Ran into the same scenario with my nephew a few years back, though bear and elk weren't discussed. All we have around here are whitetails and wild hogs. I ended up locating a Model Seven CDL in 260Rem and I bought a youth stock off the classifieds here. He's used it with the youth stock and reduced handloads for the past 3-4 seasons. I'm working him up a full power load for this season. I figure he'll be ready to step up to the full size walnut stock next year. He's already killed a few deer with it, including his first buck. Thankfully, I talked my BIL to getting him a nice rifle as his first so he'll have something worth keeping and passing down one day. I killed my first deer with an el cheapo Rem 710 that is long gone. I wish I had gotten a quality rifle to start with, then I probably would have kept it.
