Excerpts from the Writings of Jeff Cooper – January 2026
“Most of our harmless and genuine joys in this life are those which find their source in primitive instincts. A man who follows his natural inclinations, with due deference to common sense and moderation, is usually on the right track. Thus the sport of hunting is one of the most honorable of the primeval instincts of man.”
Archibald Rutledge
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1 No.3 July 1993
We talked recently with Karin van Graan at Engonyameni in the Eastern Transvaal. She told us she couldn’t put Danie on the phone at the time because he was out with a party of pistol hunters. They had tagged a blue wildebeest (which is a very hard animal) four days previously with a 44 Magnum and they were still on his trail. Pistol hunting is certainly a worthy pastime, but obviously not for everyone. The fact that you can row across the Atlantic (with a certain amount of luck) doesn’t make rowing across the Atlantic a good idea.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.3 July 1993
In a recent paper, we listed a number of reasons for which men fight. One reader took exception to us in that we did not list liberty as a primary motive. As in all philosophic discussion, much depends upon semantics, so I suppose the first thing to do here is to define “liberty” so that we can examine our position. In my view, liberty is that condition which exists when men make their own laws, either directly or indirectly, and are protected from bureaucracy or despotism by unbreakable rules.
Now then, I have fought through a couple wars and a larger number of fighting situations and I have never yet encountered a man who felt that he was fighting for liberty. That doesn’t mean that this cannot be a motive, but I did not list it because it seemed so very unlikely to me. I think we could say that the colonists at Bunker Hill were indeed fighting for liberty. I think the Boers in South Africa were fighting for liberty, but I don’t see anyone doing it now. Singhalese are not fighting for liberty. The Iranians are not fighting for liberty. The Somalis are not fighting for liberty. The Serbians are not fighting for liberty. Moreover, no American I ran across in the Pacific war nor in Korea felt he was fighting for liberty, and I don’t think that anybody on either side in the Vietnamese affair thought that he was.
Thus it is that I do not regard the idea of liberty as a primary motivating force in man’s history of combat.
I did leave out one major consideration and I will hasten to insert it now. That motive is hatred. Hatred is a big one, and it appears more often than the rabbit people would like to admit. In my own limited experience in the Pacific war, hatred was the primary motivating emotion of the American forces.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.13 July 1993
Apparently Hillary has suggested that we reform our electoral system by modifying or doing away with the Electoral College. If she is serious about this (or about anything), we suggest she consider restructuring the Electoral College on the basis of counties, rather than states. That should certainly take care of that argument.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.9, No.3 March 2001
Those of you who are diet conscious will take note of one Miss Lucy Walker who, in 1864, was the first woman to surmount the Matterhorn. She was also the first woman to reach the top of the Eiger, though she did not go up the infamous north wall. During her adventures in the alps, she subsisted entirely on a diet of sponge cake and champagne. When I read of the champagne consumption of those old Victorians, I sometimes regret that I never acquired a taste for it.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.9, No.3 March 2001
For those who came in late, a “ghost-ring” is that form of aperture sight which features a large aperture and a thin rim. The idea is that when the aperture is placed reasonably close to the eye and the shooter looks at the front sight, the rim disappears, as with a ghost. This does not impair aiming precision, but it vastly improves speed of acquisition. The older form of aperture sight, which featured a pinhole, presumably for increased precision, was terribly slow to use. The rear sight we had on the 03 Springfield was wrong in practically every respect, and while the A3 version of the rifle was proletarianized in some respects, its sight was much better.
The first man to extol the ghost-ring, as far as I can read, was Karamojo Bell of Africa, though Townsend Whelen acquired the idea about the same time. I certainly did not invent the idea, but I believe that I did invent the term, and I find it amazing that for 60 odd years no manufacturer sought to put a good metallic sight on his rifle, assuming evidently that no one would use iron sights anyway and telescopes would be the only thing of interest. It is true today that the optical or telescope sight is practically universal, but this is not entirely a good thing. In the first place, telescopic sights are not necessary for about 90 percent of sport shooting. I took Scout One with me to Central America in 1968 and used the ghost-ring exclusively on that occasion – with total success. The glass sight is inappropriate for use on rifles intended for dangerous game. One should not regard one incident as definitive, but I once got into a rather tricky situation on a lion, because all I had on that rifle at the time was a telescope and I could not pick out a proper aiming point at short range in a hurry, due to a limited field of view. My experience on buffalo, while not extensive in the classic sense, is enough to convince me that a good ghost-ring is what is needed, and a telescope is out of place. Regardless of how well made they may be, telescope sights break. Also they are vulnerable to dust, mud and snow in a way that the ghost-ring is not.
The ghost-ring is not quicker than the telescopic sight, when the latter is properly used, but it is distinctly quicker than any open sight, even the Express Sight from Africa. It is a Good Thing, and should be more widely appreciated, but considering the general nature of firearms design progress over the last half century, I do not expect much in this regard. We have awfully good firearms, cartridges and sights today, but we do not do any better with them in the field than our grandfathers did. It is always the shooter, not the weapon that makes a difference.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.9, No.3 March 2001
In my opinion, neither money nor greed (cupiditas) is the root of all evil. The root of all evil is envy. The non-coper hates the coper, and thus the non-shooter hates the shooter. I see no other explanation for the pointless and irrational activism of the gun grabbers on the political scene. They know that their machinations can have no effect upon crime. Guns have no effect upon crime, but they do make all men equal, as the saying goes. This puts the coper on top, and infuriates the non-coper.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.9 No.3 March 2001
Does recoil bother you much? This clearly is a personal matter, and some people are affected far more than others. When I was a lad we used to think the 03 was a jaw breaker – but it was not. Then we started going to larger and larger cartridges, which kicked more and more, and this bothered some people far more than others. It has a lot to do with how much you shoot. Those of us who shoot a good deal hardly notice recoil, and yet a lot of people complained about the recoil of the 350 Short Magnum when it first appeared. For a long time the 375 Holland cartridge was generally held to be a bruiser, but it certainly is not today – note that we now even have an “Ultra 375.” When the 458 Winchester came out, it scared a lot of people until they discovered that recoil effect upon a shooter is about 85 percent mental. If you convince yourself that recoil is nothing to worry about, it will not be. I have a lot of experience along this line, having taught people rifle marksmanship for most of my adult life. It is not a matter of how big or strong you are, it is a matter of what you think you should think about rifle kick. I have had great success with adolescents of both sexes in this regard, and while I certainly do not assert that recoil effect does not exist, I do insist that it is highly overrated. Any boy who plays touch football seriously will be beaten around far more in a quarter than he ever will be by the butt of his rifle. What is more, he will enjoy it.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.9, No.3 March, 2001