I havent donemuch with the 44 mag. yet, dont have any range access for a while. But ive done a lot of work with the .311 in 30 cal rifles, i just used a case mouth deburring tooland seated the balls with a flat peice of hard wood lightly tapped with a mallet, i never noticed and lead shaving but i wouldnt doubt its occoring. If you look at a mold catlogue youll see that round balls are almost always oversized compared to a convential bullet. As to using a .454 round balls in your 45-70 as far as i know the proper bullet diameter for the 45-70 is .458 so you round balls wouldnt be in complete contact with the rifling, just a theory. How the accuracy of your gallery load ? In most rifle iv shot my loads out they grouped around an inch at 25 yards.