I'm late to the party but being on extremely limited fixed income now I cannot afford to spend on a scope what I used to without giving it a thought. I'd put Nikon Prostaff, Leupold Vari X 2 (older predates the VX-2 and equal to the VX-1), VX-1, Bushnell Elite 3500, Weaver Classic, and the like about the most inexpensive I'd trust in the 150-250$ range. Moving on up to 300-400$ range The Monarch 3, Leupold VX-2, Bushnell Elite 4500, Weaver Grand Slam, Zeiss Conquest (or Terra-forget which is which offhand), Vortex, and the like are the better choices in that range. The last category I'm going to talk about is the scopes I find the most versatile, and best for the dollar. This involves 450-600$ and consists of Nikon Monarch 5, Leupold VX-3, Bushnell Elite 6500, Zeiss (forget exactly which model line), Burris Veracity, Weaver Super Slam, Vortex, and the like which offers a full 5x power zoom except for the Bushnell 6500 which has a 6x power zoom. In fact I'm going to top the new Browning A-Bolt 30-06 my best friend & brother gave me with a Monarch 5 3x-15x-42mm and make it my 1 go to all purpose bolt rifle, semi retiring the rest of my bolt rifles. If I could afford 1 I'd grab a Leupold VX-6.