re: Good entry level rifle

Very hard to beat the Rem 700 at whatever price. The action is extremely solid and accurate. We've built bench rest rifles off of them that you could just continue to drop bullets down the same hole all day long if you were a good enough shot. I've got an old BDL 30-06 that will put them all in the same hole almost as well as my .308 PSS after we pillar block bedded and floated it and did a little trigger work on it.

Get a 700 then spend your money on optics.