Humor aside; honestly, your timing is not at its best. The winds of change are upon us; so much so that no matter which direction we choose, we are all pissing into some stiff winds.
Much of what you'll need is largely unobtainable, and the ban-o-maniacs are going absolutely berserk in their efforts to thwart the honest gun owner's every move. We are at a philosophical extreme that pushes to well beyond the point of shove and begs something significantly beyond rhetoric to resolve in an equitable manner. Consider the very real possibility that you are contemplating boarding a sinking ship.
Look around and ask yourself what's the bottom line. As a beginner, does advancing beyond the basic minimums make sense at such times as these?
I'd suggest a .22LR trainer, but .22LR ammo is largely Unobtanium for the foreseeable future. In its place, I'd be seriously looking at an adequate .177 rifled barrel trainer air rifle.
Centerfire is expensive. I'd be seeking something that has ammunition available. Oddly, I can find considerable stocks of .223, and I suspect you will find the same where you are. Bigger than .223 is neither necessary nor more easily available.
Beginners don't need advanced rifles, and usually can't be persuaded that this is so. They do so at their own considerable expense in time, money, and ultimately, frustration.
You will wear out a basic rifle and learn every bit as much as you would had you gone with advanced gear. Why this is so is very simple; one becomes an accomplished shooter by building and reinforcing the accuracy basics. Techniques and mechanical advancements are not for the newb, they literally haven't a clue about how to take their advantage. When advanced shooters hit walls and plateaus, they recover their momentum by going back to the basics. This should be your stomping ground for the foreseeable future.
Expensive beginner equipment is a drawback, because it eats up resources that would more effectively be spent on ammunition. To learn to shoot, one must shoot; that part is unavoidable. The more, the better, no catch here. Your byword has to be "adequate", and not "elegant". Elegant comes later, much later. Gear needs to be adequate, not cheap, not extravagant. Don't be a bottom feeder, and don't be someone who needs supplemental oxygen up there at the levels they prefer to do their shopping.
Review the case of Goldilocks and her three new ursine friends.
Beyond this, remember to keep asking yourself whether what you want is really something you actually need. After several decades of shooting I still make this my buying mantra. Every time you get that one wrong, you are making the process more expensive and more complicated. Now is no time for "complicated".
Simpler is better. I once wore the uniform of the Marines. The mental processes they endowed me with are still rattling around in my brain housing group. One of the most effective ones was the concept that if I couldn't express something in no more than five sentences, I really needed to think it out more effectively. If, as an NCO, I had to distract my brethren from the oncoming horde for longer than it took to express a concept in five sentences or less, all I was accomplishing was the creation of a large stationary target.
Let simplicity be your goal. Let efficiency be your buy-word. K.I.S.S. is not an acronym, it's a winning philosophy.
Long range shooting is not about distances, it is about mastering environmental effects in their more emphatic manifestations. One can achieve this without the distance by shrinking down the overall scale of the exercise. An air rifle at 50yd in a moderately variable wind is a lot more like a .308 at 1000yd than a .223 at 100yd. Capiche?
Greg
Cracked up the whole time...
