Questioning the Scout Rifle concept.

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Here's a trick question with no clear answer...

If silencers (oh...call them suppressors if it makes you feel good) were so good, and so common, and so easily available in 1983 as they are today, would Col. Cooper & Co. have said they were a vital option for a true Scout rifle?

No way! Weight, length, fast handling -- all screwed up completely by hanging a can off the muzzle! You can't just totally biff the handling characteristics of the arm and still call it a Scout rifle. That makes no sense!

YES way! This is for "scouts" right? A silencer to reduce muzzle blast and confuse the shot direction could be vital to a Scout's survival if he actually has to shoot, protects his critical hearing, reduces alarm to game animals (wait...are we hunting or scouting? Ack, whichever...) reduces recoil for faster follow-up. This all goes to the very essence of what a Scout is supposed to do! You can't very well design a Scout rifle that isn't suppressed. That makes no sense.




Maybe it would be optional. (hee hee)
 
Sam1911 said:
I really don't get the kerfuffle that the vaunted "Scout Rifle" concept always raises. Except that it eternally illustrates just how small are the nits which gear enthusiasts will pick and squabble over. And how the mythos of our legendary figures ossifies from "he's a guy with some strong ideas, which might be cool to try out," to "he's Moses with chiseled stone tablets full of 'thou shalt...'" verbiage. As if Elmer, O'Conner, and Skeeter, and Wiley, and the good Colonel were not interesting men of their time, working with the varied but limited experiences and opinions their lives provided, but are somehow prophets of a bygone age who's mystical knowledge can't be touched or (gasp!) improved upon by the benighted simpletons of today.

The Scout Rifle is the epitome of one man's (well, a group of his pals) idea of how to shave that last sliver off of a very mature idea to get something that might be 1% more suitable for this kind of esoteric idea he had of an idealized use case.

The ideas were pretty banal, honestly. Nothing ground shaking. Let's make it a little lighter. Cool. Let's make it a little shorter ... as carbines had been made for centuries. Nifty. Let's use this innovative sling. Fine. Let's use the most common, cheapest, roundly capable ammo... well, duh.

At the time -- and certainly throughout most of Jeff Cooper's lifetime, most bolt-action rifles had integral magazines, and even those that did have removable box mags were intended to be loaded via stripper clip. So he went with what he knew, there. Besides, a non-detachable magazine is one less thing to lose, or carry spares of.

Scopes were becoming better and more common. And for someone who shot a lot -- even an old Luddite -- it was hard to deny the advantages. But, dang...scopes get in the way of stripper clips. Ah ha! Get a pistol scope and mount it forward of the action. Hmmm....that kind of sucks, compared to a regular telescopic sight arrangement, but it's still better than just irons. And if you squint and hold your tongue just right...yeah that'll work. But let's call this "optional." Because it isn't super awesome. (And as scopes improve, and "Scout" scopes become more refined...well, it will still not be super awesome, but it's workable. Yeah... "optional.")

None of those things makes or breaks a rifle to be used in the quasi-mythical "Scout" milieu that he came up with to justify it. They're just slivers shaved off an already well-developed theme. Over time, a handful of nearly inconsequential modifications solidifies into a quest for a holy grail. ("On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. 'Tis a silly place.") And like all holy grails, the more mysterious and hard to make distinct, the more furiously it will be pursued and argued over.



And the Scout? The Scout is simply a romantic notion. An epic character in the imaginations of manly men. Jeff Cooper was just as much a romantic lover of the ephemeral ideal of masculine adventure as James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Teddy Roosevelt, Hemingway, Frederick Remington, etc. How do we define a need for a rifle? You have to start by picturing the owner of this rifle. He's going to be a loner ... 'cause America!... and he's just the sort of guy who will be providing for himself, while behind enemy lines, carrying only what he needs to survive, shooting and scooting, exploring wild places, in fringed buckskin shirt, boonie hat, tall boots, and maybe a pair of those tiny little shorts the Selous scouts wore. Observing without detection, reporting on troop formations, and occasionally shooting a moose for dinner. He's probably a friend to the Indians, an inherent conservationist, a natural healer, able to rebuild an engine with a pocket knife, can swim like a fish, drives everything from Ferraris to steam locomotives to biplanes with aplomb, is uncomfortable in effete polite society, has a pet badger named Vernon who wears a bandanna. He looks suave in a tux and just slays the ladies, too.

Just as we all do. And that's why we each need a Scout rifle!
Click to expand...

The most entertaining thing I've read in a long time. :cool:
 
"He's going to be a loner ... 'cause America!... and he's just the sort of guy who will be providing for himself, while behind enemy lines, carrying only what he needs to survive, shooting and scooting, exploring wild places, in fringed buckskin shirt, boonie hat, tall boots, and maybe a pair of those tiny little shorts the Selous scouts wore. Observing without detection, reporting on troop formations, and occasionally shooting a moose for dinner. He's probably a friend to the Indians, an inherent conservationist, a natural healer, able to rebuild an engine with a pocket knife, can swim like a fish, drives everything from Ferraris to steam locomotives to biplanes with aplomb, is uncomfortable in effete polite society, has a pet badger named Vernon who wears a bandanna. He looks suave in a tux and just slays the ladies, too."

But of course! Doesn't everybody? Except I'm a long-pants guy, myself. Dang cactus...
 
I'm most assuredly going to regret this, but what if...

You're a long range backpack hunter in a dangerous place, like South Africa or, for argument's sake, the US southern border. This situation stipulates you might at some point have to use your hunting rifle for self defense, perhaps stumbling upon drug runners while tracking game.

