Ruger made a Blackhawk in .357 Maximum for a few years back in the 1980's. It featured an extended cylinder with a beefed-up frame and utilized the same Dragoon-style grip frame and hammer as the Super Blackhawks. It was designed to be used primarily for silhouette shooting and came in 7 1/2" and 10 1/2" barrel lengths. The .357 Maximum is an impressive cartridge, pushing a 158gr bullet at 1825 fps with 1168 foot pounds of energy. Unfortunately, shooters found that the high pressures the cartridge created caused barrel erosion and "flame cutting" of the frame's top strap due to hot gases escaping through the cylinder gap. So, Ruger dropped it from production.

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