Scout Rifle as a Self or Home Defense Weapon
Rob PincusDescription
Exactly what is a Scout Rifle and how can you employ it in a personal-defense situation? Rob Pincus presents the special features of the Scout Rifle as defined by Col. Jeff Cooper of Gunsite. He shows how these versatile features, such as the three-point sling and redundant sighting system, make it a useful weapon for hunting, survival, and a close-quarters home defense weapon.
I wanna talk about the concept of a scout rifle and exactly what a scout rifle is and how it may be employed in a personal defense situation. This is one of my favorite rifles. I've had this rifle for a long time. Actually had it built up probably in the mid late nineties. The scout rifle concept was originally popularized by Jeff Cooper obviously of Gunsite fame. He talked about having a very versatile rifle in a military caliber. Probably the 308 round which is what this has chambered in. That would be around six pounds and that would allow you to be able to use it for hunting, for personal defense and maybe even in a real worst case survival, civil disorder kind of scenario. So couple of the features of this rifle are, one, it's got a three point sling. It's got a really versatile three point sling. I'll show you how we're gonna use that. This is a bolt action rifle. This isn't a detachable magazine. So one of the things that we might wanna put on here is a detachable magazine but just in terms of reliability and the fact that I use this primarily as a hunting rifle, a fixed magazine was fine for me. We also have the ability just to carry some extra ammo back here on this cuff where we can just put an extra 308 rounds in there. One of the unique things about the scout rifle concept is a forward mounted scope of a very low magnification. This one is a one and a half times Burris Scope with a very thin reticle. I really like it. The idea of the forward mounting of the scope and the low magnification is that it gives me the opportunity to be pretty precise in a hunting situation or for distance shooting or for a high level of precision. Maybe a headshot in a close range kind of hostage situation in that worst case scenario but it also allows me to very quickly get the scope up in front of me and know where those cross hairs are in a case of kind of a body shot or a close in hunting situation. Obviously this is completely clear. I've got no ammo in the gun, no ammo in the magazine, no ammo ammo in the chamber and I'm gonna go ahead and leave the bolt flagged up and the safety on and my finger away from the trigger just for like triple redundancy here. I want you to take a look at the idea. The idea is that I'll be here in a ready position. I'll be looking around. If I need to throw the gun up here, as the gun comes up and I make my cheek weld, I can pick up those cross hairs very easily but I also still have both eyes open. So I'm not really losing any of my normal natural two eyes open focus on the threat. Bring the gun up and then boom the crosshairs are right there. And that's exactly what we're looking for. Now, if I want to close an eye and really bear down on the crosshairs, this is a duplex reticle, if I wanna look a lot tighter at that duplex reticle, really get narrow on it then I can go ahead and take that more precise shot that I might need at a longer distance or, again, in a situation where there's bystanders; things like that. Another thing about the scout concept that I like in this particular rifle build is that if I have a problem, and I actually had this happen once out on a hunt, where the scope just got cloudy and muddy and dirty. It was rainy, it was kind of miserable. We were down in Alabama and I had to cross a river to get to where I was going to hunt down in the Palmettos. And I just went ahead and took the scope off and then I have this ghost ring sight. So I have a relatively fast, relatively obviously close range design of an optic here or a sight system in this case which is a very rugged, very well-built ghost ring in the back and a good front post with a tritium insert. So again I can throw this up very quickly and I can do both eyes open or close one eye and be able to use this ghost ring for any type of an emergency shooting situation. A close in personal defense situation or happened on that day that I did take a nice doe. So I was still able to use it in a hunting situation on a doe that was moving about and on a slow speed, not a walk particularly but it wasn't moving super fast and was probably about 50 to 60 yards away. Knowing that you have this redundant sighting system is also an important part of the survival aspect of the scout concept. And we talked about this what is essentially a two point sling set up with an extra connection. Turning it into a three-point-of-contact sling. What I can do here is I can carry this as I would carry a normal kind of carrying strap two point sling. Very easily slide this gun under my arm and come up into a shooting position. The other nice thing about this is I can very quickly stick my upper arm in here, my tricep, right behind this connection point, wrap around and get a lot more stability than I would normally have because of the extra connection. There's a lot of different ways to use the scout scope with the intermediate connection. It's really versatile. It's really functional but it also really doesn't get in the way. It's not an overbuilt kind of tactical, big wedding three-point sling. So like I said, this has been set up this way with this furniture, with this scope. No real major work done to it at all since the mid nineties. And it's been pretty well abused and it still works really, really well. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and put my eye protection on pull some ammunition out and take a look at how we would use this in a defensive shooting situation. Let me go ahead and throw some ammunition into the magazine. Obviously with a fixed magazine bolt action rifle like this, we're not doing any quick reloads and it's not super high capacity but a scout rifle mainly is a survival tool. It's not really designed to be a battle rifle per se. It's a really versatile rifle that you can use for hunting, for target shooting and put into use in that worst case quick self-defense scenario. Now, we think about it here, I'm just gonna throw this rifle up very quickly and as soon as I am both eyes open with the reticle up on the high center chest of this target, I am gonna go ahead and fire the shot. And we see that we have the shot. Run the bolt right away of course and if I needed to get a little bit more precise, all I have to do is slip my arm in here, wrap, come up, close and eye... and put a shot up there into that head. Again running the bolt right away. If I'm gonna take multiple shots into the high center chest that's very fast also. And that can be done very quickly and easily. Gun's completely empty now once again. The scout rifle concept as popularized by Jeff Cooper has never really caught on. It's never been a big fat like the ARs or the AKs. AR pistols today is something that's really popular. But this is something that really in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing with a bolt gun is a tried and true option. If you're looking for a hunting rifle that could also be pressed into survival service and worst case scenario even in relatively close quarters as a home defense tool and you're comfortable with the 308 round or of course whatever other caliber you wanna put in there, scout rifle concept is definitely something you should consider.
