Letters to the Editor
Dear Slingshots
R Us,
I have a Marksman wrist rocket slingshot (the fixed model,
30.06). It shoots pretty well, although I haven't shot much with it. It does a good job on
pest birds, but would this wrist rocket be effective on larger pests such as raccoons and
possums? Any information you could give me would be appreciated. Thanks for your help!
Seth
Dear Seth,
Most of my shooting has been at targets and pop cans. I have hunted bullfrogs,
carp, and rabbits with slingshots.
I know people who have hunted larger game and pests such as raccoons
and possums, To be effective on these larger pests, you would need to be using heavy bands
and using large ammo such as .375 or .45 caliber lead or steel shot. Marbles are totally
ineffective on this type of pest, serving only to antagonize them.
Check my website for a list of current slingshot companies. I will be
adding more as I obtain current information on other companies.
Thanks for your message.
Aim High & Shoot Straight.
Kent Shepard
I was browsing around your website and many of
your sections are under construction. I am in need of water balloon launchers. I was
wondering if you carry any. If you could e-mail me back any information I would be
appreciative. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Hi LooneToons,
At the present time, I am not selling any slingshots. I may not
actually go into the business of selling slingshots but just be sharing information about
how to obtain them.
I do have a three-person slingshot used to launch water balloons in my
collection. It was produced by:
Winger Sports, LTD.
1306 W. County Rd. F. Suite 110
Arden Hills, MN 55112
612-633-4016
I bought it at a military surplus store. I have observed ads for
this type of slingshot in many magazines and they appear in many different mail order
catalogs.
I also have a one-person water balloon catapult produced by:
Slingking, Inc.
P.O. Box 366
Houston, Texas 77001-0366
Many sporting goods stores carry this slingshot.
There are many "toy" water balloon launchers on the market,
but Im not sure if these would meet your needs.
In the middle 80's at the Summer Nationals
Slingshot Tournament, we had a 10-to12 foot tall slingshot that we used in the
tournament to launch water balloons at silhouettes of prehistoric creatures. It took a
team of 3 or 4 people to shoot the slingshot at the silhouettes at a distance of 30 to 50
yards.
Kent Shepard
If anyone has any further information concerning water balloon slingshots, I would like to hear from you and pass on the information.
Hi
I just acquired a slingshot and was wondering if you would know
anything about it. I was told it is old but don't know for sure. It is made of what I
think is aluminum and is very small. It is marked Milbro. Seems to take a tube type of
band which I would like to find as it is missing. There are holes in the arms, not slots.
Any thoughts?
Howard Cowell
Hi Howard,
Even though I do have a Milbro slingshot in my collection I do not know
a lot about it. I think it was available in the 70's and was made in Great Britain.
Black solid square rubber straps powered the Milbro. There was a type
of wood washer or plug to hold the straps in the slingshot.
This slingshot belongs to a group of slingshots that I call the
"thumb-busters". They are designed to hold with your thumb up as a brace at the
top of the handle at the fork. I have always felt when shooting one o f these types of
slingshots that I was aiming at my thumb.
Besides the Milbro in this category, I also have the Lambert slingshot
( left), Huck Finn (center), Warden (right), and two others I do not have any information
on. One of the unknowns has a leather thumb protector on it.
Kent Shepard
Anyone have any more information?
Some News: This year was the 39th year of slingshot shooting at Multi-Lakes. We had sixteen four person teams (64 individual shooters) finish this year. As you know, Blue is in Pound, VA. He was up last November to visit his daughter and stopped in at the Club to say hello. He mentioned that you had moved, but didn't say where.
Bob Slais, who attended all of your summer nationals, did not shoot this year. He just retired and is in the process of moving to northern Michigan. He and Linda will be missed after shooting for more that twenty-five years in our league.
Our most senior member (in shooting time, not age) is Jerry Beagle. He started shooting at Multi-Lakes in 1960, the first year of the league, and has been shooting every year since, except for the four years he took off to go soldiering in Vietnam.
Other long time shooters are Frank and Nancy Willits. They have been on the league for more than thirty years now. Frank shoots with a forked stick and maintains a 35 average (out of a possible 50). Excellant for that type of shooting. You met Frank at the Winter Nationals. His son Andrew is taking over as league chaiman next year. We have four families with one or more second generation shooters.
Denzil Elliot, who you met as our official scorekeeper at the Winter Nationals, passed away about five years ago. He was buried with his favorite slingshot (a Milligan) and a handful of steel balls in his vest pocket. We had another Milligan gold plated and it now hangs on our club house wall in his honor.
Liz and I (we were at your second and third Summer Nationals) are in our twentieth year with the league and still enjoying it.
Luck: As I said I'm glad you are out there promoting slingshot. I have looked on the Web for slingshot stuff often, and found very little. After reviewing the pictures, clippings and stories from the past at our banquet last night, I was convinced that someone (me, by default) needs to take some time, put some things together and publish them on the Web. I really don't have the time to do it and am now relieved that you are. If there is anything I can do to help let me know. I have been programming and building computers on my day job for thirty years now. I have managed to accumulated a little knowledge about them and the Web during that time. If you are interested in the clippings about Blue or any of the pictures, let me know. I can scan them and email them to you.
