The army’s trapdoor rifles of 1868 and 1870 had shorter barrels requiring only two barrel bands. Paradoxically, these required longer gun slings to reach from the swivel on the upper band down to the swivel on the triggerguard. The army initially solved the problem in a fiscally responsible way by mating two older Civil War slings, cutting the hook off one and the standing loop off the other and then stitching them together. When older slings were used up it became necessary in the early 1880s to manufacture new, long slings, which were made in one-piece, but maintained the same design of a standing loop on one end and a single hook on the other. As late as 1885 these were ordered from Rock Island Arsenal, but the pattern was changed in 1887 to a sling with a brass double-claw hook, giving a good end date for possible production. This is a good, solid example of the later sling, made in one piece, about 69 inches long, with just some creasing where it was bent around the swivels on a rifle for several decades. The standing loop and hook are firmly in place and the sliding tightening loop present as well. It is ready to go back on a rifle or became part of a study collection or display on the development of US army accouterments.  [sr]

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