28 Jul The Direct Action Carbine Sling MKII – First impression
The Direct Action Carbine Sling MKII
Today we bring a new 1st impression post and this time we’ll talk about the Direct Action Carbine Sling MKII.
Our experience
Our personal experience with this sling has now come to 1 year of use. By now we have used this one on quite an amount of airsoft events, CQB training sessions with airsoft guns and lately even on carbine courses with both ARs and AKs. So, in our eyes certainly enough to give some decent feedback on this one.
Materials
Let’s begin with the materials first. The Carbine Sling MKII is made of both a durable webbing construction and a soft-shell neck area providing durability & comfort in one.
It also features paracord attachements, an ITW nexus heavy duty buckle and, as always with Direct Action products, a Hypalon made puller tab as well.
The used materials also have a DWR (Durable Water Repellent) coating and are either NIR or IRR treated, depending on the color you go for. This to reduce your night vision signature.
Features
That said, let’s dive into the Carbine Sling MKII its features. For starters, it’s a very thin (non-padded) & lightweight sling. Why do we start with this first? Well, we have used quite some slings over the years and although the heavier padded slings offer great comfort, they do add quite some weight to your gun.
In our eyes padded slings are more for the carrying of heavy weapon types like LMG’s or sniper rifles. If we talk about assault rifles all the way down to SMG type of guns we prefer non-padded slings any day.
Above this, the fact that the Carbine Sling MKII is also thin in profile only helps to make it easier to move everything around and makes it lends itself very well to be tucked away with an elastic band for if you don’t require to use the sling.
Probably the most interesting feature of this sling is the way how it attaches. Unlike most “modern” slings that use metal hooks or QD swivels, the Carbine Sling MKII makes use of nothing more than paracord loops. It may sound like a prehistoric approach, but in our opinions it is by far the best sling attachment system we’ve used thus far. Simply loop the both ends wherever you need them (buffer tube, buttstock, handguard, etc) and you’re ready to roll.
This way you never have problems with position fitment or your sling twisting around itself, it never produces sound and if a cord happens to fail you just replace it with a new piece. Nothing more, nothing less.
Pull-tab
Another feature worth talking about is its adjustment puller tab. This sling is a quick adjustable one and the great thing about it is that it is not overcomplicated. There’re a ton of companies out there that have jumped on this “quick adjustment” sling hype, but only a few make them worthy to carry the name.
See, where other slings sometimes have 2 tabs and even leave out excessive material if you shorten them (which creates snag risks), the Carbine Sling MKII does non of this. Just like its attachment feature, it is designed to be as simple as possible, because under stress nobody will be able to differentiate a “pull” from the “push” tab no matter how used you’re to it.
So, for this the Carbine Sling MKII has a very simple to use design with a tab made of Hypalon which is easy to find and no matter the conditions, is always easy to grip onto. Using this tab also doesn’t require a lot of force which makes handling it a smooth ride. FYI, when you pull the tab you make the sling shorter and when you push it away it gets longer.
Converting to 1 point
Lastly there are 2 other points worth mentioning about this sling. First point: Athough most, including us, use it as a 2-point sling, it can be converted to a 1-point sling as well. So, if you’re still experimenting with which one you like most or you like to keep your options open, this sling certainly can work for both cases. It is worth noticing however that the conversion itself doesn’t allow to be done “in-field quickly”.
Low abrasion webbing
Second point: As any shooter that seriously used their slings, we know that abrasion burns are not uncommon if you don’t cover you neck. In the case of this particular sling, Direct Action has made use of a low abrasion webbing fabric to minimize burns even with long uses. And that’s a big plus in our eyes.
Our Conclusion
So, in conclusion we say that altough it is a very simple design, the Carbine Sling MKII is by far the best sling we’ve used in all those years of testing and using different sling variants. This sling also proves that highly reliable or even “advanced” tactical equipment don’t always have to be super expensive.
If you’re looking for this sling, there’s no need to look very far since we sell products from Direct Action and can even have their products produced if stocks are depleted entirely. The link to the Carbine Sling MKII is https://shop.reconbrothers.com/…/direct-action-carbine…/
If you’re looking for some quality Tactical gear visit shop.reconbrothers.com
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