Rifle Mounting Clips

We’ve started the laborious process of making old-style rifle clips, using the original ones on my 1942 BSA Mk.V as a pattern. Here’s the bike with its original clips…

You can see close-up pictures of those original clips, with and without a rifle mounted, on the page for the 1942 BSA (or click here).

And here’s our first prototype copy.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the rifle is mounted on the opposite side. This is (my mechanic) Geoff’s rifle …and he’s left-handed. He pointed out that if he was the rider he’d be able to grab his rifle in emergency and get off shots much faster if it was on his ‘correct’ side. So we’ve had an interesting discussion about whether or not, during WW2, the front mounts would have been reversed for left-handed riders.

Having worked out production costs from this prototype, we’ll manufacture some more rifle mounts over the winter, though we’ll make conventional right-sided ones. I’ll update this page when the next one is ready. This isn’t a commercial exercise; they’ll just be for my bikes. So here are some detailed pictures of the prototype in case you decide to make some yourselves.