Since it's time we all get out and do some shooting, I thought I'd pass along a couple of ideas I use to carry my tripods...

My first, a Berlebach 2042 wood tripod, went into a carrying bag from one of those outdoor folding chairs. The bag fits the tripod perfectly and has a nice carrying strap. Since we never seem to get the chairs back into the bags, it seemed a natural use for the leftover bag

The second is also a Berlebach, but a larger 4043. This stands at about 41 inches and wouldn't fit into the bag. So I decided to make a carry strap and not bother with a bag. To be honest, the bag is nice for travel but once it's off it stays off and doesn't help carry the pod when I'm shooting...

Then I had a thought. I went into my gun cabinet and took one of my shotgun slings. This is the type that does not directly connect to the gun or rings. It has a loop at the end of the straps and just goes over the ends of the barrel & stock. I thought I'd give it a try. It fits over the leg just fine at the bottom. The top was a problem as the leg was just a little bit too large for the top loop to slide over. I could have taken the leg off, but decided to simply tie a piece of webbing around the top of the leg, through the loop in the strap. So now it won't easily come off, but it weighs next to nothing and has a very nice shoulder pad. I use a six inch bungee to wrap around the leg bottoms to hold them together. The strap is short enough to work as a carry handle and long enough to go over the shoulder. And at half the cost of a tripod carry starp offered by the companies... And since it's camo, noone will even see it

I don't know how well the sling would work for a round metal tripod, but it's a great, cheap alternative to official tripod carrying straps...

Iuse my bow slings to carry my round metal tripods, these were left over from my days of shooting compound bows, even weight distribution and they were cheap to! and the addition of camo, makes the stealthly creep a lot easier (c:}

Dave