You need to find a quarry, or a large car park, somewhere with hard ground. Then paint it with glow in the dark paint and sling it at night. It should stand out very well. Mind you, it will be very hard to explain what you are doing. EDIT: i realise it sounds like I'm saying the entire quarry should be painted with glow in the dark paint. No. The sling "bullet".
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan I don't know but you'd probably get some of it into the blood. But it would not be my most immediate concern if I'd been hit by a sling bullet, it's not a fast acting poison that would kill you. Lead poisoning causes long term neurological damage, something that you would want to avoid. That's why you should wash you hands after handling it. Also, you should, as far as possible, try not to be hit by sling bullets.
@@mawe9878 i would have thought that the amount of lead one gets in ones bloodstream from being hit with a bullet would be negligible. alot of lead poisoning cases are from old painters who used lead paint as it would absorb through the skin over their many years of work.
Locutus, how about lead oxide, ya dummy? You seriously think ELEMENTAL LEAD is what you encounter when you handle metallic lead? Lead oxide forms instantaneously in oxygen atmospheres like Earth from pure metallic lead, and is a white powder that can get in your eyes and mouth from handling.
If you read the roman books on medicine and surgery there are references to how to remove sling missiles from joints (elbow, knee shoulder etc) when they have come to rest there. There are also references to how to remove them from bone when they have lodged there after hitting people. The basic method is to drill a hole near the sling missile and then chisel a "V" towards the bullet so you can then lever them out of the bone. If I remember correctly I read this in Galen's book on military medicine. Caesar mentions celtic sling missiles denting helmets so the made wicker baskets and put them over the helmet to prevent damage to the helmet.
Fried marbles are a great fragmenting ammo for targets resting against hard backdrops. If you miss the target the marble hits the background object, shatters, and sends very sharp projectiles out in all directions. I once saw a kid with a slingshot using them to take out birds. I'm pretty sure he wasn't hunting them for food. After all who needs to bite into a piece of sharp glass. More of a varmint killing projectile. Similarly, someone I knew threw a bottle at rock near a frog to scare it. The bottle shattered on the rock. The frog didn't move. That is until it sorta of keeled over. We waded out to get it and it had been killed by a shard of glass. The guy who threw the bottle felt real guilty (unlike the kid I described previously).
Break a chem-light open, pour the fluid over the lead bullet or dip it in, sling at night. It'll glow like a tracer. I did this once when i was skipping stones and it created a really cool effect where little clouds of the fluid would glow in the water where it skipped.
+dup Take a little care when doing this, as some glowstick chemicals can cause rashes and some also have broken glass one them once they are cracked. Great for a bit of fun, but for Gods sake dont get it in your eyes guys! :D
WildNinjacat Pfft, glow paint. Get a load of this pansy! In all seriousness, our family just has a shit ton of chemlights left over because we're military so it's what I'm familiar with.
Chesil beach. The defenders of Maiden Castle hillfort used to collect cartloads for sling ammo from there. The right sized ones are found on one section of the beach as the pebbles increase in size from one end of the 18 mile beach to the other. Locals can tell exactly where they are by how big the pebbles are.
What about a golf ball made of lead? See, golf balls are covered in those little divots for a reason; they reduce drag. So a lead golf ball would have the weight and density (perhaps too much now that I think about it) plus the added effect of being extremely aerodynamic.
FoxerBoxerNaaniwa A ball of lead the size of a golf ball would probably be amazing amunition. I suspect about half the size of a golf ball would be more optimal for any kind of range.
FoxerBoxerNaaniwa The divots' purpose is to create lift. Golf balls fly farther because they have lift, which keeps them in the air longer than inertia alone would. What I wonder is, how does this lift affect their accuracy? Is the flight path of a golf ball more unpredictable than the flight path of a rock?
Lorenzo Benito Less unpredictable. The divots create small 'bubbles' of swirling air which interacts with the moving air, creating less friction than if it were touching the ball itself. This lower amount of friction means that it is more aerodynamic, and the air will affect it less.
I am blessed to live along a small river that is perfect for finding rounded stones. It's simply a matter of finding the right area and slinging all of the right-sized stones, then stepping forward and doing it again. I'm in Vermont USA so I've been realizing I won't be able to pick up stones through the winter- they will be iced in. So I've been saving the best ones for winter slinging, my favorite are perfectly rounded oblong stones. Being in an area that was highly active in glaciers there are a large variety of stones in the river bed, but a few definitely make the best slinging stones because they are denser. One is a light reddish stone, another is a deep green and has a crystalline structure. I will let you know when I find out what they are
Thank you SO much for this series. I have always loved history, and am currently involved in a D&D campaign using a character whose primary ranged weapon is a sling. The traditionalist role player in me has found your videos to be incredibly helpful - I especially love the idea of inscribing sling bullets! Thank you again, and very well done!
Agreed, never ever apologize for doing these videos. Every time I notice there's a new video by you I automatically feel brighter since no matter what the topic is, I know it's gonna be good.
Hi! As I usually donnot comment, let me first thank Lyndybeige for the instructive and highly entertaining vids. Two options to get more spherical bullets: - ball bearings balls (getting a few used/rusted ball bearings from a car mechanic should be easy). If the balls are greasy, you can clean them with any surfactant (eg a dishwashing liquid) and rince them. - cast your very own in clay from any small piece of led: a standard blow torch does the job, and even a pot on a gas oven would do for slightly larger quantities. Just make sure to work in a well-ventilated area and with reasonably small quantities (led being quite toxic). Projections should not happen, but just in case, wearing protection glasses and gloves would be safer. Obviously a pot that has been used to melt led should not serve for cooking afterwards. Please keep in mind that I never tried slinging so far, so these ideas may turn out to be rubbish in real life. Best!
If you ever wanted to sling the actual roman bullets, you could always make a mould of them, and then melt the fishing weights to cast copies of the historic pieces. Hell, most of what you'd need in order to do that, wouldn't cost much or take up that much space.
@guiltybystander77 A rugby ball shape flies well. If it lands point first, which it tends to, because the sling can cause it to spin around its narrow axis, it has better penetration, much like a modern bullet.
