Rubber powered slingshots

Actually my dad was a good sling shot guy...he used to use 3/4" plywood for the frame, notch the tops as Riley said, and use heavy surgical tubing.

IIRC it was 1/2" OD 1/8" ID tubing, loads of power. I built one with his direction as a kid but never actually got any good with it.

I remember he used to keep shooter-marble-sized round rocks from the beach in an old honey container by his bed. He would shoot the big dogs that roamed our neighbourhood to chase them out of our yard. Range was as far as the cemetary or, if you don't happen to know the geography of my childhood home, about 4-500 feet, I guess. But the useful range was probably 100 feet.

His slingshot would probably have done 2 oz lead weights, for sure. I used my lighter duty one to fire a 1 oz shotgun slug through a couple of interior walls one time. A larger slingshot - like his - and a rounder projectile...would be effective for sure.
 
Don ... theres a bit of a knack to getting metal up the inside of a spear rubber (I use a bit of detergent and lots of brute force) and the rubbers come in lots of different sizes, the handspear rubber almost identical to the falken slingshot rubbers.
I agree with other posts and like the flat rubbers ... the way the rubber folds up on release.
 
I dunno about taking out a deer, even with a head shot. Maybe stun one so you could run up an finish it off with an improvised weapon. Horned animals have really hard heads! Rabbits yes, if you are good and lucky. Birds are easy. Grouse practically hold up a bulls-eye target and dare you. Snakes, lizards, frogs, maybe a squirrel.
 
chk ur local game laws....NYS doesnt allow possession of rist braced slinghots, or hunting with a slingshot
 
kinda off topic, but I have ya'll beat. As a tree climber i use a BIG SHOT line launcher with a 8' fiberglass pole. It has about 6 feet draw, averaging 150lbs pull , it will fire 8 - 20 ounce weights over 200 feet with precise accuracy. I have used it for ice rescue to launch a line over a man down in a ice hole, over 500 feet out (4 OZ weight, 2 mm lead line, attached to rescue rope and chest sling) You fire in an arc WAY over the target and the man grabs the lead line and pulls the rescue rope to him and then you pull him out. For tree use i use to launch a line up into the tree branches, and then i pull my climbing ropes up and over a stout branch crook


wonder if i could hunt with it, maybe knock down treed 'coons with a 10 oz lead shot.......:thumbup:
stock photos , thanks to WESSPUR!
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I posted WOW, and then left. Then I started thinking, "What's a TREE CLIMBER??? Is that a job? Or is that a hobby?
 
Trumark sells bands for their lightweight aluminum slingshots. The best are the tapered bands that give MUCH increased velocity over the standard straight tubing bands IME. You can strip down a trumark to just the aluminum yoke and arms, minus the ammo storage pod that slides down in between the yoke. The ammo pod is plastic that dispenses ball bearing shot out the bottom 1 at a time....or so I've heard, since slingshots are illegal in NJ...go figure!
 
I use traditional wood slingshots with flatbands with .38 caliber lead or 1/2 inch steel balls.
 
Any State Legislature that would spend about fifty thousand dollars to ban slingshots or the wrist braced variety of slingshots have way too much money and time on their hands and should be defunded and limited as to when they get together. That having been said, I live in Maryland and I am absolutely amazed that this state has not banned them. This state has projectilephobia, to say the least.

A lead or steel sphere traveling at over 100 MPH will kill a squirrel dead as disco guys. Anyone that tells you otherwise just thinks slingshots are B.S. or they don't like that type of hunting, etc.

I remember when we were kids, there used to be potheads that would get high up in our beloved woods. As a matter of fact, those were the assholes that would stand or sit and get high and light catface on a pine tree and then part of the woods would burn down. But the good kids, mostly Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts that would make a small little fire with a proper fire ring, etc., to cook up some pilfered Campbell's Pork and Beans, we would be the ones blamed for it and people would call the local F.D. and have us threatened, etc.

Anyways, the potheads did occasionally like to throw rocks at us. We ocassionally retaliated with our own thrown rocks. And, no, this is not some Rambo story where we killed potheads with slingshots, but we did make them run a few times and I don't think there is a damned thing wrong with what we did. They really didn't care if they hurt you, at least we were pegging them in their legs. 8-)
 
You can get latex tubing at Home Depot in the plumbing section. Probably cheaper for most of us than trying to find a surgical tubing supplier. I used it in college to make a super accurate and powerful catapult for a class that, well, had us build a catapult. :)
 
El Toro,
Good choice on the classic traditional purchase. You won't be sorry. Now, you just need to make a catch box - cardboard box, hole cut out of center, inside backed with t-shirts, old towels. Much better than losing your marbles? :)
 
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