Kids rifle manifesto

[rileybassman]

The thing with suppressors for kids is it's kind of a legal risk if they are teens using your suppressors and not under your direct supervision which is unfortunate. Not sure how much people think/worry of this but it's something that has crossed my mind.

I've been thinking a lot about this as well - my oldest is 10 and will be doing apprentice hunts this year, which is fine as he is with me, but yeah - once a teen and if we "split up" and he happens to have a warden ask, it could put us in an awkward situation.

Same thing with letting the wife use one of my cans as well - the whole thing is dumb, but we need to be aware of any potential issues. As dad, I just will become "designated stamp carrier" it appears for a few years lol.

 

[Formidilosus]

I've been thinking a lot about this as well - my oldest is 10 and will be doing apprentice hunts this year, which is fine as he is with me, but yeah - once a teen and if we "split up" and he happens to have a warden ask, it could put us in an awkward situation.

No. I’m not aware of a single state where they have the authority to ask that. That is ATF’s purview. Beyond that, no one is going to ask, and no one is going to get hung up because a kid is a couple hundred yards away while hunting.

Same thing with letting the wife use one of my cans as well - the whole thing is dumb, but we need to be aware of any potential issues. As dad, I just will become "designated stamp carrier" it appears for a few years lol.

Put them on a trust.

 

[Jbuck]

I 100% disagree with this assessment. The kid that weighs half as much is accelerated rearward twice as violently. F=MA as we know, and the same force acting on half the mass results in doubling the acceleration.

Yes it happens over twice the distance, but that's just because the rifle shoves the kid put of the way twice as hard.

It is not the same as a thicker recoil pad. The pad increases the distance the rifle moves before it meets firm resistance and accelerates your shoulder, neck, and head. It allows the recoil energy to be partly absorbed by squishy stuff that can be compressed before it meets hard stuff that needs to be moved out of the way.

The force needed to stop an object (rifle) is the mass devided by the time to slow it to zero.

So playing with 100% hypothetical numbers a 8lb rifle that stops in 1 second takes twice as much force to stop as a 8lb rifle that stops in 2 seconds. With recoil we are talking about way less then a second, but hopefully that explains it a little better.

I'm not getting into brain injuries or musculoskeletal systems as I haven't learned about them enough to speak on it. I do know everyone has their own recoil limit.

It is exactly the way a recoil pad works. You are allowing it to slow down over a longer period.

 

[cjdewese]

I just went through this process myself, We live in the most western state so no suppressed unfortunately but decided to get a few different options as we go up in age and comfortability. We always shoot with double ear protection and so far my oldest is comfortable and doesn't seem to have a flinch up t0 the 223 and really enjoys shooting skeet with the 410. My youngest is really starting to get comfortable behind the 22LR. He is really sound sensitive and always has been so I really wish we could do suppressed here.

Sure as hell beats the Enfield 1917 and 12 Gauge my brothers and I had to shoot when we were kids. If it weren't for our bb/pellet guns we never would have shot.

22LR Compact Single Shot Bolt Action - Old Weaver 22 scope

Rem 700 223 with full barrel- roughly 10 lbs

Savage Arms 110 22-250

410 single shot

 

[Jbuck]

Very good. I will add that from teaching a lot of new shooters, and a lot of children to teenagers, there is some more to consistently getting kids/new hunters and shooters to become “into” it.

1). Rifle with sub 6-7ft-lbs of recoil. A 60-120lb kid is not an adult in any way, shape, or form. They don’t have the muscle or bone mass. TBI (traumatic brain injury) or concussions is a real problem. Watch in slow motion a smaller persons head when they shoot a normal hunting weight 6.5cm not locked into a tripod and tell yourself that’s good for them.

I'm trying to look around for more information on TBI and concussions from shooting. The only studies I've found are about braked 50bmg's. If you could please share so studies I'd be grateful. I've played college football and I've been exposed to all that stuff. So I try to be cognizant of it. I just haven't spent the time to read enough. It's probably time.

2). Short and light that allows them to totally and completely handle the rifle from all positions- standing offhand, tripod, sitting with rest, sitting unsupported, prone, etc. This is massively overlooked by parents and teachers.

