M80a1 > any 5.56 offering

5.56 has its place. Great cartridge for human sized targets in plain view.

Once the shooting starts and people naturally run behind cover 5.56 is anemic.

What I have learned is soldiers swear by what they used in war. There is a psychological affect of men in combat situations and the weapon they used to get out of the danger.

Like a friend who saves your life, a soldier will connect the rifle to saving his life.

They will spend the rest of their days swearing by the rifle and caliber that saved them.

So, point being, .30 cal got the job done in 2 World Wars so it makes sense why World War vets stand by them.

Same goes for 5.56. It saved many a hide since Vietnam and it makes sense why those who carried it, owe their lives to it.

Nobody can argue that away. No matter how reasonable and logical. It’s a bond only combat and death can forge.

Just curious where can you get M80A1 ammunition?
Where is it commonly and cheaply available?

So how about M80A1=M995=M855A1????

What's otherwise interesting about your comments is neither Col Cooper nor Mel Tappin served in any sort of combat.  
Both were whitty and well-spoken "arm-chair Commandos"...……

I just find it ironic that Gunsite (founded by Col Cooper, his own-creative think-tank) has been more than accepting of the 5.56 and other handguns besides the 45 1911...…

Are you saying that Cooper lied about his combat experience?

No I'm saying, as others in this thread have pointed out as well, that he doesn't have any.  
He was on a battleship and advised Thai Cops...……...….
I don't know if he embellished his career or not.

There was a website a while back where you could download all of the Jeff Cooper's Commentaries. I do not know if it is still out there but I downloaded all I could get at the time. Good reads, with lot's of stuff in it that did not talk about cartridge wars.

Here is a sample from the stuff I have. I will admit though, that it is a bit of a little gun/big gun story.

"When we had taken Saipan, it was planned to move across the intervening straight and land on the north end of Tinian Island, utilizing as much supporting artillery as we could muster, in addition to aerial bombardment and naval gunfire. To bring this off we moved all of the guns available on Saipan to the southern tip of the island and set them into position to fire across the straight on targets selected as appropriate. The smallest guns were placed as far forward as possible. In the case of the 75 millimeter pack-howitzers, this was right on the beach. Now the 75 millimeter pack-howitzer in not much of a cannon. Its principal virtue is that it is light and compact and can be moved around in difficult terrain with minimum effort. It fires a 3-inch shell at high angle to a fairly modest range - say, 2,500 yards. When all was ready, the signal was given to commence registering across the straight, starting with the little guns first. One battery of 75 pack-howitzers fired one round, which arched over the separating water and came down almost vertically.

It so happened that I was present at this time, riding offshore some 3,000 yards to the east of the straight. I was looking right at the point of impact. The result was unbelievable. The first thing I saw was a white, hemispherical flash, perhaps 500 yards in diameter. Out of this boiled a huge black column of smoke thrusting skyward into the traditional mushroom cloud. There was no sound, but we could see the shock wave moving out towards us across the water in a curved pattern. In a moment that shock wave struck the escorting destroyers and heeled them radically over in the water. The curve raced on towards us and we turned away and covered our ears. What hit us then is indescribable in words, but it was a sensation one is unlikely to forget.

What evidently happened was that first ranging shot from the 75-millimeter battery had found its way down some sort of ventilating shaft into the main ammunition depot on the north end of the island, and everything went up together.

I never heard what reports were circulated around amongst the artillerymen on Saipan, but one can guess at a number of appropriate wisecracks:
You want me to do that again?
Now you guys with the big guns can have your turn.
That was Number One gun. Now I am going to try with Number Two.
Why didn't I think of that last week?
Everybody break for chow.
And so on. That was the "Tinian shot." Anytime you feel like bragging about something, keep that one in mind."

Another good one, albeit more humorous.

"Through Randy Umbs, our man in Wisconsin, we have finally acquired a practical explanation for golf. It turns out that dog droppings freeze iron-hard in the Wisconsin winters, and one can make excellent practice with his 4-iron lobbing these remnants onto adjoining property. Chipping one down the neighbor's chimney is the equivalent of a hole-in-one."

I remember reading him describing an incident where he shot a Japanese soldier with his .45.  (M1873, not M1911).

