grampajack
AR Junkie
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2016
- Messages
- 1,714
You should get over this obsession with stripper clips. They are not the sole reason for moving the scope forward nor even one of the main reasons. The main reasons for the forward mounted scope are fast sight acquisition and the ability to grasp the rifle in one hand at the balance point. The ability to use stripper clips is more of a beneficial side effect, if it's important to you.
You might want to consider what Jeff Cooper had to say on the subject:
A correspondent writes in to ask why I do not make a point of strip−loading a bolt−action rifle. As I see it, the stripper clip was a military device enabling the shooter to recharge a conventional box magazine with one stroke of the hand. This was usually coupled with a bolt stop which prevented closing the bolt on an empty chamber. Thus in a hot emergency, the soldier fired until he could not close the bolt, which told him that it was time for him to strip in another five rounds. This was doubtless a good idea in a Rorke's Drift situation in which a rifleman might be called upon to repel boarders armed with edged weapons. It is something of a nuisance under more normal situations in which it is desirable to top off a magazine which has one or more rounds left in it. The detachable box magazine is a more useful device under such circumstances.
Jeff Cooper's Commentaries Volume Nine, page 9
If you are sincere about building a Scout rifle, I'd suggest some background reading first. Here are some useful links:
http://www.steyrscout.org/project.htm
http://scoutriflestudy.com/the-book/
http://www.molonlabe.net/Commentaries/
Then I would just be building a Remington 700 with detachable magazines, and there would be no reason whatsoever to mount the scope forward, and it would no longer be a scout rifle. I don't know who said putting the scope out there means faster target acquisition, but they were cracked. Or on crack...
Here's my opinion on the stripper clip issue:
Someone hunting in a place where they may be forced to employ their hunting rifle as a self defense weapon is going to want to feed the rifle much like you would with a defensive shotgun. So that would entail topping off with loose ammo from a bandoleer, and then reloading with stripper clips if the magazine runs dry. So a person might have loose shells held on the stock, along with a few stripper clips in their pocket.
What a hunter is NOT going to want to do is carry magazines. They're bulky and awkward in the pocket. Not to mention magazine changes don't make a whole lot of sense if all you have is four rounds. It makes much more sense to simply top off with loose rounds, like you would with a shotgun, or even a revolver for that matter. Like a shoot two load two kind of situation.
I don't know what Cooper was smoking, but the heart of the system is the stripper clips. That's the only thing that makes the concept relevant. Basically what we're talking about here is a sporterized version of a military bolt action rifle, except in my case I'm going to be more militarizing a sporting rifle.
In essence, taking a hunting rifle and putting military features on it to make it more suitable for self defense in open country. But it has the advantage of being quicker and lighter than a traditional military rifle, and if I'm building it a great deal more accurate as well.
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