Andy Willits, our new chairman is very much interested in reviving some sort of tournament here at Multi-Lakes and a lot of us would like to go to any others we can find out about. If you can put something together let us know. Our biggest concern is finding where all the slingshot shooters are. Do you know if the Texas group is still active? Are there any other groups out there. A tournament cannot be a success unless it is well attended. Perhaps your Web site will bring some shooters out of the woodwork.
I am sending by post $10 for a subscription to Slingshot Magazine. Although the league is over and I won't see everyone until this October, I will let as many know as I see about it. You should be getting a few more subscriptions. I hope this letter finds you and your family well. Liz and I have fond memories of the Toulon shoots and the hospitality you and your wife showed us at the get together at your house afterward.
Don
Hello Don,
It's great to hear from you. I too have a lot of fond memories of
the Multi-Lakes gang at both the SNST and your tournament.
I would love to have all the information about Blue that you could send me. As you
probably saw I will have an article in my magazine about slingshot shooters. It will be no
surprise to you that Blue will be the first person to appear in the magazine.
I retired from teaching in November and plan to spent a lot of time
promoting and having fun with slingshots. I am thinking about bringing back the Summer
Nationals Slingshot Tournament here where I live now. It might not be this summer though.
My biggest job right now is making a data base of my collection which
numbers between 400 and 500 different slingshots.
My oldest Son, Kevin, is building his own internet business and that is how I am getting
my own website going.
I would be excited if someone would like to submit an article about the
Multi-Lakes league, tournaments, and shooters for my publication, Slingshot the Magazine.
I have been out of contact with almost everyone for the last few years. I am
slowly making connections again. I do not know about the Texas group but maybe I will be
able to contact them.
Keep in touch!
Aim High & Shoot Straight
Kent
Recognize anyone in this picture?---------->
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 1999
Subject: Can you help?
Hi!
I've been searching everywhere trying to find a Wham-o slingshot for an old friend. I've
had absolutely no luck at all. I don't have any idea of what it even looks like - your
photo (#2) that includes one will not load from your site. Do you have one you might be
willing to part with, or can you possibly steer me to someone who has one for sale? I'm
sorry, I don't want to be a pain, but even the slightest bit of help would be greatly
appreciated! This has become a quest of epic proportions - LOL!
Thanks!
Jaxx
-- "Music was his life, and music was his
soul,
He did not know how well he sang,
it just made him whole..." - Harry Chapin
Dear Jackie,
First the good news! I do have a couple of extra Wham-O slingshots. Maybe the bad news.
I want to trade them for a slingshot that I do not have in my collection. I'm not sure of
their value except in a trading situation. I do have a very old Wham-O that is in the
orginial box that I gave a buck for at a gun show. I would not part with it for anything,
but it's not one of the ones I have to trade.
I would be willing to give you the slingshot now with the idea of providing me with a suitable trade in the future.
I too am a big fan of Sean Connery. I began reading the James Bond novels in the middle 60's and then saw the first three Bond movies on the same weekend. That was all it took to hook me on Sean. After seeing "The Rock" my oldest son asked if I thought Sean's charater was James Bond. I immediatly rented the movie and watched it again with the idea the he was James Bond. This gave a whole new twist to the movie.
I hope I have been of some help to you.
Aim High & Shoot Straight!
Kent Shepard
Slingshot the Magazine
PO Box 128
210 Columbia
Chambersburg, IL 62323
217-327-4352
Email:paladin@slingshots.net
p.s. A subscription to "Slingshot the Magazine" might be a nice gift to your friend.
Kent,
Congratulations on your web site. I was guided to it by an acquaintance
who knew I would be interested. I've been making and shooting slingshots since sometime in
the '60s. As a child, I was fascinated by the stories my father told of his depression-era
boyhood; ie slingshots and rubber-band guns. When I was about 7 or 8, he made me my first
slingshot. We jigsawed it from the end of a pine apple crate, and used bands cut from an
inner tube. Didn't work so well, and he noted that the inner-tube materials just weren't
what they used to be "before the war". Then we discovered a source of large
"packing" rubber bands and my shooting improved overnight.
Sometime around then, we saw our first Wham-O Sportsman advertised in
the back of Popular Science for $1.50. I dreamed about it all winter, then one day my
father called home and said he bought one in a sporting-goods store downtown. The city
buses have never run so slowly! To this day Dad recalls seeing my face in the window from
two blocks down the street.
The Wham-O had extremely lively rubber, and my shooting went up another
notch. It also seemed to have built-in obsolescence - the slots in the forks would saw
through the rubber at the attachment points no less than two times per week. Of course I
couldn't afford to replace assemblies that often, so I learned to shoot with shorter and
shorter rubber!
