Big Shot Personal Record

I received my Big Shot last week and I am amazed how much less time I spend slinging a throwline. I feel like I maxed out with my limited experience(1 month) by hand at about 65' with passable accuracy (meaning it usually took me an hour+). With the BS I've made a dozen or so shots with improved accuracy up to about 75'. However, I just couldn't get enough draw with the BS to get higher without some modification to my technique. I tried different positions, a few home-made releases to try to improve my heights without much improvement. Then I had a revelation (it's probably already been done and I just didn't know about it). I got about 4' of 1.5" pvc pipe and put a 3'x 1.25" wood dowel inside (just wedged it in to test fire) as a height extender for the BS. I set the BS into the pvc pipe rigged the shot and let'er rip...miss fire...the weight fell out. 2nd shot....BULLSEYE!! It sailed right over the limb I'd been aiming for just clearing the top edge...110' !!! Yes...one hundred and 10 feet!! I measured it! The cool thing is I only had to go down to a semi-crouch instead scrunching down kneeling or sitting in the mud. I have to admit that I haven't even ascended to 110'...yet. 70' is my highest so far. As the tree is somewhat off the beaten path I left 225' of throwline over the limb, (which appears to be about 2' in dia) and tied off the slack at the base of the tree. Tomorrow should be a day for a new record climb for this newb! wooohoooooo! By the way...I'm climbing a 160' Sitka Spruce, "Big Mama".

Nice going. Things get when fun when you start learning how to move the throwbag around the tree. For example you have your line over a 2" diameter branch, you can maneuver your throwbag to get the line over a more substantial limb. My best slingshot throw with an 8oz bag trailing 1.75mm was a bit over 135', but I used a 3 section 10 ft. pole, lighter tubing than the Big Shot (I use a custom slingshot head) and a hold down/trigger release so I can max sling stretch full length of the pole. The downside of slingshots is they destroy hand throwing skills if you lean on them too much. On the other hand I only know a handful of people who can hand throw over 100'. The rest of us mere mortals must use a slingshot to get up and over that range
-AJ

AJ, you well know once you get past a certain height maneuvering a throwline becomes a real challenge. That's how I've spent the past two days. Got a line over a limb @ 93' and I have five hours into isolating the limb. It stopped being fun and interesting after about two hours but I persisted and finally got it pretty much where I wanted. I need to know more about the "stick" method of walking the throwline on a branch. That would have been a very useful technique in this situation. I've been enjoying your videos and posts - yer a pretty ingenious fella, ie. the "foot shooter" was very intriguing;) Eric

Congratulations on yer record!!
Sometimes I find it easier to "walk" the rope along the limb,
Rope will roll over the bits throw line gets caught on
That is if I understand your meaning of walking the line correctly

Good point, Nim.
We wanted to "walk" a shot closer to the trunk. It was about 100' up. No way you can throw coils in throwline even just ten feet! Once we got the climbing rope up and over, we took the head off the big shot, clove-hitched the climbing rope to the end of the poles, wrapped the loose rope down to the bottom of the poles, and then swung it over in a big arch! Once you figure out the timing and get it to rock just right, you can throw a coil of climbing rope 100' and walk it along the branch! It's not easy, but is possible.