anyone whos made a primitive bow will also appreciate the sling, i wonder what changes can be made to the sling to modernize it to be stronger or give it more launch, cause theres so much you can do with bows i wonder the same for slings.
@@Archaic-Arms awesome excited to make video on javelin/plumbata testing.throwing pointy objects were widely used in ancient european warfare but almost forgotten today with little data
Awesome work! Thanks for the shoutout! By the way the WR with stones is 437.1m 52g stone 130cm by Larry Bray and there is an unofficial record with lead at 505m.
the bit about lead bullets heating up enough to melt in flight is hilarious. I don't know if I would take that seriously. More likely the bullet deformed upon impact and they thought it melted in flight for some reason.
My thoughts too. Lower velocity bullets and airgun pellets after hitting steel plates often look like they have melted. Watch high speed video of lead bullets hitting objects; due the the extreme deformation the lead acts like liquid.
In bullets, the the energy given to the projectile by the expanding gas is dumped into the target upon impact. If the target is unyielding and impermeable that can result in quite a lot of heat. Some melt is possible. That’s how depleted uranium anti armor rounds work. A large amount of powder pushing a very dense mass into a very resistant armor plate. The resulting heat transfer melts a nice fifty caliber hole on the outside. The inside is a three inch cone which throws a lot of molten metal, some spalled off metal fragments from the interior and what’s left of the bullet. And a whiff of radioactive gas.
Little was known of physics back then, kinda like "Scientist" thought speeds over 50 mph would crush a man, when the railroads were being built in the settler times of the US.
My theory for why we don't see or hear much about slings is simple: For the same reason modern golf is regarded as a high class sport while disc golf is mocked. Hear me out... Slings have been common and available for literally forever, for everybody - at all ages one can use it with just one hand. They are easy to make and are basically free. There's no need of a dicipline to wield one and because of that there's no use to come up with rules or competitions. You can't regulate them and anybody can teach and learn to use it, so there's no use for associations or grand guilds of slingers. It's basically a free weapon for self defence or hunting. As a king or emperor of old, I wouldn't want to give my scholars an order to write down accounts of how the peasants can weponize themselves with a sling and devastate armored troops with modern weapons. I would tell them to write about my superior weapons that no other force should dare to challenge. :)
i play a game with slings and arrows where i try to land them into a tire from various distances and conditions. i also play the same game with rocks using my feet. with the right rock and footwear, i can flick a stone directly into someones face from considerable distance with barely a two-step shuffle.
@joshuawayne9811 it seems that ground definitely was not to his advantage. I think the extra muscle energy required to just keep his balance on those loose rocks definitely affected his endurance and accuracy
I am Balearic myself and I apreciate this type of videos were I can discover new things about our ancestors, Thank you for this video and you have amazing skills with the sling too.👍
20 years ago when I was making an throwing slings, I remember reading that you weren't taken into the Roman sling corps unless you could reliably hit a melon at 100 yds, or thereabouts. Another thing about slingshots is that you could fire projectiles over walls
Great, fellow slingers! I spent years slinging(the most difficult task I ever learnt).The difficult part is accuracy... -then I got into throwing javelins with a string and the force and accuracy is amazing.
Keep it up! I have been practicing slinging whenever I could since I was a kid, picked up throwing axes 7 years ago, and picked up throwing knives this year. I love to see ancient projectile weapons getting love!
Exactly and I belive David used a staff sling on goliath considering the much heavier rock and easier aiming since u have a straight stick and also because Goliath said to David "Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks and stones" why would David carry his staff and sling up to Goliath only to drop his staff?
@@HistoricalWeapons it was a boy though. Goliath was 9'6 he probably wasn't intimated and was actually insulted that after 40 days of mocking their God and calling for someone to fight him a shepherd boy came out. David charged Goliath first and it makes sense with a staff sling because I don't think you'd charge forward with a sling in hand. Either way it was obvious that Goliath seen his weapons since he said "am I a dog that you come at me with sticks and stones?"
160J is the same energy as a .22LR bullet at the muzzle. Some of those heavier stones had energy exceeding that of centerfire pistol rounds like .380 Auto
This is an excellent video. I'm happy to finally see some direct measurements of sling performance. I'm most impressed by the numbers from the 41in sling with 50ish-gram stones. Historical lead glandes were often around 50 grams. At 70-75 m/s, I imagine lead sling bullets would be quite dangerous against unarmored targets. That's as much energy as a shot from a powerful warbow & potentially focused on the point of lead sling bullet. There were even a few ancient sling bullets with bronze points or blades. There's one from Cyprus that's 58g. Such a sling bullet might penetrate like an arrow from a powerful warbow if flying blade first. I'm surprised by how relatively little kinetic energy increased with heavier projectiles. Some distance records with heavier projectiles indicate very high kinetic energy (perhaps 300-400 J, or even more). It'd be interesting to see more tests with other slingers & slings. It is notable that this slinger managed slightly greater velocity with baseball-weight stones than the fastest fastball ever recorded. & this slinger probably isn't the absolute best in the world.
Regarding heavier stones, I think Luis Pons Livermore could probably throw heavier stones better than the slinger in the video. Luis is a human trebuchet, He was chronographed throwing a 200 gram stone at a velocity of 52 m/s with a sling that was probably just a little shorter than the linen sling in the video. Unfortunately I don't know of any distance records of heavy sling projectiles except for Melvin Gaylor who threw a 212 gram stone about 350 metres. (Which is frankly impressive IMHO)
@@thejackinati2759 Vernon Morton supposedly slung a 283.5g projectile 258.2m. Both Morton's & Gaylor's record would require around 360 J in a vacuum. SEB also did around 220m with a 300g stone (at least 323 J), using a 130cm sling (quite long). Based on those numbers & the data point from Luis Pons Livermore you mention, I've long been confident about the power of heavier sling projectiles. These new numbers show that even light stones can manage respectable energy figures.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Another great thing with this data... I think it goes quite well with Xenophon's mention of sling use in the Anabasis. The Persian slingers were, according to him, throwing with 'fist sized' stones out to around ~200 metres. Now It would be cool to see distance records for lead projectiles, but I think that getting double the distance with lead with some Rhodian peeps is very possible.
they'd be dangerous against armored targets too, considering the blunt impact force // Spanish conquistadors despite their breastplates & helmets were terrified of Aztec Slingers
Due to shoulder problems I cannot use a sling the way you are doing but if I attach a sling to a 4’6” staff I can throw a stone the size of a hens egg well over 100yards. Which is quite good for me as I’m in my mid 70s.
