38 special in 357 magnum
 

Are there any down sides to shooting a 38 special in a 357 magnum other than the obvious decrease in power?

You will have to clean the forcing cone regularly because the .30 sp is shorter than the .357 mag. Most folks practice with .38s because it is a lot cheaper than the mags,

The forcing cone doesn't care about cartridge length. At. All.

You will need to clean your chambers after using 38spcl, before swapping back to 357mag, because the 38's are shorter and will leave a fouling ring of powder and lead in the chamber between the case mouth and the chamber throat. If the ring of crud grows too thick, you won't be able to chamber the longer 357mag round at all, but more dangerous is the event where the crud is thin enough to let the cartridge seat, but thick enough to present a restriction for the case to release the bullet, spiking your pressure.

With a LOT of firing, you'll get a fire scorched ring in the chambers at the case mouth position, as the gases escape however briefly around the base of the bullet as it jumps the ~1/10th inch of extra diameter chamber into the throat. This isn't a big deal, other than a mental distraction, but it can cause sticky extraction with .357mag cases as the flame torched pits grab onto the case. Tap the ejector rod and it'll come right out, as designed.

Guys theorize about decreased accuracy due to chamber jump, but those are also typically the guys who can't shoot handguns well enough to tell if that were a real contributor or not.

Guys have been doing it since the mag came out in the 50's. There's no real down side, and lots of up side.

As already mentioned, clean it. Other than that no downsides. Cheaper to practice with. Have fun.
-Jake

No Mercy is correct, the buildup is in the cylinder walls(chambers) from shooting 38s in a .357. I had chambers in my mind when I posted and typed forcing cone for some reason. Don't get old.:D

From what I hear it happens to all of us. :sheep:
-Jake

Like everyone else has said, clean the chambers before you shoot 357s in it after firing some 38s.

As to accuracy, I've talked to several experienced revolver shooters about the subject. The general consensus is that firing a 38 out of a 357, or a 44 Special out of a 44 Magnum, a 45 Colt out of a 454 Casull, or 480 Ruger out of a 475 Linebaugh won't really affect accuracy noticeably. It's only once you try to fire relatively short 45 Colts or 454 Casulls out of a long 460 S&W chamber that you really start to see a decrease in accuracy, which I can personally attest to.