ArchAngelCD:
Bob Baker insists that's not safe, and, that you should get another, .45 Colt cylinder.
See if I can explain this in short.
.44 mag works at 40k, and has much more cylinder metal. Usually proofs, meaning what is required to blow the cylinder, at about 100K. Safety margin is 150%.
.454 operates near 60k, hence horrible, sudden recoil, with cylinder proofing/going at 90k: safety margin is 50%.
Now in a .44 mag, the little build up created by shooting the .44 special in it would create a little ring. If you get the .44 mag in, the little build up ring causes the bullet
to be held in place longer, since it creates extra pressure where the bullet is seated.
No big deal in the .44, far less in the .357 magnum. So, even if you don't do a great job of cleaning no problem.
FA's are made to far tighter tolerances then you can get, even with a custom, fantastic gunsmith, unless he remakes the entire gun. That goes for the cylinder, as well.
So, in the 454, you have very tight chambers. Now that little ring becomes a big deal.
If you shoot 45 colt in it, then manage to chamber .454, you have a little pressure ring build up that will hold the bullet in place longer. With average loads of around 50-55k,
and now you have the ring holding the bullet in place longer, you have the potential for a very high pressure spike,blowing a cylinder.
Even 17-4 stainless will blow, given such a situation.
John Linebaugh found this out when he, and Dick Casull started messing around with heavy loaded .45 Colt, like .454 level .45 Colt, in Ruger frames with 17-4 cylinders.
Linebaugh's solution was a tight cylinder, and, you could load the new .45 Colt brass
to .454 pressure levels, without fear of blowing the cylinder. Frame might stretch, top strap cut, forcing cones errode, but his cylinders would hold at .454 pressures.
I was just looking at the H110 loads we used to use back then. 360 grain bullet, with 27.5 grains of H110. That's nearly 4 grains over the max load Hodgdon lists now.
Heck, we used to take a .45 Colt case, put as much H 110 as we could in it, and put 230 grain ball ammo on top of that, super hard cast, for practice. Looking at the loading tables, this was probably going near 2100 fps, though I barely believe that while typing it. If felt light in recoil compared to the heavy bullets, and had a HUGE blast and was really loud. FUN!
The gun I/we used was based on a Seville, had a custom barrel, and handmade cylinder, in 17-4 by JL.
Looked like this:
This was the development stage of such stuff.
This is what the gun looked like after Jack Huntington put custom grips on it, a beautiful blue job, and fixed a 20 year old problem, the gun going out of time.
You see every time you pulled a trigger on a heavy load, the gun would jump out of time, and, you'd have to use your finger to rotate the cylinder back into alignment. The answer was deeper cuts in the cylinder.
Did make for some exciting stories from Ross Seyfried about hunting cape buffalo with the sister gun to mine.
