Another sling question....

[mpd1978]

Were there any Carbine slings made in WW2 that had black painted hardware? Its a C-tipped OD sling, no markings. Buckle and c-tips appear to be painted black.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[usgicollector]

Some if the snap parts seem to be painted on some of the WWII slings. I have not seen any black painted real C tips.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Hi mpd1978,

usgicollector is correct. The authentic USGI tips will be parked if they're in outstanding condition, and more often look like they're bare metal with only a hint if finish.

You can usually tell by several things such as the weave pattern, thickness of the sling material, crimps on the tips, and the fastener hardware. Also, just by common sense, even the best condition original slings show 'age' to the material and hardware even if they come directly from an new old stock package.

Below right was one of the best looking repro's I came across to the naked eye as far as the weave looking and feeling correct. On most repro's the weave pattern is wrong and they're a bit thicker.

To the naked eye it didn't look as obviously fake as in these close-up photos. It had the ends painted black as you described and your question made me think of this photo I took.

Besides learning the zig-zag weave pattern and thickness (thinner) of originals, check the crimps on the tips to see if they look like the two slings on the left. Some fakes are getting better with their crimps, but most aren't. This fake on the right had the closest to real looking shape 'C' tips but most are completely wrong.

Also check the fastener. Many of the fakes have 'Lift The Dot' and stars, etc stamped on them, when the originals I've seen only have a plain 'dot' - I think there may be a few originals with other markings but all I've seen just have a plain dot.

This fake on the right only had the single dot, but if you compare it to originals you can see the difference - The originals look as if the 'dot' is almost molded neatly into the fastener and the fake one the dot looks like it's punched into it after being made, which close-up shows up looking more like a 'dent'. From the back you can see the poor quality of how the fastener looks too.





This is an example of an original showing the weave and parked tips -



Here's another fake. Besides being brand new, look at the painted tips and the weave -



And here's a fake sling on the right copied from an ebay sale where the seller guaranteed it to be original USGI -

[DaveHH]

It is on my 5.6 Win and has been there for a long, long time.

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Both the material and end clip do not look good to me.

[Bubba-7]

Agree,

[DaveHH]

I thought it was close enough for another look by you folks. That thing has been on there for decades. The material does look distinctively different, but the tip is closer than the modern fakes.
Thanks guys

[Bubba-7]

Repro slings have been out there for decades. They started at least in mid 80's with Blue Sky and everyone else's imports and everybody wanted slings.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Sorry Dave - Just got back here and I was going to say what Bubba and Jim said anyway. Unfortunately it's an early reproduction.

It does look better than most of the repros around today though.

[keving138]

How about these two?