I suppose one could make the argument that a scout rifle would be useful for such an occasion. I would probably opt for an AR in .308 myself (or even 6.5, depending on what I was hunting), but I suppose you could argue that a scout rifle would be more comfortable to carry over long distances.

This might also apply to people who hunt the backcountry up in the emerald triangle, assuming there are such creatures. I wouldn't be back in there myself even if there were 50 point bucks, but I'm just going to go on the assumption that people do hunt back in there.

So I suppose, just for argument's sake, that there are rarely some occasions when one's hunting rifle would have to double as a defensive weapon, and if weight were also an extreme concern, then the scout might make a certain amount of sense. We'll just pretend that bolt actions with detachable magazines haven't become common yet, necessitating the use of stripper clips.
 
The Scout was meant to be a relatively light, general purpose hunting rifle that 'could' also do well in a fight. Not the other way around, a fighting rifle you 'could' also hunt with. AR10's need not apply, although it would be easier to setup one with both irons and whatever optic you wanted due to the proliferation of flip sights and an infinite number of options for AR optics.
 
Just for ****s and giggles I wonder what ole Cooper would have thought of an AR in 300blkout with a mislength gas system on a carbine barrel. Add the calapsable stock and it gets short still. But threaded for suppressor would make it to the good. Add sling and a single mag scope. He wouldn't have liked the lesser umph but if a 30-30 was okay...
 
Blkhrt13 said:
Just for ***** and giggles I wonder what ole Cooper would have thought of an AR in 300blkout with a mislength gas system on a carbine barrel. Add the calapsable stock and it gets short still. But threaded for suppressor would make it to the good. Add sling and a single mag scope. He wouldn't have liked the lesser umph but if a 30-30 was okay...
Click to expand...

He liked thumpers so maybe.

Edited: Sorry, I was wrong. Thumper was something very different.
 
Last edited:
I like the concept, but not the forward mounted scope. I guess I have a few that might fit the category. The Ruger of course with the synthetic stock, a AAC Blackout and of course a CZ527 in 7.62x39. All shooters, light weight, and easy to shoot.
 
I reckon the good Colonel is getting a pretty good chuckle out of this discussion.

grampajack said:
So who else dreamed about building a scout last night?:rofl:
Click to expand...

I didn't dream of building a scout last night, but I have had dreams that featured that little Jungle Carbine in the past.
 
CraigC said:
I would probably use an XS full length rail to mount a traditional 1-4x scope and keep the iron sights.
Click to expand...

I was able to mount a Leupold VX2 2-7x33 on quick release low rings with the XS rail. I tried, and did not like, a forward mounted scope.

I like my Ruger GSR. Iron sights. CRF. Detachable mags (3 round flush, 5 or 10). Adjustable stock. Already threaded if I ever get a suppressor. Lots to like.
 
DAP90 said:
I was able to mount a Leupold VX2 2-7x33 on quick release low rings with the XS rail. I tried, and did not like, a forward mounted scope.

I like my Ruger GSR. Iron sights. CRF. Detachable mags (3 round flush, 5 or 10). Adjustable stock. Already threaded if I ever get a suppressor. Lots to like.
Click to expand...

Exactly!

The concept fits so many of us because its a light, short, fast handling rifle that is easy to tote, easy to shoot and overall does a LOT of things well for general field use.
 
Sam1911 said:
Here's a trick question with no clear answer...

If silencers (oh...call them suppressors if it makes you feel good) were so good, and so common, and so easily available in 1983 as they are today, would Col. Cooper & Co. have said they were a vital option for a true Scout rifle?

No way! Weight, length, fast handling -- all screwed up completely by hanging a can off the muzzle! You can't just totally biff the handling characteristics of the arm and still call it a Scout rifle. That makes no sense!

YES way! This is for "scouts" right? A silencer to reduce muzzle blast and confuse the shot direction could be vital to a Scout's survival if he actually has to shoot, protects his critical hearing, reduces alarm to game animals (wait...are we hunting or scouting? Ack, whichever...) reduces recoil for faster follow-up. This all goes to the very essence of what a Scout is supposed to do! You can't very well design a Scout rifle that isn't suppressed. That makes no sense.




Maybe it would be optional. (hee hee)
Click to expand...

If the laws made sense, a suppressor could be integrated into the barrel design without adding length or weight to disturb the handling characteristics - it could be completely consistent with the Scout concept.
 
Sam1911 said:
Here's a trick question with no clear answer...

If silencers (oh...call them suppressors if it makes you feel good) were so good, and so common, and so easily available in 1983 as they are today, would Col. Cooper & Co. have said they were a vital option for a true Scout rifle?

No way! Weight, length, fast handling -- all screwed up completely by hanging a can off the muzzle! You can't just totally biff the handling characteristics of the arm and still call it a Scout rifle. That makes no sense!

YES way! This is for "scouts" right? A silencer to reduce muzzle blast and confuse the shot direction could be vital to a Scout's survival if he actually has to shoot, protects his critical hearing, reduces alarm to game animals (wait...are we hunting or scouting? Ack, whichever...) reduces recoil for faster follow-up. This all goes to the very essence of what a Scout is supposed to do! You can't very well design a Scout rifle that isn't suppressed. That makes no sense.




Maybe it would be optional. (hee hee)
Click to expand...

No riddle in this consideration:

QD quarter turn mount. Done. Cooper would approve.
 
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