I had an old steel tube K10 Weaver that I used to kill a LOT of groundhogs.
I think that scope cost me $110. Now that was quite a few years ago.
I have a Night Force 8-32X56 on that rifle now and that scope cost a bunch of money.
For your purpose, you can find some pretty good scopes from Leupold VXIII or Nikon Monarchs that go from about 4.5-16 power that should work pretty good for you. They won't be real cheap but they are good quality scopes.
Sometimes Midway Shooting Supplis has some pretty good deals as well as Optics Planet.
HTH