 In one of our last videos, I made a bow and arrow using only my Stone Age tools. However, I wanted to explore two other primitive projectile weapons, the predate the bow, an Adelada spear thrower, and a sling, and put them to the test against some moving targets. However, the hunting and killing of animals is kind of a touchy topic that has caused some of my past videos to get demonetized. So as I stand in, we'll be taking aim at a more modern day prey, drones. So let's build some weapons. Invented at least 17,000 years ago, the Adelada works as a lever that has extra power in range to a spear or dart. Reaching speeds up to 100 miles per hour and a max range up to 120 to 150 yards, making it comparable to the power and force of contemporary bow and arrows. Spear throwers have been used by many cultures around the world, coming in many different varieties, but all functioning on the same concept. In Europe, it fell out of disuse after the invention of the bow and arrow, over many parts of the world continue to use it in addition to the bow and arrow, most notably by the Aztecs, from whom the word Adel-Adel originates. I reached out to my discord channel for some help, and one user, Adrian, dropped off some Adel-Adel and darts they had made to practice with before I make my own, and also explained the basics to me on making one. So I got a few suggestions from Adrian on how exactly to best make an Adel-Adel. The first one was to not actually start with the Adel-Adel, but make the dart first, make the dart first, and then the Adel-Adel so you can balance it to your specific dart. They also suggested using a cane for the actual staff, they're much more lightweight, they have a lot of flexibility that helps it, and they're pretty much already straight. I'm actually going to use some of the bamboo I collected in California last year, took the straightest one here, I'm going to put a wood tip on the end of it, that'll be a little bit more durable than the bamboo itself, and then fire harden it for extra strength, and then if it does break it can just replace it. In contrary to what you would expect, you actually want the fat end to go first, because you want the weight in the front, and then on the back put some fletching with some tricky feathers, and that's mostly just to kind of slow down the back end, so it doesn't tumble forward or anything, helps it, helps it fly straight. All right, so it should be a completed dart, it'd be good to go. No, just to make this be your thrower. Throw it. Next up I had Annalise make a sling. This may have been invented by at least 10,000 BCE, slings were popular around the world and work by extending the arm of the thrower, giving them additional power than just regularly throwing projectiles. Small stones, clay, or lead bullets were used as ammo options, because of its high density lead was by far the most effective, with a range past 400 yards, slings are known to out distance bow and arrows, and were used through to Roman times in war, however advancements in armor eventually made them obsolete for use in wars, as they are easier to protect against than arrows. In our last video I learned how to smell lead, and then cast some lead bullets, using a similar method like they used in this era, making a thumb impression into clay, and casting the lead into it. However, where we got the lead in the Galena Illinois area last time, we also had a chance to learn more about a more modern method that was used to make lead projectiles. In order to get it from this state to here, you had to sell it if you didn't have some sort of shot down the area. And one of the last remaining shot towers in the USA, there in Dubuque, Iowa. This is the historic shot tower. It was built in 1856 by George Rogers, one of the three remaining shot towers left in the world. There's only one of a very few west of the Mississippi River. This one's 120 feet, and that's without the room that used to be framed on the very top. The reason for the shot tower back in the day was they would take that lead and they would mix it with arsenic. They either melded it down in a building adjacent to the structure, and then even a furnace that was at the top, and after a certain distance of falling through the air and cooling, that lead would turn into a sphere. It would eventually fall down into the well system that's located at the bottom of the shot tower. They would scoop up all the shot, and they would run it through a tumbler that would polish it. Different size shot would be filtered through and then bagged according to the caliber or how thick it was. You know what size shot they would make? More like a bird shot than before they built shot towers and used this method. So they would cast a lot, make molds, and then they would inject it. They would open them up and then they'd have the tails that had to clip off. So they'd be able to manufacture faster because of just the large-scale production. Most of the shot towers you find out in order to make a good piece of shot would have to be at least 120 to 150 feet. The larger the shot tower, the larger the caliber of the shot you can make. Now for Annelies to make the sling. Using some of the hemp fiber we previously collected. After hand making the cordage I needed to lash the bundle together, which I needed to be pretty thin and pretty strong, I decided it was time to make a spindle for the sling because I'm going to need even more cordage that's even stronger and better quality. So a spindle is pretty much just a stick with a hook or a notch at the top or the bottom that keeps a hold of your thread as you spin it and then a weight at the bottom. I've made a clay disc for mine and the weight helps keep the momentum going as you spin it. Dubby approves of your string. She's going to eat it. Should see if there's any more money. That's where the dubby canoe came from. Like ideally it'd be something with like a thick base with a small branch for the notch. Also if it has a curve that's ideal. Gotta work. Cut it extra long so if