Tractor Upgrades: Rifle Mount

When you live on a farm in the country surrounded by 1000's of acres of natural preserve and private land, predators will be a concern. Whether you are farming or not, predators can be a problem. You may also find yourself working your property during hunting season with a buck 30 yards out as your tractor crests the hill. Maybe you have a bear problem and know they are not scared by yelling.

In these as well as myriad other situations, having your rifle close by is helpful if not imperative. We can buy a rifle mount on the internet for $60-$200. That will be easy. Directions for installation and everything, but what fun is that? O.k., I admit there are some really nice mounts out there for your tractor, quad, or side by side. I just happen to be a poor farmer and that $100 cannot be spent on something like this right now. Having your rifle swinging around from the shoulder strap just is not safe. So, I found the mount that looked like it would work the best on my tractor and made one out of scraps I had on the property.

Looks Terrible, I know. I also know it works great.

What is this? It is a "range anti-tip bracket" What is that? If you ever slide your kitchen stove out from the wall to clean, you should see this bracket along the floor. There is a stud mounted to the bottom of your range that slides into this bracket when you push the range back into the wall. It stops you from tipping the range forward which could cause hot stuff to splash or slide toward you.

I had an extra kicking it in the bracket bucket. The U-shaped space for the range stud is plenty wide for every rifle I have that might find its way onto the tractor. I normally carry a stainless steel Mini-14 with a wire frame/synthetic stock. This is the rifle I made the flashlight holder for.

With the flashlight holder mounted, this side of the bracket is too wide to fit between the barrel and the flashlight, so I had to grind the left side of the bracket to fit. I highlighted the metal I had to remove in orange. Anyone without a home made flashlight holder would not need to do this.

I was concerned about the metal scratching my rifles, so I wrapped the metal with gorilla tape and then a layer of hot glue to give it a nice soft rest for the rifle. It looks messy but works well. I was also slightly concerned that over time the tape would peel off. I made certain to spread hot glue over all the tape seems. That tape isn't going anywhere.

After looking at several options for attaching the bracket to the tractor, I decided to use the lock nut on the ROPS bar. The finger nut in the center of the picture to our right. This thumb screw just stops the ROPS from rattling so adding a bracket to it has worked well. At first I was going to form a mounting bracket that curled tight around the ROPS so the rifle mount would not rotate. After the first few rifles I fitted, I found that a few degrees of swivel allows for more rifles to fit better. I had to flatten the bracket and re-bend it to allow about 10 degrees of swing.

I drilled out the rifle cradle to accept four bolts to mount it to the ROPS bracket. This mounting bracket is a piece of 5/16 steel that was on an old monkey bars. I used locking washers and flat washers given the high vibration of the tractor. Having the rifle mount fall off while traveling through the woods is not my idea of a fun day.

Next we needed a stock brace. The holders I saw on the interwebs had a rubber cradle that bolts to the floor. This seemed like an important piece to keep the rifle from bouncing around or having the but slide forward.

Given I don't have big chunks of rubber kicking around, but I do have a saw mill, I found a two-inch thick chunk of hickory and cut it down to match the shape of my biggest stock-butt and routed out a stock-shaped oval and drilled a recessed hole through the center. The cradle was still attached to the board I cut it out of. I used a jigsaw to cut the outer shape and a plunge router to hollow out the center. The recessed hole for the mounting bolt was drilled out after confirming the proper bolt placement.

  I put it in place and drilled the hole in the tractor floor. Then I hammered in a 1.5in long carriage bolt and secured the cradle to the floor of the tractor with a lock washer and nut.

This project did take a couple of hours to complete. I have been rocking this gun rack for a few months now with great effect. My rifles stay put and makes a great jacket rack as well. I try not to have my rifle visible when I am on the public road...like most farms, we must use our street to get to different sections. Though it is completely legal and morally acceptable to have a rifle visible to passersby, I prefer to cover my rifle more to protect the gun than to protect the liberal creampuffs that frequent our farm.

This project was worthwhile and has worked great!