I think Talley Mounts are pretty awesome. I use to use leupold mounts.
Spend as much as you can on a quality scope, personally I'm not crazy about leupold's vx-3 let alone the vx-II, the vx-6 has me curious though, but that's gonna be a step up in price. I like my zeiss conquests much more than any of my leupolds.
Browning would be my vote. Although I'm not strongly swayed one way or the other.