Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Well I have a real problem...

Pat i know a gal locally thats 20, 5 foot tall and MIGHT be 85 pounds, good friend of one of my sisters.....should she not hunt? some ppl dont get very big, waiting may not be in the cards cause if they do they will never get to hunt.....hell by wife was 105 when we met and not much for upper body strength, wasnt till we started dating and going canoeing and chit that she got the upper body strength to hold a decent sized rifle....

if the kid is gonna get to practice i see no reason why a 223 or 22-250 with good bullets wont work for deer at moderate ranges....hell going out and being picky bout your shots beats not going out at all.....teach the kid, let her practice all she can and load up good bullets and go hunting and be done with it....

If the obvious answer of .243 or .260 is too much for her then I would look for something in the intermediate AR calibers.

Ruger makes their compact in 6.8 SPC or 7.62x39.

The CZ 527 carbine in 7.62x39 is downright dainty.

I never said anybody shouldn't hunt. The girl in question is eleven, not twenty. Dad may not care if she loses an animal or two with a little gun, it comes with the territory. Right? I promise that she will care...a lot.

rather have someone that runs a 223 with good bullets and practices versus giving a kid a 30-06 that scares the crap out of them.....the real question is, if yah hand her the 223 can she put the bullet in the boiler room? if she can the 223 with good bullets will work just fine at 100 yards on a deer....she cant shoot straight with the 223 wont matter what she is running.....buy the kid a 223 that fits her, get her shooting it, if she can hold'er steady from field positions or from a rest in a stand or hide if thats how yah hunt she is good to go.....if not she needs to practice more and wait....

seems simple to me especially since from Derby's post im guessing the gal is here in Montana which means she cant hunt till next season anyway as you have to be 12 to hunt big game and the main seasons are over as of yesterday so they got bout 10 months to sort out if she can put one in the boiler room or not.....

Happy birthday dude! Sorry I missed the cake ealier.

The original post was about shooting deer AND elk with a .223. You guys know know more about elk than I do, but if they are as tough as some guys say, I wouldn't shoot an elk with a .223 unless it was in the head.

sorry missed the elk, was just thinking deer......wouldnt choose to shoot an elk with a 223, especially with a kid doing the shooting.....however i ran across a few the last couple seasons i am positive i coulda killed with a rock which means i prolly coulda taken one or more of them out with a 22 revolver....but its a quirk of the area we hunt where bull tags are hard to come by so the bulls dont get to riled up bout seeing a person....

Is her heart set on hunting elk? Would she be happy just hunting deer for a while?

I know you have had lots of suggestions, but here is one more.
300 Sav. I don't know what it is about that round but mine (in a 99) has about the same kick as a 223. Honestly. Maybe it's the stock design; I don't know. I handload mine (I know her dad does not) to 308 velocities. I am always amazed every time I fire it at the lack of recoil.

Maybe another hunter can carry the rifle for her until it is time to shoot. Then a more suitable round can be used. It is legal as long as they both have tags. I guess I just have a bad feeling about elk, inexperienced hunters and 22 Centerfires.

Yes, seriously. The Kimber ad I based my reply to mentioned was a $1,400 rifle. Add a scope and you are up to $1,500- $1,800. In my opinion that is too serious for an 11 year old that may or may not love hunting. I think it would be wiser to get her something in the $500 range and put the extra $1,000 in her college fund.

Also in my opinion that is too serious for me. If I have that much to spend, I would also like to stay in the $500 range and put the extra $1,000 in my daughters' accounts because they are both in college. All I need is MOA of deer.

But, that is just me.......

Derby,

I have not read this whole thread so it may already have been mentioned but a 250 savage has little recoil and there are a few lightweights around such as th ruger ul.

With the 87 grain bullet it makes a fine low recoil deer round and with any of the 100 grain premiums it can be used on elk.

Some of the older rifles have 14" twist and may have trouble with the 100 grain but most of the newer models use 10" twist'

Good luck with your search for the young lady.

a 84M Montana runs closer to $1000 even.....guess i just view guns as tools and dont worry bout dings.....its nothing to drop a grand on a gun anymore dont see the difference in dinging up a $500 gun or a $1000.....if Jess wants to use my Kimber when she starts hunting ill hand it over, if she likes Kates Seven ill get her one of those, she prefers the feel of a Ruger Compact ill get her that...whatever she prefers fit wise ill get her but given the Kimbers stock doesnt fit her mom or her sis cause how their cheek bones are so im fairly positive she wont want a Kimber......

Yup Rattler, the young lady in question lives in Montana.

When I first moved to Montana all most 30 years ago I was amazed at the number of people both men and women that used a .22 centerfire to hunt deer and elk. I thought they were absolutely crazy until I saw the results. DRT. I admit most used a .22-250 or .220 Swift but there were some .223's mixed in as well.

A guy I knew killed a good size black bear with one shoot with a ,223 Ruger Mini-14 at about 75 yards with a shot to the boiler room.

