I built a "cheap rifle" on an $80 budget in 2016.
It was a $45 sporterized 1941 Arisaka in 300Sav from a pawn shop that I reamed to 308.

I put an old duplex take off scope in it.
Win 125 gr nos bal tips I had it making a good group out to 400 yards, with the bottom of the thin part of the cross hairs in the bullseye.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -Ernest Hemingway
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.-- Edward John Phelps