Ufff Da!  Great frustration.  OK -

SAAMI standards show max and min sizes for chambers and cartridges.

Reamer manufacturers will do those dimensions or one can have custom ones made.

My frustration is having to put a larger bullet (diameter) into the standard chamber and it's too tight!!

SO, the question is, what diameter chamber do you need/want for the patched/un-patched bullet; and can you get someone to do it for you?

Obviously, if  you are breech seating, this is not an issue.
 
One needs to determine (flip a coin) as to the amount of clearance one needs, and do the calculations (depending on brass wall thickness) etc.

A "real" paper-patch chamber is (from my reading) a mechanical fit to a full-length sized case with a bore-diameter patched bullet inserted into the end.  The inserted bullet can be pulled out but doesn't fall out in normal handling. Cases need no resizing after firing because they don't expand in the first place.  Expanding the case mouth for a groove-diameter bullet will prevent the round from chambering fully in such a chamber.

Modern target chambers as done in BPCR reproduction rifles are generally "minimum" enough so that both types of bullets can be loaded and fired.  The shells come out slightly expanded from the full-length-size, enough to allow a groove-diameter bullet to be inserted by hand without it falling out in normal handing.  A slight amount of mouth reduction for a straight side paper-patched bullet or using a dual-diameter paper-patched bullet will make a round that the bullet won't fall out of but will work in these chambers as well.

The .38-55 is a sort of special circumstance.  The old barrels were "real" .38s; being 0.381" or more in groove diameter.  The chambers in the two original Highwalls I have are equally cavernous, allowing such oversize bullets to be loaded and chambered.  But many of the "modern" .38-55s when the caliber got popular again typically used 0.375" groove diameter barrels made for H&H Magnums, like the standardized 0.429" .44 Magnum barrels now inflicted upon a lot of .44-40s.  The .38-55 chambers for such barrels could be minimized as well, to fit the smaller diameter bullets, which is now bad news if you have a "Commemorative" lever action or an "authentic" BPCR replica that now proudly sports the old-time oversized barrel but still has the tight chamber for the 0.375" barrel.  Using black powder would slug up an undersized lead bullet (grooved or patched), but I would think the chamber would need to be relieved for best results with the former, especially with smokeless loads.