LEV
The one I had was a 22" barrel. I only had it for a short while but really only bought it to upgrade to 356 Win. More and more people talked me out of the re-chamber job, so I traded it off. It was a nice rifle, I'm not a BIG lever fan but do like my Henry 22.
The Marlin was a very well made rifle, worked smooth and was fairly accurate. Nothing too impressive, but I only put two boxes of ammo throught it, so who knows?
Recoil was light, about like a 30-30. I'm sure one could be re-barreled even from a 30-30 to put the longer barrel in it you want.
If these big city morons ever let us control the mountain lion population here we might get some deer back to hunt. I'm in north LA county (Palmdale) so I know what you mean about the hunting.