Take a look at the Armscor model 14Y. In my opinion, this is a nice youth sized rifle. I have had one for a few years now - and my son used to shoot it quite a bit. He started when he was around 8 or 9 with this one. He is now 13 and he still shoots it some but now enjoys man sized rifles as he is now 13 and pretty big. The youth sized rifle is the way to go for the young shooter. Try to start em out with too big and heavy a rifle and they may loose interest quickly.
I actually had to run to the arms locker to take ours out and look at the model number. I thought it was 14Y but was not sure because I could not find it in my Blue book of Gun Values. They list a 12Y and 14P (if I remember correctly the directions that came with mine were for the 14P which is a larger version). Unlike the Cricket, it is a magazine fed bolt action rifle, and if I remember right, the mag holds six rounds (maybe more - it has been a while). Of course you can always load it one shot at a time manually if you want. I much prefer to start off a new shooter on a single shot or a bolt action repeater rather than a semi auto. This helps teach patience, and paying attention to the detail of how the rifle works, and emphasizes safety when having to manually reload after each shot as opposed to simply staying sighted in on target and again squeezing the trigger of a semi auto. Sure you can teach patience and safety with a semi auto; but a single shot or bolt action repeater in the hands of a novice shooter is inherently much safer than a semi auto in those same hands.
Back to the Armscor 14Y. The quality, at least to me, seems better than a Cricket. I can vouch that mine has never had any problems that I can think of now. Again it is a youth sized rifle, bolt action box magazine fed repeater. It has a blue finish, and a wood stock. I believe, that besides the stock, it is all metal construction - such as the trigger, trigger guard and so on. It feeds any ammo we give it. It is fairly accurate for a plinker - certainly good enough to instill confidence in the new shooter, and it is probably capable of better groups than most shooters can shoot. The rear sight is adjustable for elevation. The front sight is hooded.
This is a nice little rifle, imported from the Philippines - and although not made in the USA, the Philippines was one of our allies last time I checked. Not a bad deal, and not a lot of money in the event you get one that is not as good as mine. My guess would be though, that at least when mine was made, quality control was pretty good at Armscor.
Hope this was helpful.
Best regards and safe shooting,
Glenn B
