doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Gamekeeper slings for sxs's

I'm a huge fan of slings on my sxs's for long walks while chukar hunting, and I could really use one for the 16 and 12 Lefevers I enjoy shooting. I don't like the ones that loop around the barrels though. Galazan carries a Gamekeeper snap on o/u sling that I think slides over the barrels and around the stock, and it says they are ok to use on sxs's as well. I assume this lets you shoot with the sling on. Has anyone used these? I have visions of the barrel end of the sling snapping off, and my gun crashing on the rocks. Thanks.

Mark, here's one I bought from Galazan years ago. The portion around the barrels of my R10 20 ga. is leather covered malleable metal that can be bent to various gauges. The section over the rib is open. Visualize the letter "C" but with top and bottom ends bent more inwards. It works fine. Gil

Unless you have something against swivels, a standard shotgun sling attached to fixed swivels (strictly IMO) look fine on Continental doubles. Regularly found on doubles from France, Germany, and Sweden in particular. But I'd probably hesitate about putting swivels on a Brit gun. They don't seem to have a sling tradition. The first classic sxs I ever owned was a between the wars Sauer 16ga. Came with swivels. I found a European sling and left it attached for open country hunting (pheasants and quail with that gun.) It took me very little time to discover that the sling got in the way hunting grouse and woodcock. But simple enough to remove it. And the swivels didn't get in the way.

American doubles? We don't have the tradition, and on a particularly valuable American gun, I probably wouldn't attach fixed swivels. If it's a basic American sxs and I liked the idea of a sling, I don't think I'd necessarily hesitate.

Thanks Gil, that's what I wanted to know. My continental guns have them, but I dont like the idea of putting them on a nice Lefever.

I had a Fox DE 16 ga. that was ordered with a sling when made at the factory. Also, Baker guns could be ordered with factory slings.

L. Brown,
If you buy one of the narrow "Quick Adjusting" slings, you can simply pull it tight, and it will not be in the way hunting Grouse and Woodcock (or as in my case Bob Whites).
Mike

I have a 32" DHE Parker 12 with very professional looking swivels and an Ithaca NID mag ten, also with very factory looking swivels. On heavy waterfowlers such as these, swivels are very useful.

Slings are a real plus when one is handling a dog, or multiple dogs , when bird hunting or field training, They were offered on the Batavia Brush model, which was usually a short barreled , straight grip, gun used for the Brush as you might expect. My Fox DE 16 gauge which was factory ordered with a sling, was found in Germany where many doubles had slings. I wish I knew how it got there. The Fox was made for a Gun Scribe with notes to take special attention to details.

I didn't know early American guns could be ordered with slings. Good to know, thanks. I just got a Lefever H straight grip 16 I'm setting up as a chukar gun. It is a lower grade gun, so maybe attaching swivels wouldn't be such a bad idea. I do have a sxs barrel swivel in great shape that I could use. Drilling and tapping the rib makes me nervous though. I'm primarily a chukar hunter, and slings on long 5-10 mile hikes in rough country are almost a must.

That sounds like a good idea if you're likely to be switching back and forth between grouse and woodcock vs pheasants and quail. In my case, when I was carrying that vintage Sauer, I was doing most of my bird hunting in Iowa. (At one time, the NE corner of the state had a pretty fair grouse population.) So for me, it was no sling early in the fall when we were hunting the woods birds. Sling attached when pheasant season opened. On rare occasions, we'd do a late season grouse hunt, with about 3 weeks worth of the season left after pheasant season closed. But we were even more likely to head to the southern part of the state to hunt quail later on in January. So the sling stayed on until our bird hunting season ended.

The best part of a sling for pheasants is being able to sling arms when you're half a mile or more from the truck and you're toting 3 roosters in your vest.