10/22 Rugers for everyone.
I started my two sons shooting at the same time. The oldest was 6 and the youngest was 4. I had to build an arm rest for the 4 year old because he wasn’t strong enough to hold the Ruger MK II with out some support. We fired on a range with two knock down steel silhouettes and 6 knock down steel plates. Youngest discovered that he could knock down the silhouettes if he double tapped them in the forehead. .22s were not strong enough to knock them over with only 1 shot. Two closely spaced shots would do it.
One time he was waiting until this older guy finished shooting. The guy hit about 1 out of 3 shots. When he finished, my son walked up to the line, announced that the range was hot, released the bolt and proceded to double tap both silhouettes and then knock down all 6 plates. He then dropped the magazine, checked the chamber, and announced that the range was clear.
The older guy left. Come to find out later that he had previously been complaining to the range manager about my boys being to young to shoot.
I started “loaning” them guns when they hit 8 years old. 20 gauge Remington shotgun, .22 Daisy rifle, .22 Marlin Papoose, S&W Model 19 in .357 mag, Remington Model 7 youth in .243, Ruger MK II, and two .50 cal muzzle loaders. The sad part was that they thought that these had been gifts and that they could take them with them as they moved away. And their darned Mom supported their position. I tried explaining tht they were underage at the time of the loan so they had been loans and not gifts. The Christmas wrapping paper had only been a decoration and in no way implied that these were gifts.
Darn near cut my weapons inventory in half. Then I lost the remaining in a tragic boating accident.