At the risk of boring you, I'll paraphrase a previous post on this topic. Try to teach your kids to shoot from the same shoulder as his dominant eye. [Both my sons are right handed but left eye dominant. I caught that at a young age when they were playing with an old Fisher-Price toy camera. It's easy to check eye dominance, even with young children.]
I am 100% lefty shooter. I have shot virtually every gauge, action and caliber of right handed long gun from my left shoulder - that includes flintlock rifles. Of course, handguns are a different animal. I still prefer and am much more comfortable with a left handed firearm.
For the most part, it doesn't matter in terms of function whether it's a right or left handed long gun. I've learned to overcome the right hand safety, bolt releases, and other controls. Lever and break open actions are almost ambidextrous. Bolts actions, and to some extent semi-autos, are another issue. Shooting a RH bolt from the lefty side does put the shooter at some risk. I have never witnessed it, but should a catastrophic case failure occur (chamber obstruction, case rupture, etc.), a RH bolt rifle vents gases on the right side which is directly in front a left's face. Obviously, we should all be wearing safety glasses at all times.
It's very difficult for a lefty to complete a follow-up shot from the shoulder while using a RH bolt rifle. For me, the reach-over bolt action technique never worked. As you could imagine, a lefty hunting dangerous game with RH rifle would not be recommended.
Believe me, I feel your pain in searching for a left hand bolt action rifle. Supposedly 16% of the population is sinistral. You surely wouldn't know it when it comes to left handed firearms. However (current gun buying issues aside), the selection has improved in the past 50 years. We all pray things get back to normal soon. When they do, Savage and Ruger both offer some great choices in relatively affordable true left hand action RF and CF rifles. Not knowing the level of interest for my boys when they were young, I purchased a T/C Contender, a youth stock and carbine barrels in .22LR, 7/30 Waters and .45 cal muzzleloader chamberings. The Contender is still going strong and will likely be my old man rifle. There are other single shot, break-open options available.
For the most part, those of us in the shooting fraternity want shooters, especially new ones, to enjoy and perpetuate our sport. Without new shooters - our sport and rights will die. Talk to other shooters. Often they'll let you borrow different firearms to try. See what works for your grandson.
Further, if at all possible, teach new shooters to shoot both eyes open, even with a scoped rifle. It's most important for instinctive archery and moving targets (i.e., shotgun games). There are many terrific one-eyed shooters but it's much easier to use your God given binocular vision - with less eye strain - for tracking targets.
Good luck, good shooting and be well. DJB
