The best way I've ever found to get a good, cheap scope is to buy a used rifle, with a nice scope, and either plop a lesser scope, or none at all and resell the rifle.
This is one of the few new (well, different type) comments in the thread (we seem to discuss the issue of "good enough" and budget optics every quarter). And the same points are always brought up.
I'd noticed at one of my local gun shops that the new management is apparently not hunting-minded (lots of black guns and the few optics for sale are holosights or RDS, all tactical stuff) -- they seem to price used firearms fairly accurately but don't seem to usually consider the optics a reason to up the price -- I've found a lot of Remington 700-series rifles (geez, there's a ton of these on the used market now), Savages, a few old Winchesters, with darn good scopes on them (maybe not the most expensive, but good quality, serviceable and in decent shape). A few beater rifles on the racks at any given time, but I've found a couple high-end Zeiss and Swarovski and decent Leupolds on them from time to time. Heck, it almost wouldn't surprise me some day to find an old Savage 110 in the racks with a Nightforce mounted...
Growing up in the Midwest, my early hunting was all whitetail in thickly wooded areas, swamps or areas where a long shot might've been 75 yards or so, plus, I'm old and started on on a Win. 94 with iron sights... Wasn't 'til I got out West and saw what a long shot really was that I appreciated good optics. Then, on my very last deployment to the bad place, I talked to a couple snipers, saw some of their gear, these guys were going out
every day to hunt and taking shots. Your tax dollars are well spent on the optics those guys use.
