Product review and photographs by Danielle Breteau
What is The Pocket Shot? Well, it is what I call a modern-day sling shot, but a little cooler, has an interesting design and is quite portable – but make no mistake, this is not a toy!
Let’s get the statistics out of the way first: The Pocket Shot is a closed pouch made of latex with a base and locking ring that compresses the latex ends. This design allows for a solid grip on the front end and a clear line of projection for your ammunition – in this case a steel slug.
Pocket Shot claims that it has a projection rate of 350 feet per second, and while we did not actually use a chronograph I can say that we had to seriously tone down the amount of pull force we were using, because this little thing is deceivingly powerful.
It is 100-percent made in the USA and comes with two latex pouches or bands as they call them: the black one, which is the thicker and slower velocity option and the super blue band that is lighter but quicker and can achieve higher velocities.
The recommended ammo choices run in the 1/4-, 5/16-, and 3/8-inch size ranges, and it is highly discouraged to use anything smaller than 1/4-inch.
Loading
Loading is easy and while the Pocket Shot comes with about 100 ball-bearing rounds, the imagination runs wild with other options: pebbles, confetti, darts, paint balls, pepper balls, etc. Noteworthy: Pocket Shot also makes an arrow-specific unit called The Pocket Shot Arrow. (Note to self – must get one of these!)
Just unscrew the cap, place the projectile into the pocket and voila! Loaded. Grasp the ring firmly with one hand, claps the ball bearing through the rubber pouch, pull back and aim.
Changing pouches/bands
Changing bands is ridiculously easy – If you know how to put your socks on, you should be good to go, however you must also understand that there are two rings at the mouth of the Pocket Shot, not just one bulky one – I will not go into depth on how long it took me to figure this out, but suffice it to say I saved you at least 30 minutes of precious time.
There is a locking ring that unscrews from the base ring. This releases the mouth of the pouch/band so you can readily change it out.
Aiming and accuracy
Just like anything that might require skill and accuracy, we found that there was a wide variety of marksmanship out of the box. Using only folks who had never fired the Pocket Shot before, but were all skilled shooters, we found that in some cases sight alignment and trigger control – if you will – worked great, but for others not so much. A shoot-from-the-hip approach worked best for them.
We started shooting from the 5-yard line and worked our way back as far the 15 yard line. For some, accuracy actually improved as the distance grew and for others, well, they should probably stick with barns and large open fields when using this little rocket.
Overall, there are numerous uses for the Pocket Shot and while practice is highly recommended, it is intensely fun. We even loaded as many as 8 ball bearings for a shot-gun effect, which worked brilliantly if you think a 5-foot spread at 5 yards is awesome! Great fun.
Safety
No kidding! This is not a toy and eye pro is a must. If you happen to miss your target, which would of course be somewhere located in a safe direction away from you and people you like to hang around with, and it ricochets off of a hard surface then you can be sure that “you will shoot your eye out” just like the Red Ryder. Not a toy – should be treated as a potentially serious weapon. Now doesn’t that make you just want one even more?
If you still don’t get how this Pocket Shot works, take a look at this video by Vat19, see it in action.
Editor’s note: Danielle Breteau is a professional shooter and humor columnist.
