There is always the option of a used scope. I've never had a problem. After all, a lot of the rifles I bought came with a scope already attached.
A way to check out a scope is look through it backwards; that will let you see any chips in the edge of a lens. Sometimes scopes get dropped, right?
I don't have any catalogues handy, so name brands and models aren't available. But I'd say you'll do just fine with a K4 Weaver or a better-end Simmons 4-power.
I killed my first eight or ten deer with a K2.5 and later a K4, before I ever went up to a Leupold 3X9 in 1971...
In fifty years of hunting with an '06, 90% of the critters I've shot would have been quite shootable with any 1.5 to 4 power scope.
Don't worry about it. Just stick something on it and go shoot beer cans, off-hand. Anybody can hit most anything, off a rest. That'll do you more good than high-dollar scopes, laser range-finders, and all the other non-essential toys, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Spend the money on ammo, not all that Mr. Abercrombie and Fitch city-hunter garbage.
Learn what you and your rifle can do. And do it some more.
, Art