I’d steer him to a short action, low recoil round like 6.5 Creedmoor or PRC (if you like speed) or a .308 or 7mm-08. The whole ‘grow a set and shoot a big boy caliber’ crowd is just plain wrong, imo. What do I know, though, after 30+ years guiding? Lol. Seriously, recoil causes more problems in new shooters than ANY other factor. You never know whether a new shooter will react negatively to recoil. I’ve seen so many guys (and gals) get a bad flinch or fall into slapping a trigger because of a dislike of recoil, even guys with a passion for the gym that looked like pro defensive tackles! The WHOLE point of “getting a friend into shooting” is for them to enjoy it and stick with it. Given that fact, why would you ever consider following an unnecessary path that included a caliber capable of derailing that journey or, at least, complicating it? All the calibers I mentioned are plenty of gun for the lower 48 and for all but 2-3 animals in North America. It only makes sense to avoid potential pitfalls and stick with something that’s easy and fun to shoot without giving up capability.
I’ve never known another guide that wouldn’t prefer a confident, capable and comfortable shooter with a slightly smaller caliber (as long as it’s suitable, of course) to a shooter with a “big boy” rep caliber and less than perfect technique. Now that I also run blood tracking dogs I notice that a majority of calls I get are not from people shooting .243 and .264, it’s guys shooting .300wm, .30-06 and other “big boy” calibers. That’s sure not the result of the calibers’ capability....it’s operator error 100% of the time. This disproportionate cross section illustrates recoil is a very real problem (even for those who don’t want to admit it) that is a bad idea for many shooters, particularly NEW ones. If you started your buddy in .300wm (or some other bigger caliber) and it worked for him/her...great! You got lucky. It just makes sense to work shooters up to bigger recoil instead of introducing them to it immediately because of some misguided attempt to compensate for some shortcoming. There’s lots to learn to become a GOOD shooter and hunter; so make recoil easy to manage and shooting lots of rounds a painless experience. Wit modern powders and bullet construction we don’t NEED to shoot big recoil to get very lethal effect down range. The days of needing a big heavy bullet to kill an elk or smaller deer are in the past.
Besides, a short action will shave ya a few ounces! Lol!
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