No one here can really suggest what you should get for your first handgun. At best, what can be offered are suggestions to meet your parameters, quality and performance reviews from personal experiences or possible locations to buy from. Not much more then that. As some have suggested, you first want to look up and see what may be some selections and then go and physically handle them. What you don't want to do is buy something without knowing what "feels right". Comfort and ergonomics are half the battle in proficiency as you probably noticed with your rifles.
With a $900.00 budget, you could purchase new most handguns offered by manufactures. I usually look through Bud's guns for pricing as we have a high volume dealer that comes pretty close to their prices so I have a general idea of what it would cost.
As it'd be a hunting side arm/back-up, you may want to consider something in stainless as they are more rust resistant. NOT rustproof as you may think of stainless. You'll still want to give it a cleaning at the end of the day.
For S/A D/A revolvers, I gravitate toward S&W over Rugers. I prefer Smiths due to ergonomics and shallowly for estetics. Rugers look like a snubby with a pipe stuck on the end. Sorry. I really do like their vaquero and single sixes for S/A only though and have a few of them. What I don't care for on Smiths are their gigantic rubber grips. On the 6XX's I have, I switch the grips out to wood bantums. Makes a world of difference to me in comfort and I get use of the round butt that they have. I also gravitate to 4" barrels. 6" gets nose heavy after a bit on the 6XX lineup and they are quicker to get out of it's carrier.
All the above holds true for semies also. In my case, I like the grip angles and other ergos, ethics and handling on 1911's, Browning HP's, Walther PPK/S's and so on. The latter is one of two that I own that I use right handed, I'm left, due to the decocker. I'm fairly ambidextrous in most things so I'm fine with it. From my listings you'll notice that I prefer steel over plastics in handguns. No reason in particular besides personal choice. No one can argue Glocks track record nor the following Ruger Sp's have, just personal choice which is what I'm writing about.
I know I'm not being much help in picking for you and I don't intend to be. You need to decide that. The most I or anyone can really do is give personal experiences with some type of list of selections that you provide.