357 Maximum

Pennsylvania has an elk herd and a season. Several years ago they actually gave out a couple of non-resident tags. I can't remember all the particulars, but I believe they're very high priced and proceeds go to the Game Commission for maintaining the herd. Tourism in a couple of counties involves hiring a guide who drives you out to certain places where you can see the elk feeding out in fields.
 
The 357 Super Mag or Max if you must, is capable of pretty good performance out of a rifle. The little pistol cartridge 94 guns are in fact a nightmare to modify for the cartridge and you do not get the rifle bullets because of the construction of length. David White of D&T Customs makes 357 SM barrels for the H&R rifle.
I know by lever gun you are not thinking Martini Cadet or a Ruger 1 or 3 but you can re-barrel a single shot for the Super Mag and get an excellent white tail killer. I have built two Martini Cadet SM guns and love them. As they are BP guns you must turn the firing pin down with a shoulder stop and put a shouldered bushing in the bolt face to keep the primer from blowing back. The 180 and the 200 RN rifle bullet works well for hunting in the SM rifle with H-110 or 296.
 
I looked up the 357/44 Bains Davis rd in Wikipedia and it's impressive with a max pressure of 42,000psi. Further, I looked up the rd on Hodgdon's Reloading Manual site and they have loads for it.
However, their data doesn't make sense to me as they show a load with a 158grn Hornady XTP bullet out of a 10" pistol barrel, max load of 21.0grns of H110, producing 1,604fps.
The problem is when you compare that to their 357Mag data using the same powder and bullet: 158grn Hornady XTP bullet out of a 10" pistol barrel, max load of 16.7grns of H110, producing 1,591fps, they show that the Bains Davis rd only produces a 13fps increase with 4.3grns more H110 powder.
Something doesn't seem right about their data
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Biggest problem is the short barrel. A 357/44 B-D should launch a 158 gr bullet at about 2,100-2,200 fps out of a carbine barrel. It should perform about 100-200 fps slower than a 35 Remington with a similar weight bullet.
 
350L here.
- Drives everything faster/heavier than the MAX
- Never experienced copper or lead fouling when using Lyman#2 and/or 358 rifle bullets sized to 356/7
- And yes, it functions out of a standard AR action.

What's not to like? ;)
 
- And yes, it functions out of a standard AR action.

What's not to like?
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That it functions out of a standard AR action! :D

Not that there's anything actually wrong with that, tis just I don't especially like ARs and won't be carrying one where a regular sporting rifle (including a single shot) will do what I want done.

However, their data doesn't make sense to me as they show a load with a 158grn Hornady XTP bullet out of a 10" pistol barrel, max load of 21.0grns of H110, producing 1,604fps.
The problem is when you compare that to their 357Mag data using the same powder and bullet: 158grn Hornady XTP bullet out of a 10" pistol barrel, max load of 16.7grns of H110, producing 1,591fps, they show that the Bains Davis rd only produces a 13fps increase with 4.3grns more H110 powder.
Something doesn't seem right about their data
Click to expand...

There are only two possibilities, they made a mistake, or they didn't. IF they made a mistake, you have to figure out, where, and what. Maybe the velocity data for one of the loads was wrong. or a typo..or the powder charge, or....etc

OR they didn't make a mistake, and if not, then why so close? MAYBE their .357/44 barrel is "slow" and their .357 mag barrel is "fast". It does happen...

Considering some other cartridges that approximate the Bain & Davis (a .44 case necked to .357) the .357 AMP and its virtual twin the .357 Grizzly win mag have significantly higher published speed from a 20+gr charge of H110 from a 10" barrel with a 158 slug, I'd think Hodgdon's web site data to be suspect.
 
> The reason is .35 Remington,

Maybe, but .35 Remington has been discontinued and brought back a couple of times already.

While the .35 has sold slowly but steadily in the USA, it's fairly popular in the Old World. Valmet in Finland and Izshevsk in Russia have both produced civilian-model, Kalashnikov-pattern rifles in .35 Remington. The caliber is highly favored by hunters who want meat instead of trophies; like someone said once, "I want to eat it, not blow it up!"

The .357 Maximum is about half an inch shorter than the .38-55. While changing cartridge lengths is more difficult on a tube magazine than a box, the differences are mostly in the lifter mechanism.

I don't know... leverguns tend to occupy the premium-price bracket (at least compared to the kind of bolt-action rifles I usually look at), and buyers seem to trend heavily toward "classic caliber" buyers and cowboy-action shooters. The classic guys wouldn't want a Maximum, and the cowboy guys couldn't use it in competition.

While I'm aware that there are hunters who use leverguns, they're basically not-a-thing in my area.
 
While I'm aware that there are hunters who use leverguns, they're basically not-a-thing in my area.
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Or maybe they're not a thing, now. What about a generation ago, or two??

A lot depends on where you are, and when. Hunted deer and bear in the Adirondacks until I went in the Army in 75. About 8 out of 10 deer rifles carried by my Dad and his hunting buddies were lever guns. And this pretty much held true for everyone we met. Winchester, Marlin, and Savage ruled.

After I got out of the Army, I noticed that the lever gun's rule had declined a bit, now being down to 6-7 out of 10, more or less. ;)

I never head of the .35 Rem being actually discontinued, though for a long spell the only new rifles you could get in .35Rem were Marlin 336s.

I can tell you that a .357 Maximum carbine wouldn't have been all that popular with the group I grew up hunting with. Generally, if you were going to carry a .35 you got a .35Rem (Marlin rifle) and they wouldn't have bothered with a smaller .35 round.

The .357 Max was designed for a bit more punch shooting steel rams, and it's never found another good niche. It's not a bad round, but with hugely popular rounds common on both side of it's power, the Max never got a firm footing in the game fields.
 
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