# Meet the pellet bow, the true ancestor of the slingshot



## David Morningstar

I have been hoping for video of one of these for ages! It is a pellet bow, rare but found all over the world and especially in south east Asia. It is mostly used for shooting birds. Since it uses elastic force to store and release energy to propel a stone or clay ball, it is a true slingshot.

You twist the handle of the bow in your hand as you draw and this adds enough sideways force to the draw to make the stone miss the bow.

Note the doubled bowstring with the pouch in between like a hammock. There are small wooden separators to keep the bowstrings apart.

http://www.atarn.org/letters/letter_summaries.htm#pellet


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## DaveSteve

This is the first time I've seen a pellet bow. Amazing.

Looks like you need to use a nice flipping action vertical to give the rock clearance of the bow.


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## tnflipper52

That fellow is quite good with the bow. The speed is amazing and hitting with smooth pebbles from the ground. Take that up a notch with steel or heavier lead projectiles and what a weapon that can be. Like DaveSteve, what is the motion to clear the grip of the bow? Appears to be no cutout aka arrow rest. Good stuff and thanks for sharing.


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## David Morningstar

The ATARN link above describes the action of shooting very well. Flip shooting is older than you probably thought 

The bow has to be smaller than an arrow shooting bow because the projectile weight is generally much lighter. A larger more powerful bow would be damaged by shooting something so light, the weight of the bow limbs would retain the majority of the kinetic energy at the end of the power stroke and so wreck themselves with powerful vibrations after the bowstring snaps taught.

You could scale it up to shoot bigger ammo, but then bigger targets are more valuable and worth risking an arrow for. The pellet bow is used on small targets where missing and losing an arrow would be unacceptable. A sling delivers much bigger ammo to huge distances, but with rather less accuracy. Good for herding sheep and bombarding armies, less good for hunting.

Some photos of pellet bows in Vietnam, and also the claim that they invented the fork-n-rubber slingshot which was then brought to Europe by the colonial French (doubtful!) : http://www.binhdinh-salongcuong.org/GB_DISCUSSION_%20Medieval%20Weapons_Eighteen%20Sections.html

A Thai pellet bow. This has a carved wooden guard bound in front of the pouch to protect against bow hits. I have seen the same on pellet bows from India. http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/weapons/index.php/tour-by-region/oceania/asia/arms-and-armour-asia-87 [The direct link doesnt work, so type 'pellet bow' into the search box on the page it takes you to.]

Here is one that shoots TTB 'Through The Bows', there are other pellet bows with hand guards too: http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/reply/446434/Re-Interesting-double-pellet-bow


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## Rayshot

That is so cool. Seeing the guy in the first vid shoot was impressive and interesting.

Now I want one!


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## mopper

Never heard of that before! Jörg Sprave shows a rubber powered bow in one of his videos that can also fire steel balls but I thought that was just for fun.


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## Allen Welsh

That is amasing!!! I have never seen one before Infact Ive never even heard of one before today!

It would be just the job for woodies 

Thanks for sharin this

Cheers

AL


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## Icelander

Maybe his is the solution to circumventing the no slingshot hunting legislation in many areas. :naughty:

And that's an amazing video. Thanks so much for posting this. This place is so cool sometimes. :bouncy:


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## mopper

So, which member will be the first to present his own slingbow design in the homemade section???


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## Charles

Great video of the fellow with his pellet bow. Wish I was that good with a slingshot!

Pellet firing crossbows were fairly common in Great Britain, Europe, and other countries up to the early 1900s anyway. See the book "The Crossbow" by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey. He gives complete plans and construction instructions for building a very nice pellet firing crossbow of considerable power.

Cheers ...... Charles


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## rapidray

That is very interesting. That person was fast and good! And just picking up the stones off the ground! Thanks for sharing.


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## jazz

when the video ended i realised that my mouth were open all the time..


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## Allen Welsh

A bit more abot them but this is xbows

http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/stonebow/about-sbow.html

Cheers

AL


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## Charles

Here is another video of a pellet bow.






Cheers ..... Charles


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## Incomudro

Wow.

The guy shooting it is pretty damned good too!

I'm wondering how the pellet clears the riser and grip?

With an arrow, the arrow rests on the rest - so it has a guide.


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## bigron

that was amazing


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## curmudgeon

I have never even heard of the pellet bow until now. Amazing.


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## NaturalFork

Awesome thread! Thanks for sharing!


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## nike

Good Job


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## pgandy

That's a new one on me too. And like most people I am wondering about clearing the bow. Many new comers to slingshots have trouble just getting through the fork consistently.


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## CrowShot

This is very fascinating! Sounds like something I want to try


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## leon13

Hi Volpe made a video a little while ago about how he made one out of a PVC pipe 
Just if some one want to know 
Cheers


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