My father has an older Ruger 44 rifle. Between the two of us we have taken several deer with it. He has had it for around thirty years now.
Our take on the 44 is that it is great gun. We have taken many deer up to 100 yards, but not many over that. The caliber can take a deer safely up to 200 yards, but you need to know your gun and have good optics to go reliably over 100 yards. My father never did put all that great of a scope on it, and would not let me buy a better one for it.
That being said, now that we are hunting in big timber country instead of the swamplands we used to the 44 has become a backup gun. With having to more room to shoot, we prefer to use something with more oomph and immediate killing power. We did have to chase many of the deer we hit, but they did die. It makes one heck of a hole and tears anything it hits up badly.
If something happened and I had to go to the 44 over my 7mm 08 I would not be afraid to take a deer with it.
I used 240 gr hollow point ammo with it. It worked extremely well for me.