Northwest Trade Gun sling recommendations/ideas

Hello all,
I'm building a Northwest Trade Gun from Pecatonica parts and have been thinking about putting a sling on it that would be period correct. I am having a time trying to find any information /pictures on the many ways the slings were attached and the type of material the slings were made of. Can anyone offer any suggestions?
Thanks

kentuckyjed said:

Hello all,
I'm building a Northwest Trade Gun from Pecatonica parts and have been thinking about putting a sling on it that would be period correct. I am having a time trying to find any information /pictures on the many ways the slings were attached and the type of material the slings were made of. Can anyone offer any suggestions?
Thanks

Click to expand...

Well there are a couple ways. One is to get a German button and put that into your stock down at the toe for the bottom sling attachment, and you get a Bess front sling swivel and put that through the forearm of the stock, so that it rests against a ramrod pipe [green], OR you could add a part between the tang screw and the stock [blue], which comes UP from the underside, and put the rear sling swivel through that, similar to a French musket.



LD

NWG were not made for slings.
However Miller paints a westren gun with a sling and Kutz draws a man with a gun slung on his back.
So what you want will be some sort of home made style.
I would picture a wrap on the rear stock suck as the old ‘uncle Mike’s’ with a wrap on the fore stock for your front sling. If you use a pin sling the thin fore stock will probably not take the weight. I would think you would need it to a lug, but the lugs aren’t super strong either. Brazing might hold better then a soldered. A wrap might be a lot stonger. And you have a pretty tall front sight, so it won’t interfere with a wrap.

I just use a piece of rope or Leather. I’m not trying to be a jerk here. I figure if you had a trade gun you were not a man of means. You don’t have much money or the gun was supplied to you by a company. Just tie in on while trekking and take it off while hunting. I think that would be historically correct. Most folks back then had little. They made due with what they had on hand and recycled a lot.

The one on mine, for an idea.

Thanks for the information, I think I will meld these suggestions and come up with a working sling that will fit the poor boy southern mountain niche. Was thinking about pinning a swivel under but I agree it is thin in that area so I will probably go more with a leather or hemp and leather type slide over sling.

Being old and somewhat crippled up I put a button down near the toe of my smoothbore. I replaced the middle barrel lug pin with a sling swivel . The screw for the swivel replaces the pin in the barrel lug.

kentuckyjed said:

Hello all,
I'm building a Northwest Trade Gun from Pecatonica parts and have been thinking about putting a sling on it that would be period correct. I am having a time trying to find any information /pictures on the many ways the slings were attached and the type of material the slings were made of. Can anyone offer any suggestions?
Thanks

Click to expand...

I just finished adding sling mounts to my Caywood Chief's Gun. Ordered a button for the buttstock and sling loop from Track Of The Wolf. At the same time, ordered a solder on lug. Installing the button was easy, drill a pilot hole and screw it in.

Adding a lug to the forearm proved to be more challenging. The screw for mounting the swivel is a considerably larger diameter than typical barrel pins, larger than the depth of the lug. I went back and reviewed a video from the Grumpy Gunsmith of Williamsburg on making lugs from brass sheet stock. Clay Smith's method involves folding a strip of stock using a vice and light hammer, then forming the top into a curve using a forming die. I made up a forming die from a piece of oak flooring, by drilling with a hole saw, slicing across the hole, and cutting a slit in the bottom of the half circle to accommodate the lug. A small wrench socket was used as a swage.

The above took several tries to get the dimensions right, and the folds at the right angles, The result was sweated on the barrel, then spotted and inlet down into the forearm. Measured several times to be sure of drilling the hole in the right place.

Many thanks to Clay Smith!

Now I'm ready for the start of dove season on September 1st!

Leatherman offers a pretty nifty sling for under $50!!