¯ Tom was discussing "Armed And Dangerous" with Wayne. ®
WT> I recently made a comment on another echo concerning the use of
WT> "field expedient weaponry", and said that what the average
WT> pissed-off America could come up with in the way of "kitchen
WT> table" weapons if he was suddenly thrust into a civil war
WT> situation boggles the mind.
TG¯        Boy that's for sure.  Did you know that if you followed
TG¯King David's lead, got about 4 feet of leather shoe string with a
TG¯pocket in the middle and used a few good sized ball bearings, you
TG¯can hurl that thing at a velocity approaching Civil War Rifle
TG¯Balls?  It's true.  I tried it.  Far too dangerous to encourage.
I doubt if you can get a ball bearing moving that fast out of a
sling.  A Civil War rifled musket with a heavy charge of "patent"
black powder could get a .54 to .58 caliber Minie bullet well into
the 2,000+ fps range which is somewhere around twice the speed of
sound.  In order to get a projectile moving that fast out of a
sling, you'd first need to whirl the sling at a speed equaling the
muzzle velocity of a Civil War rifle.  If you did, you would hear a
constant sonic boom from the sling breaking the sound barrier, and
there would be a definite "crack" along the flight path of the
projectile from the shock wave generated in super-sonic flight.
TG¯        Maybe we could have a substitute weapon of the week
TG¯thread.
I don't know.  Maybe that would be a topic that would be better
posted to the "Militia" Echo...
                              \x/7
.45 ACP:  ONE-HUNDRED years of successful practical testing!
... Bearing arms beats bearing my heart in the ICU!
---
 * ¯ NRA Life Member, 1972 ® *
---------------