This post is still going - amazing.
OK, I rescind my prior suggestions in light of your recent post about range. Your original post re. having narrowed down your options to a Mini-14 (223) or 30-30 is right on, and probably a 30-30 is the most appropriate and least expensive option. You can get a good used one, the standard Winchester or Marlin, for $100-150, especially now as folks are pawning or advertising stuff in hopes of raising holiday cash (help them out, buy a gun). The aforementioned are compact, have iron sites, have readily available repair parts, and are nearly indestructable. In addition, you can buy 30-30 bullets nearly anywhere, and cheaply (e.g., 7mm-08 is a WONDERFUL caliber for deer, and the like - just try buying a box of such some night in a rural town; I've 6 rifles, and some of the calibers are a bit exotic - you do NOT need anything exotic).
I'm sitting in my study, and behind me on the wall is a gun rack with the 45-70 my great grandfather favored (he couldn't afford anything but US Cavalry surplus), the 30-40 Krag my grandfather used (won it in "best shot" contest in Salt Lake City - 1910), the 30-30 my father favored (put himself through college in the late 30's on coyote bounty offered by ranchers - shot them from horseback while he was herding cattle), and my 2 decade old Ruger 7mm Remington Mag, now with a Leupold Vari-X III 2.5-8 scope. Heck, under 100 yards, my forebearers could put me to shame, and I've only used 11 bullets on my past 10 deer (for which my father razzed me unmercifully, as a "poor shot", and he was right). So, as my dad lectured me, "it's not the gun that determines the outcome, it's the shooter" (and I, of course, was lousy).
Buy a good used 30-30, load 6 shells, throw it behind the seat of your pick-up, and with the money you saved from eschewing a more expensive option, purchase extra Christmas presents for your wife, grandchildren or whomever.
