I just bought a Bushnell Trophy 3-9x40 from Midway for about 85 bucks plus shipping. It is a decent scope for the money, but strangely enough the optics are not as clear as they are on the Bushnell Trophy 4-12x40 that I bought about 9 years ago. I am not sure if the older one was made in Japan and the newer one in China, but Steven Ashe's observations on the variable quality of mainland Chinese optics are right on the money. If you can actually look through some scopes side-by-side before buying you will be doing yourself a favor. I understand that the Bushnell Elites, formerly made by Bausch and Lomb, have excellent optics and start around $200.

http://www.midwayusa.com/rewriteaproduct/135913

A hundred dollar Bushnell will put meat on your table and will be fairly rugged also, but if you really want to live large, buy yourself a Zeiss Conquest or one of the better Leupolds. Honest to goodness, good glass will spoil you; I simply couldn't understand what all the fuss was over until I looked side by side through a Zeiss and most everything else that the Cabela's store had. I now have two Zeiss scopes and a Zeiss binocular and don't regret a penny of what I spent on them.

Here's another link that you may find helpful:

http://www.chuckhawks.com/index2i.scopes_optics.htm