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Savage has rebate right now. Buy Savage Axis in youth stock from Bud's. See the instruction on internet how to lighten trigger pull weight. When your youth grows out of the rifle sell it for more than you paid and buy another adult size rifle. The Axis is light and youth stock is 12 1/2' lop. Axis can be very accurate after correcting trigger pull.
If money is no factor buy Howa youth.

You didn't say how old the kids were or how tall.

I started my son at 5 years old and the youth stocks on most guns were still too long for him at the time.

I had bought a .243 Handi-Rifle about the time he was born as I found a great deal on one in my local gun shop. When it came time to get him started I found a youth butt stock with an 11 or 11.5 inch LOP. I filled the butt stock with lead weight to manage the recoil for him. He was a little under 40 pounds at the time. He killed 3 deer with that gun over a 2 year period.

I also cut the butt stock down on a Ruger 10/22 to match the Handi Rifle and he shot a lot of .22 LR in preparation for hunting with the .243.

He hit a little growth spurt at age 7 and wanted a gun with a handle on the side (bolt action) like mine. While he was taller then, he hadn't gained much weight, and was still sub 50lbs. We found a Remington youth sps with camo stock and got one in .243. I pulled the recoil pad off and filled the butt stock with copper plated BB's to help with recoil, and he can hold 1 inch groups at 100 yds. with a bipod and rear rest.

The scope is a Redfield Revolution 3-9x40 with the accu-range reticle, the same scope we had on the single shot. The Leupolds, and the Redfield Revolution are just easy scopes to get behind and are forgiving of less than perfect cheek weld to me. They have the eye relief needed for kids, although with a .243 that is not critical. Some people prefer fixed powers for kids and I started with a fixed 4x myself. But my son has never tinkered with the scope at all, he just shoots it on whatever power I put it on and has never asked about it. The first couple of years I kept it around 4x just to help him find the target in the scope and now we usually hunt around 6x and use the 9x at the range.

The 20 inch barrel has a noticeable muzzle blast to me but he never shoots without hearing protection (electronic muffs, so he can hear me talk to him but not the gun going off). With him, I think the noise bothers him more than the recoil.

For ammo, we are using 95 grain Fusions now, but have used blue box Federal 100 grains also. I was going to hand load for his gun, but both of those loads shoot right at 1 inch with him shooting and I don't think my hand loads would be much of an improvement on that.

If I was starting over with him, an AR type rifle in .223 with the adjustable stock would be on my list as it would be a gun he could use the rest of his life. The suggestion of the bolt action with ar style stock would also work well as they grow.

Bob.

Model 7 or 700 youth in 243 or 308. Easy to find. Can find replacement stock very easy. Will last a lifetime.

I am still a firm believer in the compactness of a contender w/youth buttstock. An added feature is the ethics that a single-shot mandates from it's handler. A principle lost on today's high capacity firearms.

Ethics is shootin' that [bleep] until it stays down.



Travis

I had built a Faux TI in 22/250 that I use myself. Also have a beater factory Mountain Rifle stock here that will be cut down and fitted to the aforementioned rifle. Loaded with 53gr TSX, it should do fine for the grandkids when the time comes.

Get a compact Tikka T3 in .308
Put a nice muzzle brake on it.
Load some lighter loads and let the kids get used to the gun.
Make it fun, shooting over hunting packs, shooting cans of corn pop cans reactive targets etc.

I did something similar for my scrawny little 12 year old daughter and she loves to shoot rifles.