IF you ask me i have a marlin 336A in a 30-30 and it weighs between 7.5 and 8lbs and when i first got that rifle i was 8 years old and about 50lbs(i've always been small my whole life) and i loved that gun i've never replaced the recoil pad, so the recoil on the 30-30 isn't really that bad, and now i am 15 years old 5'6 and i weigh 100lbs and i shot my dads 300 win mag feather weight and i wanna shot it all day this sunday when we go to site them in.

But maybe you wanna ask how she feels about this gun and i belive at ganders there is a recoil pad that goes on you shoulder and it takes up to 85% of the recoil and a 30-30 with 170grain has about 11 ftlbs of recoil and with that recoil pad it should take of about 9.35 of ftlbs of recoil(11x .85=9.35 then 11-9.35= is about 1.65 of recoil if not a lil bit more) because if i lived where you llive i would just use the 30-30 because of the shot you have out here in colorado we have shot up to 400yrds and the furthest i ahve tooken was 150 with my first deer and she took 5 steps and droped. but if i were you i would just look into a sholuder recooil pad or slip on one those shots are every 30-30 hunters dream