Man I hate shopping for scope rings. I tend to buy the set that's taller than what I typically need. If anyone could help me pick out a set of rings, I'd forever be greatful.

Over the weekend, I traded my wife's bdl sporter 22-250 for a Remington 700 VLS (varmint barrel) 22-250 for my oldest boy to get started shooting this spring. I'm about to order a 20mo base and a set of rings but not sure on ring height or brand to go with. Not looking for a $200 set of rings, but don't want the bottom of the barrel junk either. I have a variety of other rings on current rifles ranging from Tally, Burris XTR (super bulky but decent), NF, etc. but haven't kept up with what's decent anymore.

Rifle: Remington 700 VLS 22-250
Scope: Leupold VX-3i 4.5-14-50 cds 30mm tube
Base: currently have a Leupold Mark4 20moa picatinny rail in my shopping cart

Should I just stick with the Leupold Mark4 rings or something else? Aluminum vs. Steel? Height?

Nothing wrong with leupold mark 4 rings, I have lows on my guns and they have large objectives like 56mm
Nightforce ultra kites are my favorite and have never left a mark on a scope that I mounted in them.

I’m sort of shocked at all of the medium and high reccomedations..

Lots of good choices, some I haven't seen mentioned are badger and Ken Farrell. Some of the badger offerings are close to or more than $200. The KF are around $160.

As for determining proper ring height, check out the penny/washer stacking trick. Place the rifle on a flat level surface, stack equal height stacks of pennies on your pic rail to support the scope about where your rings would attach to the scope. Carefully set the scope on the stacks. Adjust the number of pennies until the objective clears the barrel without a crazy gap (pay attention and allow additional clearance if you use scope caps and they aren't on the optic at the time). When you're at the desired height, measure the stack of pennies with calipers. Look at the detail for your preferred rings and compare your stack height to the dimension on the detail that is indicating the height from top of picatinny rail to bottom of ring. Hope that makes sense!