# bands you used as a kid



## jnorthern26

just wanted to know what you guys might have used for your bands 
back as a kid and if they still are around to be used


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## InnerTube

Inner Tubes


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## bullseyeben!

As a young lad i found the easiest and most available was chained rubber bands.. easy for kids to change, and always available...


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## Charles

Yep ... I used innertubes, both auto and bike. I also used chained rubber bands. Then I discovered a stationery store that had big, wide latex bands. Man, I was in heaven with those. When I moved out to the Pacific coast over 30 years ago, I found latex tubes readily available in marine supply stores. Within the last year I have been using Alliance 105s and 107s. More recently I have finally bought some Theraband. I have ordered a latex bicycle tube to try.

Cheers ..... Charles


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## Ahavy

latex tubing, found in drugstores or farming tool stores


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## NaturalFork

Saunders tubes. Shot the original Falcon for years.


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## orcrender

Mostly tubes when I started with a wrist rocket.


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## SilentRobo

A couple of elastic bands joined togethor on each side, simple and easy!


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## Hrawk

My first slingshot as a kid, 8 years old, was a full plastic model with square rubber. The rubber had square 'nobs' on the end to hold it in the fork and the pouch was moulded into the actual bands.

Been trying for ages to find a photo or more info on so said beast.


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## rockslinger

My favorite was red inner tubes. While in high school I worked part time in a auto salvage yard
It was a real treat when I broke down a tire and found a red tube inside with some still useable
material. All the owner wanted was the steel wheel, the rubber was mine.
I had Wrist Rockets Whamo and the likes but nothing compared to red rubber, atree fork and a shoe tounge.







Jim


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## Ry-shot

latex , theraband , 1745 tubes , im 14 so im a teenager still lol


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## RedRubber

Red Rubber inner tubes. a star brand shoe tongue and a dog wood fork. My folks had a farm equipment repair shop so I had an ample supply of ball bearings for hunting, but for plinking, I'd pick out the choice gravel on the road.

RR


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## Daniel J

when i started off a year ago i used some of the bicycle tube and cut some bands from them. they didn't shoot very well and far. now i use theraband.


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## bootneck

I started on barnett bands then moved onto really short theratube black (i used to get it from the medical centre on base for free), i was alway's a strong kid though with good shoulders and lats (you wouldnt believe it now, im the smallest lad in my troop at 168lb and 5.7 tall lol), 5.5 inches of theratube black with about a 26 inch draw and big lumps of lead (taken from abandoned fishing net's freediving with my dad) then later on 50 cal lead balls, they flew with some good force against those big lizards and snakes in cyprus and when we moved back to england used against squirrels with good affect.


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## Sst der Kleine Steinschlag

as a boy i found the holy grail of slingshot rubber in the form of an tire innertube in an Irish garage . hadn´t i spared one of those to these days i wouldn´believe it ever worked. the rubber and pouch was one piece! just cut to shape in the middle with normal scissors. then i tied it to a way too long and by todays´ estimation way too thin ash fork with copper wire through the fork style. yet it had enough power to shoot a 1/2 inch stone across the street through both sides of a guinness can!
these bands lasted half the summer each and we shot excessively that days. if tears and weak spots appeared we just cut about it again so they could not proceed further and on it went.
sadly they are all spent and worn by now,and never have i found another tire of similar quality and the lone leftover one is merely a memory of a slingshot setup noone would believe to be any good at all.


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## Iryman

Good old car inner tubes. They lasted forever due to the thickness of them! We also used to use a single elastic band between thumb and forefinger when i was in primary school, and shoot paperclips at each other haha!
Something like this...


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## XxDollarBillxX

Really Really large rubber bands cut in half. and in turkey i used a proper slingshot rubber about 12mm wide and 7mm thick with a trapazoid profile.

yellow in colour bout 30cm long each strip sold in a 10 pack nad was all joined together like a big block of kit kat.


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## Devoman

What ever came on the Wamo slingshot, and later the wrist rocket. I didn't give it much thought back then.


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## treefork

Long cargo packing rubber bands cut to length and attached to a Victor 20. Iron taconite pellets my dad would bring home for ammo.


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## Flatband

Innertubes and School Rubber Bands Chained together. I used mostly Black innertubes from Bikes. They were good back then. There were some Red ones from Schwinn that were really good. If very very lucky,you would find Red Innertubes from the older cars and trucks-late 40's early 50's. These were the best! These are the famous "Red Innertubes" that everyone talks about. They were very durable. Just in case you were wondering, we have faster rubber available now-and also stuff that is more durable too. It was the best at the time though. Flatband


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## Incomudro

Tubes most of my life - usually Saunders or later Falcon replacement. (Don't know if Saunders owned Falcon back then.)

There was a packaged latex (maybe more of a gum rubber?) flat band available in the late 70's as well.
The package said that the pouch was _hand tied _too.
I would but these for my Scopeshot slingshot.
I didn't use that slingshot much at all - but the bands didn't last long regardless.


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## crapshot

dad worked at post office used to shoot 3/8 by8 inch double bands and bought whamo replacement bands and wristrocket replacement tube s and 107s


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## tnflipper52

Back in the day, (late 50's early 60's), our little band of characters used the wire frame slingshots from the five and dime. I think they cost 12 cents.
When the bands broke we would use rubber bands used to wrap newspapers. Also the bands used to wrap from celery bunches. We really had to scrounge.


