Saturday, September 22, 2007

Safari Ching Sling

No one uses a sling much, but they come highly recommended. Old training films show how to use the Military style sling, but it is time consuming to set up on that type, and the film itself mentiuons that you may often not have the time in battle.

This slowness bothers Jeff Cooper, but he had no immediate solution to combine the advnatages of sling aimed fire with fast shots. But he kept his eyes open.

Eventually, while in Latin America, he noticed a shooter using an odd sling. This man, Carlos Widman, was using an old British system that had been forgotten about in the rest of the civilized world. Cooper adopted it and called it a CW Sling in Carlos' honor.

But an improvement could be made on the CW, by extending the loop with another strap down to the rifle butt. This allowed you to use the sling for carrying as well as aiming. This was done by Eric Ching, under Jeff Cooper's influence, and this sling is called a Ching Sling in his honor.

Now, none of these slings work for me, because I want to steady a Garand fast. The military sling is slow, and the CW and Ching require me to make another swivel mount on a 1943 walnut gunstock. Galco leather came to my rescue with a split sling, and a connector between the split to adjust on your upper arm. Viola, the Safari Ching Sling. I've gone to the range with it, and it works fine. Here is a pic from the Galco wehbsite, showing the Safari sling in use:


Here is a pic of the Garand with the Galco sling and a military style sling with it:





5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Jove,

Can you show a series of pics demonstrating the use of the Ching Sling? I, for one, would be interested, as I have not shot rifle since my ROTC days, 30 years ago, and then it was seated and prone positions.

By the way, a topic you might discuss is How to decide which rifle is right for your intended use; questions such as Bolt vs Lever vs Semiauto, which caliber and the cost of various ammo etc.

Regards,
Wade

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Wade-

I can't put a pic of myself up for pirvacy reasons, but I included a pic from the Galco website of the Safari sling in action.

If you wathc the WWII training videos you will see how the standard military sling works, and the CW and Ching are self explanatory once you know them.

Also, Cooper's The Art of the Rifle has a few sections on sling work

-Bolt

The Armed Canadian said...

I've opted to head away from a traditional sling for serious shooting.

Have you looked into this?

Yes, tactical but the concept is sound. I like the idea of attaching the cuff separate of the rifle. Ideally, with one cuff and multiple straps, I can preset my strap lengths for each firing position and swap them out using the QD swivels for each course of fire rather than monkey with a single sling on the line.

Just my thoughts.

Matt

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Kinda hard to tell from that website, as they have no actual pictures of their product. At least easy to find pictures.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

There's some pics. My mistake.

Ah. Clip on sling cuffs. I didn't look at those too closely because Jeff Cooper didn't like them, but even if the Colonel had been silent I sorta prefer the speed and easy the self contained slings offer.