I cut it right there myself plenty to work with. Sure seems to be pretty dead. So this is the little notch I'm looking for. Cut it long so I can cut it down. Or just snap it. So basically do like this. Put the dart in, hold it in and fling. I think that should work. So I've spun some pretty good lengths of hemp twine. I just measured this one and it's 24 feet which is exactly what I want. And what I'll do is I'll find the middle of all of these. Cut them in half and that'll give me six pieces of twine that are 12 feet long. And I'll braid those together to make my sling. I mean twine good enough that's a bitch to cut. There we go. I'm like I made it too strong. All right I'm from the middle of all midpoint. Start double braiding. That's probably good. So I've got this braid in the middle of my cord which seems counter-intuitive to braiding. Normally you start at one end, braid down to the other end. But I did this because then I'll have like a nice loop at the end of my sling without any knots that I have to worry about coming loose. It was easy at the first time. I feel like it's gonna fall over dude. Nah, it'll be fine. So now to attach this into one cord I'll just mix up the pairs I have and then braid those down. That'll make the bulk of the length of my sling. Here's my finished sling. I just hold it by looping this around my middle finger and holding this part pinched between my index finger and thumb. And I'll load the shot into the basket here and then I'll just spin it and release the other end to shoot the shot. For shot options I have lead shot and clay shot that Andy made me. And then I have pebbles and then just little rocks. So first I'm just gonna cut this brand into a little notch that should hopefully fit the indent in the back of the dart and hold it there. It's a pretty simple setup. It's a stick that throws a stick. A little bit more. Pretty close. All right, so balancing it with the dart. So the balancing point is somewhere around here. So I'm gonna start trimming back, narrowing it in to just the necessary size. It's pretty well balanced right there. Maybe remove equal on each end. So it looks like the balance point moved up just a little bit, which is good because I left just enough. So it's actually just about right now. So I'm gonna carve a little bit indentation just so I know where to hold it. Should be pretty much that. And I just gotta learn how to throw it. Yeah, Adrian told me the basic concept behind trying to throw this is basically just eat it. Just kill some random person who steps out of the dark. Oh, I don't want to hit them. It's dad. Cook that for dinner tonight. It's got the allyle. Time to put it to the test. Got a bunch of darts. Start throwing. See what I do. And we'll move on to shooting down some drones. Who wants to stand down there with an apple? All right, Andy, don't mess it up. All right, let's kill a man. The hardest part is getting it notched. This is pretty good. That was nice. It has some penetrating power. Hard to get out. Let's put the target down there underneath the arrow. Looks like all of them are bullseye. I feel like your first one every time goes over the pay up. That's the bad thing. That's pretty good. Die, cloud. All right, so we only get some pretty decent distance with the allyle. And for comparison, I'm going to try just throwing them and see how much shorter it falls then. Throw it like a big game of darts. Not too bad. Actually do pretty decent, but not nearly as much force. Allyle definitely makes a difference. Next with the sling, we learned it had a much higher learning curve and was pretty difficult to figure out. Sorry if I hit you in advance. You should have brought the hard hat. We should have brought those. Round real hard. Right direction. Kind of. You think like good? Somewhat. This is definitely a learned skill. That hits the target. Definitely feel it. Any shoulder? Yeah. After that, we took some high speed footage to measure the speed of the different weapons. I was able to give between 66 and 70 miles per hour with my Ataladdle. For comparison, my bow and arrow only shot at 60 miles per hour. At its peak, an Ataladdle can reach up to 100 miles per hour. Then with the sling, I was able to get rocks up to 45 miles per hour. Throwing by hand, I could only get them up to about 36. Then the lead bullets went considerably faster at 50 miles per hour. However, a skilled slinger can supposedly get them up to 100 miles per hour. So there's some obvious room for improvement. Now to test out our primitive weapons in our post-apocalyptic drone swarm scenario. After the wind started picking up and stealing our drones, we moved back to the studio with a makeshift indoor range to see how our bow and arrows fared against the drones. Yourself in a scenario where you need to construct your own weapons against killer drones. Yes, it's possible, but to be able to use them with any effectiveness is going to take a lot of training. In the end, both of these builds were pretty quick. The Ataladdle and Dart took a mere two hours to make, while the sling, a little over six hours. However, the speed and building them is easily made up for with the skills you need to develop to use them with any effectiveness. While the bow took a considerably longer time to make, over 43 hours, I was able to get the most accurate results with it with the least amount of training, which is ultimately one of the big reasons the bow and arrow became so much more dominant. But even then, trying to shoot a small moving target is something that will take a considerable amount of practice to achieve, so the best defense might be a strong breeze, or a buoy trap, or to hope that the drones are made in China. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe and check out other content we have covering a wide variety of topics. Also, if you've enjoyed this series, consider supporting us on Patreon. We are largely a fan-funded channel, and depend on the support of our viewers in order to keep our series going. Thanks for watching!