Bought a Browning A-Bolt in the 325 WSM and am trying to decide what scope to put on it. I have looked at Burris, Nikon and Leupold ( VX-II). Im looking to spend around $500 on this scope. Any thoughts or suggestions as to which scope would work best?

The scopes you mentioned are all excellent choices and you might also look at the Bushnell's in the 3200 and 4200 series. I faced this problem on my two big game rifles several years ago and spent a bunch of time in Cabela's looking thru scopes on their try stocks. I ended up with two Simmons 2.8 to 10's AETEC scopes. These turned out great, but with Meade optics buying out Simmons, Weaver and Redfield I wouldn't recommend them today.

Big thing for me is having a wide enough field of view on this kind of hunting rifles. Both the AETEC's have a 44 foot field of view at low power and I wouldn't consider a scope with much less than a 40 foot field of view. This one factor ends up as one of the most important for me in a big game scope. you can always turn up the power for a long shot, but jump an elk at 40 feet and your stuck with the fixed field of view on low power that comes with the scope.

If that's your price limit, check out the Zeiss Conquest also.