My 8 year old daughter has taken a huge interest in shooting.  I've even allowed her to shoot my 5.56 under a controlled environment.  She's begging for me to build her a rifle or buy her one that's a little more her size so she can start going out and varmint hunting with dad.  I know when I got my first rifle from my father it was a bolt action .22lr.  A lot has changed in the past 30 years when it comes to rifles and cartridges.  I've really been putting some thought into getting her a little .17 HMR.  There really isn't a lot of options out there and the only black rifle I've seen offered in that caliber is from Alexander Arms.

 I'm curious if any of you have built a .17HMR rifle, or purchased one from somewhere other than AA.  What have you bought or built your eager child that's wanting to get into the sport of shooting.  Any and all advice is welcome.

My experience is that starting pre-teen children (best time imho) with rifles is best done with .22LR.  I have no experience with .17HMR so I can't give you any feedback on that choice.  There are so many .22LR options out there including a conversion kit for a 5.56 rifle.  I tried starting a 10 year old with a 5.56 rifle and it wasn't ideal.  I bought a S&W 15/22 rifle and that seemed to provide a better platform to learn the fundamentals.  It was relatively cheap, and we still shoot it for plinking fun. Transition to a more powerful platform became much easier for him to deal with safely.  I suppose it depends on the kid, so you need to gauge that.

Kel-Tec CMR-30?

At that age I see two problems, weight and noise.  The HMR is quite noisy and any platform will be too heavy.  Look at tha Savage Cub, pretty cheap, accu-trigger, single shot, lightweight, 22lr.  Sized for the small sized.

Exactly.  Weight and noise was why my 5.56 AR was not an ideal starter.  The M&P 15-22 is light, not loud and recoils even less than an AR-15, but it looks the same and has a very similar manual of arms as the AR-15.  LOL - call it the gateway drug for BRD.

Ruger 10/22 with Williams Fire Sights.

Inexpensive starter gun, youth stocks available, Ruger BX trigger for <$75 upgrade, excellent barrels available for ~$200 to upgrade to minute-of-fly when kid moves to optics.

My daughter (9) still seemed a bit awkward with a  regular rifle...so I opted for the new Ruger Charger .22, and put an inexpensive Bushnell red dot on it.  Easy to aim (comes with bipod) and shoot.