Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles new rifle for daughter, .243 or 7mm-08

I'd get her the 243 and it should have her covered for at least 70 years.

Shod

Nothing a .243 can't handle, and the psychological factor of already succeeding with the .243 is priceless.

7mm-08

Yo bea175, is that a picture of your girlfriend shooting that big gun. Kidding aside, I vote for the 7mm-08. Can be downloaded to start with and stoked later when your daughter grows into it. You'll never need anything else.

changed it , couldn't stand looking at it myself

Both are excellent cartridges.

Here's what I'd recommend. You already have a 7MM-08 Rem, which is based upon the .308 Win case. The .243 is based upon the .308 Win case. With kids, there exists the possibility of inadvertently commingling cartridges, which could have horrendous consequences.

Therefore, I'd go 7-08 Rem for your kid. If she decides to hunt game larger than deer, she'll have a rifle for the job.

My thoughts exactly.

got the 7mm-08, working on scope and mounts now. will post pics when complete

For me it'd be an easy choice: the 7-08. Like others have said, a 7-08 can be loaded to have the same recoil as a .243 and still shoot a fatter, heavier bullet. Later, if she's up for more recoil she can shoot full-powered loads and be gtg for just about anything.

Good luck!

You just set your daughter up for life with a very good cartridge.

MAYBE!!!

I've seen a lot more than one woman get a bad taste for what us MEN consider to be moderate recoil. Often times a woman won't speak how she feels they just put the gun away and say something like......I'm just not into hunting anymore. Just my opinion but I would venture to say the good old 243 has kept a whole lot of women from saying just those words. Sometimes us MEN like to break what was already fixed.

Shod

Naw, start out with reduced loads and increase at a rate SHE dictates.

It has worked with my boys, absolutely no pressure from me to shoot X power load. H4895 is your huckleberry, full range of reduced to full power loads. Load to her comfort level and you will be golden.

The last deer my youngest boy (10 years old) shot was with an 85gr Barnes TSX out of his 270 starting at 2000fps. Will have to go to the range again this summer and see where his comfort level is at. Thinking it will be with 110gr TSX at 2800-3000fps.

Barnes does make a 100gr TSX for the 7mm's.

if she is new to shooting go with a 234 and use good bullets. No question it will be more fun for her.

Why start her out with a handicap? If you reload, you can water down a .260 load or a 7-08 load to .243 levels while still throwing a bigger ball. However, you can't jack a .243 up to .260 or 7-08 levels.
If recoil is the big issue, just get one of those .223s with a fast twist that'll shot 70-90gr bullets and use that.

You consider the 243 a handicap yet your recommending a 223 with a fast twist barrel?

Shod

I don't recommend a .223 for anything except varmints but from all reports, the fast twist barrels, and the advances in .224 bullets, puts it on a par with a .243. With less recoil. Your post about seeing more than one lady ruined by excessive recoil is pretty humourous when comparing a .243 and a .260. Just how many ladies have you seen "ruined"? I can count the ones I've seen on one hand and still have five fingers up.

I know of one girl who is about 14-15 and is likely a touch scared of her 7mm-08. She closes her eyes and yanks the trigger. That being said, she is shooting 140gr Superformance ammo in a lightweight rifle and I doubt she ever had a lot of experience with a rifle of lighter recoil. She should have been shooting youth loads in that gun or using a smaller chambering that she could shoot with confidence.

On the other side of the coin, my daughter hunted this season with a 7lb 7mm-08 and enjoyed it. She's all of 70lbs and just turned 8 years old. Ultra-light andloads turned that rifle into a pussycat and she doesn't even know that deer rifles "kick". Would a 243win have worked? Sure it would. Is a 243win what I'd like to see her shooting several years from now? Not really. We like decent exit holes around here and things tend to bleed better with good 7mm and .30cal bullets than they do with good 6mm bullets. I started with a .243win as a kid and moved up to a .270win about 4-5 years later. A handloader can make the 7mm-08 (or 260, 7x57, 308) into a low-recoil 150-200yd deer rifle just as easily as he can turn it into an elk rifle. The 6mm's are fun and useful and I still shoot them, but I consider those larger calibers a fair bit better for our whitetails and hogs.

Your statement about the 260 and 243 being close I agree with however the OP was asking about 243 or 7/08. There is a noticeable difference between the 243 and 7/08.

Shod

If you go back to my first post, I said why not get the best of both worlds and get a .260. And then, on my next post (I think) I said "if you reload", which the op does, you could water down a .260 or 7-08 to .243 levels but you couldn't juice up a .243 to .260 or 7-08 levels.

The 260 I have to agree would be the cats meow!

Shod