I shot a 3-gun match with a guy who used a bone stock lever action (I think it was a Marlin, but I forget) as his rifle. Very respectable performance; it was an eye opener as to how effective an old deer rifle could be, although the game-ism of high round count stages was insurmountable and his total time pretty slow due to reloads.
One nice to know: rifle caliber lever guns heat up fast in volume firing, and the loading gate area is no exception--the fellow in the match burned his thumb pretty badly accomplishing his last reloads. I've had M-4s get hot enough to smoke the CLP (don't tell CATMs), and the magwell area gets pretty hot, but keeping the gun fed wasn't a problem. Of course, unless your home is being attacked by hoards of Visigoths, this shouldn't be a problem.
