skip restaurants and bars for a while and save up for a JP ctr-02
ditto on the glass, vortex 1-6 razor hd is a pretty nice choice.
whatever you do, verify your dope out to the longest range you will shoot. also know your holds and scope offset for the close stuff.
good idea to hit a match or two and see what everyone is using, most if not all will let you fondle their guns and even let you shoot some after a match.
Really good advice.
I watched the 23 3 Gun National Championships and the Rifles were kind of a formula build.
1) They used obnoxiously loud breaks, every single rifle.
2) They were typically 18 inch barrels and not a heavy profile.
3) They used a long rail that was light, some round and some skeletonized aluminum so that the shooter could go really far forward with a C clamp grip.
4) They had an adjustable gas system, either at the gas block or via the bcg (mostly at the gas block.
5) They had lightened BCG, by that I mean skeletonized or titanium or both.
6) A lot of them used something like the JP Silent Capture Spring system.
7) Everyone in the top 20 used a similar optic system, an LPVO and an offset red dot. One of the people on this forum that competes can probably address this better but to me watching, it looked like they kept the LPVO at max magnification and would use the dot up close and then to find targets before rotating the gun to engage with the LPVO. In terms of brands, there were a ton including Nightforce, Vortex, S&B, Khales and I am sure others. I talked to one of the US Army shooters and he really preferred the Khales 1-6 with the 3GR reticle. He told me that he sights in at 100 yards and then verifies at 300 yards. He uses the first dot from point blank to 300. In the reticle there is a second dot that he then uses for holds out to 425 or so. He then uses the tree past that but rarely has to shoot past 500 when competing.
As
@davsco said, JP has got it figured out. I will bet you I saw a dozen of their rifles at the match. Almost every rifle there had some JP components present in their rig.