Gear Review: Beretta SAKO brand sling

This was an impulse purchase one afternoon at a big box shooting store.

I'd been keeping an eye out for a 1" synthetic rubberised sling, because the darn thing keeps sliding off my shoulder.

So, great ! Here was a handsome looking sling, same brand as my gun too and matching colour scheme.
I even bought a matching pair of black (Tikka) sling swivels because my silver ones had perished.

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Nice rubber backing, very comfy and stays put on my shoulder real good.

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I tried it out on the range as a sort of shooting sling and hit a couple of targets prone at 500m (big targets). The texture and grip were very good for that.

Now, a hunting sling has to be tough and durable to the elements.
Has to match the "mate with a heart of steel" advertising they used a couple of years ago.

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After only a couple of days of hunting in the wet, I realised the smooth strap down the middle is not neoprene like a crampon strap or my All Weather Turner sling, as I had assumed. No, it is soft, shiny leather. and the shiny metal buckles tapped on my pack. Not to worry, a bit of elastoplast tape fixed the tapping and more or less covered over the big silvery rivets. In a way, those buckles compensated for a design fault in the Sako/Tikka sling swivels. Although these swivels are very space-economical, holding the sling closer to the stock than other brands, the detaching mechanism breaks up, as a small spring acts as the detent holding them together and I've ripped a couple apart removing the sling to dry out at the end of the day. So a detachable buckled sling could be quite good if you use those sako brand swivels.

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The leather end loops are narrower than any sling swivel and pull out to the edge of the swivel, scrunching up. There's no need for them to be so narrow. Something matching the width of the sako sling swivels would be much better.

Then we have the fact that they are made of leather, which has a very limited lifespan in NZ hunting conditions. Here it is after only half a dozen easy days on the hill. This would not last a year's hunting in the Kaimais or the Tararuas. Quite soon, I will need to head off to a saddlery shop or similar and see if I can get some proper neroprene straps onto it. A pity, because the main rubberised body of the sling is great.

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Interesting post. I brought the same sling from H&F on sale about 2 yrs ago. Lasted bugger all for the same reasons you mentioned. Poor workmanship i feel and obviously NZ Beretta have never tried the product themselves? My sling was fitted to a T3. Maybe that's why the slings were going cheap when i purchased?

Sent my swivels to cactus to make me a rifle sling and it's the only sling I'll ever use, simple, strong and will outlast me I'd say. From memory it was about $60 including the cactus strap adjustment buckle. I think people look at rifle slings and think they need to have neoprene on them or be wide etc to be comfortable but a simple inch wide sling is by far the best I've found

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@Bagheera, I tried all kinds of slings and swivels. IMO the only sling to have is the Niggeloh. About $90 - $100 but well worth it. There are also hard plastic / Nylon sling swivels that are very similar to the ones you used with a screw fastener available. If you have trouble waterproofing and protecting leather items, there is a product sold by chemists called 'Zinc and Caster oil Ointment' that works very well. It is sold in 500gram tubs for preventing Nappy Rash and is better than any other leather dressing including 'Huberds' etc and is perfectly safe on our skin if it comes through gloves etc.

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Been using this Uncle Mike's suede cobra style for my heavy airguns, no issues of slipping off shoulder and comfortable. Took out his new one today for my new PCP.

The leather on that Sako brand sling is only shitting itself cause its shit leather. Period.

I have proper leather slings on many of my rifles. Some would be 40-50 years old, and they are still fine.

Totally agree - Bershitter - Sako take note - cheapskates.

I think all Leather will fail when its wet for days on end and only half an inch wide.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Inder

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Been using this Uncle Mike's suede cobra style for my heavy airguns, no issues of slipping off shoulder and comfortable. Took out his new one today for my new PCP.

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Hi Inder,

Those heavy airguns can be pretty heavy.
Do you know a way to attach a sling to a spring gun foreend ?
Can you replace one of the cross screws with a bolt you can attach a swivel to ?
A pic would be interesting.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bagheera

Hi Inder,

Those heavy airguns can be pretty heavy.
Do you know a way to attach a sling to a spring gun foreend ?
Can you replace one of the cross screws with a bolt you can attach a swivel to ?
A pic would be interesting.

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Hi Bagheera,

I remember seeing those cross bolt sling studs, don't remember which rifles were they for. I simply use uncle mikes wood screw studs which come with swivels. Today I took one out of my Diana52 (really heavy gun) and put in the PCP for mounting a bipod. Never had any issue with the wood studs till date. For Tx and HW97 front swivel is mounted on a barrel band and rear one in stock.

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HTH

BTW Found Studs for direct replacement of stock front screw on UK eBay. (Not sure about posting urls rule so not doing that) but if you search with "STAINLESS SLING SWIVEL STUD SUITS WEIHRAUCH HW100". You will find it. As per the ad it fits HW99 and HW35 too. I am sure it will be there for other rifles too.

Found an unused neoprene strap just the right length that I once bought to make up some crampon straps.
Used the stitch unpicker to remove the "leather", which turned out to be two different sorts of material.
With considerable technical clumsiness, I sewed the new strap on, simplifying the design by doing without buckles and using stainless 5mm bolts instead. So, it is adjustable for length but only with tools.

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I've used it for about 10 days of hunting now, mostly wet.
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The neoprene strap shows no sign of wearing and this is about the same amount of use as in the earlier pic, where it was seriously falling apart.
I couldn't really recommend the bolt method of fixing the strap on. They are a bit too bulky and put some light scratches on the stock not to mention my shoulder and hand. A couple of layers of brown tape have partly reduced this lumpiness but are a bit ugly.
Special leather needles and the bolts cost about $30.

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Your one cool "cat" :yaeh am not durnk: you can likely get some chicago screws to replace your bolts that would mske it much less likely to scratch limbs and stocks as they have a much latter profile :thumbsup:

I will echo what was mentioned earlier the Niggaloh slings are very nice to carry, good grip and just the right amount of stretch that they don't cut into you at all.
I spent a few hours carrying the Lupo the other day and barely noticed it was over my shoulder going through some fairly dense vegatation. I will be replacing all my slings with them.

Thanks @dannyb

This is a Chicago screw.
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I bought a selection from Gordon Harris and they arrived as quickly as another item from Reloaders - which is saying something.
They are used for holding together papers, photo albums and such. As you can see, the thread is not that meaty and you wouldn't expect them to have the tensile strength of the stainless engineers bolt. However, mostly strain will be across them not lengthwise so I've given it a try.

Here's some of the gear I used:
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Here they are on the sling.
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They're a lot lower profile than the bolts.
If I get worried about durability, next I'll try grinding down the heads on the stainless bolts and put them back in.
Another option is a tightly knotted bit of red spectra cord through the holes.