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Location: Finally escaped The People's Republic of California
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Should a sling shot (Wrist Rocket) be part of our kit?
Thoughts?
I haven't shot one in decades, but it does seem like a viable tool for taking birds and other small game.........
I have a couple of them that are well over 10 years old. Still work just fine. They would come in really handy (along with a handful of rocks) if you were trying to ward off an intruder. You can really zing small projectiles at high speed with these things. Beats having to be close enough for hand to hand combat any day. I tend to agree that killing anything for food with one would be pure luck.
Dates back to the depression. The old guy as a kid got to have a nice meal if he snagged a squirrel. Got good at it for the whole family liked to eat meat. He may have got some other critters too. Many decades later he was still really good. He even made the slingshots. He sells them now and you can watch him in action.
I use to sling rocks really far into the sky with them lol. They can kill a person if u hit them in the head. I would use one to kill a big bird if I was right up on it but still need practise. I think it's a cruel way to try and get food though. Maybe look at traps. Won't hurt to practise to use in self defense.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zembonez
I have a couple of them that are well over 10 years old. Still work just fine. They would come in really handy (along with a handful of rocks) if you were trying to ward off an intruder. You can really zing small projectiles at high speed with these things. Beats having to be close enough for hand to hand combat any day. I tend to agree that killing anything for food with one would be pure luck.
Ball bearings are the best ammunition for a powerful sling shot. They fly accurately; enough so that hitting something beyond five yards is a function of skill rather than luck.
I made a slingshot out of a crapemyrtle fork and surgical tubing more than fifteen years ago. The tubing shows some signs that it would probably fail with regular use now, but I can still hit a gatorade bottle from across the yard.
Expensive ($11-$12/100) ammunition for sling shots are the .44 or .45 caliber round lead balls for muzzle loaders. I would still rather put the balls in front of a little black powder.
By the way; sling shots are illegal in in eleven states. NY has a qualifier that the sling shots with wrist-braces are illegal: http://www.blowguns.net/legal.htm I think that everything is illegal in NJ - including pepper spray and mace. Hollow point ammunition is also illegal in NJ.
The atlatl is a cool idea, but that's a relic from the days of persistence hunting when a group of males would chase hooved game to the point of exhaustion and then all of them would throw spears at once to open enough cuts for the animal to bleed out. It's not a very practical weapon system and the projectile probably doesn't have enough mass to reliably produce incapacitating wounds (or wounds that would be fatal in an acceptable time frame) on deer sized game. Unless you run all the fight out of a deer first, you'll never find its carcass if you try to kill it with an atlatl.
You're much better off purchasing a compound or recurve and becoming proficient with it.
EDIT: Someone just made a very good point via rep comment... Even though a powerful bow is capable of taking about any terrestrial species, it's quite simply at a technological disadvantage to the venerable .22 long rifle. For a similar gear weight you would really be even better off carrying a Nylon 66 with a full magazine.
Last edited by jimboburnsy; 12-12-2011 at 08:40 AM..
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There is a youtube of and old guy