I made slings as a kid after reading a craft book for boys in the 70's. The pouch was the leather tongue from an old shoe. I could also rig one pretty good from a handkerchief . We had a creek nearby where I could find good stones. On a good day i could hit a tree trunk but it was still fun .
As a child I made slings. Something around 32” to 36” long. It actually tore chunks bark off of a mature willow tree. I was maybe 10 or 12. I stopped using trees as targets. But an amazing tool. Fun.
Same. I learned my first lesson on aerodynamics because irregular stones would be far less predictible than smooth, fairly rounded ones. I made bows from mimosa and arrows from a local weed that grew literally straight as an arrow and tipped them with wicked 2 inch long thorns. crappy bows and arrows but great fun.
this is in the context of using military sling bullets and military arrow, in this case the military arrow is too heavy it will only reach around 150m-250m. anything lighter and it is meant for flight archery which is harmless. the sling as proven here has more kinetic energy so the heavy projectiles can still reach over 250 meters
@@HistoricalWeapons the Turks especially and Tatars from what I've heard Lukaz Nawalny say also used light arrows for battle. 30 grams or more. I'm guessing the Tatars also had heavier arrows as well but even the mongols had different weight arrows for different situations.
as you said, many peoples used the slingshot or (sometimes called in medieval Italian frombola), one of these peoples are definitely the Irish Celts; sometimes they used special projectiles called tathlum (Old Irish Gaelic) made by mixing human brains with lime and letting it harden. They are mentioned as a weapon of Lug used to kill Balor and often used by the hero Chuchulain
The sling and atlatl are unique in projectile weaponry because they are nothing but mere extensions of the human arm which together can generate a lot of power, though i guess it turned out that "less-powerful-more accurate" weapons like bows and crossbows were better. And it seems like that the far east cultures like chinese, japanese, mongols,... didn't use the sling at all for some reason, at least not for war afaik.
The Japanese used slings in warfare, though it was seemingly more prevalent during the Genpei than it was during the Sengoku period. sling use was also quite frequent in Religious festivals held in May where sling fights between villagers were commonly staged (They unsurprisingly turned out to be very bloody and were subsequently banned in the 1600's). Korea also used slings in a similar way in Seokjeon or 'Stone battles'. These were very popular in Korea, though surprisingly it turns out the Japanese actually banned those too... Turns out it sucks getting pelted with rocks in any era!
@@AnkunFang That depends how you define.. mote powerful. I can sling farther then I can get a crossbow volts to go. A crossbow will penitrate. While a sling slams. Both are very good in the right hands.
I wonder if a modern hunting sling could use a guided dart instead of a stone. I mean hunting for food, not for sport. The fact that the guided dart always hits regardless of hunter skill is a feature - not a flaw. Compared to a gun or bow, a hunting sling+dart could be carried in a pocket at all times, or worn around your neck or something. And it could be used to hunt birds on the wing.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by guided, but there is a cestrosphendone/cestros which is a dart throwing sling. We have accounts of Macedonians using them, but it's not clear exactly how they worked This is my interpretation ua-cam.com/video/lvH-Lm5xmA4/v-deo.html
@@StonesSticksBones I mean guided like a guided missile. It could use a mechanism similar to the submunitions of the Starstreak anti-aircraft missile - a rotating guidance fin with an electromagnet clutch to control which direction to turn in. That way, you wouldn't need to have perfect aim in order to hit a target (such as a flying bird, which would normally be practically impossible to hit).
Nice work. I’m new to archery. It led me here. I’m aware of the atl atl you mentioned but only from the context of the film “quest for fire”. It was a big deal for a twelve year old ,especially when Rae dawn chong showed her…anyway. the atl atl made almost as big an impression as did Rae dawn Chong’s …anyway. Good video. Tell me more about this atl atl while I day dream about Rae dawn Chong’s ….anyway.
for a further comparison, a 22 long rifle cartridge has around 200 joules of energy. Comparable to the sling with a 225g projectile. That is pretty impressive for a string.
If I were going into battle during the Roman Empire, my preferred bullet weight would probably be ~85g (3oz) One of my throws with the 41” was 88g 68ms 203J 6.0kgms. So an 85g bullet going 70m/s is going to give close to max range, but with frightening impact at the receiving end…
@@Archaic-Arms Noice! I actually have a sling glande that came from that region... and once I can figure out how to make moulds using the bullet to make an impression I will likely cast a few and see how they fly. Given that Irongoober was able to hit ~350+ metres with stones, with lead I think you could easily hit 500 metres.
Answering a reoccurring question, the data is organised by increasing projectile weight, with 3 slings (long, medium and short, in that order). That's why the speed is generally going down over time, not as a result of exhaustion. I do archery and slinging, and I find full-power slinging to actually be less effort than the 50lb bow I use (even with heavy projectiles). Slinging for several hours straight is no issue at all, and performance does not degrade as far as I can tell. If your comparing sling vs warbow, I don't think it's any comparison as far as user effort is concerned.
That was pretty interesting to see. To really give these tests some context to what the velocities mean in practical terms, you should set up some targets for the slinger to hit, maybe some sheets of mild steel or brass around 2 - 3mm thick to act as an armor analog. Granted a flat sheet of metal is hardly an accurate representation of armor but ti does give the viewer an idea of just what a sling bullet can do; much more so than just numbers on a chart.
Looks like once you get up to a 125g projectile and larger, you start generating as much energy and more than your average .22 long rifle round. That's pretty impressive.
