Youth elk rifle/cartridge combo

acmckeage03

acmckeage03

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 13, 2016
Messages
214
Location
Utah
Parents,

Fortunately, my daughter just drew a phenomenal elk tag. Unfortunately, I'm caught without a rifle for her. Please, help me decide on a rifle to build/buy.

My daughter is 10 and will need an LOP sub 12.5"

She's not tough when it comes to recoil.

Rifle will have a suppressor which I’m open for recommendations as well.

Cartridge- I was going to build a 6.5 PRC and reduce load it similar to a creedmore to practice for the summer. Then sight it in to full loads before the hunt. Or I can just go creedmore route (I'm just trying to get myself as much performance as possible since we are sitting in the gray area of ethical)

Rifle- I was shopping tikka compact, savage axis 2 pro, bergara stoke. Initially, it was the tikka and I was going to put it on a stock until I started shopping and am having extreme difficulty finding a short LOP. So, I switched over to the Sig Cross. Again, trying to get the best numbers as possible I'm giving up a 20" barrel for an 18" in this case.

Would you be willing to share your opinion on youth and elk and what rifle/caliber combo you'd be taking?

Thank you,

Aaron McKeage



Get Outlook for iOS
 
The bergara stoke is a super nice youth rifle. I just bought my 5 and 6 year old boys one for Christmas last year in 223. Elk aren't hard to kill with good shot placement. Within a reasonable range for a new shooter, I think you'd be perfectly fine with a suppressed 243.
 
I personally use a 22 creed or 6 PRC, depending on the distance of the shot. Look at the .223 for bear, moose, lion, dinosaur thread and the "kid's manifesto". You can also look at the Exo videos when they killed moose and caribou in AK with 6 creed. Also the Hornady podcast where they talk about killing all the animals with 22 creed or 22 arc.

A 6 ARC or 6 Creedmoor is the most that I recommend for kids, cause I would use it.
 
I'll echo all the excellent advice here, go way lower in recoil than you think. I'd be on the phone with LS Wild Armory asking about 6mm ARC Tikka barrels and with Karl at Kampfeld asking about lead time for modifying a .223 bolt for the ARC bolt face. (Or do a Dasher or 6BR if you would rather not mess with bolt face).

Lots of us have started kids with Creedmoor or higher recoil and watched kids become MUCH better shooters switching to low recoil cartridges, then watched our kids hammer animals with heavy .22 and 6mm match bullets and seeing how well they work, then made the switch ourselves. My oldest and I were a 7mm-08 and 7mmRM pair, now he shoots everything with a .223/77TMK and I shoot a .243AI for my "big" rifle and .223 for higher volume practice. No regrets.

I have and like a 6mm ARC Howa Miji for the kids, but I and they greatly prefer the .223 Tikkas. Better function/feeding, and the Howa took a lot of tinkering to get it to run close to as well as a Tikka out of the box.

Diligent Defense Wolf Hunter or UM OG-6S can (these are recommendations by reputation for me. I do not own either can).

The 107 TMK is a beast in terms of terminal performance (and BC). There is no shot a 10 year old should be taking (or even 98% of adult hunters) where a 107 TMK at 2600 fps MV isn't enough.

LS Wild Armory

lswildarmory.com lswildarmory.com

eric1115

Thread 'Kids rifle manifesto'

I've chimed in on so many different "what rifle for my age XX kid?" threads that I thought I'd try to consolidate my thoughts here.

My oldest son is 14 now, started shooting centerfire rifles at 9. My younger kids started shooting centerfire rifles at between 5-7 yrs old. 5 kids shooting now, and a bunch of their friends that I have been involved or around as they learn to shoot. probably 20-ish kids? Here's what I've learned in the last 5-6 years.

