Thread: 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.



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



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.



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.



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.