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.58 zouave rifle help

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Farmrn1973

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Picked up a .58 zouave rifle and have a .575 minnie ball mold. Whats a good load to start with? 2f or3f? Do I need to fill the back of the bullet with wax or lube? Do patched round balls shoot ok out of these? If so what size mold would i need? Thanks alot
 
My brother once owned one and I have owned two Zouaves and variants and all shot well with thin skirted old style minie bullets and 60-70 grains of ffg (2fg) powder. We also shot .570 patched round balls patched with lubed pillow ticking patches and up to 100gr 2fg Goex powder. Fred used Crisco and later bore butter lube in the grooves and cups of the Minies and I used bore butter just in the grooves. He could always out shoot me, so maybe filling the cups helped him. I can't remember shooting over about 75-100 yards back in the day, but everything worked out to minute of deer; (8" Pie pan groups). Other folks use thick skirted Minies with up to 150 grains 2f, but I have no experience with them, yet. I am presently building a 26" barreled Zouave 'buffalo gun' which I intend to wring out with all types of projectiles and loads; even paper wrapped shot loads for close range rabbits and c. We will see what happens . Good luck with your Zouave, they are a fine gun, Geo.
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I have an old Zouave I have had since 1971, it is somewhat of an over killer, but I shoot 80 grains of FF and 575 bullet form a lee mold. I have shot up to 120 grains for more distance. I have always filled the cavity with Crisco. I have carried the old rifle so long I am going to have to do some stock repair. I have used the musket cap nipple, but went back to the #11 nipple because the over flash was burning the stock. Didn't notice any difference in percussion performance. It has killed deer, rather demolished the front quarter of a deer. The rifle is fun to shoot, but burns lead and powder quickly. As far as accuracy, it will break a plow shear in half at a hundred yards (90 grains). I have loaded it scatter shot and patch and ball. This weapon has no authenticity for being used, but is manufactured for war use, easy, quick loading and will demolish it's target.
 
Check your bore size but I expect that .575 mini will be way too small. The mini shouldn't be more than .002" max under bore size. Filling the base of a mini will not help it expand and whatever you put in there may contaminate the powder charge. 2 or 3f work equally well, whatever you have on hand, I seem to have better luck with 2f. 40 to 50 grains of either works well unless you have a very thick skirted mini. The service load was 60 grains of 2f and that or heavier can get quite tiring after 25 or so rounds. 60 grains will drill a hole right through a whitetail sideways and probably lengthwise too. The shallow rifiling may give you trouble finding the right combo of powder, patch and ball size but it can be done.
 
I'm currently using a set of Zouaves in muzzleloading instruction with Boy Scouts. We conduct an evening open shoot at camp where the Scouts can shoot a Civil War musket with live ammo. All guns measure about .580 bore size. We're shooting RCBS Hogdons with 45gr 3f Schutzen powder sized to .579. Accuracy is about 2in at 50yd. In the last open shoot, I ran a musket for 53 rounds without wiping. Accuracy was still about 2in. Absolutely NO lube in the base. Beeswax/lard dip lube for grooves

You don't need huge charges of powder to shoot accurately.
 
I owned a Zouave decades ago and cast the 505 grain thin skirt minies and .562" ball. I can't recall any specifics but do remember using 60 - 65 grains of either 2F or 3F depending on which one the LGS happened to have in stock. The minies were a tad undersized. My response was to grease the grooves with my lube of Crisco and bee wax. Then I would pull one of the plies from a piece of 2ply toilet paper and wrap the bullet. It still went down easily but also would STAY down. The round ball's patch patch took care of that one.
 
A Zoli Zouave is like the "standard issue Rifle-Musket' that anyone with any interest in muzzleloading seems to own. :)

Good advice given above , my Zoli Buffalo Hunter (same rifle , different stock) shot very well with. 570 patched round balls.

Get a roll of 3M masking paper and some glue sticks for $5 at Home Depot and roll some 1863 pattern cartridges. So easy even I can do it. Get a dowel that's close to. 58 while you're there too.

Taking a muzzleloading rifle and a cartridge box full of cartridges to the range , shooting them all without wiping the bore, hitting the target , and maybe having a guy ask "wheres all your powder measures and round balls????" Is a good range day .
 
It was really pretty fun at that open shoot. One of the Scout leaders who was only familiar with round ball was asking why we weren't wiping between shots. I told him it just wasn't necessary because of how minies were designed. He had asked to keep a tally out of interest and we shot 53 times with no wiping and no real decline in accuracy. Just like the minie was designed for. I loaded 48 straight the previous shoot just to see how far it could go before needing to be wiped.

There's no need for huge powder charges. It was designed as a system to be used with a certain powder charge and certain type of lube. Duplicate that pretty much and keep it in balance and you'll get the same results they had over 150 years back.
 
