Jeff Cooper

Cooper's modern technique defines pragmatic use of the pistol for personal protection. The modern technique emphasizes two-handed shooting using the Weaver stance, competing with and eventually supplanting the once-prevalent one-handed shooting style. The five elements of the modern technique are:

• A large caliber pistol, preferably a semi-automatic
• The Weaver stance
• The draw stroke
• The flash sight picture
• The compressed surprise trigger break[6]

There are several conditions of readiness in which such a weapon can be carried. Cooper promulgated most of the following terms:

• Condition 4: Chamber empty, no magazine in the gun, hammer down, safety on.
• Condition 3: Chamber empty, full magazine in place, hammer down, safety on.
• Condition 2: A round chambered, full magazine in place, hammer down, safety on.
• Condition 1: A round chambered, full magazine in place, hammer cocked, safety on. Also referred to as "cocked and locked."
• Condition 0: A round chambered, full magazine in place, hammer cocked, safety off.

Condition 0 is considered "ready to fire"; as a result, there is a risk of accidental or negligent discharge carrying in Condition 0.

The most important means of surviving a lethal confrontation, according to Cooper, is neither the weapon nor the martial skills. The primary tool is the combat mindset, set forth in his book, Principles of Personal Defense.[7]

Cooper came up with a color code, consisting of four colors including white, yellow, orange, and red:

In White you are unprepared and unready to take lethal action. If you are attacked in White you will probably die unless your adversary is totally inept.

In Yellow you bring yourself to the understanding that your life may be in danger and that you may have to do something about it.

In Orange you have determined upon a specific adversary and are prepared to take action which may result in his death, but you are not in a lethal mode.

In Red you are in a lethal mode and will shoot if circumstances warrant.[8]

The color code, as originally introduced by Cooper, had nothing to do with tactical situations or alertness levels, but rather with one's state of mind. Cooper did not claim to have invented anything in particular with the color code, but he was apparently the first to use it as an indication of mental state.[9]

The USMC uses "Condition Black," although it was not originally part of Cooper's color code.[10] According to Massad Ayoob, "Condition Black," in Cooper's youth, meant "combat in progress."[11] "Condition Black" is also used to mean "immobilized by panic" or "overwhelmed by fear".[12]

Cooper is best known for his work in pistol training,[13] but he favored the rifle for tactical shooting. He often described the handgun as a convenient-to-carry stopgap weapon, allowing someone the opportunity to get to a rifle:

Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons.

The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be tyrannized.

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.

— Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle

Greatly influenced by the life and writings of Frederick Russell Burnham, Cooper published an article in the 1980s describing his ideal of a general-purpose rifle: "a short, light, handy, versatile, utility rifle", which he dubbed a scout rifle.[14] This was a bolt-action carbine chambered in .308 Winchester, less than 1 meter in length, less than 3 kilograms in weight, with iron sights, a forward-mounted optical sight (long eye relief scope), and fitted with a practical sling. Cooper defined his goal: a general-purpose rifle is a conveniently portable, individually operated firearm, capable of striking a single decisive blow on a live target of up to 200 kilos in weight at any distance at which the operator can shoot with the precision necessary to place a shot in a vital area of the target. Cooper felt the scout rifle should be suited to a man operating like the scout Burnham, either alone or in a two- or three-man team.[15]

In late 1997, with Cooper's oversight, Steyr Mannlicher produced a rifle to his "scout" specifications. Cooper considered the Steyr Scout "perfect." Riflemen regard Cooper's development of the scout rifle concept and his subsequent work on the evolution of the Steyr-Mannlicher Scout rifle as his most significant and enduring contributions to riflecraft. Ruger (Gunsite Scout Rifle), Savage Arms, Springfield Armory, and Mossberg have made versions of the scout rifle as well.[16][17][18][19][20]

Cooper was dissatisfied with the small-diameter 5.56×45mm NATO (.223 Remington) of the AR-15 and envisioned a need for a large-bore (.44 caliber or greater) cartridge in a semi-automatic rifle to provide increased stopping power and one-shot kills on big-game animals at 250 yards. The so-called Thumper concept inspired the development of the .450 Bushmaster, .458 SOCOM, .458 HAM'R, .499 LWR, and the .50 Beowulf, among other cartridges, all suitable for integration into the AR-15/M16 rifle/M4 carbine or AR-10/M14 rifle platforms.

