I finaly found a proper sling for my rifle...

I'd recently purchased an original 1903 sling for my rod bayonet 03. It's stamped 1903 and Rock Island Arsenal like most of the others seen of the type. I treated it with a hand rubbing of Pecard Antique Leather Dressing and it seems to be in excellent, undamaged and supple condition.
Here are some photo's I took tonight with rifle and sling together. Thought it might be of some interest to some. It's still a bit tight due to some leather shrinkage over the past 112 years, but it's stretched a bit already and seems sturdy, being a bit thicker than the earlier Krag and Trapdoor slings I've seen.

Fred

Hey thanks guys! I just had to get it, though I've so far avoided telling my wife how much I paid for it.

Thanks Dagger. It sure completes the rifle.

Hmmm... I would've thought that a soaking in water and drying would make the leather extremely stiff at first. If I did this, then while it would still be wet, I ought to carefully stretch it a bit?
I paid a bit over $300.00 for the sling and I wouldn't want to destroy it. I like to use Pecard Antique Leather Dressing on my old leather, but maybe the water thing is OK? Anybody else have any experience with that? After using Pecard antique leather dressing for a few times, the sling is quite supple and strong.

Yes. I took the photos at night inside the house. Tomorrow I'll take photos in daylight. I might try outside, but it's been 30 to 40 below zero out in the wind lately so I might try with the sunlight through the windows.

Well, here are some better snapshots outside. All I have is my iphone. I'm still trying to improve on the quality of photo's I can get from it. Let's see how these turned out...

I'm not happy with the quality of my photo's. I'll keep trying with other subjects of 03 stuff and see if I can get it right. Maybe a real camera will work.

Thanks airedaleman, actually I've already got one!

Something that I've noticed on the 1903 slings (rod bayonet). There is an extended tab of leather that hangs down from the brass button. This tab has three sets of holes for the brass claw to fit into when the sling is drawn tight. This sling was and had been hooked through the Middle set of holes when I got it. The other two sets of holes hadn't been used.
It seems to me that the idea might've been for the three sets of holes to offer optional places for the claw to hook into depending on whether or not the sling had stretched a bit from use and water and also possibly for when the sling shrank a bit after drying out. The three sets of holes might've allowed the rifleman to keep the sling tight regardless of what was going on with the sling. Just thinking here like the soldier I used to be... But it makes perfect sense to me.
I think that I'll take the sling off the rifle and measure its length. The Army said that this type of sling is 50". We'll just see what 112 years has done to this sling...
Well, the sling measures out to an even 51" from the end of the claw to the other end. I seem to remember reading that the sling ought to be 52" and if so, then that'd be about perfect for using the middle set of holes.
Oooops, Richard Turner just told me that these original Rod Bayonet 03 Springfield slings were 52" long, which indicates that the sling has indeed shrunk 1" over time and non use.

I'm happy that you like it 30cal! Sorry for the faded out and fuzzy photo's though. I can take pictures with my ipad, which I think has a better camera, but so far, for some reason it Can't transmit the photo's to my email where I can then transfer them to My Pictures and then from there download them to my Photobucket album, from where I could then transfer them to a post on a forum. I'll keep trying though. The ipad has sent photo's before for a day or two before some technicality got in the way.
Wish that my really smart daughter was here from college to fix it all for me... Sigh.