Will never hunt with a handgun, but do have a couple of HP hand gun molds. (Am not really much of a handgunner, but enjoy shooting paper, cans and clays). Seldom load any handgun HP's anyhow, and if I were to load some of them, would have to consider them to be defense loads. I do carry a handgun when hunting, but mostly for dispatch if I want to, or to pop at critters and rattlers when shooting pdogs.
On the other hand have probably more than a half doz rifle molds that are HP. Am convinced that HP'ing a rifle blt increases the accuracy potential of a well cast bullet. (Key I believe to that is a well cast (very well cast) bullet. Have a couple of molds without HP, and the same mold HP'd. My testing is limited with these, however what testing I have done indicates a slight increase in group accuracy potential. John Goines (Beagle) writes of this with emphasis on cast in the little 224's, and the increased accuracy potential with HP's. Because of that I have had 2-3 of my .224's HP'd, and these are definitely a percentage more accurate than their non HP'd version with the same charge. The same seems to hold true with my 270 gr 375449 in HP compared to the non HP'd version. And, for hunting with HP'd cast rifle blts, it is about as easy to nose soften the first 1/3 of the blt with a couple of different softening methods.
Need to get a couple of 30 molds in 311284 without HP to test, as I have a HP 284. Logic seems to dictate that HP'ing a blt moves the weight more to the rear, with the potential of more accuracy. The jacketed blt mfgs seem to hold with that logic in that most all of the premium match blts are HP. Like so many other aspects of casting, loading, shooting, hunting, etc. there are just so many hours in the day to do all the testing we would like to do.
But hey, they are nice holes.