Archaic Arm has chucked up to 700g stones, so, a bit over 1.5 lbs with a short sling. Check out joe meadmaker, he's thrown a 15lbs watermelon with a long sling. ua-cam.com/video/EbD8fXLGgkk/v-deo.html
For heavy projectiles staffslings are a thing. Can't be bothered to google it right now, but i heard about some spanish WW1-ish units using staffslings to lob grenades in the enemys trenches...
@@gn2650 Oh but it does require effort. As much effort as regular throwing without a sling requires. The whirling motion that you often see is from my own experience more for tentioning the strings and getting the whole thing in the right position for the last half circle where most of the energy is put into the throw. But i have to admit that i never build and used a staff sling before, so maybe it's a bit more effort.
So if I did my math right, 115 grams is 4 oz, and there is 437.5 grains in an oz, so that should be 1750 grains. And 60 meters per sec converts to 196 fps. By comparison, a .45 ACP shoots a 230 grain projectile at 850 fps. Deriving energy requires squaring the velocity, so energy favors the higher velocity of the .45 round, but momentum is simply mass times velocity and favors the higher mass of the sling. So the sling is generating a little less than half the energy of the .45, 149 foot pounds verses the .45's 368 foot pounds, but is also generating nearly twice the momentum, 49 ft'/lbs per sec verses 27 ft/lbs per sec for the .45. Sorry to bring imperial into your tidy metric system. Not bad for a piece of string.
Thanks for the input. These weapons are meant to kill or wound the target. They aren't toys in the first place. Ancient slingers hurled 400grams stones in combat. Just imagine the trauma when hit by those. Staff sling can penetrate plywood and plywood is more impact resistant than basic plating.
Nice video. Content was good . I liked the bit of history which is definitely still shrouded in alot of questions and mystery. I've been slinging for years with a short Sling just to plunk cans out back but I'm confident enough to bring it for defense where I cannot bring my bow. They are both very effective weapons for defense and hunting while camping or wherever. Most people would see my rlqrist band and never know I could use it to scare off large predators!
So if I get this correctly, long slings allows great velocities with lighter slings, while short sling allows you to hurl heavy stone with potentially huge energy? From physics perspective, this makes all the sense in the world.
Long slings are more powerful, but not always practical to use (see 10:09 for big stone data with long slings). Big stones and short slings go well together for close-range targets, and don't require much space to operate.
This is the Forgotten Roman secret weapon, the Roman Slingers and slings were arguably the best in history can outrange many other projectile hand weapons...they could even outrange crossbows! European Slingers were so deadly you can still find them writings of them in the battlefield up until the 18th century and historians talk about their effectiveness even by that time.
For all the skilled craftsmanship that went into bows and arrows, the training and status of historical archers... to have that performance rivaled by some rope and a rock. Humbling. I wonder why we don't hear about slings being used much in 'medieval' (1000-1400) times. Is it a high-skill weapon? Maybe other weapons & armor just improved enough to make it not worth it? Bows got much stronger w/ better materials (I heard the Ottoman bow wasn't developed until after the Mongol conquests) and horses were bigger than ancient ones.. hmm. 3:51 Jeeze, 70-80 m/s at 50-80 g? I think we can expect those numbers from a high quality bows in the ~100+ lb draw range no? Either way, +100 J kinetic is very impressive.
@@ianuser9650 Most lead sling bullets weren't sharp but had rather narrow points & were small. A few did have sharp bronze or iron blades. Based on ancient sources, sling bullets did penetrate people's bodies at times & need to be extracted.
Slings did see use in medieval Europe, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula. According to Jean Froissart, Castilian armies included thousands of slingers into at least the late 14th century. Even into the age of the arquebus, slings in Spain, France, & the Americas impressed certain European observers. However, it is important to note arrows are generally much more efficient at wounding than sling projectiles. (Ancient sling bullets of lead with bronze or iron blades or point might be an exception.) Current evidence also suggests that warbows, while not very accurate, are more accurate than slings. (Experienced slingers can struggle to hit targets at even close range.) Slings require more horizontal space, which may have allowed massed archer formations to be denser than massed slingers. I suspect slings also telegraph more, though this may depend on technique. In any case, the accuracy difference would probably have given archers the edge in skirmishing & the density & penetration difference probably would have given them the edge in mass formation. English archers defeated Castilian slingers at Nájera 1367. Froissart mentioned how the slings wounded & unhorse soldiers in armor, & damaged armor, but that the arrows shot against the slingers wounded & killed. I do sometimes wonder why medieval & Renaissance slingers don't appear to have used lead projectiles regularly. In theory, heavy lead bullets should be even more effective against armor than heavy stones. The difference may have been marginal & not worth the cost of lead bullets.
I ran your results though a data mining program. Velocity is only slightly depended on mass. the most important factor here is the slinger is getting tired. What you really need to do is use lead weights because the bigger the rock the more air resistant which is probably the most important factor after the slinger getting tired.
Should have used Sheppards sling as well, they were likely far more common in warfare than remaining art shows. David was said to have a sling and a cane/stick when he got his stones to fight Goliath, it never said he sat down his stick he was holding for seemingly no reason, which means he likely had a Sheppards sling specifically.
I shoot both sling & bow, and would love to have that dataset - or at least the report. Though I injured my shoulder with the sling(SLAP tear), it is my favourite weapon and I am looking to train my other arm to its use.
You can DEFINITELY learn to sling with your non-dominant hand. It is faster than learning from the beginning because you have your dominant side that can already sling to translate into your non-dominant side. I started with my left (I'm right dominant) after hurting my elbow. It only took a few week before I could throw ok with my left. I can get decent power with my left, but consistency is lacking. Anyway, just wanted to share my experience! Acroballistics also learned to use the left after an injury, he is almost as good with his left as he is with his right!
The rockman sling was discovered in a cave in California. Made from blackberry vine cordage, Super old, 10,000ish? and its tapered design is impressively designed. Look it up!
It would seem that in a close area ,the short sling would be the most effective even though the speed seems slower, but it appears to take a little less energy to use,but they all seem to be very strenuous to use especially over an extended period of time.a young man's weapon.
