Well, the opening bid is $625. a bit less than $800, but according to the seller, the .308's sell out fast. I did find an SPS Varmint in .308 for $619. You might look at the Remington 700 LTR in .308. Yeah, it's going to run over $800, but it's got an HS Precision stock on it, which is probably $300 of the cost. By the time you buy the SPS, have it shipped to your dealer, then ship it to a smith for the work, pay for the work, and have it shipped back, you've eaten up most of the difference between the two. I've read a quote from a former Remington rep that said that the LTR is considered the most accurate factory (non custom shop) gun that Remington's ever produced. It's got a 20" barrel, heavy and fluted. It is a good carrying gun, even scoped. I had one for a while, in .308, even with a heavy Redfield Illuminator 3-9x42 on it, I never complained about it. Balanced great offhand and from rests. My only problem with it was that I got one with a DOG of a barrel, if I didn't clean it to bare metal after 5 shots, the groups would go from oh, 1/2" or so at 100 to about 2" at 100. Barrel fouled very badly. It was an anomaly for sure, I have read about too many of them being awesome shooters to think it was normal. I got rid of it because Remington refused to rebarrel it, even though they said it was a bad barrel. Maybe someone at Remington was in a bad mood the day they got my rifle, who knows? I broke it up and sold it in parts and managed to recoup most of my money, because I bought it in an overstock at below dealer cost. I loved the rifle, and have considered buying one again, but I can't make myself do it yet.
If you shop around, you might be able to pick up a used 700 ADL or something at a good enough price to make it worth sending to ER Shaw and getting it rebarreled and buying a stock for it. I bought a used BDL 30-06 on Gunbroker with a Leupold 2-7 a couple of years ago for $350, believe it or not. The trigger and the bolt stop weren't working right, since it looked like someone had packed a bunch of mud in the mech. I sold the scope, mounts, stock, and bottom metal, almost got what I paid for the gun, then used the funds to get a Bell and Carlson ADL stock, mag box and follower, a new trigger and guard, and had it bedded. It wouldn't shoot every load under MOA, but it loved the Winchester CT Accubond in 180 gr. It shot them so well, that after I finished zeroing, I kept shooting until one pulled out of the group. It took 14 consecutive shots until I pulled one. The group with the flier measured less than an inch.
Too bad I loaned it to a turdknocker cousin of my wife. He was on the family farm, using a bulldozer and had the rifle with him in case he saw coyotoes while he was out. It fell of the dozer, he didn't see it, then proceeded to RUN OVER IT. Ah well. I knew better than to loan it out. At least I took my good scope off of it and put a cheapy Bushnell on it for him. Now I don't let anyone borrow my guns. Ever. At least he had the decency to go buy me an another gun to replace it, even if it was an ADL from Wal-Mart.
