Thanks for all the advice on this... I'll probably shoot for a 17x then and I'm anticipating spending close to $1k on it. I have an old Marine sniper who can coach me on holdout, although I do know some, and have a ballistic calculator with notebook. Also looking to get good enough for some elk hunting next year, not some easy 30-60m shot, looking at 150-250m range on them and getting the kill shot.
Soon as I get the rifle and scope and mount I'll post, hopefully going down today to get pricing and if need be order it up (since I'm going NIB and getting the 700 SPS Tactical .308 gotta do an order cuz I can't seem to find them anywhere at a decent price). MSRP says on Rem's site $560, so I think I'll get pretty close to that.
Where is a good place to buy scopes?