Ok my daughter has been shooting Tim fire for awhile now. She shot a doe with a 223 this fall. I bought her a Remington 700 youth 243. Now the issue is she is scared to shoot it because of recoil. Sometimes she says the trigger is to hard to pull too. It has a trigger tech primary in it, I believe currently it breaks at 3lbs. It’s shooting 90g bullet at 2900-2950. Not a hot load at all. How do I get her to shoot this rifle comfortably? All the family says don’t put anything fancy on it she doesn’t need it, ie muzzle break or surpressor. I have a muzzle break on my 7mag, and shoot everything esle surpressed. She has shot my 6.5creedmoor Bergara hmr, she loves that gun it’s got a trigger tech too, surpressor, she absolutely loves that gun. It’s heavy and surpressed so I think she isn’t scared of it and the trigger is only set at 1.5lbs. I don’t hunt with this gun it’s just a range, and shooting steel gun. How do I get her used to her gun? She wouldn’t be able to carry the hmr out hunting and I don’t really think I want to carry two rifles plus what ever we shoot. Lol. Any advice would be great.

thats a lot of muzzle blast for a kid to deal with. i mean.. lots of powder, small bore... i can see how a kid might be bothered by it. throw it in a light youth chassis... it probably does have a fair kick to it for an 11yr old.

if you're gonna do anything, get it threaded and let her try to shoot it suppressed? that might take the crack out of it enough for her to enjoy it. Maybe download it with a h4895 reduced load as well. you can download h4985 by up to 60% of max published load for any bullet/cartridge combo for maximum recoil reduction

https://imrpowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/h4895-reduced-rifle-loads.pdf


or just get her something thats not so snappy, like an arc or a grendel. maybe even a 350 legend. easy recoiling, not a ton of extra muzzle blast, etc.

any of those three should be able to kill a deer comfortably and be more recoil friendly like the 223 is compared to the 243.

or just get some more 75gr sp's and let her keep hunting with the 223 for now. If she's comfortable with that - go with it. she's already made a successful kill with it.


whatever you do - dont ruin the kid on shooting by forcing her to use a gun shes not comfortable firing. aint nothing gonna turn a kid off on shooting sports faster than that.

My guess is more due to muzzle blast than recoil but I could be wrong. At the least use plugs inside the ear muffs and add weight to the stock if possible.

I agree with the plugs & muffs as well. Even when I was 20 something I found that flinching with big magnums (300 Weatherby) was noticeably less when doubled up on hearing protection.

The H4895 works great too and I have used it for loading 257 Roberts for my daughter.

I have two young daughters that like to hunt. One is 11 and one is 8. When they started shooting a few years back I set up a smith and Wesson mp-22 (22lr) the same as the ar’s they would hunt with. Basically same scope and exact same trigger. They shoot steel plate’s practicing and shoot off a tripod mostly. I feel one of the hardest things for someone not experienced with shooting from a scope is finding the target in the scope and having your eye lined up. This gives them a lot of practice with that. They are both very accurate with that 22 and can find and get on target very quickly. I think the main reason they are accurate is they’ve never felt recoil. The oldest has shot two bucks with her 350 legend and both were perfect shots to the shoulder. When I asked her how she liked shooting that gun she was confused why I’d ask that because she thought she’d shot it all the time. When actually she’s only fired two bullets out of it. The younger daughter has killed her first coyote and first red fox night hunting this year. Both were just over 100 yd shots and both dropped like a brick and never flinched. She was using a 6x6.8. I realize neither of the two rifles are they hunt with have much recoil but both are more than a 22lr. My advice is teach her to shoot with a 22lr and save the recoil for when she has some adrenaline and won’t notice it. Just my opinion and your lucky to have a daughter interested in shooting.

Good advice. Don't underestimate the felt recoil of the 6mm's, especially on a light weight youngster.

I built a 6mm Rem. for my son when he was 8. First two groups he shot out of that rifle were 5/8", then they started opening up. I suspected he was getting on the trigger and slipped an MT chamber in on him. Sure enough........

To prove my theory, I set up a video camera and filmed the recoil of me shooting my 300 WM, then changed places and filmed my (70#?) son shooting his 6mm....it pushed him back as far, or farther than my 300 WM pushed me. Add the sharp muzzle blast and it is enough to affect a youngster.

Regards,
hm