When I was working at the gun stores, whenever I could, I would put youth and women into the 6.5x55 rifles from Tikka, CZ and Howa for their first hunting rifles.
Quite often the husbands or fathers would question the choice vs a 270 or a 30-06 for their kids or wife's first hunting rifle, but after a little discussion about the intended big game (usually deer and perhaps moose), terrain to be hunted and expected distances, a comparison of some ballistics and recoil, and the fact that 100,000 moose a year are harvested in Sweden/Norway every year with the 6.5 Swede usually won the day. Almost every single one of those husbands and fathers came back with their wives and kids to buy more ammo and to show pictures of groups shot and game harvested by those women and children. They were all excited about how well those rifles shot, the comfortable level of recoil, the game harvested and wanting to get back out and shoot those rifles some more!
One young lady of 16 used her factory Tikka T3 in 6.5x55 to take 2nd place at the Burns Lake 1000 yard shoot with less than a year of shooting experience and coaching from a friend of the family.
I sold quite a number of rifles in 7mm-08 too, but got way more enthusiastic feedback from the ones shooting the Swedes!
Quite often the husbands or fathers would question the choice vs a 270 or a 30-06 for their kids or wife's first hunting rifle, but after a little discussion about the intended big game (usually deer and perhaps moose), terrain to be hunted and expected distances, a comparison of some ballistics and recoil, and the fact that 100,000 moose a year are harvested in Sweden/Norway every year with the 6.5 Swede usually won the day. Almost every single one of those husbands and fathers came back with their wives and kids to buy more ammo and to show pictures of groups shot and game harvested by those women and children. They were all excited about how well those rifles shot, the comfortable level of recoil, the game harvested and wanting to get back out and shoot those rifles some more!
One young lady of 16 used her factory Tikka T3 in 6.5x55 to take 2nd place at the Burns Lake 1000 yard shoot with less than a year of shooting experience and coaching from a friend of the family.
I sold quite a number of rifles in 7mm-08 too, but got way more enthusiastic feedback from the ones shooting the Swedes!