# Hogancastings Aluminium "Millbro"



## Hugues (Mar 27, 2010)

What I received by the post yesterday made me realise I never shot a "true" catty!
I just had been kidding around as a child with a Trumark WS1 and what the germans call
a " Classic schleuder/zwille"...
When I turned back to what I called "The genuine art of shooting" in my presentation as
a new member on this (so good!) forum, I hardly had found some of what some italian makers
dare calling (and also dare selling as) "Slingshot"so they were the only ones I could buy on the
devastated belgian market (New rules, so stupidly and hastily imposed that they had to be
revised a little later: such as "By the present law...blahblah...catapults are forbidden weapons..."
So all could get was a poorly made copy of some (respectable) english alltimes bestseller.

Look at my first true catty and imagine how I feel now!

(-Click on images to get a larger view-)



Jeez...110 g (some 3.88 oz or o.24 lb I reckon...) of pure pleasure, all of high grade aluminium!
Much of a Milbro but way far more pleasant to grip thanks to its chubby and mildly edge-rounded
grip (about 1" wide and 0.9" thick).



Fits like a glove! I gripped it and felt immediatly comfortable with it, like shaking the hand of an old
friend... or handling again a M1911 Colt (You know, the .45 pistol which frame and grips even air pistols
makers still copy for its incredible faculty of fitting everyone's hand.)
And so sturdy you could use it as truncheon. Kind of a luxury tool: something beautiful and you can
rely on (as opposed to women, generally speaking of course!







)



So, my new mistress is fitted with Barnett tubes and pouch you can recognize by the typical and 
rather "dry" slap that follows the release and the weird stuff (is it leather, actually?) the pouch 
has been made of. I like this pouch: it is thick for sure, but is so smooth and kind of spongy I can
feel and center accurately a 5mm steel ball, although the whole thing was clearly made too shoot
9mm bullets at least.

The most intriguing thing is that I began to shoot much better... is it love? What do you think?

Thanks again to Mr. Peter Hogan of Hogancastings Industries in Sheffield, honourable member of this forum.

Hope I didn't make it too long and "poetic" for a first post.

Cheers to you all.

Hugues, a happy man.


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## ZDP-189 (Mar 14, 2010)

Thanks, that's a good review. Did you commission a special or was it a stock design? If it were custom, did you send a template or a fork to be copied?


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## baumstamm (Jan 16, 2010)

nice catty! are cattys vorbiden in belgium?


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## Deimos (Dec 24, 2009)

baumstamm said:


> nice catty! are cattys vorbiden in belgium?


Nope, there's even a belgian slingshot community


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## Hugues (Mar 27, 2010)

To ZDP: Thank you, it is definetly not a custom made! it was the standard grip design! It is why I compared it to the Colt.45 pistol (model 1911, date of outing!) that is still a reference in terms of standard grips for a lot of different types pistol makers . So it amazed me that this one fitted so good and straight to my hand "out of the box"!...although I have unusually long hands (flattened on a ruler: 27 cm, 10.6 inches from the tip of thumb to the tip of my ring finger). The friends I let (precautiously and just for a flash!) touch my slingshot said that they had the same feeling...growl, don't get too close of my catty!








I think Hogancastings offer a custom version, I suppose then you would send them a wax print of your (unique!) handgrip but I'm not quite sure (you should contact them: [email protected] ).

To Baumstamm : catapults are free again in Belgium since a few months .As far as I know, thanks to the fisher leagues that seem to have more balls to stand up against stupid laws than most shooters's.
But since the prohibition, almost all importer have fled the country. All I can get in the Liège (Lüttich) area are Megaline stuff. Perhaps allright for fishing guys to throw bait away but not close to what genuine slingshot amateurs
call their "Catty"!

Thanks guys for posting.


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## Hugues (Mar 27, 2010)

Ooops, Deimos answered faster than me...

As a neighbour and fellow citizen, have you got some info about where to buy slingshooting stuff around?
And What about this belgian community?

Thanks.


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## Pro-Shot (UK) Catapults (Apr 21, 2010)

Hi Everyone
Its nice to here a grown mans Happy







We decided to send Hugues one of our Milbro (Pro-Shot) catapults after reading is first intro when he complained that he could not get hold of a good catty?
The design he was sent is from our Hunter range .We make 2 size of this design Snr (large version)and Small one is the Jnr, Not so much a Jnr but a pocket rocket in the right hands. we did this so Father & Son etc could shoot the some design.When I get a bit better
with the lap top we will post some of our best selling designs for all to look at.We have Approx 20 styles all available in 3 types of metal at the moment and are still looking for more.We are a vendor on the forum and hope to start selling on here soon just taking our time to do it right first- time we hope.If you would like to take a look at 2 more of our range they are on US eBay .Our foundry can cast most metals from Gold to Iron but our range of catapults are cast in 
Aluminium Spec is BS1490 LM25/Brass Spec BS1490 DCB3/Bronze Spec BS1490 LG2.All our products are HAND MADE bye time served apprentice Moulder/core makers bye the Traditional Green sand casting method.
We do also have the lost wax process and are looking at incorporating this method of casting to help bring out some NEW Fantastic designs in the next few months.We could mass produce if we wished but i think
that is not the way I would like to develop our new business.If we take our time and develop with the help of our friends on this forum I think we will be the better for it . As part of the development we are making
a lightweight 2 part die mould with a truly unique .44 slug that people can cast at home .I commissioned the development of the slug last week and will receive the master next week.We will sell every thing that is needed to do this apart from the lead and the gas to melt it.We can cast 1 off if any one would like there truly unique slingshot immortalising in cast metal?We are good at what we do(not very often you here a Brit bang the drum)







sorry for going on but i do enjoy coming on this forum.
all the best hogancastings Email.. [email protected]


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## Hugues (Mar 27, 2010)

To Hogancastings: Sounds great, but it seems that ZDP-189 and I share the same question: how do you envisage to commercially process with the lost wax method? Do you mean that we could send you a personal wax model that you'd cast for us?


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## Pro-Shot (UK) Catapults (Apr 21, 2010)

Hi Hugues

If anyone wants to send a wax bye post? to us we are only to willing to cast it for them.It would be best to send the master made out of wood we can make a very good copy

from that. we are using the lost wax process to cast some very high definition Animal butt plates for our 3 part catapults I.E sand cast forks/Deer antler hand grip or what ever else we can dream up/then the cast butt plate this is a very classy slingshot/catapult and will not be mass produced price will start at £120.00 each we are only making 20 off each type per year.We have a waiting list for these items and people are just buying them after a brief description.come back if you need more info will be only to pleased to talk.


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