What a beautiful rifle. If it shoots as good as it looks you have it made. Why they suggested the 295 grain powerbelts I would not know. It might shoot them all right. I would not use too much powder at first.

With the 1-48 twist it will shoot round ball real well. In fact with that long barrel you should be able to stabalize a lot of projectiles well. These rifles were not high powder charge rifles. They usually did their best with moderate load ranges. I would think the 70 grain area would do the best but you will find that out when you shoot it.. I would suggest the following loads;

.490 round ball, a .015 patch and 70 grains of Pyrodex RS

Shooting the powerbelts, I would start out at 70 grains and see what kind of three shot group you get. If they are spread out a lot, then increase the powder charge 5 grains. Keep doing that until you get a nice tight group. A word of caution do not charge that rifle more then 100 grains. A friend of mine had one similar to yours and when he started shooting 110 grains, he cracked the stock near the breech. Also if you do not get any good group with the powerbelts do not be surprised, although I think you will.

If shooting conicals, then shoot some of the smaller weight ones. If they do not work for you then try some other ones. Try them at 70 grains. When sighting in anything, be sure you swab the barrel with some T/C #13 bore cleaner then some dry patches between shots. People also use spit, denatured alcohol and windex mix 50/50. The important thing is be sure and swab, then make sure you dry the barrel good before loading it again.

Sabots will shoot out of the twist you have. Make them small. 240 grain range or smaller would be my guess. It will be interesting to see how well that rifle does shoot. Keep us updated....