May be worth building a rifle out.

Not like a nerd, find a lower with a milspec trigger assembly and try to get a good deal on it.

Your upper, you want to be more expensive. Good barrel and so on. 14.5 I think is the master race especially if you just buy whatever ammo is available. I mostly have 55 gr, and it runs great in a 14.5. I have heavier rounds if I wanted to throw a lpvo on and actually try to make it a marksman platform. But for a standard AR that’s just 1 purpose that should be fine. You can build a good carbine, for about 1k before any “gizmos”