Me personally, I'd rather buy an M-4gery and run around at a Carbine match, rather than sit at a bench and shoot one round of .308, squint and fiddle with sandbags, repeat for three hours, etc.
(Neither one can remotely approach the fun and challenge of shooting clays.)
A $1600 tactoy is a waste of money unless you know what you're going to do with it; for punching paper a 10/22 will do just as well. Robinson is SHOWING OFF targets with 2 MOA groups on them! That's something you can beat with a $300 bolt action. Robinson says their gun is designed to require little cleaning; I have yet to see any semiauto that required as little time and effort to clean as a bolt gun, which also doesn't REQUIRE cleaning unless you want to maximize accuracy and protect against rust -- something you want to do with ANY gun used for anything but shooting cans at slingshot range.
Benchrest shooting doesn't interest me, either, but you gotta sight in your rifle at some point, if you want to hit anything. I don't understand doing that every Saturday. But hey, some guys just want any excuse to get away from their wives, I guess.
However, shooting outdoors, NOT at a range, NOT off a bench, NOT from sandbags, and trying to hit something small that's 300 yards away with a bolt gun -- OR an autoloader -- is a lot of fun. It's most fun, of course, if the rifle is capable of groups smaller than your target. Otherwise, you don't know if it's you or the gun that missed.
First thing a new rifle shopper should understand, IMHO: there are gun buyers and there are gun shooters. Many ads appeal to the "buyer" in all of us, but the real fun, in the long term, comes from actually shooting the gun, and doing it well, no matter what gun it is. The most satisfying and fun guns to shoot will be the ones that you take with you somewhere; the ones that just seemed cool when you bought them will sit in the safe. Sometimes it's hard to guess which ones are which, and different people have differing opinions and tastes.
Some people like to accumulate guns, and a shocking number of them own $2000 rifles that they can't shoot for a hill of beans. I have accumulated a few guns myself, but I figure that $100 WW II military surplus rifles will fill a closet just as well as $1600 tactical toys.
Remington's XCR is designed for nasty weather. If you don't need that, you can have just as much fun and learn just as much about good rifle shooting from their SPS model, which is half the price, or split the difference and you can get a stainless SPS. Personally, I like the Weatherby Vanguard, but that has more to do with fit and balance than anything else, and I like wood or laminate stocks, just because I do. I have enough plastic in my life.
IMHO your best option is to approach rifle shooting as a skill sport when making purchasing decisions. This won't be the last rifle you buy. Your interests may shift; you may join competitions, hunt, etc. But like any sport, you're going to enjoy it more and stick with it if you concentrate on learning to do it well, then use your skills to branch out. Your first rifle should be chosen with this in mind.
Many recommend .22LR for learning. That's probably a good idea, but there are reasons not to, as well. .223 Remington is a good choice, IMO, because you get long-range flat-shooting accuracy, but recoil and ammo prices are low, for a centerfire.