+Nilguiri No one would stick their dick in sand, i imagine it would be quite a mess and very uncomfortable. Just imagine how long it would take to get it all out from... god..
i used ballbearing when i thought about trying to see the difference between bullets and stones, over a river. Ball bearings seemed surprisingly effective and made a lovely sound as they hit the water. Incidentally using a sling i could also skim roundish stones across the water too.
When I was at school (around 12 years old) there was a guy in my class who was amazing at throwing a cricket ball. He had quite a slight build & not athletic, yet he could throw one about twice as far as the rest of us. In a different age he'd have made an excellent "slinger".
Because grassy fields are very big and lead sling bullets coming down from a height bury themselves in the ground. I have slung large white stones on the Town Moor in Newcastle, and recovered fewer than half of them, and they didn't penetrate.
Hey Lloyd, I've seen some iconography and read some descriptions of "staff-slings", but I couldn't get a very good idea of what they were actually like since the materials that mentioned them were very basic. Could you please, one of these days when it's convenient for you, do a video on these "staff-slings"? Thank you, and keep up the outstandingly dry humor! :)
Clamp a ping pong ball down under a drill press. Put a little hole in it, fill it with sand or lead pellets. seal hole with a sticker or a little square of tape. Cheap homemade sling ammo.
great to see someone talking about slinging! your talking about slinging angular rocks really makes me think of my youth! when i was around 13-16 i spent allot to time slinging along railroad tracks just using any random oddly shaped rock lying around. I can confirm the crazy things they do in the air but i also found that at verry short distances they could be fairly accurate (or.....as.accurate as a sling stone can be......which isnt verry). getting back into slinging right now I am working on a system to make cast concrete sling ammo. i figured this would be cheep, easy and I wouldnt mind if.i lost them. I also have taken to painting my rocks white and red so i can (usually) find them,.but i do sling at short ranges concentrating on accuracy with a backstop so i retrieve most of my rocks.
That could be the case, but I'd have thought that staff slings would be pretty effective too, and the pilum. Perhaps the comparison is with bows, especially at longer range.
In the medieval period, different people were doing the fighting. Men at arms were paid mercenaries, and had armour, and used crossbows and the like. I think in even very late peasant revolts slings were still used. Palestinian rioters still use them today.
I have made bullets out of mud before. It works kind of like making mud brick. You get the right consistency, get a good ratio of sand, silt and clay, compress it REALLY good and roll into shape. Let those things dry for at least 2 days in the sun (a week is much better though, in fact two weeks is fantastic) and you will have some crazy good ammo. Its hard as rock, and you can mold it into a very aerodynamic shape quite easily. Its what I do when I can't find decent stones.
Lindybeige, have you considered painting the lead stones/weights a bright orange? You'll be able to see them easier amongst the green grass &/or brown dirt.
I played with slings a lot as a kid. I liked rocks shaped like an American foot ball. They set into the leather sling well and, if I had a have a particularly good throw, I can hurl them in a spiral like a rifle bullet.
If you are still looking for lead sling bullets to try, you could try using musket balls. A standard BP replica of a Brown Bess uses a ball that is .75" in diameter, I believe, which should be reasonably close to one of those Roman lead bullets - and can likely be found in any gunshop.
I remember reading accounts of Peruvian and Mexican slingers using clay ammo (when clay balls were not available,. the Aztecs stockpiled stones of the right shape, size, and weight in storehouses between wars), and there are illustrations of Inca soldiers throwing burning clay bullets in both festivals and sieges, so that's definitely historical.
When I was a kid, I experimented shooting very sharp, irregular, angular crushed rock stones from a slingshot. They were too small to see in flight but they would make a sound like a ricocheting bullet and you could hear that they were violently careening off in crazy directions.
For practicing with lead projectiles, hang a blanket from a sort of curtain rod and use that for a target. The blanket will absorb the energy (especially with the bottom free to take up some of the shock), stop the projectile and drop it right there.
Vinger shaped lead ammo: the roman army in the year 28 AD used it after 3 days of attacks of the Germanic tribe Frissi. Location “Castellum Flevum 1 “ nowerdays “Velsertunnel “a few km /Miles east of Amsterdam Holland Short on ammo they put vingers in the grond and casted lead ammo, there was no time to shape them and fired them to the Frissi. Here they found vinger shaped ammo. The Frissi won the battle and 1400 Roman soldiers died, Castellum Flevo was burned to the grond. As always the Romans came back and rebuilded Castellum Flevo but never attacked the Frissi again.
have you ever considered painting them in some bright color and than to go at some air port(abandoned or something) where you have a flat hard surface and can see where they land and wont bury them self in the ground ?
I kinda want to make a sling now. I normally do shooting sports especially black powder firearms and I'm not big on archery but slings look like fun. I don't quite understand why you are concerned about losing lead. My .54 caliber long rifle shoots lead about that size and I've fired hundreds of rounds threw it. You could but lead round ball for black powder guns and whack it with a hammer to get the right shape. They are $12 for 50 rounds at the most.
The sling and the muzzle loading rifle are early companions. Before Napoleonic barrage tactics, a misfire would clog the rifle and turn it into a club for the duration of the battle, leaving the musketeer with a pouch of lead ammo without a launch platform. As muskets evolved and got as reliable as your .54, the problem turned around and became running out of shot, so stones, brass uniform-buttons etc were fired at the enemy. The difficult to master sling was forgotten.
I wouldn't use a fishing weight as is, I would melt it down first. You could use the same method as the romans or use molds for musket balls. There are 2 things you can do to find your lost bullets 1. use the method that modern archaeologists use to find roman bullets, a metal detector. You can buy one or maybe rent one. 2. Remember the general location or direction of where they land.
