# 24-50 to the Next Level



## M.J (Nov 1, 2010)

Those of you who pay any attention to my posts may know that I've gone starship-crazy over the past couple of months. Just in the past two weeks I've acquired a King Kat and a Wingshooter 24-50 to accompany the several long and short 'ships of my own construction.

There's just something about them that feels like cheating. You draw back to your normal anchor point with a set of light bands, aim as you normally would (sort of by feel and a peripheral sense of where the slingshot is pointed, in my case) and release but instead of the expected reaction from the target you get what seems like twice the energy delivered. It's addictive! :drinkup:

The effect is especially pronounced with the flechettes that I shoot. The extra "cast" provided by the long draw and high speed really brings them to life and makes them shoot much better.

I got my 24-50 yesterday and shot it some. It was delivered with a set of .030" latex bands and a great looking pouch for shooting 1/2" steel. I used this combo four or five times just to verify that I could shoot this rig and then proceeded to modify it to shoot my beloved flechettes.









First step was a set of bands cut from the Gold's Gym Thereaband Silver-equivalent stock I featured the other day. I cut them 1.5" x 1" x 9.5" for use with my 7 gram 'chettes. I overshot the mark on these and they're heavier than they really need to be, the next set will be a little narrower.

Next I wanted to come up with a way to hold the darts in place for one-handed loading and to keep them at the ready for shooting similar to the speed loader I put on my own big, ugly starship. The 24-50 is much lower-profile than that one so I didn't want to graft a lump of wood on top of it. My solution was to put an eyebolt in the top of the stock to retain the front part of the dart which is then held in place with light band tension.









After some shooting indoors since it's currently 8 degrees below zero outside I decided I'd like a little more arm brace than what comes standard. Roger makes the brace from a section of 4" PVC pipe so that it's easy to replace if it becomes damaged. Not having any 4" pipe handy, I added a physio-therapy adjustable strap on to the current brace. I simply removed the screws, cut a small, thin rectangular piece of plastic for a washer and screwed it all back together. Easy-peasy and no permanent modification.









This setup really secures the slingshot to my arm and makes it truly feel like an extension of my body. This makes it even easier to open-hand shoot this already fantastically designed starship.









The wrist strap reminds me of the rig used by Jerry Blanchard at the 2012 Summer Nationals. His started life as some sort of Marksman or Saunders to which Jerry added a big Fimo grip and an around the forearm strap. It looked weird and would probably only work for him but he shot the lights out with it and gave me a scare on the Masters target when he put something like 13 out of the first 15 through the bullseye. Lighter bands that wouldn't have caused him to fatigue would probably have cost me that win.

Maybe all that's old is new again and us young pups still have stuff to learn from the masters!


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## ghost0311/8541 (Jan 6, 2013)

i bet thats a good set up i just orderd a slingbow from wingshooter and i think a starship is next.


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## GrayWolf (May 14, 2012)

Very nice mods on an already great shooter.

I'm thinking there could be some side events or games at the Midwest Shoot with Starships and Slingbows :naughty: . Some lessons for us novices at the very least.

Todd


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## leon13 (Oct 4, 2012)

Thanks very informatif
Cheers


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## Wingshooter (Dec 24, 2009)

Clever idea with the eye bolt KISS method for sure. I don't think the arm strap would work for me I rotate the the Starship with the handle so the forks are pointed straight up when I load the pouch. I hope your weather warms up a little so you can make us a video shooting that thing.


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## Tentacle Toast (Jan 17, 2013)

Speak of the devil...LoL...I need one of these!


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## M.J (Nov 1, 2010)

Wingshooter said:


> Clever idea with the eye bolt KISS method for sure. I don't think the arm strap would work for me I rotate the the Starship with the handle so the forks are pointed straight up when I load the pouch. I hope your weather warms up a little so you can make us a video shooting that thing.


You and me both!!
Forecast is for high temperatures below zero next week.


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## SharpshooterJD (Oct 9, 2012)

Brilliant! This is really cool I've been experimenting with flechettes after seeing your post on how to make them and they truly are addicting! Couldn't imagine shooting them out of something like this.


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