I would have to go with a AR15. The sky is really the limit when your talking about price with them but you can put one together if you are really carefull for around 550-600 dollars. The really nice thing about the AR15s is that you can keep adding to it down the line and make it into several different guns. Get a good forged lower, you can get one complete for about $200 bucks. Then either get one of the kits to put together a upper or find a bargin priced upper for 300 bucks or so, then down the line get a nice high dollar upper for targets and get yourself a 50 boewolf or 458 socom upper for big game hunting. then you would have 3 different very high quality rifles all working off the same basic lower. This is a pic of my little gem. Its a DPMS Panther 24" super bull, they run new around 900-1000 but are well worth the price. Mine is the most accurate rifle I have ever shot.