Shotguns are the firearms that interest me most. What you learn when you get into shotguns is that they are the red-headed stepchild of the defensive firearms world. People just don’t care about them, and the industry more or less ignores them. But I don’t. Today, we are going to discuss shotgun slings.
Getting the Most Out of Your Shotgun Slings
Shotgun slings aren’t all that different from rifle slings; we have a ton of options to choose from. Much like rifles, these slings help you retain and carry the weapon. Rifle slings are often used to help improve marksmanship with a rifle through the glory of tension. You can do the same with a shotgun, but slings can also be used to reduce recoil with a shotgun.
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We’re going to talk about all of that and dive into why the defensive and tactical shotgun benefits from a sling.
What to Stay Away From
Before we get into how to sling, which sling to choose, and why, let’s talk about what to stay away from. I’m sure most people reading this already ignore single points and three points for long guns. The same advice applies to shotguns: stick to a two-point.
However, we need to stay away from shotgun slings that double as bandoliers. Any sling offering to hold 25 rounds of shotgun ammo is downright silly. First, the retention sucks because slings move a lot. Second, it gets overly heavy with 25 rounds of buckshot.
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Finally, since the sling moves around a lot and it’s heavy, it makes the whole gun move. It’s annoying. Luckily, these slings tend to be a self-correcting problem when the sling starts ditching rounds as you shoot.
It seems like a great idea, but it’s difficult to reload from, heavy, moves too much, and I’ve never seen any of these be an actual high-quality sling.
Slinging Shotguns Can Be Tough
In a world dominated by the AR, most slings are designed for modern AR usage. That’s great; an AR wears a sling well, but sadly most shotguns aren’t AR sling ready. The problem you run into is that attaching the sling to the shotgun can be tricky. Most sling-ready shotguns are meant to be outfitted with two-point, strap-style, over-the-shoulder slings.
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To get the gun sling ready, we might have to make some adjustments. A lot of modern tactical shotguns have taken steps to fix this with multiple sling mounts on the stock and a modern option on the front of the shotgun. However, many do not.
Adding sling mounts is easier these days. For pump shotguns, I run the sling near the end of the barrel so it doesn’t interfere with the pump itself. With semi-autos, I still run it near the end, but you often have more room to mount the sling without worrying about placement.
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Adding sling mounts is easier these days. For pump shotguns, I run the sling near the end of the barrel so it doesn’t interfere with the pump itself. With semi-autos, I still run near the end, but you often have more room to mount the sling without worrying about placement.
There are a variety of magazine and barrel clamp options that act as sling points. Magpul makes them, GG&G makes them, and a lot of modern shotguns now come with a barrel clamp with an M-LOK slot for a sling point. This is the way to go for most shotguns.
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The rear sling can be more of a challenge. Most rear sling mounts on shotgun slots are on the bottom. We can work with that. I tend to run the sling under and then around the right side of the shotgun stock as a right-handed shooter. This allows me to sling the gun comfortably across my body and shoot from a slung position.
Which Sling for A Shotgun?
You can use any of the modern tactical two-points and be fine. The Blue Force Gear Vickers Slings, the Magpul MS1/3, the Arbor Arms Dual Adjust, etc. Any of those is going to work fine.
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Much like a rifle, a two-point offers the most support to the gun, the best retention, and makes it easy to shoot while keeping the shotgun slung. This part is the simplest aspect of using shotgun slings.
Using a Shotgun Sling
We can use a shotgun sling like a rifle sling to aid in precision shooting via tension, and for slugs, that’s fine. Shotguns with buckshot at shotgun ranges don’t need all that much help with putting rounds on target. What a properly tight and tense sling can offer is recoil control.
With shotguns, we use a push/pull method of recoil control. We pull the stock into our shoulder and push the shotgun forward. This creates tension, which reduces recoil and makes it easy to control the mighty recoil of a shotgun.
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If you run the sling taut, to the point that in the mounted position it pushes some pressure into the shoulder, you’re using the sling to help create tension. This takes some of the pull effort out of the recoil control technique. This becomes super useful when you’re tired and training hard.
Even if you’re not tired, it’s an incremental improvement to help you control the repeating claymore, and more control is always better at the end of the day. A simple, taut sling can make handling shotguns and PGO firearms much easier.
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A sling can go a long way on a shotgun, even if the shotgun is only firing a short way.
