Do you olduns Remember catapult's

[figgy]

Had both milbro and black widow.  The little steel balls you could buy were the best but too expensive. 

Old marbles were very good, but your thumb nail hated them in the milbro.

Hit lots of things with the black widow. It was never out of my pocket as a youngster before getting a air pistol.  Looking back the black widow was better.

[clakk]

Got 2 in the shed , a black widow and chinese whatever brand that works .We used to buy French sticks and put dart heads on the end and wrap a lace around the end and lob them 100,s of yards ,lethal fun using card for flights .Many a black thumb using marbles for catty ammo when u got it wrong till i got a "Gat" gun so much power "not"

[Lloyd90]

My mates still got one and he’s absolutely deadly with it, can take anything from pigeons to rabbits on the daily and I imagine with the size of the projectiles he could take game / waterfowl fairly easily. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

45 minutes ago, figgy said:

Had both milbro and black widow.  The little steel balls you could buy were the best but too expensive. 

Old marbles were very good, but your thumb nail hated them in the milbro.

Hit lots of things with the black widow. It was never out of my pocket as a youngster before getting a air pistol.  Looking back the black widow was better.

hello, have to agree figgy the black widow is far better than the milbro thumb blacker ouch!!!!!

[Old Boggy]

5 hours ago, deny essex said:

We used to make them as well, no idea why but we called them "French arrows"

We also used call them French arrows, for what reason I don’t know either. Perhaps someone will enlighten us. Also a bit of rag soaked in parafin on the end of our arrows. Set light to some bushes and the fire spread and almost set light to a wooden house nearby but the fire brigade sorted it first. Our bows and arrows suddenly disappeared and a neighbour was blamed with his bonfire, where we lit our arrows in the first place. Close shave !!!

OB

[fatchap]

I make them, sold quite a few.

 

Here's one I made earlier. Got a few in the pipeline at the moment all with aluminium cores and exotic laminates.

Edited July 12, 2019 by fatchap

[JTaylor91]

17 minutes ago, fatchap said:

I make them, sold quite a few.

 

Here's one I made earlier. Got a few in the pipeline at the moment all with aluminium cores and exotic laminates.

How much would one set me back roughly? Feel free to PM me if you don’t want to state prices here.

[Walker570]

If my personal computer is correct, I remember my grandfather making my first catapult round about 1945 .... I was 5yrs old.  There wasn't a kid in the village didn't have one and all the local poachers had one tucked in the lining of there coats.  I then had a catapult in my possesion up until around 1957 and by then I had learned to make my own ..... you learn quickly at that game and today, 60 odd years later if you look at the knuckle of my index finger you can still see a slight bump on the bone where a one inch nut struck it when things went wrong.

My grandafthers where a work of art, he woukl spend hours in our hazel wood picking out suitable forkits. They would then be cut to slightly over size and a short piece of broom stale lodged in the fork and some strong cord wrapped tightly to pull the arms together. Then they went overnight into the top warming oven of the huge black grate we had in the farmhouse kitchen and next morning they would be 'cooked', dried out so he could fettel the slots etc for the fixing of the 1/4 elastic.  Initially as a 5 yr old I had some about half that size and a much softer pull. The 1/4 inch stuff took some pulling back but yeeesh the result had to be seen.  Made mincemeat of house sparrows.  Our Tamuth Timber Fettler now has the shooting rights on a piece of river where some of the very best quality ammuniton ould be found, perfectly round pebbles, about 5/8ths in diameter...... oh I could go on but memories come flooding back.

Not bragging but I have been a pretty good shot throughout my life and put that down to the hours and hours of 'instinctive' aiming with a catty.  No sights on them, you programe your brain to collate information to your eyes and limbs as to where the projectile needs to hit and as I have said many times on here ...look at the bird....

