Originally Posted by
TUK101
Gawd, now I feel like an absolute ass for buying my son a Rossi Trifecta youth combo that includes the 243/20g/22lr for Xmas. It's not that I was trying to be cheap, its just that it gave the best bang for the buck and I figured that he could shoot the 22 and reduced loads in the 243 until he was able to shoot full loads. He has already been shooting reduced loads out of my 30-30 and loving it. He is 7 by the way, nearly 8.
I don't think I'd look at it quite that way. For probably around $300, he can hunt small game, birds, and big game with YOU at least until the point that he outgrows the youth-sized stock. There's nothing wrong saying you can't afford to put him behind a $900 collection of youth firearms right now, which he's ultimately going to grow out of anyway. Nor would it be wise though to suggest to him that he'll never want anything else.
If you bought the TriFecta because it fits him best now, that's not the same thing as buying it solely because it was cheap -- especially if you're open to the idea in a few years of helping him store away the Rossi for his own kids someday and picking out a new rifle/shotgun for himself.