Endless Round Sling — a Sling With No Ends, and the Four Arrangements It Can Make

An endless round sling doing the only thing it can do on a photograph: lying as a closed loop. There is no eye at either end because there are no ends — which is the property the whole page is about.

1. What an Endless Round Sling Is, and the Four Names Under It

The construction is one sentence long, but the sentence contains the article's whole character: round slings are made from a high-strength continuous loop of synthetic yarn, completely encased by a tough and durable tubular jacket that is colour coded by capacity and protects the fibres inside. The endless version is that same article described from the loop's point of view — the manufacturers' own words are that endless round slings are made from polyester core yarn and designed with a seamless "endless" loop tubular cover.

Nothing is added to that base description to make this product: there is no eye to fold, no fitting to splice, no termination of any kind. That is what separates it from the other round-sling article on this site. The eye type round sling takes the same sleeved core and builds ends onto it by attaching a wear pad to both sides of the sling at each end; this page's article is what you have before that operation is performed. Same standard, same colour code, same sleeve — one has ends and one does not.

The names are worth listing for the same reason they were worth listing on the neighbouring pages: this product's own listing calls it four things, and the trade adds more. Endless Round Sling, Round Endless Sling, Endless Loop Round Sling and Polyester Lifting Round Sling are all names for the one article, and each of them is describing a different half of it — the shape, the shape again, the material, and the loop.

One sentence closes the section. The name tells you there are no ends; the label tells you everything else. A quotation that uses only the name has specified a shape, and the specification proper — capacity, length, fibre, standard and factor — is what §5 to §9 are about.

2. No Ends: the One Property Everything Else Follows From

It is worth being pedantic about what "no ends" means, because most lifting slings on any site have two of something — two eyes, two fittings, two hooks — and the habits built on those products transfer badly to this one.

An endless round sling has no attachment feature whatsoever. There is no eye to put over a hook, no fitting to pin to a shackle, no thimble to seat, and no reinforced end to protect. The article is a loop of sleeved strand and nothing else. Three consequences follow immediately, and they are the three things a buyer or a rigger needs to hold in mind.

The first is that the sling is arranged, not attached. A hook cannot be connected to this article; the article has to be passed round, under or through part of the assembly so that a bearing surface exists. Practically that means the lift is designed around the load rather than around the hook — the sling becomes part of the geometry instead of a link at the end of it.

The second is that the arrangements are finite and known. There are five of them in regular use, they are all described in the general rigging guidance, and each has a different effect on capacity. §3 sets them out as a menu rather than as a warning, because the honest position is that any of them is safe when it is used knowingly and none of them is safe when it is assumed.

The third is that the article has no designated wear point. On a sling with eyes, the two eyes are where the hardware meets the fabric, and everyone knows where to look. On this article the wear happens wherever the load was last applied — which is the reason §4 treats contact-point adjustment as the form's signature capability and §5 treats inspection as a search rather than a check.

The section's summary is the sentence a first-time buyer needs: this is not a sling you put on something; it is a sling you put round something. Every practical instruction that follows — the arrangements in §3, the contact points in §4, the length in §6 — is a consequence of that one difference.

3. The Four Arrangements, and What Each One Costs

The rigging guidance names the hitches that a lifting sling can be used in, and a loop with no ends can make all of the useful ones — but it makes them in its own way, because there is no eye to pass through and no fitting to connect. What follows is the menu, with the published capacity note attached to each and the loop-specific instruction that goes with it.

The loop over the hook is the arrangement this article makes most often, and it is the one that has no eye-sling equivalent. The loop is laid over the hook so that both sides hang down to the load: the hook carries the sling, and the sling carries the load as a vertical hitch. The published requirement that matters here is that the load applied to a hook shall be centred in the base (bowl) of the hook to prevent point loading, and the same guidance adds the case where centring is impossible: the sling eyes or connection points must then be protected. On this article there are no eyes to protect, so the protection has to be thought about as protection of the sleeve — which is §7's subject.

