Just a note on the hammer....
Try not using one, once you have the slug started in the bore. If you have a good bore, you should be able to push the greased/oiled slug through the bore by hand. There may be minor constrictions around dovetails, sights, etc; but the majority of the barrel should let the slug pass with just hand pressure on the rod/dowel.
As for the rod/dowel....
I use drill rod (wrapped in tape to keep it centered).
Wood splinters. Metal bends. I very much prefer a bend, over a dowel that splinters and gets stuck in the bore. (But I use O-1 rod, so it isn't going to bend unless I do something really stupid.)
I had heard stories about stuck dowels before, but figured the users were doing something stupid to cause it. A few years back, I had what I considered to be a very high quality oak dowel splinter and jam in the bore of a Mosin Nagant. I probably didn't use enough lube, but it didn't matter once everything was jammed. I tried many, many things to get the slug and dowel pieces out, but nothing worked. That's when I turned to a 36" piece of N-size (0.302") O-1 drill rod, and a hammer drill(!). I'll never use a wooden dowel again.
And that brings us back to the hammer...
I knew, going in, that the hammerdrill could do it, but I thought my odds were good....
I was wrong. The hammer drill, pounding on the lead slug, actually expanded the barrel by a few thousandths and caused a loose spot, where the drill rod had been tapping the slug until it broke loose. (The dowel pieces acted as wedges, and locked the slug in the bore.) The same thing can happen with a hammer.
Never beat on lead in the bore, if it can be avoided. And use plenty of lube!
As for bullets...
The Lee 200 RF (~200 gr round nose flat point), that Mike mentioned, is a pretty universal bullet. Right now, the Lee 200 RF and the Lee 310 RF are the only bullets I cast for my .44 Mag.
The Lee molds can be a serious pain in the butt, but for the price, it's usually worth the risk. --My 200 RF is the worst mold I own, as far as block alignment, proper mating, and sprue plate alignment. But shipping it back to Lee would cost half of what I paid for the thing.
If you want some suggestions for higher quality molds, we can provide them; but it's probably best to cut your teeth with the cheap Lee molds, and figure out how you want to move forward, before dropping some cash on quality. It's easy to write off a $12-18 Lee mold, but it's much more painful to realize that a $120 mold doesn't meet your needs.