Jeff Cooper, October, 2005
It may be suggested that I push the Steyr Scout rifle pretty hard, but I do not do so for cash or any other sort of economic reward. I push the Scout because to me it represents excellence, and I revere excellence. It is not perfect - nothing is - but it is close, and since it is my personal concept, I take parental pride in it.
I also push the "Co-pilot," the Blazer R93 and the 1911 Colt pistol without royalties. In that connection, I once proposed a royalty to the president of Steyr-Mannlicher, that is the man who was at that time president of the corporation. The prospect seemed to distress him to the extent that I quickly changed the subject. I would not have turned down a royalty on the Scout if it had been offered, but the issue did not seem important. The Steyr Scout is not any great commercial success. The market evidently does not prize any sort of general-purpose item to the extent that a special purpose product does anything well. This inhibits "turnover," which is the life of trade. Few men need a rifle. What rifle producers sell are toys, and the more different kinds of toys are available, the better it is for trade. If a man has a Steyr Scout, he does not need anything else in that line, except for specialties. The Steyr Scout is not a target rifle, nor an inner city riot suppresser, nor an elephant gun, but it will do for almost anything else, if we exclude the ubiquitous 22. A recent friend and disciple taking off next year for Africa acquired a 416 Remington, when what he needed was a Steyr Scout, as issued or in Dragoon (376) configuration. What the Steyr Scout offers above all is convenience and "friendliness." It is the most "shootable" instrument I know of.
You may note that I stick closely to "Steyr Scout" because of the misuse of the term "scout" by itself. Two domestic approximators are now producing what they evidently consider to be scout rifles, utilizing a term scout in the tradition of the old American West, which is not where I got it. My concept derived from the US military doctrine which defines a scout as a soldier working alone or in partnership with one other soldier. Frederick Russell Burnham was particularly proud of his title of "Chief of Scouts" under Lord Roberts in the Boer War. The scouts, of which Burnham was chief, were frontiersmen only coincidently. Basically they were reconnaissance troops sent out beyond lines to determine the location and operational conduct of the enemy. In one notable operation prior to his working for Lord Roberts, Burnham undertook the assassination of the enemy leader, which turned out to be a remarkable success - roughly paralleling Hanneken's assassination of Charlemagne Peralte in Haiti in 1918. Thus a scout can be a "hit man" if the occasion demands, but that is not his primary definition. According to a manual which I studied in high school, "A scout is a man trained in ground and cover, movement from cover to cover, map reading, rifle marksmanship, observation, and accurately reporting the results of his observation." Note the stipulation of rifle marksmanship. A scout must be a good shot - a good practical shot, a hunter. A "scout rifle" should be a rifle for such a man. As it turns out, the current Steyr Scout rifle is a good deal more than that, and what a happy development it turned out to be! What it is not, however, is a short, bolt-action rifle with the telescope mounted forward. The scout rifle does not need a telescope sight, and I used Scout I extensively in Central America mounting ghost-ring only. The features of the Steyr Scout now offered are primarily mine, except for the superb stock design, which is the result of Zedrosser and Bilgeri at Steyr. This stock is, in my opinion, a triumph - marvelously comfortable for almost everyone. I do not think it needs the optional length of pull. A short stock is no handicap to a man with long arms, whereas a long stock is uncomfortable for a shooter with short arms. I suggest simply abandoning the stock spacers on the Steyr Scout and leaving it at short option.
As now issued, the Steyr Scout has only a couple of minor drawbacks. Its magazine well should be cut forward about a quarter of an inch to facilitate breech inspection with the little finger. The bipod retaining pin should be made of metal rather than plastic, as it has been known to sheer with extensive use. It has no need for an intermediate sling socket on the starboard side, and it has no need to be offered in goofy calibers such as the 223.
I am clearly very proud of the Steyr Scout as it stands. I am mildly annoyed to see low-rate copies being offered by major producers. With firearms as with many other things in life, you get what you pay for.
