Growing up in blacktail country, all dad ever used was a Marlin 30/30. I remember him carrying that old rifle up and down, through the vine maples, rain or shine, mostly rain!
One time as we were driving from one hunt to another in the old van mom and I spotted a pair of bucks crossing a gravel road far below our current position on the mountain. Dad and grandpa were in front, mom and I in back. He sped the old Dodge van on down there, and mom and I bailed out above the bucks, while dad and grandpa went down below and set up watching the gravel road. We did a lot of pushing thickets to the spotters, dad and grandpa.
It didn't take mom and I long to hit tracks of those two bucks in the reprod thicket. Soon they split, and the bigger set of tracks started circling. We followed the tracks going straight down, keeping the pressure on that one smaller deer.
Soon, we heard one shot, and it didn't sound like grandpas aught six, so it had to be dads turdy turdy. Our job with that buck was done, so we circled back to find the bigger bucks track, to see if we could flush him out too. That one was a smart old deer. After hearing what befell his junior, he'd have no part of the jump-and-run routine. He just kept spinning in that little 100 yard square piece of real estate, slipping by us several times by just a few yards.
After a few loops in the thicket, we were wet and tired, so we went on down to the road to meet up with dad and grandpa. We come across dad perched on a slash pile watching the road. There in the road laid Mr. Smaller Deer. You could see where his four feet had hit the road hard when he cleared the reprod thicket at a dead run. Big, deep, split-hooved tracks in the wet gravel right by the ditch, then the body about 20' away where he landed after dad got him in mid-air with that Marlin 30-30. To a young lad, my Dad was a wing shooter with a Marlin 30-30! There weren't a deer in the woods had much of a chance against the old Marlin. At least that's what I figured. he killed a deer each year with that Marlin. It was dependable, I'll give it that.
Sadly, dad lost his 30-30 to a burglar, along with moms jewelry and old WWII coins and collectibles. That was in the days before safes were anywhere other than banks and offices. He did replace it, but it wasn't the same, to me anyway. It turned up two years later in a police raid in Seattle IIRC, but by then dad had no need for it. Like most old timers, he wasn't the least sentimental, it was just a tool to him, one long replaced and forgotten. But an effective tool in his hands, as I remember it.
I'm sure yours will serve you well should you choose to embrace it heartily.
