That is probably possible for the price youre talking about. You can send the rifle to a custom barrel manufacturer and have a match grade stainless barrel installed and have the action trued(square receiver, lap lugs, ect.). Hart and Pac Nor are both reputible button rifled barrel manufacturers who will do this and it should shoot exceptionally well. I belive Pac Nor will do it for 420 and Hart for about 540 last time i checked, plus any additional finishing like bead blasting, re-bluing, teflon coating you might want, but thats not really necisary. You will be cool with any caliber that uses the same .473 bolt face as your .308 that will fit into a short action like .243, .260, .308, ect., and sticking with the .308 is definately not a bad choice.
Next, that factory plastic stock wont do anything for your accuracy. Get a fiberglass stock from HS Precision(I think you can get a short action 700 ADL or BDL from cabelas for $260 in either sporter or varmint with the wide fore-end). You might could find a used "take-off" stock from a rem model 700 VS or PSS which came with a short action HS precision varmint stock for around $150, but i belive those will all be BDL so if your rifle is an ADL you would also have to buy new bottom metal and maybe magazine box so would probably cost as much as buying a new one that fits your gun already. Take the stock to a local gunsmith and have him glass bed the action in the stock and adjust the trigger down to 2-2.5 lbs(shouldnt be more than about 100 bucks, and you could do the trigger yourself, theres info on doing the rem 700 trigger on the internet).
That should be really accurate and so far is a couple hundred bucks under your 1000 limit. Now on optics, what do you currently have on it? If the scope and/or mounts are of decent quality, just use what you have until you can afford to upgrade and spend the extra money on reloading stuff and ammo. If not, just get the regular leupold one piece rem 700 base and regular leupold rings and put a Vari-X II on there.
[ 05-26-2004: Message edited by: jon12 ]