Slings

A sling is an essential tool that will enhance your use and mastery of the carbine or rifle.  There are many makes and models of slings out there.  Some are very good and some are junk.  Most slings fall into 3 categories: 1-point, 2-point and you guessed it, 3-point.  The 3-point slings used to be all the rage, like 20 years ago.  Back in 2002 and 2003 when I was in the regular army, we used to make our own 3-point slings out of tubular nylon and Fastex buckles.  Now, it seems to be a toss-up between the 1-point and 2-point slings.

We used the 3-point slings because of the ability to cinch the gun up if we had to transition to a pistol.  None of us thought of the fact that we didn’t have sidearms to transition to.  One of the major problems with this style of sling is that it covers most of the controls of the M4 and other rifles.  They also have a tendency to not stay in a locked position.  Another thing that is harder to do with them, compared to the other types, is switching from your strong side to shoot weak side.

The 1-point sling seems to be very popular these days.  I watched a tactical rifle training video not too long ago that sung its praises.  With the 1-point sling, you can quickly transition to your sidearm and switch from left or right shoulder with ease.  There is little to the sling. If used correctly, nothing should be in the way of any controls to your firearm.  Sounds great, right?  While this type of sling is great on the range, they are junk in the real world.  They just dangle the carbine between your legs when you transition and you have no control of your firearm whatsoever.

In the real world, there are a lot of reasons to let go of your rifle and the 1-point sling presents many issues: Your buddy just got hit and now you have to patch him up and, oh yeah, your barrel is bouncing off his head as you’re treating him.  I have to climb that wall.  Once again, my gun is now flopping all over the place, making noise and maybe getting caught on something.  Or my favorite: single-point, right?  So, if that point fails, then what?  Once, during training, we were fast-roping and a teammate of mine had a 1-point sling.  As he reached for the rope, the sling failed at the single point.  I watched his M4 fall 60 feet and beat him to the ground.  Fortunately, it didn’t injure (or kill) anyone.  That was the last time he used one of those.

This takes us to the 2-point sling.  There are two main types of these slings.  One is the old carrying-strap type. The other, which is what I use and will continue for the foreseeable future, has a quick adjust tab.  The tab allows you to lock in the sling as tight as you want it or open it up.  This type of 2-point is quick to transition with and fast in moving from the strong to the support side.  It can be cinched down to stay out of the way, allowing you to perform other tasks.  The length can be quickly adjusted to accommodate different shooting positions, even unorthodox ones.  On this sling type, if one point fails you should be able to stop it from falling due to the second attachment point and the rest of the sling being around you.  The 2-point sling is, overall, the best style out there.

There are a few different companies that make good 2-point slings.  Other than a few smaller details, they are basically the same design, though some are a bit pricier than others.  I’ve used Blue Force Gear (Vickers), Viking Tactics and the Proctor slings during deployments.  To save ourselves some money we used to take the slings off of fired LAW rockets.  The newer version of the LAW has a good adjustable quick tab sling.  We would take these, add some length to them with 5 50 cord and they worked great.  I know you don’t have the same luxury we did, but spending the money and getting a good 2-point sling is worth it.

Thanks for reading,

Jared