I started to reply, "it depends on whether you want a pistol cartridge or a rifle cartridge," but I don't want to insult you.
I had a Model 1894 in .44 magnum years ago and I had fun with it, but it was strictly a short range proposition. I gave it away. A friend has used that rifle for deer, but he bought his wife a .270.
I originally bought the 1894 for nostalgic reasons. I had seen innumerable TV scenes showing 'cowboys" (never with dirty shirts, it seems) with Winchester 1892 carbines, and they were not available. The Marlin 1894 was a competitor to the '92, and apparently there was a market. Winchester sold about a million '92 rifles and carbines.
As you no doubt know, the '92 was a replacement for the Winchester '73. The Henry Rifle and the Winchester 1866 were long on firepower, but short on range, with their .44 rimfire cartridge. The '73 introduced the more effective.44 WCF, but it was still effectively a pistol cartridge.
Colt, Smith, and others offered revolvers in the short WCF cartridges. Television and cowboy action shooting would lead us to believe that rifle-pistol combos were the norm, but I'm not so sure. G. A. Custer carried a brace of .450 revolvers and a Remington rolling block rifle in .45-70. Teddy Roosevelt carried a .45 SA revolver, but his rifle of choice out west was an 1876 Winchester--a more powerful rifle than the 1873. The Royal Northwest Mounted Police used 1876 Winchester rifles in .45-75 along with their .450 revolvers.
And later on, the Texas Rangers used .30-30 Model 1894 Winchesters in addition to their Colt SAA revolvers. I have never heard of anyone selecting a .44 WCF over a .30 WCF (.30-30) for serious use, given the choice.
The Marlin 336 is the latest in the line of their Winchester 1894 competitors, and personally, I like it a lot more than the Winchester. Maybe that's partly because my grandfather gave m his 39A.
Years ago, the conventional wisdom was that the .30-30 was low on the totem pole of game cartridges due to the flat point (short range, high trajectory), and though friends have killed deer with Marlins and Winchesters in .30-30, I've never bought one. The September issue of Rifle Magazine has an article by Steve Gash called "Shooting Synergy" that discusses the Hornady LEVERevolution cartridges. Whole new ballgame! Steve does say that performance of these bullets in microgroove rifled barrels is marginal. Go for the Ballard rifling. Don't sweat the small stuff. It will be worth the investment.
Back to pistol vs. rifle cartridges. Cowboy action has brought back the '73/'92 Winchesters and 1894 Marlins, but there's a reason those things went out of production before WWII. I treated myself to the 100th edition of The Shooter's Bible yesterday. The 200 yard mid-range trajectory figures for the .357 and .44 magnums from rifles are in the 16-19 inch range, compared to a couple of inches for the .30-30 Hornady.
I hope you find this helpful.
And I do hope you enjoy what you buy. I don't need one, but you and Hornady have me looking at Marlins.
