I was re-reading an old 35 or so year old book of mine called "Handloading for Handgunners" by former major George C. Nonte (deceased).

Under the "wildcat" cartridge section he was talking about and showing pics of the 38/45 Clerke wildcat cartridge. That is a .45 acp necked down to hold a .38 caliber projectile. He was talking about how it delivers about the same ballistics as the .38 super cartridge and how you could easily change a 1911 pistol over to it by simply changing out the barrel and recoil spring. Here's a couple of links.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.38/.45_Clerke
http://www.reloadbench.com/cartridges/w3845auto.html

and a pic, (the three on the left obviously, not sure what that far right one is)....


Which got me to wondering. Has anyone here had experience with putting a .38 caliber barrel in a .45 acp cylinder revolver and firing the 38/45 wildcat cartridge in it?

I was thinking that although it no doubt would increase velocity, it also likely would increase pressure in the barrel too wouldn't it? Which made me think about what if you necked down a .44 magnum to .38 caliber and did the same thing, or even necked a .44 mag down to 32 caliber?

Even if it would be safe pressure wise to neck down a .45 acp to .38 caliber, at what point would it be too much pressure and unsafe to neck any given cartridge down thus increasing barrel pressure? Would a .44 magnum necked down to .38 caliber be okay? What about a .44 mag necked down to 32 caliber?

Anyway, the old article made me curious about this and was wondering if anyone here had any experience with this.


.