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I use a sling on all my muzzleloaders when I have to carry them very far.
What works good for me, I use a light weight leather strap with a button and hole placed right, one end around the barrel and one end around the wrist area.
Hermit
Hermit, exactly what I was thinking. Can you post some photos and/or dimensions. Closure for getting the sling on and off for cleaning and such had me stumped.
Not traditional but I sometimes use a nylon backpacking cargo strap with fastex buckles....Cheap, 2 bucks at wally world...I use the webbing to make slings for modern guns and use saddle rivets to fasten them together...very light weight .
When I'm in the field I'm not much concerned about total HC/PC.
I have the TC Swivel and stud (linked above) in two faux Hawken modern reproduction guns called "Hawkens" with a fairly modern military type strap on one and a typical wide strap on the other.
I've seldom had comment from anyone at a Rendezvous about the stud hanging from the bottom of the rifle butt or off the front thimble.
This is about the best sling I've found for muzzleloaders. And I've tried a bunch of them from homemade to commercial.
Slip it on, slip it off, easy as pie. I put it on to carry the rifle into the field, slip it off to hunt, and the thing I really relish-slip it back on the rifle when I'm bringing game out.
Beats heck out of keeping horses, the way Hawkens were actually carried. Owned the horses too, and I'll take a sling instead any day.
I have used the temporary slings, but have had a couple of instances where the one around the barrel "bunched" up a bit and blocked the view of the front site. Since that's not an acceptable hunting alternative to me, I drilled through the under rib just in front of the first thimble and installed a sling swivel and put a button on the stock. Installed a jute and leather sling. Not a very good pic, but you get the idea.
Every rifle I have has sling studs for a standard quick detachable sling. I would not want to be without it. It's on the gun all day and doesn't obscure the sights.
My rifles are production rifles or the Hawken style. If I owned a long rifle it probably would not be slinged. The thimbles with studs are hard to find today; hold on to what you have.
For my GPRs, I use a set of Uncle Mikes sling swivels designed for a Marlin 1894 357mag. The front swivel clamps on a ramrod thimble and I mount the rear swivel stud in the forward screw hole in the toe plate. Pretty unobtrusive when the sling is removed and you can easily return the gun to it's original configuration if you change your mind down the road.
I use Uncle mikes sling swivels. The problem with them is they don't work with Green Mountain barrels unless you modify them. To make them work you have to use the screw from the Green Mountain thimble. But the Uncle Mike Swivel has a small hole and the screw is large. I had to drill it out to make it work. For my last one I just built it.
Well Pete, not a Hawken rifle but when I built this 50 caliber transitional style rifle, it was designed from the get go to incorporate a sling. I bought the sling from Track of the Wolf. It came looking new and white so I stained it up with some old coffee and rubbed it down with bee's wax. Sling carry has come in very handy for a lot of woods trekking and makes a great padded rest that protects the fore stock from abrasions on hard surfaces.
A lot of English Sporting rifles incorporated a large button near the toe and a ring that attached to the entry pipe, sort of dimensionally similar to todays Uncle Mike's studs that are on the fore end of modern rifles. The big button was designed to slip through a slit in the leather sling, like a button on clothing.