Sling shots

4011

4011

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Talked with an older cousin today. His dad was a brother to my dad. Uncle Dan was deadly with a slingshot. Dad was a master tool an die maker. Dad made uncle Dan an alumiumn sling shot with surgical tubing tied with string from the newspaper. Uncle Dan went out back and knocked a can all,over the yard. Well today my cousin told me he was giving that slingshot to me. The sling shot is well over 60 years old. I'm making a trip soon to see my cousin.
 
As a kid my cousins and I made sling shot from leather thongs a piece of leather. we could hit birds on the electric lines and killed a few rabbits and squirrels. We started shooting at the end of the barns and soon we could knock a can off a fence post. Wrist rockets had nothing on us. A sling, sling is easy to hide in your pocket that a Y sling shot.
 
When I was young and cute I lived 6 miles from town. There was 7 houses near ours and all were filled with boys my age. We all wore cut off levis, black high top Keds, white T shirts and every one of us had a wrist rocket slingshot tucked into the rear pocket. When some of us got caught doing something the adults thought was not conducive to a civilized world, they would take our slingshots away for a week. Who ever was defenseless felt like we had lost a leg. We all pooled our money and bought a spare wrist rocket. This was kept in one of forts to be used secretly by the wrongfully punished.
 
When I was a kid, I had a Wrist Rocket. I used an over sized leather pouch, and used to load #4 lead shot in the pouch. It was deadly on small birds at close range.

I still use a slingshot today, while deer hunting. I use it to toss scent covered rocks downwind of my stand, and to toss rocks into isolated patches of woods to move deer.

Larry
 
I started out with home-made sling shots and then moved up to a Wammo and felt like I was on top of the world. Wore out so many bands with that one. Use to be great to go into any filling station in town and ask for old inner tubes and be given all you wanted to cut into bands. Yes kids, car tires all used to have inner tubes just like your bikes. Got pretty deadly with it on. You felt like you could take on the world with a sling shot in your back pocket and a jack knife in your front pocket. Later moved up to the wrist rocket which was good but lacked the grit of the Wammo. Now I am looking at getting a new one from simple shot and setting up a range in the basement to alternate with the air pistol for keeping the eyes sharp in the winter when the wind chill gets down there at the range.
 
When I was a kid I had a Wham O slingshot, it would also shoot arrows. :cool:
 
As I live in the peoples republic of NY, many of the magnum type singers are not legal here.

Back in the early 60s I had my fathers friend ( a super handy fellow) build me one of his super sling shots. It was made out of 3/8 steel square stock. He also used a special inner tube, which he cut down to make the stretchable part.. He was deadly with that, actually shot a couple rabbits with it. It was very powerful and had a long range. Much better than anything I ever seen.

Of course me being a "rather adventures young kid" I did things with that thing that were not nice and in many cases illegal
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The way the high school I went to was laid out there was a 1 story addition jutting out about 150' and 50' wide, and it divided the parking lot. That slingshot had enough power to lob cherry bombs/ashcans over the addition and into the teachers parking lot on the other side. We did that a few times and they never figured out how it was done or who did it.

We used to take it to the shoreline and lob cherry bombs into the water to bother a curmudgeon that had a camp a 1/4 mile down the road. It tended to look like depth charges going off. That was the last incident and my father confiscated it and his friend was told no more slingshots for me.:D
 
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Back in the day before wrist rockets, packaged steel balls, surgical tubing, etc. the big thing was finding good inner tubes and good ammunition. Anybody else remember using your plain marbles, looking for good rocks and salvaging stretchable inner tubes that had been patched a million times? The perfect Y sticks, rocks or marbles, salvaged inner tubes, were all items you got on your own or traded for, no parents or money was involved. So if your sling shot was confiscated you went to your stash hiding place, got the parts, or maybe another already made, and stayed away from adults with the new one till the grace period was over !!
 
