Thought I'd start a new thread instead of de-railing the other 500 BPE thread.

Here's a couple of more photos of my little Thomas Mortimer 500 BPE.
It was a bit of a "barn find" rifle, and as often happens, was only 10 minutes from where I live, but never knew it was there. The old Gentleman I bought it off has had it for over 40 years and never fired it.
I actually went to his house to have a look at a Swinburne rifle, never having held one before. I fell in love with it and it followed me home. All we knew about it was that it was a "450" calibre. After a chamber cast etc it was actually a 500/450 WR Musket #2, much better... It has engraved on the right hand side of the action James W Rosier, Melbourne Australia.
Anyway, when I picked up the Swinburne, John said you need to look at this rifle, and he gave me a Cogswell and Harrison underlever hammer double rifle in 450 BPE to look at, again, he had it for 40 years and never fired it. It too followed me home, so as they say, third times a charm, went back to pick up the Cogswell and that's when he gave me the Mortimer to look at, and as you can guess, it too needed a new home. I haven't been back since, ran out of money!

I shoot a duplex load of smokeless and black in the Mortimer, the load is as follows.
Hornady 500 NE case, Federal 210M primer, 12 grains of AR 2207 (H 4198), then 95 grains of Wano PP, then a beeswax disc, then a 1/8" grease cookie of SPG and then a 0.060" Walters vegetable fibre wad, followed by a 350 grain Paper Patch soft lead projectile. Velocity is 1715 fps.
It shoots well enough at 50m, with 5 shot groups running around 1.5" and about 2.5 - 3 inches at 100m, on a good day! It is a huge amount of fun to shoot, and at 7 lbs, is fairly stout.

Recently I used it in a Blackpowder Express event at our club. This is a sanctioned event in the Big Game Rifle Club in Australia. Course of fire is as follows - 4 shots offhand and 4 shots sitting or kneeling at 100 metres. The target for the event is the International 50M slowfire pistol target. At 50 metres, we fire 4 shots offhand again, followed by 2 rounds rapid-fire, in 10 seconds. Then at 25 metres, we fire 3 lots of 2 rounds rapid-fire, again, each 2 rounds in 10 seconds. Total match is 20 rounds. In QLD rules, we can clean between shots, or between ranges. In the National rules, no cleaning is allowed for the whole match, hence the use of duplex loads.
I usually use a Ruger #1 in 450 BPE for this event, but as our BGR "season" is done now, I decided to shoot the Mortimer, whilst not as accurate as my Ruger, I certainly wouldn't disgrace myself with this rifle. And I think this rifle likes being taken out and fired as it should have been for the last 40 years or so.

Here's a couple of more photos.