When I discovered latex tubing, I was in heaven. By then I was 13 or 14
years old, and had been making slingshots for myself and friends since I was around 10. We
never left home without them. School was a 2-mile walk through the woods, and I took a
slingshot and ammo with me every morning. I'd hide it at the edge of the woods, go to
classes, then pick it up at the end of the day to keep me safe on the long walk home. My
friends and I hunted birds, frogs, and squirrels at every opportunity, plus water
moccasins when we went to the lake.
By the time I was in high school, I had established myself as a local
"expert" on construction and usage. I had been casting my own half-inch ammo on
the kitchen stove for several years, and practicing on swinging targets in the backyard
with a blanket for a backstop.
I was an adult before I got another store-bought slingshot, a
non-folding Saunders wrist-braced model. I had grown to consider my "personal
models" so far superior to the old Wham-O's that I just hadn't considered shooting
anything else. I liked everything about the Saunders except for the pouch. It was one of
the "self-centering" varieties made of flexible plastic with raised nibs in the
middle to center the shot. Not a bad idea in itself, but this pouch had heavy
molded-plastic end extensions to which the rubber was attached by the so-called
"Chinese handcuff" method. This unnecessary mass not only robbed efficiency, but
it hurt like hell if it rapped on the knuckles of your stock hand. Once this pouch was
discarded in favor of a traditional piece of leather, the Saunders became my weapon of
choice. The self-centering plastic pouch was no great loss, as I had been making
self-centering pouches from leather for years. I'd just trim them to an hourglass shape,
the center section being only wide enough to accomodate my lead-ball ammo. The ammo had to
be centered, because there was nothing left but the center. I'd also wet the pouch and use
a rubber band to tie it around a ball while it dried to shape.
Fast-forward another twenty years and here I am, still playing with
slingshots! The Saunders is long gone, lost off the back of my motorcycle on a trip
through the fields. I've gone back to more "traditional" models carved from tree
forks. When I travel, I always have a slingshot in my luggage. Although I don't practice
much anymore, I'm still good enough to feel far more secure in a strange town with a
slingshot inside my jacket. When I travel overseas, I carry rubber and a pouch and look
for a tree fork once I get settled in the hotel. Then I give the weapon away before I head
back to the airport.
Good luck with your enterprise! I didn't realize there were so many
adults that actually cared about slingshots. If I'd known about shooting contests being
held back in the '70s, you can bet I'd have been a participant.
best regards,
Marty Jones
Dear Marty,
I really enjoyed reading your letter about your experiences with slingshots. I had my first home-made slingshot in the middle 50's but with the straps cut out of the black rubber innertubes and shooting rocks or marbles. The accuracy was very bad and I lost interest and just shot my bow and arrow. It wasn't until the late 60's that I purchased a commercial slingshot and began to really enjoy shooting a slingshot. In 1975 Rodney Wolf introduced me to shooting with rubber bands and I still use them for much of my shooting.
I will be including your letter in Slingshot the Magazine in the Letters to the Editor column.
I am starting to work on plans to hold the Summer Nationals Slingshot Tournament next summer.
Aim High & Shoot Straight
Kent Shepard
Hello, Mr. Shepard,
My name is Harry Bruss and I am one of the Co-chairmen of the
Multi-Lakes Slingshot League. I will share with Andy Willetts who Don Hilton mentioned in
his recent letter to you. Don shared a copy of a print-out from your web-site with Vern
Rederstorf, who is our out-going chairman. As Don said. Multi-Lakes has had a Slingshot
league since 1960, so next fall we will have our 40th anniversery season. I haven't been
around quite that long, having started in 1989-90, with next season being my third as
co-chairman.
Vern also shared with us a letter he received from John Cryderman just
yesterday. John, you likely know, makes and sells Boomerangs from his place his workshop
in Chatham, Ontario, Canada and is also interested in slingshots. He says he is compiling
information on slingshots "including all volumes of 'Modern Catapultry'".
Perhaps the co-incidental timing of all this is evidence that "reviving"
interest in slingshots is on the right track. The fact that a number of stores still sell
a considerable number of slingshots ought to illustrate that there ARE shooters out there,
if you can find them.
We at the Multi-Lakes Conservation Association Slingshot League
certainly wish you the best of luck and all success with your new Magazine. I intend to
subscribe, for sure!|
Again, good luck,
Harry
Dear Harry,
Thanks for your letter! I hope more of the Multi-Lakes Shooters will
get in touch. I also hope they have shorter Email Addresses.
As I told Don, I really enjoyed the two tournaments I attended at Multi-Lakes and was very
pleased with all the Mutli-Lakes people that came to my tournament. They really added to
the success of the SNST and we had more fun because of them.
Yes I've been contacted by John Cryderman and will be sending him a lot
of slingshot information for his book. I recently received one of his boomerangs and it
looks too great to throw.
Please share my website and magazine with everyone. The success of my
magazine will allow me to do even more with slingshots than I have in the past.
Please keep me informed of the Multi-Lakes Conservation Slingshot
Association events. I will certainly include the information in Slingshot the Magazine.
I hope you have a 40th slingshot tournament. I would want to be part of
that.
Thanks again for writing!
Aim High & Shoot Straight.
Kent Shepard