Welcome to the New Forest Brand catapults blog page.

The New Forest Brand handmade catapult range was established in 1996 by me, Alan Shergold. I am the owner of Bells Of Hythe fishing tackle and gun shop in Southampton and I had been selling catapults here for 20 years and decided it was time to sell our own.

I am not a traveller an nor was my father, but like my father we have spent a lot of time in our lives in the same circle as foresters and travellers alike and it was our time with these people that got us into catapults originally.

The New Forest Brand range of catapults started out with one simple aluminium moulded gripped catapult fork, fitted with a beige coloured 6mm catapult elastic that we found from a small rubber manufacturer, the forks were very large and hard to use and the hole was about 12mm deep making the process of adding the elastic a real mission! The elastic stopped after only being pulled back a short distance and had no real power to speak of. The pouch to be fair was OK but it did not last any length of time and the occasional one would rip at the fitting holes. Not good enough for my standards!

We started originally with a basic grade of aluminium for the forks, manmade cheap rubber for the elastic and cheap week untreated leather for the tongues but we soon knew that we wanted to be using only the finest materials such as top grade aluminium, natural latex rubber for the elastics and hard wearing African black leather for the tongues.

Wanting to use only the best materials was one thing, finding the best materials to use is another thing entirely!!!

We knew from shooting the original forks that when it comes to power and accuracy it was all about the elastic and ammunition and not the forks. When you get a set of forks in your hand that feels comfortable for your hand size and that you can hold easily the rest is all down to the ammo and the elastic that you choose so these two parts of the ingredients are ones that we have spent a lot of time and money on.

Here are some of our original products:

 

When I initiated the manufacture and sale of these forks there were no companies involved in making forks commercially in the UK and all people would ever bring into the shop were old Milbro and Deadshot forks that were 50 years old. I had searched the internet for catapult manufacturers and catapult dealers and could not find one so I knew if I wanted to sell forks I would have to start making them myself.

To find out what catapult products would be popular and would work well, we knew would needed many opinions from various catapult shooters. We obviously had our own opinions and our own favourite fork shapes but we were not the ones buying the catapults so we needed to know what the catapult community were looking for. We decided that the best way of getting feedback about catapults was to start going on the road and taking the catapults to game fairs and travellers fairs and talking to the catapult community face to face. 

The internet community are great for feedback, but in reality there are a lot of keyboard warriors out there that like to talk the talk, but never walk the walk. We figured that the people attending the fairs and shows are the true shooters and really walk the walk.

My colleague Ian was the man for the job and soon we had a catapult stall made and loaded with our first ever range of catapults and we were ready to go.

The stall sold elastics, pouches, catapults and a very basic lead ball mould that was actually a fishing lead mould and not very good if I’m honest.

To explain the growth of our company and how we found products and materials I will continue to write this blog every two weeks from this point on.

In future blogs I will discuss things such as:

○ The best shot I have seen with a catapult

○ Popular products that we sell.

○ Materials that we use for our manufacture.

○ The famous New Forest Brand 12 ball lead ammo mould.

○ The birth of the lucky seven catapult.

○ Diamond encrusted catapults that we have made for wedding presents.

○ The real laws of hunting with a catapult

and much, much more!

I hope you will find this blog interesting and probably amusing at times and I look forward to telling you a lot more about the history of the New Forest Brand Catapult range.

Alan Shergold – New Forest Brand Catapults.