Women are different than men. In our modern culture that statement may seem outlandish. But I have studied the issue thoroughly and extensively and the female body is, in fact, shaped different than the male’s. Which is why most rifles suitable for the male of the species are unsuitable for women. The Weatherby Vanguard Camilla is one the few hunting rifles built to cater to those differences.
As Chris Heuss’ recent TTAG review revealed, the Vanguard is Weatherby’s budget line made by Howa in Japan. OFWG’s who turn up their noses at the “Made in Japan” label note: Howa has been manufacturing great value firearms for years. Rifles that boast a quality few American-made “budget” guns can match. Even a quick glance reveals that the Weatherby Vanguard Camilla is no exception.
The Vanguard’s barreled action is basically the same as the Howa 1500, if not exactly the same. Like the rest of the rifles in this line, the Camilla’s 20″ blued barrel is finished smoothly and evenly, free of tool marks or obvious chattering inside or out. The big difference between the Camilla and a “standard” Weatherby vanguard: the stock.
I’ve always been a fan of Weatherby’s squared-off and flat fore-stocks. It may not be as comfortable shooting off hand, but it’s much better shooting off a bag, a bench, the hood of my truck…off of any rest, where most hunting shots actually occur.
The Camilla’s wood is better than other rifles at this price point, especially as many competitors fit cheap plastic stocks. Weatherby fashioned the Camilla’s stock from an A Grade walnut, finishing the end cap and forend in rosewood.
The stock is amply and attractively checkered both fore and aft, with an attractive full pattern on the palm swell. The grip is something smaller statured women shooters will notice right off the bat. It’s thin and narrow, built for smaller hands. The Camilla also boasts a higher Monte Carlo cheek piece for more petit faces.
The result: a stock that’s graceful, attractive, practical and . . . short. At least for a 6’1″ guy with a 33″ draw on his old Osage bow. With the Camilla’s stock in the pit of my elbow, the bottom of my hand is about at the trigger. For someone under 5′ 8″ — especially a woman who is, umm, “blessed” — the shorter length of pull makes a big difference, especially in terms of reducing of felt recoil.
Many men don’t know it, because rifles are built for men, but a too-long length of pull forces your body out of position; taking your hips, shoulder, neck and face out of ideal alignment. That leads to the gun spinning you around in recoil, as well as having to shoot off your deltoid or bicep. The Weatherby Vanguard Camilla solves that problem for average shooters of the homogametic persuasion.
The shape of the stock is subtly, but significantly different than most stocks manufactured for hunting rifles today. Specifically, the bottom of the Camilla’s stock — the toe — angles slightly outward, toward the right shoulder of a right-handed shooter. The angle appears reversed. The negative angle of the stock means that the recoil pad is actually slightly longer at the top than at the bottom. The recoil pad is also fairly thin.
Put that all together and the Camilla’s stock fits much better to a woman’s chest and shoulder than most other stocks.
Some men face this issue as well, and I’m one of them. The toe of many rifle stocks dig into my chest. Although few guns bruise my shoulder, many end up cutting into the top of my pectoral mass. For women, especially women with large busts, this is a much bigger issue. To be blunt, some rifles force women to shoot the rifle off their breast. And, well, that’s just horrible.
Being a tall man, I’m not the ideal candidate to judge the effectiveness of the Camilla’s unique shape. So what’s a long tall Texan to do? As always, the answer was at the range. Specifically the Range at Austin.
I put on my best smile and walked up and down the firing line asking every woman I could find if they would shoulder the rifle and try it out. Fortunately for you, dear reader, the graciousness of the ladies on the range outweighed the creepiness of my charms. They all agreed.
There was a good cross section of body types there, as well as ages, but almost all of them were beginner shooters. All of them found the rifle easy to shoulder and easy to line up.
One woman had just been shooting her first rifle, an AKM47 with her son. She found the six-and-a-half pound .308 Camilla’s recoil to be less bothersome than her son’s 7.62x39mm. There wasn’t less recoil. Because her body was properly positioned behind the gun, there was less felt recoil. It was the same experience with every woman on the line, whether they were shaped like Olive Oyl or Betty Boop.
