Book: Art of the Rifle

by Jeff Cooper.



Ok, I've been on a Cooper kick. I read ALL the Cooper Commentaries available online. In doing that, I became interested in a hard copy of the same, and was not disappointed. Online, is a collection of individual magazine commentaries, detailing what was then current events, and touching on subjects that interested the Colonel at that point in time for the most part relevent to shooting. This format leads to repitition. That repitition is GOOD. Jeff Cooper was a teacher and he'd appreciate the utility of drilling important points home with reptitition. Just reading the Commentaries inadvertently got me to memorize the 4 safety rules: 1) All guns are always loaded. 2) Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. 3) Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. 4) Identify your target, and what is behind it.



You get a lot of what's online in the books, just better presented. Think of the Commentaries as a digest of the books, and the books are the originals, and made out of paper instead of 1's and 0's.



The first book of Jeff Cooper's I read was Art of the Rifle. In it he expounds on the value of the rifle as the individual tool of power, and it is where I got the term Jovian Thunderbolt. The book is about rifle shooting, not rifles. It goes on about targetting, improvised and classical shooting positions, sling use, and gun handling. And in everything I've seen about Cooper it stresses safety and shooters mindset. It isn't a long book, it's not chock-a-block with Sea-Stories and Hunting Tales, but I am glad I bought it for the wealth of information distilled into a small space. I will re-read this book.