Does anyone have one of these? If so how do you like it? How much does it weigh and how does it balance?

I have a daughter-in-law who is not very big but likes to shoot and would like to learn to hunt. She needs a smaller rifle (meaning short stock and fairly light weight) so she can hold it. Been wondering about a Vanguard youth in 7mm-08 so she can hunt antelope, deer and elk in the future.

She has shot my 257s, her husband's 6mm Rem and 270. The 270 had too much recoil for her.

So if anyone has any experience with Vanguard youth rifles, please chime in.

If the one you can get is a newer one with the stock spacer I have no experience with those. If it is the older one with two stocks then I can help some. My kids beginner rifle is the youth compact in 7-08. With the youth wood stock on and full house loads it is almost as much as my ruger 270 in recoil. With the larger synthetic stock it is milder. Probably just barely more than a standard weight 257 Roberts. The newer ones are synthetic stocked where as the older ones had a painted hardwood youth stock so they might not be as bad as the lighter wood stock, but like I said I have no experience with them.

........No personal experience with a Vanguard youth, but have a compact rifle.

The Wby site lists the youth Vanguard with a 12.5" LOP, a rifle weight of 6.5 lbs, with an OAL of 39"....

Really cannot see any reason why she wouldn`t be happy with a Vanguard youth. A very good looking rifle. Should be easy to carry and handle well.

Both my kids have the older Vanguard Compact/Youth rifles in .308 Win. Very handy and FREAKY accurate !! My son's is a sub-MOA performer with Win 180 gr. Power Point factory fodder. My daughter's is (not a typo) a genuine 1/4 MOA shooter, 3 shots at 100 yards, with a handloaded 150 gr. Power Point over a slightly under-max charge of IMR-3031. That's in the factory, painted black, beechwood stock and NO modifications to anything. INCREDIBLE shooter, her gun is !!

If she likes the ergos of the stock, I think she'll be very happy with the youth Vanguard in .243 or 7-08.

Thanks for all the comments on the Vanguard youth rifles.

Right now I don't know where to find one to look at in person. Nothing shows up on Cabelas, Sportsmans Ware House or Impact Arms (all more or less local)money pits.

My DIL lives 500 miles away but they planning on visiting at the end of April and I was hoping to surprise her then.

Hmmm, I have a Mini-Mauser 223 with a shortened stock for grandkids and may have her shoot it first to see if it fits before I order a "sight unseen" youth Vanguard.

Thanks again for the feedback.

..................Sometimes you just have to go with your gutt, buy the best rifle you think will work fine and then say,,,,,"here ya go",,,,"enjoy".....

Too much over analyzing is not be a good thing either. Regardless of whatever rifle you get her, there will always be little quirks here and there that will have to be overcome, which more than likely can be easily dealt with and easily adapted to.

my oldest son has the old style vanguard youth 7-08 and it is a great little rifle. He initially shot reduced recoil at the range with a factory 140 every now and then until he was used to them.

Also look at the Ruger compact. I bought my wife one for a little over $600 and she likes it better because it is "real" wood and not painted black. It also handles a little easier because it is smaller than the weatherby.

cptenca, how is the muzzle blast and noise with the very short (16.5") barrel on the Ruger compact? Even with hearing protection I wonder about the blast.

I have some 20" barreled rifles and about 20" seems short enough. The 223 Mini-Mauser has a 20" barrel and to me is a noisy little bugger even with hearing protection.

I'd like to avoid blast and noise becoming an issue with a relatively new and inexperienced shooter like my DIL. But because she is not very strong; a long barrel on a rifle is harder for her to hold. Thus the questions on the Vanguard youth and its' 20" barrel and how it balances.

At the range you don't notice it with ear protection. I was in a box blind with her this year when she shot a 8 point for her first deer. I won't lie, it was loud and she commented that she "saw the muzzle flash". I had also only had her shoot reduced recoil loads for practice and snuck a factory 140 for the hunt. It probably wasn't necessary since the deer was at 80 yards, but I haven't been impressed with the remington reduced recoil bullets on game. She took the shot at an odd angle and got "scope eye". With all the adrenalin she did not feel any recoil, nor did she know she was bleeding from the cut between her eyes.

I don't think you will notice a difference with the 16.5 to the 20". My wife is 4'11" and petite and she likes the "feel" of the ruger better than the vanguard, but that may be her opinion.

With hearing protection and using the reduced recoil rounds for practice she should not have any issues. To me, it kicked no more than a model 7 .243.

I bought the vanguard with the intent of using the reduced rounds for my son, but at 13 he was shooting the factory rounds with no problem so we just went with those.

I don't think you can go wrong with either one, if you get a chance to handle both, may boil down to which one she thinks is best.

Hope this helps

I bought a vanguard youth for my daughter right after christmas at Cabela's.