The basket hitch cradles the load with both legs running up to the hook, and it is the arrangement this form is best known for, because a loop is the only sling that can be put round a bundle without passing anything through anything. The published figure is that a basket has twice the capacity of a single leg vertical hitch — when the legs are in a true 90° vertical fashion and the D/d ratio is 25:1, which typically requires a below-the-hook device such as a lifting beam or spreader bar, or two separate lifting devices. Take the beam away and the figure falls in step with the leg angle, and the guidance notes that a basket should not be used on unbalanced or hard-to-balance loads, and that more than one sling may be needed for load control. The multipliers themselves belong to the hitch rather than to the sling and are tabled on this site's endless sling page, which is where the arithmetic for the leg angle lives; on this article the only addition is that the loop makes a basket available on any part of its circumference.

The choker hitch passes the loop through itself and pulls it tight round the load — pipe, pole, beam, anything that can be gripped. It carries less than a vertical, not more: the published figure is 75 to 80% of the vertical capacity, with the least reduction at an angle of choke of 120° or more, and the warning that any angle of choke less than 120° can result in a capacity as low as 40% of the single leg. The rule that goes with it is stated for web slings in terms that assume eyes — the choke point shall always be on the sling body, never on the eye, fitting, base of the eye, splice or tag — and this is the one article in the family for which that rule is automatic rather than a discipline: on a loop with no ends, there is nothing to choke on but the body. The choking guidance adds that the choke should be pulled tight before the lift is made, rather than left to tighten during it.

The double wrap is the arrangement that exists because the article is a loop and can be taken round a load twice. The guidance describes it as the configuration that gives better grip and load control on smooth or loose loads, and it is the standard answer to a bundle that would otherwise slide out of a single basket. The cost is length: a double wrap uses the circumference twice, so a loop sized for a single basket will not reach — which is a §6 decision, made before the sling is made.

Two sentences summarise the menu. Only one of the four arrangements can add capacity, and it adds it only when the geometry is bought and paid for — a beam or two devices, legs at 90°, the right D/d. Everything else either preserves the rating or takes part of it away, and on a loop the arrangement is chosen at the load, which is why the choice belongs in the lift plan rather than in a rigger's habit.

4. Moving the Contact Point: the Capability the Eye Version Does Not Have

This is the section that answers the question a buyer asks when comparing this article with the eye version of the same round sling: what do I get for giving up the eyes?

The manufacturers answer it directly. Endless round slings, described as made from polyester core yarn with a seamless endless loop tubular cover, have their loop form called out as a practical advantage: these continuous loop configurations are helpful to users in adjusting the load contact points, to extend the sling longevity. Read that sentence carefully, because it is a statement about maintenance rather than about strength. The sling's capacity does not change; what changes is where the load bears. On a loop with no designated end and no fixed eyes, the segment taking the bend, the corner and the choke can be moved between lifts, so a sling that would otherwise wear at two hard points can be worked all the way round its circumference.

The same property has a second, quieter consequence that belongs in a lift plan: the contact point is also where the load is protected. A loop can be positioned so that the bearing falls on a sound part of the load rather than on a lip, a weld or a corner, and it can be re-positioned between lifts as the load's shape or the pick-up point changes. On an eye sling the geometry of the hardware largely fixes where the band touches; on a loop it is a decision.

What the capability costs is stated in §5 and is worth one sentence here so that it is not discovered later. Moving the contact point moves the evidence. A sling that has been rotated has no readable wear history, so the person inspecting it cannot tell from the marks where the hard lifts happened — which is why the inspection has to be comprehensive rather than targeted.

The section's summary is the trade in one line. The eye version sells you attachment; this version sells you adjustment. Which of the two a given operation wants is answered by asking whether the hardware is fixed or the load keeps changing (§11).

5. Inspecting a Loop That Has No End to Start From

The inspection rules for the sleeved construction are not different in kind on this article, but they are harder to apply, and the reason is structural rather than procedural: a loop has no end, no eye and no joint, so there is no natural place at which an inspection begins and no obvious place at which it stops.

