Having live in Pa. and hunting groundhogs I always wished for a more powerful scope, I used an old Weaver K10 on a bull barrel 22-250, and would take any safe shot I could see, bought that set up while I was in the army,71-73. After that the family didn't leave extra for things like that.Now living here and the kids are all gone,so sometimes I've got a few extra bucks and have my own Encore with a few barrels ,I've tried more power but find I just don't shoot that far anymore, I shake more and don't see as well, so limit myself to 300 yds max, most shots less than 100, and I've never shot a moose or bear past 100.All my Encore rifle barrels wear 3-9x scopes that only get turned up if I'm not sure and animal meets minimum legal requirements, and is in a spot that I expect it to disappear any second,If I have time I use the binos most of the time. But if I were a youngster looking at your situation I would go with a 4 x 14 as long as the eye relief and F.O.V. were adequate. On the low side there isn't that much difference between 3x and 4x but on the high end there is a huge difference between 9x and 14x.
JMHO Alex