Schlegel Manufacturing Co
While reading about the WWII efforts put out by the city of Rochester I came across something I didn't know about SMCo. Originally they were contracted to make the weaved belts for the belt fed .30 and .50 Cals. It wasn't until finishing this (these) contracts that they then started making Carbine slings. The article I'll link below leads you to believe that with the problems they had with the double weaved belts it wasn't until the summer of 1943 that they started the belts. Then after making 6 million machine gun belts they moved on to make the C tip slings.
Since I don't recall seeing a SMCo 43 dated carbine sling........ Do you think they didn't start making then until early 44 ?
And if there are 43 dated SMCo slings, they must surely be few.... Maybe even Rare for 1943 ?
Thoughts ?
This link is a good read that includes quite a few of our Carbine makers and suppliers.
In this link, head for the top of page 6:
http://www.libraryweb.org/~rochhist/v66_2004/v66i1.pdf
The looms that made automobile upholstery in peacetime at
the Schlegel Manufacturing Co. on North Goodman Street had to
be completely torn down and redesigned to make machine gun belts.
For months, the company hit “snag after snag in adjusting the machines”
to weave the webbing to the required double thickness.
The company finally succeeded – only to discover that the Army
had changed its specifications and now required a new type of belt!
“That took more tearing down and rebuilding.” Finally, by the summer
of 1943, Schlegel was ready to begin full production. It eventually
produced six million machinegun belts for .30 and .50 caliber
bullets, then switched to production of gun slings
