Looking for a lh rifle

I am researching all this left hand jazz now too. My 7 year old is right handed and left eye dominant. I am teaching him to shoot left, but it will only be a couple years til he needs a center fire rifle for deer and such. I don't own a single left hand rifle so that is why I am researching.

I think I have narrowed it down to a Tikka or Browning. I am leaning towards the tikka because I can get it in 6.5x55 which is my favorite rifle caliber. We will see what plays out as he gets closer to 10 which is minimum hunting age in AZ for big game.
 
First of all, you are better off going cheap on the rifle than the scope. Many modern rifles around $500 or less guarantee sub moa out of the box with factory ammo. You can generally speaking get them down to 1/2 or even 1/4 moa with a well developed hand load.

I recommend the Ruger American Rifle in either.300 Win Mag, or 30-06. The 30-06 is about $100 cheaper but the .300 win mag will launch larger pills at faster velocity with higher ballistic coefficients down range making longer shots easier. And the 300 Win Mag is a .30 cal so bullets are easy to find. I have a Ruger Am rifle in .270 win which I was able to get at 1/4 moa without really trying to develop a good hand load. The Ruger American also comes standard with a free floated cold hammer forged barrel and adjustable 3-5 lb trigger.
The .300 win mag is about $500 and the .30-06 is about $400.

For a scope I would go with the Leupold VX-R 6x18x40 Mildot Or the Nikon Monarch 4x16x50 Mildot mounted using Burris signature XTR rings. The scopes are about $500 each and rings $80. The Burris rings have the ability to have either a 0 MOA cant (like standard rings) or 40 MOA cant. This is necessary when trying to zero scopes with standard amounts of internal travel at 800+ yards. Don't shim your rings....and the XTR rings by Burris will handle heavy recoil and are easy on the scope.

You could put this package together for $1000-$1100 and have a nice 1/2 MOA rifle, decent glass, and crisp light trigger. You will not have iron sights but I have been hunting for decades and was in theater over in the Persian gulf and never once used iron sights. With good rings and a good scope, as long as you don't bend it falling out of a tree your fine. And if you go on a long hunting trip, keep a backup rifle in your truck.

Also, no iron sights allows for medium or sometimes even low rings.
 
I own several Tikka and Browning X-Bolts. Both are outstanding. If I had to choose between the two, It would be the Tikka.
 
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