Youth rifles

So, I've been thinking about youth rifles. Something light, and short, and handy. Something that carries a serious caliber, like .30-30, or .243, but in a package that a kid can handle. With a price tag I can handle.

Looks like the Handi-rifle is the ticket. For about 250 US dollars, I can get just about any caliber that I thing a young'un can handle. Or, I can get one in 45-70 and use it instead of the Renegade to hunt during the primitive season. I'd use my Sharps, but that thing is too heavy and long to carry around in the thickets and trees where I hunt. The Sharps is a plains rifle.

Louisiana expanded its primitive weapons season this year, to include:

Approved single shot breech loading primitive weapons:

· Sharps rifles or replicas
· Remington Rollingblock rifles or replicas
· Ballard rifles
· Maynard rifles or carbines
· Burnside carbines
· Frank Wesson rifles
· Farrow rifles
· Remington Hepburn rifles
· M1873-1888 Springfield (Trapdoor) rifles and carbines and replicas
· Snider (British) rifles and replicas
· Wesson & Harrington 1871 rifles
· New England Firearms or Harrington & Richardson Handi rifles in caliber larger than .38
· Winchester M1885 Hi Wall or Lo Wall rifles or replicas (Also Browning B78 or 1885) .38 or larger
· Knight KP-1 in caliber .38 or larger
· CVA Optima Elite in caliber .38 or larger
· Traditions Pursuit break-open single shot in .38 caliber or larger

I've killed a few deer with my Renegade. During the '80s I was so confident of my ability with that rife, and with the area I was hunting, that I carried my Renegade as my main rifle. I've even sniped crows with the light, small, 230 grain roundballs. It helped keep my eye in for deer season, and if you've never seen what a 54 caliber ball will do to a crow, you've missed a sight. But I digress.

If the state of Louisiana is going to let me hunt with a cartridge firearm and call it a primitive weapon, who am I to argue? No more powder, caps, and possibles to lug around. Pick up the rifle, drop a few cartridges into the pocket, and head toward the woods. They're taking all the work out of it.