From my experience I would advise you to get a standard length cartridge.
When you have even a standard short action (.308 length) never mind the even shorter short Magnum actions the cartridge is really crammed in there. As the throat erodes you often can not seat your bullets out to touch the rifling because of the very short magazine box.
The short magnum cartridges have no taper to them which makes them much more likely to stick in a dirty chamber and a straight cartridge with very little taper does not feed as well out of the magazine box either.
One fellow I ran into at the shooting range spent big bucks having his Remington model 7 rifle customized into a super light weight sporter. The gun was so light he could not hold the rifle steady for any kind of field shooting. This really shows you that when you get into a gun like the ones chambered for the very short magnum cartridges that lighter is not always better. I personally find that if the rifle with scope dips below 7 1/2 lbs that it becomes very difficult to hold the gun steady in the field even with a rock solid rest.
A person that is not physically capable of carrying a light 7 1/2 lb. rifle may be at great risk of dying of a heart attack in the field.
Recoil and muzzle blast also go up with the very light rifles especially if they have barrels shorter than 22 inches.
Even full length actions can be manipulated every bit as fast as short actions as the difference is almost not measurable. You can try an experiment yourself by having two experienced shooters empty their guns as fast as they manipulate the bolt and the results will surprise you as if they both have about the same skill level they will both empty their guns in the same amount of time.
Most magnums I have shot seldom shot as well as the standard cartridge either. Most very, very experienced hunters know that most game is actually taken at less than 100 yards and the standard velocity cartridges like the 270, 30-06 7x57 7mm-08 .280 etc. will kill very well easily out to 300 yards and that’s a long , long shot in the field even for a master rifle shooter.
Although the hunter usually does not shoot out his barrel because of the low number of rounds fired it is worth noting that a lot of magnum rifles only get about 2,000 rounds of barrel life as compared to the standard cartridges that can get as much as 8,000 rounds of barrel life. If you are a hand-loader that likes to play around finding super accurate loads the 2,000 rounds of magnum barrel life can come very, very quickly.
I might add that if you someday decide to sell your magnum rifle that many people shy away from buying any used magnum because they believe that it is probably shot out. I have not found this to be as prevalent in the standard length cartridges because of their very long barrel life. They often sell used very quickly.
The magnum rifle with its greater muzzle blast and kick is also not conducive to good shooting either as the once a year hunter soon starts to flinch when using one. No matter how powerful the cartridge if you do not place bullet properly it will not kill, only wound.
Most of the worlds big game was shot off the face of the earth in Africa not with super magnum rifles as most people erroneously think but by farmers using surplus military rifles in calibers like the 7x57, .303 British and the 8x57 Mauser. They had no trouble even killing elephants with such cartridges. As a matter of face W.D.M. Bell killed over a 1,000 elephants with the 6.5 mm and 7x57 Mauser and when you shoot that many elephants sooner or later you get charged and Bell had no trouble stopping them with these smaller calibers.
Several years ago they had a special on TV that showed game rangers in Africa wipe out an entire herd of elephants using nothing more than the .308 with standard full metal jacketed bullets of 150 grains. Their guns were the military FN FAL rifles with the standard military ammo. Seeing is believing and the elephants when down as if hit by lightning. None that I saw even moved or twitched.
We have a responsibility not to cripple game to get away to suffer a slow lingering death and shooting at reasonable ranges should be adhered to so that our sport will not get a bad name that the anti-hunters would and will exploit to the fullest.
In closing I might add that Jack O'Connor one of the most experienced of old time big game hunters did try magnum rifles and found that in the field they held more draw backs than advantages. They needed longer barrels to achieve the higher velocities, read that 26 inches, and they often caught on brush and were slower to mount and get into action. O'Connor tried the 7mm Remington Mag. v/s his beloved .270 rifles and found no actual field difference in killing power whatsoever. His only magnum that he did use was the .375 H&H and that was only for very big and very dangerous big game.
My advice is that if you like the .30 calibers just get a 30-06 as it will do anything you want it to do and do it cheaper and with more accuracy and less kick and muzzle blast and if you really want to save money there are a ton of used 30-06 rifles on the used market. Some of them are high grade Mauser 98 rifles that will never break, misfire or malfunction like many modern rifles are want to do at the most inopportune moments.