Nathan Egan Street Workout "Depleted uranium" is uranium that has had most of the more readily fissionable isotope, U-235, removed, leaving only the much more abundant isotope, U-238, which is much harder to induce a fission chain reaction in. It's still uranium, and it's still (somewhat) radioactive, which is why it's a bit of an environmental problem when it's left lying around a battlefield. U-238, left to its own devices, does _eventually_ decay to lead, but only at the end of a long decay chain that has a combined half-life of several billion years. (If it didn't take that long, there would be none to be found in the Earth's crust today; it would all be lead.) Anyway: The term "depleted" comes from the fact that it's the converse of "enriched", which is what uranium that's had its percentage of U-235 increased (for instance, to make it usable in a nuclear weapon, or in some types of power reactor) is called. If you take a certain quantity of natural uranium (which is something like 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235) and "enrich" (that is, remove) the U-235, what's left is "depleted" U-238.
I would think that the simplest way of testing the effectiveness of a sling stone or bullet would be to simply set up some sort of target. That would certainly give you a rough idea (depending on your target) on the kind of damage it would do. As for distance, a very simple way of marking the stone/bullet so that it's easily trackable is to simply paint it in a bright fluorescent color, a bit of spray paint shouldn't have much of an effect on its performance.
I made an inexpensive clay mold and used clay bullets. Heat them up in the oven (at 500 F) for about an hour. Granted they are one use, but cheap to make.
Given the statement in a previous video that one advantage of arrows over bullets or stones is that, by being easier to see coming, they are better for breaking enemy formations; attaching ribbons to sling bullet may have been a viable tactic on ancient battlefields, providing that they don't too greatly impact the flight of the bullets, in order to achieve the same effect.
A real nasty trick is to use "wet" (unfired) clay for the bullet, as the inertia is fully transferred to the target, no bouncing off and wasting energy. The results are surprisingly catastrophic.
The beach is an obvious idea, but i have little confidence in finding the hole even if I did see the impact. Finding large sling stones is hard enough. Even with a white stone on a dark surface, and seeing where they land, I lose more than I find. Do metal detectors pick up lead? I have a vision of myself finding a hundred other metal things before the bullet.
It could be fun, of course, but there are various snags with the plan. One is that I still don't know how I'll ever find the bullet once I've slung it.
Casting lead is super easy and quite a bit of fun. I'm sure you know you can melt lead over a wood fire. Use a small iron skillet and you'll be able to melt quite a bit of lead at once. Get a steel ladle and start pouring
A possible way to test and recover a lead sling bullet: paint it fluorescent pink and use the largest paved car park you can find. In America you're never more than an hour away from a shuttered and abandoned shopping mall with a parking lot you could bivouac the 9th legion in. It might be trickier to find such a place in the UK, I concede. You do have a fair number of WWII-era airfields, though, I understand.
Have you ever tried to use a large metal washer? It should hurl like a frisbee, you could probably even sharpen the outer edge. As for recovery, another RUclipsr uses a very heavy piece of carpet as a backdrop. It is heavy enough and cushioned enough to stop penetration, and the bullets (usually) drop straight down.
There was a late medieval (ca. 1600s) crossbow that shot round lead bullets or hard baked clay pellets, called the pellet schnepper, or something like that. Would be used against flying birds. Used a double string with a pouch in the middle where the pellet fits snugly until released. Doggie doos could be used in place of pellets to fire back at dogs who poo on your front lawn.
Ruby ball shape is the more aerodynamically optimal. In flight, the shot/bullet will fly with the pointed ends inlined with the flight path - one pointed forward, the other rearwards, and if done right there will be a slight spin to the projectile.
@elgostine This is my guess of the most common effect against good armour. But yes, I'm sure that a lead bullet had some penetrative potential too, but I can supply no data.
according to what Ive read, these glandes were one of the few things/weapons (discounting warmachines ofc) the romans used with good effect agains cataphracts, as most other weapons would not penentrate their armour efficiently
I make my own bullets from tire weights.They are everywhere!You can find at least one or two around potholes on the road. It takes very little to melt it. You can use an old cast iron frying pan if that all you have, but don't ever eat from it again.Make sure you protect your body, clothes and anything else that might go indoors. As it boils it steams,well lead dust Shower after making it.Leave yer bullet making clothing outside. It's terrible to have lead poison. My ex did that to me years ago.
Hey Lindybeige! Hang large pieces of Old Carpet (Wet is best) and sling at them! the missiles drop right down. make sure its hanging free at least a foot or so from the wall. Use thickest carpet or rug you can.
I've seen a trained south American slinger put a lead bullet, approximately the size and shape of the fishing weight in your right hand, through a cow skull. He could hit the same spot about 4 inches across every time at about 80m.
The spin on a golf ball is also a major consideration in its aerodynamic characteristics. Good golfers get their shots to go a long way by generating lift on the balls with spin.
When we wanted to cast bullets for re-loading our ammunition a rather common practice here in the US where the cost of ammunition is ever increasing in an attempt to control our use of firearms, we visit tire stores. They always have a huge bucket of lead weights used to balance tires when mounted on rims, and gladly give them to us for little or nothing, as they are not supposed to re-use them, although I have seen that done from time to time. Then we use a lead melting pot, again easy to find here in the USA for re-loader, they are electric and very simple to set up, we melt down the lead, skim off the impurities left from the road on the old weights, then using a ladle and bullet mold, we cast our own bullets to load in our pistols and low velocity rifles, also many do the same for 00 buck shot loads for our 12 and 10 gauge shotguns. The cost of setting up such a system should be well within your reach.
I think slingers would be pretty safe on the battlefield,they have the distance to start with and since they were generally very light troops they would easily be able to outrun any kind of armored infantry,I suspect the biggest threat to slingers would be light cavalry who could close on them very fast or even worse, mounted archers.
You need to manufacture a bullet firing crossbow. Also, carve your own soapstone sling bullet mold. Melt scrap lead in a cast iron frying pan, and dedicate a metal kitchen ladle for pouring your alloy into the mold. Melt lead outside, away from moisture. If your lead pot is smoking, you've got it too hot.
I have actually found what are called "egg shaped weights" that are almost perfectly shaped for use as glandes. Where I get them, they cost about a buck for a 4 ounce lead weight, and they come in 3 ounce and 2 ounce varieties as well. A little pricey, but if you buy in bulk they cost less per unit, so make your choice if you want to spend more to get a lot, but less per "glande", or buy a few and try them out.
