Has taken deer, elk, black bear, and mountain lion with at 41mag. It's well capable of doing it all. I'd say anything above a 41mag would be ideal. 44mag would be the best all around choice. But I love my 41's. Very sweet hunting round.

I gotta second the .41 Mag. I have had a reasonable amount of experience with nearly all of the previously mentioned cartridges. The .44 Mag and up guns can be recoil abusers, particularly without proper fitting grips. The .41 does not, in my opinion carry near that kind of penalty with it. I feel the .357 is just a little on the light side for your purposes. I can even get my wife to shoot the Blackhawk in .41 Mag, but she wants no part of my .44.......

9 1/2" .44 Mag, 2x6 scope

Those are two pretty guns you guys have got there. I guess from all the talk that I will go with my first choice and that is the .41. Now to find one that I like the way it feels in my hands.

I'd be curious to see some of those 100 yarders...

If you are serious about hunting, I would advise you to go with a Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 Mag with a 7 1/2 inch barrel (though I prefer the Blackhawk with a slightly shorter barrel).

Whether you put a scope on it is up to you, but figure max range without is about 50 yards.

For hunting, use a good quality HP in the 240-300 grain weight (they are a handful)...for target shooting and home/camp defense the .44 Special with 180-210 grain HPs are very good and do not tend to overpenetrate.

I like the idea of pairing the Ruger with a nice Marlin 1894P lever action for timber or tree stand hunting with ranges of 100 yards or less.

I would have been really disappointed if I didn't hear something about the .41 mag from Ruger Mike...................LOL.That being said I am a faithful .41 fan myself.Most everything you read or hear is that the .41 has about 20% less power and 20% less recoil than the .44.I have a S&W model 657 Classic DX with a 7 1/2" full lug barrel and non-fluted cylinder.I have killed a deer with it @ 75 steps using the factory iron sights.Actually a little to far ,But I felt comfortable with the shot.I can shoot my .44 mag and after about 10 or 15 shots it will start to hurt the lower part of my palm.(factory hogue grips) .I can shoot the .41 all day and never hurt my hand period.Anyway I can't give you a unbiased suggestion 'cause of being a devout .41 fan............Alton

Another .41 Mag fan. You can get good rounds for this caliber from Corbon. I use a 250 gr HC load that will definitely put a pig or deer on the ground. Their website states that some customers have taken moose, brown bear, and cape buffalo with that load, but I would want something stouter myself.

With all that said, if you can stand the recoil, go for the 44 Mag. You will have a better selection of rounds if you don't handload.

I shot a deer from a stand once at 20 yrds with a 8 3/8 bbl .357. 20 yrds aint bvery far but it was amazingly underpowered despite using full power ammo. I am now the owner of several .44 magnum single action guns and thats the smallest I would recommend for anything larger than a squirrel. For concealed I use a 1911 style .45 auto. Good luck on your hog hunt.