I myself adore the .303 and moreso as I get older and more arthritic. A 174 grain bullet sailing along at 2400 fps is an effective combination for small/mid size plains game. In eastern Canada, for many decades, the .303 was and often still is extremely popular and common in moose camps., and moose can be the size of eland. Army surplus cut downs could be had for embarrassingly low sums of money... $29 when I and my mother bought one for dad in the mid 70s..... Nowadays, $300 will buy you a serviceable bubba special that you won't feel terrible about when you hunt moose country for a week in the miserable rain, slip in the mud and drop it in the swamp. Yep. They work. And shot placement is a magical thing.

The .303 isn't the fastest, and it sure isn't the most glamorous in the modern age of today when there are all manner of beautiful cost effective firearms available in all manner of powerful whiz bang cartridges, but yes, it will work quite effectively.

One more thought: a Lee Speed, around these parts these days sells for quite a bit more than a great deal of fancy new rifles commonly available today, so the part about cheap rifles doesn't apply in that context.