The video itself is more of a test than a review, I wrote this up to accompany it-
The sling is made of a seatbelt type material, pretty slick surface allowing you to slide the sling around on your shoulder, but doesn’t allow much unwanted movement when over the shoulder either. The construction of the fabric of the sling is very strong. Overall the design and construction of the sling is great… until you get the hardware. At first glance it looks flimsy, and after further inspection looks even more flimsy. Other than the 1-2 point conversion loop it’s all plastic. I wasn’t sure how important the strength of the loops was, but as evidenced in the video the hardware is inadequate in my opinion.
As far as actual use of the sling goes it works like a charm. The quick adjust is fast and the right length to go from snug for normal use to just loose enough for comfortable shooting from the opposite shoulder. It’s light weight and unobtrusive, and comes long enough to be set up comfortably whether you are a small child or 600lbs (I cut quite a bit of excess length off when installing it). All in all it does what it’s intended and advertised to do, but the function is irrelevant if the sling isn’t going to hold together. I would avoid it until it comes packaged with better hardware (whether it be more substantial plastic or metal).
Hmm, emdom’s site says that its all metal except for the side release buckle. Maybe they’ve made a change?
I do think it is desirable for a sling to break away in the event of a moving vehicle accident, but it was surprising to see the sling fail that way in your vid. I was on track to buy a gunslinger but now I think I’ll hold off. MilitaryMoron’s site says that it’s undergoing redesign.
i’m intrigued! this is the first time i’ve heard of a failure of the hardware. all the plastic and metal hardware is ITW ghillietex, so i’m surprised to hear that it failed.
i couldn’t make out from the video what the mode of failure was. this is inaccurate though - “Other than the 1-2 point conversion loop it’s all plastic.” the gunslinger hardware is as follows:
Plastic - SR buckle, ladder lock (where the quick length adjustment is)
Metal - front sling connection, rear sling connection, initial length adjustment (all metal triglides), metal loop and D-ring.
this is all described on the emdom website, with photos.
did the plastic or metal hardware break? please post a pic of what hardware broke. i’m sure that ITW would also be interested in seeing it.
from the screenshot of your video however, it looks like the plastic ladder loc is intact, and that the end of the sling slipped through the metal triglide instead - i might be wrong, so please correct me: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/militarymoron/gunslinger.jpg
if that’s what happened, did you assemble the sling as shown in the photos below, where the end of the sling passes through the metal triglide a 2nd time? this ensures that it cannot slip out.
production of the gunslinger was stopped a couple of months ago, not due to any issues with the hardware. while it uses off the shelf hardware, the quick adjustment arrangement is similar enough to the VCAS such that it may infringe upon their patent if awarded. even if the patent isn’t awarded, we decided to look at alternative arrangements now, since i consider ashley and stephen at BFG friends.
That level of integrity is not very common in any kind of industry. Keep up the great work. I’m a big fan of Emdom and use quite a few of their/your products.
