What caliber for a young hunter

I was asked a question about what caliber rifle my brother in law should buy for his son to hunt with. It was a question that I never really thought about personally. I was handed a 30.06 and told that is what I was going to use get used to it or don't go hunting. With his son being small at 10 years old and having not ever shot anything other than a pellet gun. I first recommended getting him a .22 to learn to shoot without getting scared. I know they don't have the money to spend on more than 1 rifle, and used is more than likely right up there alley. He also mentioned that he would like to get him a bolt action. Given some thought I said a .243 or a 25.06 The 243 having less recoil, and the 25.06 about the same as a 3030 or go for a lever action in 3030, He didn't like the idea of a lever action due to loading and unloading and the half xxxxx safety. I suggested a Marlin 336 with the hammer block safety (he was not aware of that on the newer Marlins) so now he is going to look into them as well.

What are some of your suggestions on caliber. At this point we are not concerned with manufacture

Tripples

My son is 10 years old. His first rifle is going to be a savage model 10 chambered in .243. I personally feel that a .243 is an excellent round for a youngster to start out with.

On the same note, my 10 year old son has shot my Winchester 94 Lever Action 30-30 a few times. He enjoyed it.

Picking the 2, I think he will enjoy the .243 and I would like to see him start out with a bolt action. No special reason, just me. Well, I personally think that the bolt action, for my son at least, will be easier for him to work than the lever action. The Model 94, he had a small issue working the lever...

+1 for 243

the .243 is a fine cartridge. and I have one. My only concern for a small boy or girl with a .243 or even a 30-30 is if you are going to be right with them then you can help them to make the judgment calls that some times have to be made. Like dont shoot in that direction because the neighbors house is over that way. Or watch out in that direction because we or the neighbor have cattle there. and This all depends on where you hunt too. how far a shot will he she reasonably need to make. for all those reasons I opted to get my son a Ruger Deer field carbine. its basically the Ranch rifle in .44mag the 44 mag doesn't kick any worse than a 243 if it kicks that bad. it is a round that will knock a deer down but it doesn't travel that far. It is a great round out to about 100 yds 150 max at 200 its pretty well in the dirt. If I put my son in a stand that is more than 200 yds from a neighbor i know with in reason he will not kill anything but a deer. Right or wrong that was my logic when i got my son what i got him. And by the way I also have a Rossi lever in 44 its a great close range deer rifle. If a bolt action .243 or lever 30-30 are my only choices because of financial reasons. for safety purposes they both travel about as far. so I would opt for the milder recoil of the .243. Those carbine lever 30-30s can flat romp ya if you dont have them pulled tight into your shoulder. and you really dont want a youngster getting recoil shy. LOL my 2 cents

sorry tripples i just re read the whole thread. Why not a shotgun? a 12 or 20 ga pump will be fairly easy for a youngster to operate. he she can use it for any hunting there is including deer with slugs you can find them in the pawn shops usually fairly cheap. they aren't long range. if one is to be stuck with one and only one gun that would be the gun to have IMO

ok has i hear this a lot heres what i tell people for one the 30/30 should be out of the list!!!! i know travis y u being an ass ill tell you. a 10 year old thats never shot a gun before does not need to shoot a 30/30 thats a good way to make him scared of guns all together. the 25/06 is by far the best choice at least i think lol.
but back to the kids the .243 is a good all around caliber for anyone to learn to shoot or even to keep shooting. but dont forget the small pistol caliber rifles for kids as in a lever action .357 or 44 mag hell for that matter even the hi point carbine in 40 or 45 and yes they are all good out to 75 100 yards and really thats more then enuff. a friend of mine needed a rifle for his boy who is 8 for youth season so i let him use my hi point carbine in 40 with a mag full od xtp's and what i found out was when his son shot his buck at 40 yards i cant seem to get my gun back his dad ended up killing 3 more with it.


sorry for getting off track

The .243 definitely gets my vote over anything else. As far as recoil goes, my older brother bought his son Tucker who is only 8yrs. old an H&R single shot handi rifle in .243 for almost nothing and Tucker is a great shot with it...he's been shooting it since he was 7yrs. old. So the 10yr. old should be more than capable of handling the mild recoil of a .243 and as far as reach goes, it's more than up to taking a deer at 300 yards.......although I wouldn't suggest that a youngster take those types of shots, but the caliber will do the job nicely.

I've got a Rem. 788 .243 that I've had since I was 12 years old and took my first deer with it, and about 10 more before I got my .270 when I was 18 yrs old. I never had a deer go more than 80 yards after being hit, and as I got a few deer under my belt I became efficient at dropping them right in their tracks with high shoulder shots or a well placed neck shot.
The beauty of the .243 is that it has such a wide range of bullet weights available so it can be loaded down for coyote and prairie dogs, and loaded up for larger game such as deer, antelope, ect.

