There are several things clouding the issue:
1) The SRH has got more metal involved (check the weights of a regular SBH to the SRH), and the 454 and 480 SRH variants are of different metallurgy.
(NOTE: the SBH Hunter is indeed heavier than normal SBHs, but NOT in a fashion that affects strength! The seriously heavy barrel helps with recoil control and accuracy, not strength - the frame and cylinder is the same either way.)
2) A much more "apples to apples" comparo is the Redhawk 44Mag to the SBH Hunter. And in that race, the SA wins.
3) Now put it another way: Ruger sells SA 44Mags in Bisley form down around 40oz. Their lightest 44Mag DA is what, 52oz on the Redhawk? Per virtually all reports, the lighter SA with the Bisley grip is more comfortable to shoot AND tougher.
Summing up: the SA action has a lot of advantages. With no crane, the frame is shorter top to bottom, yet the frame is more solid and the cylinder support is far stronger so long as the base pin latch holds.
If you get an SBH Bisley Hunter, it needs one simple and cheap upgrade: a Belt Mountain replacement base pin with a lockscrew. That will reduce cylinder play and prevent the base pin (the "cylinder's axle") from jumping loose under recoil.
There's one more issue: Ruger sets up the chambers on their DA 44Mags a little bit "longer" internally than they do on the SAs. That's why the Garrett 330grain monsters don't always fit in the Ruger SAs...Garrett is using an absolute maximum overall length spec a little past normal 44Mag practice to get as much case capacity and pressure reduction as possible. I *think* a gunsmith with a bit of chamber reaming could re-work the SBH cylinder easily enough but that's worth checking into.
Barring that, there's plenty of good 44Mag hunting/woods loads out there that are at a normal 44Mag overall length.