The stripper clip was an extremely revolutionary, yet simple implement to make combat rifles more effective in battle. Prior to the invention of the clip/charger/feed strip, loading individual rounds could be slow and cumbersome (a lesson that Americans learned the hard way in the Spanish-American War of 1898) and the invention of a simple bit of pressed steel upon which rounds could be stored to facilitate faster loading was yet another brilliant innovation, that to this day is still relevant when loading certain rifles or even box magazines.

Many different systems and methods were devised to make use of clips, and below I explore some of them: