# Pro's And Con's Of Gypsy Tabs?



## Hawkman

Every catapult I laid eyes on as a Boy had a string loop tied and taped to the tip of each prong, for which to attach the elastic. Most that I see these days, the elastic is tied direct to the forks and the closest resemblance to the cat's of my youth have what people refer to as 'gypsy tabs' which are definately more of a tab than a loop but clearly do the same job. My family has strong connections with the local traveller community and up until I started looking online I had never seen a 'gypsy tab', only the looped string method. So the question is, what are the benefits of one style over another? If I ask my Dad or Grandad I will get a very biased answer without much thought.
My personal style is a looped piece of leather, not a tab. It's important to me to keep a little piece of family tradition going but string and tape doesn't look so great on a boardcut, hence the leather loop neatly whipped on.


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## Sean

I've heard some hunters prefer 'gypsy tabs' as they are quieter out in the field while hunting. I'm sure others will chime in much more
in the know.


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## Toddy

I think at least in the UK it was and is a regional thing. Personally I don't have a preference when it comes to shooting but I prefere the look of the leather ones.


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## Charles

In my experience as a boy, I never saw gypsy tabs ... we always tied the bands directly to the fork tips. Tabs are something I encountered much later in life. Personally, I do things both ways. However, I am not fond of gypsy tabs when they are bound to the forks with many wraps of thread or small diameter twine ... they just take too long to remove and put back if you have to change a band. So I just tie them on the same way you would tie on a flat band. Or I use a nut and bolt through the fork tip. Then it is faster to remove them and replace them.

There are a number of advantages to gypsy tabs that I can see.

1. As you said, they are quieter when you shoot.

2. If tied as flat bands or attached with nut and bolt, they allow for fast and easy band changes.

3. Since gypsy tabs usually come over the fork tips, they protect bands from abrasion at the fork tips. That means you do not have to spend as much time polishing the fork tips.

There are not many disadvantages that I see.

1. It requires more leather than just the pouch ... if you are leather starved that can be a problem. You can make them out of paracord or something similar.

2. They do not work very well with flat bands. To use them with flats, you have to make a loop in the end of the flat ... might as well just tie the flat band to the fork tip. Gypsy tabs are best suited to tubes and to office rubber bands braided or chained.

Of course these are just my experiences ... no doubt others will have different opinions.

Cheers .... Charles


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## crapshot

tabs are used also for attaching and shooting tubes to wood frame slingshots they add flexibility to stiff tubes for ott shooting


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## sduncan91

When I first saw gypsy tabs I tried to figure out what their advantages were. One theory that came to mind was that they allowed the easy attachment of the most cheaply available materials to simple, natural forks. I assumed that they were called "gypsy" tabs because they were popular in the traveler community. A traveler lifestyle might have made access to good slingshot material difficult, and so they were forced to make do whatever they had on hand. It makes sense that this would have been some kind of rubber tubing or perhaps chained rubber bands for power, and natural tree forks for frames. The gypsy tabs allow the easy attachment of those kinds of bands to natural forks, with minimal tools necessary.

Of course that's all just assumptions on my part, but as a theory it seems to make some sense.


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## Hawkman

All good input guys, thank you.
@sduncan91 How's that cat' I sold to You on ebay? I hope it's ok mate.


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## Toddy

I think the tabs came about because most used square rubber at the time ( a lot still do) and this wore quicly when attached 'Milbro' style. So the tabs were added to prolong the life of the reletively expensive rubber.


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## sduncan91

Hawkman said:


> All good input guys, thank you.
> @sduncan91 How's that cat' I sold to You on ebay? I hope it's ok mate.


Haha yes I remember seeing your profile picture and realising you must have made my new slingshot. I'm liking it very much mate, thanks. I really like small-framed slingshots so I enjoy the compact design. Plus, almost all of my other slingshots are finger-brace style, so having a hammer-grip in the mix makes a nice change of pace, and I find it's a really fun way to shoot.

I actually took off the gypsy tabs and I've attached some flatbands in my preferred OTT style:

















But I'm saving the tabs and I think I'll experiment with them by attaching tubes to one of my other frames.