What the rules require is, in the published language of the family's guidance, a clear, permanent marking usually on a durable label sewn into the cover, and a sliding scale of checks on the sleeve. Two of those rules do the heavy lifting on this article. The first is the identification itself: a missing or illegible label is a reason to withdraw the sling, and on a sleeved loop that rule matters more than anywhere else, because the label is the only element of the article capable of stating the length, the fibre and the standard that the sleeve cannot show. The second is the rule about the core: because some round slings are built with a coloured warning core inside the sleeve, exposed core yarn is a removal criterion — and, in the sentence that catches people out, if damage is present and the core yarns are not exposed, the sling should not be used either.

Applied to a loop, those two rules produce a practice that is different from inspecting a sling with ends. On an eye sling the inspection is targeted: start at the eyes, because that is where the hardware is and where damage accumulates. On this article the whole circumference is the working surface, and a rotation programme ensures that any part of it might be the part that needs attention. The practical form of a loop inspection is therefore a complete pass over the sleeve, looking for the two things that matter: a breach that exposes the core, and a mark that could have reached it through the cover. A cut, a burn, a deep abrasion or a worn patch is evidence about the core underneath, whether or not the core is visible.

One further habit is worth naming because it is the one thing an inspector can do on this article that is not possible on a sling with joints: run the whole loop through the hands rather than reading it. A sleeve that has stiffened, developed soft spots or taken up grit between cover and core may feel wrong before it looks wrong, and on a form where the load path is hidden, the hand is doing part of the work the eye cannot do.

One sentence closes the section, and it is the sentence that makes this article different from everything else on the site. On a sling with ends you inspect the ends; on a loop you inspect all of it, because all of it is the end.

6. Length: What You Are Actually Quoting on a Closed Loop

On a sling with eyes, length is a conversation about how far apart the two ends are. On this article the ends do not exist, so the length is a statement about the article itself — and the published buying advice for round slings is unusually direct about why it has to be got right: specify the exact length you need, because too short increases the angle and reduces capacity, while too long can reduce stability.

Those two penalties are worth unpacking, because they are the two ways a loop fails to be the size it should have been. A loop that is too short is a loop that cannot reach round the load and back to the hook without the legs being pulled inwards — which flattens the sling angle, and flattening the angle is the geometry that raises the tension in each leg without changing the load. The multipliers that price that penalty are properties of the hitch rather than of the sling and are tabled on this site's endless sling page; what belongs here is the cause: on this article a short loop is short because it was ordered short, and there is no eye to re-reeve and no length to adjust on site. A loop that is too long has the opposite problem: it leaves slack in the assembly, and slack is freedom for the load to swing, rotate or settle differently on each lift.

Two further consequences follow from the form rather than from the material, and both are ordering decisions. The first is that the arrangement consumes length: a double wrap takes the loop round the load twice, so a length that works as a single basket will not make a double wrap on the same load. The second is that a loop has two lengths and only one of them can be printed on the label. On a closed loop the distance all the way round the band and the length of the loop as it hangs are not the same number, which is the same trap that this site's endless sling page sets out for the flat woven loop and gives the factor of two for. The rule that follows is procedural and applies to both articles: state the convention in words on the order, because the label can carry a figure but it cannot carry the convention. The published marking requirement for this family does include the effective working length among the items the label should carry — which is the half of the problem the label can solve.

The section's summary is a single instruction: write the length, write the convention, and write the arrangement it has to make. Three clauses on an order remove the entire class of error this section is about, and none of them can be recovered afterwards, because a loop cannot be lengthened and a lift plan cannot be re-specified from the sling.

7. Protection: the Sleeve Is the Core's Only Defence

On a flat woven sling the material that carries the load is also the material that meets the load, so protecting the contact is protecting the same thing twice. On this article there are two layers with two jobs, and the layer that touches the world is not the layer that carries anything. That makes protection an ordering decision rather than a nicety.

The requirement in the general rigging guidance is unqualified: slings in contact with edges, corners, protrusions or abrasive surfaces shall always be protected, with material of sufficient strength and construction. The published buying advice for this family says the same thing in purchasing language — ask for edge protection or wear sleeves if the load has sharp corners — and on a sleeved round sling the instruction has a precise meaning. The tubular cover is already a protective sleeve for the core; what the buyer adds at the contact point is a second sleeve protecting the first one. That layering is not redundant, because the two sleeves are protecting different things: the manufacturer's cover protects the core from the ordinary wear of lifting, and the added protection protects the cover from the particular edge in front of it.

