# My MWST Slingshot... all carved up and ready!



## Bill Hays (Aug 9, 2010)

Okay... my Wife is kind of like a long haired General... what's mine is ours, so she insisted that I allow my leather Scorpion to be sold... and I had already sent off Fugly to another competitor.... Soooooo I had to make a new one for myself.

I included a few things so that it makes it more personal to me... and us... so hopefully she will allow me to keep this one!

Made from ballistic grade carbon reinforced G10 with canvas micarta to fill out the grip architecture... this one was a bit plain looking so I tried my hand at carving a scorpion into the target facing side, then added a reverse

"black heart of texas" inlay on the bottom of the grip.

Here's the slingshot... and the target it abused, an aluminum spinner made from 1" X 1.3" X 1/4" thick 6061 aircraft aluminum... a really nice focusing target that I hope will allow me to get in shape for the upcoming MWST.

This is the first time I've seen anybody do any real carving with canvas micarta.. and let me tell you, I know why it's not that common now... as it's about 10 times harder to do than on any wood I've ever carved!


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## ghost0311/8541 (Jan 6, 2013)

That's one sweet killer of a slingshot.


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## TheDaddy187 (Jun 21, 2014)

nice scorpion...

considering its difficult to carve you done a good job...

if the mrs says you have to sell this one, drop me a pm 

i want first dibs 

TD


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## GrayWolf (May 14, 2012)

Beautiful...nothing short of beautiful!! You do know that everyone will want something custom carved into their slingshots now :rofl: .

Nice job on that spinner as well....looks like your ready to whack some tournament targets.

Looking forward to finally meeting you face to face at the MWST.

Todd


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## Lacumo (Aug 18, 2013)

That's too beautiful! Now the big problem is that you can't let it get dirty.


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## shew97 (Feb 13, 2014)

Beautiful shooter bill . That's a shame I really liked that leather one.


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## Pilgrim (May 3, 2014)

Very Nice! Well, I am grateful to be the recipient of your previous Leather Scorpion, and I am glad to see that you pushed the envelope even further with these carvings. Nice work! Peace!


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## slingshooterPT (Feb 22, 2014)

Amazing work result on a piece of art!! :bowdown:


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## Ifab25 (Jun 5, 2013)

Bill, your talent and creativity never cease to amaze me!! Love the shooter!!


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## erniepc1 (Jun 7, 2014)

That is some beautiful work.!


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## S.S. sLinGeR (Oct 17, 2013)

Nice work Bill!


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## oldmiser (Jan 22, 2014)

Total awesome shooter...See My friend you do have a hidden artistic carving skills..almost like doing skrimshaw work in

ivory...Now that is a real pain with a small pen knife...I done it once about 30 years ago..I said never again for me any way

to do skrimshaw carvings....Very beautiful work...well maybe you will have to make Mrs.Hays a personal shooter with some

carving work.....so you can keep that new shooter you made......Best to you my friend at the up coming event....

Like I say~May your ammo fly straight~......~AKAOldmiser


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## Bill Hays (Aug 9, 2010)

Thanks Guys.

It's not really my first time carving something, it's just my first time carving into canvas micarta...


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## NaturalFork (Jan 21, 2010)

Very nice!


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## leon13 (Oct 4, 2012)

WOW another peace of art
Cheers


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## Dr J (Apr 22, 2013)

Outstanding work Bill! Keep pushing the envelope. Looking forward anxiously to the next design.


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## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

Now that is a real beaut!!!

Cheers ...... Charles


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## bmlodge (Feb 26, 2013)

GrayWolf said:


> Beautiful...nothing short of beautiful!! You do know that everyone will want something custom carved into their slingshots now :rofl: .
> 
> Nice job on that spinner as well....looks like your ready to whack some tournament targets.
> 
> ...


Haha that's so true Todd. Who'll be the first to ask for a dragon?

Lovely slingshot Bill, they just keep getting better.

Ben


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## Dr Dave (Mar 16, 2014)

A truly beautiful (and functional) work of art! Very impressive. If it shoots only ten percent as good as it looks you will be unbeatable.


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## mr. green (Nov 3, 2012)

Great looking shooter. I feel sorry for the target.

Thank you for sharing, Master Bill.


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## Oneproudmeximan (May 20, 2013)

One day your gonna give me a heart attack with all these beautiful customs


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## rockslinger (Nov 16, 2010)

Beautiful shooter!


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## Tag (Jun 11, 2014)

I hope you are photographing these one of a kind masterpieces. Beautiful craftsmanship!!