I think the is biggest point I've read on this thread. As parents we have to weigh all the variables and come up with a rifle that our kids can handle. I try to do a lot of field style shooting with my kids and rifle weight is a huge factor.

3). Detachable mags that are smooth and easy to load- again they should be manipulating the rifle 100% by themself- not you doing it for them. Lay a rifle with internal mag down, and one with a good DBM down- say a Tikka, and kids/women will flock to shoot the Tikka every time.

I also like this approach and have found it to be easier for me to keep an eye on them when we are hunting or at the range. Bolt open with no magazine inserted is a easy visual check to make.

4). Action that doesn’t bind (this is a big one that is overlooked) as they don’t have the strength to muscle the bolt.

I had to get my howa bolt coated to make it run smooth enough to not bind while my kids run it. Before he would have to cheat and push the bolt closed with his thumb on the back of the bolt instead of the bolt handle.

5). Trigger to grip length- make it short. Very short.

I just got a McMillan U10 in so that I can let the kids try it out. The reach from the grip to the trigger is significantly shorter. The problem I've ran into with adult stocks when you shorten the LOP for an kid the reach is still too much. I've had a lot better luck using chassis' for them.

6). Suppressed if at all possible- and I mean if not illegal to own where you live. Kids and newer shooters (all shooters really) do not get ear plugs in correctly, ear muffs don’t fit correctly, and even if they do almost never are worn correctly. I would seek every rifle but one to get a suppressed without question.




cont….

 

[ElPollo]

The force needed to stop an object (rifle) is the mass devided by the time to slow it to zero.

So playing with 100% hypothetical numbers a 8lb rifle that stops in 1 second takes twice as much force to stop as a 8lb rifle that stops in 2 seconds. With recoil we are talking about way less then a second, but hopefully that explains it a little better.

I'm not getting into brain injuries or musculoskeletal systems as I haven't learned about them enough to speak on it. I do know everyone has their own recoil limit.

It is exactly the way a recoil pad works. You are allowing it to slow down over a longer period.

Not trying to provide a math or a medical lesson, but you are referring to the mass of the object in motion (the gun) not the mass of the shooter. The force and velocity from the recoil is the same because in this example both shooters are firing the same gun and load. However, consider that if you transfer an equal amount of force at the same velocity to a golf ball verses bowling ball, the golf ball will move further and be traveling for a longer period of time than the bowling ball. Now if your moving object is a skull with a brain suspended in a liquid inside a skull, you get more “slosh” from moving further and longer. In general, slosh is bad for brains. I am not quantifying the potential for TBIs with this example, just pointing out the physics of force affecting objects of lesser and greater masses that potentially have brains.

 

[eric1115]

The force needed to stop an object (rifle) is the mass devided by the time to slow it to zero.

So playing with 100% hypothetical numbers a 8lb rifle that stops in 1 second takes twice as much force to stop as a 8lb rifle that stops in 2 seconds. With recoil we are talking about way less then a second, but hopefully that explains it a little better.

I'm not getting into brain injuries or musculoskeletal systems as I haven't learned about them enough to speak on it. I do know everyone has their own recoil limit.

It is exactly the way a recoil pad works. You are allowing it to slow down over a longer period.

You have to think about the way recoil works though. The rifle is nearly instantly moving backwards at its maximum velocity. If a kid's collarbone is a fraction of an inch (skin plus very minimal tissue) away from the butt pad, that part of the kid's skeleton is moving backwards nearly instantly, at the same velocity as the rifle. A recoil pad allows the rifle to accelerate instantly as above, reach peak recoil velocity, then start the deceleration process while the recoil pad compresses and starts to transfer that energy more gradually to the shooter (reducing the peak acceleration value). It's also going to prolong the energy transfer on the other end as it springs back (releasing stored potential energy)

Some of the recoil energy gets absorbed by the shoulder, chest, etc. The rest gets transferred to the neck, chest, arm, etc. The neck, chest, arm absorb some of that, and transfer the rest up the neck to the head and into the rest of the body. The more mass the shooter has, the more recoil gets absorbed before being transferred downstream. Kids tend to have proportionally large heads for their body size, so it ends up being kind of like a heavy scope on a light rifle. Most challenging possible scenario for the mount/rings (neck).

