Rifle for my Grand Daughter

How old is she? What will she be doing with the rifle? Punching paper, shooting water bottles, varmint hunting, deer hunting with grandfather?

A 7mm-08 has less recoil than a .308 but more than a .243 which has more than a .22-250. Have you considered a .257 Roberts?

Fitch

 

A 7mm-08 will be good for her as long as you dont use the heavyer bullets. Might also want to consider the 243 as it too does not have alot of felt recoil. The 7mm 08 would be better in the long run i think. Being that a 7mm-08 actually uses the 308 as its parent case the only thing that would help is shooting the lighter bullets assumeing the gun weighs the same as your 308. But then again the 243s parrent case is also the 308 so there again it would be weight of the gun and bullet that would make the recoil less. Hope this did not confuse you too much. Lets try this

243 shooting 90g bullet at 3000fps will create 8.76LBS of free recoil energy
7mm08 shooting 140g bullet at 3003fps will create 17.2LBS of free recoil energ
7mm08 shooting 120g bullet at 3126fps will create 14.26lbs of recoil energy

A 308 will be about the same as the 140g load for a 7mm08

Hope this helps

 

The 7mm-08 is a good cartridge but it's more recoil than I'd expect a 10 year old boy or girl to shoot well unless there are big for their age and much less sensitive to recoil that average. Hurt them once at that age and it can turn them off.

If it was me, I'd do a lot of chuck hunting with that .223 and introduce her to a .243 shooting the 95g NBT a few rounds at a time. It's about half the recoil of a 7mm-08 and quite effective on Whitetail out to 300 yards, Mule deer to 200 yards. If she hunts with the .243 for a few years, when she's 16 she'll be ready for a 7mm-08 or heavier rifle.

That said, there are girls, like my niece (22years old - former HS and college basket ball player), who like big guns, wouldn't know how to flinch, and are scary good shots right out of the box. She has put as many as 300 rounds downrange in one session from my Glock (only stopeed because there was no more ammo), shoots my .45LC Ruger BlackHawk with deer loads in it (255g LSWC over 10g of Unique), and can shoot my 1953 .30-06 Winchester M70 (with a blued steel butt plate) just fine. But she was never pushed, never made to do anything with a rifle or handgun that wasn't fun. So she never got turned off.

She hasn't been willing to shoot her dad's 12GA slug gun yet, but she's shot my daughters 20GA with 3" buckshot loads and handled it just fine.

Fitch

 

a 95 partition and a remington 700 that fits her. it doesn't have to be loaded that hot. 2800fps. start with some 60 or 70 grainers at 3000 for practice. wear muffs and puffs the sound is worse than the kick.

 

That's an excellent plan.

Fitch

 

The 243 is an awesome cartridge, so many have cut there teeth on them and still use them I would also add if you look at Savages is to look at the 250-3000, it is a deer slayer an my daughter will more than likely start shooting deer and elk with it also.

 

I use a 243 for the 2nd centerfire rifle when teaching kids to shoot.
A Rem Mld 7 is the perfect rifle if you want a bolt action.
The NEF with a heavy bbl is a less expensive rifle.
Both good for kids, very little felt recoil.
Try some 87grn V-Max or the Sierra 85BTHP for deer.

Coach