Well let me say that I am young and an inexperienced hunter, but that doesn't make me irresponsible when it comes to shooting. I know when I'm doing something safe and when I'm not; and for what it's worth, we're on private property.

That said, I appreciate the advice. However I'm not concerned about the 30-30 taking a deer down. Like I said, it was a terrible shot and if I had hit the deer in a more vital spot, I am confident it would have went down, or at the very least, ran away and passed away in the immediate area.

But like I said, I'm more concerned about game like black bear. I think I underestimate the 30-30's power, but as much as I want slightly more power, I also want a new gun just to be able to target shoot with and call my own. And don't worry about it breaking my dad's wallet as I'm paying for whatever I buy entirely by myself (so worry about breaking my wallet, haha), as it'll be my main hunting rifle for white tail and black bear, but it'll also be added to our "mutual" collection of firearms.

As for recoil it's all good, I'm 5'5" and recoil doesn't bother me, but the length of the firearm does. A little recoil is actually a really enjoyable thing. Shooting our .22 is no where near as satisfying as shooting anything with a kick.

And I've also been looking into 308s. I'm also not too crazy about Savage, I really like our .17 (which is Savage) but the quality seems a little sub-par compared to the other firearms we own, and it wasn't that cheap of a rifle. I picked it out and I know my dad isn't crazy about Savage either, so I've been looking into other companies like Mossberg. I was also looking into 7-08, but I don't know much about them and neither does my dad.