[marsh man]

In my early teenage years I would never leave my house without my cattie in one of the inside pockets , one of my neighbours was a bit on the posh side and had a 3/4 stone gravel garden , first thing in the morning when walking past I bent down a put a large hand full in my pocket , at first you couldn't see where I had been but when I found a new place for better ammo I am sorry to say the poor ole dears garden was looking a bit sparse of any stone , over a period of time we got pretty handy at hitting things at a sensible range , one of our party tricks was throwing a can up in the air then hitting it on the way down , cans were fairly safe but it got a bit dangerous if you tried it with a bottle , after using stones we then moved on to rivets that were cut off from the railway trucks that were being cut up when they started to close the small railway lines and stations around our way , after using these rivets ( which would kill someone if you hit them in a vital place ) we moved on to cutting up strips of lead to make them into shot , this was deadly and many an ole saddle back ( Great Blacked Back Gull would come to grief when they hovered above us at the ole rubbish tip .

Where did we get the lead from ? , sorry , memory is having a senior moment and gone blank 

[B725]

As kids around here they were called a gaddar, probably a corruption of catter as in catapult. 

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, Walker570 said:

If my personal computer is correct, I remember my grandfather making my first catapult round about 1945 .... I was 5yrs old.  There wasn't a kid in the village didn't have one and all the local poachers had one tucked in the lining of there coats.  I then had a catapult in my possesion up until around 1957 and by then I had learned to make my own ..... you learn quickly at that game and today, 60 odd years later if you look at the knuckle of my index finger you can still see a slight bump on the bone where a one inch nut struck it when things went wrong.

My grandafthers where a work of art, he woukl spend hours in our hazel wood picking out suitable forkits. They would then be cut to slightly over size and a short piece of broom stale lodged in the fork and some strong cord wrapped tightly to pull the arms together. Then they went overnight into the top warming oven of the huge black grate we had in the farmhouse kitchen and next morning they would be 'cooked', dried out so he could fettel the slots etc for the fixing of the 1/4 elastic.  Initially as a 5 yr old I had some about half that size and a much softer pull. The 1/4 inch stuff took some pulling back but yeeesh the result had to be seen.  Made mincemeat of house sparrows.  Our Tamuth Timber Fettler now has the shooting rights on a piece of river where some of the very best quality ammuniton ould be found, perfectly round pebbles, about 5/8ths in diameter...... oh I could go on but memories come flooding back.

Not bragging but I have been a pretty good shot throughout my life and put that down to the hours and hours of 'instinctive' aiming with a catty.  No sights on them, you programe your brain to collate information to your eyes and limbs as to where the projectile needs to hit and as I have said many times on here ...look at the bird....

We also thought we were tidy shots , the cattie was made by our selves and used 3/16 elastic with a pouch made out of the tongue off one of my dads redundant naval shoes , the 1/4 inch elastic we found was a bit to strong .

When I say tidy shot , compared with a bloke on Youtube we were next to rubbish , this bloke can blow a candle out without hitting the candle and cut a playing card in half when swinging on a piece of sting sideways , when you get time , give it a look .

[team tractor]

I still have my Diablo after 25 years. I know I had a squirrel and duck as a kid. Wouldn’t attempt it now tho . Might get it out for my son

[stumfelter]

46 minutes ago, B725 said:

As kids around here they were called a gaddar, probably a corruption of catter as in catapult. 

👍👍

[gustaff]

we called them kelts,ball bearings,marbles ,pebbles ,nuts and bolts were all fair ammo great fun in the sixties then as we grew up a barnett imp crossbow was a rolls royce hand held imlplementfrom there after till air rifle

 

[Grandalf]

I had cattys but found I was a better shot with a sling.   David and Goliath type.   You can often see the kids in the Gazza Strip using them against the Israeli troops.

Absolutely lethal at short ranges. 

[Jim DiGriz]

There is slways a black widow in my range bag, as you can drop a fig 11 sarts target at 50m with one which is quite fun.

[deny essex]

I remember the bolt bombs, fill them with caps or red matches, chemicals and hold your breath when tightening before throwing.

[figgy]

Used to buy the square elastic bands in lengths. Worked ok but never lasted long, used to stray to get nicks on the corners them snap.

