I have been working on selecting a deer hunting rifle for my children to be their first gun. I have four children ages 1 to 11 and am anticipating using this gun with them during their younger years of 9-15 years old. Since that period will last abou the next 16 years for me I wanted to do a good job picking out the best cartridge and rifle. To guide the selection I have used the following requirements.

1) The gun must be light. I had my 9 year old heavy set son evaluate my Ruger 10/22 rifle weight. It weighs 5 1/2 pounds. He felt like it was at around the maximum weight he could work with.
2) The cartridge must be legal for deer hunting in Kentucky and effective.
3) The recoil must be low enough that the children are not afraid to shoot the gun. If they refuse to shoot that would defeat the purpose of buying it.
4) Would prefer an inexpensive gun. (I'm cheap.)
5) The gun should have a shorter pull dimension from the trigger to end of stock for a youth. (I had to set a scope back on my Ruger 10/22 partly off the rail to get it far enough back for my son to be able to look through it since it is an adult size .22 rifle.)

Cartridges evaluated
After doing reading several books and doing an internet search of relevant articles the most likely cartridges for women and youth seemed to be either the .223 or .243. For range and effectiveness on deer the .243 was better. A friend and I with our sons went shooting on Memorial day and we borrowed a .243 to try out. My son took one shot and didn't want to shoot it again due to the recoil. So that settled me on the .223. The .223 should be effective on deer out to 130 yards where it drops below the minimum 900 lb recommended terminal energy for white tail deer hunting.

Rifle selected
I have selected a "Superlight Handi-Rifle Youth" by New England Firearms (H&R 1871, LLC)."
The part number is SB2-SY3. It cost $217.92 special ordered from the Walmart sporting goods department and it has the following features.

-5 1/3 pounds, typical weight is around 7 pounds
-11 3/4" length of pull as compared to 13-14 1/4" for adult size rifles
-Single shot
-$217.92 cost, cost for a bolt action is around $350+
-tapped for scope mount
-Also I can send the action back to the factory in the future and get a 20 ga shotgun or slug barrell that I can swap out for $40-$90 later when they can handle that much higher recoil.

I have not received it yet but when it comes in I will post a picture and the results.