This might not be a lot of combat by some people's standards, but it definitely is more than not having any.

I was amused at the idea of Colonel Cooper,  (I mean Lieutenant Cooper), carrying a single action, as he spent most of his life singing the praises of the 1911 pistol.

He said that he was following the advice of Elmer Keith.  I guess even Gurus have their Gurus.

M80a1 for mil. There are lots of better .308 offerings for the civilian market. Point being round for round, .30 cal is superior to 5.56 sans weight.

COL Cooper grew up in .30 cal times. Whether they fought in WWII or not, they had friends who did. They smoked, drank with men who would talk about their weapon platforms over the years. They trusted those men, so why disagree with them?

Most old timers will lean towards .30 cal over 5.56. There are exceptions but it is not the norm.

Our gen holds on to 5.56, Gen Z and the next generation will like 6.5mm offerings.

My point would be this:
-there are countless Armies and millions of shooters who would disagree with you on which caliber they would use day in day out.  Not to mention his very own Academy being more than willing to train shooters with the worthless 5.56mm.  
-And if Col Cooper liked the 45 and 308 simply because those around him did, how about we don't pretend he was an expert on any of this.
-But then we shouldn't pretend like the OP didn't post this simply to be a troll.

....

This kind of shit isn't necessary.  Like anyone else, Cooper doesn't need to be enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, but what he was in life deserves respect.  If nothing else, he was a good American citizen, a veteran who served with honor, went where he was told to do and did the best he could when he got there.  Going on in life to be a successful business man, father, husband and dear friend to a lot of people is indisputable and stands on its own merits.  Mocking a good man in his declining years from the safety of a keyboard tells us all we need to know about Nick_Adams.

It is in the M1 forum.

Its no more trolling than posting historic musings on the .45 in the 1911 forum

This is an important thing to remember when reading Cooper's comments on calibers and rifles. He came up in a time of the 30 cal and wood and steel rifles. As forward thinking as he was with regard to handguns and as he tried to be with the scout rifle concept he never truly moved past that foundation.

Also, there were deficiencies with the AR when it was introduced that have taken decades to correct.

We are sure to see a character or three from the current lot of gun writers fall into the same trap and fail to adapt to ever changing firearms tech.

I think you are spot on!

An example of your point/theme using your own words.

You called wood and steel a "foundation"  For him, 50 years ago, it was not a foundation, it was state of the art.

For YOU it is a foundation but is no longer the state of the art and hasn't been for a long time.  50 years is a long time, even for the military (1903 - 1953, for example).

If the need arises, 30 caliber could come back.  It would be unlikely to return in a "wood and steel" M1A/M14 platform.  It's all about context and requirements - what threat would prompt its return?

It may have been state of the art for him in the beginning but by the time he founded Gunsight in 1976 the the AR had been adopted for what- over a decade? The Steyer AUG was adopted in 1978 and the MP5 was adopted in 1966. The Glock entered service in 1982.

By the 80's and 90's at the height of his popularity he'd fail to keep up with where innovation was leading. That's not bad per se, I love me some big bore blued steel and walnut, but they're out matched in most aspects by modern cartridges and materials.

As I said, he never really moved past the idea that rifles were steel and caliber thirty or larger if needed. Pistols were a .45 because they don't make a .46. He had his reasons, and they made sense, but haven't stood the test of time. Not with the advances made in firearms tech.

The AR platform progressed rapidly with CNC technology and ammunition development in the late 1990’s and 2000’s. During the bulk of Cooper’s life the rifle was simply adequate and that’s where most of his opinion was derived and most of his writing in the subject came into play. I don’t think he was wrong at all, the tech just wasn’t there yet.

I think it's important for some of the younger folks here to understand that men who served in the military in the
40's 50's and early 60's, like Col. Cooper and guys like my Dad, always held the M16 and it's cartridge in contempt due
to it's terrible debut in Vietnam.

And the M1 Garand was held in contempt due to it's troubled debut as well.
The Garand suffered from Govt oversight, accuracy concerns, repeated tests, refusal by Branches to adapt it etc etc just like the M16.  
The only difference in the rollout of the M1 vs M16 was the former was done in peace time and the latter in war.  
It wasn't until the latter part of WW2 that the Garand was accepted and until the latter part of Vietnam that the M16 was accepted.
Then both went to serve admirably and with distinction.
But that has nothing to do with Col Cooper.
Col Cooper didn't serve in Vietnam, nor Korea, he was an arm-chair commando.

