The post war David Bradley garden tractor is sometimes called the ‘bullet nose’ tractor due to the distinctive shape of it's hood. The design of the bullet nose tractor owes a great deal to the pre-war Handiman Junior walking tractor. The Handiman Jr. pioneered the use of a hood to cover the engine, and as the name implies, used a fairly small engine. The Handiman Jr. was also the cheapest of the pre-war Handiman line, and no doubt sold the most units. After the war, David Bradley capitalized on the low cost idea with the bullet nose tractor. From the beginning, the post war garden tractor was designed to capture the low end of the, then popular, two wheel tractor market. These early tractors were primarily intended as 'cultivator' type tractors.

Among the distinctive features of the new tractor was the hood, which was now ‘styled’ to appear streamlined. The postwar tractor also got a clutch upgrade. Gone was the Handiman Jr. belt tightener type clutch, in favor of an ‘auto type’ disc clutch that allowed for ‘glide away’ starts. While the transmission continued to be way over designed, it did not include a differential. The differential function was accomplished by inexpensive wheel hub ratchets that (somewhat dangerously) allowed the tractor to free wheel in the forward direction. True to David Bradley’s ‘used auto tire’ feature found on the company’s full size farm equipment, the post war walking tractor could be ordered with rims to accept 16 inch tires. If the customer desired rubber tires, he could order Allstate ‘bar button’ (also called ‘knobby’ by collectors) tread from Sears, or supply his own used car tires. Although quite rare, steel wheels were also offered for the early post war tractors. Finally, the price was kept low by using small horsepower gasoline engines. Early tractors came with engines rated less then 2 HP.

The very first of the post war tractors was the 917.5751. It is nearly identical to every other Bradley tractor with a hood, except for the attachment of rear mounted tools. Early 5751s lacked the ‘saddle bar’ device that straddled the handlebars. Without this feature, attachments like the cultivator had to hang from the handlebars to be supported. Early cultivators came with hangers and clamps for this purpose. Ultimately, all tractors came with the saddle bar and the hanging scheme was abandoned.

From 1946 to 1955 there were many models of the DB walking tractor. All were essentially the same except for engine type and power rating. A ‘special’ tractor was first offered in the early 50’s that came without a hood, and for awhile was the lowest cost model. The ‘super power’ tractor also debuted about this time. Over the years there would be many different super power models with several different power ratings. The most significant variation in these tractors however, was the limited use of the Continental engine. In the early 50’s the supply of Briggs and Stratton engines became somewhat uncertain. During this time Bradley equipped some tractors, including the super powers, with Continental engines. Today these tractors are prized by collectors, as the Continental is considered a superior engine to the Briggs.

As stated earlier, the post war Bradley walking tractor was designed to capture the high volume low end of the market. By the mid 50’s however, there were many companies offering walking tractors, and the 1940’s design being sold by Sears was beginning to lose it's appeal. In 1955 the engineers at Bradley responded with a two pronged approach to bolstering the position of their tractor in the market place. For those who lamented the low power of the Bradleys, there was the ‘Big 5’. This new tractor came without the hood, allowing much larger engines, such as the Briggs 5 HP, to be used. Apart from the added power however, the Big 5 was pretty much a standard Bradley tractor. The real news in 1955 was the ‘Super 3’. The super 3 tractor used the Continental 3 HP engine exclusively. It came standard with a reverse capability (now offered for all Bradley tractors as an add on kit), and a feature called a ‘speed changer’. The speed changer gave the tractor infinitely variable ground speed capability without changing engine RPM. These features, along with a handlebar mounted kill switch, made the Super 3 competitive with any walking tractor on the market. The Super 3 was then, and is today, the very best of the DB walking tractors with wheel ratchet clutches.

While there had been little change prior to 1955, every year there after would bring significant change. The most significant of these changes came in 1956 with the introduction of the ‘5.6’ Tractor. The ‘five six’ had a redesigned transmission that included a true differential with built-in reverse capability. While the add on reverse used prior to 1956 worked okay, it suffered from several problems. An elaborate friction clutch arrangement had to be added to the wheel ratchets to control the pawls such that the wheel could be powered forward or backward. The friction device used springs and plastic '‘shoes” to move the pawls. The exposed springs were subject to damage from anything passing under the tractor. Likewise the plastic shoes were exposed to dirt and grease, and vibration could cause both the forward and reverse pawls to engage, ‘locking up’ the wheels. While any form of reverse was welcome to Bradley users, this system was in need of improvement.

That improvement came in 1956 with a new transmission. Vince Webster, an engineer at Bradley, was given the task of improving the walkbehind transmission. His task was challenging because there was a desire not to radically change the transmission, and thus cause problems with existing implement designs. Vince’s design added a true differential to the Bradley transmission, the first since before the war. With the differential, the reverse feature was dramatically improved, and the tendency of the tractor to ‘free wheel’ forward was eliminated. As the 50’s wore on, engines got larger, and several models were made using Wisconsin engines. The largest of these was about 6 HP.

The Bradley name was dropped in 1962, but tractor production continued under the Sears name. Final production tractors were apparently blue and white and used Tecumseh/Lauson engines. The actual end of production is unknown, however there have been reports of new tractors sold as late as 1968