The little guy in my avatar (our son, Nash, back when) couldn't even handle our R7 at 9. He did like to shoot a little Gamo 120 (sold by Daisy and not available for some years now) Small, cheap, light and easy for him to cock and hold up. But even that stock was too long. He shot it with the stock in his armpit..
Perhaps a little vintage Slavia would fill the bill. Not too hard to find those
He also liked this little Italian underlever (he's holding it in the avatar photo) but you're not ever going to find one.
I have a 7 and 5 year old, as well as 9 and 7 YO nephews, and I've done a TON of research on this, so OP, please feel free to PM me if you want more info.
I'd agree with KWK's - an HW30/R7 is a terrific gun, but it will be too big for a 9 year old. My 9 year old nephew is very tall for his age and its too big even for him. Too much weight, and the length of pull is the same as "full size" Weihrauchs. Also, the reach to the trigger (which is kind of long on Weihrauchs even for adults, is even harder for little hands to manage.
I'd make two suggestions: The Umarex Embark is a great youth gun with a properly short length of pull (12" vs 13.75" for a HW30), easy cocking, has an anti-beartrap, and a decent trigger (long second stage, but smooth - good for kids to learn proper trigger technique. It's used for the Student Air Rifle Program. Good accuracy and can be scoped (but you'll need something very short). Tom Gaylord did a write-up a few years ago.
https://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2017/05/umarex-embark-breakbarrel-spring-rifle-part-1/ Also, the Ruger explorer is virtually the same gun, but sights on the Embark are better.
Here's my 5 year old son (who is 49" tall and more like a typical 6-7 year old: Notice he is able to get good head placement, although his left hand can't really stretch very far up the forestock.
9YO Nephew (big for his age) with same gun:
My other suggestion is a vintage youth springer. Even guns like the Embark are going to be 5+ pounds and relatively heavy for offhand shooting until kids get more like 12+. The vintage youth guns have NOTHING like them today and are so cool. Totally scaled down and very diminutive - these are all a little more than 3 pounds. Think of an HW30 and shrink everything by a third and you'll end up with one of these. Choices include:
Slavia 618 or 619 (virtually identical guns) or 624 (identical but barrel is maybe 1.5" longer); or a Diana 23, (or maybe a 25, which is a little bigger but I'm not sure by how much). Only idiosyncrasy with the Slavias is that the length of pull is practically adult-sized. I picked up an old, beat up 618 and promptly chopped off a little too much stock to get it down to about 11.25" for my kids. At some point, I'm going to add a a piece back to make it longer again - between 12 and 12.5" is manageable for kids but still usable for adults. Here is my son with it (it fits him perfectly)
9 YO nephew with the same gun, shooting offhand:
Here you can see that the LOP is actually a little too short for him. I measured and found that 12" would be about perfect for him.
Here is my 7 YO daughter (who is 53" tall and more like 8-9 size-wise) with Diana 23 - this stock is unmolested and has a LOP of just under 13" - you can see it's still a bit too long for her, and even though the gun is a little over 3 pounds, it's heavy for her to manage offhand - hence the goofy stance, with her leaning back to keep her balance:
Here is a look at the various guns, with triggers lined up to get a sense of the differences in LOP. From top to bottom:
- Chopped Slavia 618 - LOP originally 13.75" (same as HW30); now about 11.25" in the middle (yes, I did a horrific job cutting the stock down)
- Slavia 624 - LOP about 13.75 (same as the HW30) This one is basically for me to play with, so I'm leaving it as is.
- HW30 - LOP about 13.75"
- Diana 23 - LOP about 13"
- Umarex Embark - LOP 12"
Notice how the HW30 looks much bigger than the vintage guns.
If I was starting all over, I would buy one of the vintage springers and (properly!) chop the stock down to about 12.5" - that would be good for the kids but still perfectly usable for adults. You would end up with a nice gun that is as light and easy to manage as a little BB gun, but with FAR better accuracy and no worrying about BB ricochets. Watch out for broken stocks and bent barrels - there is no safety or anti-beartrap on these vintage guns, so a lot were fired while the barrel was down. My 618 was one of them - it looked ok, but the stock had been repaired and I did have to bend the barrel down - even with open sights, it was shooting 5" high at 10 yards when I got it!. But can be done easily.
And if I was going to buy a second one, I'd get an Embark, which is good for the bench and eventually for shooting offhand, and can be scoped with a bug buster or something similarly short if desired. I like these guns, but it might be a little heavy for offhand shooting until your daughter gets a little older.
Lastly, I'll say all these (particularly the vintage guns) are great for carefree plinking, even for adults. I have done a lot of "testing" of these and remembered how much fun it is to be lobbing pellets offhand with open sights at a tin can 25 yards out. It's just like being a kid again!
