Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Air Guns Youth rifle recommendation

Curious is this for a boy or girl? you mentioned daughter in the original post, but then said "he wants a pump"

Not that is matters that much, just curious. Pumps are deadly accurate and far easier to shoot then a break barrel. They have no recoil to learn to deal with. They can have amazing power levels as well. Depends how much you want to pump.

As a kid in the 60's I had a Sheridan Pneumatic pump rifle, you learned quick to take a carful shots, because the cost in physical effort to make the next shot was 8-10 more pumps. The Sheridan air rifle can easily shoot a 1" group at 30 yards. I think with the right pellet an experienced shooter can manage one enlarged hole with a good rest!

Scope mounting is a bit tricky with the hand hold needed for the pumping process. It is exactly where the scope goes on a pump rifle. For simple targets and plinking tin cans and such, 4-5 pumps is plenty. That many pumps is easy to manage as well. My 8 year old son could pump this Sheridan rifle 4-5 times. He was 80 lbs and about 10-11 years old before he could get all 10 pumps into the gun. He was tired and spent after shooting that rifle many times in session at full power.

There are really cheap mostly plastic pneumatics made, and then there is the Benjamin and Sheridan. You will be far better off buying the latter one time and they will have that wood and metal rifle for life.