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Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 2:25 pm
by the oncoming storm
With very little to do around here in terms of action, I am considering either making a wrist slingshot or sling for launching water balloons. Thoughts?

Re: Poll, Advice please

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 3:33 pm
by SEAL
I'm pretty sure you can throw a water balloon with greater ease and possibly the same distance as a slingshot. Any water balloon launching device should be able to hit like 250 feet at the very least; otherwise it isn't really worth using in my opinion.

Re: Poll, Advice please

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 3:40 pm
by the oncoming storm
I slung a stone 200+ with a short sling once range isn't as big a problem as accuracy with slings. slingshots on the other hand probably have equal range to throwing are easier to hit things with (assuming you Suck at throwing)

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:33 pm
by HBWW
A conventional slingshot seems pretty useless for water balloon launching. You need something at least as powerful as a bow, but even then, it's not going to be very easy. Our community has no history of making bows, so you may have to look to the Nerf community or others for that.

Edit: Should've said, "Our community has virtually no documented history of making bows."

I may try my hand at a low power pneumatic WBL. Ideally something that can be hand-pumped and still get better range than thrown balloons. WBL's have been a dead end in water warfare for two main reasons: Ammo inconsistency and the power required to launch one. To address the second issue, a lot of money would need to be thrown at the wall in high pressure systems and regulators, or at least for interchangable air tanks. Addressing the first issue is more difficult; I'm becoming more and more convinced that we need better munitions for better WBL's. It has to be consistent, more durable, and ideally self-containing. (Not require a sabot.) Unfortunately, there are no known means to manufacture something like that.

With a good air source and consistent munitions, we could have a good, albeit expensive solution to the severe rate of fire problem. Most bows have not proven to have the power needed, and slings require a lot of skill to have usable accuracy.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 11:32 pm
by zeda.beta
I've tried to make bows for water balloons, but it really just isn't worth it. Even with proper elastic you get ranges that are under 100 ft, and that just isn't worth it.

What other munitions would you be picturing for WBL's, as I have no idea what a substitute, safe munition would look like.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 9:32 am
by HBWW
It's just theoretical for now; something that inflates to a standard size (which may require special filling equipment or pre-filling) and upon inflation, would have an aerodynamic end and a special reinforced end for sealing with the barrel.

Unfortunately, we are very far off from such an option, so the most viable solution is improved sabot design and more standard filling techniques. (Even if it's as simple as filling balloons around a "guide" to ensure they fit.)

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:03 pm
by zeda.beta
I'm working on an improved sabot design idea that I had some years back, because I finally found the best way to make the cradle part. It should ensure that almost no balloons break, but the only problem is that it flies too far right now.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 3:02 pm
by the oncoming storm
**** this poll.

rope for a Sling is cheaper than whatever is needed for the alternative, 50lbs draw-weight slingshot

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 5:06 pm
by HBWW
I apologize for hijacking this thread into a discussion of advanced theoretical WBL's. =)

There's not much to vote for though. A slingshot isn't going to get you as much power as a bow (which, we still don't know if it's possible to make a bow with sufficient power), and a sling takes a ton of skill to use to any effective accuracy. Hitting someone with a water balloon from a sling is going to be far more difficult than what David did to Goliath in the legend.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 7:26 pm
by DX
It may be easy to sling rocks and to advance your skills doing so, but you will find that water balloons are not like rocks. The solid mass of a rock is what cranks up that centripetal force. With solid projectiles, the more force you can muster, the better they fly. But, water balloons are fragile, they break instead of fly further. If you get stronger/higher quality balloons, you don't need a sabot, and they will still break if ejected too fast, but you get the opposite problem that they don't break on contact.

My rule of thumb with water balloon weapons is that they need to fire at least 120ft to be effective. Any less than that and it becomes far better to throw by hand. The ROF issue is partly a legal one, a large bore air gun must be muzzle-loaded to escape being classed as a firearm and must separate the ammo components (projectile, shell/sabot, and propellant) in order to escape being classed as a destructive device. One of the greatest advantages water guns have over paintball, airsoft, and even Nerf is social acceptance in the highest amount of locations. Quite frankly, I don't want to jeopardize this advantage by using or promoting the use of regulated devices. As proven by St Johns Woods, run-ins with the police are perfectly possible, so when they happen, we want them to think our weapons are cool or at least in the harmless toy realm.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 9:07 pm
by HBWW
We need to lobby heavily to get that legal definition changed (perhaps to exclude any kind of pressurized plain air and only cover combustion, as well as very specific requirements on munitions to meet the definition), although at least that's so far the only innovation-around-bureaucracy crap that we have to deal with. *ahem NIC

In that case, looks like we're stuck with muzzle loading and HPA/regulator. Still, I'd prefer to talk to a legal expert to be sure that's the case even after all the debates we've had on the subject. Either way, the irony of it is that launchers would be more dangerous if we used very low calibers; low enough to pose no risk of meeting the DD definition.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2014 9:19 am
by marauder
zeda.beta wrote:I'm working on an improved sabot design idea that I had some years back, because I finally found the best way to make the cradle part. It should ensure that almost no balloons break, but the only problem is that it flies too far right now.
What kind of wbl do you have? I have some advanced sabot designs, but my first attempt at a wbl failed and it will be some time before I am able to start on another one.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2014 10:12 am
by HBWW
^ Both DX and I still conjecture that you probably installed the valve backwards. That's more of a mistake of incompletion than it is a failure.

I take that approach to a number of projects. If it doesn't work, that merely means it's incomplete, not a failure. I will not accept that label lol.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 7:56 am
by zeda.beta
I have a standard douchenator, 3 ft pc with a 5 ft barrel, a 3 ft barrel, and a soon to be finished dual 2 ft barrel, all with threads on the connection for fast swaps. So far I haven't had a problem with leaking through the threads, but that might change as the pressure is raised. I put my valve in backwards for the first pc lol, no idea why it didn't work until my local bike shop took a look at it and asked why I was using it to let air out.

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 10:56 am
by HBWW
I'm sure any of us would've asked the same question, had we seen it. :)

Re: Poll, Advice please - sling or wrist slingshot

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:55 am
by marauder
zeda.beta wrote:I have a standard douchenator, 3 ft pc with a 5 ft barrel, a 3 ft barrel, and a soon to be finished dual 2 ft barrel, all with threads on the connection for fast swaps. So far I haven't had a problem with leaking through the threads, but that might change as the pressure is raised. I put my valve in backwards for the first pc lol, no idea why it didn't work until my local bike shop took a look at it and asked why I was using it to let air out.
I think that happened to the WBL that I built too. Do you have it with you at school? BTW, since you are up in NY you should definitely link up with us for some wars.

Storm, why don't you try both and test them and then post results? That's how we make progress. No one else has done anything like this before, so you should definitely try out both.