Ballistically, I think as long as your don't fire the M-1 Carbine at anything over 50 yards away, the softpoint and hollow point cartridges will do the job. It's the accuracy of your carbine I worry about. 5 MOA at 100 yards? Am I reading that right? Personally, I would think hard before hunting with that particular carbine if it won't perform better than that.
In your shoes, rondog, and I know you can hit what you point at, I've been reading your posts for years, I would start by detail-stripping the carbine and cleaning hell out of it. I'd give some thought to corking the barrel, too, to see if that improved performance. And of course you'll test it with different loads to see which gives you the best accuracy. But I think you need to improve the accuracy of that carbine before you take it into the field.
If you have an SKS, especially a Yugo Model 59/66 you can use as a straight pull bolt action, Barnaul has both softpoint and hollow point ammunition running at about $10 per 20 round box. The SKS would surely do the job for you. Just an opinion.