Slingshot
Encyclopedia
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British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
) is a small hand-powered projectile weapon
Weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...
. The classic form consists of a Y-shaped frame held in the off hand, with two rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
strips attached to the uprights. The other ends of the strips lead back to a pocket which holds the projectile. The pocket is grasped by the dominant hand and drawn back to the desired extent to provide power for the projectile (up to a full span of the arms with sufficiently long bands).
History and use
Slingshots depend on strong elasticElasticity (physics)
In physics, elasticity is the physical property of a material that returns to its original shape after the stress that made it deform or distort is removed. The relative amount of deformation is called the strain....
materials, typically vulcanized
Vulcanization
Vulcanization or vulcanisation is a chemical process for converting rubber or related polymers into more durable materials via the addition of sulfur or other equivalent "curatives." These additives modify the polymer by forming crosslinks between individual polymer chains. Vulcanized material is...
natural rubber or the equivalent, and thus date back no further than the invention of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear
Charles Goodyear
Charles Goodyear was an American inventor who developed a process to vulcanize rubber in 1839 -- a method that he perfected while living and working in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1844, and for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844Although...
in 1839 (patented in 1844). By 1860, this "new engine" had already established a reputation for juvenile use in vandalism, as well as at least one human death.
For much of their early history, slingshots were a "do it yourself" item, typically made from a forked branch to form the "Y" shaped handle, with rubber strips sliced from items such as inner tubes or other sources of good vulcanized rubber and firing suitably sized stones.
While early slingshots were most associated with young vandals, they were also capable hunting arms in the hands of a skilled user. Firing metallic projectiles, such as lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
musket
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
balls or buckshot, or steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
ball bearings, the slingshot was capable of taking game such as quail, pheasant, rabbit, and dove. Placing multiple balls in the pouch produces a shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
effect, such as firing a dozen BBs
BB gun
BB guns are a type of air gun designed to shoot projectiles named BBs after the birdshot pellet of approximately the same size. These projectiles are usually spherical but can also be pointed; those are usually used for bird hunting. Modern day BB guns usually have a smoothbore barrel, with a bore...
at a time for hunting small birds. With the addition of a suitable rest, the slingshot can also be used to fire arrow
Arrow
An arrow is a shafted projectile that is shot with a bow. It predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.An arrow usually consists of a shaft with an arrowhead attached to the front end, with fletchings and a nock at the other.- History:...
s, allowing the hunting of medium sized game at short ranges.
While commercially made slingshots date back to at least 1918, with the introduction of the Zip-Zip, a cast iron model, it was not until the post World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
years saw a surge in the popularity, and legitimacy, of slingshots. They were still primarily a home-built proposition; a 1946 Popular Science
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
article details a slingshot builder and hunter using home-built slingshots made from forked dogwood
Dogwood
The genus Cornus is a group of about 30-60 species of woody plants in the family Cornaceae, commonly known as dogwoods. Most dogwoods are deciduous trees or shrubs, but a few species are nearly herbaceous perennial subshrubs, and a few of the woody species are evergreen...
sticks to take small game at ranges of up to 30' with No. 0 lead buckshot (.32 in., 8 mm diameter).
The Wham-O
Wham-O
Wham-O Inc. is a toy company currently located in California, USA. They are known for marketing many popular toys in the past 50 years, including the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, Slip 'N Slide, Super Ball, Trac-Ball, Silly String, Hacky Sack and the Boogie board....
company, founded in 1948, was named after their first product, the Wham-O slingshot. It was made of ash wood and used flat rubber bands. The Wham-O was suitable for hunting with a draw weight of up to 45 pounds force (200 newtons), and was available with an arrow rest.
The 1940s also saw the creation of the National Slingshot Association, headquartered in San Marino, California
San Marino, California
San Marino is a small, affluent city in Los Angeles County, California. Incorporated in 1913, the City founders designed the community to be uniquely residential, with expansive properties surrounded by beautiful gardens, wide streets, and well maintained parkways...
, which organized slingshot clubs and competitions nationwide. Despite the slingshot's reputation as a tool of juvenile delinquents, the NSA reported that 80% of slingshot sales were to men over 30 years old, many of them professionals. John Milligan, a part-time manufacturer of the aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
-framed John Milligan Special, a hunting slingshot, reported that about a third of his customers were physicians.
The middle 1950s saw two major innovations in slingshot manufacture, typified by the Wrist-Rocket Company of Columbus, Nebraska
Columbus, Nebraska
Columbus is a city in east central Nebraska, United States. Its population was 22,111 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Platte County.-Pre-settlement history:...
, later renamed Trumark. The Wrist-Rocket was made from bent steel rods that formed not only the handle and fork, but also a brace that extended backwards over the wrist, and provided support on the forearm to counter the torque
Torque
Torque, moment or moment of force , is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist....
of the bands. The Wrist-Rocket also used rubber tubing rather than flat bands, which was attached to the backwards-facing fork ends by sliding over the tips of the forks, where it was held by friction.
By 2001, the flat band slingshot had disappeared from commercial production in favor of the tubular band. Flat bands are preferred by custom makers and shooters in national competition, however, as they provide more efficiency and accuracy.
Military use
Slingshots have been used as a military weapon, but primarily by guerrilla forces due to the primitive resources and technology required to construct one. Such guerrilla groups included the Irish Republican ArmyIrish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
; prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
released a propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
video demonstrating slingshots as a possible insurgency weapon
Insurgency weapon
An insurgency weapon is a weapon, most often a firearm, intended for use by insurgents to engage in guerrilla warfare against an occupier, or for use by rebels against an established government...
for use against invading forces.
Slingshots have also been used by the military to launch unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Two crew members form the fork, with an elastic cord stretched between them to provide power to launch the small aircraft.
Dangers
One of the dangers inherent in slingshots is the high probability that the bands will fail. Most bands are made from latexLatex
Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...
, which degrades with time and use, causing the bands to eventually fail under load. Failures at the pouch end are safest, as they result in the band rebounding away from the user. Failures at the fork end, however, send the band back towards the shooter's face, which can cause severe injuries. One method to minimize the chance of a fork-end failure is to utilize a tapered band, thinner at the pouch end, and thicker and stronger at the fork end. Designs that use loose parts at the fork are the most dangerous, as they can result in those parts being propelled back towards the shooters face, such as the ball attachment used in the recalled Daisy "Natural" line of slingshots, shown at right. The band could slip out of the slot it rested in, and the hard ball in the tube resulted in cases of blindness and broken teeth. Daisy models using plain tubular bands were not covered in the recall, because the elastic tubing itself does not cause severe injuries upon failure.
See also
- Hawaiian slingHawaiian slingThe Hawaiian sling is a device used in spearfishing. The sling operates much like a bow and arrow on land, but energy is stored in rubber tubing rather than a wooden or fiberglass shaft.-Description:...
- PolespearPolespearA polespear is an underwater tool used in spearfishing, consisting of a pole, a spear tip, and a rubber loop. Polespears are often mistakenly called Hawaiian slings, but the tools differ...
- Stone bow
- The brassiereBrassiereA brassiere is an undergarment that covers, supports, and elevates the breasts. Since the late 19th century, it has replaced the corset as the most widely accepted method for supporting breasts....
is sometimes referred to as a double barreled slingshot