When I looked at a retirement range gun, I settled on the 6.5 Creedmore, pretty tough to beat for what it'll do for the price, lots of guns from cheap to expensive available in it. The 6mm version seems to be taking off as well. Bought an 11lb gun with a good trigger to shoot it in, added a honkin big 2+lb scope, so it is sweet to shoot.
Contemplating something like an Anschutz .22 for the range as well, had a Valmet up til a few yrs ago, shot gophers out to 200 with it, shot targets to 300 a few times, that gets interesting, needed a different scope and rail to do that. Probably should have kept it. Not too sure about the .22 being all that cheap anymore, seems to me I used 50.00 worth last time out with the STG, doing that regularly would add up in a hurry.
I have a 223 in an 1885, but it's a 14 twist, so only good to 60gr or so bullets, and the trigger isn't really a range grade unit. Very adequate for gophers though.
Guess it depends what you want to do with it, sounds like you want minimal recoil, 223 is certainly able to fill that bill, the 6.5 offered a bit more versatility to the longer range end of things for me, along with ammo/component availability, the heavy gun mitigates the recoil. Plus I handload, which helps somewhat.
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