Any slingshot shooters here?

the golden snow looks nice ,i have no previous knowledge of the brand however I received a warning message from the owner of a respected chinese manufacturer:

"A chinese slingshooter was severely injured by a broken fork last week.
The problem is that some slingshot manufacturers use cheap zinc alloy that is not strong enough to withstand the forces that rest on it. The result is a catastrophic failure, the fork end can break and hit the shooter.

low temperature Zinc alloy is a lot cheaper to process than steel or alloy with higher melting point, and can be plated with metals to imitate a stainless steel look. Zinc alloy slingshots have been long abandoned by chinese shooters after accidents happened and most forums / webshops deny the discussion and sale of them.

However, there are fake slingshots, sold over ebay and elsewhere. They look like existing stainless steel slingshot, and are sold as steel, but are in fact only plated alloy.

Don't buy these!
One identifier is that a plated zinc alloy is much shinier
than mirror-polished could ever be. Another indicator is the material's density."

so be carefull.

 

I've been a wrist-rocket shooter since I was a kid, using the tubular band ones, but I have always had a problem with the rubbers slipping off the posts. Any suggestions for how to stop that? Also, I like the X-bow versions. I tried to come up with one of my own, but never thought of sliding the fork out on the "barrel", instead trying to find some way to "fold" the rubbers when extended. Joerg has a great idea. I'm going to have to build one of those. Nother question, if any of you can suggest a fix for the slipping problem. What is a good brand/type/model of really high tension rubber tubing? I use commonly available surgical rubber, but am no where near full tension when I reach full arm pull. I'm certain that if I can solve the slippage problem, I could achieve MUCH higher (probably 50% or more) velocity, and thus energy. Also, if any of you are familiar with "Pachinko" machines (a one-arm bandit used for gambling in Japan), the 3/8 inch steel balls they fire are great with a wrist rocket. Great penetration. Never tried them on bone, but on tightly stacked cardboard (corrugated box material) 12 inches thick, backed by a 1/2 inch thick plywood, I used to be able to pepper the front of the stack at about 20 yards with Pachinko balls, and then pry about half of them out of the back side of the plywood, and pick up the other half off the ground at distances from 1 to 10 feet back from it. I was impressed. I'm just not sure, from the videos here, that those rubber tubes had as much power as some of the bands currently available.

 

mate to over come the slipage use cable ties i think you guys call them zip ties. also to double the power fit some hunterbands.

 

some of the tubes are a little long... if they are cut down a bit and still drawn to the original length you get more power...

 

I don't think I've ever really considered slingshots as a method of hunting, but I'm impressed with the designs on the OP's site. I think I'll have to order one and "give it a shot" so to speak...

 

I received one of Fish's fine slingshots today along with a few steel balls. It is really nasty weather tonight but when the weather breaks, we'll chronograph and compare them to a wrist rocket with surgical tube bands and a wrist rocket with latex bands. I'll use a variety of different weight projectiles and we'll measure the draw length and keep careful notes. I am looking forward to this and we'll be sure to post some pictures.

 

wow nice project, looks like fun to me. im sold on a slingshot

 

I keep one in the BOB with about 50 3/8 steel balls, They are a great diversion to flush quail or other things. Primitive e-mail to the right flank, just write a note, and launch it.

 

have you got the hunter catapult yet?

 

Yes, it arrived Tuesday. I will be conducting ballistics testing tomorrow afternoon, if I can locate a suitable scale to measure draw in ft. pounds for comparison. As the bands are flat, rather than round, draw length will vary but pounds of draw should create a constant for comparison. We'll be measuring length of pull, length of relaxed bands, weight of pull in ft. lbs., weight and diameter of projectiles, and ballistics in feet per second with each of a variety of projectile. I will be testing a Wrist Rocket with tubular surgical bands, a Daisy Wrist launcher with tubular latex bands and your fine little Hunter catapult with gum flat bands. I wrote an excel spread sheet today for comparative purposes,maybe I can email it to Ghrit to get it posted, as I don't have much luck trying to post spreadsheets on the Monkey. I will take numerous photographs though.

