Went on my first deer hunt in Mongo, In, @ a friend's family farm & walked out with a few lessons.
#1. NEVER EVER EVER go into the field with a weapon I haven't personally sighted in, let alone even fired.
I know I'm gonna get flamed for that, & I deserve every bit of it. I threw no less than six slugs @ the same damned doe @ about 25-40 yards & the best I did was scrape her. What really surprised me is that she didn't high-tail it after the first shot. No less letting me unload, & reload on her. She ended up simply wandering away from me. I didn't have it in me to keep firing & missing.
I feel like a real lout for winging her & leaving the job unfinished & a real dope for not knowing my equipment. Needless to say, I went home empty handed, & hopefully a bit wiser...

Don't feel too bad. I see many hunters do that all the time. In fact, very recent here, I met up with a guy who had 2 different weight grain bullets in his gun! He checked his zero and one was high right about 9" and the 2nd was straight high about 6". I fired 2 myself, just to re-check. I was still zero. LOL!

You learned a good lesson. Also you told on yourself by revealing you didn't get much practice either... but I'm assuming that. You could have used a different gun.

Good luck next time.

iSnipe

Did that with MY OWN gun last year!!!!

The slugs were "too expensive" to sight it in ... HA HA HA

Lesson learned

As long as you learned something! Nothing worse than taking the easy way and ending up wounding a deer and not recovering it...Go get your gun sighted in then hit the woods again!

"the best I did was scrape her." "I feel like a real lout for winging her and leaving the job unfinished" "she ended up simply wandering away" Sounds like she may have been hit harder than you think.

I'd considered that possibility, but found no blood & knew pretty well where she was when I fired on her. BTW, this was with a borrowed gun equipped with one of those "red dot" sights. I'm shopping for a rifle barrel for my Benelli SuperNova w/ rifle sights, but boy, are they pricey! Probably have better luck after the season is long gone...

you could probably get a good muzzleloader for just as cheap

took ya "at least" 6 shots to figure out that you need to stop...good lord..another wounded animal...usually jus see this crap on bowhuntin!!!