Just wanted to see if anyone had ever compared the two bbl. legths. Getting ready to rebarrel a ruger maxi (guy before me cut it down). Have a line on the 7.5 but had wanted a 10.5 bbl. Not sure which way to go. Not wanting to lose the Maxi benefits by "shorting" myself. Thanks in advance.

If you're wanting to take advantage of the max, then get the longer barrel. JMHO

gd

I think that it would be pretty cool if you could fit a 357 Herrett in the Ruger max cylinder. Or maybe a slightly shorter version. Case capacity for the 357 Max is 33.6gns H2O, the Herrett is 43gns, but it 1.75" vs 1.6 for the Max.
If only there were extra Ruger max cylinders floating around for not too much $$ to play with.

A shorter Herrett would be kinda cool. The reason I bought the "snubby max" was with intention of having a .475 max made on it. So at the time the bbl. length didn't bother me. But after I got to handling the loaded rounds and doing a few handloads I just fell in love with the skinny little guys. Considering rechambering a NEF in .357 mag to a max. But back to your idea...I thing we need a lot more revolvers chambered for bottlenecked ctgs. It just seems so wrong, but oh so right!

I don't know if you've looked at Lee Martin's Single Action page, but it seems that he hasn't had many problems with bottlenecked rounds.
http://www.singleactions.com/

I looked at Reeders page and he has a 445 Supermag necked down to 358. That should fit the ruger max. It would be nice to have an extra cylinder to swap in and try.
I too bought a 7.5" max several years ago with the thought of doing a 6.5" 475 Long. Now that I have a BFR in 475 Linebaugh, I don't think that I'd really want the Long anymore.

I haven't tried the 357 max vs 357 Herret in a ruger revolver, but I did have both chamberings in a 10" contender. Because the 357 max can be loaded to higher pressures, my max velocities with 200 gr cast in the max were within 50 fps of the 357 Herret, and as I recall I was burning a fair bit less powder in the max. You can't fit enough AA-1680 under a 200 gr cast to get into trouble with the 357 max, and it performs best when compressed.