Any wrist rocketeers here?

[entropy]

Just gonna leave this here for nostalgia sake...

[Clusterfrack]

In high school, my best friend Mike and I got good grades and didn’t get into trouble. But like most teenage boys, we occasionaly strayed into delinquency. This story starts at around 11pm on the 4th of July, and ends with us running into my driveway around midnight, sweaty and out of breath, with leaves and sticks in our hair. Mike and I were 16 at the time. We were crouched on a wooded hillside overlooking a 2 lane coastal highway. The line of cars leaving town had thinned, and we could hear a siren in the distance. We were talking about how mad the guy in the convertable Porsche was. The siren was getting closer, and we were out of firecrackers to sling down at vehicles with my Wrist Rocket. “Yeah. We should go,” said Mike.

There was a full moon, or close to one. Mounds of dry leaves crunched under our feet as we hiked over the top of a small hill, and descended into a dense stand of oaks. The moonlight shone in an eery patchwork of bright spots and darkness. The trees were spooky too, forming a maze of twisted limbs and sharp branches. Mike and I were such close friends that each of us knew what was on the other’s mind. I was thinking the exact same thing that Mike said just then:

“Man, this would be the perfect place to find a dead body.”

We stopped and looked around at the mounds of dry leaves, lit by moonlight, under the stunted oak trees. Yes, this was the ideal place to find a dead body, if a dead body was going to be found by two sixteen-year-old boys up to no good.

“What’s THAT?”, I whispered, pointing to a man-sized mound of something that looked like cloth, partially lit by moonlight about 20 feet away.
“Um... I don’t know”, said Mike.
“It looks like a dead body.”
“Yeah... totally.”
“It really looks like a dead body.”
“What should we do?”
“Shoot it?”, both of us said at the same time.

I took the Wrist Rocket out of the pocket of my faux-fleece lined Levis jacket, and loaded a Pachinko ball into the sling pocket. 20 feet was an easy shot for me. The steel ball hit the middle of the object with an audible 'thwack'. It sat up, and screamed. Words can't describe how deeply terrifying this looked to us. It was like a scene from a horror movie where the vampire suddenly sits up from the coffin. Then the guy started standing up, and he was understandably pissed off. We screamed and ran, crashing through branches, slipping in the piles of leaves, and trying to see if the hobo I shot was still chasing us.

[UNM1136]

My mom worked for an intelligence agency with a Tiger Team mandate for US installations around the world. They recruited varsity guys from Fort Bragg/Pope AFB to fill their Command Sergeant Major slots because, well, there is only one CSM slot per unit and some guys wanted to be a CSM in an organization before they retire. The Intel agency was largely a .mil affair.

Wrist rockets are still used by those hard folks for driving away dogs and taking out lights.

pat

[UNK]

Maybe what you need is a Chief AJ slingbow.
https://www.chiefaj.com/products

[41magfan]

Yep, in the late 60's into the early 70's we spent way too much time beating wheel bearings apart for ammo, but the pay-off was incredible accuracy and power. Marbles were our go-to projectiles when the truck stop didn't have any bearings to salvage.

One chum in particular was particularly skillful in his ability to knock squirrels and pigeons from their tall perches. He could also knock a cat off a front porch on the move while no-handing his Schwinn bicycle. We kept them at the ready by wrapping the tubing around the handlebars of our bikes and leather pouches served as ammo carriers.

Like most things, it takes a LOT of practice to become proficient unless you have Rob Leatham like hand/eye coordination.

[UNK]

My mom worked for an intelligence agency with a Tiger Team mandate for US installations around the world. They recruited varsity guys from Fort Bragg/Pope AFB to fill their Command Sergeant Major slots because, well, there is only one CSM slot per unit and some guys wanted to be a CSM in an organization before they retire. The Intel agency was largely a .mil affair.

Wrist rockets are still used by those hard folks for driving away dogs and taking out lights.

pat

I know a guy who while deployed would shoot locals at night with wrist rockets in conjunction with NVG.

ETA as within a policy not as harassment

[Duelist]

I may have one sitting on my dresser that I have not used in far too long.

[UNM1136]

In my patrol area there are two golf courses. Lotsa bunnies. I like to eat rabbit. I have a suppressed .22, but one shell casing and I will be done, since everyone knows I like to eat rabbit and have a suppressed .22. This is a very anti gun area. I keep looking at the wrist rockets when I shop. The new ones have laser sights. I may pick one up to harvest a few small animals. My kids like bunny bits to eat.

pat

[Totem Polar]

.

I took the Wrist Rocket out of the pocket of my faux-fleece lined Levis jacket, and loaded a Pachinko ball into the sling pocket. 20 feet was an easy shot for me. The steel ball hit the middle of the object with an audible 'thwack'. It sat up, and screamed. Words can't describe how deeply terrifying this looked to us. It was like a scene from a horror movie where the vampire suddenly sits up from the coffin...

I love this.

One chum in particular was particularly skillful in his ability to knock squirrels and pigeons from their tall perches. He could also knock a cat off a front porch on the move while no-handing his Schwinn bicycle...

And this.


This thread delivers; like a UPS truck driven by a delinquent Gen-Xer.

[Totem Polar]

The new ones have laser sights...