Well another mango season is now past, so I thought I'd better get on with it.
Fired the Sharps today, and it was surprisingly well-mannered at the range. I only had two cartridges to fire, seeing as how the projectiles were lathe-turned from .58 Minie bullets cast with no hollow base. Took me a while to get that right! My aim was to achieve a close approximation of the Richmond Laboratories heel-based conical pattern. Driving band at .530 dia (not too tight, just in case) and heel at .512 dia. Standard recipe for paper tube with folded tail.

Being conservative, I loaded ~60 grains of 2F into the rolled paper cartridges, with a bit of Semolina between bullet base and powder to get the correct length to chop off the folded tail with virtually no spillage.

Target at 25m, not knowing what to expect. First shot went into the black at the 7-ring, maybe 11:30. Adjusted, and put the second into the ten-ring just left of dead centre. Both point-first despite the patches of bad pitting in the bore.

...and my hair didn't catch fire, didn't burn my sleeve, no blinding flash... all good. Suitably inspired, I will now make the time to assemble a bunch of cartridges and try for a group at 50 and 100m. Might even buy a mold if those 'Eras Gone' guys will export to Oz.

Wish I could post a photo but my uploader is now beyond hope. Will download a better one soon.

Almost forgot, sent a few .44-40s down-range from the 1873 Winchester SRC today too. The bore had cleaned up pretty well with some elbow grease! Started with a one-hole 3-shot group at 25m rested, so burnt the rest of 'em at the 100m steel plate, some rested, some offhand. Didn't miss once!
Considering that rifle is ~135 years old, I can't believe my luck!