MECo -esque rifle? sling, where is it from, please?

**ILH** · 08-10-2015, 08:50 PM

Picked up this ropey old sling the other day, but I havn't been able to find out what it is. Everything about it says it's a standard British empire sling.... except the hollow rivets. It's 43in long which seems to be within tolerance for the nominal 46in rifle sling (I've got two of those at 43in). No evident markings.

Anyone got any ideas, I'm guessing at Indian manufacture?
Thanks.

**AIF** · 08-13-2015, 08:39 AM

Interesting sling I have never seen one with hollow rivets either.

**zwerge** · 08-13-2015, 03:08 PM

Take a look here........Original WWII British Enfield SMLE Rifle OD Green Web Sling with Brass Fittings - WW2 Dated ima-usa.com

**ILH** · 08-15-2015, 07:39 AM

So it's ww2, but it's still not a rifle sling as it doesn't have the solid rivets like the other 2 on the link.... and nothing on karkeweb......
Half way there, thanks.

**AIF** · 08-15-2015, 09:41 AM

Those stamps on the slings in that link look doubious to me, I never seen an MECo 1941 stamp with the '1' shaped like that before usually they look like this - l not this - 1. Also the stamps seem rather big as well.

For example here is a 1941 dated sling from my collection...

**AIF** · 08-15-2015, 09:43 AM

I'd be shooting the guys from Karkee web a message and seeing if they know anything, keep us updated please as I would like to hear what you come up with.

Cheers
Luke.

**lithgow** · 08-15-2015, 12:23 PM

Looks far too old to be repro and slings aren't so valuable as to be worth faking-given the numbers made over many decades in many places for many different users, anything is possible!

**USNV5** · 08-15-2015, 02:19 PM

These rivets on a G.S. Rifle Sling are shown here at Karkee Web:

Weapons: Slings

Look near the bottom of the page.

They may be Australian manufactured, we'll see what Karkee Web has to say.

**AIF** · 08-15-2015, 03:57 PM

G'day Lithgow, there are tons of reproductions slings around if you look on ebay you will probably see 50+ listings, although they are of inferior quality coming from India and are sold as repros. I just thought the stamps on the MECo sling for sale in the listing looked a bit off, maybe a way of 'sexing' them up and making an old unmarked sling worth a few more bob... I own several MECo 1941 dated web items and none of them have a stamp that tall and none have the same style of number one used... Although I could be wrong, who knows maybe they had more than one style of stamp that year.