If you want cheap, get a .22 Marlin or Ruger. Ammo doesn't cost much, either.
Big disadvantage to the Ruger .22 is that it has a trigger pull only a lawyer could love: it's heavy, rough, has lots of creep and lots of overtravel. About as bad as a Daisy air-rifle.
Just the thing to make a newcomer think this "shootin'" business is for the birds.
I prefer the Ruger 10-22
If you really want to improve your rifle shooting get a "break-barrel" type pellet gun, with a muzzle velocity of 1000fps. Since this type of pellet gun uses a spring piston to compress the air, it is very consistent. Any minor error in gun handling makes the shot fly way off. This is because, unlike a rifle the recoil happens just prior to the pellet leaving the barrel. It will really improve your off-hand shooting. Make sure you only use a pellet gun scope, these things blow apart even the most expensive rifle scope.(It's due to a reverse recoil when the piston slams forward to the end of the cylinder.) Also, don't spend the money for the extra suspension models, these minimize the "recoil/pelletleaving the barrel" issue, which defeats the intended purpose of helping to improve your shooting.
If your final intension is hunting get a ballistics software. Learn the path of your bullet/pellet. Example; I set up a .308 to shoot 3.5 inches high at 100 yards. A 165 grain bullet will rise to about 4 inches max. then drop to -4 inches at about 250 yards. The "kill area" of a deer, (heart and lungs) is about 8 inches tall. This gives my set-up a "point-blank" range of 250 yards. Just point on target, and squeeze.
is the SKS ammo about .223 mm.
If there is a club within driving distance that has smallbore shooters you can borrow a very accurate smallbore rifle and use it for as long as you like.
Smallbore is not the thriving sport that it was back in the 1960s and most folks who compete have their own $2,000 Anschutz rifles and don't need to use club equipment. There must be hundreds of perfectly good loaner rifles going unused in clubs around the country.
Anyway, smallbore is where you really learn to shoot a rifle. It is the best foundation for highpower competition or anything else involving a rifle.