Very cool video! ... Why don't you sling the lead pieces against a "wall of wood planks" set up against a old abandoned house wall or something like that? You could also check penetration that way.
Arrows typically weren’t reusable. I reckon if you filed a ball of granite to the right shape, it could be re-used many times. (Which could be good or bad depending on whether you were recovering it from a victorious battlefield, or if an enemy slinger was throwing it back at you.
The indentations on a golf ball do serve to decrease wind resistance, though. It would be interesting to see the results of a normal stone with the little bowls drilled into it.
You can bet a years wages that if the Romans used slingers in warfare, they were in fact deadly effective. Later Roman armies employed "staff slingers", I.e. the sling was attached to a long staff, approx. 3 feet/1 metre in length and used very effectively against their enemies. 💥💥💥
A Metal detector might work although I don't know for so as lead isn't magnetic perhaps add some iron to it a steel nail through the center probably would work
You solved the problem yourself. Attach some lightweight mono fishing line. You could use a length on a reel to help you guide you to it or get some bright yellow stuff to use as a short 'tail' like the ribbon idea.
I had an idea about how you might be able to find the lead fishing weight; perhaps you could crack open a glow stick or luminous fishing float and use the fluid inside to coat the weight, if you sling it around dusk then I would think that it would be light enough to see that there's no one in the way but dark enough for it to glow visibly, though I'm not sure whether or not the fluid is toxic.
Actually, sling stones are always spinning upon release whether you want them to or not. I don't think that there is any device concocted by Man that can throw a ball without spinning it.
have you considered tying a short length of neon colored masons twine to the fishing weights, less surface area, and consequently less drag, for a more "true" flight, also very brightly colored and easy to find
I suppose one could, but lead is better and easier to shape, and cheaper, so better. Iron would be very expensive and only a mild improvement over stones or ceramics. You could use gold too, but that would be even more expensive.
I was thinking about your problem to make a correct range estimation when slinging lead bullets. If you could use a landing strip, which is a fairly large, really long flat and open area, you should be able to easily find were the bullet it ground. And even if it bounced of, you could be able to spot the rather large impact it will leave behind.
You could find a large parking lot and might be able to recover brightly colored bulltets. Here in the states at least we have enormous parking lots that are 80 plus percent empty year round. Except during the xmas shopping season.
kinda late i know but one method would probably be to file down and thread the back end of a lead weight and put a steel cap on it, this would also give the bullet a front heavy tip to improve flight characteristics while making them easy to find via metal detector or magnet.
i know this is a really old video but maybe you could try slinging those fishing weights onto asphalt but paint the sling bullets first. paint them so theyre easy to see in a bright red or something and then i dont think the asphalt would be damaged as much as dirt by the weight so it shouldnt be too hard to find. you could try this in a really big empty parking lot.
As someone else has already suggested, use dayglo paint so you can see roughly where the bullet lands. But moreover, use a metal detector to get a more exact measurement of range. Finally, recover the bullet using... a shovel.
I would be interested in the difference in weight between the fairly large sling stones in this video and the much smaller sling bullets. Lead is of course denser than stone, but it seems to me the bullets are so much smaller they would be lighter, but just how much is hard to tell by looking at the video. Also: was it common for slingers to carry both stones and bullets into battle, perhaps using the stones at short ranges and the bullets at longer ranges?
use the bullets on a shop mall car park east to find. I remember reading, many years ago ,that one lot of eastern slingers had a way of marking the bullet that made it whirr in flight but i can't remember who they were.
I was under the impression that normally slingers would use a handfull of small pebbles, about the size of the end knuckle of your thumb, and have a 'buckshot' effect, though perhaps that's mainly for hunting?
My favorite is a Greek sling bullet carved with the phrase "Dexai", meaning "Catch!"
mine is one that said "ouch"
"Got you s*^&$÷=×h" 😆😄😁😀🙂😐😑😬😔
You need to find a quarry, or a large car park, somewhere with hard ground. Then paint it with glow in the dark paint and sling it at night. It should stand out very well.
Mind you, it will be very hard to explain what you are doing.
EDIT: i realise it sounds like I'm saying the entire quarry should be painted with glow in the dark paint. No. The sling "bullet".
Perhaps not a car park with cars in it
Yes, the dimples break up air flow and lower resistance. Dense is good. Gold and uranium, for example, but lead is cheaper.
Just imagine how weaponry would be if gold was a more common element.
Sling some depleted Uranium pls
Remember kids, after handling lead metal, wash your hands.
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan Because lead poisoning is bad for you.
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan I don't know but you'd probably get some of it into the blood. But it would not be my most immediate concern if I'd been hit by a sling bullet, it's not a fast acting poison that would kill you. Lead poisoning causes long term neurological damage, something that you would want to avoid. That's why you should wash you hands after handling it.
Also, you should, as far as possible, try not to be hit by sling bullets.
@@mawe9878 i would have thought that the amount of lead one gets in ones bloodstream from being hit with a bullet would be negligible. alot of lead poisoning cases are from old painters who used lead paint as it would absorb through the skin over their many years of work.
@@mawe9878 important safety tips!
Locutus, how about lead oxide, ya dummy? You seriously think ELEMENTAL LEAD is what you encounter when you handle metallic lead? Lead oxide forms instantaneously in oxygen atmospheres like Earth from pure metallic lead, and is a white powder that can get in your eyes and mouth from handling.
The things the Greeks used to write on sling stones are fucking hilarious. I think my favorite two are:
1: FOR POMPEY'S ASS!
2: CATCH!
YOGSCAST Seagull LOVE AND KISSES!
Romans did the same. "A punch from Caesar!"
***** WHOOPS! I meant Romans
+YOGSCAST Seagull Highly amusing ^^
"This is an unpleasant gift."
If you read the roman books on medicine and surgery there are references to how to remove sling missiles from joints (elbow, knee shoulder etc) when they have come to rest there. There are also references to how to remove them from bone when they have lodged there after hitting people. The basic method is to drill a hole near the sling missile and then chisel a "V" towards the bullet so you can then lever them out of the bone. If I remember correctly I read this in Galen's book on military medicine.
