My first rifle should be???

Not sure if this is a best choice, but lots of people like a 17 HMR.

For 50 - 100 yd shooting at paper, any round and action type will be fine.

For cheap ammo, 223, 17 HMr and 22 lr come to mind. 308, while slightly more is a great round. A 357mag rifle would be common to your revolver.

What are your rifle shooting goals, dreams.
 
Even though you aren't "interested" in a .22LR, its the best thing to start with. Gets you trained on rifles, cheapest to shoot, and tons of fun.

Sell it later if/when you get bored.

Although its just a "popgun" its a real rifle, and everything you need to learn about rifle shooting (except how to manage recoil) you can learn, and learn well from a .22

Also, shooting 500 times for $20 is (for me, anyway) better than shooting 20 times.

One thing, begining shooting with a hard kicking rifle is counter productive. You can do it, but it makes the learning curve really steep, and if you develope a flinch problem, it can be tough to cure.
 
The OP said he didn't want a .22, and, and he is ammo cost sensitive.

You can buy a complete Mosin Nagant rifle, 100 rounds, including tax, license and dock fees, for $200. That isn't even half the cost of a SKS, Rossi...lever this and lever that rifle. Two bones won't even buy a half way decent scope and mounts. If it hurts you shoulder too much go Air Rifle.

Welcome to Centerfire Rifle.
 
You can buy a complete Mosin Nagant rifle, 100 rounds, including tax, license and dock fees, for $200. That isn't even half the cost of a SKS, Rossi...lever this and lever that rifle
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that's barely half the cost of a mosin nagant nowadays. most of the sub-100 dollar 91/30s are either sold out or backordered for months leaving many in the $120-150 range. if you buy online you can expect a $20 FFL fee plus $30 shipping and handling so your super cheap mosin nagant has just jumped to nearly $200 all by it's little lonesome and then when you add a can of ammo which costs around $100 per can +$20 shipping and handling you are now looking at close to or exceeding $300 which is getting very close to the cost a a marlin 336 lever action rifle.

and this is all completely ignoring the fact that you do not hand a person that is inexperienced with rifles a 5 foot, 9 pound rifle that has significant recoil. 22lr, 17, 223, 357, 7.62x39, 30-30, these are acceptable calibers for new shooters to learn on. 30-06, 303 brit, 7.62x54R, 8mm mauser and the rest of the so called "mankiller rounds" are not in any way shape or form conducive to building marksmanship skills. that is the very reason why special runs of rifles such as springfields were chambered in lighter calibers to teach recruits on instead of throwing a 30-06 at them and telling them to shoot a bullseye.
 
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I see lots of pictures on the net of ruskie women armed with NMs marching to the Eastern Front to shoot German soliders. How did they ever learn how to shoot? The women I mean. How did the ruskie women lean to shoot I ask? I also heard accounts of 100 pound Vietnam combatants hammering our troops with the bone crushing-ill suited for marksmanship training-Nagant rifles.

Every gun show I've been to for the past 4 years, including a few days ago, has had at least 3 good examples of 91/30s for $120-135, and surplus 7.62X54R cartridges for .23 cents per cartridge, being sole in individual packs of 20. Often times MN are sold as CC&R so, leagally speaking, no waiting period and no State transfer tax.
 
The .357 single shot is a nice idea if that's the caliber you'd like. I have some H&R/NEF single shot shotguns and they are fun to shoot. And I'd continue the search for a 1894c.

I found a used one this past winter. It's new enough that it has the safety (which many people don't like) but old enough that it was made before Marlin was bought out. It seems better made than the new models I see in stores today. Mine cycles .38 specials well (some carbines don't) and I find it somewhat similar to shooting .22 in terms of recoil, noise (my .38 sp. reloads are subsonic even from a rifle barrel), and trajectory. The bullets just happen to weigh 4x as much and make bigger holes in targets. Meanwhile, it's nice to know that, if I wanted to, I could also effectively take deer and coyotes with proper .357 ammo.
 
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The OP might want to consider an SKS.
A common unknown variable with the Russian MN 44 is how much wear the muzzles suffered. The Polish MN 44s are usually in better condition but are pricier.

I had two Russian 44s which made some Very large 'groups' at 50 yards, whether the bayonets were extended or retracted. You could not really call those patterns 'groups'. These rifles only used Bulgarian ammo. Maybe that was a factor.

My Norinco SKS with the fully-adjust. Tech Sight made a group at 50 yards which resembles a group with one of my best Enfields, also at 50 yards. Five of the SKS shots almost touched, and were in the bullseye.

