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I had an M44. I took the bayonet off first thing and the accuracy never suffered. I could hit milk jugs at 100 yards pretty easily. When I missed, I was always close enough to scare them. Take off the bayonet.
It's a bit heavy, but the heaviness absorbs the .308-style recoil that you will be dealing with. 7.62x54 is closer to a .308 than a .30-06 in my opinion. Total disclosure: I've never had a .308, but my .30-06 shoves me noticeably more than the MN did.
They are stone reliable rifles.
An M44 is short and quick. The front sight hood is almost like a ghost ring. You don't need the extra barrel length of the 91/30 unless you're planning on lobbing out more than 200 yards (which is pretty silly if you're using iron sights in my humble old-eyed opinion). Deer aren't elk-sized and you might very well not have all of their target area to look at in a forested environment.
2 cons I can think of:
1. the bolt sometimes rattles and clatters. It's the price of loose tolerances. It sounds acceptable in a store, but it would suck if you were sneaking up on bambi and your rattling rifle were tattling on you.
2. The safety is a little suspect in my opinion, but if you train yourself to pay attention, it's passable. To be honest, I also feel that the safety on my Ted Williams/Win70 is also easy to inadvertently release.
Good luck hunting. Good luck in school.
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