Youth Rifle

[Norm]

Any suggestions on youth size rifles. I'm looking for my sons first rifle. He will be bowhunting deer, but I would like to put him in for a cow tag next year. I'm thinking like a .270??? single shot or bolt action. He's a small kid so recoil could be a problem. The shots will be no more than 100 YDS. Any idea's on what to get, or where around the weside of portland to get one? I'm a bowhunter so I'm a little out of touch with the rifle thing.

[Lured In]

From all I have read and heard a .243 single shot (break action) or bolt is the best choice for young s*******. I believe that many of the manufacturers offer the .243 in a "youth" model with a shorter stock from the factory.

As far as where to go, I would start with web sites and find the manufacturers you know make them and then go look around town.

The only local shop I have bought from was the Armory in Milwaukie.

[willametteriveroutlaw]

GI Joes stocks the browning micro hunter in a 7mm-08 which is a pretty tame kicker, but it should kill a cow elk no problem. It runs about 500 bones but its a good choice. If you could find one in a 308 it wouldn't be bad either.

[Dogfish]

You could go the real inexpensive route and buy im an old Moisin Nagant in 7.62x54R. They have short barrels, are practically bullet proof, and you can get spare stocks for cheap. Big 5 Sports has them for about $60.00, and there is all sorts of ammo out there. You can cut down the stock to fit his frame (see extra stock) and when he grows up, get a nice synthetic stock. If you handload, you can even load some reduced loads.

A friend of mine and I did the same thing with two Enfield 2A's in .308 win. These were a bit more, at about $275 for a fancy grade (nickel plated & synthetic stocks), but the butt stocks were only $5 each for the spares. His oldest is 10, and mine is only 5, but we are planning ahead.

Someone had mentioned a .243, but considering you are outfitting a novice shooter for elk, I would go with a .30 cal rifle as a minimum. While additional bullet weight can't entirely make up for poor shots due to elk fever, 50 to 100 more grains of bullet weight might make the diffrence between a wounded elk, and meat down. Save the .243 for deer, or expert elk sh-ooters, only.

H&R makes a nice rifle called the Handi-rifle. Single shot, and available in calibers up to .30-06. I would go with .308. Most large gun stores should be happy to order one for you. They run about $250.

Finally, once you choose the rifle, just like bowhunting, make sure he gets lots of practice.

Andy

[Bait O' Eggs]

another vote for the 308, I wouldnt go any smaller than a 30 caliber.

It may be hard to believe looking at me now, but when I was 12 I was small also, and I used a 308 to knock down elk.

One thing for you to think of, not being a rifle hunter is safety. Some guns are hard to tell if a bullet is in the chamber or not. (if proper safety is used it shouldnt matter BUT......) A bolt rifle looks the same whether it has a bullet in the barrel or not. A lever action rifle with a hammer will be obvious when the action has been worked putting a bullet in the chamber. The hammer is cocked which is pretty obvious to even the beginner. Just something to factor in the equasion of a youngsters first gun. Good luck.

[fish forever]

Browning and remington have good factory semi-autos in .308. Both carry shorter barrel options. Auto would be better for recoil, although i think a lot o people shy away from autos for begginers.

[Grits]

Another vote for the .308. I killed a lot of deer and a few elk with my gun. Stay away from single shots because he will out grow the gun quickly.

When I was learning to hunt my Dad would give me two bullets and after that I had to walk back to the truck to get more. This really taught me to settle down and shoot to avoid the long walk back for more rounds.

[Zen Leecher aka Bill W]

My vote would be for the 7mm-08. It's good for youngsters to start with as it's a lighter kicker than the .308. Nice thing about the 7mm-08 is the kid won't immediately outgrow it as it's also big enough to do what he wants when he's a young adult.

I wouldn't recommend the 7.62 Russian as it's a real dog. The bolt comes straight up necessitating a split action. You can't mount a scope overtop the action. The safety takes two men and a small boy to work.... and the rifle shoots a .311-312 bullet.

Inspite of all my complaints about it, it shoots accurate.

I had one of those guns. Bought mine in 1967 back when Sears sold them for $9.95. Gave it away for free.

Look for something like a 7mm-08.

Bill

[Thick-N-Thin]

Norm,

Two months ago I bought my 12 year old his first rifle. He is very small and sounds a lot like your son you are talking about. I bought him a Ruger 243 Compact bolt action. It's a small rifle that fits him excellent, but also is not considerd a youth rifle. I would love to hunt with his Ruger. I'm not sure if they make it in a .308. For My other son I bought him a .308 Remington with bolt action with a clip. I sure wish they would make more youth rifles with clips like they did for the Remington. I think the clip idea is safer for a youth while loading and unloading. Check out Rugers line of Compacts. I think the .243 compact ran me about $450.

Good Luck!

[Thick-N-Thin]

Oops....the Remington with a clip was a used rifle and then I cut the stock to fit. I'm not sure that even Remington still makes a bolt action with the clip.

[Norm]

I found a cool kids starter at Bi-mart. It's a Rossi .22/.410 single shot youth combo. They also make it in .22/20Ga . He can shoot starlings to his hearts content this summer. I found a interesting recoil chart that shows .30-06=20 , a .308=16. and a .30-30 =11.It didn't tell what the numbers meant, but I can guess based on the .30-06 . Since he will be using it mostly for westside elk, I think I'm going with a .30-30 with a 4X scope. I have not found a youth bolt action rifle in .30-30 yet, but he might fit into a winchester ranger if I cut the stock down a bit.