Im almost 16 but I remember what It was like when I was that old well. i remeber kids comeing into school complaining about the recoil of their dads 30-06's and .270's(Which then were way overrated as being high in recoil. Well One day a buddy of mine in school came in and said he was getting a new rifle of his very own. He was getting a .243. He got it all right and it was a true shooter. It was the first gun he could shoot accuratly and not mind the recoil. Now mind you we are grown up to almost double of we were then but Im tellin ya that the .243 is one agreat caliber for deer. Now That im almost 16 I have done a whole pile o shooting with diff. calibers and what have you, and I would have to say that I like the .300 Savage and .308 best. Oh one more thing. What my parents and other parents of kids in my class did was to to tell em to stick it out. He'll learn to love that gun just the way I learned to love the .30-06 even when I hated it so much when I was little. You just gotta grow into em;