I have to give another vote to the .243. It will take anything native to Texas, while not punishing the shooter with recoil.

.223 will work, but i'd say if he can shoot a .243 go with that.

.223 seems to be plenty for pigs as numerous videos on YouTube attest to.

If you want a rifle he can also use comfortably for deer or elk, get a nice .308, preferably with a youth stock that will fit him well and load up on the reduced recoil loads from Remington. These seem to kick about like a .223, you barely feel it. They take down mule deer at about 150 yards just fine. I couldn't tell any difference between that and a full-power 30/06 when the deer were hit.

Have fun looking at rifles and teaching him to shoot.

The Mesquite Tx. Academy store has the Marlin XL7 7mm-08 youth model rifle on clearance for $281.00 out the door.

get him a .243 he can shot hogs deer with it and it dosent have a bad kick or anything.

IMO, The 243 or the 7mm-08, my 8 y.o. shoots the 243 with not problem, the 08 shoots well with the 140gr. bullet.

Thanks guys for all the help. I was at the gun store, and the guy there convinced me to buy an old Marlin 322 which is the Sako Riihimaki .222. My son is already a dead eye with a .22, I just wanted to move up just a bit so we could shoot the smaller (under 100 pounds) eater hogs. The rifle is extremely accurate, has a pretty low recoil, and it's really pretty. We're just target shooting now, but I have a hunt planned for next month. I'll let you all know how it goes. And by the way, thanks so much for the advice on shot placement. We'll keep that in mind. We'll be using the Hornady .222 V-Max 50gr. Most of our shots will be closer than 100 yards.

Oh, and by the way, on our first hunt, I plan to second his shot with my .308, or use it on anything bigger that might show up. Maybe in a year or so, we'll step up a bit, and I'll certainly keep the Sako for plinking and varmits. You guys are great.

Gerhardt

I just bought a rem 700 .308 for my 9 year old daughter and I got some youth load data from hodgdons and after some work I got a nice light load worked up but all that aside she can shoot regular ammo just fine but I want her to be able to shoot the rifle a lot and get real comfortable with it so I went with the light load 150 gr going 1925 fps should be plenty to kill a hog, The 243 is a good rifle to and shouldn't have much recoil, here is their web site for youth loads.
http://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Youth%20Loads.pdf

My daughter is little and she uses my 30/30 I got those reduced recoil rounds and they do the trick they are hard to find now though.

A 45-70 with 540 grain hammerheads would take down those eater size pigs and has no recoil at all

The .222 should do the trick with a well placed shot