I've had a .357 Marlin for about 8 years now, and had taken several deer with it before my oldest son claimed it. He took a nice buck with it last fall and now I'm sure I'll never get it back. I found that it was extremly fun to shoot, but the bead front and standard rear sight weren't fine enough to be real accurate. I installed a blade front and thinned it, and mated it with a peep rear. The rifle is now capable of one ragged hole at 100 yards, which is better than I can shoot.

I also found that the ballistic trajectory (with .357's) is almost identical to a .22 Long Rifle shell from the similar gun. So shooting a rimfire rifle will be the same as shooting a .357 rifle. I had a friend show me that shooting a .38spl wadcutter (target load) out of the rifle just makes a hollow pop, and will not bother the neighbors (I live in the country) when a skunk or other pest needs to be taken care of. If nothing else they are a blast (pun intended) to shoot and I recomend one.

There used to be a pump called the Timberwolf chambered in .357 mag that was imported (into the US)from Israel, but I don't know if it's still made. Also while I have a Marlin, I would recomend something with conventional rifling rather than their "micro-groove" as I like to shoot lead rather than jacket bullets to practice, and while the Marlin will shoot them, they are not as accurate as a jacketed bullet out of that rifle.

As to being enough for deer, I have yet to recover a bullet from one as they go all the way through the body and make a large exit hole. The farthest any deer shot by my son's rifle (I've given up claiming it) was about three jumps or twenty yards, which is better performance than I've had out of a 7x57 mauser.