Actually we do know how Col Cooper spent the 50's...…… he advised the Thai Police.

Concur with CatBacker.

Would you please provide cites for your allegations quoted above?  Or, if no evidence, please label as your opinion.

I'd especially like to see the cite for your statement "It wasn't until the latter part of WW2 that the Garand was accepted..."

Sir:
You are a funny man, very funny...… you started this thread by trolling and opinions but want references?

To answer your question:  All my comments are from "Hatchers Book of the Garand"  by MG Hatcher.....

I've read that book, as well as Hatcher's other works.  Perhaps my memory fails me, but I don't seem to recall his making the same sort of comments you have alleged previously.  In particular, the comment "It wasn't until the latter part of WW2 that the Garand was accepted..." does not seem in accord with my memory of the book, nor does it seem in accord with the facts.

I would like to learn, so I'm asking you for a specific cite from Hatcher on the last point, at least.  I don't think that is unreasonable.  It would be helpful, and instructive to not only myself, but possibly others for you to do so.

As to your characterization of my remarks as trolling, How is that possible?  I've posted a set of Cooper's statements in praise of 7.62/.308/.30-'06 caliber rifles in the M!/M1A forum.  As said before, if I was intent on trolling, I would have posted the remarks in some AR-caliber forum.  Others have noticed this, and have rejected your allegation of trolling.

Cooper’s selection of appropriate ammo for his vision of a generalized platform was pretty much based on global availability of ammunition during much of his life. 7.62x51 happened to be both adequate in ballistics and widely available during his concept period. He did state that regional availability of surplus or issue ammunition made most military based cartridges acceptable,

Regarding books, I think it was John Feamster's book, "Black Magic" that spelled the end of the .30 caliber era.  By then, AR-15 rifles were reliable, barrel twists had tightened and the good bullets were available.

IMO, there is absolutely nothing wrong with 30-06 or 308.  Heck, I'd take an M1 over most other rifles in the world but the design is about 100 year old.  It's just that there are options now that did not exist back in Cooper's day.

In keeping with ARFCOM rules and regulations - get both!


P.S. - This post is not intended to add to the pissing contest which this thread has become.

I recall reading that book at that time.  Not sure if the book actually changed things, or was a reflection of things already changing.  There's a LOT of lead time between writing a book and its' being published.  No disrespect, but I reckon Feamster did not kill off the Match M1A; In practice, the M1A was probably already "dead" by the time the book was written, and long dead by the time the book was published.  Astute Match-type people were probably far along the curve from the M1A to the AR, at that point, I reckon.  YMMV

Nice mention, and kudos!

I mentioned it in the context of printed books, with their inherent lead time.  All it did was capture in print the "tenor of the times".  It did not make the changes, it just documented and popularized them.

Tl;dr Jeff Cooper was legit.

As noted by others, Cooper himself discussed two incidents where he shot another man with a handgun, once during WW2.

His active duty service during the Korean War, given some broad hints he dropped, was likely involved with training and running the behind-the-lines partisan units like the White Tigers. This is a reasonable guess since he did not discuss or write about this period and he alluded to being unable to do so. Some information seems to have been declassified more recently and is an interesting read.

His daughter’s biography of Cooper, The Soul and the Spirit, states that before and during his period as an advisor in Thailand, he was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency. There are several photos on the Cooper Foundation website showing a family home in Arlington, VA, and the Coopers tooling around the DC area in an MG convertible and a Porsche 356. I’m inclined to believe her assertion; why would he live in the area otherwise at that time?

That bio paints a picture of a man of means who was always at odds with bureaucracy.

Cooper was a lifelong student of arms and the fighting pistol when most police and military training was derived from match shooting (dueling stance) or point shooting. He certainly didn’t originate but he was the first to put it all together and the first to open a commercial shooting school teaching defensive use of the pistol. Has to be put in context. Nobody questioned his creds.

While many techniques were superseded, many remain valid - and it’s worthwhile to note the influence of instructors who taught at Orange Gunsite and those who followed, down a couple generations to today.

