 While commercially made slingshots date from at least 1918, with the introduction of the Zip-Zip, a cast iron model, it was not until the post World War II years saw a surge in the popularity, and legitimacy, of slingshots.They were still primarily a home-built proposition; a 1946 Popular Science article details a slingshot builder and hunter using home-built slingshots made from forked dogwood sticks to take small game at ranges of up to with No.0 lead buckshot ( diameter).