Excerpts from the Writings of Jeff Cooper – October 2025
`Tis the season to be jolly, so let us make every effort – despite the disgusting situations we have got ourselves into. People get the government they deserve, and we Americans voted in the current administration back in November of last year. We hope we are satisfied.
However, it does no good to complain. The place to do our complaining is at the polls. At home now and among friends, we should all strive to develop the maximum amount of good cheer in the places where it will do the most good.
“Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1 No.10 December 1993
Our recent comments about various battlegrounds in Southern Africa have been widely misunderstood, which is, of course, my fault in that I did not make the matter clear. Marksmanship had little or nothing to do with the outcome of the actions at Isandhlwana or Rorke’s Drift, and the astounding victory of the Boers at Blood River was not a matter of marksmanship, but rather one of gun handling and fire discipline. The places where marksmanship was indeed the issue were the parallel battles of Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill. In those actions the farmers hit what they shot at, and the redcoats apparently did not. I delight in exploring these matters and I would be delighted to conduct a graduate seminar on the subject.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.10 December 1993
Ammo” are meticulous about their Kipling. They accuse me (correctly) of a slight mis-quotation of that line about “shooting like a soldier” in The Ballad of East and West. I herewith apologize. Those lines have been so much a part of my memory for so long that I did not in truth look them up carefully in the text. Mea Culpa. (However, I really do feel that my very minor changes make the verse swing just a little better. That is terribly presumptuous, so I apologize again.)
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.10 December 1993
We certainly have slid into some sort of slough, politically and intellectually, when Winchester is coaxed into removing an expanding bullet from its line of products. Expanding bullets have been available since this time last century at least. Apparently, the term “Black Talon” was unnerving to the wimps, but why in the name of common sense must we give the time of day to the wimp establishment!
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.10 December 1993
“Distrust and caution are the parents of security.”
Benjamin Franklin, via Joel Ebert
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.10 December 1993
July is not one of the better months – too hot in the northern hemisphere and too cold in the southern. It also is the month when the wilderness areas are at their worst clutter, with city people scampering around throwing pop cans in all directions.
Nonetheless, it is the month in which we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in which it was set forth unmistakably for posterity that human rights are not granted by man but rather by God, and that when any government or institution threatens those rights it is the duty of the people to abolish it. That is an idea especially pungent at this stage of America’s political devolution.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.3 July 1993
Please feel free to paraphrase and disseminate anything that you may read in this paper. I am a teacher, not a salesman, and it is my pleasure to see my teachings spread far and wide. “Die Gedanken sind frei!”
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1 No.3 July 1993
When they were first introduced twenty odd years ago, I was particularly impressed by the Remington Short Magnums – the 6.5 and the 350. These two cartridges were achieved by shortening the Holland Magnum case up until it would fit easily into a short bolt action, such as designed for the 308. At the time I thought this was an excellent idea and I still do, but the two cartridges failed to attract any attention with the general public. (An exception may have been in Alaska, where the 350 Short Mag was an immediate success and is now a valued collectors item.)
The 6.5 started its 120-grain bullet at around three thousand foot-seconds from its abbreviated 18.5″ barrel, providing what might be termed “a Pocket 270.” One might ask wherein a Pocket 270 is superior to a Regular 270? And the answer would be handiness. The Remington 600 carbine was the immediate ancestor of the modern Scout, and it was the weapon upon which the weight criterion was established at 3 kilograms (6.7 lbs, sights and all). It seems to me that anyone who has climbed after sheep or goats or chamois or ibex would find a Pocket 270 to be the piece ideally suited to his task.
The 350 likewise, with its 250-grain bullet, formed the base for the Super Scout, a medium-bore instrument capable of taking on all heavy game short of buffalo and the pachyderms.
I immediately began experimenting with the 350 and my success was most gratifying. I took a number of large animals with it, including kudu and moose, and while no one man’s experience is ever broad enough to establish empirical conclusions, I made contact with enough people who had used the same weapon afield with equal success on elk, bear, and zebra. These conversations, of course, formed the basis for the foundation of the “Fireplug Club,” which is still going strong throughout the world. I never cared much for the Remington actions, due to both extraction and ignition problems, so I shifted over to the ZKK 601, which was designed for the 308 cartridge but will take a slightly longer round when desired. John Gannaway thereupon loaded the 250-grain Swift Partition bullet about an eighth of an inch farther forward into the Remington case and this was encouraged to feed into the ZKK action. This combination was the base for the Lion Scout which distinguished itself in Africa just last year.
If the 6.5 Remington Short Magnum may be made up into a “Pocket 270,” the 350 Remington Short Magnum may be made up into a Pocket 375, starting its 250-grain bullet at the same velocity as its big brother’s 300, but in Scout configuration.
Unfortunately the Pocket Magnums never really caught on, and today they are in effect obsolete. This seems too bad as they really did occupy a tactical niche that is not filled now.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.3 July 1993