.357 Remington Maximum

Loading a T/C Contender for Deer

- John Barsness

The .357 Remington Maximum is the .357 Magnum revolver round lengthened .315 inch, and was basically developed by the hyper-competitive Elgin Gates, who among other things raced powerboats and obsessively hunted trophy-book big game around the world. When Gates got into handgun silhouette shooting, he decided to design a better cartridge, coming up with what he called the .357 SuperMag.

Remington and Ruger eventually coordinated to bring out a commercial version, with Remington making the ammunition and Ruger introducing a larger version of its Blackhawk revolver. However, the Maximum’s average pressure was set at 40,000 PSI, an increase of 5,000 PSI over the .357 Magnum. Combined with the increased powder charge, the Maximum resulted in quick gas-cutting of the Blackhawk’s frame, and only about 7,700 left the factory.

The gas-cutting problem did not apply to the single-shot Thompson/Center, and eventually the .357 Maximum became reasonably popular in the Contender, especially among hunters, which is how I got involved with one. Eileen and I live near a wildlife management area (WMA) administered by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, along both sides of the Missouri River where it flows into a reservoir. The WMA provides public hunting for a variety of game from mourning doves to moose, but Eileen particularly loves to hunt white-tailed deer, and public riverbottom whitetail hunting is relatively scarce in Montana, because the land along most rivers is often private farm and ranchland.