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Treaper Oy 3Hgr Light-Harness Sling

Treaper Oy 3Hgr Light-Harness Sling

Slings come in all shapes and sizes and I thought I’d seen it all until I was recently sent a sample of the 3HGR Light-Harness sling. Made in Finland by Treaper oy, and designed by Lauri Kakkonen, a young Finn with a military/LE background and a profound love of hunting.

The main straps are made from a green heavy-duty nylon material and a long shoulderpad made of a bombproof black polymer spreads the load. The pad is rounded, ribbed and vented for comfort and grip, and fixed in place so it won’t slide. The extremities of the sling loop through the supplied QD swivels and are secured by figure-8 buckles, with plenty of adjustment available at the bottom end. So far so good, but the best is yet to come, because this sling also has a second strap. This has a grippy rubber pad at the top too, but this time it’s smaller and runs over an elasticated section, below which extends a length of webbing with inch-long slots evenly spaced along its middle; more on these later. The top end of the strap is secured in the figure-8 buckle at the top of the main sling, while the bottom ends in a unique clip with a circular lug that mates with either of the two female buckles positioned on the lower half of the main sling.

The 3HGR’s secondary strap is always attached to the sling at the top end, but when not in use its bottom end is simply clipped into the lower of the two female buckles. The strap should be adjusted and the buckle positioned so that the strap sits tight over the sling. When you want to secure the sling, all you need to do is unclip the strap, pass it behind your head and re-attach it, this time to the upper buckle.

In this position the clip-on part of the buckle is able to rotate, which keeps the strap from kinking. Better still, the design of the clip makes it so tactile and so positive that it can be operated blind, with one hand, and in complete silence.

Pole Position

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Stalkers who like to use treetrunks or telephone poles as improvised rests for a steadier shot may also be interested in an additional, optional, function of the 3HGR sling. In fact, it is this function that gives the 3HGR (= Tree-Hugger) its name!

The sling can be supplied in an upgraded, a.k.a. ‘original’ version; complete with a polymer base-plate that mounts to the swivel stud in the forend of your rifle via a threaded adapter. In this configuration, the secondary strap is not attached directly to the sling but instead is threaded into the base plate from the front end; and the sling itself is attached to the rifle via the adapter’s own swivel stud.

Stabilised by suitably positioned self-adhesive rubber strips, the base-plate closely follows the contours of the fore-end, the only protrusions being a pair of small hooks at the rear.

With the 3HGR sling in this mode, all that’s required to obtain a secure mount on a vertical support is to unclip the bottom end of the strap from the sling, pass it around the support, and hook it onto the base plate using one of the slots mentioned earlier. The 3HGR can cope with trunks/poles up to 30cm in diameter. With the strap secured, its grippy polymer pad stops it sliding down the support, whilst at the same time protecting the elastic section that provides flexible tension.

The result is an extremely steady rest, even in the absence of sticks or a bipod and it takes only moments to deploy at exactly the height required, whether you’re lying, sitting, kneeling or standing. The 3HGR (a name that’s as wryly ironic as it is appropriate, and that makes me smile every time I use the sling), is neat, strong and simple to use I think Treaper really have produced a very clever product.

PRICE: £69.99
CONTACT: Viking Arms, 01423 780 810, www.vikingarmsltd.com

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  • Treaper Oy 3Hgr Light-Harness Sling - image {image:count}

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