whats the effective range on the marlin?
J my dad has a .30-30 Winchester lever action that he always used for deer in PA. I used in in the adirondacks when I was in college. Great gun, very accurate (iron sights) and plenty of knock down without a lot of kick using factory 180 grain loads. It has taken deer up to about 200 yards with ease but most have been 100 or less. Chucker is right though about the tube magazine, it's a pain to have to load and unload quickly (like climbing into a tree stand or crossing roads and high fences etc.). Also, (i don't know if this is true or not in this day) the manual with my dad's gun said to only load softpoint bullets into the tube as a hard point could ignite the next bullet in the magazine if you dropped the gun or jarred in hard. We always used blunt tip soft point rounds from Federal.
if you are considering a lever action you should also check these out.... they are made specificaly for lever action rifles and hornady claims they give you an additional 100 yards of effective range than other loads. they are called leverevolotion. looks prety good to me and i have a marlin 336c in 35 remington that i absolutely love, they are good guns.http://www.hornady.com/