young girls first deer rifle..... bullet, loads?

[Jud96]

Back in the day, my Uncle started my cousins out hunting when they were 6 and 8. They used a Thompson Center Encore with a custom stock that my Uncle had made for them with a very short LOP. The barrel on it was chambered for .222 but had a scratched chamber where the previous owner attempted to extract a stuck empty with a pocket knife. Needless to say, my Uncle got a deal on the rifle because of the bad chamber and he cured the problem by punching the chamber out to .223 Remington with a reamer. He shot a very mild load in the .223 that pushed a 50gr Nosler Ballistic Tip at 2800fps and this proved to be the perfect medicine on whitetail for the boys' rifle. They only took shots at closer ranges and placed the bullet right on the shoulder and neither of them ever lost a deer. I wouldn't recommend such a frangible bullet for deer, but at slower velocities this combo seemed to work well. Just to be safe, I would shoot something a little stouter such as a Barnes, GameKing, Partition, or a 70gr Hornady GMX.