How does that compare with the kinetic energy of of, say, a 9mm bullet? (FMJ ball would probably be the most appropriate comparison, as that's a military item.
I'm not sure you can compare projectile energy without also testing accuracy at the same time. I suspect you can put considerably more energy into an un-aimed sling projectile than one which is aimed.
Something that bears consideration is the retained energy at impact. Knowing the "muzzle energy" is certainly important data but the ability to kill or wound at distance is essentially the point. Given the weight of the projectiles even moderate velocity could make them very dangerous so studying what energy they have at what distance could be quite revealing. Maximum practical weight delivered at maximum practical range equals what potential to kill or wound?
Nice! The video would have been better if the energy of the sling was computed in foot-pounds. Energy in foot-pounds is easier to conceptualize than in joules.
Yes, I am intrested in that comparsion :) However only KE is not enough because bow arrow shaft is thin flexible and arrow can't delever all ke, a loot of energy is lost, but the energy is applayed over smaller area than sling bullet.. but KE is really intresting and I cannot wait for you comparsion. For javvelin you probably should involve some olympic thrower and ask him to throw without run up ;)
People always talk about how amazing it was. The biblical story that David Slade the giant Goliath, but the facts are goliath. Brought a knife to a gun fight
MOST FAMOUS SLINGER OF ALL TIME = The boy David who slew Goliath: a real life giant who possessed amazing strength ( research how much the tip of his spear weighed, along with his breastplate, helmet, and sheild!)
Judges 20:16 - Among all this people were 700 select men who were left handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair's breath and not miss. Now besides Benjamin, the men of Israel numbers 400,000 men who drew the sword; all these were men of war. (1100 BC) 1 Samuel 17:40 - Then David took his staff in his hand; and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag, in a pouch which he had, and his sling was in his hand. 17:48 - So it was, when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fall on his face to the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. (1000 BC)
Anyone who has seen the effort which goes in to making an arrow will appreciate the ability to pick ammo up off the ground.
anyone whos made a primitive bow will also appreciate the sling, i wonder what changes can be made to the sling to modernize it to be stronger or give it more launch, cause theres so much you can do with bows i wonder the same for slings.
@@Rubblage Frankly, I think the sling is too primitive a concept. The next step would be a staff sling or a trebuchet.
If they used the more modern imperial units of measure instead of the archaic metric system, this video would be more meaningful.
Lol @@MindBodySoulOk
@@Rubblagerail guns come to mind as modernized slings.
Thank you, It's a real privilege to contribute!
cant wait to make javelin videos with you. im sure your talented in that too
@@HistoricalWeapons I'll try and get some test data with the plumbata, and practice that type of throwing more.
@@Archaic-Arms awesome excited to make video on javelin/plumbata testing.throwing pointy objects were widely used in ancient european warfare but almost forgotten today with little data
You got quite a workout there
150j is roughly the equivalent of a .22mag rimfire. Very impressive. I'd be curious to see how far a tungsten ball would go.
Lol I love the Greek lead bullet having "take this/catch" engraved on it
Or suck this “emperor name”
It's like people in modern times with the engravings on their gun receivers or patches / edgy stuff on their gear lol. Some things never change
Also "ouch"
Or "From maximus"
There was one guy who drew a dick on his bullets
Awesome work! Thanks for the shoutout!
By the way the WR with stones is 437.1m 52g stone 130cm by Larry Bray and there is an unofficial record with lead at 505m.
Thats awesome. gotta make a collab doing javelins some day
What about with lead bullets?
How thick was the linen cordage you used for that Lahun sling? I love how it came out!
@@HipposHateWater 1 to 2 millimeters
This is well within pistol range, specially weight-wise.
the bit about lead bullets heating up enough to melt in flight is hilarious. I don't know if I would take that seriously. More likely the bullet deformed upon impact and they thought it melted in flight for some reason.
My thoughts too. Lower velocity bullets and airgun pellets after hitting steel plates often look like they have melted. Watch high speed video of lead bullets hitting objects; due the the extreme deformation the lead acts like liquid.
@@4d4m22 Yeah it sounds more likely that they just thought the projectiles were heating up and melted from they deformed upon impact.
In bullets, the the energy given to the projectile by the expanding gas is dumped into the target upon impact. If the target is unyielding and impermeable that can result in quite a lot of heat. Some melt is possible. That’s how depleted uranium anti armor rounds work. A large amount of powder pushing a very dense mass into a very resistant armor plate. The resulting heat transfer melts a nice fifty caliber hole on the outside. The inside is a three inch cone which throws a lot of molten metal, some spalled off metal fragments from the interior and what’s left of the bullet. And a whiff of radioactive gas.
They didn't have high speed cameras back then and high velocity lead acts like liquid upon impact because it's a relatively soft squishy metal
Little was known of physics back then, kinda like "Scientist" thought speeds over 50 mph would crush a man, when the railroads were being built in the settler times of the US.
My theory for why we don't see or hear much about slings is simple: For the same reason modern golf is regarded as a high class sport while disc golf is mocked. Hear me out...
Slings have been common and available for literally forever, for everybody - at all ages one can use it with just one hand. They are easy to make and are basically free. There's no need of a dicipline to wield one and because of that there's no use to come up with rules or competitions. You can't regulate them and anybody can teach and learn to use it, so there's no use for associations or grand guilds of slingers. It's basically a free weapon for self defence or hunting.
As a king or emperor of old, I wouldn't want to give my scholars an order to write down accounts of how the peasants can weponize themselves with a sling and devastate armored troops with modern weapons. I would tell them to write about my superior weapons that no other force should dare to challenge. :)
I agree, meanwhile a bow in Asiatic culture is from the higher classes
i play a game with slings and arrows where i try to land them into a tire from various distances and conditions. i also play the same game with rocks using my feet. with the right rock and footwear, i can flick a stone directly into someones face from considerable distance with barely a two-step shuffle.
@joshuawayne9811 it seems that ground definitely was not to his advantage. I think the extra muscle energy required to just keep his balance on those loose rocks definitely affected his endurance and accuracy
I am Balearic myself and I apreciate this type of videos were I can discover new things about our ancestors, Thank you for this video and you have amazing skills with the sling too.👍
Every time you make a video it makes me want whatever weapon you happen to be talking about
20 years ago when I was making an throwing slings, I remember reading that you weren't taken into the Roman sling corps unless you could reliably hit a melon at 100 yds, or thereabouts. Another thing about slingshots is that you could fire projectiles over walls
Slings don't fire anything.
@@henrys3138 oh you know what he means
@@ExponentMars No, I really don't.
Great, fellow slingers!
I spent years slinging(the most difficult task I ever learnt).The difficult part is accuracy...
-then I got into throwing javelins with a string and the force and accuracy is amazing.
what is it called, is it Atlatl?
Keep it up! I have been practicing slinging whenever I could since I was a kid, picked up throwing axes 7 years ago, and picked up throwing knives this year. I love to see ancient projectile weapons getting love!
Very nice, I hope your channel will be blessed by the allmighty algorithms!
thanks
Great job guys! Know that your work is appreciated!
i'd be curious to get some information on staff slings as well. It's nice to see people putting effort into this kind of information.
Exactly and I belive David used a staff sling on goliath considering the much heavier rock and easier aiming since u have a straight stick and also because Goliath said to David "Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks and stones" why would David carry his staff and sling up to Goliath only to drop his staff?
Keen on staff slings video too
@@Daylon91 staff sling less portable/concealed and the goalithe would of been more prepared and might of actually used his shield
@@HistoricalWeapons it was a boy though. Goliath was 9'6 he probably wasn't intimated and was actually insulted that after 40 days of mocking their God and calling for someone to fight him a shepherd boy came out. David charged Goliath first and it makes sense with a staff sling because I don't think you'd charge forward with a sling in hand. Either way it was obvious that Goliath seen his weapons since he said "am I a dog that you come at me with sticks and stones?"
@@HistoricalWeapons Goliath already knew before the fight started that he had "sticks and stones"
160J is the same energy as a .22LR bullet at the muzzle. Some of those heavier stones had energy exceeding that of centerfire pistol rounds like .380 Auto
Yeah, that's because of their weight. They don't have the velocity for lethal penetration.
@austinhuber3131
Penetration isn't necessary. That level of blunt/ sharp impact will crush bone and cause massive soft tissue trauma.
We'll have to have a side-by-side comparison in person some day! Thanks for bringing some attention to this amazing, but forgotten weapon!
This is an excellent video. I'm happy to finally see some direct measurements of sling performance. I'm most impressed by the numbers from the 41in sling with 50ish-gram stones. Historical lead glandes were often around 50 grams. At 70-75 m/s, I imagine lead sling bullets would be quite dangerous against unarmored targets. That's as much energy as a shot from a powerful warbow & potentially focused on the point of lead sling bullet. There were even a few ancient sling bullets with bronze points or blades. There's one from Cyprus that's 58g. Such a sling bullet might penetrate like an arrow from a powerful warbow if flying blade first.
I'm surprised by how relatively little kinetic energy increased with heavier projectiles. Some distance records with heavier projectiles indicate very high kinetic energy (perhaps 300-400 J, or even more). It'd be interesting to see more tests with other slingers & slings. It is notable that this slinger managed slightly greater velocity with baseball-weight stones than the fastest fastball ever recorded. & this slinger probably isn't the absolute best in the world.
Regarding heavier stones, I think Luis Pons Livermore could probably throw heavier stones better than the slinger in the video. Luis is a human trebuchet, He was chronographed throwing a 200 gram stone at a velocity of 52 m/s with a sling that was probably just a little shorter than the linen sling in the video.
Unfortunately I don't know of any distance records of heavy sling projectiles except for Melvin Gaylor who threw a 212 gram stone about 350 metres. (Which is frankly impressive IMHO)
@@thejackinati2759 Vernon Morton supposedly slung a 283.5g projectile 258.2m. Both Morton's & Gaylor's record would require around 360 J in a vacuum. SEB also did around 220m with a 300g stone (at least 323 J), using a 130cm sling (quite long). Based on those numbers & the data point from Luis Pons Livermore you mention, I've long been confident about the power of heavier sling projectiles. These new numbers show that even light stones can manage respectable energy figures.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Another great thing with this data... I think it goes quite well with Xenophon's mention of sling use in the Anabasis. The Persian slingers were, according to him, throwing with 'fist sized' stones out to around ~200 metres.
Now It would be cool to see distance records for lead projectiles, but I think that getting double the distance with lead with some Rhodian peeps is very possible.
Note that medical texts of the Roman Era have extensive techniques on removing sling stones from bodies and having penetrated armor.
they'd be dangerous against armored targets too, considering the blunt impact force // Spanish conquistadors despite their breastplates & helmets were terrified of Aztec Slingers
Due to shoulder problems I cannot use a sling the way you are doing but if I attach a sling to a 4’6” staff I can throw a stone the size of a hens egg well over 100yards. Which is quite good for me as I’m in my mid 70s.
Great stuff! Always love to see some more sling testing!
I made slings as a kid after reading a craft book for boys in the 70's. The pouch was the leather tongue from an old shoe. I could also rig one pretty good from a handkerchief . We had a creek nearby where I could find good stones. On a good day i could hit a tree trunk but it was still fun .
As a child I made slings. Something around 32” to 36” long. It actually tore chunks bark off of a mature willow tree. I was maybe 10 or 12. I stopped using trees as targets. But an amazing tool. Fun.
Same. I learned my first lesson on aerodynamics because irregular stones would be far less predictible than smooth, fairly rounded ones. I made bows from mimosa and arrows from a local weed that grew literally straight as an arrow and tipped them with wicked 2 inch long thorns. crappy bows and arrows but great fun.
