As much as I love revolvers, and any of the revolvers mentioned thus far would serve you well, if you don't have a great deal of time to practice you will likely do best with a TC Contender or Encore in a mild deer caliber. A TC Contender with a 7mm TCU barrel running a good 7mm rifle bullet at around 1800-2000fps would handle deer nicely and recoil is much less than a 44 Magnum revolver.
Again, nothing against revolvers, but they take time and a lot of rounds down range to master. In my opinion, the learning curve on a TC is faster and that might serve you best, unless you intend to become a dedicated handgun hunter.
I by far have nothing here like the mtns you have there in Oregon but it is becoming a thought to start handgun hunting so don't have to lug the rifle around. Would a person need to hand load for the tc in 7mm? Or could you just shoot a factory load? Sorry for the questions fellas but I don't know some Of this stuff.
