NR, the band is more important than the frame. Asking what is best, is like asking what is the best gun. You will get a lot of different answers to that. I can safety say, that a small and simple design is the way to go. Nothing that controversial there.
I'll get onto bands.
(25 June 2012, 22:31)Timelord Wrote: I have one of those legendary black widow types but I am thinking a smaller non wrist strap type, that can easily be concealed and brought out of the pocket straight into firing mode may be the best option. It would want to have none of those angular fashion lines and to not be too spindly like some. Steel frame is good and wood is also if strong enough. fORGET THE SOLID ALLOY JOBS AS THEY WEILL BE TOO HEAVY.
I still have my old Black Widow that I had as a kid, it is now on VERY strong theraband black tubular, for firing heavy lead balls.
I used to have one of the "solid alloy jobs" and you are right... it was an overpriced turd. It went in the bin.
I also use a small simple stainless steel pocket catapult, that I have fitted a double loop of long Theravada gold for shooting mid sized ammo butterfly style. I drilled a place for a couple of emergency BBs inside the wooden grip... mainly because I thought that would be cool.
This simple stainless job I would say is the most practical type for a survival catapult. The classic old Black Widow works very well with an upgraded band though.
The band is the most important bit... it does all the work. You only need very strong bands for heavy ammunition. Strong bands don't move faster, they just hurl bigger lumps at that speed... kind of like having more torque. So unless you have a lot of.55 lead balls about, a medium band is best, like theraband gold, as these tend to be fast and accurate. Heavy bands sacrifice accuracy a bit. Multiple thinner bands give better fps, but have a very short life (as with tapered bands), so not so good in a survival situation.