michaelmcgo, I think a Marlin 1894 in .357 would be a real "do it all" rifle for you.
First, for targets, you could load it with .38 spl. factory loads for cheeep! Or, scrounge up brass at the range to reload for free. Point being, brass is cheep and available.
Second, if you are going to reload, there are many varieties of bullet weights and types to choose from. 110 gr. HP for small game
and 180 gr. Partitions for the big stuff. My hand load of choice for deer would be a Oregon Trail Lasercast 158 gr. lead round nose over 18 gr. (**max. load**) of Lil-Gun.
For up to 100 yards, a .357 with the
right load can be very effective. Remember,
shot placement is always the key.
Ballard Rifling is just standard rifling, as far as I have been able to determine. Marlin uses "MicroGroove" rifling on some of it's .22's and 30-30's. There are claims that the MicroGroove rifling works better on jacketed bullets and Ballard works better on lead. With the 1894's, I can say mine shoots jacketed or lead bullets equally well, once I have developed a specific load tuned for that gun.
Sights: I have good results shooting with factory open sites. A "red dot" sight would probably be really handy with a gun like this. Oooh....
..ACOG....ooooh.
A fixed 4x scope would be adequate for most anything that gun is capable of too.
As far as cheep to shoot....I can reload for between $0.097 and $0.13 per round, depending on the round. Even at 13 cents per each, that is $6.50 per 50, not too bad! Now go to the range and shoot several hundred of them, and see if you "save" any money. :banghead: No matter how many hundreds of rounds I have brought to the range, I don't think we ever returned with any...just empty brass to reload for next time.
Save Money...HAAAA!
Hope this helps a bit. Best of luck with your decision.
NailGun.