I dunno, have you priced surplus 7.62 NATO lately, other than the indian/pakistani garbage? The prices have gone up a tad

I lucked out about 2 years ago when I walked in a Dunham's store and found that they had 200rd belts of Portugese 7.72NATO marked for $27- not sure if was a mistake on their part, but I bought a can, then went backthe next day and bought the other 3 they had on hand. I only have a .308 bolt action rifle which I only feed handloads, maybe I'll buy a M1A or AR-10 some day.

I'll admit that I have not priced .308 / 7.62 Nato lately. The last time i bought it, I bought a case of 500 rnds from Black Hills, for about 13.50 a box. I used to get the portugues stuff for about 5-6 a box at the range I used to shoot at in TN. I started handloading, and have never looked back again at surplus or factory ammo.
I gues a better statement is that it used to be pretty affordable toget the surplus stuff for plinking. Not sure about now though.

Why don't you get a 7mm08? Low recoil,excellent accuracy,and it'll stretch out to 350 yards no problem.

CPH, have you looked at the H & R rifles? I currently have two of them, and absolutely love them. I really like single shots, very simplistic actions, solid lockup, and short overall firearm length. I bought an H&R Ultra varmint hunter in .223. Then since I know a couple of topnotch machinists, had the .223 converted to a .22-250. This is quite a rifle now. These rifles are reasonably inexpensive, shoot very well, and come in cartridges like the .243 and .25-06 which are the rounds I would recommend to you, specifically the .25-06. It is really tough to meet all your requirements for cheap, but if you wanted to save a few cents/round, buy some inexpensive reloading equipment, and reload yourself. I have an RCBS Rockchucker press, and associated equipment that I don't use anymore, that I would part with pretty reasonably. Have not been looking to sell the equipment, but it is just sitting on the bench in my shop going to waste. Good luck.