I bought a Nepalese Snider Enfield from IMA a few weeks ago. I'm using modified 24ga brass shotgun shells and a Lee .600 round ball. I'm using Lee dippers for my powder and filler. I'm loading 4.0cc of Goex 2F (About 54gr by weight) then a thick (Maybe 1/8") 24ga cardboard wad. I don't have the compression deal for my press yet, so I'm just manually compressing the powder using a large punch on top of the wad and compressing it by hand. Then I'm putting 3.7cc of grits. Then a small amount of Crisco or Bore Butter (I've tried both). Then the .600 round ball. This load gives me a muzzle velocity of right at 1200 fps.
At 25 yards, it will make a 5 round ragged hole, but it's 2-3 inches left and maybe 5 inches higher than POA. It stays in the black if I aim at 6:00. From reading some of the accuracy horror stories on these rifles, I was pretty pleased with that group. However, when I move back to 50 yards, my ragged hole opens up to about an 8"-10" group, some of which are not even on the paper (NRA 100 yard rifle target). What's going on? I've not actually measured the groups, but just to estimate, I'd say my 25 yard group was 2". I would expect that to go to 4" at 50 yards, all other things being equal. But obviously, all other things are not equal. What's going on with this thing?