Rifle + scope for under $500 new? Might be tough. A M700 is great, but to keep the cost down, try a Savage (out of the box accuracy is usually as good as the M700) and shop carefully on the scope - nearly anything that is fairly decent will really drive the cost up. Savage has a lot of choices, including a package that you can probably dicker down below your cap of $500.

.223 Rem caliber is good to start with as long as deer are not in your plans right now - and the ammo is not too expensive either. If you might be interested in deer later and intend to stick to one rifle, perhaps you should reconsider the caliber, although a Savage is the least difficult of all commonly available bolt guns for non-gunsmiths to safely re-barrel.

There are some less expensive routes - if your quest does not pan out, re-post.

HTH,

Tom