I worked on a political campaign one time with a retired US Fish and Wildlife damage control office who used a .220 Swift for all animals in the lower 48 including both black bears and Griz. I asked him if he thought he was under gun especially for the Griz he said not at all DRT.

There are two things I have learned from observing and talking to people who use .22 centerfire rifles, one is that these people tend to shot a lot, a lot more than most big game hunters using bigger calibers. The second thing I've learned is that a hit in the boiler room usually turns the boiler room into Campbell soup. It is a real mess in there.

One final item. From my experience hunters using heavy re-coiling rifles tend to need 3-4 shots to put down an animal and leave a lot of wounded animals in the field. It's been my contention for a long time that if we hunters would back down the horse power and practice more we would be better hunters. There is nothing like practice and shot placement to do the job.

I do thank everybody for all the ideas and there are some real good ones that I intend to pass along to the girl's Dad. As Rattler said the girl can't hunt until she is 12 and has taken a hunter safety course so there is time to try and work things out. One of things we are trying to get her to do is push ups.

can a 223 be used for elk, sure but wouldnt be my choice, would prefer something a lil heavier like a 260 or 7-08 or the like wouldnt hesitate to use either for the majority of elk hunting, 223 requires pretty damn precise placement, a 60 grain pill runs out of steam pretty fast after hitting meat.......

would say take the girl out with the 223 after deer and save elk for a later date or run with something a tad bigger.....Kate says she is bout 129 at the moment and can run a ready to hunt 8 pound rifle in 7-08.....granted she has had the rifle for 3 years on Christmas Eve so she was prolly dealing with it when she was just under 100 pounds in 2006/early 2007 before she was actually hunting....

That's a good idea. Get her a rifle and let her pick it up and use it (empty of course) to build up muscle. We used to use our M-14's to do presses and curls.

another idea.....since her dad doesnt reload pick a chambering that offers a managed recoil load and even if the gun is a bit to heavy for her to shoot it well off hand get her her own pack and teach her how to use the pack as a rest from sitting or whatever....its what i did with Kate for the first year, took one of my packs, stuffed it full of sweatshirts and the like and let her get used to figuring out how to position it for a shot....lay it over a rock or branch.....get behind it and hunker down and use the top of it for an improvised shooting rest....

Good idea, managed re-coil loads and learn how to use a rest.

My buddy's daughter started killing deer when she was ten with an original 92 Winchester SRC .44-40 I gave her for the purpose. She's been very successful with it for the last few years, always with 200 grain cast RNFP's at about 1000 fps. This year Dad bought her a .243.

Oh boy, now we get into the "oh yeah, a 22 center fire is lightning in a bottle" and will knock anything teats up. Thereby implying that the poster is one real Cool Hand Luke.
The same folks that will eagerly suggest that a .300WM or bigger is a good starter rifle for elk will think nothing of putting a untested kid or wife out in the woods with a varmint gun.
I read in here somewhere that the father wasn't a reloader, would never be. Well if he is so hopped up to have his daughter hunt, if this isn't just some sort of vicarious ego stroking, then he can start. If he really wants to do right by his daughter. If not, just buy her an AR or one of the clones that go pop pop pop and shoot up a few phone books and turn her loose in the woods.
One interesting question: Has the girl completed her hunter safety course?? When my kids went, part of the program was they had to load, unload, and shoot various types of weapons up to and including a 12 gauge shotgun.

No, she has not completed a hunter safety course. She can not take one until she is 12 or close to 12. I'm not sure on just what guns they shoot. If she has to shoot a 12 gauge shotgun well than this thread is a moot point. She'll never shoot a 12 gauge at least not until she is an adult.

Dad doesn't re-load and probably will never re-load. Dad is your typical Montana elk/deer hunter, buy a big rifle and a box of ammo and go hunting. I see that type at our shooting range all the time. Not knocking Dad he is by and large a good man just a typical Montana hunter. He has started to change a little now that his daughters are of hunting age.

I don't mean to put down Montana hunters but the typical Montana hunter shoots the biggest magnum he can fine, a box or two of ammo. sights in his rifle, and proceeds to use a half a box of ammo the kill an elk at a hundred yards.

I'm not kidding, I get to talk to a lot of people at the range especially women and girls who use "varmint" calibers on elk/deer and put their game down with one shot. It's also funny, in an ironic sense, to watch the female side get 1/2 inch groups at a hundred yards with those puny "varmint" calibers and than watch the male side get 3" to 5" groups with big magnum and call it close enough. I would much rather hunt with a person that can hit a target and kill an animal with a puny "varmint" caliber than someone with big magnum who relies on the "Hail Mary" shot to hit a target and kill an animal.

I am amazed that more people aren't killed in hunting accidents in Montana. The only thing that can count for that is that we have a few thousand hunters hunting over a month over hundreds of thousands of square miles.