John Markwell | Contributing Editor
June, 2007. It had been a wet Spring on the high plains and we had travelled to Montana towing our Kawasaki Mule behind our pickup/camper rig on the suggestion of a friend in Malta, a community in northeast Montana, north of Fort Peck Lake on the Missouri River.
The Mule would allow us to get around on the prairie without cutting up the sod, thus keeping the ranchers happy. Cruising the prairie shooting gophers (Richardson’s Ground Squirrels) one afternoon, we ran into a couple of other shooters. After introductions and some chatting, one of the gents remarked on the Cooper rimfire rifle in the mule’s gun rack; “that’s a mighty nice rifle to be banging around out here on the prairie with. Aren’t you worried about the resale value?”
“That” we replied, “is our children’s problem”. We had worked hard for that rifle and intended to use it!
The rifle was our relatively new Cooper Model 57-M rimfire; a Custom Classic to be exact. At the time it was chambered for .17 Mach 2 and the rifle killed a bunch of gophers over the next several years. We had the rifle re-barreled to .22LR during the Obama ammo shortage and have since enjoyed the cheaper and more available ammunition. Plus, we still have a couple of .17M2 rifles for gophers.
We don’t know where we first heard or read the phrase, or to whom it should be credited, but after many years of shooting rimfire rifles we feel it is absolutely true that “every serious rifleman (person) should own one high quality and exceptionally accurate .22 rimfire rifle”. If that rifle is also a beautiful example of the gun maker’s art, so much the better. This is the story of ours.
Our Model 57-M was ordered directly from Cooper Firearms in 2006. We paid for the rifle with a major chunk of the money we made working in a hunting camp in the Wyoming Range west of Bonburant during the 2005 Fall big game season. We had always wanted a classy .22 rimfire rifle and the Custom Classic, although originally ordered as .17M2, was about as good as it gets. It was a gentleman’s rifle for sure; extremely accurate and a joy to use.
Like many folks, we have more than one rifle chambered for the .22LR round; a few Marlin 39s, an Anschutz 164, a couple of Kimbers and of course a couple of the ubiquitous Ruger 10-22s. These are all great rifles but they are not as special or as beautiful as the Cooper Custom Classic 57-M.
The Cooper Firearms folks re-barreled the rifle to .22LR using a 24-inch Wilson Arms barrel; unless specified, they use Wilson barrels on all their rifles. Considering Cooper’s ¼ inch accuracy guarantee it’s obvious these are quality barrels. The 57-M is a box magazine fed bolt action repeater that closely resembles the Oregon Model 82 Kimber rifles for an obvious reason. The Cooper Firearms Company was started by a handful of former Kimber employees in 1990. The Cooper’s action is round and, like the older Kimber rimfires, has a bolt release on the left side and the two-position toggle safety at the right rear next to the tang which does not lock the bolt when in the on position. The bolt handle is smooth and the twin extractors allow for controlled round feeding from the five round detachable magazine and positive extraction. The bottom metal and trigger guard are steel and proprietary. However, the magazine and its’ containment system are from Anschutz; the only non-American parts in the rifle. Cooper puts a nice smooth steel floor plate on the magazine to replace the plastic used by Anschutz. And then there is the trigger. Breaking at a consistent 2 pounds, 3 ounces, the Cooper’s trigger pull is divinely crisp and clean with no over travel and has remained so for over 14 years.
Our 57-M is stocked in AAA Claro Walnut with an African Ebony tip and is hand checked in a Western-Fleur wrap around pattern. The beautifully grained wood has a hand rubbed oil finish which we maintain with Tung oil. We opted out of the shadow line cheek piece and instead got a straight classic comb on the stock with the length of pull at 13½ inches. Steel grip caps are standard on wood-stocked Coopers and we opted for a checkered steel Neidner style butt plate to compliment the grip cap. As a final touch we had inlayed Model 70 Super Grade style sling studs installed. To say the stock is stunning is an understatement. It is reminiscent of the many Al Biesen stocks that we drooled over as a kid in O’Conner’s articles and books.
