I just had one of those Ideas. If you cut an inner tube in to a flat piece of rubber and laid it in the bottom of your tin then when the time came you could cut it in a spiral so the it left a cord that was a 1/4 inch thick and yea long to be used at a sling shot.

Did that make sense?

Scout,
Its a good idea, but, modern innertubes make really sorry slingshots. They just don't stretch enough. Chris

Don't know about using it as a catapult type sling due to the lack of stretch in the rubber but if you had done the necessary training ahead of time that little square of inner-tube could be combined with the paracord to make a really decent ancient bola type sling. Use the inner tube for the pouch, and the paracord or even just the strands from inside and your GTG. Of course the practice and training needed to be accurate with this type of sling is daily for a year or two - but heck it's fun to practice doing what David did to Goliath!

Well depending on the tubing. The stuff you use for aquariums (greenish haze on the tube) is really strong and powerful and I made sling shots out of that. But the new tubing that they use on IVs, and oxygen masks will not expand or stretch. Also there used to be yellowish tubes that were used for field work or enema kits (dont ask how I know that). They were my choice of materials for slingshot.

Matt

I also use that same yellowish "enema" tube for slingshots. I didn't know that was one of it's intended uses <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />. Yet another verstile piece of equipment to keep in the larger survival kits!

Most likely to be latex tubing, also works great to kill flies. I have seen it occasionally in some of the home improvement centers. Pete

Hereabouts you can get a good metal folding slingshot for under $9.00 USD, and an extra set of tubing with pouch for $2.27 USD, so wasting time with an unproven, unreliable product doesn't make sense. The weight is minimal and the size is not a consideration.

Be sure you practice a lot without bringing the pouch to your cheek as you do a bowstring, or you can lose an eye very quickly.

For survival, practice, and small game hunting, stones and gravel will suffice. To scare away bigger animals at a distance, !/4" or 3/8" steel balls to the nose and face area are a better bet than waving your arms and yelling if you allow them to get too close, assuming the first course of action, getting out of their way is not available.

Bountyhunter

When I was a young buck, I lived for a short time in an appartment next to a frat house in Madison, WI (on Langdon). One glorious spring afternoon, I was sitting on the window sill enjoying the beautiful weather and the view of the lake. The boys next door were having a party on the deck on top of their back porch. It was a good 50 feet or more from me and about 15 feet below me as the ground sloped downwards towards the lake.

The boys were hosting their parents at the party and brought out their homemade 3-man slingshot made from surgical tubing and a leather pouch. Two of the guys would hold each end of the doubled tubing and the third would load a water ballon and lean all the way back until he was horizontal on the ground. They were firing off at sailboats on the lake (boys will be boys). One of them noticed me sitting on my perch and motioned that they should target me. I brazenly took of my shirt and pushed out my chest, daring them to shot.

They did. And the ballon hurled towards me traveled so fast I had no time to react and moved even if I intended to. Smack! A hit dead center on my chest. Lucky for me the impact was realtively painless, although wet. I was amazed that their aim was so good. They obviously had been practicing, plus they were sober as their parents were there!

That was you? Sorry man. <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Matt

When I was a kid, an uncle who lived out in the country had an apple tree in the back yard that produced small, sour apples that he hated. They carpeted the yard and made it impossible for him to mow.

His solution was to set a vertical steel pipe in concrete in the ground, and make a LARGE slingshot with 3-foot bands, the stem of which fit in the pipe. With lots of kids around, there were never any apples in the yard for more than a day or so, no matter how many fell.

I've often wondered, as an adult, where they eventually came down. Most went so high you just lost sight of them...