Anybody varmint hunt with slingshots??

smegs

smegs

Joined
Nov 27, 2003
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I imagine with the right type rubber band, a slingshot would have serious stopping power on rats. Anybody have some tips such as slingshot brand, accuracy, ammo etc?? I've looked at the laser sighted slingshot but it's a little pricey for a sling shot. It looks pretty slick but I'm lookin for a powerful accurate cheaper alternative.

http://www.catsdomain.com/main.htm
 
I have played with the wrist rocket arm brace variety (you can get them at Wal-Mart, Dick's, Sport's Authority, and most other Sporting Goods Stores- or even EBAY for that matter), and their fun to play with. Becoming an accurate shot, learning the trajectory, point of impact, etc.... is fun. I have never hunted or killed any critters with one however.

I have talked to people who have, and they recommend the use of lead muzzle loading projectiles (balls) instead of steel balls for hunting or pest control on the basis that they hit harder. The same individuals will use the steel projectiles or even the dollar store sac of marbles for plinking. I have found that spent 9x19 or .40 S&W cases can make fun projectiles as well, for plinking

Unless very adjustable, I would presume a fixed (POA) laser sight would be bad news on a slingshot. Every person is pulling the band back to a different point which will impact the force behind the projectile and change the point of impact. Also, every projectile is going to have a different POI. Furthermore, the dot will not adjust for distance, so your going to have to learn a specific projectiles trajectory, distance guaging, and Kentucky Windage well anyways. No need for high tech gadgets, since you'll have to learn the basics anyways.
 
mp510 said:
Unless very adjustable, I would presume a fixed (POA) laser sight would be bad news on a slingshot. Every person is pulling the band back to a different point which will impact the force behind the projectile and change the point of impact. Also, every projectile is going to have a different POI. Furthermore, the dot will not adjust for distance, so your going to have to learn a specific projectiles trajectory, distance guaging, and Kentucky Windage well anyways. No need for high tech gadgets, since you'll have to learn the basics anyways.
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That's what I was thinkin. This one looks like it addresses the problem of different pull backs when aiming.

http://www.slingshots.com/html/sling-shot-fsx2000.html

I guess becoming accurate would hinge on having the same pullback and stop point every time, like archery.
 
My father's place backs onto a big field. Before her lost his sight he used to sit in a garden chair and pick off rats hat came out of the corn with a wrist slingshot. Plenty of practice needed but effective. He used steel balls at about 10m range.
 
Around here, hunting varmits with a slingshot is a bad idea. They tend to get annoyed and throw beer bottles at you.
 
I use a Marksman LaserHawk to provide an incentive for the Canada Geese to walk out of my yard back into the lake. I use steel shot because it has less impact than lead and have moved down from 3/8" to 1/4" for the same reason. I don't want to cause injury - I just want them to know my yard as The Place Of Pain. Keeping my grass cut short helps too as they can't resist coming up if the grass starts growing seeds. Right now the goslings haven't fledged so I give them all a free pass from the slingshot and just herd them all back into the water.
 
mycroftt said:
I use a Marksman LaserHawk to provide an incentive for the Canada Geese to walk out of my yard back into the lake. I use steel shot because it has less impact than lead and have moved down from 3/8" to 1/4" for the same reason. I don't want to cause injury - I just want them to know my yard as The Place Of Pain. Keeping my grass cut short helps too as they can't resist coming up if the grass starts growing seeds. Right now the goslings haven't fledged so I give them all a free pass from the slingshot and just herd them all back into the water.
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You can also use glass marbles to not badly hurt some small game. However, even these can badly injure if they strike the right/wrong body part.
 
I used to use ball bearings and/or old 45 ball ammo and musket ball ammo that I'd shot into my wood targets and then pryed out. I had a whole bucket of those old brass and lead bullets at one time.

When I hunted prarie dogs with my sling shot out in Arizona and New Mexico I got pretty good with it. Found out by using surgical tubing like we used in medical that I could up the pound pull of it too and when you buy that tubing in bulk rather than the ones at sporting good stores it saves you money. I never used anything else after that. I still have my old wrist rocket that I bought in the 70s from a Hecks department store when I was in my late teens. It still works great too. Just used it last night in fact when I hit a coon in the rump with an old 45 bullet to get it out of the cat food on my deck out back. I still got it! :D

STR
 
:eek: I think that beats all I ever heard! :eek:

The entire concept of using a slingshot is based on "instinctive" shooting, and such skill as is required is NOT enhanced by using lasers or any other high tech sighting systems. That's my two cents' worth on the subject anyway.

Maximus, your astonishment equals mine. :D
 
Dr. Mudd said:
:eek: I think that beats all I ever heard! :eek:

The entire concept of using a slingshot is based on "instinctive" shooting, and such skill as is required is NOT enhanced by using lasers or any other high tech sighting systems. That's my two cents' worth on the subject anyway.

Maximus, your astonishment equals mine. :D
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Yeah, but I wanna be able to knock a rats hat off right out the box. I'll work up to knockin the balls off a gnat later.
 
About twenty five years ago when I was a teenager, I remember seeing an ad with pic for a compound slingshot made by beeman. The wrist brace on it was rather long, and the bands attached at the bottom of the wrist brace (wrist brace was hollow on both sides) and ran up and around little pulleys at top of forks. It was billed as the "world's most powerful production slingshot" and was $69.99 I believe at the time. I didn't have the money to blow on that kind of thing at the time. Now that I do, I can't find one anywhere. Anybody seen one?
 
When I was a kid, my brother and I used to fill up plastic gallon milk jugs with taconite pellets (round iron ore) from the train tracks up the hill from my Grandfather's house in Duluth Minnesota. Made for perfect slingshot ammo. Now I gotta go dig up my old wrist-rocket! Don't have any more taconite pellets anymore though.:( I can attest to the killing power though, wacked a few tree rats in my day.
 
Well I used to hunt with a wrist rocket..... I pulled back on that tubing with all my might...... got the rabbit in my sights and Whamo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..... that tubing came flying off the wrist rocket and smacked my face silly. Ahhhhhhh!!!! man women and child...that hurt for a week. I don't know if the rabbit put the mojo on me or what but I have never hunted a rabbit or used a wrist rocket, sling shot since then. I got the rabbit mojo put on me.
 
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