I spent a year on Amchitka Island, Alaska as a Construction Engineer. We couldn't have firearms or pellet guns. BUT, we could have wrist rockets. We found that the seaweed covered beaches had lots of Norway Rats. I found the site of the WW II airplane engine rebuild shop and a big pile of rusted steel ball bearings. The vast majority were about 1/4" dia. Absolutely perfect wrist rocket ammo for use on the rats. Of the dedicated 'rat' hunters, I was about in the middle for kills. In a year my total was 38. The best score was by a big fellow that used extra heavy surgical rubber bands. He could kill a good 20 yds. further out than any of the rest of us. His total was right at 60 rats.

To this day a Wrist Rocket hangs at the door of my work shop with a few marbles waiting the appropriate target. .....
 
I made slingshot's as a kid,but truth be told,I never hit what I was tying to hit with them or home made flips. Got a few butt whooping for breaking some neghbors windows that mother had to replace.
 
As a kid, I started with a WhamO, then moved up to a Wrist Rocket. Our next door neighbor had a machine shop and he'd cut up bearing races and save the ball bearings for my brother and I to use as ammo. Cherry bombs made good ammo too, but you needed an assistant to light 'em.
 
I grew up with one (actually several) and so did my sons. At various times, my "hunting" license was suspended for a time because it was really hard for me to resist shooting a moving chicken. Had all kinds of stocks, including the Whamo and the Wrist Rocket. Didn't ever really like the Wrist Rocket for some reason although you got good leverage to sling your ammo. Picked up a piece of scrap mahogany when my dad was building cabinets for our kitchen. Cut out a nice looking stock similar to the Whamo and strung it up. First full draw pull resulted in me understanding about the grain in wood and the difference in types of wood. The left "ear" of the pocket rocket broke in the narrow section from the stock to the ear. I had cut the wood so that the grain was vertically aligned and that piece snapped off easy as you please. AND it hit my right underneath my eye. Yep, left quite a mark!! Also resulted in a flinch for a while ... hard to forget that pain!

When I got to be a teenager, I was in the hardware store with my dad and was looking around (the gun counter, knife counter, and sporting goods section). Dicscovered the section where they sold lead shot for shotshell reloading. Saved up my money and bought me a bag full of 00 Buckshot. Those were just the right size and weight for ammo, and from then on, cottontails and stray cats were in trouble. Didn't shoot the chickens with those. They wouldn't bounce off a chicken like most rocks would!! I keep some 00 Buck on hand yet today and share it with my sons.

I'm old enough that my first slingshots used the red rubber from inner tubes. It was pretty live rubber. The black stuff wasn't worth punk. When I discovered surgical tubing, I was in hog heaven!! I still have four or five different shooters on hand today. One of them is over 60 years old and a couple more are at least 40 and 50 YOA. They come in very handy at times for various duties. Being silent, I don't need a suppressor, and they are easier to hide if necessary to keep from being busted. This thread has brought back a flood of memories from my youth and past life as well as from the present! Thanks for stirring my memories and for letting me taking up some space to relate a few of them!
 
4011: Boy Oh Boy, does this bring back the memories. Moving up from a Bean Shooter to a Wrist Rocket was like going from a old worn out Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun to a Brand New Marlin 39-A 22LR Lever Gun. For me any way it was. We were living in Tulsa in 1953 I believe when I got my first Wrist Rocket. My big Brothers Marble collection would never be the same, and He never figured it out why he was losing so many marbles. With a leather pouch full of marbles I could prowl up and down Mingo Creek all day long. I shot snakes, turtles, fish, rats, rabbits, squirrels, and just about anything else I could sneak up on. And shooting Cherry Bombs and old Silver Exploding Torpedoes out of my Wrist Rocket was almost a religious experience. And people that tried to steal my Grandpa`s Watermelons, and fish uninvited in his ponds at night. Felt the wrath of my Wrist Rocket shooting Cherry Bombs and exploding Silver Torpedoes all around them. They sure would leave in a hurry. And You could see the flash marks on there Cars and Pickup Trucks the next day in town. I wish they still made Wrist Rockets, for I sure would like to have another one of them.
ken
 
You guys drove me to this. At least that's my excuse and I am sticking to it. :-)
This is a old flip stock that I have in my Memory Box, from the mid to late 1950's. Can't remember any great and wonderful shots I made or big game I took, but I shot it a lot. :-)





I hope these photos bring up pleasant memories for you, as this thread did for me.

