Borrowing from RSW's post, I have a Stevens - Pope barrel with a bullet that looks and fits just like the one shown on the right.  Everything I've heard and read says that smokeless powder doesn't bump the bullet up that well.  Can we assume that smokeless will bump up that bullet so that the first 3 driving bands fill up the bore.  Should a shooter with that tapered bullet shoot using a softer alloy like 30-1 or even 40-1 since there isn't much of a nose that can upset?

"I hope those reading this thread will find this germane to the topic. Photo below is of a test I ran to examine the fins of a breech seated bullet vs one that was muzzle loaded. The breech seated bullet was .001 inch over groove diameter of barrel in which it was seated. The muzzle loaded bullet was a little more than .001 over groove diameter. Both bullets were lubed, I removed the lube after the test to better show the effects on the bullet bodies.
The breech seated bullet was cast 1:20 in a base pour Steve Brooks mould and went into a Ron Smith 32 cal, gain twist barrel. It was breech seated with a Weber seater, then pushed approx. 6 inches ahead of the chamber with a rod, then gently pushed back out the breech.
The muzzle loaded bullet was cast 1:30 in a nose pour Pope mould and shoved with a bullet starter through a Stevens-Pope false muzzle held in a vice and caught on a pad to prevent bullet damage."

I agree with Randy;s analysis of bore riding. 

I have 1000's of rounds through my Stevens-Pope.  I have found that a bullet that is small enough to muzzle load is not big enough to shoot at top performance with smokeless.  The Hoch mold Dave Farmer made based on my bore slug is at least .004" bigger at the base than the Schoyen mold that came with the rifle. I doubt if the Hoch bullet could be driven down from the muzzle. 

My rifle shows a slight preference for 20:1 over 30:1.

just to share my experience - when fire forming with smokeless I've had poor luck, especially fire forming .405s for my 40-63.  The base near the web takes several iterations with smokeless whereas BP fills the chamber with one firing.  That tells me the kick provided by smokeless is weak compared to BP.    If I were trying to get some bump-up I'd use a fast powder like Unique but fireforming it still does not compare and may not for bumping up an alloy either.

My ability at this sport is limited so I don't qualify as to whether that bullet can shoot or not.  The rifle is missing it's false muzzle and it's a bullet from an Accurate mold with dimensions given to me by a forum member that owns several Pope molds.  Front driving band is .314"