The Barnet hollow round bands were a boon compared. Cut an inch off and you could get full pull power.

Edited July 12, 2019 by figgy

[fatchap]

Theraband gold tapered 25 down to 20 is pretty much the tops in catty elastic, hasn't got the life of tubes but is far more powerful, easily put a 9mm lead ball through a door at 20 meters.

 

[nobbyathome]

I used to make my own as a kid as all of us on the estate did always up the woods playing climbing and making camps I wasn’t a bad shot and had many birds and squirrels funnily enough I was a good shot just throwing stones I got quite a few birds  shame packham wasn’t around then he would have been a great target 

[Ricko]

11 hours ago, B725 said:

As kids around here they were called a gaddar, probably a corruption of catter as in catapult. 

In one of Plummer's books he mentions a character with a catapult called 'Walter Clat', he muses that 'clat' must be a corruption of catapult. Anyone heard this word used for a 'catty'.

[krugerandsmith]

16 hours ago, Bobba said:

Me too. Catapaults made as described by Denny. But like others we too called throwing arrows French arrows.

The most lethal piece of kit were two bolts screwed (just)  into either end of one nut (3/8th whitworth I think) with a chemical mix in between. Chuck them down the road and they went off like mini grenades. In those days (late 50's) bomb sites were our playground. You could buy chemicals for your chemistry set from model shops and chemists and experiment. In many ways, sadly I have forgotten the powder mix formula. Probably just as well!

 

16 hours ago, Bobba said:

Me too. Catapaults made as described by Denny. But like others we too called throwing arrows French arrows.

The most lethal piece of kit were two bolts screwed (just)  into either end of one nut (3/8th whitworth I think) with a chemical mix in between. Chuck them down the road and they went off like mini grenades. In those days (late 50's) bomb sites were our playground. You could buy chemicals for your chemistry set from model shops and chemists and experiment. In many ways, sadly I have forgotten the powder mix formula. Probably just as well!

Yes we used to make them as well.... After the war there were plenty of 303 rounds brought back home by servicemen we took the heads off the bullets and used the cordite rods broken into small pieces together with a match head taking great care not to over tighten the bolts before throwing them.  Happy Days.

[deny essex]

BTW the Barnett catty frame will be binned shortly unless anyone wants it.

[oldypigeonpopper]

he

14 hours ago, marsh man said:

In my early teenage years I would never leave my house without my cattie in one of the inside pockets , one of my neighbours was a bit on the posh side and had a 3/4 stone gravel garden , first thing in the morning when walking past I bent down a put a large hand full in my pocket , at first you couldn't see where I had been but when I found a new place for better ammo I am sorry to say the poor ole dears garden was looking a bit sparse of any stone , over a period of time we got pretty handy at hitting things at a sensible range , one of our party tricks was throwing a can up in the air then hitting it on the way down , cans were fairly safe but it got a bit dangerous if you tried it with a bottle , after using stones we then moved on to rivets that were cut off from the railway trucks that were being cut up when they started to close the small railway lines and stations around our way , after using these rivets ( which would kill someone if you hit them in a vital place ) we moved on to cutting up strips of lead to make them into shot , this was deadly and many an ole saddle back ( Great Blacked Back Gull would come to grief when they hovered above us at the ole rubbish tip .

Where did we get the lead from ? , sorry , memory is having a senior moment and gone blank 

hello, i get them all the time now MM,  

[oldypigeonpopper]

13 hours ago, marsh man said:

We also thought we were tidy shots , the cattie was made by our selves and used 3/16 elastic with a pouch made out of the tongue off one of my dads redundant naval shoes , the 1/4 inch elastic we found was a bit to strong .

When I say tidy shot , compared with a bloke on Youtube we were next to rubbish , this bloke can blow a candle out without hitting the candle and cut a playing card in half when swinging on a piece of sting sideways , when you get time , give it a look .

hello, oh i remember those old navel shoes, god forbid i nicked the tongue out of my dads, they were his sunday best when he went to the local pub !!!!!!!!