300 Blackout Contender with a red dot. Easy mechanics,simple to aim, no recoil, compact with a short LOP. Put a suppressor on it and it's hearing safe.

I'll second the 7mm-08. Both my Granddaughters along with my Daughter shoot one. Daughter shoots regular loads and Granddaughters can shoot either the Remington or Hornaday reduced loads. I do use god-a-grip cheek pads and finger groves on them.

Best rifle ever built out of the box

My eight year old is shooting his Marlin XS7 243 that I bought him for his birthday. However, his first deer rifle shooting experience was with the same 30-30 that I killed my first deer with. I'm not sure he noticed the difference in recoil if there is one.

My daughter started hunting when she was 8 using a savage 22-250. Great rifle. I reloaded 53gr Barnes TSX for it and it has been Money. now she is 10 and 3 deer later now she is moving into a .243, for this season. I would not change a thing if I could the 22-250 has been awesome.

Will build her a 6.5 Creedmoor and after that she is on her own.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^

243

243 Mohawk

Used these rounds for my Dad in his last few years of hunting; low recoil and dropped a buck dead in his tracks at 100 yards!

The gun is almost as important as the caliber, and calibers mentioned here are good. I have seen way too many kids flinching at the range because their first gun was a lightweight youth model gun. And often the outcome is a heartbroken kid that injured or missed an animal. I have seen guys do the same thing with their wife and get some light weight big caliber rifle. I have shot youth model 223s that kick harder than my 308. Lightweight guns will make a kid gun shy, to me this is not a good idea.
My daughter was 9 years old when she shot her first deer with a heavy barrel 243 that she had shot perfectly at the range. That gun barely moved when she squeezed the trigger. She was about 50 pounds and put that gun over her shoulder and walked the 200 yards to the blind for her first hunt. A neck shot later and she had a doe laying were it stood. She is 23 years old now and still uses that gun with amazing confidence. It was also carried for miles during a recent pronghorn hunt, no complaints.
My wife and daughters are all petite ladies. They all have heavy, full length, rifles and they all shoot excellent. They giggle when a guy talks about how he needs to shorten a gun so it will be lighter to carry and easier to move around in the blind.
This is Texas, we bench rest hunt out of a blind. Rifle weight is not an issue.

marlin 30-30 w/4power scope...
150gr and will kill any whitetail from a box blind under a feeder at a measured distance..
this is all anyone who sits in a box near feeder really needs....
dated, but it works...

I have an 8 and 10 yr old that have both killed whitetail with the same 22-250 rem 788 that I used as a kid (stock is cut down) I have hand loaded for many years but still kill deer with factory 55gr corelocks in this rifle.

This season I built a savage 6.5 Grendel and put it in a xlr chassis so my 10yr old can shoot long range with us. I hunt with a 6.5 creedmoor suppressed, my 10 hr old killed a deer at 300 yds with that rifle last season.

I originally bought a youth model .243 but the recoil was too much.. we then went to an ar .223 with an adjustable stock, but knowing he's not the greatest shooter, I started looking for something that would knock a big hole and leave us a good blood trail.. so we've got the .300 blackout and grandpa recently picked up a Ruger .44 cal semi auto.. both have little recoil and throw a big chunck of lead.!

And to clarify on his shooting accuracy, he's pattering about the size of my hand at 100 yards, so not terrible but the bigger bullet gives us both a little more confidence in recovering game.

I'm all for a larger bullet. I shot a yearling (1.5 yr old) doe as my very first deer, she was broadside at 100-115 yards. I hit her right in the shoulder with a 100gr corelokt, just like I was taught. She flopped, struggled, got up and ran off into the brush. My dad tracked her for nearly 400 yards and shot her again. The post-op exam looked like the bullet had just blown all the meat off the shoulder blade without penetrating. There was no brush between us when I fired and my dad and I used that same box of shells on plenty of other deer. It's been way too long to remember clearly but maybe I hit her too high to catch the spine, or just perfectly below it and above the lungs. It was very disheartening at the time. Thanks for the tracking job and coup de grace, pops.

This is what all of my boys started with and got their first deer with....

My daughters were 7 and 11 when I bought them a Ruger 77 Compact in .243. We started them with reduced handloads of IMR 3031 using Sierra 85 grain boat tail hollow points. They killed their first nine deer with that rifle. All one shot kills. The younger one (turns 21 in Jan) hunts with a 25-06 now but her sister still hunts with the .243. I consider myself fortunate. Good luck with your selection and I hope your boy enjoys hunting as much as my girls do.

Great advice here! If you can get reduced recoil loads that will allow him to grow into a rifle that will suit him for years to come it seems like the would be the best option!

the savage lever's are very iffy for accuracy, 87gr bullets that are difficult to find. bolt 250's are scarce

This is exactly what my family has done, too. My dad took his first deer with this setup, and 30ish years later I took my first deer (out of the same stand) with the same marlin 30-30. I was a normal sized 10 year old and the recoil didn't bother me. Most of my cousins used basically the same rifle for their first deer, also. It's become a family tradition, and I think its pretty cool that in a few years my kid will be the 3rd generation to kill their first deer with the same rifle. Its pretty basic, but it works.

my father's gun.. a 336 carbine/4x weaver...
he shot a lot of ordinace in Army..
Garand, BAR, .30 carbine, various .50 cal. BMG's..single, dual and quad and .30 machine guns...
90mm and 105mm artilleraly and armored(tanks)w/same 90's and 105's
he shot deer w/a 30-30...
go figger...

that ole 30-30 taught me a lot....
Dad let me have it and go sneak oats fields...
does would bust me in the fence-line till I learned
enough to be better than they were...
best teaching ever...
doubt I could do it now, but I could sneak a deer...
till I got a 270 and then they's dead way out there...
thx for the memories of when I'd lay in a fence-line jus' waiting...
got my first buck doing that

I had a brake-down single shot 243. Loved that little gun and killed many deer and a few hogs with it.

My first deer gun was a british enfield 303. Second was a ParkerHale 243 that I loved and many deer dropped with it. But my vote for a first deer rifle caliber, goes to the ancient great 257 Roberts.

Love thinking about this my first deer rifle was a break over 22 Hornet. Shot a hard horned stag at 175 yards with that 2nd hunt in a stand by myself at the age of 8. That's still the best horned deer I've ever killed had a 21" inside spread.

Still have the gun in the family and plan on giving it to my kids around 5-7 y/o.