Thread: First rifle for daughter

Originally Posted by 40mm

yup, I second that air rifles are a waste of time (although I learnt on one)
An air rifle would be preferable if you were to leave them to shoot away un supervised, but until they are a bit experienced that is not a good idea, so you might as well start em off on something more enjoyable to shoot.

Then there is the price of ammo, an air rifle is the obvious winner there.

I'm not sure if I agree there @40mm . If you live in a built up area such as we did and want to teach how to hold and use a rifle safely and actually shoot the thing a low power air rifle is the perfect choice in my opinion .Ours is a 177 with only around 500-600 fps so unlikely to do any serious damage to property or penetrate a fence . we used to just put plastic bottles etc up against the compost heap as targets and never had any issues with collateral damage . You should not leave the kids unsupervised for starters if they are learning and being a break barrel and being young enough that they cannot open the action is preferable in my opinion as they cannot load the rifle without you doing it for them so won't unexpectedly be popping off shots. And the extra kick and mechanical noises from an air rifle prepares them mentally for a proper rifle in future.
But that is just my personal opinion.....
A bit different if on a farm or somewhere open I guess.