Stickman
6 September 2007, 18:20
Slings become a hard topic to write about, especially when you figure that different people have assorted likes, and dislikes based off previous experiences that they have, or that they have learned about. I'm one of those people that tends to be pretty straight forward on items, and I make no bones that I've never been a single point sling fan.
For a long time, I carried a 3 point sling. This was based in large part on having had poor experiences with single point slings. A loop of thin webbing with a contact point to the weapon doesn't make for a very good sling in my opinion, and that is all that most single point slings have been that I've used. Some have been lacking in stitching, some have been lacking in the quality of hardware, some have been lacking in quality of webbing, and all had been lacking in overall appeal based off my needs. I use a sling on my duty weapon as a city cop, and my carbine sees more than an average amount of use. I need equipment that works, and works well. Equipment failure isn't an option in my book, and solid choices can help prevent this from happening, though Murphys law seems to get involved in almost every aspect of police work at some point.
I could gripe and complain about single point slings for a long time, in the way they feel, the pads that some people use, the way they attach to the weapon, the extra parts or long extensions, and other things, but no doubt you get the idea by this point.
Enter the Gear Sector ASP. The ASP stands for Ambidextrous Single Point, and it certainly is an ambi friendly unit, but that wasn't what made me willing to try it out. The Gear Sector ASP uses a three way mount, and that makes all the difference in the world to me. The hang, the way it lays, and the overall feel make it unlike any other single point sling. However, while that certainly gave it a greater sense of appeal than its counterparts, I still wasn't sold.
Construction of the Gear Sector ASP is broken down into a few categories.
Lets start out by looking at the material itself. The webbing is MIL-W-5625 1″ tubular nylon webbing. This gives it several benefits, first, it is unbelievably strong. One inch tubular webbing is the same material that I have rock climbed with for the past 20 years, and if tubular webbing can handle me falling 60+ feet at 300 feet off the deck, I can certainly trust it to hold any loads that I can put on it with my weapon. Tubular webbing has a few other benefits that it brings with it, especially when viewed for duty use. Tubular webbing isn't like flat webbing, which means it doesn't bow in the middle and dig in like may other slings will. Its heavy duty material supports itself, which is nice when you are wearing soft armor. Tubular webbing is also a soft material with a smooth, tight weave. It is tough enough to resist tearing or getting cut (which is why its used in rock climbing), but the weave is smooth enough that it won't grab or irritate my skin when worn for long periods of time. Lastly, tubular webbing doesn't twist and kink. This becomes a big deal when I'm deploying quickly out of my cruiser and throwing on the sling while running to a high priority call. I don't have to play with adjusting or untwisting the sling, and for anyone who has had to throw a sling on in a hurry, you understand what I mean.
Next, lets take a look at the hardware used. The fasteners are obviously going to be the weakest link in this setup, especially when you figure that its built with tubular webbing. While I can tell you that the male and female ends lock together with a good solid feel, and that you have to grip them hard to disconnect them, that still doesn't impart the overall concrete feel of these pieces. Being naturally pessimistic as a cop, I felt a need to test the polymer hardware myself. I started with looping the sling off a bolt in a tree, and hung off it. Nothing happened. I quickly grew bored of that not so high speed test, and began jumping up and down to shockload the sling. Nothing happened. Again, I grew bored, and decided that I need to do something a little more destructive. I took the sling and chucked it into my freezer for an hour and quickly looped it over a banister and put my weight on it. Nothing happened. The next logical move was to jump up and down on it. Nothing happened. While I understood at that point that the sling hardware was capable of dealing with my patrol duties, I still felt compelled to see what else I could do, and to see at what point that I would reach hardware failure. Eventually I discovered that freezing it overnight, or even for 48 hours had no apparent effect on it, at least not with me weight jumping up and down on it while suspended from a banister. Dirty looks and muttering from Mrs. Stick ended that series of tests. My next series of tests were based off locking the end of the female side into a vise, and trying to twist the sling enough to pop the male/ female connectors out of union. No luck with that test either. I figured that I had put the sling through more abuse than I had any right to give it, and certainly more than I could realistically expect to ever dish out to it in training or real world use. ITW GhillieTex™ brand hardware evidently holds up well, and as an added benefit, it color matches the sling material, which isn't a big deal either way for those of us who use black slings.
