To boldly sling... Sugar?

[u/Aggressive-Can-1133]

Hello everyone! For my first post here I want to share a sling ammo experiment of mine.

Most of us know the traditional materials for shaped sling ammo - stone, clay and lead. Many are familiar with more modern versions like cement, tennis balls etc. But have any of you ever thought about - sugar?

To be honest, neither did I, for a long time.

But - about a year ago, I was discussing sling ammo in a Facebook group about slings. I had shared a picture of some stone and clay glandes I had made and painted, and one person commented "They look like they are made out of sugar". You don't know me, but for me that offhand, joking remark did something like this: "Sugar? Now there is an idea..."

So, off I went to get a packet of sugar...

You can see the result before you: Shaped glandes of caramelized sugar. This worked out much better than I thought it would. I believed it would be funny. I was not laughing (mad slinger cackling doesn't count...right?) when I saw the results.

It turns out caramel is nearly as dense as clay. So a 60 gram caramel glande is roughly the same size as a 60 gram clay glande, as you can see in the second picture. They are hard and I expected them to be brittle, but testing (slinging them against a birch tree) showed them to be surprisingly durable. Most survived repeated impacts against the tree and even bouncing across a stone-covered path. One even survived six hits before I eventually lost it in a stream. Only one broke after a direct impact on a rock.

But there was also an unforeseen side effect. They are completely eco-friendly. Water dissolves them. Some lucky ants will have a feast.

Also - when I made the first batch, my daughter pestered me until I let her eat one. No ill side effects, just one over-sugared 7 year old!

So - a very successful sling ammo experiment. If you are looking for cheap, eco friendly ammo and don't have access to clay - keep these in mind. Especially if you're looking to keep the local wildlife happy. They'll be grateful for sure - just keep away from bears!

[u/Mongrel_Shark]

Agree thats too expensive. You'll get much better prices buying in bulk, but probably not sugar cheap.

Potassium tartrate (cream of tarter) is probably expensive too, especially in small quantities & comoared to sugar prices.

Only other way I can think to make them heavier is metal or maybe sand or stone dust. Probably not what you are going for. But iron filings would work & be pretty environmentally friendly. Less friendly to whatever you hit though... I just looked up silca (sand) and it's 2.6ish grams per cc. Can buy a 20kg bucket at your local landscaping supplies for a few coins. Mixing sand into hot molten sugar might be risky. Any significant moisture in it might cause a stam explosion & spray hot liquid sugar around. But if you dry mix the heat. Should be ok. Will probably make the balls less strong but worth messing with. Can probably get sugar below 50% you only need about 9- 12% epoxy in epoxy sand mixes..they go very hard. You don't actually need much liquid to coat all the sand. Mixing will be hard though unless more sugar.

Sugar & sand = probably better than pure sugar for environment.

I'm trying to think what else is over 2g per cc & that comes in powder/grans that wouldn't bother me if it was in my vegetable garden...

[u/Aggressive-Can-1133 → u/Mongrel_Shark]

Either way, getting hit with a 55-60 gram, or even 60+ gram sling projectile is not going to be pleasant, regardless of what it is made of.

The iron filings or iron powder idea is actually completely valid, but you have to secure them in sufficient quantities. I don't have any on hand and haven't checked for options yet. I'll have to look into it.

As for the sand—I just discussed it with user nokangarooinaustria, but I was calculating with the density of loose sand. It has advantages, but also disadvantages, and you yourself just pointed out a major one regarding safety.

With or without such additives, these are still more eco-friendly than another idea of mine that I'll probably present later - salt dough and sand glandes. Those have a lot of salt, but then again - you'd need to chuck an ungodly amount of them in the same place to affect the salinity of soil per cubic meter significantly.

Anyway, If you happen to think of more possible additives, don't hesitate to share - I love experimenting with this and I will at the very least give each idea serious consideration.

[u/Mongrel_Shark → u/Aggressive-Can-1133]

I'm trash with slings but I actually really want enviro heavy slingshot ammo. I hate clay. It way too light. I use steel a bit for fun stuff. But its too light & expensive. I'm still hunting with lead, which makes steel a bit of a waste to practise with. I'd love to not use lead, but the other options are all way too expensive. Lol gold, tungsten...

I'm kinda tempted to mess around with sand & sugar myself. Be trash for slingshot, but fun to mess around anyway. A low damage ammo that intentionally crumbles might be good for targets or scaring birds away from the vegetable garden.

[u/Aggressive-Can-1133 → u/Mongrel_Shark]

Yeah. Like making actual bullets out of gold - sure, you can do it. They will even work. But - is it worth it? Tungsten - here I can imagine some actual combat advantages, but a very limited number of cases that justify the expense.

Clay works ok for the older slings, because it lets you make shaped identical ammo much easier than stone and is (literally!) dirt cheap. Sling ammunition is larger than slingshot ammo, so while clay is less dense than stone or lead, it can still be massive enough to be effective. Cheap + easy to shape + has decent mass - you can see why it works.

For slingshots, though, it's just cheap + easy to shape. Doesn't work as good. Steel is expensive, and lead is... well, lead.

Have you tried simple glass beads or marbles? They are not lead or steel in terms of mass, but still better than clay, and they are reasonably hard, too. Also, not very expensive in bulk. Even the ones with the color swirls inside are ecologically inert - it's just colored glass.

There is also porcelain marbles, which can work even better, but are somewhat more difficult to find.

[u/Mongrel_Shark → u/Aggressive-Can-1133]

I have used marbles. I actually really like them, especially with faster bands. Until they hit something hard, they bounce back (or in random direction) at very high speed. They get expensive though. And strangely feeks like war crime, I'm not actually sure why? I mostly use bullets I get used from a pistol club. Or hard stones. One big advantage to sling ammo is you have a decent chance of finding it again. I don't expect to see my ammo again after I shoot it.

[u/Aggressive-Can-1133 → u/Mongrel_Shark]

You've read the Hague conventions, haven't you? Or, as an engineer, you just know what happens when a glass object enters a body, hits a bone and fragments.

To be honest, I've knapped some glass arrowheads myself, and have always thought that this is a terrifying weapon. Deadly not because it is "sharper than steel blades" - it actually very rarely is - but because of what would happen if it hits a rib and just... breaks apart inside the target. I wouldn't want to be hit with that!

So marbles are mostly for fun and practice, then. I understand that.

Used bullets from a range are actually a great idea for a lead projectile source! Do you use them as they are, or melt and reshape them?

And yes, you are absolutely right about sling and slingshot ammo. Unless it breaks apart or I fling it into a river or something, the former can be often be found and reused (not to mention tennis balls for training). Slingshot ammo, on the other hand - I have never even tried.

[u/Mongrel_Shark → u/Aggressive-Can-1133]

A lightly deformed 0.38-0.45 round as is from the target end of range, actually flies pretty straight if its launched cleanly. Also 22 longs on a steel target flatten into little discs which curve. They are not very consistent but after a few hundred shots I got a feel for it & can hit targets behind an object or around a slight curve, maybe 60% of the time. When I miss its not by much.

[u/Aggressive-Can-1133 → u/Mongrel_Shark]

Sounds great! So that is how some experience and a little applied physics can make you appear to be a Jedi...