I remember reading somewhere that a group of slingers will always outdistance a group of archers.
this is in the context of using military sling bullets and military arrow, in this case the military arrow is too heavy it will only reach around 150m-250m. anything lighter and it is meant for flight archery which is harmless. the sling as proven here has more kinetic energy so the heavy projectiles can still reach over 250 meters
@@HistoricalWeapons the Turks especially and Tatars from what I've heard Lukaz Nawalny say also used light arrows for battle. 30 grams or more. I'm guessing the Tatars also had heavier arrows as well but even the mongols had different weight arrows for different situations.
Xenephon mentions that slingers outdistanced Persian archers whereas their own Cretan archers could even get their arrows there
@@Daylon91 couldn’t or could
@@Daylon91 then I’m estimating 80lb draw weights with 7 gpp
as you said, many peoples used the slingshot or (sometimes called in medieval Italian frombola), one of these peoples are definitely the Irish Celts; sometimes they used special projectiles called tathlum (Old Irish Gaelic) made by mixing human brains with lime and letting it harden. They are mentioned as a weapon of Lug used to kill Balor and often used by the hero Chuchulain
The sling and atlatl are unique in projectile weaponry because they are nothing but mere extensions of the human arm which together can generate a lot of power, though i guess it turned out that "less-powerful-more accurate" weapons like bows and crossbows were better. And it seems like that the far east cultures like chinese, japanese, mongols,... didn't use the sling at all for some reason, at least not for war afaik.
Far East for china it’s cuz crossbow
The Japanese used slings in warfare, though it was seemingly more prevalent during the Genpei than it was during the Sengoku period. sling use was also quite frequent in Religious festivals held in May where sling fights between villagers were commonly staged (They unsurprisingly turned out to be very bloody and were subsequently banned in the 1600's).
Korea also used slings in a similar way in Seokjeon or 'Stone battles'. These were very popular in Korea, though surprisingly it turns out the Japanese actually banned those too... Turns out it sucks getting pelted with rocks in any era!
Crossbows are more powerful than sling. Atlatl also weaker than bow in penetration due to bending of shaft
More on their style of warfare, as slings is quite hard to used while riding a horse.
@@AnkunFang That depends how you define.. mote powerful.
I can sling farther then I can get a crossbow volts to go.
A crossbow will penitrate.
While a sling slams.
Both are very good in the right hands.
I wonder if a modern hunting sling could use a guided dart instead of a stone. I mean hunting for food, not for sport. The fact that the guided dart always hits regardless of hunter skill is a feature - not a flaw.
Compared to a gun or bow, a hunting sling+dart could be carried in a pocket at all times, or worn around your neck or something. And it could be used to hunt birds on the wing.
I think simple stones is better because that’s the whole point of this weapon being very portable so u don’t even carry ammo
There records of greek slingers using arrow like projectiles on the romans but its probably not worth
I'll try this.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by guided, but there is a cestrosphendone/cestros which is a dart throwing sling. We have accounts of Macedonians using them, but it's not clear exactly how they worked
This is my interpretation
ua-cam.com/video/lvH-Lm5xmA4/v-deo.html
@@StonesSticksBones I mean guided like a guided missile. It could use a mechanism similar to the submunitions of the Starstreak anti-aircraft missile - a rotating guidance fin with an electromagnet clutch to control which direction to turn in.
That way, you wouldn't need to have perfect aim in order to hit a target (such as a flying bird, which would normally be practically impossible to hit).
Just like they in the past and David and Goliath I love the story
Awesome work!
200 joules from a sling! Absolutely amazing!
Nice work. I’m new to archery. It led me here. I’m aware of the atl atl you mentioned but only from the context of the film “quest for fire”. It was a big deal for a twelve year old ,especially when Rae dawn chong showed her…anyway. the atl atl made almost as big an impression as did Rae dawn Chong’s …anyway. Good video. Tell me more about this atl atl while I day dream about Rae dawn Chong’s ….anyway.
It's so nice to see that I'm not the only lover, and practice of slinging. Thank you.
That was super interesting thank you for sharing
for a further comparison, a 22 long rifle cartridge has around 200 joules of energy. Comparable to the sling with a 225g projectile. That is pretty impressive for a string.
big stones and long slings would be devastating
Big stones were used with staff slings at close range. They hit much harder then normal slings and you're much more accurate
It will keel
I imagine that big stones on long sling would wreck one's joints, if they were possible at all.... Huge angular momentum.
@@lscibor staff slings were very common and no the it wouldn't. U can see guys on UA-cam using one and destroying coconuts and watermelon.
@@Daylon91 staff slings are great for much bigger payload and non moving targets like fortifications.
What a cool project! And great footage :)
If I were going into battle during the Roman Empire, my preferred bullet weight would probably be ~85g (3oz) One of my throws with the 41” was 88g 68ms 203J 6.0kgms.
So an 85g bullet going 70m/s is going to give close to max range, but with frightening impact at the receiving end…
Then you'd have loved being in the Roman army in Pannonia. There are a great deal of lead bullet finds in that weight range!
Yes and it was certainly done for a reason…
A hint toward what my next video project will be.
@@Archaic-Arms Noice!
I actually have a sling glande that came from that region... and once I can figure out how to make moulds using the bullet to make an impression I will likely cast a few and see how they fly.
Given that Irongoober was able to hit ~350+ metres with stones, with lead I think you could easily hit 500 metres.
Don’t forget the shield
ur reward is women not money though
Answering a reoccurring question, the data is organised by increasing projectile weight, with 3 slings (long, medium and short, in that order). That's why the speed is generally going down over time, not as a result of exhaustion. I do archery and slinging, and I find full-power slinging to actually be less effort than the 50lb bow I use (even with heavy projectiles). Slinging for several hours straight is no issue at all, and performance does not degrade as far as I can tell. If your comparing sling vs warbow, I don't think it's any comparison as far as user effort is concerned.
I agree completely!
That was pretty interesting to see. To really give these tests some context to what the velocities mean in practical terms, you should set up some targets for the slinger to hit, maybe some sheets of mild steel or brass around 2 - 3mm thick to act as an armor analog. Granted a flat sheet of metal is hardly an accurate representation of armor but ti does give the viewer an idea of just what a sling bullet can do; much more so than just numbers on a chart.
