Elgin Gates is argueably the most well traveled and greatest sporting hunter of the 20th Century. He hunted Africa for nearly 30 years, many of his hunts were true expeditions into areas unknown. He had a standing agreement with Jack Blacklaws (one of Africa’s greatest and most debonair White Hunters) that Elgin would fund any exploratory safari into virgin country, provided Elgin went along, then Blacklaws could have it to take the rest of his clients. Through this type of agreement, Gates helped to reopen French Equatorial Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Mozambique to sport hunting. In doing so, Gates got first crack at wildlife virtually unknown to the outside world. Some instances, Gates would explore by himself, flying into some remote village in the wilds of Africa and hiring the locals to help him mount an expedition.
Gates has 152 African trophies listed in Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game. He also has 54 trophies from Asia listed and 26 from North America, for a total of 232 in the book. He was the Weatherby Award winner in 1960.
Elgin raced motor boats winning several national championships and set 26 world records. He won 17 national and international championships in clay target shooting. Won 3 International Olympic-style championships in 8 years, defeating every member fo the elite and highly trained military teams from the U.S. Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy. He was the only civilian to ever do so. Elgin also founded the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association (IHMSA) and helped develop many of the Dan Wesson Super Mag cartridges.
In the 1970’s the late Elgin Gates decided to designed a series of new Magnum cartridges. All the new cartridges were dubbed SuperMags by Gates and were 1.610″ in length,or about three-tenths of an inch longer than standard Magnum Cartridges. Mr. Gates made up cartridges in .357, .375, .44, .45, .50, and .60 caliber. In the 1980s with the help of Eligan Gates, Dan Wesson Arms produced SuperMag revolvers in .357, .375, .414, and .445. The basic idea behind the SuperMag series was simple. It strived to offer performance that was superior to every magnum revolver cartridge of a given diameter in existence at that time. This was achieved by lengthening the cases to both increase powder capacity and boost operating pressures. These Cartridges were made from Star-line Brass, not from another caliber so some people may consider them proprietary cartridges, and others may consider them wildcats. 
