If you need a short barreled rifle to handle it in brush, you are probably doing something wrong with your hunting strategy. The only hunting strategy that I know of where you spend a lot of time walking through thick stuff is driving. I've done a lot of deer drives and everyone tends to carry either a remington 740 or 760 series rifle or sometimes a bolt rifle. The guys that I drove with would put away their leverguns and bring out one of the above mentioned rifles for drives for the simple reason that a 1/2cock makes the rifle way to slow to use when you have a split second to bring the rifle up and shoot.