Along the lines of the Thumper concept, Tim LeGendre of LeMag Firearms developed .45 Professional, the predecessor of the .450 Bushmaster cartridge, and later built and delivered an AR-15 in .45 Professional to Cooper,[21] while Bill Alexander of Alexander Arms developed the .50 Beowulf.[22]

Encountering similar lack of stopping power issues as Cooper, the need for a large bore round for the AR-15 platform came about from informal discussion of members of the special operations command, specifically Task Force Ranger's experience in the Battle of Mogadishu (1993) that multiple shots were required to incapacitate members of the opposing force. Many Somalis would chew the drug Khat all day and the effects of the drug would both curb their appetite and increase their pain tolerance. Consequently, Marty ter Weeme of Teppo Jutsu designed the .458 SOCOM cartridge in 2000 and Tony Rumore of Tromix was contracted to build the first .458 SOCOM rifle in February 2001. Later even more Thumper rounds have been developed for the AR-15 platform in the US and in other countries such as the .458 Alpine, .458 Silent death and .460 Alliance.

Among the Thumper rounds requiring the use of the AR-10 platform due to their larger cartridge dimensions are the .45 Raptor, .50 Thumper, .50 Razorback, .50 Krater, .500 Kratos/Enforcer, .500 Auto Max, .500 Phantom, .500 Whisper, .510 Whisper, .510 Snipe-Tac and the .510 Winchester Short Magnum cartridges. This wide spectrum of calibers developed until today along the line of the Thumper concept ranging from Wildcat cartridges to commercially available rifle/cartridge combinations and to calibers with approval through SAAMI or C.I.P. suggests that this field has not yet produced optimized solutions and is still subject to engineering optimization.

A modern Thumper round specifically developed for hunting large Scandinavian game is the .510 Førland which is mostly used in converted Sako TRG rifles, while Blaser in Germany developed the .45 Blaser for their R93 straight-pull action rifle. The .50 Alaskan developed by Harold Johnson and Harold Fuller of the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska in the 1950s based on the .348 Winchester as well as the .45 Alaskan, .457 Wild West Magnum, and the .510 Kodiak Express are in some sense predecessors of Jeff Cooper's Thumper concept originating from the time of hunting large bears in Alaska using lever action rifles.

The Russian 12.7×55mm STs-130 cartridge is a military Thumper round designed in 2002. It is used in the VKS bullpup sniper rifle, the ShAK-12 bullpup battle rifle and in the RSh-12 revolver. Like the .510 Whisper round it was developed from the case of the .416 Rigby/.338 Lapua Magnum cartridge.

In 1997, Cooper wrote that he coined the term hoplophobia in 1962 "in response to a perceived need for a word to describe a mental aberration consisting of an unreasoning terror of gadgetry, specifically, weapons."[23]

In addition to his books on firearms and self-defense, Cooper wrote several books recounting his life adventures plus essays and short stories, including Fire Works (1980); Another Country: Personal Adventures of the Twentieth Century (1992); To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth (1988); and C Stories (2004). His daughter Lindy Wisdom published a biography, Jeff Cooper: the Soul and the Spirit (1996).

Some of the comments from his "Gunsite Gossip" newsletter were printed in Guns & Ammo magazine as "Cooper's Corner" and later were compiled into The Gargantuan Gunsite Gossip. These were his thoughts on firearms interleaved with his wide-ranging musings on many other subjects and acquired a large U.S. and international following from the 1980s up to his death. Cooper wrote extensively in defense of firearms rights.[24]

A complete bibliography of Jeff Cooper's writings from 1947 onwards is available at the Jeff Cooper Bibliography Project.[25]