Have a blessed day,

Leon
 
as a youngster

I had what we called at the time, a flipper. I was pretty young when I was first using them, made from the crotch of an appropriate sized limb and the old red rubber from inner tubes of the day. (that rubber was soon a thing of the past and the black rubber of the newer inner tubes was useless for a "flipper crutch") Next thing I remember is the ol' man making a real (what we called a slingshot) from leather boot laces and the tongue of an old boot.
It took a lot of practice but Dad and I were raising knots on the telephone pole in the corner of the lot within a short time. I remember the learning curve as being fraught with danger. I had a knot on my head more than once from the dang thing.
Fast frwd a decade and I was using one while deer hunting for throwing rocks a LONG way into stand of pine, trying to get deer to move around. I wasn't real accurate with it, but dang that thing had some down range energy.
I've been smiling the whole time I'm putting this together.
Thanks to the OP for a fun thread!!
 
I had a Wrist Rocket as a young teen and most of the "ammo" I used was steel nuts of the half inch size. Dad used to get all over me for using his when I ran out.

Best shot I ever made on a bird was a grackle crossing directly in front of me at about 15yd. I gave it a bit of lead and let fly. Watching that nut float up to that bird it looked like it was moving in a curve. I caught him flush upside the head and he folded wings and went in like a downed plane. I would like to have a pic of the look on my face after that.
 
Wow! thanks for all the likes ref: Uncle Dans slingshot. I will post a picture when I get. This also brings to mind old Scotty B. That worked as a third shift non skilled maintaince man. As a Security Guard there at the auto factory we got the job of removing wayward animals that wandered under the fences. Skunks were a problem and the City Animal Control didn't come late at night. Scotty was brought to the office and asked if he could take the skunks out with his slingshot. He says well I'll need some ball bearings. Promptly we went to maintaince a got him a sack full of bearings. Skunks dropped like flys. Scotty came in the office one night reaking of skunk. We stepped back and told him to go shower, the smell didn't faze him. He says I got one but didnt see the other one! We didn't let Scotty run out of bearings.
 
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In the late '40's and early '50's the WMD was the old Wham-O Sportsman--clumsy wooden frame, flat rubber bands, and a hell of a lot of velocity if your wrist was strong enough. No sights or arrow guide or other accessories. With marbles or salvaged ball bearings it was a real hitter.

A buddy of mine, a mad scientist type, made mercuric fulminate in a lab in his parents under-the-house garage (he also made nitroglycerin, but that's another story). He would load it into large gelatin capsules with a few BB's for weight, and we were a stealthy mobile artillery force with the Wham-O. Had to run through the woods more than once to elude pursuers, like cops.
 
Forgot to mention that I could fling a stone with alacrity from a David sytle sling. But there was absolutely no telling which direction it would go. I was banned to a quarter section about a half mile from the house and barns for practice with that! Finally gave it up because I never learned how to control it. I too got knots on my head and bruises on my body from it. Had no experienced instruction, of course. My dad apparently had found out long before that using one of those type slings accurately was a considerable challenge. I gave it up for a lost cause after a while. It was much easier and safer to go back to the flipper style.
 
Wow! To a kid....

shouldazagged said:
In the late '40's and early '50's the WMD was the old Wham-O Sportsman--clumsy wooden frame, flat rubber bands, and a hell of a lot of velocity if your wrist was strong enough. No sights or arrow guide or other accessories. With marbles or salvaged ball bearings it was a real hitter.

A buddy of mine, a mad scientist type, made mercuric fulminate in a lab in his parents under-the-house garage (he also made nitroglycerin, but that's another story). He would load it into large gelatin capsules with a few BB's for weight, and we were a stealthy mobile artillery force with the Wham-O. Had to run through the woods more than once to elude pursuers, like cops.
Click to expand...

Wow! To a kid that's the stuff that dreams are made of. Real exploding ammo.
 
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