I never understood the appeal of "cheap" AR's.
Assuming you're going to spend lots of time shooting the thing, it will be the ammo costs that will really start to eat into your wallet.
If it were my money, I'd simply have an AR fund set aside that I added money into periodically. I would keep adding money into it until I could afford something that didn't come with question marks surrounding it. If you can afford a 700 dollar rifle, spending a few extra months saving an extra 100 or 200 shouldn't put you out on the street.