Moving along, the third part that locks it all together is the thread and stitching. Gear Sector states that stitch using MIL-VT-295 #69 bonded nylon thread with double box stitching. I don't pretend to know the intricacies of the thread world, nor am I master of stitching methods, but the above testing and abuse showed me that this thread and stitching holds up well to abuse.
Gear Sector had a final trick up their sleeve. The modular use of multiple attachment stubs meant that I could run the same sling for my shotgun, as I do for my AR15, FAL, and AK. This gives me one sling instead of a stack of slings attached to weapons. My extra slings are stored, and I tend to just bring one sling with me to training or callouts. Team weapons also benefit nicely from this as team members can swap out weapons if needed without getting out of their slings. My guys have found it nice to be able to unplug while staging or stuck in the van/ truck, but still leave their sling on.
I've used a Gear Sector ASP on my duty weapon for roughly the last three years, and I would have continued using it if Jason Trusty hasn't developed a second generation ASP. The new variant gives stronger color matched hardware with a reduced IR signature, color matched thread, and a new auxiliary stub design to prevent any slippage.
I started out this thread complaining about single point slings, and in general, I still dislike them, but the Gear Sector ASP is so different from the other single point slings I've used, it deserves to be in a class of its own.
Here is the ASP shown locked in the Magpul UBR stock with a QD mount.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Magpul/IMG_4109%20Stick.jpg
Gen II ASP in black.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Weapon%20Slings/IMG_2917%20Stick.jpg
Coyote Brown Gen II ASP on a training weapon.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Magpul/IMG_4789%20%20Stick.jpg
Foliage Green GEN II attachment on 11-87P.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Weapon%20Slings/IMG_2935%20Stick.jpg
For a long time, I carried a 3 point sling. This was based in large part on having had poor experiences with single point slings. A loop of thin webbing with a contact point to the weapon doesn't make for a very good sling in my opinion, and that is all that most single point slings have been that I've used. Some have been lacking in stitching, some have been lacking in the quality of hardware, some have been lacking in quality of webbing, and all had been lacking in overall appeal based off my needs. I use a sling on my duty weapon as a city cop, and my carbine sees more than an average amount of use. I need equipment that works, and works well. Equipment failure isn't an option in my book, and solid choices can help prevent this from happening, though Murphys law seems to get involved in almost every aspect of police work at some point.
I could gripe and complain about single point slings for a long time, in the way they feel, the pads that some people use, the way they attach to the weapon, the extra parts or long extensions, and other things, but no doubt you get the idea by this point.
Enter the Gear Sector ASP. The ASP stands for Ambidextrous Single Point, and it certainly is an ambi friendly unit, but that wasn't what made me willing to try it out. The Gear Sector ASP uses a three way mount, and that makes all the difference in the world to me. The hang, the way it lays, and the overall feel make it unlike any other single point sling. However, while that certainly gave it a greater sense of appeal than its counterparts, I still wasn't sold.
Construction of the Gear Sector ASP is broken down into a few categories.
