Over here, you go out with no sling on a gun, meet another hunter and he'd say: "Is that your first time out? Wait, I think I've got a piece of rope somewhere"
Or, if the hunter read a magazine or two, he'd say you're an American spy
There's even an old joke on the subject, let's see if you find it funny. A chap bought a slightly used London Best gun, went out hunting with it, and wrote an anrgy letter, complaining of "why should such a renowned firm as yours be so cheap and not put sling swivels on such an otherwise nice gun". The firm replied: "We expect that one who can afford our prices can also aford a servant to carry the gun after him".
Turning back to the original topic, my Grandpa's generation (Russia/USSR being a very big market for German shotguns, so they count as potential users) wanted their guns to shoot the tightest patterns possible. The logics was, sometimes you have to shoot close, sometimes far out, but while you can shoot a close bird with a tight-gun, you can't shoot a far-away bird with a short-range gun.
