Just don't shoot surplus, NEF recommends not to anyway. 54R would be a nice deer rifle in the handie platform. Probably need a .45-70 extractor. I use .303 bullets to load my 7.62x54r and they work great, you can probably use some .30cal bullets depending on the bore size, some .310 bore rifles shoot .308 bullets just fine.
BTW I think this would make a great cast bullet rifle.