Jeff Cooper's concept included several attributes: weight, long eye relief scope mounted forward, readily available ammo (with several criteria obvious to a hunting/fighting situation), iron sights as well as optics, box magazine, barrel length - I'm probably forgetting a few. I've seen several companies try to build them, but they all miss some aspect. It wouldn't seem that hard to do, but nevertheless... Ruger makes a "Gunsite" model in .308. Not the lightest, but close. Savage makes a good one, too. However, the tech departments at both companies told me on the phone "...do NOT run 7.62 NATO in these. I asked them because I heard the debate on the safety of this very thing. I'm sure a lot of people believe it's not an issue. I only bring it up because of the "readily available" part of the concept. It dawned on me that there is another round that gets overlooked in favor of the .308, and that's the 7.62x39MM. That's certainly readily available. And while the ballistics don't equal the .308, it's a decent round for most uses. A couple of companies made them for a while, but now (I believe) the only company that does is CZ. I bought a used one - CZ 527 American - (like new, with $125 of optional accessories) for around $600 total. It's a 'mini-Mauser' action, so all of the benefits in a smaller size. Five round box magazine that stops at the bottom of the trigger guard, although no one makes one bigger than the factory issue, but you do get the quick change. Iron sights, and the receiver is milled for rings. (It takes proprietary rings, which don't come with it, but I got them with this used rifle.) There's also a short piece of rail, the mounts forward, so you can put a scout scope out front (also a separate item). The LOP is a little short for me, but it actually comes right up when I mount it, so I don't really notice. It also has a single set trigger, which is something you almost never see - and it's adjustable. The safety is nest to the bolt, and you just push it forward. It was made for .311 7.62 diameter bullets, so it might suffer with American made if they have our .308 bullets, but I don't know. (I got some LEE dies for reloading, and the set had both sizes of expanders.) Since I stuck with readily available, I ran some WPA through it - from sandbags, with iron sights, I could cover three shots with a dime. I put an old Bushnell 4x on it, and it shoots like a dream. It's light, fast and accurate. They make them in 6 calibers, but the only other one with readily available ammo is the .223 (although again, should you put 5.56 NATO in it?).
The Springfield Armory Scout rifle is the answer. It has a detachable 20 round box magazine and is very accurate and meets all the criteria of your bolt gun.
Good video on the Scout Rifle. Only criticism is that the Ching sling on your rifle was improperly installed and you improperly demonstrated it's use. The "stop" on the long strap should be to the rear of the short strap and your left arm should be placed in front on the short strap in use. The way you demonstrated offers none of the advantage of the Ching sling. Mike Fletcher
What kind of quick detach setup is that scope mount? Been looking for one to work with dovetailed front ring.
I want to know more about Scout Rifle as a Self or Home Defense Weapon. Could I avail myself of a Firearm Catalog? Could you mail it to my Home Address?
Reassuring that you promote the scout rifle, which is simplicity, power and reliability combined. No bells, whistles,toggles, etc. to mess with. Did I mention maneuverability? Thanks for this video . . . changed my mind on spending tight $$$ on an AR platform.
Eric Ching's sling design was an improvement on Carlos Widmann's version of the old Bisley two point sling. Both allow the potential benefit of a looped sling as a shooting support while retaining the speed of a hasty wrap. The demonstration here completely ignores that potential benefit and is just a hasty that can be done with any simple two point carry strap. Todd Dow has a nice overview: http://artoftherifle.com/using-the-ching-sling/2012/06/using-the-ching-sling.html