As others have posted, buy the best that you can possible afford. I ahve seen soooo many folks buy a nuice shooting riofle and then put an "economy" priced scope on it. As mentioned, compact scopes may be tricky to mount but there are systems out there that can accomadate very short scopes. I'd recommend something in the 1.6-6x40 mm or 2-8x40 mm for hunting. Zeiss and Swarovski offer very nice quality scopes. Their top end scopes are expensive but if you can go there, you will not regret what you get as far as performance and duraility.