Tarpon Springs, FL – New for 2023, Barnett® introduces a full line of King Rat Slingshots sure to bring adventure to hunters of all ages. The King Rat series is rooted in David Barnett’s childhood and draw from over 60 years of hunting and adventure.
Barnett was founded in the early 1960’s by David Barnett’s Father in the industrial market town of Willenhall, West Midland, England. As a boy, David Barnett visited his father’s workplace, often after school, waiting to be taken home. For his seventh birthday in 1972, his father brought back from America a tubular band slingshot. The new contraption was so different from all the things he had seen from classmates and neighbors.
Mesmerized by the slingshot, he couldn’t wait to kill some vermin with the “Pocket Full of Power.” Armed with marbles, David Barnett set out amongst the overloaded trash bins in the backyards of the local buildings as he set his sights on the numerous Black rats that scavenged in the area.
“One day, I was in luck and hit one so square, it slid up against the wall and started screeching loudly, bouncing up and down until it finally froze still. As I walked over to it with the excitement of the kill, it started screeching loudly again, and to my horror, the ugliest and biggest Black rat I had ever imagined ran in and started tearing it apart, 10ft from me. Looking at me with a bald, fire-burnt red face, it hissed, unflinching and unafraid,” recalled David Barnett.
To this day, half a century later, he still remembers that day so vividly. It wasn’t long after that that the family business started to make slingshots. So, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Barnett and to try to put this “demon” to rest, David Barnett has decided to relive the excitement of a young boy’s adventures with slingshots with the new King Rat Slingshot designs. Read more
A roadside access point is shown where water has been drawn from an unregulated source.
