To me the vangaurd is weatherbys bottom of the barrel rifle kinda like the 770 remington. The remington 700 is what I would look at. Then Id look at savage. I cant say much about the marlin bolt rifles cause Ive never spent any time with one. You can customize every inch of a 700 because everyone makes something for it. As far as chambering either one will do fine on anything in the lower 48 and then some. I agree with big bulls though about the 30-06. I would choose it first.