Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders New to me Zoli-made Navy Arms 1863 Remington .58 Zouave replica

I bought this used Zoli-made Navy Arms 1863 Remington .58 Zouave replica recently for $200:



It was really dusty for having been in storage for 10+ years, but it cleaned up very well. While it has been fired, the bore is shiny-clean. There was some light surface rust freckling on the underside of the barrel just behind the muzzle, but that disappeared with Kroil, fine brass wool, and elbow grease (brass wool does NOT remove blueing). The brass bands and other fittings have a really nice flat patina that I'm not going to touch.

I haven't fired it yet, but it's a Zoli-made replica with a S/N in the 50,000 range so it's a fairly late model as these things go. The rifling is three-grove, and I'm anxious to see how it handles the .58 Minie bullets that I buy from Randy Moyer in central PA.

I saw a Hy Hunter / Zoli marked 1863 Remington Zouave replica nearly identical to this one with a four-digit S/N for $550, and any other replica I've come across in the past 2-3 years has been over $450, finding this one for $200 was outstanding, IMO.

Should be a nice companion to my Parker-Hale Musquetoon.

Noah

I passed up one for $149.00 a few weeks ago in a Pensacola pawn shop. When I went back to get it, it was gone.

Check the rate-of-twist to be sure it's optimal for mini� balls. A friend cursed his until he figured out it was rifled for PRBs.

Most of them are tack drivers with PRBs.

??????
the Zouave like the Enfield , was designed specifically to shoot Minie ball

Both had very slow rates of twist compared to what is thought to be acceptable today .
The original 1853 Enfield carried a 1 in 120 twist later runs were 1 in 78 . The Zouave I believe was a 1 in 66 twist . I would have to look it up to be 100% sure thought .
But again both these rifles were designed specifically for large Minie . both were very good at longer distances even with the slow twist .

The Zouve doesn't shoot minnies very well.

I have the same rifle. Won't shoot Minie' balls for spit. Tack driver with PRB's.....which is fine with me. I don't reenact CW and got it for hunting and a 58 cal. PRB is quite a hunk of lead.

fellas , take the time , even just a few seconds and do alittle research on this subject . even if that research is nothing more then a quick google search .
even that level of research will show you that the zouave was
A) designed specificly for the Minie ball
B) had a very slow twist
c) very accurate out to and past 400 yards

the rest is up to you .

past all that ,. I owned an Armsport 58 Zouave for years . shooting a original designed Minie ?? lets just say that at 300 yards i could take swampman right out of his golf cart in a blink of an eye .
and no thats not a threat
In fact if you do a google , you will see a vidio of a fella sighting in his Zouave at 420 yards .
that begs the question of ; what diffrent fromt he original Zouave's ?

I have a replica 1861 springfield

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_162_192&products_id=893

if your having trouble with the mini- balls in many cases I see your either not using nearly pure lead with lots of lube or your charge weight is rather excessive,if the charge weights excessively large the mini-ball skirt flares like a bad-mitten birdy on exiting the muzzle and accuracy goes to hell instantly . if the bullet alloys to hard (like wheel weights)the skirt won,t expand into the shallow rifling properly. to mild a powder charge fails to expand the skirt into the rifling, its a balance that must be met

the original design, weight forward, thin skirt, mini-ball doesn,t require a really fast spin to remain stable, the more modern projectile designs with thicker skirts and far shallower base hollow designs ,do!

you should easily be able to deform the mini-ball skirt with your thumb if its pure lead, load about 60 grains of powder , then lube the crap out of the mini-ball,all over and inside the base fill with lube, Ive always gotten better accuracy with a cosmetic cotton ball firmly compressed between the powder charge and the well lubed mini,as it prevents lube from wetting the powder and it acts like a bore wipe, loads over 80 grains in a 58 cal will almost always deform a mini ball skirt, but most rifles like a 60-70 grain charge weight, and yes thats a very deadly load with the traditional mini, its both more accurate and far more deadly than a typical iron sight 30/30 carbine in skilled hands out to well over 150 yards from my experience, well yes you are limited to a single shot, but thats all you need

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/58...caliber-575-diameter-460-grain-old-style

Comparing apples and oranges Cap! Absolutely originals of that flavor were rifled for mini�s, but over the last 50 years or so some of the various manufacturers of "Zouave" rifles only gave a nod in the direction of originality. There are repros out there rifled for PRB's.

really . and what makes that so . slow twist , deep rifling , shallow rifling ?
My Armsport had rifling so fine that unless you dropped a bore light , one would have sworn it had no rifling .
deep rifling ? well now . many today claim that one of the issues with modern production rifles and the round ball is that the rifling has become to deep

so maybe its the slow twist . but if thats the case how come the original rifles shot the Minie ball so well when the rifling was over 2X as slow as whats commonly seen today for so called RB barrels

you hit the nail right on the head 340 . all to often its to heavy of a powder charge and blown skirts or its over size or undersize bores thus plain the wrong conical combination for that given rifle .

The repo Zouaves won't shoot minnies no matter what you do. They will shoot PRBs great. Been there and done that for weeks.

weeks hu ? lmao
i just have o save that one for prosperity

If you don't know what you're talking about, why are you commenting?...oh wait, that what you always do.

coming from someone with weeks of experience LOL

many guys don,t realize that the original mini ball partly stabilizes by being distinctly nose heavy / weight forward , just like a styro-foam coffee cup with a couple table spoons of sand in the bottom, if you throw a styro foam cup with a tablespoon of sand in it,it will always travel bottom forward, and wide open mouth to the rear in the arc it travels, the rifling imparts some spin increasing accuracy, but unlike the newer bullet designs the original mini does not totally depend on that spin to remain point forward, many newer designs are longer and not as nose heavy so they require spin to maintain gyroscopic stability.
but if the skirt is deformed as it exits the muzzle, or the mini is not spun by the rifling, any chance of a consistent shot to shot impact point is destroyed

That all fine and understood but the Zoli Zouave just won't shoot minnies worth a hoot. I shoots PRBs just fine. A few have had sucess with the really short bullets.

According to what I've researched and then measured in my Navy Repro Zouave, the twist is 1:48.

I spoke to Randy Moyer and he told me to stick to 65-75 gr of FFg Goex, or the volume equivalent in Pyrodex RS with his 460 gr Minie, and that's exacty what I did this afternoon. I needed a few shots to get the hang of the sights, but once I got dialed in I was knocking over bowling pins (more like launching them horizontally) on the 100 yd berm offhand with Pyrodex RS volume equivalent of 70-75 of FFg black. Minute of bowling pin is good enough for me to keep it. I'll get some balls to try when I find some.

Thank you all!

Noah

Good on you Noah .
glad to see your working through it and getting results
keep working at it

glad you're enjoying it. the old zoli zouaves really are decent repo's. they will shoot minies, and they can shoot minies REALLY well when you find the right combo. many N-SSA shooters pick one of these up as their first rifle to shoot. I shot one for awhile in competition using the Lee "trashcan" minie. it was dead nuts consistent at 50 and 100 yds.

the key is getting a minie that's the right size for the bore of your particular gun. theres a good amount of variance in the bore sizes of these repos, and you want a minie that is going to be one or two thousandths under the bore size. if it's too undersize, accuracy will drop off. also, as mentioned earlier, you want to use pure lead. i use goex 3F in my minie-shooting rifles, usually somewhere between 40 and 45 g will give you good results.

you might also try a wadcutter type minie, like the lyman 575-315. i shoot wadcutters exclusively these days, because they use less lead (each bullet around 320 grains) and they produce less recoil.