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## Sharpshooter II (Apr 15, 2014)

WOW ! that is one sweet shooter


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## you'llshootyereyeout (Apr 5, 2014)

That is fantastic! I love the offset lanyard hole. Such a cool detail.


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## Susi (Mar 3, 2013)

That is one modern, original SS buddy! It's 'equipment' as well as art. I like the quick band fork attachment. When a band breaks it's down time for 10 or 15 mins before I can get my band changed and this method shortens that down time, of course a pouch tie but still quicker and if one has band sets already with pouches, your method is phast!!! In my "BigWood O" project I've decided not to make an "O" but to fork it and open the top. The "O" idea was a trial only and it bunched up the bands too often, I call this "band congestion" resulting in a few totally wild impacts. So I'm now back to open forks and realatively wide/deep ones at that to avoid band congestion and fork/hand hits and wild shots. Your band attachment or something like it will suit my new design fine for a TTF resuilt.

I've been getting tired of hand slap on my natural forks that are OTT so I'm ditching OTT altogether. The bands/pouch flip over the top alright but swing down and slap me silly whereas TTF goes through the fork as logic has it and stops and doesn't come back and down to hit my hand, it comes back but not down and therefore no hand slaps at all with TTF. My natural forks are a bit too narrow for TTF so I'm going to ditch those natruals forever or change bands for some weaker thinner ones that will hopefully flutter to a halt and won't slap me so badly. I am NOT going to wear work gloves to shoot so hand slaps are unacceptable altogether. SSing is supposed to be fun, not masochistic.

I think I like wide deep forks and TTF better than alternatives, because of inconsistant accuracy from narrow forks and hand slap issues with OTT. Since I use double TBG half inch wide bands that's a lot of congestion for narrow forks for TTF designs and too much hand slap for OTT designs. Weak thin wimpy bands might be the solution but we want hard hitting SSs so that's the trade off.

One question, have you shot your "band clip on design" as pictured above an on your gallery, enough to note any band abrasion or breakage, if any, right AT the attacchment point where the metal meets the elastic? I think if Chuck radiuses the edges of the metal clip where it meets the elastic, it would prevent any cutting or chafing of the elastic.

Thank heavens for long kinkey organic molecules (natural rubber). Long kinky molecules are what are responsible for the elastic property of latex rubber. Now you just had to know that, eh? College organic chem is responsible for that one.

My band breaks are about 8mm away from the tie itself so this tells me, at fork and at pouch both, that stress happens at that point more than at any other point on the band when it stretches. I'm trying to get more than a few thousand shots out of a band, realizing I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but analysing stress to see if I can eliminate part of it, therefore lengthening the bands' lifetimes. I don't use tapered bands any longer, the thin part takes too much stress and breaks too often. I'm not out for max velocity. I can't get Theraband here in bananaville (Ecuador) so I have 1 roll of TBG I'm trying to make do for a long time. Your attachment looks great with regard to speed of changing bands and no chafing/cutting if radiused. Your (and the forum's) comments please.


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## Susi (Mar 3, 2013)

Chuck has a question. The allen screws you use for anchoring the metal fixture to the fork with, did you just thread the fork itself, or use a threaded brass or other metal insert epoxy'd into the fork to accept the threads of the allen screw? Tell me your secret please, I didn't get info of that sort off your gallery.

A flat band instead of a folded band attachment is what we're looking at to keep the bands flat when they spring back to battery resulting in possibly less band congestion and "flutter" at random when the pouch finally releases the ball. A straight flight of the pouch with no band interfearance distorting it's "in a perfect world" straight unimpared path upon release of the ball it's carrying is what we're looking for.

Off the subject...sling carbine done.

The sling carbine, 31 inch draw, is done, pics forthcoming next week, lock and sear mechanism polished/oil blued, and we're now preparing a bench rest table to test it's accuracy, clamping the carbine to a heavy work table and shooting groups similar to the concept of bench rest testing of rifle and pistol ammo. If this proves accurate (we don't know if it will) we'll mount a pistol laser to this gadget for accurate hip shooting or night shooting without aiming. Semi wild dogs roam around the compound and harass our six dogs, waking us up at 3AM with endless stupid barking. Chuck takes a dim view of what he calls "long john patrols" at that hour to see what's up, and prefers to bounce a ball or two off these wild dogs' afterburners to discourage their presence. The light is dim at night and Chuck says he's long lost his nocturnal op abilities he had in Nam when a teen ager, so a laser dot on target would be the ticket for his 68 year old vet's eyes he thinks. Blink blink.


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## Arnisador78 (Apr 10, 2013)

Pure artistry! Bravo.

