Internal ballistics of the sling

The venerable sling is a difficult weapon to master—we show that very precise timing is required to hit a target. Internal ballistics are analyzed to support ancient claims of the weapon's range (exceeding 400 m in some cases). Many simplifying approximations are used to model the complicated internal trajectory of the sling bullet; they yield a useful formula for assessing the capabilities of a sling. Our analysis has pedagogical value in demonstrating the efficacy of well-chosen approximations in practical physics calculations.