 

I have selected and weighed a variety of projectiles:
.250 Steel 12 grains
.375 Steel 54 grains
.440 steel 132 grains
.315 lead 48 grains
.375 lead 80 grains
The bands on the Hunter catapult are 7" long to the bindings and are flat rubber measuring .03" x 1.03"; there are four (4) of them total.
The tubular latex bands on the Daisy Powerline B52 wristrocket are .04 x .32 and are 6.5" to the bindings. If you multiple pi time diameter, the circumference would be 1.005" but that does not allow for the interior radius that would have to be averaged into the formula and I have had entirely too much Gentleman Jack to deal with that this evening. Suffice to say that the Hunter Catapult has roughly 2.1 times the rubber by weight as does the wrist rocket. The tubular rubber appears to have a much longer draw length than the Hunter Catapult but the foot pounds of energy required to draw the Hunter and the rocket to the same nocking point differ coniderably. I will get accurate measurements on this tomorrow and we'll set the chronograph up as well.

 

Just ordered a draw scale that should be here early next week. I will go ahead with the ballistics testing but will require the data from the scale to make a complete picture of the testing.

 

Here is a shot of the Hunter Catapult and the Daisy Powerline B52; my wrist rocket is in the BOB in my truck.

 

Projectile weights

 

<table width="474" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><col style="width: 81pt;" width="108"> <col style="width: 76pt;" width="101"> <col style="width: 28pt;" width="37"> <col style="width: 25pt;" width="33"> <col style="width: 71pt;" width="94"> <col style="width: 76pt;" width="101"> <tbody><tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td class="xl24" style="height: 12.75pt; width: 81pt;" width="108" height="17">Projectile</td> <td class="xl24" style="width: 76pt;" width="101">Slingshot</td> <td class="xl24" style="width: 28pt;" width="37">Draw length</td> <td class="xl24" style="width: 25pt;" width="33">Pull</td> <td class="xl24" style="width: 71pt;" width="94">Chronograph 1</td> <td class="xl24" style="width: 76pt;" width="101">Chronograph 2</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">..44" steel 132 gr.</td> <td>Hunter Catapult</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">187</td> <td align="right">192</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.44" steel 132 gr.</td> <td>Daisy Powerline B52</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">182</td> <td align="right">183</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.44" steel 132 gr.</td> <td>Wrist Rocket</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">192</td> <td align="right">190</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.375 lead 80 gr.</td> <td>Hunter Catapult</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">217</td> <td align="right">228</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.375 lead 80 gr.</td> <td>Daisy Powerline B52</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">195</td> <td align="right">197</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.375 lead 80 gr.</td> <td>Wrist Rocket</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">208</td> <td align="right">210</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.375 steel 54 gr.</td> <td>Hunter Catapult</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">256</td> <td align="right">247</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.375 steel 54 gr.</td> <td>Daisy Powerline B52</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">213</td> <td align="right">195</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.375 steel 54 gr.</td> <td>Wrist Rocket</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">226</td> <td align="right">230</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.315 lead 48 gr.</td> <td>Hunter Catapult</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">240</td> <td align="right">256</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.315 lead 48 gr</td> <td>Daisy Powerline B52</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">209</td> <td align="right">210</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.315 lead 48 gr</td> <td>Wrist Rocket</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td align="right">233</td> <td align="right">233</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.25 steel 12 gr.</td> <td>Hunter Catapult</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.25 steel 12 gr.</td> <td>Daisy Powerline B52</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">.25 steel 12 gr.</td> <td>Wrist Rocket</td> <td>32"</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>

 

wasn't able to get a reading with the .25 pellets;guess they were too small for a shadow. The biggest variable was the lack of a wrist support on the Hunter Catapult that made it difficult to maintain the correct angle necessary to insure a precise draw length, especially with my wrists being somewhat less than they were a few years ago. I had no means to gage the draw weight but I will have early next week. The Hunter has twice the rubber and you can feel it. I am sure that had I stretched, I could have thrown a much hotter round. Sorry for the cut and paste; seems like this computer is having problems browsing.

 

Great job SC on this post so far. I am watching it closely. I want to get the oldest and I a new slingshot.

I am interested on groups or accuracy reports.

Anyone have a good backstop plan to recover the rather "expensive" shot you guys are using. (more expensive the rocks I am used to anyways )