 

[JollyRoger]

I think you’re pretty spot on. For my boys they’ve shot a lot with pellet guns when starting out (which are great cause they are actually sized correctly for small shooter). They’ve also shot a T1X a bunch and are now hunting with T3X 223 compacts.

The 223 is great cause it’s mild recoil, they know when they hit or miss, and are learning to make wind calls and use a simple reticle

Even before they started carrying the BB guns in the field they’d bring toy rifles, an old lever action I had as a kid and a bolt gun too. There’s a lot to teach about carrying a rifle and being safe with it.

I’ve posted some of these before

 

[Jbuck]

Not trying to provide a math or a medical lesson, but you are referring to the mass of the object in motion (the gun) not the mass of the shooter. The force and velocity from the recoil is the same because in this example both shooters are firing the same gun and load.

yes, we both agree. The gun after it has fired the bullet is now moving backwards at a constant velocity regardless of who is shooting it and has a . And this is the force that we feel as recoil.

However, consider that if you transfer an equal amount of force at the same velocity to a golf ball verses bowling ball, the golf ball will move further and be traveling for a longer period of time than the bowling ball.

So lets both agree that the gun will stop quicker with the bowling ball since it has a larger mass. Same thing with a golf club. It's going to stop dead when you hit a bowling ball.

Now if your moving object is a skull with a brain suspended in a liquid inside a skull, you get more “slosh” from moving further and longer. In general, slosh is bad for brains. I am not quantifying the potential for TBIs with this example, just pointing out the physics of force affecting objects of lesser and greater masses that potentially have brains.

I agree with you here. I just don't know enough about it to understand how much it matters. I understand that slosh is bad, but not to what degree is going on.

 

[Formidilosus]

I'm trying to look around for more information on TBI and concussions from shooting. The only studies I've found are about braked 50bmg's. If you could please share so studies I'd be grateful. I've played college football and I've been exposed to all that stuff. So I try to be cognizant of it. I just haven't spent the time to read enough. It's probably time.

Unfortunately I am not aware of any publicly available studies, and specifically not about children. The study of effects of recoil on the brain is in its infancy stage right now, but there is clear evidence being shown that smaller shooters- less muscle, less mass, get effected more by the same level of recoil as someone with more muscle and more mass. Again, watch in slow motion a video of a child compared to an adult- their head gets rocked.

As a 12, 13, 14, and 15 year old I shot thousands upon thousands of 12ga, and a couple thousand 300 win mag. It was stupid, and no way would I put a sub 150lbs person that and hasn’t hit maturity yet, behind an unbraked 7-08, 308, or even generally a 6.5cm. A decent figure is that half the body weight, is more than double the recoil- adults start having effects around 13-15ft-lbs of recoil (6.5cm level). To a 100lb child or woman, a 6.5cm is equivalent to a 338 mag for a 200lb adult male.

 

[doc holiday13]

No. I’m not aware of a single state where they have the authority to ask that. That is ATF’s purview. Beyond that, no one is going to ask, and no one is going to get hung up because a kid is a couple hundred yards away while hunting.


Put them on a trust.

BINGO!!!

 

[Jbuck]

You have to think about the way recoil works though. The rifle is nearly instantly moving backwards at its maximum velocity. If a kid's collarbone is a fraction of an inch (skin plus very minimal tissue) away from the butt pad, that part of the kid's skeleton is moving backwards nearly instantly, at the same velocity as the rifle.

A recoil pad allows the rifle to accelerate instantly as above, reach peak recoil velocity,

So this is where i disagree a little. The recoil squishes to slow the energy transfer from rifle to shooter. If it's to hard it transfers it to fast and you feel it more. If it's too soft you are not stopping the rifle until it's all the way compressed and again transfers it to the shooter without lengthening the time enough.

then start the deceleration process while the recoil pad compresses and starts to transfer that energy more gradually to the shooter (reducing the peak acceleration value). It's also going to prolong the energy transfer on the other end as it springs back (releasing stored potential energy)

Yes, it prolongs the time the transfer takes place. The time element of the force equation.

