Key Takeaways:
- Even though slingshots are simple, with a little craftiness and creativity, they are extremely customizable, both in terms of appearance and performance.
- Custom band tapers, different pouches, lanyards, textures, and weights can all dial the slingshot’s exact specifications to your personal preferences.
- Engraving, color swapping, and accessorizing your slingshot make it cool and unique, which can make custom slingshot building a fun hobby.
Slingshots are pretty simple — just a Y-shaped frame with latex bands attached to them. That’s a really low barrier to entry for enjoying the hobby, but that simplicity makes slingshots a blank canvas for customization. With a bit of creativity and some simple crafting skills, you can take that simple slingshot and give it some high-performance precision and make it look just as cool to boot. The ideas I share here are just what I came up with, and they’ll serve as a launch pad for your next custom slingshot build!
Performance Modifications
Some of the customization options you’ll use have real, tangible effects on your slingshot’s performance.
Band Material, Thickness, Length, and Taper
The beating heart of your slingshot, the very thing which allows it to do its job, is the bandset. Dialing your bandset is a balancing act with multiple variables to achieve the perfect draw sequence for you.
Material
Many elastomers have been successfully used in slingshots. Theraband latex (originally made for physical therapy) was king of the hill for a long time, and plenty of seasoned shooters are still loyal to it. It still works great, too, which is why SimpleShot keeps it stocked in bulk. Other folks like repurposed phlebotomy tourniquets, or even pure, natural latex. Each of these, and many options not mentioned here, has different traits. Some are durable and resist UV and abrasion. Others have an extremely fast rebound rate giving you more power and flatter trajectory. It’s all a matter of preference, but all worth considering!
Here at SimpleShot we use SimpleShot Black Premium Latex exclusively, because it’s the best latex out there. It has everything you want in slingshot latex: cut it light and tune it to fly blazing fast, or set it up to last and last. Either way it draws smooth, stays dead consistent, and holds its snap well below freezing.
Thickness
We often fall into the trap of thinking thicker = more draw weight = more power. This is not necessarily so! You’ll want to match your bands to the ammo you’re shooting. If you use 1mm bands (crazy thick) with .177 BBs, your BB will go only as fast as the slingshot can retract, and the leftover energy in the bands will slap you like you owe it money. But if you use .5mm with half-inch ammo, you’ll be lucky if it makes it past the frame.
That’s no knock on thin latex, by the way. Thin retracts fast, and fast retraction is where speed comes from. .5mm rips behind small and medium ammo, and SimpleShot goes thinner still at .4mm. It’s just not enough band to move a half-inch ball. There’s a lot of ground between those extremes, and you’ll find your thickness happy place somewhere in there.
Length and Taper
This is where the real hands-on customization begins. Here, you can experiment with how much you want to stretch the bands and how gradually you want to stretch the bands. On the length front, a longer band will have a lower elongation percentage, which is gentle on your latex at the expense of power. In testing for this article, I left a band at about a 3x elongation for my draw, and another at almost 6x. The 6x shot incredibly hard, but it lasted about 30 shots before tearing. The 3x one shot soft, too soft in my opinion, but after over 500 shots, it shows no signs of slowing down. Once again, there’s a world between those extremes for you to explore.
Tapers are similar. If you start really wide at the frame and end really thin at the pouch, you’ll get a lightning-fast rebound out of your slingshot, but that thin pouch end is all but guaranteed to be the eventual point of failure. With no taper at all, you’ll get less snap out of the shot sequence, but a lot longer band life. There is a happy medium somewhere for you!
Pouches
There are a lot of these. Leather, microfiber, big, small, with and without holes, etc. There are even some with built-in release aids to increase accuracy — the Pinch Pouch has a magnet that centers your steel and a tab to grip, and the Pit Pouch has location pits that snap the ball dead center. If you’re already on your band-tying journey, you might as well pick up a few different pouches along the way and see what you jive with most.
Lanyards
When you’re starting out, and honestly for your entire slingshot journey, it’s wise to wear a wrist lanyard so your frame doesn’t come flying at your face if you accidentally loosen your grip. It can be as simple as a loop of paracord, but adding some adjustability to it can help with accuracy. When you have a lanyard that is tight around your wrist and taut on the slingshot, the tension on the cord serves almost like a wrist brace on a wrist rocket, reducing the strain on your wrist muscles and allowing a more relaxed draw, hold, and release.
Textures
Most slingshots come out of the box with a gentle coarseness to them, but nothing crazy. Adding some texture can give you a little more to hold on to and solidify your shooting stance. This could be as simple as adding some grip tape or sanding it a little, or as complex as busting out the soldering iron and giving it a Gucci stipple job (assuming it’s a plastic slingshot). If you’d rather skip the arts and crafts, SimpleShot sells custom-cut Talon grips that just peel and stick.
Weights
A little heft in your slingshot can help you hold it still through wind, heavy draw lengths, and transitions between targets. Too much weight and your arm will let you know. Some slingshots have internal areas that can accept weights; others might require some creativity. I’ve seen someone drill out the handle and fill it with Pinewood Derby weights — I thought that was clever. But the amount your slingshot weighs is a dial you can turn, and doing so can make you a better shooter.
Cosmetic Modifications
Everything here is purely for the love of the game. And I know many slingshot shooters are pragmatic people who spend time in the woods, not fashionistas trying to look cool, but be honest. Things that look cool are, well, cool.
Engraving
If you have a metal or G-10 frame and the right laser engraver, or hand-engraving skills with any slingshot, you can make your slingshot seriously cool. Add your name, some art, maybe give it the same tattoo you have, etc. Just be careful up by the forks! Fork hits are not afraid to ding up your hard work!
Color Swapping
Many SimpleShot frames have replaceable clips and palm swells in a myriad of colors. You can also do a rattle-can job on any frame. Use a couple of colors, throw down some leaves and stencils, and you’ll have it looking sweet in no time. On the aluminum frames, there’s a world of coatings now available to you. Visit your local Cerakote enthusiast to get a sick camo, Kryptek, Cel-Shade, or whatever color/pattern tickles your fancy. You can also swap the color of your fiber optic sight pins! So many options for color!
Accessorizing
Add some swag to your slingshot! Remember those lanyards we talked about earlier? Those would be perfect places to implement some artsy knot work, cool beads, and fun colors. I have a dream of having a neodymium lanyard bead so I can store a clump of steel ammo on my lanyard. I’ve yet to find such a bead, but some day!
Get to Work!
As you can see, a SimpleShot slingshot is just waiting for you to pick it up and make it the perfect slingshot for you. Build it out the way you want it, top to bottom, and it will certainly become your new favorite slingshot. But be warned, customizing your slingshot is really fun. Who knows, it could become a new hobby of yours and lead to a whole slingshot collection. So grab a slingshot and get to work!
About the author
George Muhlestein is the YouTube host for Blade HQ, where he has spent the last few years writing about knives. He’s also a longtime SimpleShot fan whose whole family shoots slingshots.
