Hard to beat an iron sighted 30/30 for a walking rifle in the woods. Mine is a 1923 vintage savage 99 featherweight takedown, redfield receiver sight. Light, accurate, very easy to carry in hand all day with that flat-sided round bottom profile and no scope in the way. Sure, I hunt with a scoped .308 bolt action too, have taken deer with both (and other rifles), but most deer taken with the .308 would have been just as dead with my 30/30. Not all, my buck this year would have been a tough shot with open sights, but hey, that's why I have more than one rifle!! And it's the sights that would have been the issue not the cartridge.
And I'm old-school enough that I think newbies aught to learn to HUNT with a rifle with a moderate cartridge and iron sights before moving on to shooting with scoped 300 yd plus rifles.
Just my opinion, of course, but I'd start a new hunter of any age out on a 30/30 before any cartridge starting with a 2.
I wouldn't. Recoil from a .30-30, especially something like a 94, can be an issue for a small-framed kid. A .243, or a .223 where legal, gets around those problems quite well. Hell, on an AR platform with an adjustable stock the 5.56, 6x45, or 6.5Grendel make HUGE sense as a starter rifle for a kid, especially over a .30-30 lever gun.
JMHO, of course.
I like the .30-30, quite a bit, but there are things that is and things that it ain't, and some things are done better by other cartridges.
