I bought Sky a .22 Chipmunk when he was 4. His Mom started teaching him to shoot when he was 5. When he turned 10 we enrolled him in a shooting class at a local sportsman's club, where I teach Hunter Safety. Second day the head instructor came to me and told me we had a problem with Sky's gun. I went down stairs to the range, and Bud showed me the problem with the Chipmunk. After placing the cartridge in the chamber and closing the bolt, a button has to be pulled back to cock the gun. Sky's Mom had always pulled the button back before, now he was expected to cock it himself. It was a bit too strong for a small child to pull consistantly. And if it slipped while being pulled, BANG. All the .22s that have to be cocked by pulling a small knob have the same potential to go off when being cocked. And it is sometimes hard for a child to pull that knob.
That day the wife went to the Contender Cache and bought a youth stock and a .22rf barrel for my contender. For the next year he shot my contender. Then his Mom got him his own Contender frame. Today he has several barrels for that frame, and a full size stock as he grew in to it. The contender worked for us just fine. Yea it's a bit spendy, but it is something he will keep and use the rest of his life. He has taken Caribou and Black Bear with it. Says he wants to take a Moose with it as well. At least he is now buying his own barrels.
As a teenager Sky and a buddy found my old .22 Remington Nylon 66 in the vault. They asked if they could take it to the range. They undertook to wear it out, shooting one to two bricks of .22 ammo an evening. Seems I tried that back when I was a teen, and his big brother tried that when he was a teen as well. It holds 14 rounds, and can be emptied in a matter of seconds. But it takes minutes to reload the magazine. The Nylon 66 shoots just as good today as it did back when I got it in the 60s. I bought another one at a gun show last spring. That way when I leave my guns to my boys each one gets a nylon 66. A big part of their youth.
