Garand1957 has expressed a few of my thoughts very well. That is why I have not spent the cash yet to start this project.
However, we are in the same place right now with MN rifles that we were a few years ago with mausers. There was a time when you could buy an entire Mauser 98 rifle for less then a re-barrel job. But that made no difference to the men and women that wanted a good mauser in either full military configuration, or in a sporterized configuration.
Now, the MN is never going to be as shapely or pretty as a well made Mauser sporter, but it's a way to get into a very solid 30 cal military rifle or a "sporterized" hunting rifle for less than you'd pay for a 30-30 lever action at Wal-Mart, and you'd be getting a more accurate, more powerful and more reliable rifle than you would get with the lever action.
The down side of this project is the fact that any man who would look at a MN as an investment is going to be offered only 1 caliber, the 7.62X54R.
Sure, MNs can be converted to other calibers and the magazines and actions reworked, but by doing that you may start to push into the price range of having a good custom rifle done on a Mauser. So in my opinion the original 7.62X54R is the way to go with this kind of project.
One thing can be said, there is certainly NOTHING wrong with that caliber, and for those that want to use the American standard diameter bullets, I would offer the jobs with .308" bores.
There are potential pros and cons that are equally weighty in this idea.
I truly want to hear from you gentlemen what you think.
Thanks to Garand1957 for putting out his opinions. I want to hear more.
Fire away gentlemen.