Caliber / rifle for kids

sookie_69 said:
My daughter turns 10 in August and wants to get out hunting with me. What caliber or rifle combo would one suggest for a kid. She's a tough kid but i don't have anything smaller than a light 308 that has some snap behind it for her to try (don't want her flinching cause i started her on too big a gun). She's tried the 357 lever and didn't flinch but i have no experience with the smaller rifle calibers. Was considering 243 but thought I'd throw the question out before dropping cash. Thanks
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I just picked up a Savage Lightweight Hunter in 7mm-08 with a muzzle break from the EE.
Good power for medium game, very light, next to no recoil. If I had kids I'd just shorten the stock or buy a youth stock and have at 'er.
I have no idea what it costs to have a muzzle brake installed, though, or what your budget is. But I'm thinking if I don't keep this particular rifle for myself, it's going to my brother's place for his grandsons to use.
 
243 winchester, 80 grain TTSX (or if you prefer, a partition or other quality bullet of your choice), and about 32-35 grains of H4895 makes a nice light load that will easily get'er done within 200 yards. Just had a new hunter I am training take a blacktail spike buck with this combo yesterday. Worked great.
 
I still have the old Winchester model 70 featherweight youth that I had when was a kid in 243. My styer scout in 308 recoils less. I hated the 243 when I was a kid.
 
bcsteve said:
I got my 10 years old daughter started with a .260 Rem in a shortened synthetic stock, a cheek riser and reduced loads. If I didn’t already have an extra .260 Rem, I would have bought her a .243 Win. She’s shooting 100 gr Sierra’s at 2000fps for practice and I loaded her some 100gr Partition at 2600fps for hunting. She has no problem shooting those and she’s a skinny kid.
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Excelent!!
 
keith mokry said:
Could try a 6.5x55. Depending on ammo some are loaded mild( have a privi 140 in 24” at 2450fps). Very mild recoil and depending on rifle make could get a couple stocks and cut to length
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Makes a heck of a groundhog rifle too!! Load for anything from Ground hogs to moose and bear. Might be a bit heavy for a young person, long action required too.
 
My kid went from .22 to .223 to 6.5 Creedmoor
Muzzle brake is a good idea
A dedicated lighter practice load to begin with is great
The rifle should fit them, i.e. have proper LOP and eye relief dialled. Our 6.5 sits in a chassis with a telescopic stock, very easy to fine tune LOP
If .223 works for your purposes, I would consider a Ruger American Ranch with AR mags
 
Lots to think about. I never thought about putting a muzzle brake on something. I don't really have a budget.... not looking to go crazy but i do want it to fit her well. For another kid 3 years behind her so it'll get passed down if she decides she wants to continue and try something else. I guess I'll start scouring the ee for what there is and possibly extra stocks to chop up
 
22LR to start. they can shoot literal buckets for pocket change.
gun is cheap, ammo is cheap, recoil is almost 0, not that loud

then we went to SKS with a muzzle brake
Its semi so low recoil, muzzle brake helps even more

run cheap ammo for target, then run the good stuff for hunting if they want
 
A lot of good suggestions here.

A couple of thoughts. Do you reload or will you be using factory ammo? If you reload, you can always load down to get something they will be comfortable with.
One thing I have heard from a lot of people, as well as experienced myself is that it isn’t as much recoil (which most certainly does come in to play) as it is the noise. I had one person scared from shooting a 17HMR because of the noise. While a muzzle brake will help recoil, it also increases the noise. This person shooting the 17 shot my sons 243 after that. I had some lighter loads at the time. They were more comfortable with it, even with the increase in recoil, strictly because of the noise. They now shoot themselves and the noise isn’t a factor, but something to consider early on in their shooting.
Fit is another very important factor. Many models are available with a youth stock where you add in spacers. I had one of the youth shotguns for my son as well. I think it was 1” of Length Of Pull adjustment on it.
My sone is now 15, almost as big as I am, and has no problems shooting anything that I do. In fact, I’ve lost rights to my lightweight hunting rifle and he shoots it better than I do.
 
todbartell said:
6.5 Grendel in a MDT LSS chassis, LOP can go down to 11", up to 14"

Good for five year old +

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There is a lot here that makes sense for a kids first rifle. I'd add the .223 and 35 legend as possible options as well. While a .30-30 lever action is a great light rifle and has many merits as a hunting rifle I always pause at the suggestion of it for a kids first rifle. I have seen a lot of kids struggle with loading the magazine and more importantly, at least from a safety perspective, small hands can struggle with safely manipulating the hammer. A hammer blocking safety as found on many more recently manufactured lever guns does make this less of a concern.
 
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