All good points, thanks to everyone for their thoughts. Nice to see a discussion that stays on topic and offers some alternative solutions!
Clearly the best/most cost effective route is to try to find a good 300 H&H that is not collector quality and go from there. I am still wrestling with the "logic" of setting up one when I have a very good 30-06 fwt, that shoots very well, already set up/stocked as I want it! Definitely a first world problem.