Caesar mentions celtic sling missiles denting helmets so the made wicker baskets and put them over the helmet to prevent damage to the helmet.
Lol and we just started doing the same thing to our tanks to prevent RPG hits from penetrating. Time is a circle.
@@JordanJihad wouldn’t it just explode anyway?
@@Commando-jh3whexplosions happening a few inches away from the armor are less bad thanit making contact with the armor
Fried marbles are a great fragmenting ammo for targets resting against hard backdrops. If you miss the target the marble hits the background object, shatters, and sends very sharp projectiles out in all directions. I once saw a kid with a slingshot using them to take out birds. I'm pretty sure he wasn't hunting them for food. After all who needs to bite into a piece of sharp glass. More of a varmint killing projectile.
Similarly, someone I knew threw a bottle at rock near a frog to scare it. The bottle shattered on the rock. The frog didn't move. That is until it sorta of keeled over. We waded out to get it and it had been killed by a shard of glass. The guy who threw the bottle felt real guilty (unlike the kid I described previously).
Brian Macker low tech frag grenade
An excellent idea. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of salt flats in Northumbria.
Break a chem-light open, pour the fluid over the lead bullet or dip it in, sling at night. It'll glow like a tracer. I did this once when i was skipping stones and it created a really cool effect where little clouds of the fluid would glow in the water where it skipped.
+dup Take a little care when doing this, as some glowstick chemicals can cause rashes and some also have broken glass one them once they are cracked.
Great for a bit of fun, but for Gods sake dont get it in your eyes guys! :D
+dup
Could also buy glow paint. Brilliantly simple idea you have there.
WildNinjacat Pfft, glow paint. Get a load of this pansy! In all seriousness, our family just has a shit ton of chemlights left over because we're military so it's what I'm familiar with.
We are still waiting for that demonstration video :D
Still waiting (unless I missed it)
@@thomaskissell5269 no def. still waiting
I’m assuming were still waiting?
Yes, we are.
Can I join in waiting?
Chesil beach. The defenders of Maiden Castle hillfort used to collect cartloads for sling ammo from there. The right sized ones are found on one section of the beach as the pebbles increase in size from one end of the 18 mile beach to the other. Locals can tell exactly where they are by how big the pebbles are.
I have also slung golf balls and I can confirm that golf balls are _awful_ ammunition. Almost any small rock is better.
What about a golf ball made of lead? See, golf balls are covered in those little divots for a reason; they reduce drag. So a lead golf ball would have the weight and density (perhaps too much now that I think about it) plus the added effect of being extremely aerodynamic.
FoxerBoxerNaaniwa A ball of lead the size of a golf ball would probably be amazing amunition. I suspect about half the size of a golf ball would be more optimal for any kind of range.
FoxerBoxerNaaniwa The divots' purpose is to create lift. Golf balls fly farther because they have lift, which keeps them in the air longer than inertia alone would. What I wonder is, how does this lift affect their accuracy? Is the flight path of a golf ball more unpredictable than the flight path of a rock?
Lorenzo Benito Less unpredictable. The divots create small 'bubbles' of swirling air which interacts with the moving air, creating less friction than if it were touching the ball itself. This lower amount of friction means that it is more aerodynamic, and the air will affect it less.
bashpr0mpt please stop insulting autistic people.
Did they have depleted uranium ammunition?
+stevo728822 Or hollow points?
+Sacha Daenens Bruh, it's FMJ or bust.
No, they obviously used the GPS guided munitions :P
What about armor piercing incendiary one. Oooh or tracer rounds. What about green tip.
stevo728822
I heard they had HEAT and APCR stones as well
I am blessed to live along a small river that is perfect for finding rounded stones. It's simply a matter of finding the right area and slinging all of the right-sized stones, then stepping forward and doing it again.
I'm in Vermont USA so I've been realizing I won't be able to pick up stones through the winter- they will be iced in. So I've been saving the best ones for winter slinging, my favorite are perfectly rounded oblong stones. Being in an area that was highly active in glaciers there are a large variety of stones in the river bed, but a few definitely make the best slinging stones because they are denser. One is a light reddish stone, another is a deep green and has a crystalline structure. I will let you know when I find out what they are
Thank you SO much for this series. I have always loved history, and am currently involved in a D&D campaign using a character whose primary ranged weapon is a sling. The traditionalist role player in me has found your videos to be incredibly helpful - I especially love the idea of inscribing sling bullets! Thank you again, and very well done!
Stumbled onto this video. Crazy seeing a video shot in 4:3... Reminds me of the olden days
Agreed, never ever apologize for doing these videos. Every time I notice there's a new video by you I automatically feel brighter since no matter what the topic is, I know it's gonna be good.
Hi!
As I usually donnot comment, let me first thank Lyndybeige for the instructive and highly entertaining vids.
Two options to get more spherical bullets:
- ball bearings balls (getting a few used/rusted ball bearings from a car mechanic should be easy). If the balls are greasy, you can clean them with any surfactant (eg a dishwashing liquid) and rince them.
- cast your very own in clay from any small piece of led: a standard blow torch does the job, and even a pot on a gas oven would do for slightly larger quantities. Just make sure to work in a well-ventilated area and with reasonably small quantities (led being quite toxic). Projections should not happen, but just in case, wearing protection glasses and gloves would be safer. Obviously a pot that has been used to melt led should not serve for cooking afterwards.
Please keep in mind that I never tried slinging so far, so these ideas may turn out to be rubbish in real life.
Best!
If you ever wanted to sling the actual roman bullets, you could always make a mould of them, and then melt the fishing weights to cast copies of the historic pieces. Hell, most of what you'd need in order to do that, wouldn't cost much or take up that much space.
@guiltybystander77 A rugby ball shape flies well. If it lands point first, which it tends to, because the sling can cause it to spin around its narrow axis, it has better penetration, much like a modern bullet.
No, I haven't done javelins yet. One day, but for safety reasons please don't hold your breath.