1:19 kamehkameha
Looks like once you get up to a 125g projectile and larger, you start generating as much energy and more than your average .22 long rifle round. That's pretty impressive.
What if you use a longer sling? Could we shoot 2,5lb proyectiles at short distances?
Archaic Arm has chucked up to 700g stones, so, a bit over 1.5 lbs with a short sling. Check out joe meadmaker, he's thrown a 15lbs watermelon with a long sling. ua-cam.com/video/EbD8fXLGgkk/v-deo.html
@@IronGoober I just saw it. Amazing.
For heavy projectiles staffslings are a thing. Can't be bothered to google it right now, but i heard about some spanish WW1-ish units using staffslings to lob grenades in the enemys trenches...
@@andreasgoebel1269 true, but staff slinging requires mechanical effort, swinging a regular sling does not.
@@gn2650 Oh but it does require effort. As much effort as regular throwing without a sling requires.
The whirling motion that you often see is from my own experience more for tentioning the strings and getting the whole thing in the right position for the last half circle where most of the energy is put into the throw.
But i have to admit that i never build and used a staff sling before, so maybe it's a bit more effort.
thats more powerful than warbows, but composite crossbows are superior in energy and penetration
It's more powerful than yew warbows. Manchu bows deliver even more kinetic energy, if the current test can be believed & scales up.
This is just kinetic energy. People forget arrow heads are much sharper
So if I did my math right, 115 grams is 4 oz, and there is 437.5 grains in an oz, so that should be 1750 grains. And 60 meters per sec converts to 196 fps. By comparison, a .45 ACP shoots a 230 grain projectile at 850 fps. Deriving energy requires squaring the velocity, so energy favors the higher velocity of the .45 round, but momentum is simply mass times velocity and favors the higher mass of the sling. So the sling is generating a little less than half the energy of the .45, 149 foot pounds verses the .45's 368 foot pounds, but is also generating nearly twice the momentum, 49 ft'/lbs per sec verses 27 ft/lbs per sec for the .45. Sorry to bring imperial into your tidy metric system.
Not bad for a piece of string.
Thanks for the input. These weapons are meant to kill or wound the target. They aren't toys in the first place. Ancient slingers hurled 400grams stones in combat. Just imagine the trauma when hit by those. Staff sling can penetrate plywood and plywood is more impact resistant than basic plating.
This should be in the olymics.
Really interesting. Be interesting to see data from cast led bullets as stone rocks were back up ammo once the led was exhausted.
Nice video. Content was good . I liked the bit of history which is definitely still shrouded in alot of questions and mystery. I've been slinging for years with a short Sling just to plunk cans out back but I'm confident enough to bring it for defense where I cannot bring my bow. They are both very effective weapons for defense and hunting while camping or wherever. Most people would see my rlqrist band and never know I could use it to scare off large predators!
Very interesting indeed. Could you possibly compare this performance with that of a staff sling ?
70 m/s is 156 mph
60 : 134
50: 112
40 : 89
30 : 67
By the gods, that's fast
Your enthusiasm knows no bounds👍👍👍
They actually used pointed glands for slings. If any of those sling shots hit even on my chest I would be died.
love slings, great content. id like to see staff slings involved if youre going to test atlatl against sling and bow!
Awesome video. I really like this work you're doing.
Thanks
By far the best throwing technique I've seen. Just incredible. Looks scary as hell to be on the receiving end.
So if I get this correctly, long slings allows great velocities with lighter slings, while short sling allows you to hurl heavy stone with potentially huge energy? From physics perspective, this makes all the sense in the world.
Long slings are more powerful, but not always practical to use (see 10:09 for big stone data with long slings). Big stones and short slings go well together for close-range targets, and don't require much space to operate.
For context 70 meters per second is like 160mph.
Awesome historical slinging!
agreed
Video on the staff sling please.
This is the Forgotten Roman secret weapon, the Roman Slingers and slings were arguably the best in history can outrange many other projectile hand weapons...they could even outrange crossbows!
European Slingers were so deadly you can still find them writings of them in the battlefield up until the 18th century and historians talk about their effectiveness even by that time.
i will say some bows and crossbows can outrange slings, it just depends on design. most military arrows are too heavy for long distance though
For all the skilled craftsmanship that went into bows and arrows, the training and status of historical archers... to have that performance rivaled by some rope and a rock. Humbling. I wonder why we don't hear about slings being used much in 'medieval' (1000-1400) times. Is it a high-skill weapon? Maybe other weapons & armor just improved enough to make it not worth it? Bows got much stronger w/ better materials (I heard the Ottoman bow wasn't developed until after the Mongol conquests) and horses were bigger than ancient ones.. hmm.
3:51 Jeeze, 70-80 m/s at 50-80 g? I think we can expect those numbers from a high quality bows in the ~100+ lb draw range no? Either way, +100 J kinetic is very impressive.
Because kinetic energy is not everything. The force is not concentrated on a sharp point, it’s blunt
@@ianuser9650 Most lead sling bullets weren't sharp but had rather narrow points & were small. A few did have sharp bronze or iron blades. Based on ancient sources, sling bullets did penetrate people's bodies at times & need to be extracted.
Slings did see use in medieval Europe, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula. According to Jean Froissart, Castilian armies included thousands of slingers into at least the late 14th century. Even into the age of the arquebus, slings in Spain, France, & the Americas impressed certain European observers.
However, it is important to note arrows are generally much more efficient at wounding than sling projectiles. (Ancient sling bullets of lead with bronze or iron blades or point might be an exception.) Current evidence also suggests that warbows, while not very accurate, are more accurate than slings. (Experienced slingers can struggle to hit targets at even close range.) Slings require more horizontal space, which may have allowed massed archer formations to be denser than massed slingers. I suspect slings also telegraph more, though this may depend on technique. In any case, the accuracy difference would probably have given archers the edge in skirmishing & the density & penetration difference probably would have given them the edge in mass formation. English archers defeated Castilian slingers at Nájera 1367. Froissart mentioned how the slings wounded & unhorse soldiers in armor, & damaged armor, but that the arrows shot against the slingers wounded & killed.
