No 4 Mk 1 (T) Questions

[cwbuff]

Why was the sling swivel added just forward of the magazine? I have an original leather sling with my No. 4 Mk 1 (T). Given the extra sling swivel, how should the sling be installed?

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[Badger]

Does this entry in the MKL help?

Milsurps Knowledge Library - 1952 Instructional Pamphlet for No.4 Mk1(T) sniper rifle

Regards,
Doug

[cwbuff]

It most certainly does! It describes how to use the extra swivel, but I would still love to the reasoning for it. Gotta love the British for coming up with something like that.

[Beerhunter]

It describes how to use the extra swivel, but I would still love to the reasoning for it.

Using a so-called two-point sling allows the rifle to be held very steadily. When I first started competitive shooting at school, in the late nineteen fifties, that is that way we used target rifles. By the time, I restarted target shooting in the nineteen eighties, single-point slings with a hand-stop had arrived.

Of course snipers would where possible, in preference to using the sling, try to rest their left arm on something solid to support the weight of the rifle. A practice carried on today by the use of a bipod.

[cwbuff]

I will have to try shooting it that way. It is one of my favorite guns to shoot.

[jmoore]

It works even better with the web sling. The butt mounted swivel is probably a passing fad. Note that many military muzzleloading weapons had no butt attach point, but rather a swivel in the front of the trigger guard. This arrangement was hard to keep spiffy on parade, though. I think that's the real reason it got moved further back.

[Surpmil]

It works even better with the web sling. The butt mounted swivel is probably a passing fad. Note that many military muzzleloading weapons had no butt attach point, but rather a swivel in the front of the trigger guard. This arrangement was hard to keep spiffy on parade, though. I think that's the real reason it got moved further back.

I suspect it also had something to do with the stability of the rifle when slung as well. If slung from near the muzzle and in front of the mag the butt tends to 'flop around' on the march etc. When the sling is on the butt it is more directly stabilized and controlled by the sling.

In the muzzle loader days when most of the weight and length was ahead of the lock, it didn't matter so much.

cwbuff, I'm surprised that you're surprised, since slings attached at that point are nothing new on military rifles or rifle ranges, from well before WWI. Off hand I know the 1905 Ross had a swivel on the guard, so did the SMLE although it didn't rotate so less useful. Even the No4 MkI "Model C" trials rifle of circa 1935 had a swivel on the guard - again non-rotating.

Capt. J. A. Barlow's book from the 30s, "Elements of Rifle Shooting" which I used to have, shows him using the SMLE guard swivel with a "rifle club" sling around the left arm. The non-rotating swivel tended to cant the rifle to the right of course.

But enough about that...!

[cwbuff]

I knew I should not have skipped the military sling class in grad school :-)