Recommend me a Hacky Sack/Foot bag

bikkibikkibo

Hello H/A.

I used to spend a lot of time playing hacky sack in middle school and high school. Whenever my friends and I were bored, we'd break one out and kick it around for hours. I used to own quite a few of these and eventually I would either lose them or they fell apart.

Recently I've been hunting around in smoke shops, but none of the ones I've been to carry them anymore. Even the same shops that did years ago.

I decided this morning that I would look online, but there are so many different types! I wanted to get one of the best ones possible, yet I don't exactly know what that is.

Here are a few examples of material used for the shell of the bag.

Cotton:



Suede:



Leather:



All of these shells can be filled with sand, plastic, metal and some other various materials.

Basically I want to know what would be best suited for playing on grass, sometimes concrete. It is also important that the bag allows us to do stalls and other various tricks, yet isn't too heavy.

I used to own a cotton bags, but they would always tear and I'd have to sew the holes constantly.

So, H/A, can you help me decide on a Hacky Sack?

Aioua

I would check in skate shops, too, if you're looking to pick one up physically still.
I've never played with anything other than the knitted ones with plastic beads inside, but I can hazard some guesses...
If you're playing on concrete or whatever the tougher the material the longer it will last. So a vote for leather. Doing stalls and the like seems to be a function of the amount of fill, so if you're needing to change that a knit one is going to be easier to open and resew.
Though, those leather/suede ones coudl also be more likely to fall apart if the peices are sewn crappy to begin with, and probably harder to repair of they do.

I mean, it's a little sack you're going to kick around and stomp on, it's gonna break eventually. So I also wouldn't spend too much money.

Figgy

Cotton. Always get cotton.

They are easier to sew. That is the main reason.

1) You are going to want to adjust the amount of fill to your personal preference, and it's easier to modify cotton sacks.
2) You are going to experience tears and breaks. It's a ball filled with shit that you kick around. It will rip and break open at some point, and leather or suede is just going to fall apart faster because of the stitching.

bikkibikkibo

Thanks guys.

A little update.

I bought a couple at Big 5. Pretty much the classic cotton ones. Although they just seem super cheap to me and a bit light. One of them started spillin' beads after about an hour of play, on grass, with zero foot pick-ups. I still may try a metal filled suede one.

Cotton ones for concrete, suede for other surfaces perhaps?

Unearthly Stew

I had good luck with a quality suede sand-filled one. It didn't break on me in about 1.5 years of play (pretty much every day) and with the sand filling it was easy to do stalls.

I wonder where I put that thing...

Zombiemambo

Beans are horrible, buy sand.

MindLib

I asked my brother:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GPQnZYtjXA

And he said suede all the way with 70% plastic beads.

Akilae729

I always buy the cotton ones, and squeeze about half the beans out through the little whole at the top.

Monoxide

I've always gone for suede and sand. Cotton and plastic beads have too much bounce and are harder to control, and unless you dump out half of the beads, stalls are impossible. I've never used metal, but it seems like it'd probably be too heavy.

Nanaki

I used to always buy mine at PacSun, though that was awhile ago so I'm not even sure if they're still around or carry them anymore. They always had cotton/plastic filled ones that came perfectly filled for stalling and playing. No bead removal required, which in my experiance always led to the removal hole to slowly grow bigger while playing, eventually letting out almost all of the beads.

If you can find it, try to buy at least one sandfilled suede bag. They're a lot of fun to play with.

bikkibikkibo

Nanaki wrote: »

I used to always buy mine at PacSun, though that was awhile ago so I'm not even sure if they're still around or carry them anymore. They always had cotton/plastic filled ones that came perfectly filled for stalling and playing. No bead removal required, which in my experiance always led to the removal hole to slowly grow bigger while playing, eventually letting out almost all of the beads.

If you can find it, try to buy at least one sandfilled suede bag. They're a lot of fun to play with.

I ordered a metal filled suede bag. If this is too heavy i'm definitely going to try sand. The cloth/plastic bead ones seem to take forever to break in. I played for a good 2 1/2 hours yesterday and 2 hours on Saturday and it's still difficult to stall without it rolling off my foot.

MindLib wrote: »

I asked my brother:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GPQnZYtjXA

And he said suede all the way with 70% plastic beads.

Your brother probably has the right of it though. That shit is insane.