if you have the chance to purchase a M1 Garand and your enterested at all in it thats what i would get. yes you can put a scope on this rifle with a Springfield scope mount. my buddy has a Springfield Armory scope mounted on his. as for cheap plinking, you can't beat surplus ammo in the 7.62. i purchased a case of 1000 surplus rounds off the internet for $80. the sweet thing about it is the Springfield m1 garand is a military rifle that shoots the cheap military surplus 7.62 fullmetal jackets very very well. you can also shoot any other .308 round if you decided to take hunting with maybe a little fine tuning of the scope to fit the new round. the m1 garand is very accurate too and it would take down any game in the lower 48. thats my 2 cents. good luck