Youth Airguns
Shooting airguns can be a wonderful way to teach kids safe firearms handling and the responsibilities of gun ownership. They learn co-ordination, patience and observation too, with the right instruction from a parent, scout group or club.
The top requirements for youth airguns are size and safety. It’s easier to hit the target with an air rifle than with an air pistol, and rifles tend to be safer in inexperienced hands than a pistol. Hard Air Magazine suggests that simple, low-powered air rifles are ideal youth airguns.
A short, light air rifle allows kids to hold and sight the gun correctly. An airgun producing 1,000fps muzzle velocity will almost certainly be too big and heavy!
Safety is facilitated by good mechanical safety features built into the pellet gun. Because of the potential for injury when cocking spring air rifles – mostly “break barrel” guns – we recommend against almost all of them for youth use. Single shot pellet guns are preferable as, obviously, the gun will be safe after each shot.
And it’s good training for kids to start right by always using shooting glasses (as we all should always when using pellet guns).
But the greatest aid to safe shooting is the shooter and, in the case of kids, the adult who’s teaching. See our Airgun Safety page for more information on safe shooting.
Photograph courtesy of Stoeger Airguns.