Got one in .223 for my wife last spring. Put a Leupy 6x36 on it with Talley LWs. It's a tack driver, barely nudges her and she enjoys blowing chit up with it.

My 19-year-old daughter shot it a couple weekends back and she wants one too.

Highly recommended!

.............Imo, if you were to take both a 20" barreled 7/08 Vanguard and a 16.5" barreled 7/08 Ruger compact to the range, and compare them right along side each other using the same loadings, any differences in muzzle blast or noise levels would be very minor to the shooter "when" wearing ear protection.

Anytime you have a rifle which is shorter by a few inches (39" for the Vanguard vs 35.5" for the Ruger compact), a shorter OAL rifle in most cases, is always somewhat easier for handling and carrying, especially for someone who is petite and not a large or stronger person.

Balancing wise imo, there would be little difference in that dept between a Ruger compact and the Vanguard youth. I own a Ruger Frontier compact and have handled the smaller Vanguard for a few minutes when at my dealer. Imo, not a whole lot of difference between the two when it comes to balancing.

Too bad that you cannot just walk into a local dealer and handle both rifles (if in stock) with your DIL. Seldom do dealers have on hand two or more rifles that one is considering buying.

Thanks to all those who have chimed in.

Now I'll start going to local gun stores to see if I can find the Vanguard, Ruger or Winchester youth rifles on hand to look at.

Looking at a 7mm-08 because 223 would not be legal for Wyoming antelope. Don't know about Colorado where she lives but a 7mm-08 will be legal anywhere for deer and antelope. A 260 would work but few rifles are available in that caliber.

I'll load for her until her husband finishes school -- all his rifles and reloading stuff are with me. It appears that the 7mm-08 has the flexibility for anything she would ever hunt and I can load it down for practice and up as she gains experience.

Just got back from driving around trying to look at youth rifles on racks in stores. Found two, the Howa version which still comes with two different stocks and a Weatherby Vanguard.

The Howa had a large scope mounted on it that was half as large as the rifle. The guy at the counter said that was the way all of their Howas came.

The Weatherby did not have a large scope but both rifles were puzzling to this old man.

Why make a "youth" rifle that is supposed to be for physically smaller and weaker people with proportionately smaller hands with a fat, bulky fore-end on the rifle?

My hands are not unusually small (perhaps a little small for my height) and I take a size large in gloves; but the fore-ends of both of these "youth sized" rifles were wide and square and very hand filling. (Synthetic stocks on both.) The fore-ends are larger than the fore-end on my son's 375 Ruger African.

I walked away from both rifles. I also found the sheet metal safety on the rifles a little off-putting as it seemed flimsy.

Could not find a youth version of the Model 70 Featherweight to look at which while more expensive --by almost twice as much-- is now on my want to see list. I may just cut down the stock on my 1985 vintage M70 PF 257 and give that to her.

Well, that is the end of my rant for the day! My old Mauser rifles look and feel better to me all the time!

As much as I like Howas, that's exactly my thought too. I don't much like the Hogues to begin with, but putting a butt heavy, thick wrist, and wide forearm on a skinny-barreled rifle that's marketed for youths is ridiculous. As an aside, the other thing I don't understand is why finding a 223 youth is so hard.

If you can find one, check out the Remington 700 SPS compact. Black stocked model is 27391 and camo stocked is 84191. Both are 7mm-08s. I bought one sight unseen in 223 and the stock is much more of what I would call a youth than many others. It comes with spacers too to adjust LOP by an inch. While the spacers don't appear to be the most rugged things in the world, they'll work for bridging the gap while a kid is growing.

..............Hogue stocks are not the best for youth rifles and are not for smaller people with smaller hands. Aside from the Ruger compact, I disagree with most factory definitions of "youth rifle."

Time to look at a 7/08 Ruger compact. Should have a smaller fore-end, a smaller pistol grip and will be more user friendly for your DIL. I think the newer Ruger compacts have stocks which are less bulky than is the stock on my early 2007 Frontier.

One with big hands can always and easily use a less girthy stock. The reverse isn`t true for someone who has smaller hands.

I wondered the same thing, also. I got a good deal on one of the youth model .243 Howas without the scope. The first thing I didn't like was the Hogue stock, I just can't bring myself to like it. Second thing was the trigger.

A Timney trigger fixed that problem, and a McSwirley is due to arrive by the end of the week. I scoped it with one of the new Redfield 3-9x40S, thinking I'd probably replace it after load workup with a Leupold VX-2, but the Redfield is surprising me, so it may stay, but I feel like a 2-7X33 would probably be better for the terrain I hunt.

We'll see....I also have visions of PacNor....

I had one of the Compact Laminates in .308, and the Ruger seems to be the only rifle that everything was "scaled", instead of just cutting 2" off the barrel and 1" off the stock. A 2-7X33 Leupold looked good on it also, not overly large appearing.

That rifle was a definite "shouldda kept". It was real handy in the brush.