New Pedersoli and a ton of questions.

[country gent]

A modified case can help determine seating depth and powder charge. I have made and used them. Basically your making case with a collet neck.

You need a Scribe, square, small piece of angle, and a dremil with cutoff wheel. Lay out ink or a marker help a lot.

Ink the case down the body and all the way around.
Lay out one line with the angle down the length of the body.
With the square mark a line 3/8"- 7/16" from case mouth ( this is the collet portion of the neck)
Now mark a line 1/2" below this one.
Right side line goes to case mouth left side connects the 2 lines scribed. What you want is a 4/8 section of mouth and a "window" below it.
With the dremil cut right side line from bottom line thru case mouth. Cut left side line from line to line.
cut lines from cut to cut forming window.
Deburr edges inside and out

To use hand seat bullet long and chamber carefully closing action , carefully open action and remove round. Pinch the neck and measure overall length. then measure down from case neck to base of bullet in window. This is where powder charge, wads, and compression need to end up -.005-.010.

THe split neck allows overall length to be found and you can mathematically figure base point. The added window allows the base location to be measured.

[rfd]

when i played with greasers i made up dummies using a hornady OAL gauge to precisely set the cartridge length. from there it was relatively easy to figure powder charge, compression w/wad, bullet seat depth.

[Nobade]

That works quite well.
I go for the really cheap route, just press a bullet into the rifling with a wooden dowel and measure to the base of it with the depth end of a caliper. Or if you don't have one, measure from the muzzle with your dowel and then again to the breech face without the bullet.

[flynth]

I haven't got much experience with my Pedersoli Sharps. I probably shot a total of 300 bullets through it yet, but I can say that my enjoyment of the rifle increased substantially when I did the following:
- I tried to lower the number of variables in the load I test. I chose a Lyman 457132 Postell bullet cast from an alloy with BHN between 8 and 10(I found the bullets I was buying online were made with pure lead and I believe my accuracy was suffering due to bullet nose slump.). This is with just a thin card wad and a thin wax wad cut directly from a sheet of wax with the shell. You can get thin sheets of wax like this from bee keeping suppliers. The one I use is called "medium brood foundation". I'm not sure if the wax does anything at all - I put this load together based on a Paul Matthews book. I'm not currently using a lube cookie and I'm using a blow tube, wiping with a piece of dry paper kitchen towel between shots. The bullet lube I use is from the same book and consists of 2 parts wax, 1 part neatsfoot oil, 1 part potassium soap (the book has Murphy's oil soap as last ingredient, but I can't get it here so I use a liquid potassium soap bought in garden supplies - if you choose to make this lube mix well first two ingredients and add the third one slowly while mixing). The lube works well for finger lubing.
- I started to pull the rifle into my shoulder and generally hold it with more force. Early on I held it too gently. The very first time I used a firmer hold my groups shrank from 5 inches to around 2-2.5 inches in 100m (The gun is much more capable, this size group is reflecting my shooting more than the gun or the load).

Also, I highly recommend you read some of the books on the subject recommended by others on the forum. My favourite book if you're looking to shoot grease groove bullets is "Loading the Black Powder Rifle Cartridge" by Paul A Matthews. If you're more interested in paper patching the same author wrote "The Paper Jacket" also a good book. Another good book is "Shooting Buffalo Rifles of The Old West" by Mike Venturino.