ladies/youth big game caliber

[gerry]

Hard to go wrong with the 6.5x55, 6.5 Creedmoor or 7mm-08 these days for women or youth. Quite frankly for men as well, most animals don't require a cannon to bring them down. The 270 Win kicks a bit more but there are a ton of factory loads for it and I really appreciate mine. My wife has a 6.5x55 and I also have a 260 Rem, both are quite enjoyable to shoot and do the job nicely.

The .270 is the nicest deer size game rig out there ! download it if need be......

With faster burning powders in the 270 Win like H 4895 or Varget 45 gr+/- at 2800-2900 using 130 gr bullets is a dead ringer in every way for the 260 class of cartridges. These days with 90-110 gr bullets for the 6.8 SPC it can be reduced even more. The good old 270 Win has never been so versatile as it is now.

Even in todays hyper advertised 6.5 Creedmore days; the little 7mm/08 seams to be cleaning up gun sales
Here in Maine, every shop I go into is loaded with both, seams like the paper punchers are all about the Creedmores; but the hunting crowd(especially the ladys and younger hunters) are definitely leaning hard at the little 7mm ! It has certainly established
Itself as a legitimate " Moose gun" with the right bullets and nowadays a top contender for deer/black bears. It looks like it is going to get bundled up with .270/.280 crowd, as a top performer on Whitetails!
E

I would have zero issues using a 7mm-08 for all my hunting including moose. It's a fantastic little round.

 

[Polaris]

Phone tag between my mobile camera and a real computer.

Below is the difference between a youth/ladies sized rifle and a full length man gun in the most important areas. The rifle on top is the wife's .308. Due to the camera angle, the 1" shorter LOP with pad installed is not clearly visible. Note the ample recoil pad. Most importantly in this comparison is the bolt location when fully open. On the .308 short action, the back of the bolt still allows for maintaining cheek weld and keeping the game animal in the vicinity of the sight picture while cycling the bolt. On the long action Mauser 98, this would not be possible. Also note the slimming of the wrist and shorter distance from back of wrist to trigger guard vs. the full sized Mauser 98. I wish she would have been interested in a thumbhole, I could have really tweaked this dimension for smaller hands, but those were "ugly" so the thumbhole was vetoed.

 

[maverick2]

I started our daughter out at 10 years of age with a .308 shooting reduced loads in a Savage 99. Great combo for a beginning shooter. Earlier in its life my Dad had cut the stock to install a recoil pad, so by removing the pad the length was perfect for her. She loves shooting that rifle. She's 12 now, and I'm guessing she's got one more year with the reduced loads and shorter configuration before the recoil pad goes back on and she graduates to regular loads. I really like the simplicity of the lever action for beginning hunters.

 

[hunter24605]

My daughter came a little late to the game, being 18 when she took an interest in shooting/hunting..After popping off many, many rounds with my 223's we took her to dealer...After about 10 or so rifles, the Savage 11 fit her as well as a non-custom rifle was going to. I got the 7mm-08 mostly because of convenience, as it happened to be what the Savage was chambered for, and because I'd read about for so many years..She did have a little flinch shooting 140 gr bullets, so I found a bunch of un-named 150 grain blems on midway for crazy cheap and ordered 400 of them for her to shoot 6" gongs at 100 yards with..After about 100 or so she pretty much worked out the flinch and by 200 she looked like an old pro shooting them..She's taken a couple deer with the 7-08 and 140 accubonds, and she love's the cartridge and the AccuBond, and I can't recall her ever mentioning recoil, other than to say it was more than the 223's..So in this house, the choice of the 7-08 was because it happened to be cartridge of the rifle that fit her, and she could take it home that day..Sometimes the stars align.