Triumph, norton air-rifles

[Mr D]

It is not well known but ALL the major British motorcycle manufacturers attempted to break into the Air Rifle market before the War.

Of course they had no direct interest in making air-rifles, being obsessed with horsepower, grinding valves and winning races and gaining Military contracts. Their real reason was to unsettle BSA as the 'Bandus Superbius' of both Motorcycle and Air Rifle manufacture. The results were indifferent; they all copied BSA's basic underlever design but each had their trademark faults and all failed to come to market.

Here are a few examples ...

The Triumph Trident - available in .177, .22 and .25 was experimentally loaned to farmers in Fiji, but they found that it leaked oil, vibrated and had to be - in their own words - 'coddled in Cold Weather'. Only 24 ever made.

The Norton Dominator - a .22 rifle, unique in having a full-length stock, in the style of the Mannlicher hunting rifle of the period, a batch of ten were tried out by His Majesty's Royal Mounted Canadian Horse Police. While they handled tremendously well, and could be easily snatched uo to aim from the Mounted Police rifle-buckets, they were temperamental and fragile, leading to the loss of two men who were savaged to death by a pack of Prarie Dogs. All were destroyed.

The AMC Jam-Pot - a cheap break-barrel plinker aimed at the Youth Market, the design was found to be made of insufficiently sturdy steel and the prototype was scrapped after some informal target shooting. The barrel was found to have become 'curved like a humming-bird's bill' by tea-time.

The Royal Enfield Methusela - one of the only air-rifles of the time to be made entirely from solid Steel forgings and Teak, it was found, at over 30 lbs, to be too heavy for the average shooter. A gun-carriage was designed, but the Methusela was written-off by an enraged board of directors.

The Francis-Barnett Griffin - a truly 'wet' air-rifle, this was only capable of firing ripe Elderberries in an early version of the game now known as 'paintball'. Banned from sale by the Ministry of War as likely to reduce adolescent military fervour to enthusiasm for a playground sport.

Many others were produced but, as I pointed out at the start, the hearts of the engineers were not in it. Only BSA managed to straddle Bikes and Air Rifles with ease and grace. (Ease and Grace were to be out fifth and sixth daughters, but we were not blessed with them.).