Two related cases belong in this section because they are where a loop gets damaged first. The first is the hook: the guidance requires the load to be centred in the bowl of the hook and, where that is impossible, requires protection of the sling or the connection points. On this article the loop bears directly on the hook with no eye in between, so the sleeve at the hook is a contact point like any other, and a rough or worn hook is an edge. The second is storage and transport: the same body of guidance states it as three prohibitions — slings are not to be stored in a chemically active area, under ultraviolet light or near heat — and a loop with no ends is easy to bundle badly and awkward to inspect afterwards.

One sentence of arithmetic is worth carrying between this section and the last. Protection shortens the effective contact area on the load only if it is bulky; more importantly, protection adds material at the contact and therefore adds a little to what the load sees, without adding anything to what the sling can carry. It is a purchase made in the interest of the article's life, not of its rating, and the article's life on a worn edge is short.

The section closes on the sentence that links protection to the rest of the page. Every measure here is taken to keep the cover intact, because the cover is what makes the core inspectable at all: once it is breached, the sling moves from an article that can be examined to an article that can only be condemned.

8. Assemblies, Fittings and Matched Sets

One clause of the standard this article is made to matters commercially to anyone lifting with more than one leg: the European norm for round slings covers certain multi-leg roundsling assemblies, with or without fittings. That means the endless round sling is not only a single-leg article — it is a component that can be supplied as part of a certified assembly, and the standard describes the assembly as well as the leg.

Three practical consequences follow. The first concerns length, and it is the reason §6 is longer than a paragraph about metres: in a multi-leg assembly the legs share the load in proportion to their length, so a set whose legs differ is a set in which the shortest leg carries the largest share. Every published figure for a two-leg or four-leg lift assumes an equal share, and an equal share is a property of equal lengths rather than of good intentions. The second concerns fittings, where the assembly is supplied with them. The standard covers assemblies both with and without them, which makes the fitting a component of the order rather than an accessory: it has to be rated for the assembly it is fitted to, and its rating has to be named separately from the sling's, because the certificate that makes the assembly a certified assembly covers both the leg and the fitting. The third concerns the choke: where a leg of an assembly is choked, the choke must close on the body — and on this article that requirement is satisfied by the construction itself, as §3 noted.

Where the assembly is intended to be rigged and re-rigged, the matched set is the purchase. Two loops of the same colour, the same fibre and the same nominal length are not a matched set until somebody has measured them; the published tolerance for a matched set is tighter than for a single sling, and the figure for it is set out alongside the measurement method on this site's eye and eye sling page, where the length tables for this family's cousins live. What belongs on this page is the ordering instruction: order a set as a set, and ask for the measured lengths to be recorded, because a set is the one purchase on which the individual sling's conformity is not the question.

The section's summary is the commercial version of §6. On this article the unit of purchase is often the set rather than the sling, and the two things that decide whether a set behaves as a set are equal measured lengths and a documented assembly — neither of which is visible on a delivered loop, and both of which are settled on paper.

9. What to Write on the Order

The articles on this site that have ends bring their own complications to an order: eye length, eye shape, ply, hardware. This article brings none of those, and replaces them with a shorter but sharper list, because on a loop every decision is made in advance and none of them can be revisited at the load.

Six lines cover it, and five of them are properties of the arrangement rather than of the material. The capacity and the arrangement come first, because on this form the capacity figure is meaningless until the hitch is named — a loop used as a basket and a loop used as a choker are two different figures on the same article. The length and its convention come second, for the reasons §6 gives. The fibre comes third, because the standard covers three of them and the sleeve shows none of them. The arrangements it will be used in come fourth, because a double wrap consumes more length than a single basket and a choke needs enough loop to close on the body. The protection comes fifth, because on this article protection is a purchase and not an afterthought. And whether it is a single sling or part of a set comes last, because that decision changes the tolerance the maker has to work to.

Two sentences summarise the list. Every line is a decision made before the loop exists, and none of them can be adjusted afterwards — which is the ordinary condition of buying a closed loop, and the reason the order is longer here than the product is complicated. And the habit that ties the page together: write down the lift, not the sling, because the sling is the part of the answer that cannot change.

