Lemme just say these things, regardless of the range you are shooting/hunting at:
UNLESS you are just trying specifically just to increase the challenge/difficulty:
1. A rifle is ALWAYS preferred to a handgun, regardless of the barrel length of the rifle (SBR, carbine, rifle), due to the inherent extra stability of the use of the buttstock. If you're gonna use a handgun, you need a good rest. Handguns are pretty good for tree stands with a shelf to rest them on, but for walking-hunting, they are a very poor choice, again, regardless of range.
2. A longer barrel is ALWAYS preferable to a shorter barrel, up to about 16"-18"with iron sights, and up to about 10"-12" with a scoped weapon - iron sights to 18" for the sight radius, and scoped gun to 12" for the extra velocity & bullet stability. These are just rough rules of thumb.
3. To my way of thinking, a scope of good quality is ALWAYS preferable to iron sights when hunting, since the game you seek move the most at dusk and dawn, in low light conditions, and since a scope magnifies and enhances the image. A case can be made that use of a scope during low light, instead of iron sights, is actually MORE important in deep woods hunting (where ranges are short), than it is on the plains, since (a) the canopy makes it even darker, and (b) it is all the more important to pick out the small twigs & leaves and not hit them on the way to the target - a scope can do this where the naked eye cannot always. All of this is doubly true if you have less than perfect vision.
So, to summarize, do yourself a favor and:
-Used a scoped rifle
-Failing that, use an iron sighted rifle
-Failing that, use a long-barreled, scoped revolver or single shot
-Failing that, use a long-barreled, iron-sighted revolver or single shot
-Failing that, use a medium-barreled, iron sighted revolver or single shot
-Failing that, you'd better have excellent skills, because you're gonna have to get really really close to not wound animals and not have to pass up a lot of shots.
Again, UNLESS you are just trying specifically just to increase the challenge/difficulty.
About the best walking-hunting rifle in the woods is a carbine (such as a 16" levergun), chambered in .30-30, .45 colt, .44 mag, etc., and topped with a 1-4x20 or 1.5-4.5x32 or similar. When walking, keep it on 1x, 1.5x, or 2x, and if you stop to set up ambush, crank it to 3 or 4.
Combat handguns are for combat/defense, not hunting
IMO.
If you do go non-XP/Striker handgun, bullet choice is more important than caliber, but any of those mentioned will work - .357 mag, .44 mag, .45 colt. In .357 mag, you want to use a 158 gr or 180 gr soft point.
FWIW, if I am tree-stand hunting for deer, and the setup is such that there's a real chance that the deer could walk almost underneath the stand, making a shot with a rifle awkward or impossible, then I will lug up into the stand, in addition to my rifle of choice, a revolver in .357 mag or .45 colt, with a 4-6" bbl, strictly for under-5 yard spine shots from above.