Both will do the job for you and both are fine guns.Personally, I prefer single actions for hunting so I opt for the Ruger. Last year I used this.......




..........to kill this. (Pistol is on my right hip under the shirt)


This year I'm going to go the "scoped route" with this Ruger Super Black Hawk Hunter in .44mag. While I have nothing against S&W (I have several) I prefer Rugers when it comes to my pistol hunting. Overall they (Rugers) are more reliable especially if you are shooting heavy +P+ loads through them year after year, they are very stout and "over designed" revolvers. I think Smith & Wesson's tend to be slightly more accurate right out of the box depending on the caliber. In 44mag it's about even with the edge going to the S&W due to a better factory trigger. With the .45 Colt the S&W is more accurate out of the box where the Rugers single actions tend to be more picky of what ammo you shoot. This is due to the Cylinder throats being slightly undersized from the factory. If you are shooting a .451 bullet all is good, .452 and you might run into accuracy issues. Now I'm only talking a couple inches down range here not a great deal. In fact most don't shoot well enough to tell the difference but a lot do.

The bright side for all you Ruger loving .45Colt shooting folks is it's an easy inexpensive fix. A proper reamer and about a half an hour and you're good to go! The trigger takes a little more work but it can be smoothed up and lightened up for very accurate shooting.

The reason the Ruger .44mags don't have this problem is their cylinder throats are cutright around.431 to.433 (on average) and the .44mag bullet is actually .429 to .430so you're not "resizing" your bullet as it leaves the cylinder before it even enters the barrel.Barrels are slightly smaller than the bullet diameter so they form a good seal (no burning powder leaking around the bullet causing leading etc...) and so it can engage the rifling good, all this equating to good accuracy.

When the .452 Colt bullets leave the cylinder that are anywhere from .451 to .488! it "swags" the bullet downtoo much, itdoesn't allowthe bulletto seal as good as it enters the barrel and this hurts accuracy as well asadds undue pressureon thecylinder.Again this is hundredths of inches were talking about but it does effect accuracy. Again, it's an easy fix but most don't even realize (or notice) the accuracy difference.

Anyway, that being said, I love my Rugers for hunting....here's this years rig.