Jeff Cooper - Art of the Rifle: Special Colour Edition: Special Color Edition

Also by Jeff Cooper:
Another Country
C Stories
Complete Book of Shooting
Cooper on Handguns
Fighting Handguns
Fireworks
Gargantuan Gunsite Gossip
Handguns Afield
Jeff Coopers Defensive Pistolcraft Tape Series
Principles of Personal Defense
To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth

The Art of the Rifle: Special Color Edition
by Jeff Cooper

Copyright 2002 by Jeff Cooper
ISBN 13: 978-1-58160-307-1
ePub ISBN: 9781610047029
PDF ISBN: 9781610047005
Printed in the United States of America

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Paladin Enterprises, Inc., P.O. Box 1307,
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(303) 443-7250

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Most photos by Robert Anderson, Robert
Anderson Photography, Sun Valley/Los Angeles.

The demonstrators in the illustrations are Giles Stock, repeat student of Jeff
Cooper and rangemaster at Orange Gunsite, and Lindy Cooper Wisdom.

Visit our website at www.paladin-press.com

W e might like to think that all Americans are born riflemen, but we must admit that this is not the case nowand possibly it never was. As our society becomes more urbanized with each passing year, riflecraft becomes increasingly rare even among outdoors-men. Although it would be nice to think that American soldiers are all good shots, it is easy to find out that this is not the case. Of course, this depends on what is meant by a good shot, but while this opens much room for argument, shooting skill, however defined, is not a universal attribute of the American maleor female. There is nothing that is gender specific about marksmanship, but males just seem to be more generally attracted to it than females.

When I finished the first edition of The Art of the Rifle some years ago, I did not realize how useful, or even necessary, a work of this sort might be. Having lived with firearms of all sorts since childhood, I felt that everybody knew how to shoot and that some sort of technical reference on technique would simply serve to augment what most people already knew. I was wrong.

I find now that most young men sign up for military service without ever having held a gun in their hands before enlisting. I find that hunters buy expensive equipment and take to the field with no real knowledge of how to use it. I find that writers in sporting magazines almost brag about egregious errors of technique and illustrate their articles with pictures of hunters doing it all wrong.

I want to avoid being dogmatic about this, but the fact is that correct technique makes hitting your target much easier. Certainly it is possible to do it wrong and yet get it right, but this is doing it the hard way. Good marksmanship is not a particularly difficult study. It is not as hard as playing a musical instrument or driving a race car well. Still there are right ways and wrong ways of doing the job, and the right ways make the job much easier.

Therefore in this special edition of The Art of the Rifle, I have set forth what may be considered a training manual on the use of the rifle in pursuit of success in the field. For more than 60 years I have done what is necessary with the rifle in the hunting field. I cannot say that I have never missed, but on those rare occasions in which I did so, I was able to analyze causes and learn by the experience. I have never shot a man with a rifle, but I have taught thousands of Marines to do so, and their success in battle has been eminently satisfactory. I have taught marksmanship for most of my adult life, and in doing so I have evolved systems for imparting the necessary information and dexterity that have brought success.

It is unseemly to boast about ones own work, but I can say that The Art of the Rifle is a unique effortas far as I can tell. The many military manuals on how to shoot a given military weapon are generally good, and the Boy Scouts of America at one time had available a very superior small work on the subject, but today you will look long and hard for a text book on rifle shooting in general, as opposed to specialized activities such as target shooting or sniping.

Boasting aside, I am quite satisfied with the systems I have developed for the teaching of general-purpose field marksmanship. These systems have not only worked supremely well for hardened male athletes, but also for women and girls, including my own children and grandchildren.

In the last couple of decades I have hunted a good deal in Africa and have made many good friends among African professional hunters. These good men continue to horrify me with tales about sportsmen who show up in the big-game fields without any sort of background, theoretical or practical, in the use of the rifle. The Art of the Rifle can correct this dismal state of affairsif you let it. You cannot learn how to shoot by reading a book, any more than you can learn how to play tennis from a text. However, without a grasp of the text you are making life difficult for yourself and under some circumstances making life dangerous for both yourself and those around you.

There is a terrible moment when the professional hunter first sees his client handle his rifle. He can see in a few minutes whether the forthcoming adventure is going to be a trial or a joy. Our good friends among the professional hunters never mention names as a matter of principle, but their campfire tales serve to balance the bloodcurdling against the hilarious. There is not much danger in big-game hunting; with such as there is, the great predominance is the danger of gunfire. You are not very likely to be squashed by a buffalo (though this indeed can happen), but if you go afield with the wrong man there is a pretty good chance that you may be shot.

Not everyone, of course, is going to take to the field after big game, and very few of us experience the combination of exhilaration and heart-stopping excitement of a firefight. (You may note that I did not use the word fear. Fear is a bad word, and though we may know it, we do not talk about it nor let it influence our behavior.)

I have found no reason to rewrite the first edition of The Art of the Rifle, though I have prepared some additions on the subject of rifle types, and the photographs were reshot in color. I hope and I believe that the work can stand indefinitely as a detailed explanation of how to use your rifle, which may indeed some day become your best friendthough never your severest critic.

P ersonal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons. The possession of a good rifle, as well as the skill to use it well, truly makes a man the monarch of all he surveys. It realizes the ancient dream of the Jovian thunderbolt, and as such it is the embodiment of personal power. For this reason it exercises a curious influence over the minds of most men, and in its best examples it constitutes an object of affection unmatched by any other inanimate object.