10. Where the No-Ends Form Is Chosen

This article is not the general-purpose default of the round sling family; the eye version is, because most lifts end at a hook and want something to put on it. The endless form is chosen for a specific set of situations in which an eye would be surplus to requirements or actively in the way.

The first is a load with no lifting points at all — a bundle, a coil, a stack, a crate. If the sling is going to pass underneath the load anyway, an eye contributes nothing to the lift and occupies length that could have been doing work. The second is a load that must not be penetrated or fitted: a loop can be wrapped round and taken up without anything passing through a hole or attaching to a lug. The third is a choked lift on a round or a bundle, where the loop is simply passed through itself; this is the arrangement the form makes most naturally, and, as §3 notes, the one in which the rule about never choking on an eye is satisfied without being remembered.

The fourth is a load that must not be marked or scratched. This family is chosen for finished surfaces because soft textile spreads the contact stress, and the no-ends form takes that property to its logical end: with no fitting, no thimble and no hardware anywhere on the sling, there is nothing on the article that could mark the work. The fifth is a pick-up point that moves. Where the bearing surface changes between lifts — as it does on long goods, or on loads that are rotated or re-stacked — the endless form's adjustable contact points (§4) are worth more than the attachment convenience it gives up. And the sixth is a load that is smooth or loose enough to need a double wrap, where the loop's ability to go round twice is the reason the article was chosen.

What the six situations have in common is worth stating, because it turns the list into a rule. Every one of them is a lift in which the sling is part of the load's geometry rather than a link between the load and a hook. That is the whole territory of this article, and it is why the eye version exists for everything outside it.

11. The Three Articles That Get Called Round or Endless

This site now carries three articles that a buyer searching for a round or endless sling could land on, and the honest way to finish this page is to say which is which, because the trade's vocabulary does not distinguish them.

The flat woven endless sling is a closed loop of flat woven webbing with no eyes at all, made to the flat woven standard rather than the round sling standard, and it is described on this site's endless sling page. It is called endless for the same reason this article is — it is a loop — but the load path is a band you can see across its full width rather than a strand core inside a sleeve.

The endless round sling is this page's article: a sleeved strand core formed as a loop, with no ends at all, made to the round sling standard.

The eye type round sling is the same sleeved core with loop eyes built onto it by attaching wear pads to both sides at each end. It is described on this site's eye type round sling page, and it is the article to buy when the lift ends at a hook, a shackle or a ring.

The decisive question between this page's article and that one is short and worth writing down: does the lift need to be attached, or arranged? If there is hardware at the end of the lift and something has to sit in it, the eyes earn their place. If the sling is going round or under the load and the hook takes it directly, the eyes are length that is not doing work — and the loop is the article that can also be rotated, doubled and adjusted. And the decisive question between this page's article and the flat woven loop is not a question of preference at all: it is which standard and which construction the lift requires, which is what the label answers and nothing else does.

One paragraph closes the page, and it is the same paragraph every page of this family ends up writing in some form. An endless round sling is a sleeve with a core inside it and no ends to hang it by: its capacity is stated by a colour and confirmed by a label, its strength is in a component nobody can see, and its length and its fibre are decisions made on an order rather than at a load. What it offers in return is the ability to go round things — under a bundle, through itself, twice round a slippery load — and the ability to change where it bears, which is the one thing none of its neighbours can do. It is the simplest article on this site and the one with the least room for a badly written order.

12. Frequently Asked Questions

Contact

Lift Sling Rigging Co., Ltd produces endless round slings in polyester, polyamide and polypropylene — a high-tenacity continuous strand core inside a woven protective sleeve, with no ends and no fittings, colour coded by capacity and marked with the working load limit in a straight lift, the material, the effective working length and a traceability code. Tell us the capacity you need and the arrangement you will use it in, the exact length with its convention, the fibre and the environment, whether added protection is wanted at the contact, and whether the loops are to be supplied as a matched set, and we will confirm the label, the certificate, the test report and the declaration that travel with the shipment.

• Telephone and WeChat — 18066002268

• E-mail — 702461526@qq.com

• Address — Lifute Industrial Park, Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, China

• HS code — 630790