The old man's 7mm-08 AR is amazingly accurate but that thing was about as far from cheap as one could get in an AR. He had it built for long range hog shots. The .338fed he built is pretty darn sporty too. So I agree completely with Les. AR's can be and are built with some incredible accuracy. My little Wilson Combat factory produced .223 AR is picky about the loads but once you land on the load it likes it can be a very tight grouping little machine itself.

As to your 6.5creed question, yes the creed has amassed a pretty good following and yes it is primarily because of the ballistic advantages inherent in the .264 bullet choices available. Not to mention it doesn't knock the holy crap out of you every time you pull the trigger. But for just target and no hunting, I too would go for the 6 dasher. But if you were to drop $3-4k on a well built AR and may want to pull some 500-600 yard shots on a whitetail, I would opt for the creed. Or if you decided you wanted to go after some speed goats where ranges can be 0 to however far you can see the damn thing those little creeds are pretty good lope droppers too.

As to glass, that is more of a personal decision than I can get in to. When it comes to long range optics, your own eyes have to be the judge as to what is enough for you. The long range scope that is perfect for me may not even be in the ball park for your vision. Where all of them meet is at the price point though. Any good quality long range optics will be expensive as I'm sure you already know. I have a couple of scopes sitting on custom built rifles that cost almost twice what the rifles did and those things were far from cheap.