3:09 Glande in latin means acorn. In Spanish it's the glans penis. I wonder if instead of sticking their thumbs into the sand to make the moulds...
+Nilguiri No one would stick their dick in sand, i imagine it would be quite a mess and very uncomfortable.
Just imagine how long it would take to get it all out from... god..
+Tim Stahel (Moustached Viking)
"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere."
+Gyro Doughnut The best movie quote to be ever written
sofullofpiss
Cool, thanks.
In order to do that you would have to be "excited" about making ammunition.
Use it at a sandy beach. It will leave a clearly visible impact crater.
In the tourists?
i used ballbearing when i thought about trying to see the difference between bullets and stones, over a river. Ball bearings seemed surprisingly effective and made a lovely sound as they hit the water. Incidentally using a sling i could also skim roundish stones across the water too.
@Wirrn The spin would mainly be around the long axis, i.e. not end over end.
@Wirrn Yes.
When I was at school (around 12 years old) there was a guy in my class who was amazing at throwing a cricket ball. He had quite a slight build & not athletic, yet he could throw one about twice as far as the rest of us. In a different age he'd have made an excellent "slinger".
Yes, and I have some of these for the purpose.
Because grassy fields are very big and lead sling bullets coming down from a height bury themselves in the ground. I have slung large white stones on the Town Moor in Newcastle, and recovered fewer than half of them, and they didn't penetrate.
No. Nice idea.
Hey Lloyd, I've seen some iconography and read some descriptions of "staff-slings", but I couldn't get a very good idea of what they were actually like since the materials that mentioned them were very basic. Could you please, one of these days when it's convenient for you, do a video on these "staff-slings"? Thank you, and keep up the outstandingly dry humor! :)
Clamp a ping pong ball down under a drill press. Put a little hole in it, fill it with sand or lead pellets. seal hole with a sticker or a little square of tape. Cheap homemade sling ammo.
or you could use a rock
great to see someone talking about slinging!
your talking about slinging angular rocks really makes me think of my youth! when i was around 13-16 i spent allot to time slinging along railroad tracks just using any random oddly shaped rock lying around. I can confirm the crazy things they do in the air but i also found that at verry short distances they could be fairly accurate (or.....as.accurate as a sling stone can be......which isnt verry).
getting back into slinging right now I am working on a system to make cast concrete sling ammo. i figured this would be cheep, easy and I wouldnt mind if.i lost them. I also have taken to painting my rocks white and red so i can (usually) find them,.but i do sling at short ranges concentrating on accuracy with a backstop so i retrieve most of my rocks.
Yes, the denser the better.
That could be the case, but I'd have thought that staff slings would be pretty effective too, and the pilum. Perhaps the comparison is with bows, especially at longer range.
In the medieval period, different people were doing the fighting. Men at arms were paid mercenaries, and had armour, and used crossbows and the like. I think in even very late peasant revolts slings were still used. Palestinian rioters still use them today.
Leaden sling bullets were decidedly capable of inflicting injury and many late Roman writers said their range was greater than Hun bows.
I have made bullets out of mud before. It works kind of like making mud brick. You get the right consistency, get a good ratio of sand, silt and clay, compress it REALLY good and roll into shape. Let those things dry for at least 2 days in the sun (a week is much better though, in fact two weeks is fantastic) and you will have some crazy good ammo. Its hard as rock, and you can mold it into a very aerodynamic shape quite easily. Its what I do when I can't find decent stones.
Lindybeige, have you considered painting the lead stones/weights a bright orange? You'll be able to see them easier amongst the green grass &/or brown dirt.
Pink might be better
I played with slings a lot as a kid. I liked rocks shaped like an American foot ball. They set into the leather sling well and, if I had a have a particularly good throw, I can hurl them in a spiral like a rifle bullet.
I see! Yes, I've seen that too. I thought you meant one stone split into two or something.
If you are still looking for lead sling bullets to try, you could try using musket balls. A standard BP replica of a Brown Bess uses a ball that is .75" in diameter, I believe, which should be reasonably close to one of those Roman lead bullets - and can likely be found in any gunshop.
I remember reading accounts of Peruvian and Mexican slingers using clay ammo (when clay balls were not available,. the Aztecs stockpiled stones of the right shape, size, and weight in storehouses between wars), and there are illustrations of Inca soldiers throwing burning clay bullets in both festivals and sieges, so that's definitely historical.
When I was a kid, I experimented shooting very sharp, irregular, angular crushed rock stones from a slingshot. They were too small to see in flight but they would make a sound like a ricocheting bullet and you could hear that they were violently careening off in crazy directions.
For practicing with lead projectiles, hang a blanket from a sort of curtain rod and use that for a target. The blanket will absorb the energy (especially with the bottom free to take up some of the shock), stop the projectile and drop it right there.
True. All I have to do is remove all the cars.
Vinger shaped lead ammo: the roman army in the year 28 AD used it after 3 days of attacks of the Germanic tribe Frissi.
Location “Castellum Flevum 1 “ nowerdays “Velsertunnel “a few km /Miles east of Amsterdam Holland
Short on ammo they put vingers in the grond and casted lead ammo, there was no time to shape them and fired them to the Frissi.
Here they found vinger shaped ammo.
The Frissi won the battle and 1400 Roman soldiers died, Castellum Flevo was burned to the grond.
As always the Romans came back and rebuilded Castellum Flevo but never attacked the Frissi again.
I wrote east this should be west of Amsterdam
have you ever considered painting them in some bright color and than to go at some air port(abandoned or something) where you have a flat hard surface and can see where they land and wont bury them self in the ground ?
I kinda want to make a sling now. I normally do shooting sports especially black powder firearms and I'm not big on archery but slings look like fun.
I don't quite understand why you are concerned about losing lead. My .54 caliber long rifle shoots lead about that size and I've fired hundreds of rounds threw it. You could but lead round ball for black powder guns and whack it with a hammer to get the right shape. They are $12 for 50 rounds at the most.
