hometheater - 3 inch groups at 100 y = 3/4 inch groups at 25y. He might not be able to take the bottle cap off a bottle, but I bet he could shoot out the pepsi logo.
At 15y, he is in the bottle cap accuracy range. Again, you are very focused on pin point accuracy. You probably wouldn't like my garand either because it only shoots 2 inch groups (which isn't taking bottle caps off either). I'll look at the savage. If he wants to shoot different rifles when his skill surpasses his beginner rifle, we have an Anschutz, a mossberg 144, a marlin .22lr that will clover leaf at 15y, and others for him to move to. IF he gets into target shooting, we can equip that, but first things first. There is an argument for getting him a gun that is more accurate.. but then again he may not get into shooting that much. I guess I should also pitch my sks as it is a 4 moa gun... oh wait ... I still have fun shooting it as well.
3 inch groups and 5 inch groups mean nothing if you don't have a range to go with them. 3 - 5 inches will be on the paper, and in an 8in bullseye target. The range he will be shooting at only goes out to 100y but it can get as close as he wants. As he gets better, we move him out further, but we start him in at like 15y. I will take a couple of sessions, maybe months before he is shooting even somewhat consistently. With a couple of weeks in between 1-2 hour shooting sessions, it will take a while for things to start to click.