squarooticus' guide for

An easy-to-make 3-point tactical sling

The following is an illustrated guide to making a 3-point tactical sling. You will likely need to modify the instructions slightly for your own gun or for your own comfort.

Parts

You will need:

• 1¼" webbing, cut into two pieces: one that is about 12" long, and the other that is a function of the distance between the sling attachment points on your gun: a good heuristic I have found is that you want this piece to be 63" + 3 × the distance between the two sling attachment points... but it depends on the gun. An M1A requires a much shorter piece of webbing (for me, about 10 feet) than this would produce, but webbing is cheap and it's a lot easier to trim it when you find out it's too long than to add more length to an already-cut piece. For my AR-15 with an Ace skeleton buttstock in which the sling attachment point is directly adjacent to the lower receiver, this length is about 9 feet.
• 1 release buckle. You might want two or three if your sling attachment points are not themselves quick-release. In this case, you'll need to modify the instructions to insert extra loops for attaching the sling to your gun.
• 8 slide buckles. Again, you may need more or fewer of these depending on whether you use the instructions as-is or modify them.

Assembly

Explaining the assembly in words would be pointless. Thus, here are images illustrating, in-order, how I assembled mine. A few tips:

1. Make sure to melt the ends of the webbing you cut so they don't fray. Obviously do this in an area with good ventilation.
2. Feel free to sew the webbing in places where I used slide buckles, especially for the short shuttle piece (the piece that uses the 12" length of webbing), which can be assembled once by itself and never needs to be disassembled in order to remove the sling.
3. Examine all the photos closely and figure out how to put it together before attempting to assemble yours. Otherwise, you will find yourself backtracking and re-doing a lot of the work you've already done. (Trust me on this.)

Adjusting and using your sling

The key to a 3-point sling is that you can carry the gun higher and more comfortably with a shorter-length sling than it is really practical (or possible) to shoot it. With the buckle closed, sling the gun over your shoulder on the trigger side with the muzzle pointing down and slightly forward. When you want to shoot, bring it around your front, release the buckle, raise it to your shoulder, and do your thing. Note that in the following photos, the gun is actually riding lower than I like it; I properly adjusted the sling after taking the tedious photos. :-)

You can increase the overall length of the sling by sliding the following buckle away from the buttstock, or decrease it by moving it toward the buttstock. My slings are sized for me (short) but such that taller people can easily adjust them for comfortable carry.

These slings work a lot better—that is, the muzzle will be less likely to drag on the ground or hit a wall or tree—when the rear attachment point is near the receiver rather than at the end of the buttstock. It's probably worth, then, getting one of Uncle Mike's wood screw sling swivels for a wood stock or an Ace skeleton buttstock for a lightweight AR or a Daniel Defense A2 stock sling mount for an A2 stock, etc. Whatever your gun, I'm sure you can find something appropriate.