Excerpts from the Writings of Jeff Cooper – September 2025
Excerpts from the Writings of Jeff Cooper:
In our adolescence we discovered the telescope sight as used on hunting rifles. It was not the norm then as it is now, and we were often jeered at when we showed up for deer or elk hunting. After some experience we concluded that the optical sight, as it is now termed, has various important advantages over iron. Today glass sights are pretty standard worldwide, though they are not the best solution to all of our problems – specifically including dangerous game. I do think, even today, that the novice should be introduced to rifle shooting by way of the aperture sight, in “ghost-ring” form. In recent years I have seen many situations in which the ghost-ring was preferable to any glass sight, but the market commands. It is unsound to draw conclusions from the limited experience available to one man, but in my own case I have killed as often with iron sights as with the telescope. (And I have logged one rather extravagant experience in which the telescopic sight was a distinct disadvantage.)
Today Jim West’s example of a “Co-pilot” illustrates the virtue of the ghost-ring carbine over other systems.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12 No.10 September 2004
Proper rifle handling is covered in “The Art of the Rifle,” but not everybody has a copy of that and I see violations of good technique all the time. For example, how is a rifle to be carried in a situation anticipating violence? I have taught this material consistently over the years, but I see that some like it better than others. Rifle readiness is not complicated, but it should be understood. When standing erect, anticipating immediate contact, the rifle should be carried at “ready” – magazine full, cartridge in the chamber, index finger straight along side of the trigger-guard, and safety on. If the configuration of the weapon affords it, the thumb should be placed on the safety ready to acuate it, but with the index finger still outside the trigger-guard. In this condition the shooter checks the environment by searching it with his eye on his surroundings but interrupted by the front sight. The call is: eyes, muzzle, target, but the safety is on and the finger is off the trigger. Generally speaking, fiction writers do not understand this.
When contact is imminent but the shooter is moving by vehicle, the rifle should be carried with the magazine full but no shell in the chamber. When he dismounts to fire, he has time to rack the action and loop up the sling.
In all cases, the weapon is not in firing mode until the shooter’s eye has picked up the target and a proper firing stance is assumed.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12, No.10 September 2004
To say that the root of all evil is money is to read the matter incorrectly. The word in scripture is not money but rather cupidity (in Latin). If you say cupidity is the root of all evil you are closer to the answer. It may be envy is the root of all evil, though that is certainly worthy of a seminar topic. The sophisticated personality will be readily aware of envy as the prime evil. He will see, however, as he matures that wanting something that you have not but that somebody else has is a basic moral corruption. Some very old sage (whose name I forget) is said to have opined that the two most distressing discomforts are wanting what you cannot have and having what you no longer want. The innocent may say that he would like to try the second option, but experience will disabuse him insofar as he can discover it.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12, No.10 September 2004
We note that rifle technique is not as well understood as it should be. It is interesting to observe that Gunsite Rule 3 is now observed carefully by the Marine Corps. It was never taught nor followed when I was a fresh-caught Marine, but photography declares that it is now. This is a matter of great satisfaction. It is nice to be “self-taught,” but it is better to be exposed to authoritative doctrine in one’s most receptive experience.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12, No.10 September 2004
We do not wish to be political in this paper, but we must emphasize that liberty and freedom are not the same. The great majority of people seem to be able to get along without liberty, but liberty is what our Founding Fathers fought and died for. Freedom is something else again.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12, No.10 September 2004
People seem to be spending a lot of time on uniform patterns for combat troops, such as are usually referred to as camouflage. Anyone who has spent any time in the field must realize that cloth patterns, apart from snow clothes, are almost pointless. If you are close enough to a man to discern the pattern of his shirt, it is his outline rather than his pattern that matters. In the Bush War up in Rhodesia, we experimented with this and our conclusion was that the things most readily discerned about a trooper in the field were the backs of his hands and the black line of his firearm. We conducted a number of tests along this line and decided that if an adversary is close enough for his cloth pattern to be important, he is most readily “camouflaged” by blackening the backs of his hands with shoe polish or mud or something of the sort and breaking up the outline of his weapon with irregular bands of masking tape. Oddly enough the face did not stand out anywhere as prominently as the hands, and facial make up seemed more theatrical than effective.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12, No.10 September 2004
The behavior of the press at this phase of the jihad is infuriating. They give us the butcher’s bill every day, while they absolutely refuse to report upon the exploits of many of our young men whose successful fighting deserves all praise. It takes no skill whatever to become a war casualty, but it calls for grandeur of spirit to attack successfully in the face of lethal enemy fire. Our men are doing this every day, but you do not see it in the papers or on the tube.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12 No.10 September 2004
Did you know that the girl who won the gold for shotgunnery in the Olympics did her early training by working on frisbees with a BB gun? The more you think about that, the more clever it becomes.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.12, No.10 September 2004