Cooper Rifle Owners.....Interested In Your Reviews

the spank

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 99.3%
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I am seriously considering purchasing a Cooper Model 22 Custom Classic rifle in 270 Win. I am interested in hearing from Cooper owners about their rifles. Model and calibre does not matter. I am interested in your findings with your rifles. Are they what you had hoped for in a rifle etc? What features or options make them stand out or take away from the overall? Are they as accurate as advertised? How is their durability? Handling characteristics? Value for your dollar? Would you or have you bought more than one?
 
I bought one in 25-06 in the classic model, First the pros, fit and finish is the best Ive had out of any american made rifle I have owned, I would compare it to my sauer 90, The action is smooth and feeds flawlessly, the trigger was set at 2lbs out of the box and has zero creep and no detectable overtravel. The detachable mag is stainless and has a stainless follower and dosent rattle at all once in the rifle. The checkering and wood finish is perfect. Accuracy is top notch, I have been able to work up loads for mine which grouped under 1/2 moa at 100 yards, and some days if I do my part The rifle will put bullets in the same hole at 100 yards. Now for the bad, oh ya there arent any. I will be buying another one in the future. Would definately recomend one
 
I have owned over a dozen Cooper rifles, and I still own seven with one more on order. My very first Cooper rifle shot sub moa, but it just would not reliably meet the 1/2moa accuracy guarantee on a regular basis. The rifle was replaced, and every Cooper that I have owned since meets the accuracy guarantee, and I have matched the 50 yard targets at 100 yards with several of my rifles. The triggers are good, and the fit and finish is excellent, and I have had no reliability issues with any of them.
 
Heavy. I believe most of the wood stocked models fall in the 7.5-8 lbs bare range. Stubblejumper could probably give you exact weights.

Almost all of my Coopers varmint models, so they are on the heavy side. I am not a fan of lightweight rifles myself. so the Cooper rifles suit me fine.
 
Just sprinkle sum Gold Bawn awn it and it will smell pretty if awll else fails.
Think the memories that will spark up.

Let us know how she shoots when you git yer arse around to it......... :wave:
 
I have owned three. All shot their 1/2" guarantee with minimal load development. Fit and finish was very, very good. Triggers were very good. They all fit me well and just felt right, though that's an individual thing. One was composite stock, one had outstanding wood, one was very pedestrian. I found them to be heavy, but at that time, I was flipping between Coopers and Kimbers as hunting rifles, so that obviously affected my impressions. In my experience, I honestly can't tell you that the Coopers were better than the Kimbers in any real way, including accuracy. For the money, I do not think Kimbers can be beat. If you like wood stocked hunting rifles, I feel a Kimber Classic Select offers much better value. If you like composite, I suggest a Montana or a Mountain Ascent.
 
I typed this out with my thumbs once, then lost it somehow. OK, round two.

I've got a couple, a 30-06 in a Classic and a Western Classic in 7mm STW. The 30-06 has a bit better wood than would be expected on the plainest grade. There were a couple or three 30-06s there and I picked it by the wood. Trigger is great, fitting better than decent and they come bedded or at least half bedded. It will produce the odd 1/2" group, but to say its a 1/2" rifle with anything would require a special tint of rose coloured glasses. It does shoot well enough for anything I'll use a 30-06 for though, and being burn yourself hot doesn't seem to bother it much. The three shot mag is a bit of a pig. Cartridges have to practically bend their way out of the feed lips. If I load the clip (I said clip sue me:p) to capacity and also load the chamber it practically takes a come along to pull the bolt back and I can count on the ejected case falling out of the extractor and jamming up the works. I actually got quite adept at plucking out the empty with my little finger and keeping on shooting before deciding it wasn't worth it. Just dragging it open from a empty chamber with a full mag will make you wonder. There was a weird glitch in extraction right between lifting the bolt and pulling it back, but more on that later. Rifle weighs something over 9 pounds with a Leupold 3.5-10 on it. Safety is a miniscule little thing. At the time it cost a couple or 300 bucks more than a Sako which was probably worth it for a 30-06 sized cartridge. The 56 wasn't out yet so the cartridges I really like weren't in the cards. Still bugs me that nobody makes an extended mag for it.

Next up was the Western Classic STW. It has plainer wood than you would expect for expect for 4400, and after waiting 18 months they built it with the wrong barrel length. Looks pretty cool with Turnbull colour case hardening and octagonal barrel. I don't know how many lines per inch the checkering is but it is flawless and the wood is dense enough to support it.That it is inletted round for a 8 sided barrel seems sort of hokey at that price. Trigger is great , magazine is the same as the 30-06. Same glitches and binding if I try to make it more than a three shooter. Those are the good parts, and are sort of what you see is what you get. Gets worse from there. Extraction was very difficult with anything other than powder-puff loads. Bolt lifted normally, then it was a tugawar to get the bolt to move rearward. Extracted casings looked like the chamber was threaded, never mind polished. Talked back and forth with Cooper about that and the wrong barrel length. They weren't much help with the extraction, although of course sending it back to the states was an option.I might even get to see it again in a year What I got regarding the barrel length was it was only the first barrel and it could be rectified on the second barrel. You know those rumours about Cooper rebarrelling shot out barrels for nothing? Apparently they're true. Good to know, but not much help getting the bolt open. They did give me the go ahead to work on it locally without washing their hands of the matter. Since sending it back is a drawn out affair I first got my gunsmith to polish the chamber but that didn't do anything. After a lot of solitary brooding and muttering I eventually figured out that the binding was noticeable even with an unfired case. After that it was easy enough to figure out that when a cartridge was fired it expanded enough to force the extractor against the inside of the receiver ring and what seemed like sticky extraction was in fact steel on steel interference. Back to the gunsmith to a second opinion and to avoid any redneck with a grinder imagery. A few minutes later and a couple grind and check tries later and we had it running smooth. After checking it out thoroughly and eventually getting the loads up where they belonged things were looking better. Enough improvement that I decided that I am in fact a redneck with several grinders and fixed the other one too. It shoots well enough now and I'll eventually warm up to it again. Fun for ringing steel at 650 yards. I've got a commercial loader's box of SMKs to make sure that second barrel gets put on sooner rather than later. That'll give me a mission for this spring and summer.

One other thing that bugs me is there is no way on God's green earth that any test target ever got shot with that rifle. I don't care if they put 10 test targets in the box, nobody shot that thing with the loads they claim unless they think that doing chin-ups on the bolt handle was normal. Never happened.

That rifle weighs 10 pounds with a 4.5-14 Leupold CDS and Talley rings. Was it worth the price if there was nothing wrong with it? Probably not. At that time there was 1000 bucks tariff just for the magnum action so probably not on that alone. Colour case hardening, XX Claro, mirror blueing and fine checkering are worth whatever value you put on them. With the benefit of hindsight its not enough for me, but I've got it now.
 
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One other thing that bugs me is there is no way on God's green earth that any test target ever got shot with that rifle. I don't care if they put 10 test targets in the box, nobody shot that thing with the loads they claim unless they think that doing chin-ups on the bolt handle was normal. Never happened.

Good thing I swallowed my water before reading this. Would have spit it all over the computer. Thanks for the laugh.
 
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