RE: Do you ever shoot 45LC in 454
whelen, I have shot hot loads in a Ruger .45 Colt for about 20 years, and there is no " ring eaten out of the chamber wall around the case mouth" in any of the chambers! Likewise, I have been shooting my Raging Bull with both .45 Colt and .454 ammo for about five years, and there are no rings in its chambers either. The danger in using shorter ammo in the .454 is supposedly the buildup of fouling at the mouth location of the shorter brass, which is then supposed to make it difficult for a .454 round' s case mouth to open up properly and release the bullet (in effect, the same as using an overlong case in a rifle chamber), which then causes dangerous pressures in an already heavily loaded cartridge. A ring which chewes metal out of the chamber wall would not do this, because it is a depression in the chamber, not a projection into the cartridge space!! Think about this: If a factory .45 Colt round could " basically eat a ring out of the chamber walls from the heat and explosive blast" , so would a .454 which is a lot hotter!! They don' t, at least not in my .454!! Neither the .45 Colt nor the .454 have " eaten a ring" in any of my revolver' s chambers!!
Years ago, I used .44 Special ammo in my M 29 S&W .44 Maggie as well, and never had any damage of the sort you describe. A friend of mine still uses .44 Special in his .44 mag., and I use .38 SP in a .357 for all target shooting! I think this idea of a short case damaging a chamber may have originated when people shot .22 short ammo in soft-steel .22 LR chambers, but I have never seen this in any handgun ion which it is possible to shoot standard-length and magnum-length cartridges. It might happen, but I have never seen this phenomenon in any revolver I have inspected or used. It is not a common problem, even if it has happened. In fact, it may be one of those things which are common knowledge, but just ain' t so!
The .44/40 is, not only a bottlenecked case, it is the .45 Colt necked to hold a .427" bullet. It is therefore larger at the base than a .44 Magnum/.44 Special. It won' t enter a .44 Magnum chamber.