Hi Spiff: The 300 Savage is a great deer cartridge and the one I chose for my daughter for that purpose. The recoil of the cartridge is very low and easy to reload. The best bullet weight is 150 gr and you can obtain about 2,600 fps. The Speer 14 manual lists the Savage at 2,590 fps with 41.5 gr of 4064 and the .30-06 load with the same bullet (150 gr) gains only 150 fps using 25% more powder! I ended up getting the Remington Classic which is still available (nib) for about the same cost as a 50 year old 760. Savage makes some bolt actions that look good too, although I have no experience with them. I would stay away from the old levers and pumps and go with a bolt action.

Good luck, CE