MoNoFletch

Anyone suggest an AR style rifle for female or small hunter/shooters? My friend bought a DPMS for his daughter (11 years old) and she did quite well with it. My kids are smaller, but can shoot my stock 10/22 pretty well. I have always wanted one, and this could be my "excuse" to get one! LOL!

SwampCollie

Just as long as they are familiar with it and confident with it.... if it gets them into the woods.... thats awesome.

Pick a well constructed 'deer' not 'varmint' bullet... go over shot placement ad nauseum... practice practice practice..... no problems at all!

Of course... I'd stick to loading a single round at a time with a new hunter/shooter.

thatguybme

they make the AR10 in 7mm-08, which would make a GREAT youth caliber.. Also if you installed a quality collapsible stock it would make it the length of pull adjustable as they grow.. They also have the AR10 in 308 and 243, plus a couple others - but i would go with the 7mm-08

If you wanted to use the AR15 lower, which would probably be a tad cheaper and lighter, you can get the 6.5 Grendal, 6.8 SPC, 7.62x39 uppers (plus a few others).. Shot placement would be much important with these..

You could also go with the big bore ar15's - 50 beowulf, 458 Socom, and 450 Bushmaster.. they kick about like a 20 gauge shotgun but are still quuite managable. I have the 450 Bushmaster and its quite accurace..

Brian

Wingbone

Although I think the gun is an excellant choice for a smaller shooter, I'm not sure that learning to hunt with a semi-auto with a large cap. magazine is a good way to teach them to make the first shot count. Let them use the AR with one or two rounds in it.

MoNoFletch

We can use .223 here for deer and was thinking of using that, but .243 and even .308 crossed my mind. I do think using the larger calibers will increase the gun cost significantly! LOL!

skb2706

Buy the gun for you.
For a youth hunter it would be at the bottom of my list. Too heavy and to busy for a novice hunter.

IndyHunter83

I'm going to agree with Wingbone on this. Although the weapon certainly is a trustworthy and capable weapon, if it were me then I would not buy one for a starting shooter/hunter. If you do then I would certainly go for the 308 models. I've seen them actually cheaper than the 223 models at gun shows and the bullet is better suited for deer.

driftrider

Not if you only give the kid one round at a time.

The high-cap mag issue does bring up a valid legal point to be made. Many states have magazine capacity limits for any firearm used when hunting, even if there is no capacity restriction for other purposes. There are plenty of 5 round AR-10/15 mags available than comply with these hunting regulations, but the rifle will most likely come with a mil-spec 20/30 round mag for the AR-10/AR-15 respectively. Check your local regs to avoid an expensive ticket.

My choice for a deer rifle on an AR platform would be an AR-10 in .243 Win with a 6 position collapsable stock (if legal in your state). I'd also favor nothing more than a 20" barrel to keep the rifle easy to handle and keep the weight down (AR-10's can be pretty heavy because the manufacturers tend to favor fairly large contour barrels). One of the greatest things about the AR system is that they are totally modular. You can get the AR-10 lower spec'd as you like it, and then get your kid an upper suitable for their needs, and another upper (or 2 ) spec'd how you like it, and interchange the uppers freely on the same lower as needed.

Mike

devil dog

There is a simple solution, Olympic offers wssm calibers for the AR15 platform, .223, 243, 25, and they are also introducing a 300 Olympic round, ballistics of and in some cases better than the 30-06 shooting a 150gr pill. All their hunting caliber rifles come with a five round mag, you can also pin any other AR15 platform upper on top, shoot a deer in the morning, slip your M4 upper on that night for your night stand rifle.

nick_bleuer76

DPMS 5.56 Sportical! It is cheap, and it is small.