Most everybody here knows how I feel about the new Marlins and without going on a bashing rant of Marlin.........the lever action 336 would Not be a good choice for a kid just starting out, and with that said.......I wouldn't give anybody a 30/30 unless I just didn't like them very much.
Get the .243 and it will serve him well for a lifetime and he may never decide to carry anything else. My neighbor who is 72 years old has hunted with a .243 his whole life and still kills deer with it every year. He has about every gun you could imagine from a .308 to 300H&H and a .270 but still choses to carry the .243 instead.

As far as shotgun and slugs go..........don't do that. My 12ga. literally kicks the snot out of me with a slug! I'm a big guy at 6' 250lbs. and I don't like to shoot slugs!
Give a 10yr. old kid a 12ga. and a slug round.......and you will likely never have to worry about him asking to shoot a gun ever again.

If a bolt gun is what your after then I would check out Savage's line of Stevens rifles model 200's which are fine rifles on a poor man's budget. I have one in 22-250 and I love it! It's accurate as hell and has the same 110 action that the other Savages have like the model 10........it just doesn't have the fancy stock or Accutrigger to drive the price up. I gave $330 bucks for my model 200 22-250 and that was tax and all.

If that's too much then he might want to consider the H&H handi rifle in .243 which you can get interchangeable barrels for like a 20ga. or .223 and I think some other calibers? I think my brother gave less than $200 bucks for my nephew's handi rifle?
I would actually like to have one myself with a couple of different barrels, but I've pretty much got all my rifle calibers covered and can't really justify getting another one. If I did decide to get another rifle/caliber I think I would go up another notch into the 30 caliber family just so I have everything covered from .17, .22, .243, .277, and then .30 caliber. That's about the only one I'm missing and I haven't ever had a need for one. If Missouri ever has an elk season then I will probably start seriously looking for a 30 caliber of some sort? Maybe a 300 WSM, or a good ol' 30-06?

My best advice.........tell him to get the .243 and he or his son won't be disappointed.

Mohunter wrote:The .243 definitely gets my vote over anything else. As far as recoil goes, my older brother bought his son Tucker who is only 8yrs. old an H&R single shot handi rifle in .243 for almost nothing and Tucker is a great shot with it...he's been shooting it since he was 7yrs. old. So the 10yr. old should be more than capable of handling the mild recoil of a .243 and as far as reach goes, it's more than up to taking a deer at 300 yards.......although I wouldn't suggest that a youngster take those types of shots, but the caliber will do the job nicely.

I've got a Rem. 788 .243 that I've had since I was 12 years old and took my first deer with it, and about 10 more before I got my .270 when I was 18 yrs old. I never had a deer go more than 80 yards after being hit, and as I got a few deer under my belt I became efficient at dropping them right in their tracks with high shoulder shots or a well placed neck shot.
The beauty of the .243 is that it has such a wide range of bullet weights available so it can be loaded down for coyote and prairie dogs, and loaded up for larger game such as deer, antelope, ect.

Most everybody here knows how I feel about the new Marlins and without going on a bashing rant of Marlin.........the lever action 336 would Not be a good choice for a kid just starting out, and with that said.......I wouldn't give anybody a 30/30 unless I just didn't like them very much.
Get the .243 and it will serve him well for a lifetime and he may never decide to carry anything else. My neighbor who is 72 years old has hunted with a .243 his whole life and still kills deer with it every year. He has about every gun you could imagine from a .308 to 300H&H and a .270 but still choses to carry the .243 instead.

As far as shotgun and slugs go..........don't do that. My 12ga. literally kicks the snot out of me with a slug! I'm a big guy at 6' 250lbs. and I don't like to shoot slugs!
Give a 10yr. old kid a 12ga. and a slug round.......and you will likely never have to worry about him asking to shoot a gun ever again.

If a bolt gun is what your after then I would check out Savage's line of Stevens rifles model 200's which are fine rifles on a poor man's budget. I have one in 22-250 and I love it! It's accurate as hell and has the same 110 action that the other Savages have like the model 10........it just doesn't have the fancy stock or Accutrigger to drive the price up. I gave $330 bucks for my model 200 22-250 and that was tax and all.

If that's too much then he might want to consider the H&H handi rifle in .243 which you can get interchangeable barrels for like a 20ga. or .223 and I think some other calibers? I think my brother gave less than $200 bucks for my nephew's handi rifle?
I would actually like to have one myself with a couple of different barrels, but I've pretty much got all my rifle calibers covered and can't really justify getting another one. If I did decide to get another rifle/caliber I think I would go up another notch into the 30 caliber family just so I have everything covered from .17, .22, .243, .277, and then .30 caliber. That's about the only one I'm missing and I haven't ever had a need for one. If Missouri ever has an elk season then I will probably start seriously looking for a 30 caliber of some sort? Maybe a 300 WSM, or a good ol' 30-06?

