You are correct in assuming I am fairly young at 28. I handload, so I have that going for me although I'm fairly new to that part of the hobby. I take it that the .300 magnums loaded with 200-220 grain do not equal the on game performance of the various medium bores from the responses here. I suppose a big bore lever could be worth considering as well, there probably aren't many scenarios between 200 and my personal limit of 500 that a 160-175 grain partition from a 7mm rem mag isn't suitable for.
A 300 with 200-220 gr bullets are really good too. I had a 308 Norma Magnum for quite a while and ran the bullets in that range, I'm hoping to add a 300 WSM this year and use the bullets in that range. Still if you handload a 338 WM, 35 Whelen or 9.3x62 would be hard to beat, a powerful lever gun is intriguing as well.
