When you fire a cartridge there is a moment in time when the powder is starting to burn efficiently and building gas pressure, but the pressure has not built up enough yet to force the bullet out of the cartidge case. As the bullet begins to move, the exact moment it emerges from the case high pressure gas blasts out of the crack between the case mouth and the bottom of the bullet. This gas is blasted against the surrounding chamber walls, and because the gap it is leaking out through is so tiny, the full gas pressure gets exerted on a very small cross section of the chamber. With a lead bullet, the gas is hot enough to have vaporized a little bit of the lead off of the bullet base, and that vaporized lead, along with carbon and other exhaust products gets deposited in a ring right at the case mouth. This ring of lead and carbon is most noticable in the straight section of chambers like 357 Mag, or 44 Mag or even 45 Colt, where shorter cartridges, like 38 Sp, or 44 Sp or 45 Schofield are being fired. But it exists in all chambers. It is just not as noticable on the tapered section of a chamber, for instance the tapered section of 45 Colt where the case mouth sits. But it is there.
I get that ring in all my Smokeless revolvers, Single Action and Doubel Action, regardless of caliber. When I was shooting Smokeless in CAS I spent the majority of my cleaning time squinting up at a bright ceiling light through all 12 chambers (2 pistols), painstakingly picking off the lead with a sharp pointed pair of tweezers. I wasn't hurting anything, the steel in the cylinders is at least as hard as the tweezers. The tweezers were much harder than the lead, and would scrape off shiny shards of lead. I found methods such as bore brushes, bore brushes in electric drills, pentrating fluids, and Lewis Lead Removers to be basically useless for removing ALL the lead and bringing the surfaces of my chambers back down to the steel. The only thing that really worked was the chisel action of a tool like the tweezers and a lot of squinting and sore cramped fingers.
The only other thing that worked well, and was easier on the fingers was a Lead Removing Reamer made by Clymer. You have to be very, very careful when using one of these reamers. It will reshape your chamber if you are not carefull. The Lead Removing Reamer is designed to SAAMI specs of whatever caliber it is made for. It is NOT to be used with power tools. It is to be carefully inserted in each chamber and slowy turned by hand with the help of a small drill chuck or tap handle. At the front there is a pilot that rests on the chambe throat to keep it lined up. If one uses it carefully it will cut away the soft lead that is standing above the surface of the steel. If one pushes too hard or is too aggresive, it will cut into the steel. I repeat. DO NOT use the Lead Removing Reamer with power tools. Ultimately, even the Clymer Reamer let me down, because of the different specs chambers are cut too. It worked like a charm on my Colt cylinders, shaving the lead away clean as a whistle, right down to the steel. But my Ruger chambers were just enough oversize that it did not do anything in them. The lead was still there because it was deposited on the chamber walls about .001 or .002 away from the cutter.
Finally I just said the hell with it and left the damn lead in there. It doesn't hurt anything. For those who are shooting shorter cases in their chambers, like 38 SP in 357 Mag, the ring can build up thick enough to cause interference when trying to chamber the longer rounds. A bore brush will take care of enough lead to be able to chamber the longer rounds. When shootinng 45 Colt in my revovlers, I just left the damn lead in there. It was just too much trouble to remove, and didn't really hurt anythin anyway. No, I didn't find any rust.
For some wonderful reason, when shooting Black Powder, lead does not get deposited at all. After a few matches of BP, all the lead rings had magically dissapeared, since I don't shoot Smokeless anymore in CAS, they have not returned.