Until recently I made this with wooden beads on the release rather than knots. While recently slinging some rocks into a local river, I lost all three beads on a throw. They were wooden beads so breaking is unlikely, maybe they got over the figure 8 stopper knot. Whatever happened it was weird! My first thought was to just do a larger stopper knot, but then after tying the single strand turks head (ABOK #545 p. 90) I realized that three of these in series would make a great release grip; better than beads. Just before release there is a tremendous force on the release, if you let go early you have an errant throw and could kill someone or something!! Here are a few photos showing how I plan to make it from now on: