Hawaiian Sling

[cdavis]

Hey Jon, Loved the pics of your sling handle, nicely designed to get your fingers out of the way of the rubber. Nice fish pics too. Great to see the sling working out in a very different environment from mine.

Camera on the sling??? Wild !! (How do I get lots of laughing heads to appear?)

DSRTEGL, The cartridge should work fine as long as it fits the spear butt. You are mostly gripping the rubber, so what you use for a butt holder isn't all that important, as long as it fits.

On shafts, you need some weight for penetration, I don't think aluminum will work. Spring steel is, by far, the best material. Even a little bit of bend really hurts accuracy and, once a shaft is bent, it is next to impossible to completely straighten it out. Shaft length needs to be long enough so you can stretch the rubber to full cocked position of you shoulders and elbow. It is much easier to hold that position waiting for the right shot and you will get the maximum energy input to the shaft with the longest rubber stretch. About 4 ft is the minimum, most sling shafts are 5 ft.

Rubber material: The best stuff is amber surgical tubing (buy it from Austins in Miami). I use 1/2 inch, large hole. If you are strong, 1/2 inch small hole. Real strong? 5/8 inch small hole. For using recycles, I'm not sure, maybe multiple layers of bicycle inner tube? That stuff is pretty stretchy and you could play with layers until the right combo came to light. You want something that you can hold comfortably for 10-15 seconds and full cock.

Good luck with it.

Connor

 

[boony]

Re: Hawaiian Sling and the cup

Ive just come across the concept of the Hawaiian Sling. It looks great but doesn't the cup whack the back of your hand when the spear is released and the rubber retracts ?

OUCH :crutch

 

[cdavis]

Nope, no whack. The water slows everything down.

Hteas, Just saw your comment about how difficult using a sling is. It really depends on where you are and what you are after. Freediving in the Bahamas, when fish abundance is relatively high, shooting grouper and hogfish, a sling will put more pounds of fish in the boat than anything else . Spearguns don't even begin to come close until you are deeper than 60 ft. A gun has the advantage when abundance is low, water is deep and /or fish are extra large, all factors that work against the sling's advantages. From what I have been told about Hawaii, deep water and super spooky fish could make a sling pretty tough.

 

[felipe felop]

what a great piece of kit and idea jon,just went back over this thread again and looked at your pics,the spear you have threaded through the shaped handle,the shaft appears to have 2 flanges on it,the keeper for your line and shaft being next to the lower flange. In the loaded position and release does the 2 flanges on the spearshaft fly straight the the hole in the centre of the handle or does it catch the flanges on release,hence slowing its trajectory or slightly deviating from true point of aim,i can't quite get my head round it

 

[Jon]

I've run a shooting li ne on my sling a couple of different ways so far- trying to find the best way for me.

First, I started out by just knocking the flopper off of and old shaft and running the line through there. I attached about 10'-12' of line to it and tied off the other end to the sling itself. It worked fine, but not quite what I was looking for.

Second, I custom ordered a few sling shafts from Ray Odor- with line holes drilled 18" back from the flopper. I measured this as the maximum length I could pull the shaft back without it interfering with anything. It works pretty well on everything from small crappie to monster sized carp. I still have a bit of extra line floating around which tends to gt tangled on the thick weeds I often find myself swimming through. I have no issues in openwater and really like how fast I can reload and shoot without ever having to worry about loosing a shaft.

Third, and hopefully last, system I came up with somewhat by accident. I had an extra pneumatic shaft that had a small ding in it and would no longer fit into my gun- pneumatics seem to be pretty finicky that way. I decided to try it out with the sling and to my amazement it goes right through the sling handle without any hang ups at all. I use a SL type shaft, from a Cyrano, and am not sure if a standard sized pneumatic shaft would work nearly as well. On this set-up I have installed one of those coiled bungee cords in between the sling and the slider ring. It works great in thick weeds for shots up to about 8'. For openwater I would go back system #2.

Next time I buy shafts they will be the long type of SL pneumatic shafts with the low profile slider rings. This seems to be the best of everything for this type of set-up.

I can try and post pictures at a later date.

Jon

 

[JCooke]

I have a idea for a sling.

You remember "wrist rocks" slingshot. Mount the hawaiin sling handle between the upright and have it swivel or fixed. And upgrade the rubber and shaft retainer. and " Bu-da-bing"

It seem like holding the thing is the most difficult part, it looks unnatural. And if you find the extended one youll gain about 6 more inches of pull.


Jason