TargetTalk

All:

I could use some suggestions for a durable sling for use in LR / smallbore shooting.

I am currently going thru a MEC sling every season (I keep pulling the guts out of them!). The holes elongate and eventually pull thru.

I would like to keep the 90 degree offset feature, and the threaded length adjuster if possible - not sure what is out there right now?

Thanks!

kev

You are such a hulk!

I used a thune II for 10 years, but the past 2 seasons I went to a Jenson leather sling and really like it. I change the length so rarely,

What about the Kurt Thune ATL?

Hey Kev,

Please send all your old parts to me so I can keep my MEC going a while longer.

Ed

Ok, doesn't fit your requirement of screw adjustable, and I don't know what you mean by 90* offset, but my Jenson self centering sling has lasted more than 20 years of nearly daily use. Best sling I've ever used. I've got a new one just in case this one gives up the ghost, but haven't used it yet.

Eric U

Eric,

I think Kevin wants a sling where the front strap can be twisted independently of the cuff, to avoid it biting the forearm/wrist.

Am I missing something here? How do people stretch slings so much that the rivets pull out?

The sling only has to support the arm and the rifle. I can only think that people are jamming the butt so hard into the shoulder that it is putting ginooormous pressure onto the sling.

Try letting the rifle and arm be supported by the sling without having the rifle anywhere near the shoulder. It is quite light and the sling tension is bugger all.

Now, IMHO, all that is then required is to place the butt onto the shoulder with sufficient pressure to allow it to sit snug and not slip down or of the shoulder.

There is this fallacy that the rifle has to be jammed so freaking tight in the shoulder to be steady. Frankly, that is rubbish. Just ask a standing shooter how much pressure they can exert back into the shoulder when they are shooting.And they can still hit bull after bull after bull.

Am I nuts?

Ross,

it may not be excess tension at fault. There have been several other posts on this forum about the build quality of the MEC sling, with metal attachements breaking, or coming loose, and the synthetic strap tearing.

Yes Ross, you are nuts. Every prone shooter of high skill level I know shoots a tight prone position. There is more to it than just good hold. Good recoil management is a big part of it. Comparing prone to standing is like comparing apples to rocket ships.

And yes, MEC slings are crap.

Eric U

I have a MEC and a Thune ATL, and am using the MEC, it just works and feels better. Unfortunately it does suffer some issues, with the strap material and all of the screws. MEC replaced the longest and shortest straps for free with longer now built with heavier material, still stretches though. My "adjustable tension device" is initially let out all of the way and allows me to tighten tension as the sling stretches. Once the holes are elongated to near double in size, I shorten the sling and let out my sling tensioner. I think I have had to shortened my sling twice this year. Don't forget to tighten all of them screws, I think there are close to 500 or so on the sling, as somehow they seem to find a way to loosen. With all of it's short comings I still like it. Am I nuts?

I don't see many of them on the line, but I really like my Anschutz SWING sling:



It hasn't stretched out of shape and is very comfy. It's also a heck of a lot cheaper than the MEC sling.

Jason

All:

Thanks for the replies - I think I should have been a little more specific though!

The sling holes tear thru on the MEC sling - the synthetic sling material just doesn't seem very durable. Throughout the season it continues to stretch the holes little by little until it tears thru to the next set.

And I agree with Eric - I believe the sling tension needs to be pretty snug (not so much that it kills your hand / joints of course), but the MEC seems to deform even under what I would consider mild tension.

The 90 degree offset I mentioned is also on the Thune ATL (thanks for the suggestion! I had no idea KT made a sling!) - it just allows the sling to lay flat on the arm avoiding any concern about touching the stock (if it was left vertical).

I really appreciate the posts, thanks to all who offered them!

All the very best,

kev

Eric U wrote:Ok, doesn't fit your requirement of screw adjustable, and I don't know what you mean by 90* offset, but my Jenson self centering sling has lasted more than 20 years of nearly daily use. Best sling I've ever used. I've got a new one just in case this one gives up the ghost, but haven't used it yet.

Eric U

Eric:

Where would I find / purchase a Jenson sling?

PS - It was great to see you this season, and congratulations on the Midrange National title!!

kev

Hi Kev,
I don't know if this would work but... you could purchase a Kurt Thune belt - which is the same materiel as the sling, and butcher it to replace the ripped section of the MEC sling. It would be a lot cheaper (£28) than a new sling, probably more durable than MEC's replacement parts and you'd get a few lengths out of it. The downside might be that the holes might be at a slightly different width - I'll see if I can do a comparison tomorrow.

http://www.edinkillie.co.uk/ecatalog/ku ... ?cPath=1_8

That said, you can get a replacement leather strap for not too much money (£30) :

http://www.edinkillie.co.uk/ecatalog/ce ... ml?cPath=9

You didn't know KT made slings???

Regards, Ken.

http://www.creedmoorsports.com/shop/Del ... Sling.html

Hi Kevin -

Creedmoor sells them.

Dennis L

Kevin,

Like Dennis says, I bought my "replacement" sling from Creedmoor.

Since it is leather, I rubbed in some baseball mitt oil daily for a week and hung some weight from it for a week. On my older one, I've had the buckle in the same hole for the last 15 years. No perceptible stretch at all, and no issues with elongated holes.

Eric U

Eric U wrote:Yes Ross, you are nuts. Every prone shooter of high skill level I know shoots a tight prone position. There is more to it than just good hold. Good recoil management is a big part of it. Comparing prone to standing is like comparing apples to rocket ships.

And yes, MEC slings are crap.

Eric U

Phew. I'm glad about that Eric. :-)

My point about standing is that the rifle is still capable of shooting bulls when it is NOT held as tight as in prone. Recoil management using high sling tensions is not necessary all the answers nor the be all and end all to prone. You can still see good shots wriggle inside the foresight and bad shots that crawl all over the place and thus you can tell if you in the groove or not with less tension.

I want to build a tensile meter that clips into a sling to measure this force. I think it will be revealing and may put a few myths to sleep. Asking people how tight their slings are is difficult to objectively find out. But again, the fact that people are breaking them seems to me a call for some numbers to back my contention up. I intend to find them.

I was not comparing prone to standing, I was emphasising the end point of the shot does not necessarily equate to being held tight.

It seems to me that the design of the MEC sling is inherently dodgy with all the tension in the sling being taken by the two prongs and that little bit of material in front of them. Most other slings would loop the sling around the fixing and have the buckle attach on the returning side (I know what I mean...).

If you didn't want to make any drastic changes to the length, you could loop the strap around the buckle/length adjuster and link both sides together with a couple of Chicago Screws. That would fix the problem.

K.

Another issue with the MEC sling is that the adjustment wheel on the threaded rod isn't held particularly securely. The rod has a tendency to pull straight through and dump the front half of the sling on the ground, sending wheels and springs bouncing for the darkest corners of the range.

Also, most good standing shooters I know of hold the rifle with a lot of force, specifically to mitigate against the fact that it otherwise isn't well controlled. Tight sling and high tension has universally been a significant factor in helping every one of the hundreds of shooters I've trained to shoot decent prone. It improves both hold and control.

Does Jensen make a sling that conforms to the Int'l width? I have one but its width is close to 2 inches. Mike Barron