I'm partial to Remington M700's, not that they're the end-all of rifles.
I inherited a .223R M700V from my dad, which I'm getting rebarreled to a lighter contour (LVSF Remington or similar), again in .223R or .221 Fireball.
Why not build your new .223R varminter in a walking varmint configuration? With a light-weight stock but heavy-enough barrel, you would have some more versatility. This is why I'm modeling my barrel-mod after the "LVSF."