Paracord Gun Sling

A gun sling can really take a load of your hand but it will end up on you shoulders. I don't know if this will help but it will prevent you from dropping your gun.

Here I will show you how to make a gun sling for my air rifle that hasn't got any sling lugs and I really don't want to drill a hole in the gun to attach lugs.

By using paracord, I can make myself a sling without modifying the gun. Another advantage of the paracord sling is when I decide to remove it I can simply cut it off.

To make the sling you will need the following
- Paracord
- Rifle (There are many styles and shapes of rifles so here wouldn't be a guarantee that you could make a sling that will fit your rifle)
- Knife or scissors
- Lighter
- Paperclips(not shown)

Step 1: On All the Right Places

The first thing that has to be done is to find a place where you can attach the sling. Since I all ready said that I do not wish to modify my rifle the next best thing would be to attach the sling onto the rifle so that is is tied down.

I decided that the best place would be right behind the grip and on the the barrel of the rifle. Since this is a air rifle the barrel wouldn't heat up but it would with a real rifle that can shoot a lot faster so you have to bear that in mind.

To measure the lenth of the sling and what I did was to loosely tie the cord in place so that I can carry the rifle around to test the feel. It's important that you feel comfortable with the sling since it won't be adjustable. It might feel silly but I carried the rifle around the house just to get the right length. If the sling is to short, lengthen it, too long shorten it.

Once I got the right length I used a small piece of paracord to mark the cord. The next thing to be done is to cut the cord to length. Since I am doing a 6 strand flat braid, be needing 6 strand but what I am doing will be to use 3 cords and turn them into 6 strands.

Using mark on the cord, I measures down two times the length plus half that will go into the braiding. So if your sling is 1 meter long the cut cord should then be 2.5 meters long.

Once all the cords are cut the next thing that has to be done is to melt the end to prevent them from fraying.

Step 2:

Once all the cord are cut the next thing that has to be done is to align the cord up so that the cords are folded in half and that all the tips are on the same end and length. To keep all the cord together by securing them together with a small piece of paracord. The next thing that has to be done is to do a 3 strand braid from the paracord marker. The braid needs to be just a bit shorter than half the circumference of the grip to where you will be attaching the sling.

You can use a paperclip to secure the cords from unraveling. Now you have to do the braiding from the other side to the of the marker.

Once there are enough braid that the braided ends go around the back of the grip to tie the braids together. To do this I inter-weaved the cord that the cord a aligned as BFBFBF and finish it off the a tight knot. 

Step 3: The Braiding

There will only be six strands in my gun sling and not ten like in my Guitar Strap https://www.instructables.com/id/Paracord-Guitar-Strap/ but the idea is the same, so this might sound familiar.

- The braid explained

Pull all the cords flat and start at the left and move the first strand Over the second strand and Under the third strand.

Repeat till you reach the last strand and Leave the strand to one side.

Restart with the left most strand but alternate the pattern so that you will go under and over.

At the end of the second braid, join the last strand from the previous braid in the place of the number 6 strand

Example 1 2 3 4 5 6
                 1 O U O U L
                 1 U O U O L

Pro-tip: Use paperclips as you go along to prevent the strand from unraveling

Once done and the strap is long enough, use a small piece of string to tie the end off.

If you need more help this site http://www.seekyee.com/Slings/howtos/6strand1.htm will show you how to do a 6 strand braid in two ways. Follow Method 2

Step 4: That's a Wrap

Once the braiding is done on the strap it time to attach the other end of the gun, in my case the barrel of the rifle.

To do this the first thing I did was to split the braid back into two sets of 3 strands each and basically doing the same on the barrel as I did at the back grip.

I did a short 3 strand braid on each side and again inter weaved them but this time I did two more braids and a inter weave so that the strands end up at the bottom.

If you what to you can finish off the strap now of continue with another six strand braid so that there is a piece of strap hanging down in front. Once the strap was done, I made a simple knot and cut the rest of the cords off. I also melted the end off the cords to prevent unraveling.

The strap is optional and I made it because I had some paracord left after the braiding but you also wrap the barrel in paracord by continuing the up down braiding.

Comments

[killer pyro]

hey know this sound stupid but does anyone know where to get cheap paracord?

[craftsman99]

You could check your local army surplus store

[vernonaz]

I guess you could start with cheap paracord, but it's probably not real paracord. I do sell paracord through my business.

[brod0331]

Great tutorial! Here's my version of a single point sling attachment that I made for work.

[joepetemitch]

I just thought I'd say that the sling is not solely for carrying the rifle but is I fact used for shooting by wrapping it around your arm which locks your arm which in turn steadies the muzzle but still a cool instructable

[MandalorianMaker]

@killer pyro the way to tell the real paracord make sure the pounds test is 550 pounds

[slo5oh]

Ikuziez9680: Common rule is 1' of paracord for each 1" of weave.

Killer pyro: There are lots of places to get paracord, not all are the same though. I've read that there's lots of false paracord out there. These guys sell the real stuff: http://campingsurvival.com

[lkuziez9680]

do you have any faint idea how much paracord this will use, I am looking forward to making this as soon as I know

[mr. robot skull]

This would make a good airsoft sling if you could attach it to a sling mount pin.

[jurienaude]

Yes thanks, the nearest category I can think of was airsoft since Instructables does have a weapons or guns section.