He was a product of his times. The Glock really hadn’t come into it’s own, and the SIG 22* pistols and Berettas were in vogue. The M16 hadn’t recovered from the stigma of McNamara saving $ and rifles going to Vietnam with un chromed bores and no cleaning kits. As a ROTC student, it was the Springfield 03 and Elmer Keith revolver era. He had his prejudices but was pretty open minded about non-wooden stocks, better reticles and prismatic optics, and so on - seemed to like the Blasers quite a bit.

Think what some people don’t like is his writing style, where he opines using the royal we. He was also a well-read and well-educated man, when that meant something. His essays (recommend starting with the book  To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth) are a treat, whether a harrowing story about escape from a Soviet prison camp, hunting lions in Africa (“only the lion calls for champagne”) or crossing the Atlantic in style on an ocean liner before WW2.

The Personal Survival Newsletter pieces were also interesting reads.

Don’t get turned off by a cantankerous old guy who liked 1911s, taught the Weaver stance, and derided your favorite cartridge as a “poodle shooter.” This is a guy who loved to hunt and eat what he shot, loved to travel, liked fast cars and pretty women (he seemed devoted to his wife), enjoyed a good drink and was a seriously consistent advocate for the RKBA. Dig into his writing, and you’ll find a bridge to a richer world.

Thanks for posting that.

Cooper was the real deal.

This. @bigern314 needs to get some learnin

While the Col maybe wasn’t perfect
I don’t see any of the detractors here doing anything close to what he accomplished
Truth hurts, doesn’t it children

I never said I discounted his opinions, but they are that opinions.  Many of them informed by experience and well worth heeding.  But I'd say I'd take his opinion on some cartridge calibers with a grain of salt as things change.

While allowing for the passage of time and progress, Cooper's opinions on Ctgs and calibers are probably the most quantifiable of his opinions.

Sorry, but no.

I also find it humorous those touting "combat experience" as though that somehow completely overshadowing anything Cooper had to say. Cooper was a man of his time. I highly respect his various opinions along with Massad Ayoob and Elmer Keith to name a few. I would go as far as to state it had significant impact on my desire to train and learn beyond what training was available when I first entered the Marine Corps. MUCH has changed even from my days in. Especially when the GWOT began. I know many who have "seen combat" and their opinion is about south of zero for me.

The ability to learn the art of the gun means taking what works from various approaches and opinions and crafting those to your needs and preferences.  

+1

Combat knowledge is like the stock market. As soon as the majority of participants figure they have the majority of it figured out, the whole thing upends with a new paradigm and renders prior tools less than useless. If you can't stay objective and open to new ideas and keep constantly shifting to meet the times, you get run over. Been that way since classical times, and always will be.

Very true. Well said.

There is a decent mini-biography of Cooper in the book "More Of The Deadliest Men Who Ever Lived", by Paul Kirchner, Pg. 75-92.  The information provided there will serve to answer most of the questions about Cooper's past which often come up.

Yes, except there's one problem:



as the old commercial said, You never get a second chance to make a first impression.  The M16 and 5.56's first impression on the military was very bad.  It takes a lot to get over that.

If Cooper's first introduction to the AR and 5.56mm had been the equivalent of a modern SPR with an 18" ff barrel and 1-8x illuminated LPVO using Mk262 ammo, I imagine he'd have a much different impression of it.

The AR15 he found lacking in the 1970s and later is not the same AR15 we have today. Cooper did not like the M16 rifle because it had a terrible reliability reputation in the Vietnam War. The Colt AR15's of the time had extra reliability issues of their own due to the modified cut bolt carriers and modified hammers. The horrible internal modifications did turn them into unreliable rifles. Reliable magazines were hard to find and not understood like they are today. The triggers were also rough and not easy to change out like today. When you built a retro rifle today it is vastly superior in design to the civilian AR15 of the 1970s.

Cooper armed his wife with an early Ruger Mini-14 partly because he considered the .223 cartridge far superior to the .30 Carbine and easy for his wife to shoot. It was also more reliable and had a better trigger than the AR15.

All this was before the AR15 was transformed into a more reliable design in the 1990s when the better designed bolt carriers, hammers, triggers, and other parts became available to civilians. Magazines were still an issue for a few more years.

