That all depends on how serious you want to get. Hunting small game with a 223 is a lot of fun (Prairie dogs, squirrels, fox, coyote, etc...) for shooting out to 200 yards, you don't need too much optic. As my eyes have gotten older, I find that the 3-9 scopes just don't give me enough magnification anymore, so I moved to a 4-12 for my hunting rifle.

In regards to stocks, I'd shoot it first to see how it performs, but most of the Synthetic stocks get tossed and a good laminate at the least usually gets put on.