The 57-M is a full-sized rifle weighing in between 6 and 8 pounds, depending on configuration and features. Our .22LR 57-M weighs just 7 pounds, 6 ounces fully equipped and field ready. For sighting we mounted a Leupold VX II 3-9x33mm EFR rimfire telescope with adjustable objective in Talley steel rings. This scope has a simple Duplex reticle, spends most of the time on 8X and the objective stays set to 50 yards most of the time. Since being re-barreled to .22LR and re-zeroed for our go to load, the scope has never needed any attention; not even a minor tweek. What’s the go to load? Winchester’s High Velocity 37-grain Hollow Point has been a proven performer for us in lots of different rifles and handguns since we were a kid and we keep a goodly bunch of it around at all times.
The Cooper 57M loves this old proven round. The 36-grain bulk Winchester HP runs a close second in performance. Lastly, we topped off the 57M with a nice old Brownell’s Latigo sling from a gun show bargain box. The sling came complete with Winchester Model 70 swivels. We are always on the lookout for these slings at gun shows as they are way cheaper used and broken in to boot.
When the Cooper folks screwed on the .22LR barrel we did a bit of accuracy testing but not a lot. As mentioned above, Winchester’s iconic 37-grain copper-plated HP round has served us well for many decades and it didn’t take many shots to realize that this round, when fired from the Cooper’s new barrel, was still accurate enough for any task we would put it to. Sighted .75-inch high at 50 yards the rifle was good for head shots on squirrels out to about 70 yards. Good enough for our needs, we looked no further for ammo for the 57M.
We have now had this rifle for 16 years. It has digested a goodly number of rounds, taken more than its’ share of gophers and squirrels and has been totally trouble free. We’ve even managed to not beat it up too badly. To protect the rifle when in the field we use a Mini Me pack from Eberlestock. This small day pack with its’ scabbard for the rifle allows hands free carry and has just enough room for a days-worth of essentials. Carrying the rifle in the scabbard keeps the wood stock from getting nicked up should we be carrying a handgun in a belt holster, as we often do.
So, after all that time and with a huge number of rounds down the barrel how does the 57M perform today? To explore this, we gathered up some ammunition left over from another .22LR project and headed up to our bench for some accuracy testing and chronographing. The following ammunition was chronographed at 10 feet from the muzzle and 10 shot groups were fired at 50 yards; Winchester Super X 37gr HP, SK Std Plus, Eley Match, Lapua Master-L, Remington/Eley EPS and CCI’s 40gr. Flat nose lead.
The chart below summarizes our results.
Ammunition Velocity FPS Extreme spread Average group size
(10 shots)
Win. Super X 37gr. HP 1241 34 .81
SK Std Plus 1026 34 1.01
Eley Match 1071 9 .67
Lapua Master-L 1070 29 .91
Rem./Eley EPS 1075 15 .72
CCI 40gr FNL 1241 55 1.12
Note that there are no .25-inch groups in the chart; that’s the result of shooting 10 round groups. Often the Cooper 57-M will put three to five shots into very tiny bug holes but then the groups expand as we continue shooting. Some of that could be the gun heating up but most likely it’s just a minor problem with this shooter’s concentration or trigger control. Shooting gophers is one of our weaknesses and we feel shooting 10 round groups is a more realistic simulation of shooting in the gopher fields. All of the ammunition tested shot better than “minute of gopher”; and that’s good enough for us.
Unlike some firearms, our Cooper 57-M has not gotten cheaper, nor gone down in value, over the last 16 years. Looking at the invoice from February 2006, we remember the shock at the time of writing a check for $2,545.00, for a .22 rifle! After almost a decade and a half of using this exquisite example of the gun maker’s art the approximately $170 per year the rifle has cost seems trivial when compared to the satisfaction of shooting one really fine and predictably accurate rifle. We’ve certainly spent more money on less satisfying stuff; and that’s for sure.
Nothing in the world of the gun seems to last forever. The ownership of Cooper Firearms of Montana has changed as has the name. Acquired in January 2023 by Nighthawk Custom LLC, the company will now be known as Cooper Rifles of Arkansas LLC and will be moving operations to Berryville, Ark. and should be up and running by the end of 2023. For info on Cooper Firearms or to spec out your dream, go to Cooperfirearms.com.
