Handguns Afield

By Jeff Cooper

When Handguns Afield was first published in 1961, hunting with a handgun was in its infancy. Surely settlers and cowboys of the 19th century would have used a handgun on wild game from time to time to fill the campfire stewpot, but as far as using a handgun for hunting as a pastime, this sport was not yet widely recognized.

Author Jeff Cooper expertly summarizes the various aspects of hunting with handguns in the few dozen pages of this volume. Handguns, cartridges, holsters, and shooting small and large game are all thoroughly described and explained here. If the average handgun shooter follows the advice of this book—most of which is still relevant today—he will be prepared to hunt game with a pistol.

“THE MAN who wants to take game with a pistol must realize that if he is to be successful he must be good. He must be a good woodsman, a good hunter, a good sportsman, and an extremely good shot. Because he cannot reach out as with a rifle, he must be able to get right up on his target, and this takes both knowledge of game and much stalking skill. The more open the country, the more skill is required. In thick brush the pistol is handier than the rifle, and the problem becomes one of moving-target marksmanship.

“The pistol hunter is more agile than the rifleman, since he has both hands free to use in climbing or parting brush. For the same reason he may be quieter. These things help him in very rough, heavily wooded terrain. In fact, every aspect of hunting is easier for the handgunner than for the rifleman—except hitting. Therefore marksmanship is the big problem.”—Jeff Cooper

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valmy Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789124903

Jeff Cooper

Jeff Cooper is a law professor, lawyer, former Presidential candidate, and published author of both fiction and nonfiction.  A graduate of Harvard College, Yale Law School and New York University School of Law, he spent much of his career working in the law firms and trust banks fictionalized in his novels.  His nonfiction writing has been published in Law Journals across the country, excerpted in prominent legal casebooks and treatises, and reprinted both in the U.S. and abroad.  His debut novel was a finalist for The Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. Jeff was born and raised in New York and now lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he has served as an elected member of the Representative Town Meeting, a Justice of the Peace and a Director of several non-profit organizations.  He is married with three children.  When he’s not teaching or writing, he can be found on the golf course.

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Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.

© Valmy Publishing 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

HANDGUNS AFIELD

BY

JEFF COOPER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Sidearm as a Sporting Weapon

AMERICANS have always loved the pistol. More than any other nation—possibly excepting Mexico—we like to own, wear, and shoot the short gun. This applies, of course, only to our vigorous types. We have great numbers of indoor citizens who are terrified of weapons, but historically they seem just to have come along with the baggage train. The pistol, more than the rifle or shotgun, is the badge of the free, self-reliant, undaunted individualist who epitomizes the spirit of the United States of America.

With the establishment of a degree of law and order throughout the land some two generations ago—together with waves of immigrants of races more servile than the Saxon or the Celt—the notion has arisen that the armed citizen is an anachronism left over from another day. Whether this is valid or not is debatable, but the fact remains that it is held by a majority. Consequently, the primary purpose of the handgun, which is self-defense against human antagonists, has made its ownership widely suspect by the timid, the statists, and the police. One answer to this situation has been the rise of formal target shooting, which has given an air of innocuous respectability to firearms by specializing them almost beyond recognition as weapons. This very process, however, has largely quenched their appeal for those who regard arms as the mark of the free—a venerable and firmly rooted political maxim. This is not to decry the target shooting game, which is a great sport worthy of every encouragement, but simply to point out that it is less than satisfying to a great many sportsmen. The purist will counter this with some smugness by saying that those who don’t like target shooting are simply those who can’t shoot. There is enough truth in this to make it a troublesome argument, but not quite enough to make it a fact. It just happens that there are plenty of marksmen, whose trophy racks positively establish their ability in formal competition, who still want more from their guns than they can get on a measured range. Mastery of a chemically-operated paper punch is somehow not exactly the same as mastery of a real weapon.

It is thus that our basic love of handguns, combined with the emotional vacuum of the target range, has produced a fairly new sport—that of hunting with a pistol. If, as many claim, we no longer need sidearms to defend ourselves, our families, and our property, perhaps we can use them to put meat on the table.

Naturally, a rifle or shotgun is more efficient, but there is a special thrill about doing the job with a belt gun. It’s not easy, but modern armorers have made available some wonderful instruments to those who will work hard enough to take advantage of them. Until recently only small game could be taken humanely by the pistolero. Today anything up to 400 pounds or thereabouts is fair game, and in particular cases this figure may be greatly exceeded.

Thus it is that there now exists the sporting pistol—as distinct from the target or the combat pistol. It is a weapon as well conceived and handsomely executed as the traditional queen of weapons—the sporting rifle. In the hands of a competent marksman it is very, very deadly—accurate, powerful, and quick. For a poor shot it is a joke, and a bad joke at that. This is what makes it so attractive to a certain kind of person. The good rifle shot and the average rifle shot are fairly close in game-getting ability. By buying better equipment the poor rifle shot can bring his performance quite near to respectability. But the mediocre pistol shot definitely cannot buy his way to success. He must really learn how to shoot or he will be simply ridiculous.

While I am perhaps optimistic when I say that only one experienced pistol shot in ten is good enough to hunt with a handgun, I feel quite sure of my ground in claiming that one in two could become so, if he worked at it hard enough. To the question Why should anyone work that hard? the only answer is Because he wishes to. Certainly no one has to master the hunting pistol, but there are many who find it a particularly stimulating challenge. When the day comes that you can sit down to a rich feast for the whole family, that you placed on the table with one shot from a gun you can pack on your belt, you will know a satisfaction that is hard to match.

The sporting pistol comes in many types and sizes, depending upon the target it is intended to take. Power ranges from the .22 long-rifle rim-fire, suitable for squirrels and grouse, to the .44 Magnum, which can kill a medium-sized bear reliably with one round. Weight runs from around a pound, for the backpacker’s .22, to well over three pounds for a heavy-caliber, long barrelled belt rifle. Nearly always the sporting pistol is a revolver, though some excellent semi-automatic .22’s are available. In every case it fires a high-velocity cartridge (1200 f/s or more) and is fitted with precisely adjustable sights. High velocity produces a trajectory flat enough for uncorrected aiming out to the limit of the marksman’s holding ability, and adjustable sights are necessary to permit accurate zeroing of the weapon for each shooter and load. The sporting pistol must have the finest possible trigger action (a consideration which favors the revolver over the heavy-caliber automatic), for field marksmanship must be every bit as sophisticated as that of the target range. Game is harder, not easier, to hit than a bullseye—the range is often greater and always estimated—and you are given only one shot for record. For this reason I am puzzled when I hear, Oh well, it’s not a target pistol, just a field gun. Just a field gun? A field gun is exactly the sort of weapon that needs maximum refinement, but this point is not widely understood.