Cooper, Hornady, And Swarovski


Not A Law Firm, A Hunting Combine Mike Innis


are truly lucky to have available to us the best hardware in the world. The fi rearms are of consistent high quality right out of the box, the rifl e scopes we can select from are marvels of modern


T


hose of us who are active in the shooting and hunting sports


engineering, and the bullets we push downrange represent the leading edge of a rapidly advancing technology. For my annual trek to southeastern


Colorado this year, I wanted to take advantage of this marvelous opportu- nity and put together an “A” team of


equipment to hunt the prairie dogs. I hunt the dogs frequently in my home state of Texas, and we have some fairly good concentrations of the little animals in certain areas of the state. They’re hunted hard, and they become quite gun wise very early in the season. In Colorado, the prairie dog is a protected species, so the only way you can hunt them is by gaining permission from the local ranchers and farmers who have de- clared the prairie dog a nuisance animal on their property. Hunting pressure is comparatively light, and the dogs don’t run to their burrows at the sound of a pickup truck’s door slamming! I began gathering the elements of


The Cooper Model 21, with Swarovski mounted, received some fi ne tuning at the shooting bench.


my “A” team by deciding upon the rifl e and the cartridge I thought was most appropriate for my intended prey. The Cooper Model 21 Varmint Extreme was the one that fi nally made it to my short list. Cooper has a well-earned reputa- tion as a quality gun maker, and they are more than willing to build a rifl e in almost any cartridge for which you can buy a reamer. The company was founded in 1990 by Dan Cooper and a couple of other former employees of Kimber of Oregon. By 1998, Cooper and his associates began producing top quality rifl es under the name of “Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc.” All Cooper centerfi re actions have a bolt with three front locking lugs and an extractor that closely resembles the one used by Sako. The actions are glass bedded from just in front of the trigger forward into the bar- rel channel about one inch. The Coopers I have had a chance to closely scrutinize always display beautiful workmanship, fi rst rate wood, and with the fi t and fi n- ish about as perfect as you can expect. The barrels are free fl oating, and the company guarantees that their rifl es will shoot half-inch, three-shot groups with handloaded ammunition. Selecting a cartridge was a bit


The author considered several different rifl es before settling on the Cooper. Page 60 October — December 2011


more diffi cult challenge. I considered the .223, the .204 Ruger, the Tactical .20, and a couple of the .17s. I currently


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