Rifle for 14 year old

Originally Posted by PHOENIX PHIL

Final Decision : Tikka T3 Lite in .308 Winchester. Had to order, will be at the shop on Wednesday.

Good solid rifle!
:-)

Originally Posted by PHOENIX PHIL

Final Decision : Tikka T3 Lite in .308 Winchester. Had to order, will be at the shop on Wednesday.

Good choice
I recommend you to buy a Limbsaver recoil pad to use instead of the factory one.

Originally Posted by Norwegianwoods

Good choice
I recommend you to buy a Limbsaver recoil pad to use instead of the factory one.

I have one on my Tikka .300WM. I'm going to swap it over to the new rifle and see how the rifle fits him. I'm a little concerned the LOP will get too long. If so, I'll have him start wearing a PAST pad at the range.

Whats your sons LOP ? You know the old butstock in the elbow trick. once you know that change away.

Personally I recommend getting a 7mm-08 its the same case as a .308 but a touch less recoil and great ballistics for its size, plus you can shoot a wide variety of 7mm bullets accurately. As for the rifle Remington makes a inexpensive youth model in 7mm-08 that with a new stock could easily become an adult rifle as he grows.

Originally Posted by BARTFRNCS

Whats your sons LOP ? You know the old butstock in the elbow trick. once you know that change away.

Haven't measured it per se, but with the stock pad on the now sold .223 Tikka, his trigger finger was where it belonged.

Well I got my 14 year old to the range today with his new .308 Tikka. I loaded up 5 rounds of 165gr Nosler Ballistic Tips with 44gr of RL15. This is listed as a max load in the Nosler manual and is what he was shooting previously. I also loaded up 15 rounds of various powder weight in RL15 with 165gr North Fork softs.

After bore sighting the gun, I used two of the BT's and then adjusted the scope to put the POI at approximately 2" high and centered. I then handed it over to the boy. Before letting him shoot I made sure he was in a good shooting position and able to properly through the scope and imparting and overload of fatherly shooting wisdom to the sheer boredom of my son. He was growing impatient and wanted to shoot, so fine, show me what you can you do hotshot! So here's his first 3 shot group.

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So what am I going to say to that? I'd say he's taken to the new rifle pretty well!


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This is the best NF load grouping which was at the minimum end of the powder charges I loaded. As the charge went up, the group opened up so time to work the other direction. While not as impressive as the BT load, it's still under an inch and I think we've got something to work with.

Looks good so far! That first group doesn't get much better than that. Looks like you have a good starting point.

Looks real good. Now to group then like that on the side of some critter!

Now that you have the load figured out. It's field position time. Sticks,offhand,sitting,knelling,prone shooting off limbs ect should be a blast literaly. Form from the beginning will make for a fine rifleman. Good luck and Dont forget to throw in unknown distances.
Bart

Originally Posted by BARTFRNCS

Now that you have the load figured out. It's field position time. Sticks,offhand,sitting,knelling,prone shooting off limbs ect should be a blast literaly. Form from the beginning will make for a fine rifleman. Good luck and Dont forget to throw in unknown distances.
Bart

Went to the range yesterday with the boy. He was hitting a small metal plate at 200 yards right away the first time off the sticks. He enjoyed that with the noticed recoil being less. He took to the sticks quite quickly. He wanted to shoot 300 yards, so he did that on the bench. Good lesson in hold over learned for him as he figured out that gravity really does apply to bullets also. He also had to learn a bit about trigger squeeze and staying steady at that distance. But he did well overall. He had some hits and his misses were quite close, not bad for first time at that distance.

He's gaining confidence and I think that's the best thing.

Phil, great to hear your son is doing well with the rifle, our weather has been great the last few days to get out and do some stuff outside. You son is luckly to have a dad to teach him to shoot and hunt. Be proud, he has a great role model.
John

Originally Posted by arizona

Phil, great to hear your son is doing well with the rifle, our weather has been great the last few days to get out and do some stuff outside. You son is luckly to have a dad to teach him to shoot and hunt. Be proud, he has a great role model.
John

Thanks AZ, I appreciate the complement. Your right the brief reprieve from the heat made for a good day to shoot. Hope you enjoyed it too, I think this is the end of pleasant weather until fall. But that's why God created the rim country for us Phoenicians!

I think I learned something myself in this. As I don't have a scope for his rifle yet, I put my 6.5-20 Zeiss that I use on my Coues rifle on his rifle for the time being. I put the scope at 10x when he was setting up for his 200 yard off the sticks shot. Well of course he wanted it set to 20. I started to say no, but in a momentary event of thinking, I said okay go ahead knowing what would happen. Well he of course had trouble finding the target and figured it out himself that he should back the scope back down. I'd prefer he followed my lead, but I guess a kid sometimes has to make his own mistakes and will learn from them.