TargetTalk

I am looking for advice on how to outfit my 13 year old daughter with air rifle shooting gear. Background is this is her second year shooting with our local 4H shooting club. Last year she fell in love with the sport. She shot at our 4H State event last year and placed 3rd in Air Sport Rifle. She wants to shoot all the time and has even talked about looking for colleges that has shooting programs. I think she would eventually enjoy Air Rifle target but out local club does not have anyone who knows anything about it nor do we have the equipment. I was thinking about investing in an air rifle for her to start with, but really have no idea where to start. If anyone has any suggestions on what rifle to start with I would appreciate any direction. She currently shoots a club Daisy Avanti rifle but it from what I can tell, they quit making this gun. Any recommendations on how to get more involved with this sport would also be appreciated.

First,

You might get more traction if you posted this down in the "Olympic Rifle- Air and Smallbore" section. More rifle shooters will see it there.

Second,

There are two major divisions of Air Rifle, Sporter (basic rifle and little equipment past a jacket) and Precision (fairly fancy rifle and all the equipment, jacket, pants, boots .... ) It sounds like you are interested in information on precision AR. Is this correct?

Next, what is your budget? Sporter is not too bad but even basic precision air rifles start around a grand and go up from there, plus all the other stuff. This can be a bit tough to swallow if there aren't any precision competitions around. Where are you located?

'Dude

Air rifle is nice, but she may have to switch to .22 to get any "action".

Start by seeing if there is a junior rifle team in your local area. That can frequently be a place where you can get advice and support. Whare are you located?

We are located in Weatern Kentucky. I was thinking about spending $750 - $1000 on a used rifle. I have done some research and there is so many types and brands to choose from. I have also looked for a local juniors club in my area, but so far I have not found one.

I may try posting in one of the other areas in the forum like was recommended earlier. Still any ideas are welcome.

Go to the www.odcmp.com and look under CLUBS.

Working backwards a bit, you mention your daughter is presently shooting a DAISY Avanti, this is a sporter rifle and if you are looking to move up to precision this rifle would not be adequate. If you look at the sporter rules as written by CMP a sporter rifle can sell for no more than $525 new. In precision AR this does not even get you started. Then as far as I know in sporter you can have a sling and a glove and you are done.

Now, looking for more info in Western Kentucky, I have done a little homework for you, call a fellow named Joe Tinsley. He is located in Bowling Green at (270) 320 5699. This info is off the CMP directory, he might be able to help you. The next question is, Western Kentucky is a big place, I know of Louisville and Bowling Green but you could easily be from someplace else as there is more to West Kentucky than those two cities.

While your daughter is a bit young for a HS team, there are a few of them sprinkled about the state. There may be some resources there too.

Make sure you find a program first before you get too involved in buying equipment. This stuff is expensive and it does not seem a super investment to get a bunch of money tied up in equipment for a sport for which there is no program.

Now, getting your daughter outfitted, if this is precision, go to the Champions Choice website and look at the Hammerli AR-20. As far as I know this is about the least expensive starter precision air rifle. If you wait around long enough you might find a precision AR pop up on the buy sell trade that is in your price range, but the used ARs tend to hold their value pretty well so this could take a while.

Champions Choice also has a house line of equipment so you can get the basics, sling, glove, jacket, pants without having to take out a second mortgage. From what I have seen it is decent stuff, clearly not like the made to measure stuff from Europe but it is also about 1/10th the cost. Unfortunately, if you are not near an active club you often have to acquire everything new as there is no active turnover of lightly used equipment that has been outgrown.

My only other question, your daughter would not happen to have a friend who was also interested in moving from sporter to precision? A little interfriend rivalry also makes this more fun.

So there a few random thoughts on the matter,

Good Luck

'Dude

plthomp24 wrote:I am looking for advice on how to outfit my 13 year old daughter with air rifle shooting gear. Background is this is her second year shooting with our local 4H shooting club. Last year she fell in love with the sport. She shot at our 4H State event last year and placed 3rd in Air Sport Rifle. She wants to shoot all the time and has even talked about looking for colleges that has shooting programs. I think she would eventually enjoy Air Rifle target but out local club does not have anyone who knows anything about it nor do we have the equipment. I was thinking about investing in an air rifle for her to start with, but really have no idea where to start. If anyone has any suggestions on what rifle to start with I would appreciate any direction. She currently shoots a club Daisy Avanti rifle but it from what I can tell, they quit making this gun. Any recommendations on how to get more involved with this sport would also be appreciated.

I am assuming that you want to move up to precision shooting, so if you can find a precision shooting program nearby that would be a good place to look for good advice about equipment. There are two schools of thought when buying a rifle for a young kid. One is buy the cheapest rifle in the beginning and then later if they show really interested buy a better rifle later. The other is to buy the best rifle at a price that you are comfortable or can afford. If you buy a Steyr, Walther, Anschutz, or Feinwerkbau (FWB)they will all shot great, so it boils down to specific features and feel of the rifle. For each person they will all have there plus and minuses.

The problem with buying a cheaper rifle and then buying another one later is that you are actually spending more money in the end. The rifles are mostly made in Germany and with our dollar being devalued every year you won't lose money. In fact, most of the shooters that I had in my program who quit and sold their rifles made money and of course you must take of the rifle They actually made more money then if they had it in a bank saving account.

Except for the Steyr we have used rifles from all the major companies just mentioned and the most favored by the group is the FWB P700, which comes in at least a half dozen configurations. We like the FWB is that it is a rugged well built rifle and the full adult metal stock version has all the necessary accessories built into the rifle. The negative to this point is that the rifle is already close to the max weight limit of 12 lbs. If you can find a nearby precision shooting program you can get a chance to touch and feel these rifles.

If your daughter is looking at college shooting then you will need to be taking up smallbore rifle as well. I now a few of the collegiate coaches and they all prefer shooters that can shot both air and smallbore well. This reduces the cost of their travel team as they have to take less bodies along to their competitions. They will take on a shooter to shot just one gun, but in the words of one the coaches: "They had better be great one gun shooters."