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## kooniu

In Poland we used rubber tube for bicycle inner tube valve- the uncuted was 20 cm long, about 3 mm thick and have red color, later (about 1975) there appeared in the shops sqare gums for flying models. like this : http://www.aviatormodelshop.pl/pl/p957-guma_modelarska_3x1mm_25mb.html


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## mattardel

Well, I'm still a teenager, but my first foray into slingshot making a few years ago utilized what I now know are 105's and also these large black rubber bands found in Moon Shoes. They came with dozens of them and they lasted a while.


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## Taco

I used to save up jars of the rubber bands that the newspaper was tied with every morning. They were usually red, as I recall. I'd strand those up somehow.

Later, I found a rubber band behind a moving truck. They were used to wrap blankets over furniture, I guess. The thing was HUGE, really stretchy, and thick, and my buddy and I made some SMOKIN' slingshot bands out of it. From then on, every time we would see one of those moving trucks, we'd try to beg a couple or offer to sweep the truck or what have you to get some, usually with some success.


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## manitoba

Ive used the old kerby vacum cleaner belt .My friends dad repaired vacume cleaners..the were flat and strong.used rubberbands to.westren auto had slingshot bands and i would pick up one when i had the money.about an hour away so didnt get there unless my dad needed something from the hardware store.


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## Deltaboy1984

I grew up with Tubes or Red and Black inner tube homemade bands. I didn't shoot a slingshot from the time I hit HS till just a few years ago.


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## buckarue

Whamo bands. That was the only thing available in the late 1940"s that I knew about We used to shot pigeons as they were fluttering to land on the 3rd floor window ledge of Lawrence grade school. We would stand with our backs to the wall and shoot straight up using marbles so we wouldn't break any windows. The Whamo slingshots had a single band about 5/8 inch wide. My best friend and me were probably the first kids in the city to buy them at Bakers Hardware store in Springfield, Illinois. The only problem was they didn't have any replacement bands when the bands broke. We would have to buy a new slingshot which was hard on a paperboy's budget. We tried inner tubes but they didn't work for us.


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## capnjoe

I used tall tales. Man do they stretch!
I'm a chained band guy. Public schools always had plenty of bands on hand. And plenty of paperclips!!!!!


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## Marbles

Started out with Whamo bands , then went to stationary store wide latex bands and then we found a surgical supply store that sold latex tubing and it was tubes from then on and still is,the guy in the surgical supply store always asked what are you kids using this stuff for? We never told him the truth we always made up some story like fishing or for a chemistry set , bet he thought were using it for drugs .


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## Berkshire bred

when i started about five years ago i was using barnett bands and then one time when in a fishing/hunting shop they had some precut thera band gold in there, so i bought it and decided to make my first natural.


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## Semper Rogue

When I was kid, everybody used a flat band that was red to honey colored. No idea where they go it. LOL One of those things where you wish you could go back and ask a few questions but that band of boys are all grandpa's now.

I had aluminum slingshot with the fixed armrest, something like $3 bucks at the local Kmart. Replacement tubes were like .98 cents but very anemic. You could throw harder in some cases. My very first kill, bird, happened at **** near point blank range. I replaced the tubes with some I found in a sporting goods store in Albuquerque, NM. Cost was $2 and change I thought that was robbery. Worked much better but they didn't last long.

Thinking back. I muddled through my slingshot experience, testing and using whatever was available to me and it wasn't always good. I read about kids using innertubes and great things with rubber this and that but it wasn't available to me. So finding this forum and the availability of slingshot material and design is very much like a second childhood. lol


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## masterspykiller

My best friend and I used the Whamo Wrist Rocket for YEARS (probably from 13-18 years old). We probably shot for 15+ hours every week for years.

AMMO: We used gravel and creek rocks mostly, but had a pocket full of steel Pachinko balls (Japanese pinball game) for serious shooting. Rocks would go through windshields and those steel balls would go through both sides of a car door (if they didn't hit steel parts inside)! NOTE: The statute of limitations on such criminal mischief has long since expired.

BANDS: Started with the original bands from Whamo. Fortunately for us, a neighbor dabbled as an inventor and bought a HUGE box of black rubber tubes for his "new" style of slingshot. His slingshot was okay, but the pile of tubes he had was AMAZING! The bands did last a long time, but we were very happy to have a pile of those black rubber tubes for free because we shot a LOT!

POUCHES: I always kept those original plastic tabs to connect the leather pouch to the tubes. Made new pouches from scrap leather.

When I found my wrist rocket the other day (34 years later), it still has a set of black tubes on it AND a spare set with it. The rubber looks okay, but I am guessing it has deteriorated somewhat over the decades.

I'm now looking for some new tubes for my old wrist rocket (it looks like 3060 is the right size, any help?). Can't wait to read through the posts on this forum, find the right tubing and get out and shoot again!

Cheers,

M


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## SuperMonkeySlinger

I used Rubber much like 107's, They either were them or much like them. 107's or chaining 64's are my band choice. Never hardly theraband, but sometimes.

SMS


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## jazz

inner tubes,car and bike, more than fifty years ago


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## Damir Crozg

My 30 years old slingshoot.

Tube of a racing bike "Favorit" from the former Czechoslovakia.


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## capnjoe

Damir Crozg said:


> My 30 years old slingshoot.
> 
> Tube of a racing bike "Favorit" from the former Czechoslovakia.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> slingsh 038.jpg


Looks like a Hussey.


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