One of my ARs is a 6920 with a CTR and I have experience with most of the Magpul slings. Many people like them. Some folks swear by them. Other folks prefer something else. I am not going to get into the debate of what brand is best, but I can probably help reduce the confusion in the Magpul sling line.
It helps to start with the fact that anything other than an MS1 is a kit. The MS1 is the sling part of the kit and it comes in three types:
- Gen 1 MS1 - discontinued, but it still shows up on sale fairly regularly (like today in an MS4 kit). It has a loop that many folks, myself included, do not like.
- Gen 2 MS1 - current version with a slider. Much better.
- Padded MS1 - New version of Gen 2 that is padded. Just hit the streets and is expensive...as in $50 for just the sling. Ouch. I picked up a non-padded Gen 2 at Midway last week on sale for $14...so I am hoping to see better sale prices on the padded version soon.
You then need to add hardware to use it as a convertible single and two point sling...and that hardware depends on how you plan to connect it to your rifle.
If you have QD connection points on your rail, stock, and rear of your lower receiver, you need these two things:
Magpul also sells the non-padded Gen 2 MS1 sling and these two hardware items together as the
MS4 Dual QD Sling.
I have this setup for my DDM4 and it works great.
In contrast, my 6920 has a sling swivel on the FSB and I have added another clip-in sling attachment point on my handguard. My CTR stock has a QD connection point and I also added another one on the rear of my lower receiver. Thus, I needed to add these two pieces to that AR's MS1:
Again, Magpul sells all of these items bundled together. In this case, it's called the
MS3 Single QD Sling.
If instead, you have clip-in sling attachment points on both ends of your AR, you need an
MS1-MS3 Adapter instead of the MS1-MS3 QD adapter listed above, but you still need the Paraclip. Again, Magpul sells all of these items bundled together. In this case, it's called the
MS3 Sling. (no QD)
Thus far they have not started bundling the padded Gen 2 sling in any of the kits. If your sling is just for the range and SHTF, then padding may not be a big deal, but if you plan on carrying the rifle for hours, it makes life better.