The "perfect" woman's rifle

There are a lot of factors........shoulder width is much more critical than height as to length of pull, experience with rifles is another factor. Length of neck is also very critical for eye relief as women generally have longer less muscular necks than men. So to keep with the general train of advice here, it is important for her to try as many as possible in the store to see what goes best with her physique. Caliber is much less important, I know several relatively small ladies who shoot .375 H&Hs like they were 22s. This comes with conditioning and familiarity with rifles, shooting and recoil. As to caliber/cartridge.........I have always said the .270 Win is a perfect ladies cartridge, so there is no point in changing my "party line" now. Anything in that range of cartridges should be well within even new shooters abilities to master.........7-08, 25-06, 257 Bob, 260 Rem, 6.5X55 or 7X57 in a modern rifle or even the 257 Bee and 264 WM are pretty easy to shoot and extend you useful range significantly.
 
My dad had a nice little .308. It was a Remington Model 7 Featherweight.
It was beautiful compact and light weight @ 6.5 pounds. I am not sure, but I think they come in .243 as well.
 
H4895 is Hodgdon's gift to ladies and kids...

Pick any cartridge you like and load it down. They indicate that 60% of MAX loads is the starting load for H4895, but take it from me, after testing thousands if rounds, I am not happy with the consistency until the fill gets to 70%... but at 70/75/80%, you are getting a soft load with any cartridge up to .30/06. 36.0 grains of H4895 pushing a 150 grain pill is great deer medicine and feels like a light .243.
 
hoytcanon said:
H4895 is Hodgdon's gift to ladies and kids...

Pick any cartridge you like and load it down. They indicate that 60% of MAX loads is the starting load for H4895, but take it from me, after testing thousands if rounds, I am not happy with the consistency until the fill gets to 70%... but at 70/75/80%, you are getting a soft load with any cartridge up to .30/06. 36.0 grains of H4895 pushing a 150 grain pill is great deer medicine and feels like a light .243.
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+1

My new favoured deer combo is a Rem Seven in 7-08 loaded to 7x57 performance with H4895. Makes a light handy sweet shooting combo.
 
Sakoman .308 said:
My dad had a nice little .308. It was a Remington Model 7 Featherweight.
It was beautiful compact and light weight @ 6.5 pounds. I am not sure, but I think they come in .243 as well.
Click to expand...

They do, the Seven Laminate comes in .243 for sure. 7.25 lbs with scope and rings.
 
My wife is 5'3" and 105lbs. Petite to say the least. She tried several rifles and she settled on Savage's Lady Hunter in 7-08. The shorter wood stock, higher comb, and light barrel make for a light, well-balanced rifle.
 
Far too few details on the woman in question. Would you ask what gun you should buy for a man?

What is your budget? What type of guns has she liked in the past? What action does she like? What does she want to do with the gun?

I see that you later posted her dimensions so she's small and wants something small/youth sized, which is better than no info.

Without knowing things like your budget or what the purpose is, it's impossible to answer your question.

My wife loves lever guns because they're the most "pew pew" fun, but your wife may hate them. CZ makes some amazing quality youth bolt action rifles, but if it's not in your budget...
 
I'd suggest that pitch and LOP but probably pitch is the most useful measurement, depending on chest size. In my opinion it's probably better to get the stock fitted specifically to her. If you use a boy's or oldtime rifle built for short men (most milsurp, levers) the fit would be alright but the toe would dig in pretty sharpish.

If I was going to build a rifle for my wife it'd be a Mauser action 7x57 or 6.5x52/54/55 with a shorter or lighter barrel and a stock weighted to balance, with a LOP of about 12 with rubber pad, drop at heel of about 2, pitch of 3-3.5, smaller medium power scope.

For myself, LOP 14, DAC 1.5, DAH 2.5, pitch 4, as I have a damaged neck and am fairly fit.
 
I let the girlfriend/wife try about 6 of my rifles one range trip - a 94 compact .30-30, Cz 527m 7.62x39, 7x57r Haenel Jaeger 9, a Model 70 in .308, ruger m77mkii in .257 bob, and a Kimber Montana in .257 bob. In the end she rejected the 94 compact and Cz because they didn't fit her right, the other rifles were too heavy for her to balance well offhand, but the Kimber was perfect.

All depends what they can deal with and how they manage recoil - it actually really surprised me that she picked a lightweight, full lop rifle. It jumps more than other ones due to weight but it balanced right and she could hold it steady offhand without arching her back or struggling with it.

I also may have scored some points by letting her take "my most expensive rifle" ;)
 
ndallyn said:
I let the girlfriend/wife try about 6 of my rifles one range trip
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Brought them both? You're a brave man

CZ 527 has a long lop for a compact gun, might not work out so well for shorter ladies. Women generally have longer necks than men, important when choosing a stock, caliber less important than you may think you might be surprised by what your wife can shoot comfortably
 
My petite wife shoots a Mauser 96 in 6.5x55 with an 11.75" LOP and a Limbsaver recoil pad. I had to shorten the stock quite a lot - to where her right thumb was 1.5" from her nose while shooting. I also lightened it up a lot by skeletonizing the magwell, shortening the barrel, milling wood out from under the barrel, and installing an aluminum bolt knob. As others have said, stock up on H4895. I go through more of that than any other powder! I like the bigger 6.5's or a .270 because you never know if she wants to hunt elk or moose in the future. If it's only for deer-sized game, a .243 is a good start. But as others have said, she will be able to handle much larger cartridges with practice. Practice is everything.
 
The typical ladies go-to caliber is always cited as being the .243 100GR our 7mm08 120GR pills, but really a .308win is even better suited with handloads. You can handload the .308 with 125GR Accubonds or 130GR TTSX bullets for any light recoil big game situation you wish or share your own handloads with her!

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c-fbmi said:
There are a lot of factors........shoulder width is much more critical than height as to length of pull, experience with rifles is another factor. Length of neck is also very critical for eye relief as women generally have longer less muscular necks than men. So to keep with the general train of advice here, it is important for her to try as many as possible in the store to see what goes best with her physique. Caliber is much less important, I know several relatively small ladies who shoot .375 H&Hs like they were 22s. This comes with conditioning and familiarity with rifles, shooting and recoil. As to caliber/cartridge.........I have always said the .270 Win is a perfect ladies cartridge, so there is no point in changing my "party line" now. Anything in that range of cartridges should be well within even new shooters abilities to master.........7-08, 25-06, 257 Bob, 260 Rem, 6.5X55 or 7X57 in a modern rifle or even the 257 Bee and 264 WM are pretty easy to shoot and extend you useful range significantly.
Click to expand...

Dear God did you just suggest a 270!? What's up with that, getting soft on the 277cal or something!? Lol
 
My girlfriend had hunted with an old Parker Hale for years. No one ever explained how rifle pull was supposed to work to her and I watched her try and climb the rifle for a sight picture.

So we went shopping and found that the youth rifles didn't fit her that well she's a woman not a kid. Also the parker hale was a 30/06 and the youth rifles didn't come in larger calibers that she wanted to keep for deer and moose. Found a Savage Lady Hunter and she loved the fit of the rifle she never knew that if the pull was right she should not have to look for the sight picture.

That was last year and she is still happy with it and downed a whitetail, and had to make the kill shot on one of the guys cow moose who after 2 gut shots with a 338 dropped it with a lung shot. She also shot a few coyotes. She doesn't complain about the recoil either. She said it kicks but not too bad for such a light little gun.
 
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