Edit: I stand corrected. Picture in post 5 of the thread in the link provided in post 53 of this thread. Wow.
Made for the Uk market in small numbers.
Certainly be hard to get ahold of, but they are out there.
Here is a video of one being fired on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNDlPH0ZHAw
Wow! A five-shot .357 Magnum Super Redhawk. Will wonders never cease?
Pardon my skepticism.
If the video is the best evidence you have, I would suggest you have fallen victim to naivete.
Remember, only believe half of what you see and one quarter of what you hear. This goes double for anything you find on the internet.
I think you've been had. The amount of recoil in the video suggests a standard .357 load or even 38 special, but seems more likely 44 Special.
Sorry, dude.
(edit) OK. looking at stills from the video, clearly only five rounds were loaded and an empty chamber is apparent in the cylinder. The title clearly says ".357 Magnum" and the frame is unmistakeably a Super Redhawk. Also, the case heads COULD be .357 Mag. But seriously, what market "genius" would chamber a Super in .357 when Ruger had already discontinued the Redhawk .357?
Second edit: OK, I have examined the video as closely as I can and it does look as if the case heads COULD be .357 Mag. This boggles the mind. And I am still skeptical.
Seen them on a regular redhawk. They may have been custom or maybe they had Ruger to do something special (unfluted would after all be even easier for them to make than fluted.)
They stuck with me because I later wanted to do the same in a .44 Magnum version of the super redhawk, but the unfluted cylinders were only available in the larger calibers. So I spent some time trying to figure out how to go about it.
And I do believe they are stronger. A solid cylinder is going to have more resistance to giving out. Even in areas other than the fluting like where the notches are cut (often the weakest point and stronger in Rugers because they are between the chambers not on them), because a circle will resist deformation better. Granted not by much.
Plus they look different.
I have to ask. Seen them in real life? Up close? Enough to actually read the engraving that specifies the caliber? Did you get to ask the owner if it was a custom job?
I have credible reports that Jack Huntington built a 44 Magnum / 45 Colt convertible Redhawk (using interchangeable cylinders and interchangeable Dan Wesson barrels), so anything could be done. And, then of course, there is the .357 Smolt (Smith & Wesson frame and Colt Python barrel) and the 454 Casull Redhawk, where a 454 Casull Super Redhawk cylinder is swapped into a Redhawk 45 Colt frame.
But a .357 Super Redhawk? Doable, but I highly doubt if anything like that ever left the Ruger Factory as a catalog item.
Lost Sheep
Edit: I stand corrected. Picture in post 5 of the thread in the link provided in post 53 of this thread. Wow.