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+---- Thread: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" (/showthread.php?tid=6055)
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Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - CharlesHarris - 24 September 2013
Memories of Rabbit Stew
When I was a kid growing up in Northern Virginia in the days “before the beltway,†we boys learned to build and use the lowly “beanshooter†or “bean-flipâ€Â. Our slingshots (or catapults, as you call them in UK) were cut from the crotch of a dogwood tree, slung with natural gum latex rubber bands cut from bike inner tubes or 3/8 surgical tubing bound to the upright forks with braided nylon fishing line or dental floss, then varnished. I still have mine, which has taken lots of rabbits and small game for the pot. The mere thought of rabbit stew with Southern milk gravy and hot biscuits warms my heart after all these years.
It was Dad’s rule that boys could not hunt unsupervised with a gun until old enough to get a driver’s license, and drive to town on their own without an adult. (I still think that is a good rule). At 16 in the 1960s we could buy .22 shells for $0.78 per box, if we drove to the hardware store ourselves, carrying the required note from Dad stating that it was OK, and we used our own money. but .22 rifles are a story for another time, maybe...
Dried green peas, or tiny round creek pebbles were our practice ammunition, all that was allowed by Dad for use by boys below the age of 12. At age 12 we graduated to glass marbles, because they flew more true and hit harder, but we had to buy them out of our allowance. As teenagers, after we had proven our ability to “kill rabbits with a cat’seye†we were entrusted with cast lead 00 buckshot with strong admonition from Dad that this was hunting ammunition, not for undisciplined shooting. Practice at a backstop was OK, but no random fooling around!
Dad had helped feed his family with a bean flip during the Great Depression in rural West Virginia, near where I live now. Buckshot cast in the barn over a Coleman stove was our preferred, hard hitting and effective slingshot hunting ammo. We mostly hunted rabbits in Mom's garden, less often the raccoons attacking our garbage cans behind the back porch at night or groundhogs whenever we could “Indian-up†on one along our fence and wood line.
As kids we were ate what we killed, and learned to prepare wild game for Mom’s stew pot. But times have changed. Kids today think that hamburger grows from a seed planted under the plastic film of the Styrofoam meat tray in the Food Lion. Few kids own slingshots, let alone make their own! Aren’t those something made in China?
Many urban areas in the US restrict sale of “wrist rockets†because they are often used as “gang weapons.†I expect that they do in UK also.
But, in hard times you can do much worse than to make your own catapult or slingshot. With practice you can really feed yourself with it. To carry a “loaded†slingshot in your overalls back pocket so that it is handy for a fast shot at Mr. Wabbit (with practice you can draw and shoot a soup can at 20 feet in 2 seconds) a single glass marble or 00 buckshot, is centered in the leather pouch, which is LIGHTLY greased with Vaseline, retained by a rubber band doubled and tucked snugly around the pouch. When the slingshot is drawn and released, the rubber band discards, sending your buckshot or marble on its merry way.
“Bunny wabbit with biscuits tonite Mom!â€Â
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - bigpaul - 24 September 2013
most of us BRITS have a catapult stashed away somewhere.
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - Lightspeed - 24 September 2013
My old cat is getting on for its half century and still going strong ( Just like Trigg's Broom)
Mines taken its toll on rather a lot of wild life and is a tool I will always keep at hand.
I have never seen the elastic band trick though Charlie. That's a new one for me. I'll give it a go.
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - Highlander - 24 September 2013
Cats, are at least one of the few un-restricted `weapons` that we can buy in the UK, so I am sure that most of us have at least one of them.
I also remember making my own on the farm when I was a kid, we all had them, and would use them against each other using plums or damsons,....the devils we were... lol
Of course for hunting we used ball bearings [ from wheel bearings ]....we got from the local garage
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - CharlesHarris - 24 September 2013
My friend Mikey was a helicopter crew chief in Vietnam. He usually had either a .45 or an M16 close by, but being a true Arkansas country boy, he habitually carried his Whamo slingshot in his overalls pocket, keeping a handful of 10mm ball bearings from the engine repair shop tpo amuse himself.
He often worked on aircraft at night close to the perimeter fence and any unfamiliar noises were spooky. When hearing suspicious sounds too close for comfort he would "recon by bearing" hurling a ball in the direction of the noise. This usually ran off the water buffalo or whatever. There was always the lurking fear of enemy sappers cutting through the wire, but the last thing you wanted to do was fire a shot and have every machinegun having pre-registered fires set along the perimeter fence to be searching and traversing around your position!
One night he heard a noise and loosed a ball, the noise persisted and he hurled another, then heard a grunt and silence. He went back to work. The next day they found a sapper with a hole through his head hung up in the wire.... The security team was puzzled, "the shot must have come from a long way off, nobody heard it, and the bullet didn't exit his head, fellow was just unlucky I guess?"
Mikey kept whistling and went back to work.
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - MoleTrapper - 29 December 2013
I did not realize until earlier how much the humble catty had moved on! There is a great forum called the slingshot forum, and there's some great YouTube stuff, particularly by a German sounding guy.
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - CharlesHarris - 30 December 2013
There is a YouTube video of the German fellow injuring hjmself when a large ballbearing rebounded off a champagne bottle and struck him.in the forehead. Fortunately the gentleman had the thick skull and sloped forehead of his Neanderthal ancestors, and while he was obviously in great pain and bled heavily, the glancing blow saved his life. Had it struck an inch or so lower he may have been killed.
The moral, fire test shots through a barricade and wear a riot helmet with full facial impact protection!
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - Mortblanc - 30 December 2013
OK, that made me squirt Pepsi out my nose!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YleZvTSDC6s
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - MoleTrapper - 30 December 2013
Struth, wish I'd never looked that one up!, he's bleeding like a stuck pig.
On the other , goes to show what a useful bit of kit they are.
RE: Catapult, aka Slingshot or "Bean Shooter" - Timelord - 31 December 2013
Use lead soft shot/ball instead of the lighter steel and the damage inflicted will be significantly higher. It will probably be easier to obtain lead and it is easy to melt into a ball or oval bullet shape which is more efficient. Expediently the lead could just be shaved or cut into small pieces and molded or hammered into shape.
There is a reason most small arms projectiles are lead and not steel. TL.