10 Legendary Women of the Gun (Historyx27s Greatest Markswomen)

The history of shooting is full of women who out-shot everyone in the room and then got written out of the story. Some were frontier showstoppers, some were wartime snipers with numbers that are hard to believe, and some are quietly stacking Olympic and world titles right now. Here are ten legendary women of the gun, what they actually did, and where the legend runs ahead of the facts, because a couple of these reputations got a heavy coat of myth over the years.

Annie Oakley

Born Phoebe Ann Mosey, Annie Oakley was the headliner of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show for 16 years and the most famous sharpshooter America ever produced. She could split a playing card edge-on and put more holes in it before it hit the ground, and at 62 she still broke 100 clays straight. She ran Stevens and Marlin .22 rifles for trick work and a Parker shotgun for clays. If a .22 was good enough for her, it is good enough to learn on; see our best .22 rifles guide.

One legend needs trimming, though. The famous story that she shot a cigarette from the lips of Kaiser Wilhelm is not quite right. She shot the ash off a cigarette he held in his hand, at his own request, and the “she could have prevented World War I” line is pure embellishment. She was real enough without it.

Elizabeth “Plinky” Toepperwein

Plinky is the exhibition legend most people have never heard of. Widely credited as the first woman to break 100 clays straight, she did it hundreds of times over a 40-year Winchester touring career, and once ran 1,952 out of 2,000 in a single marathon session. She shot a Winchester Model 97 pump for trap and made it look effortless. Her records come mostly out of the Winchester exhibition circuit, so treat the exact figures as trade-sourced, but nobody who watched her doubted the talent.

Calamity Jane

Here is the honest one. Martha Jane Cannary, known as Calamity Jane, was a real and colorful Deadwood-era figure, a teamster and laborer remembered mostly for her generosity. What she was not, according to the historians who dug into her life, was a crack shot or a gunslinger. That reputation grew out of dime novels after 1877 and her own ghost-written booklet. She was never one of General Crook’s scouts either, whatever the old photo captions say. She earns her spot on this list as a lesson: the frontier minted legends faster than it minted marksmen.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

“Lady Death” is the most successful female sniper in recorded history. The Red Army credited Lyudmila Pavlichenko with 309 kills, including 36 enemy snipers, during the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol. That 309 is the Soviet-credited count rather than a modern forensic tally, so read it as confirmed by her army, but the woman herself was undeniable. After she was wounded, she toured the United States with Eleanor Roosevelt and became the first Soviet citizen received by a sitting US president. Her combat rifle was the bolt-action Mosin-Nagant, not the semi-auto SVT-40 she is often pictured holding in publicity shots.

Roza Shanina

Roza Shanina was a front-line sniper on the 3rd Belorussian Front with 59 confirmed kills, though some sources put it at 54. She was the first servicewoman of her front to earn the Order of Glory, and a Canadian paper of the day called her the “unseen terror of East Prussia.” She was killed at 20, shielding a wounded artillery officer. Do not upgrade her medals, as is sometimes done online; she held the Order of Glory, not Hero of the Soviet Union, and that is honor enough.

Margaret Murdock

Margaret Murdock made history at the 1976 Montreal Games as the first woman ever to win an Olympic shooting medal. The key detail is that the 50-meter rifle three-position event was mixed, men and women together, which is exactly why the milestone matters. She tied gold medalist Lanny Bassham on score and lost only on a countback tiebreak, and Bassham famously pulled her up onto the top step of the podium with him. She shot a smallbore .22 rifle, and she opened a door that had been shut for decades.

Kim Rhode

Kim Rhode is the most decorated shotgun shooter in Olympic history, with six medals across six straight Summer Games, a run no shooter had managed before. Three of those are gold, in double trap and later skeet, and she is the first Olympian to medal on five continents. She runs a Perazzi over-under, and she is proof that shotgun sports reward a lifetime of consistency more than raw youth. If clays are calling you, browse our shotgun reviews or the competition shooting hub.

Julie Golob

Julie Golob has more than 175 championship titles, and she is the only shooter, man or woman, to win a USPSA National title in all seven handgun divisions. She came up through the US Army Marksmanship Unit, spent nearly two decades on Team Smith & Wesson, and signed with Springfield Armory in 2025. She is also one of the sport’s best teachers and advocates. Practical pistol is where she lives, and it is a fantastic discipline to grow into; our concealed carry guide is a good on-ramp.

Lena Miculek

Lena Miculek won her first world title at 17 and has since stacked nine of them across five different disciplines, from multigun to pistol-caliber carbine. Yes, she is Jerry Miculek’s daughter, but she built her own résumé and helped design a whole line of gear aimed at bringing new women into shooting. She is the modern face of a sport that Annie Oakley helped invent, which is a nice place for this list to land.

More Women of the Gun Worth Knowing

From the Wild West arena to the Olympic firing line, these women share one thing: they let the targets do the talking. If any of them inspired you to pick up a gun of your own, start where a lot of them started, with a .22 and good fundamentals. Our guide to a good beginner handgun and our best .22 pistols roundup will point you in the right direction.