Some of the recoil energy gets absorbed by the shoulder, chest, etc. The rest gets transferred to the neck, chest, arm, etc. The neck, chest, arm absorb some of that, and transfer the rest up the neck to the head and into the rest of the body. The more mass the shooter has, the more recoil gets absorbed before being transferred downstream. Kids tend to have proportionally large heads for their body size, so it ends up being kind of like a heavy scope on a light rifle. Most challenging possible scenario for the mount/rings (neck).

Again this is spot on.

 

[ElPollo]

So lets both agree that the gun will stop quicker with the bowling ball since it has a larger mass. Same thing with a golf club. It's going to stop dead when you hit a bowling ball.

The gun is immaterial with the exception that it is the origin of the force. It’s all about the fact that your golf ball takes a beating compared to the bowling ball. You seem to be trying really hard to bend math and physics to support a preconceived notion.

Edit: I did not mean to insinuate that you were putting your kids at risk and apologize if it came across that way. I think we were talking past one another on how recoil affects shooters. I agree with what Eric said below. You are doing a great job getting your kids out and training.

 

[eric1115]

You have to think about the way recoil works though. The rifle is nearly instantly moving backwards at its maximum velocity. If a kid's collarbone is a fraction of an inch (skin plus very minimal tissue) away from the butt pad, that part of the kid's skeleton is moving backwards nearly instantly, at the same velocity as the rifle. A recoil pad allows the rifle to accelerate instantly as above, reach peak recoil velocity, then start the deceleration process while the recoil pad compresses and starts to transfer that energy more gradually to the shooter (reducing the peak acceleration value). It's also going to prolong the energy transfer on the other end as it springs back (releasing stored potential energy)

Some of the recoil energy gets absorbed by the shoulder, chest, etc. The rest gets transferred to the neck, chest, arm, etc. The neck, chest, arm absorb some of that, and transfer the rest up the neck to the head and into the rest of the body. The more mass the shooter has, the more recoil gets absorbed before being transferred downstream. Kids tend to have proportionally large heads for their body size, so it ends up being kind of like a heavy scope on a light rifle. Most challenging possible scenario for the mount/rings (neck).

I also wanted to say (but got sidetracked with responding to specific points), good on you as a dad for getting your kids off to a better start than I did. I made a handful of the mistakes that I think we are all agreeing on when I was starting my oldest son out.

I respect and admire the effort, thought, and expense that you have put into setting your kids up and teaching them to shoot!

Also, to me this this conversation is potentially less geared towards question like "which one of my custom rifles should my kids shoot most of their practice rounds on and which of them should they hunt with?" And more towards a question like "what is the (probably factory) rifle I should get for my kid as they are beginning their hunting career?"

I definitely land in a different place than you do in terms of what I see as a minimum effective cartridge/bullet, but if I thought a 6.5 140 grain bullet was the low end of what is effective and I had the means to set my kids up the way you have, I think we would have pretty similar setups.

 

[RussDXT]

Question for Form, my son has a savage rascal open sight .22 and also in the process of saving for a threaded barrel rascal that will have a swfa 6x and suppressor.

He is a few years from big game hunting, he has shot .223’s quite a bit. Unfortunately here in Colorado we can’t use a .223 for hunting. Would you recommend a 300 blackout or a 6 arc for a kid when .223 is not an option.

 

[eric1115]

So this is where i disagree a little. The recoil squishes to slow the energy transfer from rifle to shooter. If it's to hard it transfers it to fast and you feel it more. If it's too soft you are not stopping the rifle until it's all the way compressed and again transfers it to the shooter without lengthening the time enough.

Yes, it prolongs the time the transfer takes place. The time element of the force equation.

Again this is spot on.

Area under the acceleration curve has to stay the same with or without a recoil pad. The recoil pad reduces and delays that peak and extends the curve (assuming like you say that it is not too soft).

The more shooter mass is directly connected to the rifle, the lower the acceleration value will be, because the recoil force has to act on a larger combined mass.

If you had a massless way to rigidly connect your entire upper body to your shoulder and have the recoil distributed so that the rifle is pushing your entire torso backward instead of just the shoulder initially, you would be way ahead.