So, the rifle is comfortable for women to shoot, but is it worth shooting? It is. As I discovered as I put the Camilla through my normal paces — with one exception.
I usually don’t really clean a rifle prior to shooting it for a review. I often just run a bore snake down it first. This time, the bore was filth. To give the Camilla a fair shake I cleaned the bore completely, then lubed it again prior to starting the shooting. I didn’t clean the trigger, separate the action from the stock, or clean the bolt in any way.
Between myself and the ladies on the range, we put a total of 300 rounds through the Camilla over two weeks. The rifle never presented any issues during loading, firing, or ejecting. The five-round magazine, set inside the hinged floor plate, never bound or failed to load a round — as long as I fully cycled the bolt.
I had to pay attention to do that; when pulling the bolt handle back, there’s a bit of a tightening just prior to the bolt stopping. If I was going slowly, I had a tendency to stop there and not fully cycle the bolt. That would, of course, mean that the next round would not be picked up when I brought the bolt back forward.
I would prefer a smooth pull all the way back. The real fix: get out of the bad habit of cycling the bolt in anything other than a swift, smooth motion. The Camilla’s bolt is also fairly tight to close. Some women had to un-shoulder the rifle, or at least break their cheek-stock-weld, to pull the bolt handle up and start cycling it back.
I shot many different types of bullets and weights through the rifle, from Hornady’s 125 grain Custom Lite SST reduced recoil load (probably the best Texas whitetail round in .308 out there) to Federal’s new 180 grain Non-Typical soft point. I shot both brass and steel-cased ammunition without any reliability issues.
That reliability is brought to you by a familiar solid-piece bolt body with a three-position safety and an M16 style extractor. There’s nothing really fancy there, nothing polished, nothing jeweled, no space age finishes. But the Camilla functions smoothly, and the gas ports built into the body eject the gases to the side — and not your face — in the event of a case failure.
Weatherby shooters will be familiar with the Camilla’s two stage trigger. The first stage is completely open. All you are doing is taking up the slack, followed by a fairly creep-free break. This one broke nicely at just over 3 lbs, adjustable down to 2 1/2. I reckon it would be difficult to notice that half-pound difference.
In terms of accuracy, the Camilla is an adequate performer that has its quirks.
First, the rifle does not like a hot barrel. During my familiarization fire, I noticed that longer strings produced wider groups with any round in any weight. By the time I was getting to round 20 in a long string, group sizes increased by about 20 percent. That’s as compared to shooting five rounds and letting the barrel cool completely. So when it came to shooting for groups, I would shoot five, stand up, take a drink of water, walk around, let the barrel cool completely, then go back and shoot five more.
Weatherby promises sub minute of angle groups with all their Vanguard rifles. Well, they promise sub-MOA three round groups with their ammunition. I had seven different types of ammunition, none of it Weatherby’s factory ammo. I achieved a few MOA groups like the one above sending the Hornady 168gr A-Max round downrange, but only for three rounds. None of my five round groups quite hit the MOA mark, and none of them broke it.
My best average was with the Hornady 155gr AMax Black round. It printed a 1.2″ five round group on average for 20 shots total. That surprised me a bit; the Camilla absolutely hated the Hornady 155gr Steel Match round, printing 1.8″ groups. The slightly heavy for caliber but ballistically exceptional Federal 180gr Soft Point round printed a 1.4″ five round group on average for 20 shots.
Weatherby did a great job with the Camilla. It would be high on my list for a first rifle for a lady hunter. It’s extremely reliable. Given the right load, it’s accurate enough to take any caliber-suitable game out to 500 yards. Most importantly, it does what it’s supposed to do: it fits a woman’s body. I hope that other manufacturers follow suit and build attractive rifles of this quality, so that we see more female hunters in the field this deer season.
SPECIFICATIONS: Weatherby Vanguard Camilla
Caliber: 308 Win. (also available in .243Win, 6.5Creedmore, 7mm08)
Weight: 6 1/2 lbs.
