Youth rifle (and maybe book) suggestions

[Edd]

The 7mm-08 is sounding better and better.

Too much gun for the girl in the picture. Most of the other suggestions are too. A 7-08 is comparable to a 25-06.

 

[gjk5]

Too much gun for the girl in the picture. Most of the other suggestions are too. A 7-08 is comparable to a 25-06.

according to the recoil charts I looked up the 7mm-08 was less than .25-06 across the board. That said; I am not opposed to a .243.

What are your suggestions?

 

[Edd]

My suggestion would be the one you have already rejected, a 223.

A 243 will have twice the recoil of a 223.

 

[lloydsmale]

heres my suggestion. Pick up a quality short action rifle like a rem model 7. Something thats light and compact. The 243, 260, 708 and 308 will all work but for an 8 year old girl all 4 are pushing the limit in recoil to allow her to have fun shooting it. What i would do is pick any of the above and load up some light loads using cast bullets and slowly work her up to level that would work on deer. even with jacketed bullets a 308 for example can be brought down to fairly mild levels of recoil with say a 130 grian bullet at 2000-2500 fps and still do well on deer out to a 100 yards. Worse mistake people make with kids is starting them with full power loads. even a 243 that doesnt have alot of recoil still has enough muzzle blast to startle a child and make them want to quit. Sits some pop cans out with some pop gun loads and let them have fun for a summer before you get serious with them.

 

[Forrest Ebert]

Remington has the youth model model 7 bolt action Iwould lean towards that due to your daughters size if it were not for that I would also look at the Tikka T3 lite with that being said I would lean towards a 243,260 or 7mm-08 and on any of these you could add a brake and make the recoil not much more than a 22-250 but if you are a handloader you might want to keep your eye out for a used Rem. in 6.8SPC and you would have a rifle that doesn't have much recoil shoots a .277 bullet from 85-120grn with no problem and as the 95 grn TTSX,110 SPH or the 120 grn. SST all work excellently on game you would have no problems just my .02 worth of thought. Good luck.

 

[gjk5]

Thanks again for the replies.

.223 would only work for the TX hunt, as said it must be .24 or larger for CO.

I do reload, so I can load down in either .243 or 7mm-08 which are looking good right now. Any input on recoil from 6.5 swede? I have another friend who built one for his son.

 

[Forrest Ebert]

Recoil of a 6.5 swede is about on par with the 260 with the lighter bullets and with the 7mm-08 with the 140's up! There are two other caliber's the 6.5 Creedmore and they are available in either Ruger or Savage rifles and don't forget about the 6mm Remington either!

 

[DZelenka]

Any of the small cased 6.5s (6.5x55, .260 and 6.5 Creedmoor) or 7mms (7-08 or 7mm Mauser) could be loaded down using a 100 - 120 gr bullet at 2300 - 2400 fps with a 30.0 - 35.0 gr charge of H4895 (I like this powder because it produces good accuracy with reduced charges). That velocity range works great on medium game as it is comparable to popular pistol hunting cartridges like the 6.5JDJ or 7-30 Waters. The advantage that these would have over equally appropriate cartridges like the 6.8SPCII and 6.5 Grendel is the ability to use the powder capacity and heavier bullets at a later time.

If you are talking about building a rifle and you are really worried about recoil, a 6mm-.223 with an 85 gr partition or 90 gr Ballistic tip would meet your requirement of .24 for Colorado. This or the aforementioned 6.8SPCII and 6.5 Grendel would make a super youth cartridge.

There are a lot of choices.