I think I might have a guess as to where we are seemingly at odds with each other. If I put my finger in between the butt of a rifle and a bowling ball, it's going to hurt a lot more than if I put it between that rifle and a basketball. But if we suspend an egg inside the basketball and an egg inside a bowling ball we assume to be hollow but of equal mass to a regular bowling ball, that egg is far more likely to break inside the basketball. You're focusing on the finger, I'm focusing on the egg.

At any rate, I would say that from my experience watching my kids (and others' kids) shoot a variety of rifles, smaller body size does not appear to correlate with lower recoil sensitivity. I notice a substantial drop in performance and enthusiasm for a 90 lb kid going from sub-8 to 12-plus ft lb recoil.

 

[Jbuck]

Question for Form, my son has a savage rascal open sight .22 and also in the process of saving for a threaded barrel rascal that will have a swfa 6x and suppressor.

He is a few years from big game hunting, he has shot .223’s quite a bit. Unfortunately here in Colorado we can’t use a .223 for hunting. Would you recommend a 300 blackout or a 6 arc for a kid when .223 is not an option.

What range will you be hunting with him? The 300BO is a pretty short range cartridge. I have mine loaded with 125gr ballistic tips for hunting. I'm falling below the reccomend expansion velocity at 180yds. I really like the Howa mini I picked up for the boys. I would probably reccomend the howa mini in 6arc. If you aren't in a huge hurry. You can get a barreled action in stainless from brownells and a Stockysstocks carbon stock when they go on sale a few times a year.

 

[Formidilosus]

Question for Form, my son has a savage rascal open sight .22 and also in the process of saving for a threaded barrel rascal that will have a swfa 6x and suppressor.

He is a few years from big game hunting, he has shot .223’s quite a bit. Unfortunately here in Colorado we can’t use a .223 for hunting. Would you recommend a 300 blackout or a 6 arc for a kid when .223 is not an option.

A 223 with the barrel marking scratched out and “6mm-223” etched in it…. But, baring that- 6ARC without question. The 6ARC is a much better hunting cartridge in all ways other than subsonic.

 

[Jbuck]

Area under the acceleration curve has to stay the same with or without a recoil pad. The recoil pad reduces and delays that peak and extends the curve (assuming like you say that it is not too soft).

The more shooter mass is directly connected to the rifle, the lower the acceleration value will be, because the recoil force has to act on a larger combined mass.

If you had a massless way to rigidly connect your entire upper body to your shoulder and have the recoil distributed so that the rifle is pushing your entire torso backward instead of just the shoulder initially, you would be way ahead.

I think I might have a guess as to where we are seemingly at odds with each other. If I put my finger in between the butt of a rifle and a bowling ball, it's going to hurt a lot more than if I put it between that rifle and a basketball. But if we suspend an egg inside the basketball and an egg inside a bowling ball we assume to be hollow but of equal mass to a regular bowling ball, that egg is far more likely to break inside the basketball. You're focusing on the finger, I'm focusing on the egg.

At any rate, I would say that from my experience watching my kids (and others' kids) shoot a variety of rifles, smaller body size does not appear to correlate with lower recoil sensitivity. I notice a substantial drop in performance and enthusiasm for a 90 lb kid going from sub-8 to 12-plus ft lb recoil.

I think we are on the same page. I was pointing out that the variable in Newtons law was time. IDK if you've see the Backstop testing for his recoil pad, but yes I was saying that my kids are essentially the recoil pads in his testing. Yes, their body soaks up the recoil.
This is a graph that shows the same rifle with and without the soft recoil pad. The stiff pad shortens the pulse and increases the recoil.

My only point was its not a linear line where x in a adult = y in a child.

 

[Jbuck]

As far as the 223 argument I've tried finding penetration testing on gel and seeing 9-11" in a lot of testing on YouTube for the 77gr tmk. I would not be comfortable with that with big game unless I was only shooting CNS or broadside. I know it will work to kill game, but the fact is it's limiting you. Just as a higher recoiling rifle would limit your accuracy. A 6mm ARC penetrates 18" with the 103gr ELDX for comparison.

I don't think the 6.5cm is a minimum, but it's a good hunting round. The 243win/6mmCM is also a great choice and can be loaded through a wide range of speed/recoil and also a great round. My wife(125lbs) shoots one and has zero issues with its recoil.