The Sling Shot

 

When I was a young man I sometimes had to improvise to keep up with neighborhood kids. I developed and made my own hunting weapon that ended up being more accurate and more powerful that theirs. Here’s the story.

 

The Sling Shot

 

When I was about 10 years old, my Mom would not let me have a BB gun because she was afraid I would put my eye out or someone else’s eye out with it. Most of the other kids had BB guns and would go hunting house sparrows together in the canyons around our area. I was determined to find me a hunting weapon I could use to go sparrow hunting with the boys.

 

I started making sling shots. I would find a branch off of a tree that was forked and formed a Y and cut it off. At first I would find the biggest rubber bands I could find and a small leather pouch and tie the rubber bands to the Y ends and the pouch. I would find some small rocks to shoot. I had many failures. The rubber bands would break and slap me in the face, the Y branches would break off because they were not strong enough, and the odd shaped rocks would curve off target because they weren’t round enough.

 

Here’s a couple of early versions that weren’t so good.

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I kept building better models and in 6 months I had developed the perfect sling shot. I would find a very sturdy forked stick to use for the Y. About 3/8 inch down from the top of each fork of the Y, I would carve a 1/8 incn deep notch about 1/4 inch wide all around the circumference of each one. I went to the drug store and bought two pieces of 3/8 inch surgical rubber hose one foot long and some heavy nylon twine. I took an old boot and cut a 1 inch wide by 2 inch long strip of heavy leather and punched a small hole in each end with my Dads belt punch..I then stretched the end of the surgical rubber pieces around the notches I had cut and tied them off with 40 wraps each. Then I slipped the other end of the surgical rubber through the small hole in the leather with slick side in and tied each one off with 40 wraps of the nylon twine, and the perfect sling shot was born. I had been in the Popular Supply hardware store in Borger and talked my mother in to buying me a bag of 3/8″ stainless steel ball bearings under the pretense I would play with them like marbles. Now I was in business.

 

I had created the perfect weapon for a 10 year old. With stainless steel ball bearing ammunition, I could hit the bullseye nearly every time.

 

 

 

I wore two or three of those master piece sling shots out practicing with round rocks until I was a really good shot. My mission was complete. I had a much more powerful weapon than the BB Gun and my accuracy was just as good. After a while I started carving the sling shot handles out of hard wood, and I had a pretty cool weapon to carry around. I carried that sling shot with me every time I left the house for a few years until my Granddad gave me his 22 rifle.

 

 

With the hand carved hardwood handle, the Billy Ray Sling Shot was a mean looking weapon. I carried that thing everywhere I went. Nobody messed with Billy Ray.

 

 

 

I could hit a squirrel between the eyes at forty yards with my hand carved home made sling shot. Just call me Bulls Eye Billy. Yes, that’s another one of those Mom made shirts.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading The Sling Shot,
Bill