Russian 7.62x39 does not cost much more than surplus (corrosive) 7.62x54R.
 
I have two lever guns on my rack.

A Marlin 336 in 30-30 I purchased in 1972 for $50.00. I still use it regularly when I am hunting heavy cover in inclement weather weather.

The second is a Win 94 in 44mag. It is cute and my wife stole it from me. Has good accuracy out to 100 yds.

Every one should have at least one Lever gun.
 
My Vietnam bringback was a Chinese Type 53, I have several M-Ns. As a piece of history, yes, as a first rifle, no, on a par with a K98.
My first rifle was my M1917 which I treasure, I fired Expert in the Army with the M-14 and M-16 but it was all those range sessions with my trusty old Winchester M-69 that made me a truly proficient rifle shooter.
 
I see lots of pictures on the net of ruskie women armed with NMs marching to the Eastern Front to shoot German soliders. How did they ever learn how to shoot? The women I mean. How did the ruskie women lean to shoot I ask? I also heard accounts of 100 pound Vietnam combatants hammering our troops with the bone crushing-ill suited for marksmanship training-Nagant rifles.
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first of all. the russian army as a whole was essentially conscripts they were given almost no training and they could care less if you shot straight. their war strategy was very similar to the chinese in addressing the japanese invasion. "we outnumber them ten to one so as long as we kill one of them for every ten of us, we'll win through sheer numbers" was the main sentimentality. most of those women were volunteers that were basically laying down their lives for mother russia, a lot of them were just given a uniform and a pamphlet explaining ranking structure.

secondly, vietnamese troops were using the 7.62x39 round since hostilities opened with the french in the 50s. the vietkong were trained with SKS and AK47s and the ones that showed promise were given the mosin nagant for sniper operations.
 
first of all. the russian army as a whole was essentially conscripts they were given almost no training and they could care less if you shot straight.
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And yet they managed to kill 6 million Nazis. Kudos to the conscripts.
 
And yet they managed to kill 6 million Nazis. Kudos to the conscripts.
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uh...that's the total amount of Germans that died... total. I guess France, England, India(loyal to Britain), Australia(loyal to Britain) Italy, Greece, and the good old US of A had nothing to do with those 6 million deaths.

meanwhile the Soviet Union lost anywhere between 9 to 10 million and I'm fairly certain that Nazi Germany was responsible for just about all of those.

also, even though it would be awesome to continue debating history, this is way off topic.
 
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I'd opt for a rifle in 5.56/.223

It's one of the less expensive centerfire rounds out there, that's easy to find ammo for. Very accurate at the ranges you plan on shooting at. And can be even more accurate, if you handload.

Just picked up a CZ 527 Varmint for this purpose.:)

Good luck with your search and let us know what you decide to get.
 
uh...that's the total amount of Germans that died... total.
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I did say Nazi, not German. Probably should have said axis, but then, who would know what I meant. Even then, exaggerated, but probably 2/3rds of all German military deaths were caused by the soviet conscript. I'm not sure how many Japanese were killed by the soviets in 1945, but they did basically annihilate the Japanese Manchurian armies.

Soviet deaths were way over 20 million by the way, although only about 12 million were military deaths.
 
My first rifle was a Remington 700. It's your basic bolt action rifle, they come in many different calibers. Great first rifle.
 
In reading this discussion, I was interested in Jackpine's response about the NEF rifle in 223 fit with a 357 barrel. I dug in further and found this info on the NEF website that I felt worth putting here. I'm not sure if that means you can't fit a 357 or 44 barrel to a frame from another centerfire cartridge, but that may be a safe assumption. It could be that they're made lighter-duty than could handle more powerful rifle cartridges, but that could also mean different spacing of the barrel lug/action mounts as well.

From: http://www.hr1871.com/Firearms/Rifles/handiRifle.asp
midway down the page.

*Note: The frame of the 44 Mag. (SB1-S44) and the 357 Mag. (SB1-S35) cannot be fit with any other centerfire rifle barrel. They are capable of being fit with accessory shotgun barrels, but their rifle capability is limited to the specific 44 or 357 Mag. barrel that it is shipped on the gun.
 
NEF/H&R makes two type of receivers: SB1 and SB2. The SB2 can use ANY caliber/gauge barrel. The SB1 is limited to shotgun barrels and pistol caliber barrels (basically stuff with lower pressure). So a .357 or .44 barrel can be put on any receiver, but if you buy a .357 or .44 gun to begin with, you can't stick a .223 barrel on it.

That's my understanding anyway. Someone should correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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