Bullet type and weight

Get your hands on everything you can read by Brian Pearce of Handloader Magazine. He's killed quite a few deer, bear and even an elk or two with the .357 Magnum revolver. If memory serves, he mostly uses cast bullets; specifically the Lyman 358156 and 358429 in hollowpoint form. Both of these weigh in the neighborhood of 160 grs.
35W

My Son dropped a deer with his .357 using my 125 gr. XTP's hand loaded with 20.0 grains. of H110 or 296. These chronographed at over 1500 fps and performed impressively in tightly rolled up and water soaked denim, no separation and excellent pedaling. 158 gr. Gold Dots also performed well, and velocity was about 1300 pfs with 18.2 grains of H110/296. However, I tested Sierra 125's and they separated almost on impact for some reason. Almost every one of them did this too.
Be sure to use a magnum primer if you go with either one of those powder's.

Outta what you have, the 158XTPs would be my choice. Are they the HPs or the FPs?

One thing to remember about pistol bullets. Since they are light in weight relative to their diameters, they by penetrate less. When you use an expanding bullet such as a hollowpoint, penetration is reduced even further.

35W

All of the bullets I mentioned were in fact HP's. I personally prefer the 125 gr. XTP HP bullet because they seem to utilize velcoity quite well regarding penetration. The integrity of the XTP HP is really good, even though it does mushrom completely, they haven't separated at all when I've used them. But a 158 gr. XTP or Gold Dot HP will no doubt get the job done with a hefty charge of H110 or 296 also. I don't have my charts in front of me at the moment, but I would venture to guess there is a fair amount of equality between the higher velocity 125's, and the slightly lower velocity158's.
If you have any old denim jeans you can part with do a test. Fill a large card board box lined with a trash bag with water and then roll up the denim real tight and then allow them to get well soaked in the water filled box. Shoot into the long end of the box, retrieve your bullets and then you can get some idea of how they will perform. You can also use soaked phone books or a bunch of tightly packed newspaper with some fairly good results to evaluate from.
Good luck and enjoy the hunt and testing process!

The 140 XTP should also do quite well.
Good compromise between the 125's shock & 158's penetratrion.

That's all I use in my .357's, unless I'm using cast SWC bullets.

rc