[Dayhiker]

I have been shooting a lot of clay balls lately. Here is what I have discovered: The faster/more powerful a bandset is, the more erratically the balls fly. Conversely, the slower the flight, the straighter they fly.

I have this totally awesome slingshot I got in trade from Jmplsnt (on this forum). This thing is one of my very best shooters, and the rubber tube on it is amazing. It's a soft pull and doesn't zip the ammo out too fast, but it can still deliver a good wap! to the target. It is rigged in a style he calls "Gypsy" and is modeled after the way they do things in Arkansas, I think.
This slingshot is rigged with a large pouch for shooting stones, but shoots everything just as accurately as the carefully engineered ones as near as I can tell. I really love this fork and it is a serious contender for being my favorite.
A leather strip of shoe leather is held in place by windings of waxed dental floss, coated with super glue. The tubes are tied with the floss, too. I wish I knew the wood.
One of the most amazing things about the tubes to me is that this is the 3rd slingshot Jmplsnt has used it on, and I have at least 500-600 shots on it! Seems indestructible.

... Oh, yeah. This was supposed to be about clay ammo, huh?. . .
Well, when I shoot the clay with Thera Gold, Thin latex flats, or 4-strand chinese tubes, they are only accurate out to 10 yards at most. But when I shoot with the BadBoy I can double that distance and shoot just as straight. It's gotta be the slower flight.

The BadBoy + clay balls = A lot of fun!

 

[dgui]

Dont know about clay balls but I do Like the looks of that Gnarly Shooter .

 

[snakeshack]

That gives me an idea. I'm going to the beach and looking for some forks from the drift wood that washes up!

 

[Sam]

OK guys I've just blown the dust off my boilie rolling kit, for does of you who aren't familiar it's a simplistic device to used quickly and efficiently roll multiple 14mm, spherical baits simultaneously, the baits are then boiled to harden them so that they're suitable for fishing hence the name 'boilie'. Any I'm interested in trying to use to roll some clay, what do you think?

Here's a picture of one, to give you an idea of what they look like...

 

[ZDP-189]

"Daddy, do you lick your balls?"

"I couldn't possibly reach!"

"Even I can reach them up there on the side-board. I think they're great. Good job!"

"Oh. Yes, I do like my clay balls.

It seems my plan of using child labour has backfired. I have a few dozen clay balls drying ready for the kiln, but the majority of my block of clay morphed into a rabbit holding a carrot, a duck with no beak, a horse that looks like a dog, a heart shaped dish, a scroll with a poem on it about a wiggly-worm and a strange thumb pot with four nipples

, all of which were more meritous to a young girl than a pile of round identically sized clay balls, no matter how much Daddy likes them.

 

[Sam]

"Daddy, do you lick your balls?"

"I couldn't possibly reach!"

"Even I can reach them up there on the side-board. I think they're great. Good job!"

"Oh. Yes, I do like my clay balls.

It seems my plan of using child labour has backfired. I have a few dozen clay balls drying ready for the kiln, but the majority of my block of clay morphed into a rabbit holding a carrot, a duck with no beak, a horse that looks like a dog, a heart shaped dish, a scroll with a poem on it about a wiggly-worm and a strange thumb pot with four nipples

, all of which were more meritous to a young girl than a pile of round identically sized clay balls, no matter how much Daddy likes them.

Lol autofellatio jokes aside, that's a cute story.

Maybe their favourite brand of Ice-cream would prove more tempting?

 

[Bill Hays]

Yeah, I was going to suggest using a bait roller too... good call Sam!
You can get a real nice one of those at: http://www.wackerbaits.com/sf/contents/en-us/d111.html $57.49 for the large version that can produce thousands of perfect round clay balls in an hour or for the smaller/portable version $22 plus shipping isn't to bad.
I've done a little sculpting in my life and so I know a little about curing clay.... you won't need a kiln for this... just put them in your oven for 90 minutes at 500 degrees... and you'll be set!

No matter how well you think you're rolling the balls by hand you're going to have slightly different sizes, weights and symmetry.... rolling them out using a machine is for sure the way to go...
But if you do insist on doing them by hand.... First at least roll out little sausage snakes, that are as even end to end as possible... lay a ruler next to them and cut it into even pieces, then roll into balls with a bit of water on your hands.

 

[jmplsnt]

ZDP, that's probably the most entertaining and enjoyable thing I've ever read in a forum, ever! The "duck without a beak" is priceless!

This slingshot is made from blackjack oak. This is the proper, scientific name for this species and not some ******* colloquial name. It has a very dark red wood but normally the logs are hollow and worthless for lumber. Thus, it's despised by people where I live.

