The following project was based off of the sling design in the book The Sling located on the Resources page.

  I started this project with a piece of leather I bought from a craft store for about $9.  This piece of leather was about about 8 1/2” x 10 1/2”.  Pretty much about the size and shape of a sheet of normal paper.

  This is the piece of leather after the first cut.  The strip on the right is 3” wide by 10 1/2”

  This is after the second cut.  The 2 pieces on the right are each 3” x 5 1/4”.  With these measurements, there’s enough leather for 6 total sling pouches.

  The next step was to cut one of the pouches into a diamond shape.  The author of The Sling recommends cutting into more of an oval shape if you can, but states this is a valid shape.  I found it very easy to cut to shape into this shape with a sharp knife.

  This is a close up shot of the pouch after cutting the hole in the center to lower wind resistance and to help the ammunition stay seated in the pouch during the wind up and throw.  Kinda ragged because it was hard to cut the small hole accurately with the knife I was using.  If I had a leather punch of some sort, it would have been a much sharper cut.  The author also recommends poking more holes in the pouch to help lower wind resistance.  I tried out the sling after I made it without poking any other holes and it still can sling a rock pretty far.  Far enough that in a survival situation, it’d be more than enough to get within range of a rabbit, squirrel, or even geese or ducks.  With how hard an egg sized rock will hit, you could easily take out small game with this size sling.  With a bigger pouch and longer strings, with proper and accurate aim, wouldn’t shock me to see someone take down medium sized game, like a deer or coyote with one.

  And here’s a picture of the completed sling.  The strings are made out of our ever present parachute cord.  The stands are approximately 20” in length after taking into account the loop on one end (to loop over your middle finger on your throwing hand, and the knot on the other line (to allow you to hold and release with control while swinging the sling)

  That’s pretty much it.  I should have a section up shortly describing how to use it and my first few tries with it.  With just 2 practice sessions, each about 15 min each, I’m able to hit the side of a small barn (probably 20ft across) consistently from about 60 feet with egg sized rocks.  I’m using a side hand slinging method, which kinda resembles how a side handed pitcher in baseball throws a ball.  From that distance, from the time I release the stone, it travels in an almost flat trajectory that has maybe about 1 foot drop in that distance.  Since I’m focusing more on trying to get the stone to go in the right direction, I might be wrong in the amount of drop, but as I get more experience with it, I’ll update either this section, or more likely, the section I’m building to show how to use the sling.