driftrider

Why?

I'd contend that a new shooter gets more benefit from his/her practice sessions if they spent less time pumping an airgun and more time shooting a .22LR rimfire rifle. If air rifles are your thing, more power to you. I had several as a kid, but once I got my first .22LR I never seriously shot an air rifle again. The average .22 is more accurate than all but the finest air rifles, has much greater range, and when used as a hunting weapon, more power to humanely take game of reasonable size. And if report is a concern, one can buy gallery ammo like the CCI .22 CB Long ammo. These are very accurate, sub-sonic rounds that make the same amount or LESS noise in a rifle than an air rifle, yet are still just as accurate as their standard and high velocity counterparts.

As far as suitability of giving a 12 year old an air rifle or .22, consider that many people, including myself, had a SHOTGUN by age 12 and were out with our dads hunting pheasants and rabbits with such, a pellet gun or .22 is nothing by comparison.

Mike

mauser06

they will not let him buy it without parents there....heck im 17 and they tried carding me when i bought a slingshot band the other day!!!!!! i seen them take a look at me before they sold it...but they didnt actually ask for it.....i look older.....but when i was shooting a pellet gun my mom had to go in with me to get pellets....they wouldnt sell it to me......about the gun....if theres any way to spend more money that would be the way to go to get a decint airrifle.....i grew up shooting them with my buddys....heck we still shoot them once in a while in his yard because we cant use real guns.....i had a crossman multipump gun........great shooter.....i hit a pepper at over 50yds 3 times with it just messing around.....pellets are more accurate then BBs....at age 12 i was already killing things so i wanted something powerful and accurate...i controlled the chipmunks in my grandmothers yard with mine....may not be legal but i did it.....after they put a hole in her swimming pool by coming up in the liner that was the end...open season....i killed tons of them....and its a fun time to shoot cans and such...me and my friends would camp out in his giant 30acre backyard and shoot all day.....wed hang cans from trees and have hanging targets and find all kinds of things to shoot at.....but we had half decint guns....a 20dollar gun is maybe a redryder...and that flys at like 100fps and drops like a brick.....you could probably take a shot from one and not bleed.....and they arent very accurate at all.....but if thats all the money you or him can spend thats about the best youll get.......good luck....

MR.D

DRIFTRIDER,
I'll tell you why.
I must have spent literally hundreds of hours shooting that pellet gun at cans, dandelion heads, sticks and even paper targets. We had and old stump about 25 yds from my back porch and I would tack paper targets to it and shoot from the porch all afternoon especially if it was raining.
At 12 yrs old I was shootijng a 22, a 12 gauge and 35 rem and eventually my 30.06.
All the practice I had with the open sighted air rifle greatly increased my accuracy with the big guns which were also open sighted at the time. I feel that since I was alowwed to shoot my pellet gun any time I wanted I got more target practice than anyone could by being supervised with a rifle. I wasnt allowed to shoot any powder charges alone till I was 16.

Of course times were different then. Try walking down to your friends house today carring a rifle under your arm and see how far you get.
We did it all the time and noone seemed to mind, and even encouraged us for having good clean fun.

20gaugeNate

My friend got hit with one and said it barely left a mark

Nomercy

I'm going to vote against the Red Ryder, just for hitting cans (not punching holes in them) it's ok, really inaccurate, but it's ok....my vote will go for the Crossman guns, I've got a 760 series and a 664 too, great guns, I've had them for probably 15yrs now and still shoot them a lot....

The red ryders won't kill a pigeon in a tree most of the time even with a head shot, you'll be able to watch 90% of your shots as they leave the muzzle...the Crossman pump guns are much better, very accurate, pretty cheap, and stout enough to kill a pigeon on a good breast shot in a tree. Red ryders are also notorious for ricochets, a BB going slow bounces more than a BB going fast, the faster one will penetrate into a tree and stop, a slower one will bounce back and put out an eye.

A kid of age 12 might be better suited to a .22lr rifle, and certainly he'll be ready for one in short years...you give a young kid a BB gun because they'll get to be a good shot quickly, but won't be ready for a cartridge arm for some time, a kid his age will be wanting a .22lr within a year or two. IMHO, it's better to start a kid like that out on a .22lr, because you can train him properly, you don't just give him the gun and let him run around like you would with a BBgun, you take him shooting with a .22lr. Kids can learn bad shooting habits if you just let them have free reins and run around with a BBgun plinking at anything...they get used to a gun that's underpowered and they take shots without considering their backstop, or they get used to having a gun that won't do terrible things if you shoot someone with it, so they forget to practice safe muzzle control...heck, when I was a kid we used to have BBgun wars and intentionally shoot eachother!!! Not something you want a kid to learn then carry over to a .22lr or his deer rifle!

Additionally, the 760's and 664's, even though they are BBguns, I've chronoed mine before and showed that they've got more muzzle energy than a .22lr!! They shed energy very quickly, so you won't kill someone a mile away with it, but they're just as dangerous at close ranges, I've hunted rabbits with mine too good results. It's a big responsibility, but a kid at 12 should be ready for that much even if you don't think he's ready for a .22lr....the Crossmans can be pumped only a few times and give a limited power shot, so for general plinking it's safer and faster, but they still have the power when you want it.

I don't know your situation, a lot of people buy their older kids BB guns because they live in town, but be careful, a bbgun is still considered a firearm, still illegal to discharge in most cities!!! And like I said before, don't buy him a BBgun so he can run around free with it and teach himself how to shoot, because he WILL teach himself bad habits.

Mark whiz

I would like to add a comment about having a 12 year old (or ANYONE) shooting an air rifle..................it's the best thing in the world you can do to help him be a better Marksman. I'm dead serious!

My youngest son (now 16) was out hunting hogs & such with me by age 12. He can & could shoot any firearm I shot (shotgun, rifle, pistol, Black powder, etc) and do a good job too. But I got him into the Range's youth air rifle program about 3 years ago and the results are fantastic. He has improved so much that he just finished shooting at the 4-H Nationals a couple of weeks ago and may well be on his way to a schoolarship in shooting.

And what's even better........... I'VE learned a ton to improve my own shooting in the process with him. In fact, I REALLY have to work hard now to make sure he can't out-shoot me!

The bottom line here is that if you can be accurate with a low-powered airgun (match guns shoot around 500fps) you can shoot anything well. It is SO easy to throw a low-speed pellet off-course that it makes me feel absolutely SLOPPY firing my M1A - and yet still hit 8's, 9's, & X's when I'm doing it.

Practicing with a good air rifle is like swinging an "on-deck" bat before stepping up to the plate............................. it WORKS.

KonaBoy

I'd say the Daisy Red Ryder. But at age 12 I'd he's big enough to handle a .22.

GO CANADA