The sling and the muzzle loading rifle are early companions. Before Napoleonic barrage tactics, a misfire would clog the rifle and turn it into a club for the duration of the battle, leaving the musketeer with a pouch of lead ammo without a launch platform. As muskets evolved and got as reliable as your .54, the problem turned around and became running out of shot, so stones, brass uniform-buttons etc were fired at the enemy. The difficult to master sling was forgotten.
I wouldn't use a fishing weight as is, I would melt it down first. You could use the same method as the romans or use molds for musket balls.
There are 2 things you can do to find your lost bullets 1. use the method that modern archaeologists use to find roman bullets, a metal detector. You can buy one or maybe rent one. 2. Remember the general location or direction of where they land.
What if we made modern sling bullets from depleted uranium! That's gotta hurt.
and I have to say, I can sling a golf ball well farther than I can throw one.
Although, it still does have a shorter range than a good stone.
isnt depleted uranium just lead
Nathan Egan Street Workout "Depleted uranium" is uranium that has had most of the more readily fissionable isotope, U-235, removed, leaving only the much more abundant isotope, U-238, which is much harder to induce a fission chain reaction in. It's still uranium, and it's still (somewhat) radioactive, which is why it's a bit of an environmental problem when it's left lying around a battlefield. U-238, left to its own devices, does _eventually_ decay to lead, but only at the end of a long decay chain that has a combined half-life of several billion years. (If it didn't take that long, there would be none to be found in the Earth's crust today; it would all be lead.)
Anyway: The term "depleted" comes from the fact that it's the converse of "enriched", which is what uranium that's had its percentage of U-235 increased (for instance, to make it usable in a nuclear weapon, or in some types of power reactor) is called. If you take a certain quantity of natural uranium (which is something like 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235) and "enrich" (that is, remove) the U-235, what's left is "depleted" U-238.
I am just getting into slings, I find your videos very helpful. Thanks
I would think that the simplest way of testing the effectiveness of a sling stone or bullet would be to simply set up some sort of target. That would certainly give you a rough idea (depending on your target) on the kind of damage it would do. As for distance, a very simple way of marking the stone/bullet so that it's easily trackable is to simply paint it in a bright fluorescent color, a bit of spray paint shouldn't have much of an effect on its performance.
Those are not modern recreations,
I made an inexpensive clay mold and used clay bullets. Heat them up in the oven (at 500 F) for about an hour. Granted they are one use, but cheap to make.
Given the statement in a previous video that one advantage of arrows over bullets or stones is that, by being easier to see coming, they are better for breaking enemy formations; attaching ribbons to sling bullet may have been a viable tactic on ancient battlefields, providing that they don't too greatly impact the flight of the bullets, in order to achieve the same effect.
A real nasty trick is to use "wet" (unfired) clay for the bullet, as the inertia is fully transferred to the target, no bouncing off and wasting energy. The results are surprisingly catastrophic.
damn, that sounds brutal
And the enemy can't pick them up and sling them back as the clay tends to break on impact.
I will have to try that
sort of like hollow tip rounds I bet? it hits the target and flattens.
How does that even work? Softer things are not going to leave a bigger impact than a harder object...
Good point, I suppose one could always bake them over a small fire or in an oven but thats only if you are willing to go through the trouble.
"slinger69 waz here"
-sling bullet
The beach is an obvious idea, but i have little confidence in finding the hole even if I did see the impact. Finding large sling stones is hard enough. Even with a white stone on a dark surface, and seeing where they land, I lose more than I find.
Do metal detectors pick up lead? I have a vision of myself finding a hundred other metal things before the bullet.
It could be fun, of course, but there are various snags with the plan. One is that I still don't know how I'll ever find the bullet once I've slung it.
Casting lead is super easy and quite a bit of fun. I'm sure you know you can melt lead over a wood fire. Use a small iron skillet and you'll be able to melt quite a bit of lead at once. Get a steel ladle and start pouring
@Dirhaelar Oh yes, a torso wound could be mortal.
A possible way to test and recover a lead sling bullet: paint it fluorescent pink and use the largest paved car park you can find. In America you're never more than an hour away from a shuttered and abandoned shopping mall with a parking lot you could bivouac the 9th legion in. It might be trickier to find such a place in the UK, I concede. You do have a fair number of WWII-era airfields, though, I understand.
....and I see I was far from the first with this idea.
Have you ever tried to use a large metal washer? It should hurl like a frisbee, you could probably even sharpen the outer edge.
As for recovery, another RUclipsr uses a very heavy piece of carpet as a backdrop. It is heavy enough and cushioned enough to stop penetration, and the bullets (usually) drop straight down.
There was a late medieval (ca. 1600s) crossbow that shot round lead bullets or hard baked clay pellets, called the pellet schnepper, or something like that. Would be used against flying birds. Used a double string with a pouch in the middle where the pellet fits snugly until released. Doggie doos could be used in place of pellets to fire back at dogs who poo on your front lawn.
Ruby ball shape is the more aerodynamically optimal. In flight, the shot/bullet will fly with the pointed ends inlined with the flight path - one pointed forward, the other rearwards, and if done right there will be a slight spin to the projectile.
@elgostine This is my guess of the most common effect against good armour. But yes, I'm sure that a lead bullet had some penetrative potential too, but I can supply no data.
@EntropicUsername An intriguing idea I had not considered. Would I not need a dog to help me find a buried smelly weight?
according to what Ive read, these glandes were one of the few things/weapons (discounting warmachines ofc) the romans used with good effect agains cataphracts, as most other weapons would not penentrate their armour efficiently
I make my own bullets from tire weights.They are everywhere!You can find at least one or two around potholes on the road. It takes very little to melt it. You can use an old cast iron frying pan if that all you have, but don't ever eat from it again.Make sure you protect your body, clothes and anything else that might go indoors. As it boils it steams,well lead dust Shower after making it.Leave yer bullet making clothing outside. It's terrible to have lead poison. My ex did that to me years ago.
Hey Lindybeige!
Hang large pieces of Old Carpet (Wet is best) and sling at them! the missiles drop right down. make sure its hanging free at least a foot or so from the wall. Use thickest carpet or rug you can.
