SLINGSHOT SHOOTING

I grew up on slingshots. They were great. I used to make my own with a good fork of a tree or saplin and cut my own leather pouch outta of shoe leather ( usually from the tongue) and would buy those big BF goodrich rubber bands. Worked great. Shot several rabbits and squirrels with them and chased away stray dogs and foxes with them. Now I have a store bought wrist rocket. It works really well but instead of buying ammo I make mine with a 45 cal musket ball load and lead. Tears the pidgeons up and takes out a rabbit with ease.

 

i grew up with a wrist rocket there was a hardware store that would sell them to us kids with out our parents there we felt like rebels tell my mom drove by and saw us shooting them she took them but we got them back and have had it ever since and we just used rocks as ammo had a few marbles but they didnt last long

 

I have a wrist rocket, i haven't shot it in a few years. Used it for plinking. We got tired of looking for rocks and started using .177 cal. BBs. Kinda hard to load, but they worked really well and are cheap. We plinked cans all day long like that. Probly kinda small for hunting, but cans dont care.

 

When I was a kid, I carried my dad's old wrist-rocket with me on my paper route. There was this one doberman that hated kids & sometimes when I went to deliver the paper he would chase me. If I hadn't my trusty slingshot, there's no way I would of stuck with that paper route.:smile2:

 

I grew up making and shooting slingshots. My dad taught me; he told me stories of when he was growing up, they would have contests shooting lizards off rail fences. If they hit the rail, the lizard didn't count. I took that with a grain of salt till the time he took me out to shoot a .22 and we got to shooting at some walnuts I found. I'd toss the walnut up in the air to shoot, and he would hit it first with a slingshot. When we moved back to Arkansas in 1983, I started catfishing in Lake Atkins, running trotlines a lot at night. There are a lot of lonely cottonmouths there, and they like to climb into your boat for company. Firearms are illegal on the lake, so I'd carry a slingshot to kill the snakes trying to get into my boat. I've got a wrist rocket now, but I don't shoot it much.

 

Yuck! We don't have much in the way of poisonous snakes up here. If a cotton mouth tried to climb in my boat at night I might just have to change my drawers.:smile2:

 

Grew up on home made slingshots on the Santee.Moved to South Florida and South Georgia.THERE AIN'T ANY ROCKS!

I love you Brothers and Sisters.peewee

 

Not much in the way of rocks just laying around to pick up for ammo, huh? That would be weird...but it'd be a lot easier on my lawnmower!

 

Leroy
You know I just bought Two wrist-rocket's at wall-mart just, the other day For the wife and I just to plink around with. they brought memories of times when I was your age and every kid I knew had one in his back pocket are hanging around his neck, and we made our own. with a nice fork from a tree and the tung out of dads old work boots and an old red rubber inter-tube from the tire shop. Man when they quit making those red rubber iter-tubes, kids thought the world was coming to the end.

 

I want you to be careful young man that you dont grow up and turn out like I did!!!!!:smile2:First thing was a peashooter.Had to study trajectories,wind etc because those peas werent all exactly round and some time it took as many as 3 adjustment shots to hit the girl of your choice.:roll_eyes::big_smile:Then I discovered slingshots,yep the old fashioned kind mentioned by some of the graybeards previuosly.Forked stick,bands cut from an inner tube,and a leather pouch made from an old shoe tongue.Problem was the inner tube bands were not to stretchy and it took a lot of muscle to pull one of those.Every time I admire my biceps in the mirror I remember those homemade models.:wink::tounge_out:Then I graduated to a 22 and before you knew it I was and expert on connecting moving objects with their intended targets.The highlight of my shooting career was knocking a dragonfly out of the air with a cedar berry from my slingshot.Uncle Sam greatly admired my shooting skills, so much so,he gave me a free rifle and a jungle full of communists to practice on and I did my best to thin them out.Must have had an impact because today communism aint as nearly popular as it once was.HAHAHAHAHAHA.Today I have two slingshots that my sons and grandsons love to shoot.We always have one on board the boat for those pesky turtles and commorants. I would tell you about the commorant on the fly but there might be a PETA member watching.I have found the cheapest and most readily available ammo to be marbles.You can get a nice big bag at the dollar store.I also buy the ball bearing type for long range shootinf but marbles do the trick for 99% of your shooting.I had the best revenge on my oldest son by buying his 5year old his own slingshot and a bag of paintballs!!!:smile2::big_smile:He was totally impressed with grandpas amazing shot that hit his mom right on the hiny while she was running to get out of range!!!!I did warn him NOT to try that shot at home.I think he was impressed that his mom knew so many 'Bad" words,hehehehehe.Cant beat a slingshot ,when the fish arent biting.float one of those 16oz soda bottles out and have at it.Be sure and retrieve the bottle afterwards.OR get several bags of the cheapest paintballs and conduct a "family" hunt.Be careful you dont hit the family member responsible for supper or you could go hungry. :smile2::big_smile:I cant imagine ever being without one and they make some really nice ones now.I spent most of my youth continously searching for the perfect forked stick and for the perfect spear!:big_smile:

 

Matt, remember that just about everything is a trade-off of some kind or other. We moved to central Florida, and sure enough, no rocks for the mower to hit! But it was a big yard requiring a riding mower/bagger; they have curved pieces attached to the blade to give more lift to move the grass to the rear bag. The sand wore those out so fast that I'd have to replace them after every 3d or 4th mowing.

