The military use of the sling depended on shepherds. A shepherd has plenty of free time, broken only by the need for dealing with idiot sheep. He could spend hours every day practicing with a sling. This was good because wolves like sheep a lot. When a wolf pack shows up, looking for dinner, it’s a really good thing to be able to kill a few at a distance. Wolves aren’t stupid. When they are killed from beyond attack range, they look for an easier meal. That’s why shepherds whiled away the idol hour slinging stones at innocent targets.

When Saul or Cyrus or Alexander or Caesar wanted military slingers, they started by recruiting shepherds.

You make an interesting point, and it seems plausible. Though I might point out that when deployed en masse, accuracy is (within sensible boundaries) less important than speed. You didn't need to train a slinger to be able to kill a running wolf if he's got a standing division for a target. I mean, if you've got a thousand soldiers all slinging at a block of another thousand soldiers, an error of plus or minus a couple of feet at range just means you hit the guy's buddies. Same with early musketry. Get enough soldiers together all shooting in the same direction at the same time, and they don't need to be crack shots; somebody's going to hit something through sheer saturation.

BadDogtheBastard, you've got an impressive amount of gear there! It looks like a modern dart is just a piece of wire with a plastic cone on the back. I like the look your wooden dart though. It looks almost exactly like a cattail head. Maybe I can... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Though I bet I'd have to do harvest them soon, before they ripen and the seeds all loosen up. It would be amusing to stuff a ripe cattail head into a blowgun and launch it, having it disintegrate in a burst of fluff at the other end.

I have several .30 cal ones and one of the Cold Steel big bore .52 cal ones. I sold it, but did have an attachment that used co2s and fired bolts! THAT was cool. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> I’ve read an easy way to make darts is to use bamboo skewers and cotton balls. You could also get some thin spring steel, and cut your own darts and sharpen them. When we were kids, my brother and I took some small dia PVC pipe cut to length, and used push-pull thumbtacks in them. It worked pretty well. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I’ve used slings before too. In fact, I’ve been thinking of making another one soon, and I was thinking about it again just today. My brother and I used to go to an overhanging bluff above a lake and throw rocks into the water. We could throw golf ball size or bigger rocks clear out of sight. We’d have to wait for the splash to see where it landed. We’d compete for range, etc. After a while though, your arm would be aching. It’s good exercise. I thought before if you used a ping-pong ball to make a plaster or whatever mold and then pored round lead balls that size, they’d due some SERIOUS damage. You could melt down old wheel weights or something for the lead. Website for ya: http://slinging.org/

I haven't hunted anything with them. I'm sure the wooden darts would be capable of it but I wouldn't trust the wire ones. They were mostly for fun. If you want to hunt small game with a blowgun you can split an exacto razor head and glue it to the front of your wooden dart to make a broadhead.
I'm not sure how cattail would hold up but the thistle seed seems to hold up well. You split the dowel at one end and tie one end of a two foot piece of thread to it. Holding the thread in your teeth and the thistle seed in your right hand you then spin the dart slowly with your left hand as you fletch with the seeds you flatten into a bunch with your right hand. I wish I had a picture tutorial to share, it would be much easier to describe. I haven't found any suitable thistles around here yet.

Prototype 5 and the tools used to make it.


Uni-body construction, carved from a single piece of red oak. It's not as lopsided in real life as it looks here. I carved the fins to be slightly rolled, hoping to add some amount of longitudinal spin as an arrow flies. It works quite well! At least on foam. The shouldered point makes it engage the foam instead of bouncing out as it was doing at first with a more blunt point, but limits its overall penetration. The fins are about half as thick as the front part of the body.

I won't talk about the knife, as the rules forbid me to do so. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The rock is just an anonymous rock, used for sanding it smooth.

And the wad of wool is packed into the blowgun behind the dart to form the seal.

You could make the same argument about the Welsh/English longbow. “Quantity has a quality of its own.” If it were that simple, why didn’t France field longbow men after Crecy and Agincourt?