I do sometimes wonder why medieval & Renaissance slingers don't appear to have used lead projectiles regularly. In theory, heavy lead bullets should be even more effective against armor than heavy stones. The difference may have been marginal & not worth the cost of lead bullets.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 yes but not as sharp as broad heads
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 i think cuz crossbows replaced slings in medieval period with more kinetic energy 200-400 joules see Andreas bischer
any chance you could post the table of results in the description, or as a pinned comment?
I tried skeet shooting with my sling. Score 1/25
Impressive. I'm sure my scores would look more like 0/25 no matter how many rounds I shot.
@@cristianespinal9917 that’s what I thought going into it. I had never tried a moving target before.
I ran your results though a data mining program. Velocity is only slightly depended on mass. the most important factor here is the slinger is getting tired. What you really need to do is use lead weights because the bigger the rock the more air resistant which is probably the most important factor after the slinger getting tired.
Wow that's a bunch of rocks thrown. Kudos my friend.
That "Swoooeesh" sound would have been intimidating, in a battle 😬
I cant believe he's attacking that ship with rocks and everyone doesnt see it
Should have used Sheppards sling as well, they were likely far more common in warfare than remaining art shows. David was said to have a sling and a cane/stick when he got his stones to fight Goliath, it never said he sat down his stick he was holding for seemingly no reason, which means he likely had a Sheppards sling specifically.
so the 41" seems to pitch harder, is there a length vs. accuracy trade off? and at what length do you start to get diminishing returns?
I shoot both sling & bow, and would love to have that dataset - or at least the report. Though I injured my shoulder with the sling(SLAP tear), it is my favourite weapon and I am looking to train my other arm to its use.
You can DEFINITELY learn to sling with your non-dominant hand. It is faster than learning from the beginning because you have your dominant side that can already sling to translate into your non-dominant side. I started with my left (I'm right dominant) after hurting my elbow. It only took a few week before I could throw ok with my left. I can get decent power with my left, but consistency is lacking. Anyway, just wanted to share my experience! Acroballistics also learned to use the left after an injury, he is almost as good with his left as he is with his right!
Really awesome videos 🔥. Looking forward to the comparisons.
The rockman sling was discovered in a cave in California. Made from blackberry vine cordage, Super old, 10,000ish? and its tapered design is impressively designed. Look it up!
awesome ill check it out
Yes. So long as there's brambles about, you can make a braided cord sling anywhere, as well as from several other plants.
Which crack 10,000 years ago? Man that would be horrifying lol.
Excellent video, I would love to see the energy comparison done where you had good footine
Brilliant documentary!
For reference a 124 grain 9mm bullet fired from a typical handgun has approximately 476 joules of energy.
Can you supply a link to the chronograph you were using
I'm wondering if the sling could hurl plumbata since the projectile shape is roughly the same as the weight on the plumbata.
It would seem that in a close area ,the short sling would be the most effective even though the speed seems slower, but it appears to take a little less energy to use,but they all seem to be very strenuous to use especially over an extended period of time.a young man's weapon.
When watermelon test? 😎
But seriously, that was super interesting as always, thanks for the content!
How does that compare with the kinetic energy of of, say, a 9mm bullet? (FMJ ball would probably be the most appropriate comparison, as that's a military item.
mv vs mv2? which is better small bullets or large
This is the same power as a 22LR . Pretty amazing
Nice video!
Just a Looter collecting rocks
Very interesting thank you
I'm not sure you can compare projectile energy without also testing accuracy at the same time. I suspect you can put considerably more energy into an un-aimed sling projectile than one which is aimed.
Something that bears consideration is the retained energy at impact. Knowing the "muzzle energy" is certainly important data but the ability to kill or wound at distance is essentially the point. Given the weight of the projectiles even moderate velocity could make them very dangerous so studying what energy they have at what distance could be quite revealing. Maximum practical weight delivered at maximum practical range equals what potential to kill or wound?
Nice
Nice! The video would have been better if the energy of the sling was computed in foot-pounds. Energy in foot-pounds is easier to conceptualize than in joules.
However most of the scientific world is in joules. I’m Canadian so we use both units but I agree foot pounds is easier to conceptualizer
Outside of throwing a pointy stick the sling would probably be the earliest ranged weapon in the world.
Yes, I am intrested in that comparsion :) However only KE is not enough because bow arrow shaft is thin flexible and arrow can't delever all ke, a loot of energy is lost, but the energy is applayed over smaller area than sling bullet.. but KE is really intresting and I cannot wait for you comparsion. For javvelin you probably should involve some olympic thrower and ask him to throw without run up ;)
Finally found a reference between rotation speed and projectile weight. Thanks!
4:14 i was completely ready for that bird to drop
Good data table.I grateful.
People always talk about how amazing it was. The biblical story that David Slade the giant Goliath, but the facts are goliath. Brought a knife to a gun fight
Blue Anchor beach near Watcher?
MOST FAMOUS SLINGER OF ALL TIME = The boy David who slew Goliath: a real life giant who possessed amazing strength ( research how much the tip of his spear weighed, along with his breastplate, helmet, and sheild!)
English Longbow did around 160-180 joules.. quite impressive what these slings can do..
Without the Sling, David wouldn't have defeated Goliath. Their such a underrated weapon than an arrow and bow.
Judges 20:16 - Among all this people were 700 select men who were left handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair's breath and not miss. Now besides Benjamin, the men of Israel numbers 400,000 men who drew the sword; all these were men of war.
(1100 BC)
1 Samuel 17:40 - Then David took his staff in his hand; and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag, in a pouch which he had, and his sling was in his hand.
17:48 - So it was, when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fall on his face to the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him.
(1000 BC)
So how about converting this information to FPS, and footpounds,,
Ok but how hard did it hit.can you stop and kill something at a distance...
Can you accurately hit things