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If people refered to the isosceles triangle as "Weaver Plus" or to Thunder Ranch as "Gunsite the Second" you'd have a valid point---otherwise, not so much. "Weaver," "Gunsite" and "Scout Rifle" are what they are--not what they aren't, regardless of people's opinion of how to define them, refine them or improve them---situational semantics is no more credible than situational morality. Of course, I could be wrong, YMMV.

Notice I deleted your reference to the COL's advocacy of Bill Weavers' aberration, so as not to sully his memory.

Are you a proponent of a "Living" U.S. Constitution?

C.S. Lewis wrote about men who referred to other men as "gentlemen", in the british sense of being genteel, when the word really means a man of property, land, and title. A century ago a man could be, at once, a gentleman and a scoundrel of the highest order. This was the common understanding of that day. Now, the word essentially means nothing thanks to well-meaning folks like your self. Lewis referred to this phenomenon as "verbicide", or the murder of a word. I choose not to engage in this ghastly endeavour and, if you are wise , you will refrain from it.

I am a believer in the living Constitution! I believe it still lives as written by men much wiser than me.

Ray Chapman, had an interesting take on the Weaver stance and why he altered it.


...beautifully stated!

Now, that statement truly puzzles me.

A quick review of history shows that Jack Weaver (not "Bill Weaver") was the first man in the group of competition shooters with whom Col. Cooper slapped leather on a regular basis to use a two-handed stance. The technique was refined somewhat by others, including the estimable Ray Chapman (who I had the great good fortune to take instruction from years later), and Jeff Cooper by his own admission then promulgated the two-handed hold as part of his Modern Technique of the Pistol. How is this an aberration, or a blot on the Colonel's memory?




Well, as much as I admire the history of the development of the English language, I do not regard it as I do Latin or Classical Greek, which are immutable now being dead languages spoken only by scholars. Languages that are spoken in the vernacular, such as modern English, are constantly evolving in both grammar and vocabulary. These evolutionary changes are inevitable and in and of themselves are not necessarily bad.

I have to laugh a bit at your evocation of Mr. Lewis, a fine writer but hardly a philologist (his great friend, Ronald Tolkien, was a philologist and had a very different view of the fluid nature of living languages, by the way). Lewis would have been the first to admit, if his comment on "verbicide" had been challenged (which I am certain it was, and should have been) that his native English is and was a dog's breakfast of words and grammar, an amalgamation of Latin, Gaulish, Germanic, Norse, and French, with a deep underlay of Celtic languages; and that each of these had deep underlayment of other languages themselves.

The word "gentleman", which you evoke as an example, is more than a victim of "verbicide". A gentleman, as generally understood in the England in the 19th century, connotes the word "playboy" in the modern world: a man who doesn't work for a living, but possesses inherited wealth, a sense of style, one who is likely to be seen in the pages of Town & Country, or perhaps Esquire or Vanity Fair magazines. In the modern world, the word "gentleman" is taken by most people to refer to a man who exhibits principle and good manners in his speech and behavior. I think most people would regard this as an appropriate evolution of the word to reflect a meaning that most English-speakers would approve of. Which denotation of the word "gentleman" would you guess those who know you would apply to you, Mr. TAK, if either?

So, let us return to the concept of a "Scout Rifle" in this same manner. Jeff Cooper wrote about the concept 30-some years ago. I have no illusions about the Colonel's imagination or inventiveness, so am fairly safe, I think, in the assumption that his concept did not arise in a vacuum. In other words, he talked about it with his colleagues, and the concept most probably took shape over time. In other words, it evolved. And given the kinds of rifles and actions and ammunition available at the time that Col. Cooper formed his concept of the Scout Rifle, the form it took was shaped by knowledge of those factors. So, on whatever day Jeff Cooper decided to dub his concept "THE Scout Rifle", that's what it was. But that's not what it is today.

Cooper defined his concept of Scout Rifle in the context of the weapons with which he was intimately familiar, and available to him in 1982 or so: as such, he specified a bolt-action rifle of 7.62 caliber with combat-worthy iron sights, a forward-mounted scope, and a Ching sling. But if we review how Cooper intended the Scout Rifle to be used, codified its "job description", and then look at the weapons and ammunition available today and see how they are being used in combat, I think we'll find that the spirit of the Scout Rifle is there.

