I picked up a POF Revolution and LOVE it! So damn light and the recoil is mild. Little over your budget but I'd give it a look. I have some pics comparing size and weight vs my regular ol spikes punisher ar15.
I have a few AR 10 style weapons. My most recent purchase for my son was an Armalite DEF-10. It is the a model that uses pmags or lancer mags. It comes with a 16" barrel with a mid length gas system and railed gas block, being an iron sight man, I replaced the gas block with a JP ent. A2 clamp on adjustable sight/block and bough an A2 rear sight from Armalite. I ended up with $1300 in the gun. It is extremely accurate and very dependable. I own an old school POF , KAC SR-25, and a couple of Armalite B models, ALL are accurate and very dependable, just stay away from the cheap sale stuff like PSA and a few others.
I bought an upper and lower over the past few months and just put them together with a RRA canted mount with a cheap Primary Arms ACSS scope. It's just a $700 rifle with $250 optic, so under a 1k for 308. Nothing special except Midwest Industries Rail and came with a Nickel Boron BCG. Trying to shoot it this weekend.