Scouts

[SharpsDressedMan]

Open your mind, Grasshopper, and SHOOT one. They are lighter, faster on target, and faster to reload than conventionally scoped rifles. Isn't that enough to give them a chance to please you? They only remain ugly if you refuse to see their inner beauty. As far as a an old school concept, you get to combine using a bolt action, and keeping with your "one shot" philosophy, and yet can rapidly stuff shells in the action with the scope out of the way. No need for 10-30 round mags. With regard to "one shot, one kill", we do not have ANY soldiers in the field that make 10-20 hits for the 20-30 shots from any one magazine in a firefight. We haven't had a Sgt. York for a LONG time. If they were restricted to 4-5 rounds in a fixed magazine, they might be compelled to aim/hit even better. The plan, if I recall correctly, was to shoot two, move (reloading on the move), and then two more from the new position. And remember, the scout rifle is not a battle rifle, it is the sweet spot in between, the best compromise of many worlds. It will do JUST about anything.

 

[shadow9]

A Scout Rifle was summed-up once as "A Jack-of-all-Trades, Master-of-None." Think of it like a Rallye car...they DOMINATE uneven terrain and switching to asphalt, EXCEL at sliding around unpredicted turns, and have gobs of pounding torque to shove out of hairpin corners. HOWEVER...

-An F1/Touring car WILL trod over it in cornering-force/skidpad limits.
-A 4x4 offroad vehicle WILL dominate it in severe-uneven-terrain and overcoming obstacles
-A twin-turbo 5.7L LS1 pushing 1.9 Bar WILL eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the 1/4 mile...

However, good luck keeping up with a Rallye car in a Jeep on asphalt transitional turns, and have fun trying to make your 850hp Vette do a stable-drift through a gravel-surface corner. Likewise, F1 cars really, REALLY, don't like to stay in any form of steep slip-angle for any duration. It's either grip or gone...

Relatively speaking, this is why a Scout rifle excels in its purpose. It's the Rallye-car of Rifles.

P.S.- ever seen a pic of the Lancia S4? It ain't exactly the low-slung, loud blow-off-valve, huge-winged streetbeast you pick up tweeny-bopper chicas in, I'll say that much...likewise on the "asthetics" complaints of Scout rifles...

 

[35 Whelen]

Extremely accurate and well articulated post shadow9. Thanks!

35W

 

[lg&m]

35 Whelen can you tell me more about your rifle?

 

[35 Whelen]

35 Whelen can you tell me more about your rifle?

Began life as an FR-8. I removed everything I could including the original sights and flash hider, converted the two-stage trigger to single stage, mounted a Williams front sight ramp and an (at the time) Ashley front sight and Ashley scope base, turned the flash hider down and finally mounted a Redfield receiver sight.
I removed all the hardware from the stock, removed the pistol grip, stripped and lightened the stock, filled all the voids with AcraGlas gel, bedded it with the same and mounted a Burris 2.75X Scout scope.
I hope I'm not missing anything!
35W

 

[CraigC]

Excellent posts by natman and 35 Whelen.

I love it when someone asks a question they really don't want an answer to and then argues with every answer they don't agree with.

 

[taliv]

Whelen nice rifle
Dumb question: what's an Fr-8?

Fwiw I've always liked scout rifles but never owned one. These days I think scope technology has made them mostly obsolete

Btw I never edit members posts w/o leaving a little tag like [insults removed by Taliv] so readers will know it has been edited.

 

[35 Whelen]

Dumb question: what's an Fr-8?

First of all, there's no such thing as a dumb question! This is an FR-8 in its original form:

These days I think scope technology has made them mostly obsolete

I have to respectfully disagree with that statement. To my way of thinking, the quality of scope has little to do with the rifle in its intended use.

35W

 

[sig220mw]

Never shot a scout rifle but have held and looked through the scope on one and was impressed with the quick sight acquisition. The fact that you can see with both eyes is a big plus also in that you can co witness with the off eye. I have 2 rifles that I am about to set up this way though neither can be really classified as a scout when you talk about weight and length. I just like the set up and also the ability to use stripper clips since they are both military types.

 

[theotherwaldo]

My father was a Marine forward observer in Korea, during and after the Inchon landing. He was issued an M-1 carbine, but he opted to carry a Garand. He often said that he would have preferred a BAR if he could have carried one on top of his radio gear. The ghost ring sights were fine for him, but length and weight in a rifle made his life much harder. The gun that preferred in later life was a MAS 36 that had been cut down by Golden West Arms. I once heard him say that this was the gun that he would have liked to have in Korea. (BTW, I picked one of these up last week. YAY!)

His argument paralleled Cooper's: "Normally, I'm in a world of hurt if I actually fire a round before the called fire starts to land. Once the called rounds start coming in, though, I'm in a world of hurt if I don't take out that guy down there with the mortar that knows that someone is observing if the fire is falling. Gotta be quick and accurate, then move fast before the guys that are left figure out what happened."

Cooper designed his rifle for a particular type of combat. It is useful for other tasks too, I guess, but ... .

 

[wombat13]

Yep, got two of Andy's slings myself. One on a Scout and one on a M1A.

As regards the Scout concept, it works, but IMHO it's more of a specialized rifle than realized. Here in South Kackalacky, the optic compromises the rifles effectiveness in low light, specifically hunting in the late afternoon.

Other than that issue, my M600 Remington as built by Jim Brockman is a very handy rifle.

Interesting. I think that's the first time I've read that an optical sight is worse in low light than irons. My experience matches what I typically read on the topic - good optics gather more light than the unaided human eye and help in low light.

 

[lg&m]

Thanks 35 Whelen. I thought it looked like a Mauser. I was going to get a FR8 at a gun show once. Now I kind of wish I had. I wanted something that needed a little work and I could play with. It looked like it needed a little more work then I wanted to do. I should have got it. I think it was about $250 - $275

 

[surfinUSA]

My scout is home made. Its an M48 mauser in 8mm. It has a Boyd's stock and the rear sight removed and replaced with a Burris scout scope.

Its not exactly what Cooper envisioned, but it works and I'm not a big fan of the scout concept, prefering the traditional scope, so the minor deviations don't concern me.

However, this gun is accurate and powerful. Its a great foul weather and back up gun to my hunting rifle and it will do everything a 308 or 30-06 will do. It was also a relatively cheap sporterization of a semi military rifle (the M48 never really was used by any military) that can easily be changed back to its original configuration with little effort.

Although I like this gun, I would never spend the money on a specially built scout rifle be it Styer, Ruger, Savage or Springfield.