So, to quote the Colonel, a Scout Rifle should be: "... a general-purpose rifle is a conveniently portable, individually operated firearm, capable of striking a single decisive blow, on a live target of up to 200 kilos in weight, at any distance at which the operator can shoot with the precision necessary to place a shot in a vital area of the target."

Now, look at the rifles being used in combat today, and even those being developed for modern combat. It's pretty hard to argue that the M4 carbine, which is in general use by our forces in the Sandbox today, does not meet Colonel Cooper's operational criteria. I think many of us would prefer to see it chambered to use a more robust cartridge such as the 6.8 SPC (which was rejected by the Pentagon despite its strong recommendation by both active service and consultant ballisticians for reasons that were more politically motivated rather than motivated by a desire to arm our combatants with the best possible battle rifle, but that's another story...), but even in the 5.56 NATO chambering with appropriate ammunition it is a formidable weapon more than capable of striking a single decisive blow on a live target up to 200 kg live weight at ranges of 2 to 300 meters, ranges well within the proficiency of an appropriately trained U.S. armed services combat rifleman.

It's not that Col. Cooper's definition was wrong. Like the word "gentleman", which has evolved in the English language to mean something most English-speaking people would consider an admirable term (and, incidentally, something Col. Coooper would certainly consider himself to be) rather than the definition of a toffee-nosed wastrel (which he would not), the concept of the Scout Rifle has been adopted by the tactical community and has been de fact deployed in combat daily for the past 10 years or more in the form of the M4 carbine. Whether one chooses to adhere to Col. Cooper's definition as the final word on what a Scout Rifle is, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that men of action, recognizing the wisdom of the "job description" that Jeff Cooper codified, and recognizing its applicability to the theater of operations in which our warriors were and are fighting, made the necessary adjustments to the weapons platform at hand and produced what is for all intents and purposes a fully functional "scout rifle" for them to use.

Thank you for bringing up the word "gentleman" as a wonderful example of how a word can evolve to a better and happier meaning that everyone can enjoy the use of. I consider the happy parallel between the evolution of the concept of what constitutes a "gentlemen" and the concept of what constitutes a "scout rifle" to be an amusing and apt lesson.

In the future I will leave all of my guttural responses on the keyboard and summon you Doc to answer for me.

Doc, I admire and respect your opinion---I get the feeling that you're speaking from a position of having "earned the right"--having said that, you're alittle off on your understanding of the etymology of the "scout" and certainly of the timeline.

Cooper addressed the issue directly:
"I do not own the dictionary, and I certainly cannot tell people how to use it, but it is annoying to introduce a term and then see people pick it up and run the wrong way with it. As I have often pointed out, I do not own the term "scout," but I did introduce it to the sport shooting community a good many years ago to describe a rifle of certain definite attributes. I do, therefore, try to define the "scout rifle" correctly and to resist its imprecise use. For example, one of the qualities of the scout rifle should be its adaptability to readily obtainable ammunition. Therefore the scout, as I see it, is a 308. Certainly there is plenty of 223, 30 Russian-short and 30-06 ammunition obtainable worldwide, but the carbine cartridges are underpowered and the 30-06 calls for a long action, which while not exclusionary adds a bit to both bulk and weight in a proper combination.

When we set up the criteria for the Scout at the factory in Austria, we agreed upon just two calibers, 308 and 7-08, the latter for use in those situations where the 308 is forbidden or restricted as a "military cartridge." But immediately the factory people pushed through a rifle in 223, simply to take advantage of the immense stores of this ammunition available throughout the world. The fact remains, however, that no rifle in caliber 223 should be called a Scout."
....this wasn't written 30+ years ago prior to the acsension of the M-4, this was written by Cooper in January of 2005. So, call the M-4 "a Scout" if you wish--call it a "Dreadnought" or "The Hammer of Thor" however realize that it's bastardizing the term as it was intended by the one originating the concept and the terminology.

Reflecting on this---arguing over the splitting of vernacular hairs is probably not time well spent---especially with ones of kindred spirit.

Quite a display of wordsmanship, Doc.

With all due respect I'll take a 16" barreled AR in 6.8, thank you very much

Great post Doc, points taken, but we'll have to agree to disagree. This has been a great thread.

FWIW, I agree with TAK and Gmoats - Jeff Cooper 'owns' the term "Scout Rifle", so different ideas need simply need to come up with a different name. IIRC, Jeff Cooper called a .223 version of the Steyr a "poodle scout".