My best advice.........tell him to get the .243 and he or his son won't be disappointed.

i agree with most of what you have to say mo the only thing is from my stand point (for what its worth) i have shot almost every brand of gun there is (im lucky to have a second job at a gun shop) and the stevens is a good gun but it does not handle well in a bigger caliber i dont think. The new axis handles the recoil much better. but for the money eather would be a great buy.

hell if your buying ill take one of each lmao

Just from shooting my 22-250 and the .243 in a side by side comparison, I can't tell a real significant jump in recoil to the .243 but I haven't shot one in the Stevens model either.........so I really can't vouch for it except for how well it handles my 22-250 rounds. It's scary accurate with my own handloads. I just assume that it would be just as good with the .243?

There's nothing wrong with the H&H handi rifle in my opinion. I'll carry a single shot just as quick as I would a bolt action anyday, but that's just me.
I would never buy another semi-auto rifle at all, I've had too many problems with them and other guys I know have had nothing but problems also. I don't have any semi-autos in any caliber that I own, including shotguns mine are all pump guns.

i 100% agree on the semi autos i think if they work they teach kids bad habits anyway.



i dont want to open a can of worms but i keep hearing about you and marlin would you mind maybe sending me the story sometime.

This is the 10,000$$$ ???. With all that's been said you said that one gun needs to fit the needs because of money Man I hear you on that. If there's a friend or family member that could let this young shooter try a few different calibers and actions in the off season this may help a great deal. My son and grand kids started out with a savage 110 in .243 for deer hunting but had lots of trigger time with .22 LR first and some .410 and 20ga shotgun. I think working on the skill and love of shooting will tame recoil just as well as any thing. (Don't look MO) I have a new marlin XS7 that shoots sub MOA out to 200yd (that's as far as I have tested it ) in 308 with 125gr Nosler Ballistic tips the recoil is about like the .243. Good luck and shooting.

again ONE gun for all. 20 ga shot gun. do you want a kid out squirrel hunting with a 243 or rabbit hunting with a 243? if you do I am glad i dont live anywhere close to you. And the ability to shoot 300 yds is the very reason I wouldn't give a 243 to a kid. If there is an adult in the immediate presence of the kid ok. but not long ago in the news there was a man in Missouri target practicing with I think it was a 9mm several hundred yards away missed his target and killed a little girl playing in her yard. First what the F(&*& was he doing shooting in the direction of a house in the first place. That was a grown man. Would a Kid exercise any better judgment? That is why my vote for a kid is something with way less yardage than a 243. and if its the one and only gun he can have my vote would be for a 20ga shot gun because he can hunt everything with it. If deer and deer alone is all he is ever going to hunt and he is out west where nothing is around for miles maybe a 243 but that is certainly not the case in Mo.

Reload- Did you actually read what I wrote when I said I wouldn't recommend a kid taking shots at 300 yards with a .243??
I said the caliber was plenty capable of doing it, not recommending that somebody new to hunting try to take those shots.

Also, it's not practical to think that your going to find a single weapon to cover everything unless you want to shoot slugs at deer the rest of your hunting career. Even a 20ga. with slugs will kick the crap out of a 10 year old kid versus the mild recoil of a .243
Either way, he's still going to want another gun somewhere down the road later on be it a rifle or a shotgun. Why not get him a rifle that will carry him into adulthood?

If the objective is to get him a good deer rifle that will last him a good long while the the .243 is an obvious choice. Later on if he wants to hunt small game then the 20ga. shotgun is another obvious choice, but I just don't think it's practical to expect either to pull double duty.
A model 500 Mossberg 20ga. is reasonable enough at around $225 bucks that it wouldn't be a major purchase to get him one of those on down the road.

I had a .243 in my hands since I was 11yrs. old and my father made sure I knew which way to shoot and which way not to. I think limiting a gun's capabilities because your afraid the kid might fling bullets in a direction they aren't supposed to is just putting a band aid over teaching them proper gun handling and control that should be done before they are ever left alone to make that decision for themselves.

