Have you ever shot a rossi with a shotgun barrel?

 My boy got one with a 50 cal BP,243,and a 12 gage.The 243 would never shot under a foot at 100 yards and the shot gun would tare your arm off with light loads. Now remember he shoots a 375 h&h,a 870 supper mag and a 338 and never complains about recoil. The rossi is the only gun he has ever sold !!!!

I got my girls a H&R 410 for their first shotgun, other than shooting grouse out of trees, they could never hit anything with it.  I got some light 12 gauge loads for my 870, they did pretty well with it.

What I wished, I had done, was get a 28 gauge double for them instead, they could have hit something with it and they would've had a life long shotgun to use.  I think Mossberg int, makes a 28ga O/U, that has 20 ga barrel, that can be bought as a combo or maybe ordered later.  It's on a 20ga, not a true 28ga frame, but I don't think the few ounces difference, would be too bad of a thing.  You could also just get a 20 to start with and shoot light loads.

IBD, Ever consider that it might be the ammo and not the gun?  I know that Win makes an AA featherlight 12 with a 50% reduction in noise and recoil. A bit slow at under 1000 fps. I'd almost bet that the 12 ga Featherlights will kick less than standard 20 ga. loads.

I'm certain that there are some twenty guage reduced loads on the net somewhere that could be loaded up for him that would function similarly in the 20. If I had a better 20 gauge loader I'd loan it to you but mine's an old Dietemeyer. Works but can be frustrating. I'll poke around and see if I can find some loads. RD

Having worked with kids wanting to shoot Trap we have found that very light loads in a 12 that fits is much better than the most 20 gauge loads, both can shoot 7/8 ounce loads, the 12 can be loaded to less feet per second and seems to throw a better pattern than the 20 does with less FELT recoil, my suggestion would be to buy a cheap 870 and fit the stock to his LOP and make sure it was not barrel heavy and then work up some reloads that he is comfortable with, you can always pass it on to some one wanting a youth gun when he out grows it. Confidence in hitting the target is very important with young shooters. my 2 cents.

Rick

Check out a couple of these shotgun loads, they should be low recoil, 3/4oz with 6K to 8K pressure.

http://www.imrpowder.com/PDF/Youth%20Loads.pdf

I've used a few of the youth loads before, you can get pretty good accuracy out of them.  I hadn't noticed the shotgun loads before, when I did, I thought of your grandson and thought they may be the ticket.

 I've loaded the /06 down to 30-30 levels fairly easily.  I've loaded it to 300 savage levels for hunting.  I'm sure you could load 7/08 to 243 recoil levels and still have a more effective deer load.

I would expect the 3/4oz 1150fps 20ga load would be close to 28ga load, I would think the 3/4oz 1200fps 12ga load would have even less recoil.