Chamber cut question

[Sigfla]

I have a Ruger .44 magnum bolt action rifle that I had suppressed. When I bought it I asked for a .44 special chamber cut bc at the time subsonic .44 mag was hard to come by. I was never confident the smith cut the shorter chamber. It will chamber a full length .44 magnum round no problem. I bought .44 go/no go gauges and it will close on a .44 magnum go gauge with a slight bit of tension but I am not sure what thats telling me. It will not close on a .44 magnum no go gauge. My question is do you think it is safe to fire .44 magnum in it? The difference in case length is marginal but obviously the .44 magnum has more pressure.

 

[jackieschmidt]

The only difference is the length, since it head spaces on the rim.

If you feel any resistance on a go gage, something is not quite right.

when it comes to this sort of thing, trust the head space gages.

 

[Ggmac]

Time for a chamber cast or minimum make a dummy 44 mag cartridge with the heaviest longest bullet available and seat the bullet a few thousand longer than saami . If it chambers easy, I would try some light power 44 sp loads in a 44 mag case . If okay , work up loads cautiously.

 

[paperpuncher]

If you have a borescope put an empty case in the chamber and view it from the muzzle end

 

[Sigfla]

Time for a chamber cast or minimum make a dummy 44 mag cartridge with the heaviest longest bullet available and seat the bullet a few thousand longer than saami . If it chambers easy, I would try some light power 44 sp loads in a 44 mag case . If okay , work up loads cautiously.

That’s a good idea. I gotta assume the action is much stronger than a revolver. The slight tension I felt with the go gauge may have been the extractor. In my haste I neglected to remove it. My whole end goal in trying to figure this out is #1 I want to know what chamber was cut and #2 if I can shoot .44 magnum loads at a higher power without that little jump you get in the chamber shooting specials I am hoping for a bit better accuracy and power to hunt with.

 

[NZ_Fclass]

I'm sure that a smith could run a magnum reamer in pretty quickly. But trimming some magnum cases back a bit would be my choice