Thanks for the notes both of you-

Marrakai, what's the weight of your rifle -- eight and a half pounds?
Mine weighs in at just ten and a quarter pounds.

That 480gr at 2080fps shows up in Wrights book as 2100fps and twelve tons with seventy grains of mystery powder. The black powder load (360gr/1850fps) for the 3-1/2" bottleneck 450 lists at ten tons, the period NFB with 52grCordite at eleven tons - the load I'm running here tested at nine tons for Wright. Even though Greener and most other period texts show the 500/450 BPE guns weighing out like Marrakai's rifle -- and mine's a much heavier gun, I don't think I should push the issue with the 480 or 500 grain bullets without first knowing for double damn sure that they can be loaded at near or below the original pedestrian-grade bottleneck BPE pressures even if my rifle IS a freak of nature!

Those 350gr Hornady SNRN bullets have tested to have good soft lead cores and fairly thin elemental copper jackets. I'll just stick with them for now. At this point they're by far the most accurate bullet with this rifle, fairly inexpensive too.

Oh, and about those animals...
Marrakai, note the tigers. I've thought of putting a photo of them up on the thread discussing the Raj rifles and prowling tigers.

Can either of you identify the horned animals on the left lockplate?

--Tinker