The Scout Rifle is a class of general-purpose rifles efined and promoted by Jeff Cooper in the early 1980s. A lifelong student of small arms, and recognized expert in the field, Cooper realized that rifles in the late 20th century differed little from those made one hundred years before, and that advances in metallurgy, optics and plastics could make the rifle a handy, light instrument--"scarcely less handy than a swagger stick." His described purpose was: