The Wrist-Rocket was made from bent aluminum alloy rods that formed not only the handle and fork, but also a brace that extended backwards over the wrist, and provided support on the forearm to counter the torque of the bands. The middle 1950s saw two major innovations in slingshot manufacture, typified by the Wrist-Rocket which was produced by the Saunders Archery Co. John Milligan, a part-time manufacturer of the aluminium-framed John Milligan Special, a hunting slingshot, reported that about a third of his customers were physicians. Despite the slingshot's reputation as a tool of juvenile delinquents, the NSA reported that 80% of slingshot sales were to men over 30 years old, many of them professionals. It organised slingshot clubs and competitions nationwide. The National Slingshot Association was founded in the 1940s, headquartered in San Marino, California. The Wham-O was suitable for hunting, with a draw weight of up to 200 newtons (45 pounds-force), and was available with an arrow rest. It was made of ash wood and used flat rubber bands.
The Wham-O company, founded in 1948, produced the Wham-O slingshot. They were still primarily home-built a 1946 Popular Science article details a slingshot builder and hunter using home-built slingshots made from forked dogwood sticks to take small game at ranges of up to 9 m (30 ft) with No. While commercially made slingshots date from at latest 1918, with the introduction of the Zip-Zip, a cast iron model, it was not until the post– World War II years that slingshots saw a surge in popularity, and legitimacy. With the addition of a suitable rest, the slingshot can also be used to shoot arrows, allowing the hunting of medium-sized game at short ranges. Placing multiple balls in the pouch produces a shotgun effect (even though not very accurate), such as firing a dozen BBs at a time for hunting small birds. Firing projectiles, such as lead musket balls, buckshot, steel ball bearings, air gun pellets, or small nails, a slingshot was capable of taking game such as quail, pheasant, rabbit, dove, and squirrel. While early slingshots were most associated with young vandals, they could be effective hunting arms in the hands of a skilled user. For much of their early history, slingshots were a "do-it-yourself" item, typically made from a forked branch to form the "Y" shaped handle, with rubber strips sliced from items as inner tubes or other sources of good vulcanized rubber, and firing suitably sized stones. By 1860, this "new engine" had established a reputation for use by juveniles in vandalism. The bushytail supply isn’t likely to run short, and what’s particularly nice about a squirrel catapult is that, coaxed by a handful of sunflower seeds in the basket, the ordnance loads itself.Slingshots depend on strong elastic materials, typically vulcanized natural rubber or the equivalent such as silicone rubber tubing, and thus date no earlier than the invention of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear in 1839 (patented in 1844).
I have yet to acquaint more of the local squirrels with my contraption. It was supremely gratifying to pull the cord and watch the little monster go flipping butt-over-beady-eyeballs toward the snow. So far one squirrel that came here for sunflower seed has left in a way calculated to thoroughly astonish, and its ratty little mind is no doubt still trying to comprehend the experience. But while it hasn’t produced the graceful, long-distance trajectory of some of the larger models–getting it to do so will require experimentation–I’m satisfied that it works fine. It’s a modest affair, as is necessary given the limited space on my third-floor balcony. So after seeing some clips of squirrel catapults on YouTube, I thought I’d make one of my own. But when a bushy-tailed rodent scares the birds away from my feeder, rips the bottom out of my finch seed sack, and all but flips me the finger when I knock on the window to scare it away, said rodent is no longer cute.