Pellet gun suggestions for 6 year old?

[Brian M]

My son is turning six in a couple of weeks, and I was thinking of purchasing him a pellet gun for the upcoming summer. I have a youth .22 for him already, but it's a little bigger than ideal. Even if it fit him perfectly, I figure it would be nice to have something that we can shoot in the backyard and/or in other areas where a firearm may not be a good fit.

I've not purchased a pellet gun for 20 years, so I haven't got a clue where to start. Obviously fit is of primary importance, but I also want something that will be reasonably accurate so that he can learn marksmanship as he enjoys learning to shoot. Suggestions are most welcome.

[BrownBear]

I'd get him a red Ryder BB gun for now. Lots lighter and though not "easy" to cock, lots easier than most pellet guns.

[cjustinm]

I'd get him a red Ryder BB gun for now. Lots lighter and though not "easy" to cock, lots easier than most pellet guns.

...with a compass in stock and a thing that tells time...

those 760 pumpmasters are a good pellet/bb gun if they still make em. you can mount a .22 scope to them also.

[Music Man]

Try looking at http://www.pyramydair.com/ and look at specs for cocking force. An air rifle takes quite a lot of force to cock it[might be to much for a 6yo].

[Brian M]

Yeah, I'd like something that he can cock himself.

Any idea on where to look? I know that box stores carry some, but having never specifically looked for air rifles, is there a store that has a better selection of reasonable quality rifles than others?

[GrassLakeRon]

Crossman 2100 classic.

Ron

[sayak]

Two schools of thought here: 1.) buy an inexpensive one because they are hard on 'em, or 2.) buy a high quality one and teach him to treat it like he will a regular rifle. As much as I've yelled at kids, they still seem to leave the lying around. I'd go option 1.

[BrownBear]

Yeah, I'd like something that he can cock himself.

Any idea on where to look? I know that box stores carry some, but having never specifically looked for air rifles, is there a store that has a better selection of reasonable quality rifles than others?

If you're asking about the RR, I got the one for my granddaughter off the shelf at our local store.

[Rock_skipper]

I have this one Brian and it does more than the video shows. It would take you to cock it but it is spot on. ( example, was trying to knock off some cans at 30 feet from where I set them up, and had to hit the rim to knock them over, the middle was like butter.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHogimYIDsU

This is a good pistol for anybody looking to sharpen there skills and also a young shooter as a stater.

Hope this helps.

( Hey its less than $5.00 a box of 500 rounds, lol,)

[Smokey]

Had the 5 and 7 yr old grandsons last weekend and they ran through a slug of bb's and pellets. I had to cut a lot off the buttstock of an old RR to fit the 5 yr old, it was then a bit short for the 7 so I will be picking another up very soon. Neither boy could cock it by themselves so I got a workout. They also shot a lot of pellets from a pellet pistol I have and did very well. One note is the pellets rarely bounce back but bb's do so be careful of what you let them shoot at. My oldest shot at a soda can full of water and it bounced back and hit him in the shoulder, he is a bit of a drama kid when it comes to injuries and grabbed his shirt and turned to us and exclaimed "I've been shot, does anybody see any blood! "LOL, all was well but granpa should have had then wearing glasses, my bad...
Def the RR is a good choice, not super accurate but holds a lot of ammo and teaches them good fundamentals....

[Mobius]

I picked up a Daisy 880 with scope for my son. It's a multi-pump model, so it get's faster the more you pump. Pellet and BB. At 10 pumps it'll shoot close to 800 fps which is enough to take out a squirrel with a good shot. But the nice part is, it's easy to pump until you get to about 5 pumps. My son can hit 10, but it takes a lot of work, so he usually stays at 1-2 for bb's. Decently light and fits him well.

Of course I "zero" it about every week... LOL.

[Paul H]

Brian,

I have a Beeman R7 which is a spring piston air rifle where you break the barrel to cock it, an old Benjamin pump air rifle and also got a red rider bb gun for the boys. What I found when they were your sons age is that they just didn't have the strength to cock the full size rifles and their weight was a bit much for them as well not to mention the stocks were too long and I wasn't willing to cut them down.

While I've always preferred a good pellet gun to a bb gun, for a small child it's really hard to go wrong with a bb gun. They are sufficiently accurate for 20-30 feet and will put a hole in a paper target or knock over a dixie cup. So I'd say a bb gun for the back yard, and when he grows up a bit and can handle cocking a pellet gun get one of those. If you set up targets on a lawn, no problems with richochets.

[MarineHawk]

My boys have a number of BB/pellet guns. The most popular are the following three:

Old (e.g., not plastic) Daisy Red Ryder;

760 Pumpmaster: http://www.crosman.com/airguns/rifles/pump/760B

MK-177: http://www.crosman.com/airguns/rifles/pump/30117

We have a number of other ones (many are gifts), but these are the three that usually end up in the backyard shooting cans off the top of boxes, snowballs, etc …

My seven-year-old boy has been using the Red Ryder for a couple of years, and mostly only using that, and he pretty much never misses a soda or beer can at 40-50ft unless he’s really not trying. So, it’s plenty accurate IMO to get a youngster shooting pretty well. I have one that likely is from the 1960s (was my uncle’s deceased father’s) and occasionally, I need to pull the barrel out and clear it, but it’s otherwise bombproof. Before I got that one, my dad had bought my older son a few years ago, a new-model Red Ryder, and it worked well for about 18 months until, not surprisingly, the plastic lever broke in half.

The two Crosman rifles require a bit more strength to pump than the Red Ryder does to cock. They’re a lot more accurate though. My seven-year old is just getting to where can pump it without resorting to strange contortions. My dad got my 10-yr-old son the MK-177 for Christmas, and it is his favorite. For some reason, it’s a little more accurate than the 760.

The Crosman rifles do have conventional safeties. I like that because my boys already engage and disengage the safety at the appropriate times almost reactively due to my encouragement (15 pushups each time they forget).

Both the RR and the Crosman rifles have good trigger pulls. The Crosmans are not that much different from a real rifle. We have several single-pump, barrel-cocking guns and some CO2-powered ones, and they all have really, really bad heavy triggers, and accordingly don’t lead to much helpful accuracy training in my experience.

IMO, the Red Ryder is better for kids up to about 8-yrs-old or so; and the Crosmans are better after that. As an adult, I have fun shooting either with my boys.

There probably a lot of other great options, but the Crosmans are pretty good for young boys shooting out to around 50 ft or more.

[Twostrings]

Adults picking BB guns? Isn't this a place where we let them choose and fail?

[MarineHawk]

A six-year old boy allowed to pick whatever he wants in a sporting goods store is going to pick some wicked-looking full-auto CO2 black rifle with a 20-lb trigger pull. Or something they can't even lift and shoot. That's fine, if that's what you want. But Brian said he was looking for "something that will be reasonably accurate so that he can learn marksmanship." My boys have learned marksmanship by not living with a failed 6-year-old choice of a full-auto laser-sighted badass piece of junk with a single atrocious trigger pull that launches 30 plastic balls in a few seconds in somewhat random patterns.