a question about timing.

Has anyone put a modern slingshot thru a chrono? Just to see the FPS that it's capable of?

Question comes to mind in the area of throwing rocks. Pistols and rifles throw them much, much better, and I think airguns are pretty hot (speedwise) as well, just wondering about the power of the slingshot....

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Never tried it, probably would work. Just shoot close and don't hit your chronograph!

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God Bless,

EW

Yep. Steel ball out of a wrist rocket slingshot was 368 fps. Enough to put a whelp on your backside. Obviously I didn't have much to do that day.

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A truely successful life is mostly based on how well you handle PLAN B.

Jodum, thanks. I was curious.

368, that's pretty quick, right?

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Shot an arrow through one at 381fps

Potato. Around 160fps as I recall, don't remember the propellant but the tube on the 'tater cannon was about 3 feet long.

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MikeG

Slingshots can pack quite a punch, actually. Not toys by any means. I grew up using a slingshot to hunt birds in Africa (at boarding school where we couldn't have guns) and the ones we had made were pretty effective on birds up to pigeon size. Lead balls were best, or even marbles if we could get enough, but we usually ended up just using rocks because that's what we had -- but rocks tended to zig where they ought to have zagged.

I'm glad to know the velocity of a wrist rocket projectile. Interesting. I'd wondered in a kind of cursory fashion about it. Thanks, Jodum!

For some reason, HAND LOADING didn't occur to me as to where to put this, but since slingshots are hand powered.....

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It's OK. It's a ballistic question even if the projectile isn't always a ball. Neither are most bullets.

This actually came up in the context of penetration of bullets in another thread. The next thing you want to do is go onto YouTube and look at the German sling shot guy putting wrist rocket projectiles through head size castings of ballistic gelatin. They appear to get better penetration than some 380 hollow points.

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Nick

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"First contemplation of the problems of Interior Ballistics gives the impression that they should yield rather easily to relatively simple methods of analysis. Further study shows the subject to be of almost unbelievable complexity." Homer Powley

Holy crap. That was unreal.

And these weren't even "assault" sling shots....

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They could be, though. You just hang a large enough "magazine" of spare ball bearings in a sack attached to the handle.

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Nick

__________________________
Orange Hat Family Member
CMP Certified GSM Master Instructor
NRA Certified Instructor
NRA Patron Member

"First contemplation of the problems of Interior Ballistics gives the impression that they should yield rather easily to relatively simple methods of analysis. Further study shows the subject to be of almost unbelievable complexity." Homer Powley