First of all, let me say that once you get any good .357 Mag rifle, you will love it. Cheap to shoot, plenty of power ( 720 ft pounds at 100 yrds, 450 ft pounds at 200 yards), and in general, I have found them to be very accurate.
If you want a single shot, then the Handi rifle is probably your best choice, but I think I heard that H&R/NEF has stopped making them in .357 Magnum? Not sure, but you should check.
If you want a repeater, then the best bets are the Puma 92 and the Marlin 1894. Both are excellent rifles. What will be the deciding point here is whether you want a scope or iron sights. With the Puma, you really can't scope it (unless you try to go scout scope). With the Marlin, you can can go scope, or peep sites or regular tangent sights.
One thing that I think gets overplayed in the analysis is the fact that you can shoot either .38 specials ("for practice") or .357 in these rifles. As a practical matter, it doesn't work. I have seen people try this at the gun range. At 100 yards, a standard .38 factory load is hitting 6 inches to eight inches lower than a standard .357 factory load. So, assuming that you have the rifle sighted in for the .357, how are you going to "practice" with .38s? If you have a scope on it, you won't want to be adjusting the crosshairs up and down just to practice. Ditto with iron sights. Moreover, the lever rifles won't feed a .38 wadcutter from the magazine, so if you use wadcutters, you have to load them into the chamber one at a time.
Regards,
Mannyrock
