You can get a pretty credible deer hunting rifle for way less than $500 by buying used. It takes a long time to learn to hunt if you have to learn on your own. You might try to cut down the learning curve by finding someone to tag along with, even without a gun, just to learn the process. Start with squirrel hunting. To me, the best training for deer hunting is squirrel hunting. There is a lot more to hunting than just shooting. By the way, welcome to the forum.