Thoughts on scout rifles
From Michael Bane. I admit, I never got the concept of a scout rifle.
14 Responses to “Thoughts on scout rifles”
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August 17th, 2016 at 6:49 pm
If they’re going to charge as much for one as I’d have to pay for a decent .308 AR, gimme the AR. It’s plenty accurate, and not so much heavier that I would give up the self-loading functionality.
August 17th, 2016 at 9:14 pm
Take the Ruger Gunsite Scout and bore and rechamber it to 358 Winchester and you have the perfect do it all scout rifle.
August 17th, 2016 at 10:44 pm
FWIW. I’ve always felt that the name “Scout” was unfortunate. It always seems to drift folks towards a military view of the piece. I, again, for what it’s worth, think a better name would be the “Frontier Rifle”, a single rifle that can do whatever you need done provided you do your part. I assume the name “Hawkins” was taken.
August 17th, 2016 at 10:48 pm
I thought “Scout rifle” was just a new gussied-up name for “carbine”.
August 18th, 2016 at 12:18 am
We can have more than one rifle, so get yourself several, each of which performs very, very well at some specialized use. Varmint rifle, elk rifle, target rifle, pig rifle, home defense rifle, truck rifle, loaner rifle.
But if you want to have only one rifle, make it one that will perform very well for most purposes. That is a scout rifle.
I, for one, have several rifles that cost me from $65 to $350 each. None is anything special. I like each one for the reason I bought it. But if I take the sum total of what I paid for all my rifles I could afford any Scout type .308 rifle sold today, and I feel owning just that one rifle would be fine, too.
What a funny old world it would be if we were all the same.
August 18th, 2016 at 9:01 am
Jeff Cooper had a deadline for his column at Guns & Ammo, couldn’t think of anything to write, saw a picture of a Mosin Nagant M44 as he was leafing through his Small Arms Of The World, mused about sporterizing it, and before you could day “muzzle blast” he had a new meal ticket.
August 18th, 2016 at 9:06 am
I like Chris Kyle’s idea of a scout rifle, which he carried in Iraq while scouting out targets. An accurized, scoped, AR upper on a selective fire M4 lower. Not invented on a typewriter.
August 18th, 2016 at 9:20 am
@nk, I bought an unissued M-44 for $155 about 10 years ago and foolishly sold it which I often lament.
August 18th, 2016 at 9:41 am
Bummer, Ron W. Yeah, I couldn’t make a living as a Missouri mule trader, myself.
August 18th, 2016 at 10:46 am
I suppose it’s boils down to where you need to “do everything” with one caliber. In my area I’m not going to stumble onto a cape bull or elephant, nor am I going to be shooting 400 yards. So the .30 caliber rifles I have (30.06, .308, and 30-30) suits for any of the bigger stuff. And I can get either of them in any Mom-n-Pop store if needs be rather than building a “special” round. Add in a .22 (LR or WMR or both) and I can put meat on the table. Sure and I have other calibers. .223, 6.5 Swede, .30 Carbine just to name a few. And if I was to go to the Deepest Darkest after much bigger stuff I’d want something bigger than .30 caliber. (Always dreamed about a nice double in .375 H&H.) Just don’t see the need for it where I’m at.
August 18th, 2016 at 12:53 pm
@nk, I did sell it for the same price to a friend who also bought about 400 rds of ammo I had for it, so not so bad.
August 18th, 2016 at 2:53 pm
I’m building one on an M-48 Yugo Mauser. Just because. I like the idea of the forward-mounted scope on QR rings, a decent set of irons for close-up work or in case the scope is damaged, and the ability to still use stripper clips to feed the thing.
I like the idea. YMMV.
August 18th, 2016 at 6:09 pm
I have bit of Picatinny rail I can put on the Ishapore .308 NATO that will then accommodate a scope. Problem solved.
August 19th, 2016 at 12:33 am
For them what hasn’t read a lot of acooper’s writings, Cooper spent many years refining what it was he referred to as a Scout Rifle. It culminated in the Styer Scout in 308 caliber, which he thought imperfect, but still very good. The Draggon was for the largest North American game, but especially for Africa. Anything other than those two he called a “pseudo scout”.
In any case it was to be a relatively light and handy rifle capable of doing just about anything a rifle would be called upon to do, for a single operator carrying it in the field. It would not necessarily have an optical sight, by the way. By that definition it could be any of a lot of run-of-the-mill hunting rifles.
And so there’s the basic idea, and then there’s Cooper’s ideal. He did often assert that a self-loader didn’t qualify, being too complicated and heavier, but I would disagree. He also considered the idea of a 223 caliber “Scout” as absurd.
I have my own ideas, but I very much appreciate Cooper’s writings. He did a lot in his life and he knew a lot about a lot of things.
Chris Kyle was hunting only one species of thin-skinned game, but yes; that would have been a good setup it seems. It just isn’t a Scout Rifle. As Cooper said often; he coined the term, and he knew what it meant and what it didn’t mean. Although something else may be influenced by the concept, it isn’t a Scout Rifle anymore than a semi auto-only AR is an assault rifle.