Comparing the M4 to the Scout Rifle is fair on a shootout-themed thread, but it only tells a fraction of the story. Cooper used terms such as general-purpose and utility to describe his concept. Cooper's concept was a rifle that a man could hunt the earth with, and also useful should a fight happen to break out. To be a better mousetrap, the M4 would have to do everything better than the Scout Rifle. On those terms, I'd probably pick his Scout Rifle.

Fair enough, TAK. And I quite agree, this has been a great thread. Lots of discussion, relatively little flaming. That's what this forum should be and most often is.

I suspect a man could do quite well with a M-4 in 6.8 or 6.5 Grendal as far as hunting the world over and a much better "shootout" gun isn't available yet

Maybe, assuming a guy has easy access to 6.8 or 6.5 Grendel in the remote places in the world.

My remote places will be in the U.S.

Well, bastardized or not, the term "scout rifle" has come to mean a lot more than Jeff Cooper originally intended it to mean, and it was partly his fault.

I underlined the Colonel's words in your above quote to point out something that has been implied but perhaps needs to be made explicit in this discussion: that while the Scout Rifle term or concept was never copyrighted or patented in a generic sense, the Steyr Scout Rifle was a trademarked rifle which I presume Col. Cooper had some stake in the production of, and presumably some share in the profits as well. As such I think latter-day accolytes may in fact be right in stating that he "owns" the term, at least in some limited sense.

But I also think there's been a bit of blurring of the line between an intellectual concept and intellectual property here. Intellectual property is something that the originator can point to as being his/her unique and original idea or system of thought, and is in fact so unique as to be eligible for copyright. I do have some acquaintance with the process of obtaining copyright and trademarking for my intellectual property, enough to know that it's a tricky business at the best of times, and requires occasional application of money in the form of lawyers' fees to defend. If Cooper had applied for and been granted a copyright or trade name for the term "Scout Rifle" at any time, then we could say he actually "owns" the term "Scout Rifle". But since he did not apply for such legal protection (and as such we can't say with any certainty that the term would have been granted copyright or trade name protection) then no one can truly say that Cooper "owns" the term or concept.

In an academic sense, Cooper can be (and IMHO should be) given all credit for originating the term, but as any academic who has come up with a term or concept that has fallen into general use will tell you, that credit holds no real water. People will use the concept or term as they will, and it will necessarily evolve as more people apply their own connotations to the term over time. Some people will hold to a more rigid standard, recalling the context of the term/concept's origins, and others will hold a more loose standard that reflects its general usage in the scientific or technical discipline it inhabits in the present day.

Thus it is with the Scout Rifle. Cognescenti immediately hearken back to Col. Cooper's original definition, whereas others use it in a more mutable manner to reflect the evolution of firearms and ammunition and the tactical arts.

So it really doesn't matter if Jeff Cooper defended his definition in 2005. He didn't need to, we all know who coined the term! And he really didn't have any right to be offended that people picked up his term and ran with it, since he didn't copyright or trademark the term. Is this splitting hairs? I don't know, but it sure seems to get a lot of people exercised tapping away at their keyboards!

And finally, I submit, he really was off-base to block introduction of a 5.56 NATO or 7.62x39mm version of the Scout Rifle while endorsing the 7mm-08. We can argue that one all week long (and probably will!) though.

That ain't a real "Scout Rifle", ya little SOB! Col. Cooper says to give it back!

Well, in that case, I'll take an AR10 or equivalent carbine chambered in .308 over a Steyr Scout Rifle.

Mind you, I'm not saying I'd be willing to go up against Randy Cain with his Scout Rifle (or, worse, his short version .308 Win Model 70 all-purpose rifle which he modelled on Cooper's Scout Rifle concept) using my AR10. There is such a thing as knowing one's limitations.

Well said Doc. Again. Nice to have you post here.
I enjoyed the history lesson as I've been a fan of Jeff Cooper's before he ever started work on the Scout Rifle. And, yes, I remember him working with Jack Weaver way back then. Those guys taught me alot of really useful things. My hunting rifles, which are just basic scope sighted bolt guns, are equipped with the three point sling systems developed with the Scout Rifle. E

BTDT. It is a heck of a good rifle.



I haven't shot it with its new FF handguard and flash hider, but with a brake, if you miss the bad guy, the muzzle blast will ruin his aim