A couple of years ago a guy I work with asked me what I thought about a few rifles he had been eyeballing for him and his son to learn/get into shooting. His son was 12 maybe a little older. He had been shooting a 22 and wanted something bigger and better. Everything he had eyeballing was $1000+ set ups with no ammo or optics. He said the reason he was looking at the gun he was, is because he did not want to be restricted to the 50 yard line. I told him he could come shoot some of my firearms and see what he thinks before he bought, but I thought everything he had been looking at was over kill, and very price. He met me at the range one day and I was shooting steel targets at the 300 yard line, with a Mosin and surplus ammo. He got on the rifle and had a blast. He wanted to know how much it would cost to have a similar setup. When I told him less than $200 with ammo his jaw dropped. When I ran into him about a week later he had to show me the pictures on his phone of the Mosin he just got the night before and the crate of ammo. He had since transferred but he had stopped through one day and I asked him if he still had the Mosin. He told me he does and an additional one. He said he has since purchased a nice Rem. 700 setup, mostly for hunting, but because of ammo prices and for fun him and his son shoot the Mosin a lot more, and told me that was the best introductory rifle purchase he could have gotten, and recommends it to everyone.