Recoil matters, a lot. "Handles it pretty well" is way way different from "ideal for building skills as a rifleman." My oldest loves to...
  • Like
  • Haha
 
westslopelaker said:
The bergara stoke is a super nice youth rifle. I just bought my 5 and 6 year old boys one for Christmas last year in 223. Elk aren't hard to kill with good shot placement. Within a reasonable range for a new shooter, I think you'd be perfectly fine with a suppressed 243.
Click to expand...
Do you feel this was a complete package or are there any upgrades you feel it needs?
 
hereinaz said:
I personally use a 22 creed or 6 PRC, depending on the distance of the shot. Look at the .223 for bear, moose, lion, dinosaur thread and the "kid's manifesto". You can also look at the Exo videos when they killed moose and caribou in AK with 6 creed. Also the Hornady podcast where they talk about killing all the animals with 22 creed or 22 arc.

A 6 ARC or 6 Creedmoor is the most that I recommend for kids, cause I would use it.
Click to expand...
Ive been hearing great things about the 6 creedmore. My lack of understanding just has me hesitant shooting a 100gr bullet at a bull elk. Not saying I have any facts to support that fear.
 
eric1115 said:
I'll echo all the excellent advice here, go way lower in recoil than you think. I'd be on the phone with LS Wild Armory asking about 6mm ARC Tikka barrels and with Karl at Kampfeld asking about lead time for modifying a .223 bolt for the ARC bolt face. (Or do a Dasher or 6BR if you would rather not mess with bolt face).

Lots of us have started kids with Creedmoor or higher recoil and watched kids become MUCH better shooters switching to low recoil cartridges, then watched our kids hammer animals with heavy .22 and 6mm match bullets and seeing how well they work, then made the switch ourselves. My oldest and I were a 7mm-08 and 7mmRM pair, now he shoots everything with a .223/77TMK and I shoot a .243AI for my "big" rifle and .223 for higher volume practice. No regrets.

I have and like a 6mm ARC Howa Miji for the kids, but I and they greatly prefer the .223 Tikkas. Better function/feeding, and the Howa took a lot of tinkering to get it to run close to as well as a Tikka out of the box.

Diligent Defense Wolf Hunter or UM OG-6S can (these are recommendations by reputation for me. I do not own either can).

The 107 TMK is a beast in terms of terminal performance (and BC). There is no shot a 10 year old should be taking (or even 98% of adult hunters) where a 107 TMK at 2600 fps MV isn't enough.

LS Wild Armory

lswildarmory.com lswildarmory.com

eric1115

Thread 'Kids rifle manifesto'

I've chimed in on so many different "what rifle for my age XX kid?" threads that I thought I'd try to consolidate my thoughts here.

My oldest son is 14 now, started shooting centerfire rifles at 9. My younger kids started shooting centerfire rifles at between 5-7 yrs old. 5 kids shooting now, and a bunch of their friends that I have been involved or around as they learn to shoot. probably 20-ish kids? Here's what I've learned in the last 5-6 years.

Recoil matters, a lot. "Handles it pretty well" is way way different from "ideal for building skills as a rifleman." My oldest loves to...
  • Like
  • Haha
Click to expand...
I appreciate the thread attachment and the knowledge! It gets overwhelming not understanding these upgrades. I’m going to do some hw!
 
acmckeage03 said:
Parents,

Fortunately, my daughter just drew a phenomenal elk tag. Unfortunately, I'm caught without a rifle for her. Please, help me decide on a rifle to build/buy.

My daughter is 10 and will need an LOP sub 12.5"

She's not tough when it comes to recoil.

Rifle will have a suppressor which I’m open for recommendations as well.

Cartridge- I was going to build a 6.5 PRC and reduce load it similar to a creedmore to practice for the summer. Then sight it in to full loads before the hunt. Or I can just go creedmore route (I'm just trying to get myself as much performance as possible since we are sitting in the gray area of ethical)

Rifle- I was shopping tikka compact, savage axis 2 pro, bergara stoke. Initially, it was the tikka and I was going to put it on a stock until I started shopping and am having extreme difficulty finding a short LOP. So, I switched over to the Sig Cross. Again, trying to get the best numbers as possible I'm giving up a 20" barrel for an 18" in this case.

