The springer range master, Kimber Pro series and even a lightly used colt should come in at your price point and all should prove very reliable with little to any work.
Trigger jobs by a good smith on 1911's aren't crazy expensive and make the trigger even sweeter.
Of course you may want to see if you can find an try a M&P that has the Apex DCAEK kit installed. They run under $80 and can be installed at home in about 30 minutes with only a punch and a set of tweezers. The instructions from apex suck but the YouTube videos shows the install well.
The M&P with the Apex kit still has a tad bit of take up but from there is glass smooth at 5-5.5 lbs and has a very short and positive reset.
I wonder�would you carry a single action pistol in condition 0 (cocked, unlocked) if it had a 5-5.5lb trigger?