Lets start out by looking at the material itself. The webbing is MIL-W-5625 1″ tubular nylon webbing. This gives it several benefits, first, it is unbelievably strong. One inch tubular webbing is the same material that I have rock climbed with for the past 20 years, and if tubular webbing can handle me falling 60+ feet at 300 feet off the deck, I can certainly trust it to hold any loads that I can put on it with my weapon. Tubular webbing has a few other benefits that it brings with it, especially when viewed for duty use. Tubular webbing isn't like flat webbing, which means it doesn't bow in the middle and dig in like may other slings will. Its heavy duty material supports itself, which is nice when you are wearing soft armor. Tubular webbing is also a soft material with a smooth, tight weave. It is tough enough to resist tearing or getting cut (which is why its used in rock climbing), but the weave is smooth enough that it won't grab or irritate my skin when worn for long periods of time. Lastly, tubular webbing doesn't twist and kink. This becomes a big deal when I'm deploying quickly out of my cruiser and throwing on the sling while running to a high priority call. I don't have to play with adjusting or untwisting the sling, and for anyone who has had to throw a sling on in a hurry, you understand what I mean.
Next, lets take a look at the hardware used. The fasteners are obviously going to be the weakest link in this setup, especially when you figure that its built with tubular webbing. While I can tell you that the male and female ends lock together with a good solid feel, and that you have to grip them hard to disconnect them, that still doesn't impart the overall concrete feel of these pieces. Being naturally pessimistic as a cop, I felt a need to test the polymer hardware myself. I started with looping the sling off a bolt in a tree, and hung off it. Nothing happened. I quickly grew bored of that not so high speed test, and began jumping up and down to shockload the sling. Nothing happened. Again, I grew bored, and decided that I need to do something a little more destructive. I took the sling and chucked it into my freezer for an hour and quickly looped it over a banister and put my weight on it. Nothing happened. The next logical move was to jump up and down on it. Nothing happened. While I understood at that point that the sling hardware was capable of dealing with my patrol duties, I still felt compelled to see what else I could do, and to see at what point that I would reach hardware failure. Eventually I discovered that freezing it overnight, or even for 48 hours had no apparent effect on it, at least not with me weight jumping up and down on it while suspended from a banister. Dirty looks and muttering from Mrs. Stick ended that series of tests. My next series of tests were based off locking the end of the female side into a vise, and trying to twist the sling enough to pop the male/ female connectors out of union. No luck with that test either. I figured that I had put the sling through more abuse than I had any right to give it, and certainly more than I could realistically expect to ever dish out to it in training or real world use. ITW GhillieTex™ brand hardware evidently holds up well, and as an added benefit, it color matches the sling material, which isn't a big deal either way for those of us who use black slings.
Moving along, the third part that locks it all together is the thread and stitching. Gear Sector states that stitch using MIL-VT-295 #69 bonded nylon thread with double box stitching. I don't pretend to know the intricacies of the thread world, nor am I master of stitching methods, but the above testing and abuse showed me that this thread and stitching holds up well to abuse.
Gear Sector had a final trick up their sleeve. The modular use of multiple attachment stubs meant that I could run the same sling for my shotgun, as I do for my AR15, FAL, and AK. This gives me one sling instead of a stack of slings attached to weapons. My extra slings are stored, and I tend to just bring one sling with me to training or callouts. Team weapons also benefit nicely from this as team members can swap out weapons if needed without getting out of their slings. My guys have found it nice to be able to unplug while staging or stuck in the van/ truck, but still leave their sling on.
I've used a Gear Sector ASP on my duty weapon for roughly the last three years, and I would have continued using it if Jason Trusty hasn't developed a second generation ASP. The new variant gives stronger color matched hardware with a reduced IR signature, color matched thread, and a new auxiliary stub design to prevent any slippage.
I started out this thread complaining about single point slings, and in general, I still dislike them, but the Gear Sector ASP is so different from the other single point slings I've used, it deserves to be in a class of its own.
Here is the ASP shown locked in the Magpul UBR stock with a QD mount.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Magpul/IMG_4109%20Stick.jpg
Gen II ASP in black.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Weapon%20Slings/IMG_2917%20Stick.jpg
Coyote Brown Gen II ASP on a training weapon.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Magpul/IMG_4789%20%20Stick.jpg
Foliage Green GEN II attachment on 11-87P.
http://stickman.rainierarms.com/galleries/Weapon%20Slings/IMG_2935%20Stick.jpg