A little slow and late to reply thanks to being away from home thanks to the hurricane.
One of you keenly mentioned why not a 22LR bolt gun and indeed I've given those some thought too...the obvious candidates being the ruger american rimfire, the savage mk2, and of course, the CZ452/455 (pretty gun with the wood stock that one is). If I got a .22, then those would be the 3 rifles I'd consider. Ironically, some of those rimfires would be more expensive to buy than the like of a .204/.223/.243/6.5 creed, remington 783 or TC compass.
22 magnum or 17 hmr might extend the range to 150, perhaps 200 yards, but I also know they can't be reloaded and aren't going to be near as cheap as 22LR.
I should say that among other guns, I have a 22 which is a plain jane M&P 15-22 that's fun to shoot at the range with a nice Nikon scope. I've tried a variety of ammo and found what it likes (CCI subsonic, no surprise). On a very good day I see the rare MOA groups but more realistically it is a 3-4 MOA and that's how i'd characterize it. I've got some Lapua and Eley match ammo on the way just to see if it can get any tighter but i'm not expecting miracles. It isn't a target gun and though S&W makes a match barrel you'd still have the action being one of a budget .22 and nobody I know is placing in rimfire bench matches with M&P's...
If it is a centerfire then I'm narrowing it down to the 783, the T/C compass, and some variety of the savage axis.
So having lived and breathed auto-loaders, I can't say if a .22 bolt gun would be fun. Maybe it would be more than a centerfire bolt gun seeing as I'd be burning a nickel every time I shot it rather than a dollar bill or 3 quarters with a centerfire bolt gun