Length: 39 1/2 inches
Capacity: 5+1
Barrel length: 20 inches
Barrel finish: bead blasted blued
Rifling: 1:10″
Length of Pull: 13 inches
Drop at comb: 7/8 inch
Drop at heel: 2 1/4 inches (5/8 inch at Monte Carlo)
MSRP: $849
RATINGS (out of five stars):
Appearance * * * *
Better than average wood, a great shape and tasteful checkering. A generally high-quality finish and great lines throughout.
Fit * * * * *
Every single woman who shouldered the rifle commented on how good it felt.
Reliability * * * * *
If you arm works the bolt, the guns runs and runs with any ammunition.
Accuracy * * *
1.5 MOA is a good average for a budget bolt gun nowadays, across different bullet weights and types.
Overall * * * * (plus all the stars if you are a woman)
The Camilla is reliable and accurate enough to take game at any reasonable distance. Equally important, Weatherby built for this rifle for the “other” half of the population: women who are steadily accounting for more and more of the hunters in the field. I certainly welcome them. With the Camilla, Weatherby does too.
Yeah… Interestingly, as a shorter stocky guy (5’10” 200 lbs), I’ve found that most rifles are a poor fir for me out of the box. One of the reasons I’ve rebedded my Remington 700 into a Magpul stock is that I can run it with no spacers for a length of pull that allows me to naturally put my eye into the eye box of the 3-9×40 scope I have mounted on it. The original Remington stock always caused me to have to crane my neck out (something difficult to do when you don’t have much of a neck) and getting a proper sight picture has always been a challenge.
Curious, as a shorter, stocky, body type, how does a rifle with a naturally shorter length-of-pull like the Austrian Styer AUG fit you in its standard configuration?
Never shot an AUG or any other bullpup with enough regularity to be able to tell. However, I am rather fond of short length of pull SBRs. They just tend to fit me better. For example, I very rarely take my ARs out past the second latch point on the stock.
Interesting. I’m 5’10 and currently about 150. I had a similar problem with the 700. I just couldn’t comfortably get a consistent cheek weld on the stock.
I swapped to the MacMillan A5, adjusted it to myself and found the rifle infinitely more comfortable and much easier to shoot. The only real drawback is that the adjustable cheek piece now comes up about 1/8th of an inch too far to remove the bolt from the rifle without undoing one of the screws to lower the stock.
You need some cast-off in your stocks.
If you teach the shooter how to rapid fire a bolt action, would they then not have any problem initiating or completing the bolt opening process?
Drive the finger/thumb web of your hand, even a 90lb 58″ tall woman’s hand, up under that bolt handle, and I assume it’ll open quickly. Rotate that hand in front of the bolt and slap it rearward, rotate the thumb up over the bolt handle and slap it closed, and she has chambered a fresh round in one second without breaking her cheek weld.
It’s one of the reasons I’m a bigger fan of the cock on close actions than cock on open. The latter is much easier to cycle as you have more leverage closing the bolt than opening it.
What a beautiful rifle. Osage bow, I’ve read that the native Americans thought so much of it, that it was worth two horses and a squaw( it ain’t easy manufacturing something with a sharp rock). Archeologist have found them as far from the source of wood as Montana.I think that’s pretty cool
To a bowyer, a good piece of osage is worth it’s weight in gold – the problem is FINDING that good piece: the “bo’dark tree” likes to grow with too-wavy a grain to be useful for a bow. I’ve had little luck so far getting my hands on some at local dealers, I’ll likely need to order a pre-selected piece online if I’m to make the osage bow I’ve dreamed of. 🤠
, Osage orange,( somes got thorns and some don’t, I think the thornless kind are true Osage?) ,everywhere around me, it’s hard to find a good one. So far two failed, one split and the other twisted. Iim trying a different curring, procedure. I was going make them without store bought tools, but gave up that idea
A question in regards to the 2nd photo. The writing on the action says .308 only.
I was under the impression that the. 308 round was the hotter round vs 7.62. Any idea why Weatherby doesn’t rate the rifle for the military round?
You are correct. 308 Winchester is the higher pressure round. There is no reason why this rifle would not shoot 7.62 NATO safely.