Sent from my iPad using Outdoor Forums


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## Aries666 (Feb 22, 2014)

Now that's a man's shooter


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## GrayWolf (May 14, 2012)

bmlodge said:


> GrayWolf said:
> 
> 
> > Beautiful...nothing short of beautiful!! You do know that everyone will want something custom carved into their slingshots now :rofl: .
> ...


No dragon for me...I'd have to have either a wolf or a wolf paw print. But it would also have to be on a Target Dragon...or would that make it a Target Wolf?  But then I'd be afraid to shoot it...no fun in that.

Todd


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## carboncopy (Jan 14, 2014)

Superb work!

The scorpion looks great!


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## Devoman (Oct 15, 2010)

Very nice


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## alfshooter (May 11, 2011)

Excellent gentleman Bill, beauty, comfort and efficiency, is a piece of museum.

A strong embrace..... Alf


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## e~shot (Jun 3, 2010)

Gorgeous Bill!


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## Bill Hays (Aug 9, 2010)

Thanks again Guys and Gals!

Susi... the attachment method is done using what's called a "rivet nut"... you can see examples on my website's gallery.

But basically you just drill a hole and then insert the rivet from the other side... the lip on the rivet makes it so it can't pull through.

Pics from my site:




























I shot with this attachment method for about a year before allowing it to be introduced to the public... I can not see any difference in wear or band longevity.

Remember the band pulls across an edge AFTER the buckle attachment. There is actually very little stress on the attachment itself. But just in case somebody did it up backwards or something, it's strong enough to take that as well.... the buckles are made from 1/16" titanium.


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## Sharpshooter II (Apr 15, 2014)

A really nice work of art  good job !


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## Bill Hays (Aug 9, 2010)

Thanks again Guys and Gals!

Thought I'd show you a couple of videos of this one in use... after having it made for only about 2 weeks it helped me to score decent at the MWST and in the second video... well there's some grasshopper carnage so some of you might not like to partake in the viewing!

First round of the MWST:






Grasshopper shooting:


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## bmlodge (Feb 26, 2013)

Fantastic shooting Bill on both counts. Although how you can actually see a grasshopper from 10 metres is beyond me!

Ben


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## DougDynasty (Jul 8, 2013)

Truly amazing


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## Pilgrim (May 3, 2014)

Absolutely amazing! Glad you could do your part in reducing the population during the infestation this year.


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## Beanflip (Sep 11, 2010)

I love the grass hopper video! Makes me want to go out to the farm and try it.


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## Kalevala (Jul 20, 2014)

This slingshot is one of my favorite.

What comes to shooting grasshoppers or anything else, I think I have to go practice ( a lot) right now.


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## Nelson (Jul 13, 2014)

Greetings from Venezuela, excellent work Mr. Bill


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## oldmiser (Jan 22, 2014)

mercy..What great shooting at the MWST...Now as to those hooper's,,just amazing how you have such keen

eye sight to see them 33 feet even out to 60 feet...just excellent my friend....I my self have all I can do too

see a soda pop can @33 feet & hit it.....You are a great insperation for other shooter's too in courage

there shooting skill's....~AKAOldmiser


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## Sharpshooter II (Apr 15, 2014)

Wow ! That is sweet


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## Ifab25 (Jun 5, 2013)

Amazing shooting!! Even seeing the things, let alone hitting them from that distance is crazy!!


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## wolf98 (Mar 2, 2014)

wow that looks so awesome good job bill


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## Danny0663 (Mar 15, 2011)

Dang nice frame Bill, top notch indeed !


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## Byudzai (Aug 31, 2013)

Long ago I went grasshopper hunting with a 9mm... less refined, but also fun!

I love the "WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-whap-whap-whap-whap-whap-whap...." sound of the bands in slow motion. I'm gonna have to look for some slow motion videos of slingshots being released to see what's going on there.

Not too many folks can actually boast "I can shoot the whiskers off a grasshopper at 30 feet" and have VIDEO PROOF of it! Hahaha...


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## ghost0311/8541 (Jan 6, 2013)

the grasshoppers remind me when i was a kid i would walk the tall grass with a pump 22 and the old cripped rat shot and the big grasshoppers that i called birdhoppers because they would fly a long ways i would shoot them like dove had a lot of fun doing it wore that little 22 out now we shoot at carpenter bees that hover with sling shots not a lot of hits on the bees lol that was a good video.


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## r4duku (May 9, 2013)

Bill Hays said:


> This is the first time I've seen anybody do any real carving with canvas micarta.. and let me tell you, I know why it's not that common now... as it's about 10 times harder to do than on any wood I've ever carved!


that`s true,it took me a lot to finish this one





  








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r4duku


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Aug 31, 2015


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