yeah Ive got  a sling made of that braided leather cord. It's not great.

Drakolith wrote on Jun 30^th, 2018 at 9:47pm:


It’s not terrible, actually. The 4-strand round braid leather shown above is a little springy for my tastes compared to the exact same braid in cotton.  The cotton is also lighter and more flexible, but I have made several two-strand twisted leather cords that work just fine on other slings.  In fact I wear a sling with a leather cord around my neck every day, and I like using that sling a lot... I just think I like the 4-strand cotton a little better. So far, I have tried jute, leather, paracord, cotton, and hemp. Right now it’s a toss up between hemp and waxed cotton for my favorite cordage. I would need to make a few more hemp slings before I could decide.

That does look like a good edc sling, how do you keep it from riding up and choking you? With a large loop like that I would think it would slip often. Also, just curious, are those rubber bands you used for the whipping?

Ah, okay, thanks.

leather cord tends to wear and break quite easily - certainly compared to paracord.

First sling I ever made, was made with leather cord and a denim pouch. the cord broke before the pouch

I’m coming around to the same opinion. This was one of my earliest practical designs and has given me more than a year of good use though, so I won’t say leather is a bad choice, even if natural fibers may be better for durability.  Leather is more comfortable to wear around the neck than jute and it stays pretty clean. Cotton or hemp might be ok, but I haven’t tried wearing them for EDC, and I would have to test it.

I’ve done some more testing with this pouch design and decided to post it here.  The idea for this pouch came about because most of the slings I make are braided.  But I wanted to avoid having to stitch all the way around the pouch when adding leather, etc.  Haven't done a woven pouch yet, but that will come someday

I currently have two slings with this pouch style.  Making the pouch is pretty simple.  It’s basically shaped similar to an X or a cross with a fat middle.  Then the arms are folded around the two sides of the split pouch and attached.  I’ve done one with rivets and the other was sewn on.  The riveted one took slightly less time, but both methods were quick.

Here are the layouts of the basic measurements for each of the pouches along with the actual sling.  I didn’t go into too much detail with the measurements because the size will change based on the length of the pouch and diameter of the cords.

Green leather on linen sling:




Yellow leather on hemp sling:




There was an initial problem with the first sling pictured.  The split pouch itself is larger than the projectiles I regularly use.  The sides of the split pouch are about 7.5 in (19 cm) long.  When making the sling I wasn’t concerned about this because I always intended to fill in the pouch in with something.  The problem came about because when slinging, the projectile isn’t supported by the cords of the split pouch.  It is supported entirely by the leather.  So after a throw I would find that the two connection points of the leather on each side of the split pouch were sliding toward each other.  I hope that explanation isn’t too confusing.  I fixed the problem by removing the leather and re-attaching it with some contact cement where the leather wraps around the cordage.  I put the rivets back in too so there is some extra support.

After seeing this problem, I would recommend that the split pouch still be made to fit the intended ammunition, and the leather attached as additional support.  If the leather will act as the main support of the projectile, it may need something additional to adhere it to the sling.  As I did with contact cement.

I’ve done a couple dozen throws with the newly attached pouch and it now holds in place well.  The yellow leather on the hemp sling has always worked well.  It's seems like a good fit just being sewn on.  The stitching does not go through the hemp.  I’m planning to do some other variations with this pouch and see what results I get.  I think it’s a good potential design if you would like to quickly fill in a split pouch.  One of the drawbacks is there are gaps between the leather (or whatever you’re using) and the cordage.  So if you’re using projectiles that may get caught in the gaps, this style won’t be the best option.