You are correct, .308 Winchester is hotter than the 7.62×51, and there is no reason that you would not be able to shoot 7.62×51 out of this rifle, having said that, why would you want to, other than availability, the majority of 7.62×51 comes as ball(FMJ) and as such, is illegal for hunting in most, if not all states…
The Howa/Vanguard range are starting to get serious attention from the after market accessory suppliers. Extended and detachable magazines, replacement stocks, and even chassis rail kits. Maybe not as popular as the Remington 700, but serious attention for what is regarded as a budget rifle that can perform.
While I don’t own one I do know a number of people who do.
My original (not series 2) Vanguard in 300 Wby is the most accurate rifle I own. With good handloads it prints an inch and a half at 300 yards if I’m on the bench and doing my job.
I just wish I could shoot it more but it’s a lot bullet for anything in Florida.
Do they make it in pink?
For women, there are two adjustments to a stock’s fit that really matter:
1. The length of pull.
2. Toe-out, for women with more endowment. Rotating the toe of the stock outwards means that it won’t bite on recoil. Toe-bite causes some women to mount the stock too high on their shoulder, which results in more perceived recoil because only a portion of the butt is in contact with their shoulder.
Addressing accuracy, I’d get away from Hornady, and move into something else, like Nosler…I made the switch and immediately noticed a difference in accuracy AND consistency…
And the do all end all, custom handloads tailored to the rifle, that’s where I’m at now, with very few exceptions, I custom load for all my rifles…
Nice review. Thank you. I mainly wanted to read down to the part about recoil, as all the other creature comforts built-in go out the window when you pull the trigger (on a .308).
Indoor / outdoor testing ? Nice again.
‘Bone Collector’ rifle-rest display. Verrryy Niiice. ; )
Correction to sentence #1, which was written as “Women are different than men.”:
“Different than” is not English at all, at least not in America. “Different from” is.
I think Mr. Taylor, who is a very good writer, may have picked up this habit from the Brits, but if they do use that wording (I’m not sure, because we don’t live on the other side of the world), it’s still wrong in the U.S, period, end of story.
Good article except it is written as if guns and the sport of shooting is a man’s game that women are invited to participate in. You are right men are different from women (surprise surprise) but women in the UK really wouldn’t care because they would rather be doing other things than shooting men’s guns. You have to be careful though because there is a grammar teacher around every corner even if you are in the UK.
It is great that Weatherby Vanguard is building a hunting rifle for women. I’ve used the Vanguard, which is actually a Howa 1500 action and rifle built to Weatherby specs, for several years now.
In a sense, the Howa 1500 is a very precisely built blend of super-rigid old style Mauser-Model 70 Winchester flat bottomed integral recoil lug design combined with Remington 700 fully barrel steel enclosed bolt face, with improved bolt gas relief system (those three holes on the side of the bolt) in the event of a ruptured primer. This is a super safe system.
Also, the Howa trigger needs mentioning. The basic design of the two stage trigger enables the first stage position to fully lock the sear from being moved until the second stage is activated. The factory trigger breaks cleanly, and can be adjusted down to 2 lbs. Now for the bench rest shooters, there is an aftermarket set of springs available to lighten the trigger even more.
Overall, the Vanguard-Howa 1500 is a simple, well designed hunting rifle. And the manufacturing is very precise as most gunsmiths will confirm.
About the only drawback that is keeping the Howa 1500 from being a candidate for custom bench rest rifle building is the metric threads needed for rebarreling with custom barrels. Barrel makers are coming around, but many gun smiths are still geared for installing standard thread barrels.
Overall, the Vanguard-Howa 1500 is an excellent rifle, and reasonably priced too.
Gear up as your favorite Delsin Rowe Vest. Slim Fit Leather Jackets brings this iconic jacket from animation to reality, especially for all the fans of this video game. Delsin Rowe is the main protagonist and playable character, a young Native-American man who later realizes he’s a Conduit with special powers.
1st, $850 a budget bolt action? I have one in 7mm-08, because of the stock configuration, it kicks rather hard, and finally the 2nd and third shoot accuracy is outside 2″ with 4 kinds of quality ammo.
Comments are closed.