I call the leather tabs attachment "gypsy" as this is how slingshots made in this manner are described on ebay uk. I have apicture library with 3,000 slingshot images minded from all over the interenet for review purposes when making my projects and to keep track of them I have to have some organisation. So, I have named them "gypsy" though I think you would see this style all over the world if you looked hard enough. I even have a few pictures of the flip-style Guatemalan forkless zoomorphics fitted with leather tabs. I like this attachment as it allows the use of tubes or my favored chained rubber bands of which I will speak of more in the near future. They serve to make a slingshot flatter and fit in the pocket better than tied-on bands, at least for me.

Finally, thanks Dayhiker for your kind words about my work. I view it as a good trade as I have a great slingshot from you as well.

 

[BaneofSmallGame]

I'd like to hear more thoughts about shooting, and making clay balls for you DH, and others....

I'm starting to get interested in the prospects of this ammo...

I just found this deal on "Amazon" : http://www.amazon.co...99464759&sr=8-3

I figured that's a pretty good price, you can get a LOT of ammo out of 25lbs. Yet, I want to know if they work as well as marbles, its hard to beat 1 dollar for 100 of them.

Just wondering, I don't like starting new threads if I don't have to, just bumping an oldy but goody...

Let me know what you think, I'm open too all thoughts...

Cheers - John

 

[Dayhiker]

John, you just reminded me: I have a big hunk of clay sitting in the closet, I hope it didn't dry up! I highly recommend the clay balls. You can roll a nice big supply of them in a couple of hours. Like stones, you can't depend on their flying straight. So in my opinion they are no good for honing your sharpshooting skills. But they are a lot of fun anyway.

Now if you take Bill Hays's route and use some sort of machine, you will have something like a bunch of marbles to shoot, which will be good for target training, I presume. I wanted to go that route at first, and thought I was buying a boily machine over the interwebs, but it turned out that all I bought was a "table" that produces uniform 3/8-inch rods of whatever that boily stuff is. Alas, however, it doesn't do the same thing with clay. The clay is too sticky and all you get is a mess, even when you use a lot of water to lubricate. Anyway, I gave up on it and just roll by hand -- it adds a fun challenge to shooting, and at short ranges (10-15 yards) you can tear up a soda can in no time.

Okay, gotta go check that lump of clay now.

P.S. That blackjack catty is still one of my very favorite shooters.

 

[dgui]

Clay balls just might end up being too sticky. How bout kiln dried clay balls? They might shatter blast on impact, that would be a nice sight to see.

 

[Dayhiker]

The kind of air dry clay I use does just that. It dries very hard, Darrell. And when you hit something it leaves a little puff. But some of it does stich to the concrete wall which you can rinse off with a garden hose. The upside is no ricochet. But it will ricochet of a branch or something in the woods. I made a video of shooting at a target drawn with a piece of chalk. Good because you can see your groupings or whatever. Also, they will penetrate and sometimes pass through a soda can.



Ha! this was some bad shooting with a brand new slingshot and bandset, but it gets the point across.

 

[dgui]

The kind of air dry clay I use does just that. It dries very hard, Darrell. And when you hit something it leaves a little puff. But some of it does stich to the concrete wall which you can rinse off with a garden hose. The upside is no ricochet. But it will ricochet of a branch or something in the woods. I made a video of shooting at a target drawn with a piece of chalk. Good because you can see your groupings or whatever. Also, they will penetrate and sometimes pass through a soda can.



Ha! this was some bad shooting with a brand new slingshot and bandset, but it gets the point across.

Very Nice, I like. Good grouping. Does the clay tend to load up on the pouch?

 

[Dayhiker]

No. Not at all. It leaves just a slight bit of dust. But it don't load up at all. I buy mine from Michael's in a box about a cubic foot in size. I once figured out the approximate cost per shot and I think it came out to about 0.6 cents. Really cheap.

 

[dgui]

No. Not at all. It leaves just a slight bit of dust. But it don't load up at all. I buy mine from Michael's in a box about a cubic foot in size. I once figured out the approximate cost per shot and I think it came out to about 0.6 cents. Really cheap.

Do you mean 6 mills per shot since there are 10 mills to a penny?

 

[Dayhiker]

yep

 

[dgui]

"Daddy, do you lick your balls?"

"I couldn't possibly reach!"

"Even I can reach them up there on the side-board. I think they're great. Good job!"

"Oh. Yes, I do like my clay balls.

It seems my plan of using child labour has backfired. I have a few dozen clay balls drying ready for the kiln, but the majority of my block of clay morphed into a rabbit holding a carrot, a duck with no beak, a horse that looks like a dog, a heart shaped dish, a scroll with a poem on it about a wiggly-worm and a strange thumb pot with four nipples

, all of which were more meritous to a young girl than a pile of round identically sized clay balls, no matter how much Daddy likes them.

I think I'm interested in the 4 nipples.