the rule has always been that you want over 1000 ft/pds of energy to cleanly kill a deer and the 44 mag barely has that at the muzzle and half that at 100 yds . i know people that have killed deer with one but on paper its not a good deer gun.the 41 cal is worse.if you need to use a pistol you might want to try the t/c with a high cal barrel.