In the 1960s there were horror stories of failure of the 5.56mm round in Vietnam, just like stories of the .30 Carbine failing in Korea. In the late 1980s Martin Fackler conducted ballistic tests that finally proved the 5.56mm was a decent close quarter combat round due to fragmentation. It was still not a hunting round and not a reliable stopper (lack of fragmentation) at even moderate distances like 200-300 yards.

Cooper personally told me in 1982 that if he were going to war his preferred rifle would be a BM59/62. He did not mention optics. This was the age before scopes were really battle rugged.

He liked his bolt action Scout Rifle with a slightly more reliable small fixed low power scope as his ranch rifle and said if there was ever any trouble at the ranch, that was what he would grab first. It also had back-up iron sights for when, not if, the scope failed. It was not his go to war rifle. It was his quick for the first shot rifle. It was built for speed. He was a quick shooter and shot flying clays with it.

In my opinion I don't think he liked the AR10s he saw around the year 2000. This was when they were still plagued with reliability problems and were heavy and awkward, kind of like an HK91. The BM59 was still superior. Now things have changed and I think an AR10 can be as light and fast on target and there are many choices for reliable optics. Today I'm sure he would switch to an AR10 pattern or SCAR 17 as his go to war rifle. He would pick the one with the best trigger and would probably try skeet shooting to see which was closest to Scout Rifle speed and handiness. I think a SCAR 17 with a trigger upgrade would be his first choice.

The above remarks comport very well with I have come to know about Cooper.

I might add that one of the existing issues with the AR platform is the relative hassle involved with single-loading the rifle, absent any magazine.  This is not a likely scenario, but neither is it impossible.  Some will no doubt fare better at this task than others.

Raf, this is an honest question and I am not picking at you: under what circumstances would one want to single-load an AR15?

I would not choose to do so.   The point remains that single-loading most AR platforms is problematic. Doing so is an uncommon thing, but one of those things that might happen.

I'm sure to be roasted by my comments, but before roasting me, try to insert a ctg into your AR platform, without a magazine in place.  Do so quickly, as if your life depended on it.  

Do so with gloves/mittens, if you please.

Get back, when you have done so.  I understand I speak heresy here.  

I understand, I figured maybe it was for loading 80gr or larger cartridges whose COAL wouldn't fit into a magazine.

No, simple loading of the usual ctgs can be problematic for most users.  

You are running close to my opinions, Spartacus, and that being so, you might stay shy of me, for your own good.

I'm a well-known jackass hereabouts, so beware of me.

you're OK in my book

Well, I appreciate your kind sentiments.  just saying.

I'm sure that I am fallible.  I admit that.

Much obliged.

Based on the picture I posted earlier, looks like at some point he had an optic on his BM-59 (not sure if that was his only one or if he had more).  Seems like he chose not to retain it, though.  Combat optics then were not, of course, what they are now.

Aside from maybe competitions that only allow one round loaded at a time for slow fire, all I can think of is a situation where you have the one magazine or no magazine, and some loose cartridges, and need to make that work in an emergency.  Rifles designed for charger-loading are also good for single loading, so they'll obviously be superior for that compared to rifles that are not.  It's such a small niche, though.

Now, some militaries that had FALs or BM-59s with charger guides did run into situations where they had to load a single magazine from the top, such as running out of loaded magazines but having bandoliers of ammo on chargers, but not enough time to load mags, or where only one or two magazines were issued per man, creating obvious issues.  But again, an unusual situation not likely to be an issue for the typical civilian user, whether private or LE, with the one exception being in AWB States where fixed-magazine is the only way to make a gun viable, or where magazines of legal capacity are uncommon (true of the BM-59 for a very long time; factory 10-rounders are still quite rare and I haven't seen one for sale since I started looking, and only the glut of 20-rounders from recent imports to permit modifying some to 10-round capacity has made this capacity more available).  In that case, you might just have the one magazine, and need to reload it constantly if you had to use the rifle defensively.  Fortunately, neither of those things applies to the AR-15, albeit by coincidence.

You have explained this very uncommon situation well.  As said, it is certainly a small niche.  However, one (ideally) practices and trains for unusual situations as well as the common ones.