Little baw and a 243

My nephew is 7 and killed his first one at 5 with a 223. Your boy is is old enough.

Not about the age as much as it is the maturity. If you're comfortable with him shooting and he's comfortable pulling the trigger, you're good to go. If your gut says he ain't ready, he ain't ready.

completely subjective. saw a video of a 6-7 yr old girl shooting a buck with a .300 blk.

Low recoil would just to break the ice, not to hunt.

He's shot a .22 a handful of times but that's it. Was in the stand with me once when I shot.

Have him practice with a .223 and low recoil .243 rounds. Then when hunting time comes slip a good standard .243 round in that crack barrel. He'll never know the difference when shooting at deer. After he kills that first one then you can tell him it was a full powered shell. he'll now be convinced a .243 has zero recoil.
I started my 7yr old daughter on a .223 and bought her a 7mm-08 Tikka. I never let her shoot the 7mm-08 other than dry firing it til she shot it at her first deer. She's 12 now and to this day you can't convince her that a 7mm-08 even recoils at all. Now she shoots that caliber in a XBolt and swears by how much she loves it

And congrats on getting your boy out there. There's not a better feeling than seeing your kid kill their first one

My 8 year old daughter shoots a Ruger American Compact in 7mm08. I site it in with full loads, let her shoot a few times a year with managed recoil. When it's time to hunt the managed recoil go to the gun safe. She never knows the difference.

As for the single shot .243, a ton of deer have been killed with them. I just found the little lite guns margin for error is extremely small with little guys/girls.

I don't think .243 is ideal but since he's already got one it'll do fine. I wouldn't use any reduced recoil stuff though.

I'm not sure why there's such a trend of coddling kids with regards to recoil. As long as the gun fits them decently, they can handle a lot. No caliber will be fun for them to shoot in a gun that's too big. Take your deer rifle and shoulder it with a doubled up pillow on your shoulder so you can barely reach the trigger and you'll understand why shooting a gun that doesn't fit as a kid sucks.

As far as being "ready" goes, that takes some thinking on dads part. I was already a proficient squirrel killer with my scoped pellet gun before I shot a deer. I don't think you want the first time they try to kill something be shooting at a deer.

7 is certainly not too young and a single shot .243 is a great choice. I also think using managed recoil rounds to get him used to the both the noise and the kick makes sense.

My oldest son was 8 when he shot his first deer. I bought him a youth model Savage 11/111 .243, but never used managed recoil rounds. We visited the range several times and I always emphasized squeezing the trigger. The gun, being a youth model, fit him great and he never complained about the recoil.

As someone already posted, I think the proper fit is absolutely key. He's 12 now and still uses and loves that little rifle.

My youngest son is 8 he told me he wanted to shoot a deer next year. I plan to repeat the process with him, but I may go the managed recoil route this time since he's a scrawny little fart compared to my oldest at 8.

No doubt excessive recoil is a bad thing, but even a .308 with 150gr standard loads isn't going to hurt a kid if the rifle fits well. It all depends on the kid though. I understood recoil was part of shooting guns and it didn't bother me. I was a little bitty shite too. Dad never made me shoot off of sandbags at bulls eyes or anything, just shooting at deer targets from deer hunting positions and I got pretty good at it. I wasn't shooting to hit a spot or shoot a group, I was shooting to kill the deer. He always had me drawing with a pencil on deer magazines where I would shoot a deer that was standing a certain way and all that good stuff. I knew a whole lot about how to kill stuff at 7 years old.

I was fortunate enough to have a rifle with a very short stock when I was young. My old man inletted and cut down a nice walnut stock for my 6.5x55 Mauser that was the perfect length with the recoil pad. We've still got it and my kid will use it same as I did.