I had a winchester 30/30 and gave it away hapily, pure junk out of the box,shells were jambing repeatidly because they had used stamped seel parts .
I have never had any issues with rossi nor the savage ,all fine craftsmanship.
I like the .357 and the .454 puma which also handles the .45 long colt very nicely .
The .44 mag carbine from ruger is nice too , but it is a semi auto, and looks like a bulky 10/.22 . a fine tool .
The rossi .357 mag I have, has the enlarged leaver for play,or wearing gloves ,which ever excuse you like to employ.
I can spin and load like Chuck Connors, but I don't make a habbit of it , but I have to say , it is a handy feature if the other hand is full .
If you have no need for that feature I recomend against it, as the large ring is too much open area for cycling the action under real hunting events and such .
the .454 puma and 30/30savage have normal leavers.
A last thought .
Not to confuse things but I had long connsidred the same reasonong and own many same calibur pairs, but your purpouse for the weapon should fit the need.
If you plan to hunt in brush and close range, fine . But lately I have been coming to gripps with something I don't like but is true whether i LIKE IT OR NOT.
What I must considder is , what is a raider or invader going to be using ? Not a .22 .
I mean a person that has made the determination that, that is how their group is going to survive, they are not going to pick the lesser weapons available, are they ?
So if this is a question of a survival tool ,I would seriously considder what is available to bad guys as well, and what those guns are capable of .
This also means to sommething you can afoard to practice with, and reload spent shells, as well as carry the range the more serious rifles are capable of,and compete with their repeatability (RAPID FIRE) .
This unfortunately takes most guns, less than semi automatic, completely out of the picture. I say most because there are bolt guns that are supirrior sniper capability also available to the bad guys too. They are just not practicle for close range high speed combat , against others whom are equiped for it.
Again I don't like the idea of having to conceed my present collection of defence inadiquate but there you have it.