Jim, yes Sir. 44 Special will function just fine. Just stick with traditional fmj. hollow points and not wad cutters and you will be good.

Yes it will mine worked just fine with most 44 special it would not feed if I was using 44 special full wadcutters I think the flat nose was the issue

Yes it should handle it without issue, you may even be able to fit an extra round in the tube with Specials too. It is probably not even necessary but just to be safe I usually clean the gun out before switching from Special to Magnum to get rid of the 0.1" worth of carbon deposited from shooting the shorter case so that the longer Magnum case won't potentially get stuck.