I recently got my son a Ruger American Compact .22 to teach him to shoot with. He's been having a blast and it's been great spending time at the range with him. I actually didn't have a .22 of my own , so I bought myself the Ruger American Target model to take to the range with him. I put a Vortex Crossfire II 4-12 on it and took it to the range today for the first time. First, a couple of pics of my son just because..







Now here's my rifle..



I zeroed it at 50 yards today and got it dialed in pretty quick. After that, I shot this group of 20 rounds that I was pretty proud of. I was very impressed with the accuracy of the rifle right out of the box with regular CCI ammo from WalMart.

I wish the plastic stocks were about 2" shorter for kids. That's about what your boy needs for a proper Offhand position.

Oh well. It'll be right in a couple years.

I just bought the Ruger American Target like yours. I put a Vortex Crossfire 6-18 on it. I've got a suppressor coming and needed something threaded so I picked this one up. Have you had any problems with ejection on yours? Mine won't eject the majority of the time. It looks like the ejector is sitting away too far to catch the case. There seems to be enough "slop" in the receiver/bolt that if you hold the bolt knob "out" as you're pulling it back, the bolt angles so the ejector sits further into the bolt, then catches the case. Then the case will eject. Like the rifle but, just my luck, it looks like it's going to have to go back to Ruger.

Kids rifles should have a super short stock and come with a stack of buttstock spacers like a Ruger GSR, to add as the kid grows.  If they have to, make the barrel 18" to hit the needed OAL.