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Picked up a .58 zouave rifle and have a .575 minnie ball mold. Whats a good load to start with? 2f or3f? Do I need to fill the back of the bullet with wax or lube? Do patched round balls shoot ok out of these? If so what size mold would i need? Thanks alot
A good load to start is 50 gr of 2f at 50 yrds and go from there. Do not put grease in the cavity, it ruins the top layer of powder charge and does nothing else but make the bore more fouled. The pressure generated by the powder igniting expands the skirt.
Mine shoots .570 RB or .580 thin skirt mini. Last match I shot in competition, the mini balls were only lubed with my water soluble oil based home made liquid patch lube. (not paste or cream) Loaded easy and the fouling was less than with grease.
Flintlocklar
 
I have fired Minies and .451 bullets, smeared only around the grooves with a finger full of Mr Flintlocks liquid patch lube. Works fine, 50 rounds , no wiping.
 
So many people try to reinvent the wheel, I would say the 60 gr charge that worked in the 1850s and 60s is still gonna work today.

I never got the "I use thick skirted Minies so I can use nosebleed 150 gr charges" people. Then you need to use another weapon then.
 
Picked up a .58 zouave rifle and have a .575 minnie ball mold. Whats a good load to start with? 2f or3f? Do I need to fill the back of the bullet with wax or lube? Do patched round balls shoot ok out of these? If so what size mold would i need? Thanks alot
I too recently pick up a Ranson Remington Italian Zouave. It shoots a .562/.020 PRB really good. I tried a .578 mini hollw base. It will go in but with some finagling. A .575 will pop in with thumb pressure and shoot pretty good. I say pretty good because I haven't had the chance to get serious with them.
The recommended military load is 60gns and fff will work fine. 70gns from what I've read is about max for skirt expansion with hollow base mini but some say might have to go up some just depends on how that particular mini expands. If the skirt expands too much it will cause it to flare out when it leaves the barrel causing it to slow faster and can make it walk. You cans get a nipple at tow if you want to use #11 primers. Mine was ERI-S. Make sure the thread size is correct for your gun.
 
Here's my actual experience with literally hundreds of rounds through one particular Zoli Zouave at Scout camp while instructing this summer. We're loading 45gr 3f Schutzen. Minie is RCBS Hogdon with tall base pin sized to .579 (bore was confirmed at 580+). At the open shoots in the evening, on 3 successive weeks using the same ammo-

1) 48 shots, no wiping
2) 53 shots, no wiping
3) 43 shots, no wiping

In the instruction part in morning and afternoon, no wiping during sessions. I do wet patch after the session followed by a couple dry patches but no serious cleaning. Most sessions will see about 30 to 50 shots. Accuracy is still good as one of our targets is a Ritz cracker on a wire at 25yds and presents an 8moa aspect ratio and the Scouts are mowing them down with that Zouave. (After we teach them how!:D)

This is only possible because the load is balanced with the amount of powder to the amount/type of lube. I'm dip lubing in 60/40 beeswax/lard. No accuracy fall off, there's lots of cracker crumbs that can attest to that. Barrel is as fouled as it's going to get by shot 4. So believe it or not, the system designed by Minie still works 150 years later. No need to reinvent anything, it just works.
 
Definitely glad I found this thread. I was contemplating just buying 3f and using it in all of my bp weapons (cartridge 45-70, cap & ball, flintlock pistol, etc). Seems like 3f and some different flask spouts may be the way to go.
 
I had a Zoli Zouave for years. never could get the thing to shoot minnie's and keep a group on the paper. (BTW, original charges were about 60 grains of powder under the 450 grain minnie. ) I found that the same charge with a patched round ball was good for a 2 inch group at 50 yds. There were two other Italian made Zouaves and at least on Spanish made. I have had no experience with those.
 
@pheenix99, I advise you to forego loading directly from the flask. You should always load from a volumetric measure. Use the smallest spout to pour powder into a volumetric measure. I only want to have one charge of powder being poured into the muzzle in case a lingering ember sets the powder charge off and I don't want to be holding a flask of powder if that happens. I am well aware that the likelihood of an ember setting off a charge of powder is rare but I would rather be loading powder with a one charge measure.

This flask from Midway has an attached volumetric measure.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1023140946?pid=637942
 
Important to size the mini. Light thumb pressure fit is fine. Main thing is that sizing improves roundness. Helps the mini to be balanced in flight.
 
I had a Zoli Zouave for years. never could get the thing to shoot minnie's and keep a group on the paper. (BTW, original charges were about 60 grains of powder under the 450 grain minnie. ) I found that the same charge with a patched round ball was good for a 2 inch group at 50 yds. There were two other Italian made Zouaves and at least on Spanish made. I have had no experience with those.
If you had followed what I've posted on this forum many times, I'd be that Zoli would surprise you. You can't go by what was used historically because the rifling is NOT the same. The guns might look similar, but inside they are completely different animals.
 
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