Fishing Lake Atkins one evening, I was returning to where I had launched over the bank, and saw someone sitting nearby bank fishing; a lantern was just to his right, and he had a stick in his right hand. His rod lay on the ground, supported by a forked stick (how else?). As I was swinging wide around his float, he said, "Watch out for those bushes, there's a nest of water moccasins in them," referring to a patch of bushes on a point about 30' to his right. I pulled up to the shore, got out, and asked him, "What's the stick for?" He replied, "That's to beat off the moccasins that keep trying to eat these fish I've got on a stringer." I just shook my head, loaded my boat on the trailer, and went on home.

 

Us "Sandlappers" had to wait on the seasonal supply of "China Berries" in the rock less,sandy coastal soils for ideal sling shot ammo.I guess the wealthy "City Boys" and younger generation may have shot marbles in slingshots.We were not allowed to break glass.We shot marbles with our hand.Mostly in a circle on the ground.They cost money.

You younger folks have to realize.This was PW,"pre welfare".A time beyond your comprehension.Slingshots very often added to the family's daily food supply and were carried for such.I knew families whose major pride was honesty and that they had "never bought any store bought eating food".Not a loaf of bread,a cracker,a coke or any prepared food had ever been eaten by some in my childhood.They couldn't afford such and their pride handled it in this manner.I was "BLESSED"and still am to have known such and their pride is in me today.They refused to be poor and were far more wealthy in many ways than most today.

There were no "Free lunches"for the children.Some proud poor children would bring a bag or can to school with anything in it so folks would think that they had something to eat.They would go off by their self and act like they were eating,so no one would know.I have played "tough" with poor friends who acted as if they/we neither needed nor wanted any lunch.Also hid my shoes before getting on the School bus.When they did come along with the free lunch along with shoes,they were for the poor and pride kept many from signing up.You saw no Possums,rabbits,coons or squirrels in poorer residential areas.The large wood rats ate as good as a squirrel.They ate the same food and tasted the same.Great incentive for sling shots.

You shoot someone with a slingshot who was not stealing,you had better hop a freight.The same quality of safety rules applied to sling shots and BB guns as fire arms.The same for throwing rocks and such.We were taught that they could blind and even kill.You were a proven dedicated believer and expert on "David and Goliath" before ever being allowed to touch a slingshot.

Many are missing much by ignoring a sling shot for small game.It takes a dedication to and much practice to become good as do most things in life.It is also good exercise from searching for and collecting good ammo (the just right rocks) to the shooting.If you can't buy it,you can make it!

As has been pointed out.It is a great thing to take along in case you are having a boring day.

Please don't break glass and leave it as a danger for man and critters.This could be a problem shooting marbles or bottles.

I was never "Good" with a sling shot.Only fair at best.Yep.I still envy the good!

Now,at 12 I could take a Needle Fish 3 out of 5 times with the center prong off a bridge with a heavy saltwater Gig.Also swimming and even jumping Mullet fairly regular with one.Now I was as good as any that I ever saw throw a gig.

I love you Brothers and Sisters.peewee

 

i had me a wrist rocket growing up and it was pretty cool. once you get it down, then you can hit stuff rather well and it will knock down most small game. killed a rbbitwith it one time and knocked quite a few squirells down. we used to use old ball bearing for ammo. rocks are good to practice with, but you need to make sure they are nice and smooth and almost completely round. any mishapen ones will affect flight pattern and throw your shot off.

 

lol great post. dont forget searching for that pefect dried up honeysuckle branch to make a bow out of

 

I need to correct something from my original post when I said float a 16oz bottle out to shoot at .I meant a plastic bottle of course,not a glass one.Not sure if you can even get a glass soda bottle anymore.:big_smile:

 

Good post! It reminds of the stories my Dad has told me about growing up "down home" in Arkansas, Missouri & southern Illinois. My Grandpa was a sharecropper? Is that the right word? Anyway they would live on other people's farms & work them. All of them, including my dad and his brothers had to work the fields right along with him when they weren't in school. One of the jobs my dad talks about that he hated the worst was pickin' cotton.

They were always poor & "made do." They went barefoot all summer & he told me they didn't even have a flush toilet until he was around 10 or 11. Their transportation was almost always by horse & wagon. They also ate possum & coon & were happy for it. My dad still likes such (to me) odd food as pig brains. My mom doesn't cook it for him though...I've been with him on semi trips down south when he would order some in a diner.

Sorry for getting so far off the subject of slingshots but you talking about eating possum & coon brought back memories to me of the stories my dad has told me about growing up down home.

 

when i was a kid i had several wrist rockets and they are deadly. We use to shoot squirrels with steel shot and it would kill them easily.

 

I for one,never even thought about you doing so.I doubt if any who are familiar with your past post thought so either.

I do not remember reading anything in any of your post that needed explaining or defending.I can not say that of mine as I seem to regularly come across different than what I mean.

Now I am not talking about those who seem to live to find things to be offended about.

I love you Brothers and Sisters.peewee.

 

It takes two to send fire crackers up:wink:

Best forks I could ever get were from the crack willow tree out back. They don't call them crack willow for nothing though. Had to make a new one every week.

My best shot was exploding the salt shaker on the picnic table at about 30 yards.:smile2: