.223 Remington, or if you want a little more velocity 22-250 Rem; either would be great choices for what you're looking to do.

If you plan on shooting mostly factory ammo, I'd strongly suggest the .223 Rem as it will allow you to stretch your ammo budget a little more. There are gobs of different factory .223 loads available, and even with premium bullets they are still very reasonably priced. If you plan to handload, I'd suggest that you step up to the .22-250. It's just as accurate, shoots a bit faster and flatter, and has a touch more energy downrange if you ever decide that shooting coyotes at 400 yards is your thing. 22-250 is also a very easy round to handload for, and handloading a 22-250 is only slightly more expensive (because it uses about 10 grains more powder per shot) than handloading .223 Rem. From a price perspective, it's almost not worth handloading .223 because you can buy match/varmint grade ammo for just a few cents more than you can handload the same stuff, to the time and labor isn't worth it.

The recoil of either is very mild. So mild in fact that if you can't tolerate a .223 or 22-250 then you don't have many options in the way of centerfire rifles. If you buy a varmint/target rifle with a heavy barrel and/or a heavy beavertail stock the recoil will be even less.

As for rifles to look at, most of your decision should be based on going out and looking at and handling several rifles and seeing which one you take to the best. We can give you suggestions to point you in the right direction, but your personal preference should be the major deciding factor.

I personally own a Ruger M77 V/T MkII in 22-250 that shoots exceptionally well. I handload for it, and have found that a 50gr Nosler Ballistic Tip BT pushed by 35.7gr of Varget inside Winchester brass and lit by a CCI BR-2 benchrest primer delivers .33MOA accuracy at 200 yards, or about .66" at 200 yards consistantly. I've had three shot groups at 200 yards measuring less than 0.3".

I'd also look at and strongly consider a Savage 12BVSS with the Accu-Trigger. They are great guns, and very reasonably priced for the features they've got like dual pillar bedding, free-floated and button rifled bbl, Accu-Trigger, etc... If you buy a Savage with a heavy barrel that shoots over 1MOA with good ammo right out of the box, then you've got a lemon. Savages have a well deserved reputation for outstanding accuracy.

One other thing to remember is that a rifle, especially a target rifle, is only as good as the scope that sits on top of it. Buying an expensive rifle and topping it with a cheap crappy scope is like spending $2000 on a home theater system and running the sound through $25 speakers. It's just not going to sound good. So when you're saving and budgeting make sure you factor in spending at least $200-400 on decent glass for the rifle. If you're only shooting at paper or for long range varminting where accuracy and precision are paramount, you'll probably be best served with a med to high magnification, variable power scope with an adjustable objective to dial out parallax. I have a Nikon Monarch 6.5-20X44 AO scope on my Ruger that has been an outstanding scope. You might like something between a 4-12X if your plan on keeping your ranges close (100-200 yards), up to about a 8-24X if you plan on really reaching out there to 300+ yards in the future. If you plan on hunting predators in the future, stay at the lower end of the magnification. For nothing but paper punching or long range varminting a higher mag scope would do well.

Good luck,

Mike