Because they couldn’t. When you look at something like the English longbow men, you have to think in terms of weapons systems. The technology of the Welsh reflex-deflex longbow is relatively simple. It requires craftsmanship to make bow and arrow, but it’s low technology craftsmanship. No Bessemer furnaces or computers required. Using the longbow in war is a different story.

The English knew that it took a lifetime to train a good bowman. Children learned to hold a bow stave at arm’s length for an hour at a time, and that was just the beginning. English squires and their men at arms were required by law to practice archery every day. Was it one of the Edwards who forbade the game of golf because walking the links was cutting into archery practice time? I’m not sure, but one of the English kings did.

Even employed en masse, the bowman had to be strong, and fast, and accurate, all three and all at once. Teaching someone to having multiple arrows in the air, all of them shot at full draw, all of them carefully aimed, is not something you can impart to raw recruits in a month. That combination of speed and power and accuracy is what made the longbow superior to the (relatively) easy-to-learn crossbow. At Crecy the Genovese crossbowmen got off a shot once or twice every two minutes. The English longbow men launched an arrow every five seconds.

(In the confusion of battle, the fixed shields, called pavises, which protected the crossbowmen while they reloaded, were left in the baggage train. The Genovese, exhausted from a long march in armor, and exposed to English archery without their accustomed shields, took heavy losses and then fell back. The French knights called them cowards and attacked them, killing many. This can’t have been good for group-unit-cohesion.)

I would argue that slingers were similar to longbow men. I never practiced enough to get good with a sling. But in my experience, just getting the rock to fly in the general direction you want to aim at is an accomplishment. (I remember some contestants gathering pebbles for an SCA sling contest. One of us muttered, “We need more mass.” I said, “Let’s keep religion out of this.”)

It won’t do much for group-unit-cohesion if a slinger accidentally kills a soldier on his own side. Such an accident is easily possible for a beginner slinger. You’re not going to pick up a sling and learn to use it for military purposes in five easy lessons. Being able to launch stones or lead bullets fast and repeatedly, hitting targets at a great distance, is no easy task even without requiring great accuracy. You are way better off recruiting people who already have the skill.

Thanks for the link, Andy. It saved me having to look up specific examples. I’m pulling these quotes from A Formidable Ancient Weapon by Rean Steenkamp.



Sounds like training young archers to me. The beginning of a life-long effort.

Awesome thread ,I love ancient weapons. I go to be a pretty good slinger in my youth. I could send a stone in the direction I wanted pretty well. One thing i remember is you should not try to throw hard but just lob it as it will still go pretty fast. lead shot would have been way better than rocks as well.

Archery is also very cool and i have a decent smaller compound bow. I need to get out and use it more.

I'm an archer too. Anyone for a Scrapyard broadhead?

Be careful, Andy. Melting and casting lead can leave you with elevated levels of lead in your body. Not a good thing. At the least you want good ventilation. Do not breath the lead laden air above your melting pot or your castings.

Here's a link to get you started. Lead Safety

Yeah, I found that out a few years ago. I used a propane stove and US GI SS cup to melt lead and pour 200 .50 balls 2 at a time one afternoon. I ended up with a horrible headache that lasted all day. Not to mention burns from spilling a few drops of molten lead on my bare skin a couple times. I was working in the doorway of the garage, and later realized I should have had a fan blowing the fumes away. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif" alt="" />

another evil weapon prohibited here in Canada.
you all remember when the mob was running around knocking people off with blowguns.

great thread really and cool pics

Back in the 80's I had a great one. It used spring steel wire and plastic beads for the darts. You could get the blowguns all the way up to 7' long. Mine was only 6', it was very accurate and I took every thing from lizards to the occasional cat.(Don't tell my neighbors!) The thin steel wire could even be sharpened for better penetration. The company that sold them went under and I eventually ran out darts. I wish that I still had one though!