Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Choice of gun for childs first .22

I have 7 & 10 year old girl and another to be born any day now. I want to get a .22 for them to learn to shoot. I want iron sites but also have the ability to mount a scope latter after they learn to shoot the "old fashioned way".

I'm debating between bolt action single shot youth by Marlin or Savage. However I'm also VERY drawn to the Henry 22 lever. Not the golden boy just the standard .22.

What do you think? Any other suggestions?

What do you think about safety related to having a bolt in single shot with a thumb safety of the bolts compared to the repeater and hammer of the lever gun? When you shuck the 1st round out of the lever, it cocks the hammer and inserts the next round. The only way to not shoot is to have the hand/finger strength to pull the trigger and let the hammer down with thumb. If small not so strong hands of small children don't hold the hammer back...Bang.

I like the single-shot bolt action plan. Simple, safe.

Shane

Ditto. It's a no-brainer. And make it a "youth model", for now, if that's what fits.

Gotta agree and cast my vote for the single shot. Safety is 1st reason, but a close second is the inherent value in learning to make that first shot count, there's always time for a repeater later after those two valuable lessons have been instilled in your young shooters. 1ak

All good advice if your child is right handed. Gets a little more dicey if your trying to set one up left handed.

I bought the Savage GYL bolt repeater because they didn't make a single shot lefty.

My good friend just got his 7 yr. old a Chipmunk and although I don't like the safety, or lack thereoff, with direct and constant supervision its a total winner for the little kids to shoot.

I picked up a Savage-Stevens "favorite" for my GrandKids.
It's a falling block single-shot with exposed hammer.
They don't cock it untill ready to shoot. Seems to work out great.

Virgil B.

I have been contemplating a Henry bolt action for my kids. Neat little gun for the $$.

http://www.henryrepeating.com/minibolt.cfm

Thaks all! I did a little looking at guns stores yesterday. The Marlin sinlge shot bolt was $150. Heck a bb gun costs between $30 and $50. So seems like the choice is made.

Thanks again.

My six year old son has a Crickett rifle and it fits him just fine. He can cock and operate it by himself. I really like it because thay have laminated stocks and his is red/white/blue. They also have other colors along with pink for the daughters. With that said he will grow out of it pretty soon so he also has the CZ scout waiting in the wings. It was just a little to heavy for him when he started.

My eight year old daughter also has a CZ scout and has no problems operating it.

I would reccomend the Scout over the Marlin and the Savage. It is alot better quality and is the same action as the regular CZ line. Therefore able to upgrade to a fullsize take off stock when they get older. Also has a single shot adapter with it and will also take 5 and 10 round magazines.

I would highly recommend you look at the CZ scout first. I picked up two mint but used models for $150 and $139. Just have to look around. Check out gunsamerica.com there are a few on there every once in a while. Also check out rimfirecentral.com. You will find alot of threads on this very topic over there. Good luck, Merlin.

My son does really well with the henry mini-bolt.

I picked up a Favorite a few years ago, for my son and passed it down to his sister. Neat classy little rifle, but bad trigger (I mean really bad) and you can't scope it. The irons are pretty primitive too. It doesn't get used much now. The Henry's are too easy to leave a round in---you can't easily visibly make sure it's safe, which scares me with kids. I'd vote for a bolt--single feed them until they're ready to use the magazine---a trigger job and a decent scope let kids get good results sooner and keep them more interested, in my experience.

Both myself and my brother started out with 10/22's and we never had a problem FWIW - that being said I am going to buy my son (he is 4) a bolt Ruger.

Mostly cuz I have always wanted one but I think it would probably be a better choice after letting him squeeze off a few with a 10/22 a few months ago. His grin was so huge I see him wanting to go thru about a brick a weekend. He seemed to love it so much.

I would say a bolt action is a very good idea as it also teaches them to keep the actions ope when others are around very much like a cf rifle.

I bought a Chipmunk for my son. They are very small and kinda pricey. But mine has nice wood and shoots good.

The only thing I do not like about it is the cocking piece. It is hard to pull for a small kid. I made a loop out of para-cord and taught him to pull the piece with the cord. It worked.

I think that instead of a single shot you should lean towards a regular bolt action. witch can be operated either way.

I started out with a .177 pellet gun as a kid. I myself think thats a better learning tool . And pellet guns are a lot of fun. You can shoot them in the yard if you dont have close neighbors.

I bought my kid a Henry lever a couple of years ago, and it has been a great gun. I had gotten him started on a .177 Daisy Grizzly two years earlier, so he had all the safety stuff down pat. It's one of his favorites now and one of mine too.

I'm huge and all my kids are huge, so fit is no problem. I held off buying kid-sized rifles, because I knew that in a year they would be able to shoot an adult rifle. I just made a rule that you had to fit the rifle before you could shoot it and you had to have Hunter's Ed before you could hunt with it. The timing worked out well.