Oh and I really like the extra pouch you sent me, got it attached to my PFS now. If you look in the templates section at the slingshot pouch templates I uploaded, I actually based the measurements for my "Standard" pouch design on that.

So thanks for the great slingshot!


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## Hawkman

Brilliant, I'm glad that you're getting some enjoyment out of it. It looks good with the bands tied straight to the frame.


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## whippetlad

I'm considering trying this method on a pfs catapult. Could it work has it already been tryed?


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## Imperial

whippetlad said:


> I'm considering trying this method on a pfs catapult. Could it work has it already been tryed?


yes it will work fine. i have one with leather shoe laces as the tabs.

















hope this pic helps you.


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## whippetlad

Amazing pair of shooters! I'm think of using square elastic would it be ok with a pfs?


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## ZorroSlinger

You can use whatever elastic/rubber but sized to the type of ammo. With PFS, you do not want massive rubber/elastics on a small shooter. There are many choices and much on forum about band/tube selection. Others much more knowledgeable than me. I am not familiar with square elastics.

For instance with PFS, I use #84 office rubber bands for shooting gobstopper candy (hard gumballs), 1/4 inch (6 mm) steel balls, and the small size 10mm glass marbles. The #84 bands is short draw set-up, giving you about 6-1/4 inch (158 mm) pouch tie to fork tie length, and stretches to maybe to 22-24 inches (55-60 cm) draw length. If you are using tabs as shown in Imperial's pics, the tabs adds a little more to overall draw length.


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## whippetlad

ZorroSlinger said:


> You can use whatever elastic/rubber but sized to the type of ammo. With PFS, you do not want massive rubber/elastics on a small shooter. There are many choices and much on forum about band/tube selection. Others much more knowledgeable than me. I am not familiar with square elastics.
> 
> For instance with PFS, I use #84 office rubber bands for shooting gobstopper candy (hard gumballs), 1/4" steel balls, and the small size 10mm glass marbles. The #84 bands is short draw set-up, giving you about 6-1/4 inch (158 mm) pouch tie to fork length and stretches to maybe to 22-24 inches (55-60 cm) draw length. If you are using tabs as shown in Imperial's pics, the tabs adds a little more to overall draw length.


I think im going to go with some asda flatband try that out.


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## Imperial

ZorroSlinger said:


> For instance with PFS, I use #84 office rubber bands for shooting gobstopper candy (hard gumballs), 1/4 inch (6 mm) steel balls, and the small size 10mm glass marbles. The #84 bands is short draw set-up, giving you about 6-1/4 inch (158 mm) pouch tie to fork tie length, and stretches to maybe to 22-24 inches (55-60 cm) draw length. If you are using tabs as shown in Imperial's pics, the tabs adds a little more to overall draw length.


those are #84's on the pfs in the pic i posted. peanut m&ms fly pretty good also :king: .

if this is your first time trying tabs, its okay if you leave them long at the fork ties, you can just adjust them to suit your comfortability and then trim them afterwards.


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## HarryBee

whippetlad said:


> ZorroSlinger said:
> 
> 
> 
> You can use whatever elastic/rubber but sized to the type of ammo. With PFS, you do not want massive rubber/elastics on a small shooter. There are many choices and much on forum about band/tube selection. Others much more knowledgeable than me. I am not familiar with square elastics.
> 
> For instance with PFS, I use #84 office rubber bands for shooting gobstopper candy (hard gumballs), 1/4" steel balls, and the small size 10mm glass marbles. The #84 bands is short draw set-up, giving you about 6-1/4 inch (158 mm) pouch tie to fork length and stretches to maybe to 22-24 inches (55-60 cm) draw length. If you are using tabs as shown in Imperial's pics, the tabs adds a little more to overall draw length.
> 
> 
> 
> I think im going to go with some asda flatband try that out.
Click to expand...

Give the asda a try, it's good stuff. The blue, for example, is a little 
thinner than TBG but the quality of stretch and speed are very comparable.


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## ForkLess

Do Gypsy tabs help prevent hand slap? To help a OTT be a bit more forgiving to band to ball weight & draw? Or no?


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