I also think that 10yrs. old is too young for a kid to be deer hunting in the first place, but the MDC seems to think it's ok.......so therefore everybody is going to take advantage of it.
My dad wouldn't let us go until we were 13 years old, but I started shooting my .243 way before I was ever allowed to sit alone with it in the woods deer hunting. So I knew how to handle it and the do's and dont's of using it, that's the way it should be........JMO

Not trying to start an arguement or anything, I guess I just have a different opinion about starting them out right?

sdsviper wrote:This is the 10,000$$$ ???. With all that's been said you said that one gun needs to fit the needs because of money Man I hear you on that. If there's a friend or family member that could let this young shooter try a few different calibers and actions in the off season this may help a great deal. My son and grand kids started out with a savage 110 in .243 for deer hunting but had lots of trigger time with .22 LR first and some .410 and 20ga shotgun. I think working on the skill and love of shooting will tame recoil just as well as any thing. (Don't look MO) I have a new marlin XS7 that shoots sub MOA out to 200yd (that's as far as I have tested it ) in 308 with 125gr Nosler Ballistic tips the recoil is about like the .243. Good luck and shooting.

I agree SDS, and just because I had a bad experience with a Marlin doesn't mean that you won't find a good one. It's just my personal choice not to own another one. That's why I didn't get into all that bad experience that I had with my Marlin, because some guys really like them.
I also don't know anything about the XS7 and have never even seen one. If you can get MOA out to 200 yards then I'd say you got a good one.

Actually Mo i do agree with every thing you said. With the exception of the judgment thing. I believe that we do the best we can teaching our kids how to be safe gun handlers. When and when not to shoot. And we Hope they heed that advice. But even adults go brain dead when the Deer shows up. in my opinion and its just that an opinion. My son is out of the Navy now and if his scope hadn't been knocked off by my wife (long story) he would have used his ruger 44 mag instead of my 243 . The really great thing about these pistol cal rifles is. they have awesome knock down and lethality out to 100yds in our area thats all thats ever needed. out west even up north in our state that may not be true. and I agree that shooting a 20ga slug will kick the pudding out of a kid. but if you had him practice with light load shot loads. if he was shooting at a deer he would never notice it. I believe the worse thing that can be done to a kid is give him a gun that will kick the snot out of him. he will be flinching the rest of his life. But if we can limit our kids (for lack of better words) ability to make grave mistakes all the better. But even a pistol cartridge as in the idiots example i cited can do grave harm.

Yes you are right about that and if everybody agreed to use those calibers or limiting what a kid is able to start out with then it would work, but then we would be like Iowa and Illinois where they can't use a high powered rifle for hunting deer. I wouldn't want that to happen.

So we just have to teach them the responsibilities that come along with using a long range weapon and hope they make the right decisions. Or better yet, do what my brother does with his boy.
He never puts the rifle in Tucker's hands until he's ready to shoot, he doesn't carry it to and from the woods, and he only sets up in areas where the furthest shot is a possible 75-100 yards.
Then when Tucker gets older and he's able to take it on his own and hunt the field edges or open timber where a longer shot is possible, his skill level will have increased and his shooting ability will be honed to the point that he can make the shot and his .243 will still be more than capable of handling the job when he's ready for it.
That's kinda what I was getting at in the previous post. Get a rifle that he can grow into when his skill levels get better, but in the mean time teach him the best you can and hope that he keeps his head on straight. That's really all you can do.

On a side note........I'd love to have one of those .357 mag or 40cal. rifles myself. There are places where I hunt that one of those would be perfect and more than adequate to do the job.
If I had the extra cash, I'd probably already have one because I've seen some used ones at gun shops and pawn shops just begging me to take them home.

WOW, I didn't expect this many replys this fast. This is the great part of asking a question on here.

The thought of a shotgun also went through my mind, But I personaly feel that there is a reason they are called "SHOT"guns. I do know they can be deadly accurate with slugs.
I asked the question what kind of hunting are you talking about small game, deer, bear? The answer I got was deer.

In Pa the Jr. license is from 12 to 16, stating that a 12 to 13 yr old must must be accompanied by an adult member of the family (at least 18) 14 and 15 yr olds must be accompanied by an adult at least 18. a 16 yr old can hunt alone. 12 to 15 yr olds must be close enough to be given verbal instructions. There is also a mentored youth hunt for kids under 12 but they must be within arms reach of a mentor 21 yrs or older.

My brother in law is looking for something his son can start shooting now for when he turns 12. Also we are planning on going to the range once it gets a little warmer to let him do some shooting. I figured I would let him shoot my .22 and if he can shoot well enough let him try the .223 that has a lot of bark without the bite.

Thanks again guy keep em comming
Tripples

I'd say that would be a good thing to do, get him behind a gun every chance you get so he can get a good idea what he's doing and you can start working on the do's and don'ts of safe gun handling.

Like SDS said, he needs lots of trigger time. The .223 would be a great learning tool for shooting the bigger .243 if that's what he ends up getting. Lots of crack so he can get used to the loud bang, without the recoil.

Your definitely thinking along the right principles and getting him started well in advance of ever hitting the woods is the best thing you can do for him.

22-250 where legal but around here its illegal so 243

well that clears a lot of things up. Learning in the immediate presence of an adult .243 hands down. It has the killing power and mild recoil.