Would you be willing to share your opinion on youth and elk and what rifle/caliber combo you'd be taking?

Thank you,

Aaron McKeage



Get Outlook for iOS
Click to expand...
6.5 Creed or reduced PRC will work fine. Please make sure she can shoot well. The elk deserve it. Fwiw my sons first elk rifle will probably be a 6.5 creed.

Don’t listen to the .22s are elk rifles crowd. Cant wait for that unethical fad to pass.
 
acmckeage03 said:
Ive been hearing great things about the 6 creedmore. My lack of understanding just has me hesitant shooting a 100gr bullet at a bull elk. Not saying I have any facts to support that fear.
Click to expand...

A lot of us (myself included) started down the small diameter heavy for caliber soft match bullet path with skepticism and hesitation, but it just works.

The fact that there are tons of us saying "I tried it and I'm never going back" and a tiny handful saying "I tried it and was not super impressed" says a lot to me. Almost all of the "it doesn't work" voices come from people tlwho haven't done it.
 
acmckeage03 said:
Ive been hearing great things about the 6 creedmore. My lack of understanding just has me hesitant shooting a 100gr bullet at a bull elk. Not saying I have any facts to support that fear.
Click to expand...
It’s not the bullet weight, but what the bullet does when it hits the animal.

It is hard to overcome the ingrained beliefs, same for me. We have lots of evidence now that using certain bullets like TMK, ELDm, ELDx, and Berger hunting create the largest wound cavities.

The threads can help explain.
 
hereinaz said:
It’s not the bullet weight, but what the bullet does when it hits the animal.

It is hard to overcome the ingrained beliefs, same for me. We have lots of evidence now that using certain bullets like TMK, ELDm, ELDx, and Berger hunting create the largest wound cavities.

The threads can help explain.
Click to expand...
They also can penetrate more than 3 or 4 inches OP in less than ideal conditions.

Will your daughter 100% have ideal conditions?
 
BuckSmasher said:
6.5 Creed or reduced PRC will work fine. Please make sure she can shoot well. The elk deserve it. Fwiw my sons first elk rifle will probably be a 6.5 creed.

Don’t listen to the .22s are elk rifles crowd. Cant wait for that unethical fad to pass.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, I’ve killed lots of elk, I’m primarily an archery hunter. My one rifle bull I shot 5 times with a 300wsm, I don’t want that experience for her or the elk. She’s an incredible shot with my .17 but I haven’t pushed larger calibers on her yet just to keep the shooting fun. Well, now we have a real need to get her behind something with some power. I’m a few days into learning about her hunt and am trying to get her a quality gun ASAP so we can shoot through the summer.
 
acmckeage03 said:
Absolutely, I’ve killed lots of elk, I’m primarily an archery hunter. My one rifle bull I shot 5 times with a 300wsm, I don’t want that experience for her or the elk. She’s an incredible shot with my .17 but I haven’t pushed larger calibers on her yet just to keep the shooting fun. Well, now we have a real need to get her behind something with some power. I’m a few days into learning about her hunt and am trying to get her a quality gun ASAP so we can shoot through the summer.
Click to expand...
I was 10 when i started hunting deer. Handled a 30-30 with 150 core lokts just fine, shot well also. My first struggle as a hunter was buck fever. Thats a real thing.
 
eric1115 said:
A lot of us (myself included) started down the small diameter heavy for caliber soft match bullet path with skepticism and hesitation, but it just works.

The fact that there are tons of us saying "I tried it and I'm never going back" and a tiny handful saying "I tried it and was not super impressed" says a lot to me. Almost all of the "it doesn't work" voices come from people tlwho haven't done it.
Click to expand...
My biggest hesitation posting here or social media is I understand how many different opinions I’ll get from unknown sources. It’s okay, I appreciate all feedback as long as it’s constructive. The forums are fun to see what everyone has to say based on their experiences.
 
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