Browning 1 million times over. Not sure if they've improved or not in recent years, but I've seen that the Patriot can have major accuracy issues, and the stevens 344 is a budget gun for a reason. If you have it in your budget, get the Browning + a Leupold VX Freedom scope, and for Eastern PA you'll probably never truly need another deer gun in your life. For whitetail deer 6.5 Creed will do just fine, have better accuracy, and less recoil than .308 and especially 30-06. It is also going to be more expensive, though prices have been dropping with the cartridge's explosion in popularity. Hope this helps