Leaving them out in Newcastle even for three weeks would only cause them to get soggier.
I've seen a trained south American slinger put a lead bullet, approximately the size and shape of the fishing weight in your right hand, through a cow skull. He could hit the same spot about 4 inches across every time at about 80m.
The spin on a golf ball is also a major consideration in its aerodynamic characteristics. Good golfers get their shots to go a long way by generating lift on the balls with spin.
When we wanted to cast bullets for re-loading our ammunition a rather common practice here in the US where the cost of ammunition is ever increasing in an attempt to control our use of firearms, we visit tire stores. They always have a huge bucket of lead weights used to balance tires when mounted on rims, and gladly give them to us for little or nothing, as they are not supposed to re-use them, although I have seen that done from time to time. Then we use a lead melting pot, again easy to find here in the USA for re-loader, they are electric and very simple to set up, we melt down the lead, skim off the impurities left from the road on the old weights, then using a ladle and bullet mold, we cast our own bullets to load in our pistols and low velocity rifles, also many do the same for 00 buck shot loads for our 12 and 10 gauge shotguns. The cost of setting up such a system should be well within your reach.
I think slingers would be pretty safe on the battlefield,they have the distance to start with and since they were generally very light troops they would easily be able to outrun any kind of armored infantry,I suspect the biggest threat to slingers would be light cavalry who could close on them very fast or even worse, mounted archers.
@elgostine I don't know that penetration was the greatest danger. I think that the sheer percussive force did most of the damage through armour.
@tenthousandsuns Coming down from a height, they bury themselves in the ground.
You need to manufacture a bullet firing crossbow. Also, carve your own soapstone sling bullet mold. Melt scrap lead in a cast iron frying pan, and dedicate a metal kitchen ladle for pouring your alloy into the mold. Melt lead outside, away from moisture. If your lead pot is smoking, you've got it too hot.
I have actually found what are called "egg shaped weights" that are almost perfectly shaped for use as glandes. Where I get them, they cost about a buck for a 4 ounce lead weight, and they come in 3 ounce and 2 ounce varieties as well. A little pricey, but if you buy in bulk they cost less per unit, so make your choice if you want to spend more to get a lot, but less per "glande", or buy a few and try them out.
Very cool video!
...
Why don't you sling the lead pieces against a "wall of wood planks" set up against a old abandoned house wall or something like that?
You could also check penetration that way.
Arrows typically weren’t reusable. I reckon if you filed a ball of granite to the right shape, it could be re-used many times. (Which could be good or bad depending on whether you were recovering it from a victorious battlefield, or if an enemy slinger was throwing it back at you.
The indentations on a golf ball do serve to decrease wind resistance, though. It would be interesting to see the results of a normal stone with the little bowls drilled into it.
You can bet a years wages that if the Romans used slingers in warfare, they were in fact deadly effective. Later Roman armies employed "staff slingers", I.e. the sling was attached to a long staff, approx. 3 feet/1 metre in length and used very effectively against their enemies. 💥💥💥
A Metal detector might work although I don't know for so as lead isn't magnetic perhaps add some iron to it a steel nail through the center probably would work
You solved the problem yourself. Attach some lightweight mono fishing line. You could use a length on a reel to help you guide you to it or get some bright yellow stuff to use as a short 'tail' like the ribbon idea.
I had an idea about how you might be able to find the lead fishing weight; perhaps you could crack open a glow stick or luminous fishing float and use the fluid inside to coat the weight, if you sling it around dusk then I would think that it would be light enough to see that there's no one in the way but dark enough for it to glow visibly, though I'm not sure whether or not the fluid is toxic.
Actually, sling stones are always spinning upon release whether you want them to or not. I don't think that there is any device concocted by Man that can throw a ball without spinning it.
have you considered tying a short length of neon colored masons twine to the fishing weights, less surface area, and consequently less drag, for a more "true" flight, also very brightly colored and easy to find
I suppose one could, but lead is better and easier to shape, and cheaper, so better. Iron would be very expensive and only a mild improvement over stones or ceramics. You could use gold too, but that would be even more expensive.
I wonder how expensive depleted uranium would have been in Roman times ... NATO just tried to "salt Ukranian earth" with some this past week! :-o
Yes, but that could take ages.
I was thinking about your problem to make a correct range estimation when slinging lead bullets.
If you could use a landing strip, which is a fairly large, really long flat and open area, you should be able to easily find were the bullet it ground. And even if it bounced of, you could be able to spot the rather large impact it will leave behind.
You could find a large parking lot and might be able to recover brightly colored bulltets. Here in the states at least we have enormous parking lots that are 80 plus percent empty year round. Except during the xmas shopping season.
kinda late i know but one method would probably be to file down and thread the back end of a lead weight and put a steel cap on it, this would also give the bullet a front heavy tip to improve flight characteristics while making them easy to find via metal detector or magnet.
The roller ball from an old mouse. Potent in a modern slingshot. Getting rare tho.
i know this is a really old video but maybe you could try slinging those fishing weights onto asphalt but paint the sling bullets first. paint them so theyre easy to see in a bright red or something and then i dont think the asphalt would be damaged as much as dirt by the weight so it shouldnt be too hard to find. you could try this in a really big empty parking lot.
As someone else has already suggested, use dayglo paint so you can see roughly where the bullet lands. But moreover, use a metal detector to get a more exact measurement of range. Finally, recover the bullet using... a shovel.
I would be interested in the difference in weight between the fairly large sling stones in this video and the much smaller sling bullets. Lead is of course denser than stone, but it seems to me the bullets are so much smaller they would be lighter, but just how much is hard to tell by looking at the video. Also: was it common for slingers to carry both stones and bullets into battle, perhaps using the stones at short ranges and the bullets at longer ranges?
use the bullets on a shop mall car park east to find. I remember reading, many years ago ,that one lot of eastern slingers had a way of marking the bullet that made it whirr in flight but i can't remember who they were.
I was under the impression that normally slingers would use a handfull of small pebbles, about the size of the end knuckle of your thumb, and have a 'buckshot' effect, though perhaps that's mainly for hunting?