Let’s see some sling setups—really good or really bad.
Let me start off with…. Well, you decide.
This is an actual pic of an actual gun from this week’s class… I did not add anything for the pic. I could not do what I really wanted with it because it was the Supervisor’s gun and the officer thought he’d better not make any permanent changes:
Furthermore, and very common, one end was about to come out causing a dropped rifle:
At the back end, I swear I did not set this up for the pic. Knot of tangled sling makes it near impossible to adjust stock:
Second place winner, same deal, same Department, no permanent changes please. If you think this one doesn’t look so bad you missed the length of sling going alongside the left hand side of the carbine. Both of these were for lefties.
Both came to a happy ending, happy enough anyway, with a little paracord and rolling the 17 yards of excess webbing into little bundles with a few out-of-the-way bits of superfluous hardware inside. Not ideal but nothing actually cut away (much as I wanted to) and all original parts enclosed so the Supervisor could put them back to their original, tactical greatness.
It is amazing some of the setups that are out there. Most students have total latitude in this but some outfits aren’t there yet.
That first one makes me scratch my head and wonder, “How in the hell…???”
The second looks like most slings I see at the range (if I see slings at all). I think slings are just one of those things that most people don’t think about unless they are actually very interested in shooting. I’ve read here and elsewhere that most cops aren’t really “gun people,” so it makes sense that they might not know how to properly set a sling up any more than the average once-per-year range goer.
The happy (enough) ending for both. Reasonable length, lefty-rigged, adjustability (but not rapid).
And, where to hang the sling from in front? I don’t want to dis anyone’s product but certain things may not be robust enough for certain applications. There are a lot of these out there on guns marketed to the LE side; held on with four very spindly 6-32 screws. A 32 thread on a screw this small is very coarse and so, prone to loosening. I don’t think I’ve seen a single one of these come OEM with LocTite even. If the screws don’t come loose, a 6-32 is breakage prone. If they don’t break, well, the pivot pin on these comes out going on half the time (although one in this class had the pin staked in apparently at the factory—somebody’s learning). If none of the above happens, your front sight and gas block are still not positively located onto the barrel, and a good side whack might bump it over, screwing up your zero and shutting off your gas.
Then they put three sling swivels on it and a bottom rail, like, hey, hang more stuff on this to help it get bumped off center. Again, OK for some non-critical applications I suppose but……
Hanging a sling or bipod or anything else on one of these, in my opinion, is not a good idea.
After Dremeling the riveted heads off and punching out the rivets, at least the temptation to hang a sling from it is removed and so are the floppy, noisy, catching-on-things swivels……
Note the coarseness of the 6/32 thread. I usually take them out one at a time and red Loctite them. Sometimes I’ll stake them where they stick out on the other side. Still the unit is not positively located to the barrel.
In this case the part-time bipod was a daytime-only bipod:
Wow… Thankfully my LEO friends are gun guys. Only downside is they don’t have enough disposable cash to really outfit their equipment as much as they’d like. Sad really considering what is expected of them…
We get officers who are brand new to the system and those who are old dogs with it. Many just have not seen a properly set-up one or don’t have enough time with it to have sorted things out via experience. They just don’t know what to buy and sometimes they buy the wrong sling / optic / trigger / etc. One officer this class had no optic on Monday because it had gone down (brand new). By Wednesday he had the replacement and it worked great except that you had to turn it back on after every shot. No idea what it was but I’m pretty sure he said it was under $100, that’s usually a blazing-hot, neon clue.
Attached rather funkily. I don’t blame guys for getting confused on some of these—I cannot for the life of me figure out how they are supposed to be used.
Another one with 9 yards of black Nylon. Got it shortened up and manageable. This one is actually a good sling, just too long and attached to the gun in a nearly non-functional way. The three-points are the worst in my opinion to start with. Sometimes a decent setup can be made from these, other times I just shorten it up as best I can since a guy is worried about permanent alterations like me cutting off the excess yardage . In these cases I bundle it up so at least it’s out of the way but what I’d really rather do is start cutting or in many cases put a $2 surplus M16 sling on it hung from paracord front and back so the gun hangs from the heel of the stock and front sight base crossbar where the gas tube goes.
