Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Options for a young hunter

Here is what I did for my daughter, and it is even easier now.

Picked her up a Tikka T3 Lite (plastic stock) .308, and had the barrel cut to 20"s and threaded for a brake.

Picked up a wooden stock and cut it down to fit her, and put a flip flop pad on it.

She shot the cut down wood stocked rifle the first few years, then switched to the full sized stock later.

Now days you can get a compact T3, with a shorter length of pull and a 20" barrel from the factory. That said, you might still consider still doing as above, depending on the size of the child, and the amount of clothing he will be wearing when shooting it.

With a brake, my kid could not tell the difference between the .308 shooting full power 155 scenar loads and a custom 6mm Remington T3 (no brake) she used on a deer her first time out. I made sure that during practice she doubled up on ear plugs and ear muffs. Then in the field I had her use ear plugs. She has never complained about the recoil, and she is a pretty petite kid.











It now wears the full size stock, and she loves that rifle.

Howa used to make a youth model rifle. Not sure if they still do but it was pretty handy. It came with a short stock with recoil pad, and you could pull off the recoil pad and add the extension and put the pad back on. I believe Legacy Sports brought them in, and they have some available at Bud's Guns. At the DU event I used to do, we would have a separate event for the women that helped out and just hand out tickets. They were pretty popular with those women. I believe they were mostly short action rifles. Might check those out.

Grandkids have Savages Axis. All three, as well as the three Savage bolt rifles I own are sub inch rifles.

I picked up a Ruger American Compact in 6.5 Creed witha 20" barrel for my daughter. I have her shooting a book starting load of 8208 XBR with a 120 gr Gold Dot. Recoil is minimal, and the gun fits her 4'9" inch frame well.