Young father and guns

[Wapiti_Hunter]

Hey everyone, I have a couple questions. I am a young father, my wife and I have 3 boys, ages 6, 3 and 8 months. My two older boys help me clean some of the guns in a safe environment and have always been taught gun safety. My first question is when to buy my older son his first gun, I was assuming a .22 or .177? And also any recommendations on some of your favorite youth rifles are greatly appreciated. Thank you all for your insight!

 

[Ikeepitcold]

I gave my daughter a .22 Cricket as her first gun. Single shot with a peep sight. Very safe and short for the little ones.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

I bought my son his first gun, a H & R Topper single shot 20 ga for Christmas when he was 7. When he was 12 I bought him a Remington 600 in .243. He passed his hunter safety when he was 7. My Dad was the Instructor and he read him the questions to make sure he understood them. Took him Dove hunting when he was 7 and shot his first Deer at 12. He will be 49 this fall and we still hunt together.

 

[Hilltop]

Wapiti,

I believe in starting with a BB gun at very early ages. I don't believe you can start teaching safety and handling too early. My youngest son got his first BB gun at 2 years old. We of course had very controlled environments but he is now 5 and preaches safety to his friends anytime he is even sees a toy gun pointed wrong. I do have a cricket 22 that we occasionally take out and shoot- love them as well. I think each kid is different but I think most of them are ready long before we are ready to let them.

 

[Againstthewind]

I will throw in and agree with what everyone has said. My son is eleven (will be 12 Oct. 9 so we have to wait until the 9th to get at some big game), but we started him out at 9 I think with the .22 in 4-H, BB guns before that a little. It was just a timing thing, there are 8 year old in it I think. We had to go through the hunter safety and everything to shoot 4-H. I think it is a good program to get them into, plus doing stuff on your own with them. 6 might be a little young for hunter safety, but like Hilltop said, it depends on the kid. I am thinking of auditing hunter safety again for ours, just because. Grandpa kindof spoiled him with a pretty nice .22, but those cricket ones are pretty good. I have had my remington pump .22 since about that age and it is still pretty fun and shoots fine. Those single shot ones are also a good idea to teach shooting mechanics and probably a little safer than the pumps. I used to get all Lucas McCain with that thing, it was pretty fun.

 

[Drhorsepower]

My daughter also recieved a .22 cricket for her first Christmas. She was 6mos my son has one as well. They aren't quite old enough yet but it's never too early to get them especially in this political
Environment.

As far as true rifles go I would consider the 7mm-08, 243 win., and the 6mm remington.

 

[Manualman]

A couple years ago I bought a Rossi trifecta for by friends kids. It's a .22,243Winchester & a 20 gauge shotgun. The age to start them all depends on the child. If they don't want go don't force them. If they want to go make it fun

 

[AKaviator]

I'm with most of the rest of the guys...I bought my son a Daisy Red Rider B.B. gun when he was about 5. He moved up to a Cricket .22
at about 7. He passed hunter safety at 9 years old and got his first moose at age 10 with a Remington 600 .243.

The nice thing about having kids, or in my case, a kid, is you can use them for an excuse to buy even more guns! Even at 10 years old, I could convince my wife that he really really needed to have that new 12 gauge that I'd been coveting, because he's growing up soooo fast. I'll use it until he can handle it better. Same thing went for a new .375H&H. Yeah, he's only 11 but lot's of 11 year olds shoot .375's, honest. We sure wouldn't want him to feel deprived. I'll take it on a hunt just to break it in for him too!! We've added several nice guns to the safe. Dad of the year prospect for sure!

Unfortunately, my wife is catching on.

 

[buckbull]

I screwed up really good a few years ago. I have an RWS pellet gun with a 2x power scope. My son is lights out with the gun. We were practicing one afternoon and my 5 year old daughter wanted a shot. My son had been shooting it fine at that age and I said she could. Do to her small size, she couldn't quite hold the stock up against her should so the stock was underneath her arm pit. I thought it would be OK since it was just a pellet gun. She shot and let out a blood curling scream. Scope cut her eyebrow and blood was just gushing.

5 years later she still has the scar and Mom makes sure I never forget what happened. I guess the lesson learned is to always make sure the youngsters have appropriately sized firearms and that proper techniques should always be followed. No family wants to go thru what happened with the nine year old girl with the Uzi.

 

[Mr Drysdale]

My grandsons all killed Whitetails last year with me. Eight year old shoots a 260 Rem. Six year old shoots a 243 Win. Four year old shoots a 223. We shoot regularly and they have been taught safety. BTW they all started with the same 223 H&R single shot. I have passed the 260 down to the eight year old. The six year old will be shooting a 7mm-08 this year.

 

[2rocky]

On our third daughter we finally got it right. got her a red Ryder BB gun and she loves shooting cans in the yard. She got it at about 4 yo.

Any time we do anything with guns she brings her BB gun. Her older sisters were probably 8 when we got them a pump pellet gun.

I grew up with a single shot bolt action Remington .22 LR. All the girls shoot that rifle and learn about sight picture and practice. The 14 and 16 yo each have shot the .223 and a 7mm-08, as well as a 20 gauge youth model 870. I'll estimate they were introduced to the centerfires at 10 or 11. Same age as Hunter safety.