This one had a lot of other problems like the Aimpoint was mounted at 45 degrees, mounting screws pretty loose and not Loctited, and the rear iron sight was mounted backwards so when the guy adjusted left, POI moved right. Also the Aimpoint was mounted to the older Surefire rail which had come loose-- the Aimpoint was wobbly. This guy was a good shooter so he noticed right away on the target. I tightened up and LocTited the rail but anyway flipped the mount around so it was on the upper receiver.
These guns are by far the exception and not the rule. Usually the problem guns are Department guns and have either been set up poorly for years or, having gone through so many hands, who knows how many changes they’ve been through over the years, better/worse/better/worse. Good point in the case for letting guys buy their own.
My dept is going through an interesting time, the approval of personal patrol rifles. It’s actually quite a pain in the ass, putting your rifle in the rack, stowing the dept’s rifle in a gun safe in the station, and then doing the reverse at the end of the shift, when you’re tired and frazzled, and just want to get the hell out of there. It hasn’t started quite yet, so it’s going to be interesting to see how many personal rifles will end up left in cars. I feel that the ability to control your own ammo supply and personal zero is worth the effort. We use single points so I don’t think we’ll have any jacked up slings but who knows.
Best of luck with all. I agree you don’t need another thing to do at start and end of shift. I’ve never heard of this but it comes to mind: two racks in the car. One for the issue rifle and another in front of it for guys that bring their own. But-- whether or not it’s feasible I doubt many outfits would do that.
LOL, some of this reminds me of the pics of the NY SWAT officer with backwards EOTech, or the one that showed up a while back of a female officer with mag in backwards. None of this is quite that egregious, but the backwards Aimpoint mount comes close. Looks like some of the setups you see on the Facebook AR groups.
Before and after, one of several from last week’s class.
Not sure what this was supposed to be, 3-point? 6-point….? The user would have been better off with nothing, in all seriousness. A sling like this actually borders on being a safety hazard. It was actually screwed to the gun.
After: still screwed to the gun, not quick adjustable but adjustable; lots of taping together of two layers of sling material but this was one of those “not my weapon” situations where the guy was worried about cutting off and discarding the extra six feet of sling (OK, slight exaggeration). I need a result that will get him through class and if some Seargent or something wants it back the way it was on Monday it can be done although I defy anyone to really know how it was set up in the first place, let alone “why”. I hate taping things up because today’s tape is tomorrow’s gooey mess but…. Safety and utility for the next few days was what really mattered.
I used to think of the sling, as the “UN-screwuppable” feature of a rifle… until THIS thread. Granted, you could buy the WRONG sling for your application - like a single point sling for a 20" rifle - but installation always seemed easy enough… :eek:
Sorry to revive an older post but I thought this was interesting. We have a 2 year probationary period before you are allowed to purchase a rifle through the department to be yours yet approved for duty use. During that 2 year waiting period you can still take out the patrol rifles shared by everyone else (Colt M16 A1 and A2 variants) with blackhawk 2 point slings, a fairly simple design. Yet when they are cleaned it seems like no one can put them back together without it being twisted or mounted upside down. Thankfully I have my own now and have a quality sling (modified 2 point to 1 point design).
This week’s class, more of the same with the excessive, mystery-function, safety hazard slings. This time we had a quantity of slings available from Savvy Sniper that I was able to switch guys into. Simple is good and this one is simple. At first glance anyone can figure out how to operate the adjustment: grab loop, pull for more length, pull down to snug-up. I believe it’s the model they are providing to the USMC.
…and…. sometimes the people that make things don’t understand about durability
6-32 screws are a poor choice for, well, anything. Coarse threads come loose easier. The 6-32 in particular breaks easily. The smaller 5-40 is way more loose-proof and actually gives more clamping force. The 8-32, better yet by far. I have yet to see one of these come from the factory with a hint of thread locker. Screws came loose, two fell out, cap was lost. Zero went to hell then the gun shut down.
