jkbrea wrote:That's awesome. I can't wait till my granddaughters get a little older.......and my soon to come grandson. Great gun to start with. I assume you did the customizing? That's something they'll keep forever.
Yeah, I did a lot of looking at all of the youth-sized rifles. In my opinion, nothing beats the little Savages for a starter rifle. I know the Crickets have a cult following, I don't know why, the name, maybe? Or the association with the old Chipmunk?
But the Savage Rascal (and the older Savage Cub) are by far superior rifles for not much more money.
Even if they were twice the cost, they would be worth it. You only get one opportunity to start your kids shooting, and the right rifle makes a big difference. The trend that I see is for guys who have no qualms about buying a very expensive rifle for themselves to buy junk rifles for their wives and kids. I think this is unfortunate.
The Savage Rascal has the accutrigger, which gives them a great trigger to learn with. Some of the other youth rifles have extremely poor, heavy triggers, sometimes as heavy as 12 or 13 lbs. (A safety? feature.)
The Rascal is small and light and short. It has very nice sights. I have found them to be very accurate. The action works just like a normal bolt action rifle, with no extra cocking knobs to pull, and a traditional safety. The kids can learn the proper manipulation of the action and use of the safety. This also makes the rifle safer to unload - there are some safety issues with some of the pull-to-cock youth rifles.
It is also pre-drilled for optics if you choose.
I have found the single shot rifles also are good for the very young children because it slows them down and makes it easier to teach things like follow-through. With a repeating rifle, they tend to get exited and try to rush into the next shot before they have a chance to follow through and evaluate the first.
How old are your granddaughters?