I own one 742 and a handful of 7400's, which are largely the same rifle with some minor upgrades - all in .30-06. I've spent a lot of time hunting and shooting with them, and I've come to the conclusion that most of the reliability issues you hear about are related to the gun not being as clean as it needs to be.
Now, that sounds like I'm slamming people who've had problems with them (after all, what kind of slob doesn't keep his guns clean?) but I'm not. Read on.
Mine get fired on a pretty regular basis, and they perform best when they get a complete disassembly and thorough cleaning at least once a year, sometimes more if they're seeing heavy use. The problem is that for a non-gunsmith (and that includes me) they can be a major pain in the ass to fully take down. In fact, I think it's probably outside the comfort level of most casual shooters, which means they only get a superficial cleaning most of the time, which I think is what causes most of the reliability issues you read about.
Look around on eBay or something and see if you can find a gunsmith's manual for the 742, and you also need a special tool called a... a barrel lug wrench or something like that. I forget what it's called, but Midway sells them for about $20. Learn to take the thing apart, clean the hell out of it, and put it back together, and that 742 will be a fine gun for you for as long as you care to use it.
Oh - and you asked about the scope set up? *shrug* Depends on where you're going to hunt with it, to be honest. The 742 doesn't require anything special in terms of optics.
Oh, and magazines - you can get those anywhere. 742 mags and 7400 mags are interchangable.
It's quite good stuff in the .303British 174gr SP offering.
