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I’ve had that same pistol in my safe for about 30 years and have no idea what it is or what caliber. I inherited it and just never did anything with it. I just checked and apparently it is also .22 short. Can you give me a brief history of it, date range, value maybe?
i typed without engaging my brain. this particular gun is an old J. Stevens A&T co. built in Chicopee Falls. hard to date this one its in shch bad shape. patent date is 1862 so sometime after that.
a pristine example will sell for about 250+/-
i think i gave 10.00 for this one.
 
A Tale of Two Foxes. A wonderful morning shooting at the local range; windy as usual for September, blowing from left to right across the target set at 50 metres from the bench. I tested 2 loads in the Parker Hale 53 using the same sight picture and point of aim. In both I used a small 320gn dead soft minie, one lot of ten paper patched, the other lot lubed in beeswax and lard - a shoot off of sorts. For all loads I used 50gns of Wano FFFg with 50gns of semolina over each charge. Interesting result. This time the lubed lads win! Who knows what another shoot off may reveal when the wind disappears. Nice holes, huh?

Cheers, Pete

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Interesting little bullet Pete. ??
I'm just casting a few different ones up now for new to me Zoli Zouave. I like lite weight projs for 100 yds.
 
Ok, I need some info from experienced Stock bedders......
I may need to Bed the Barrel / Stock on a Zoli Zouave. It is new to me, haven't received it yet, so havn't shot it yet. Hopefully it shoots fine ( the last one did). If not then I will Bed the barrel. Any help here would be appreciated. What materials to use, procedure etc. Thanks in advance. DR.
 
In my never ending attempt to improve my scores at the range with my 58 cal. Musket, I cast and sized 25 Hodgon minies and cast 20 Ashcans from an old Lee mold 575-470M. I sized the skirt of the Hodgon to .580” with an S&S sizing die. Decided to coat both with Alox to make things less messy at the range. The Ashcans coated the entire projectile, the Hodgon just dipped the skirt. Will report if improvement and ease in loading and more importantly scoring. NC Championship in 2 weeks.
 

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A Tale of Two Foxes. A wonderful morning shooting at the local range; windy as usual for September, blowing from left to right across the target set at 50 metres from the bench. I tested 2 loads in the Parker Hale 53 using the same sight picture and point of aim. In both I used a small 320gn dead soft minie, one lot of ten paper patched, the other lot lubed in beeswax and lard - a shoot off of sorts. For all loads I used 50gns of Wano FFFg with 50gns of semolina over each charge. Interesting result. This time the lubed lads win! Who knows what another shoot off may reveal when the wind disappears. Nice holes, huh?

Cheers, Pete

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dang. nice shooting
 
Melted down a bunch of roofing vents that a fellow club member dropped off to me to make into ingots for him. Then went to the range to practice for our offhand match tomorrow and shot the forum postal match target while I was there. I shot until I ran out of powder! Came home and refilled the contents of my shooting box and got everything ready for the match. You know you got a lot of shooting in when your hands look like this Ha!
 

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Had a civil war naval cannon hid in the shop for a couple years. Never a question about it. But my boss is never surprised anymore...
Here she is. Wasn't mine but a contractor that was working on turning an old swinging door detached garage into my current workshop owned it. He took a job for an elderly man cleaning out his old shed. The man told him he could have everything he wanted, he just wanted it all gone. And, under all the ruble, there she was. Problem was my contractor was a convicted felon and had just recently gotten out of the Graybar Hotel. He couldn't own firearms, so his guys brought it over and stashed it at my place. It stayed there until he found a buyer. All within the law as he never had possession of it. I was sad to see it go. Wanted to buy it myself but his price was a bit steep.
 

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Ok, I need some info from experienced Stock bedders......
I may need to Bed the Barrel / Stock on a Zoli Zouave. It is new to me, haven't received it yet, so havn't shot it yet. Hopefully it shoots fine ( the last one did). If not then I will Bed the barrel. Any help here would be appreciated. What materials to use, procedure etc. Thanks in advance. DR.
Dusty Rhodes (great name!), I would use the search bar at the top right of the screen and simply enter Zouave 58 - then work your way through the reading; you'll find lots of good stuff here from previous posters, I'm sure. I did exactly that for my Parker Hale 53 when I first started out, to get it to shoot. The info that came up for me got me shooting the rifled musket into very satisfying groups. For me, most of the workup was finding a good load, suitable minie, lube, and of course, sight picture. I'm really loath to change any part of my PH Enfield 53, and 58, with the exception that I did use a poster's advice here to use good old fashion layers of brown paper to bed immediately under the action, and the barrell bands. The original military fixed sights (elevation adjustments only) on my 53 shoot slightly to the right, so for a perfect bullseye, I habitually use a seven oclock hold, and they all land in the middle if I do my bit.

I have every confidence, posters fom this site will get your Zoli Zouave up and running. Have fun! I look forward to hearing about your results.

Cheers, Pete
 
Well, this is a bit tangential, as I haven't done anything in a practical sense today. However, I have placed a bid on the French 'Naturabuy' site for an Ardessa Hawken-esque type rifle which is listed as 'barely used'. If I can get it for less than 300 Euros (about 330 dollars) I will have done well. Such things always sell for about a third more over here than in the US. Strange, given that I only live a day's drive from many of the factories that make modern BP arms! But - as I am still relatively new to this can anyone see, from the photos, why I might want to steer clear of this? I already have a similar rifle made by investarm, but the chance of getting this for a low price is too good to miss. Auction ends 08.15AM tomorrow, 02.15AM Eastern Standard Time. The powder horn comes with it.
https://www.naturabuy.fr/Fusil-percussion-Ardesa-hawken-calibre-45-poudre-noire-item-10956439.html
 
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Made it to the gun range this morning. Really nice session with PRBs and Graf’s 2f, .018 pillow ticking and TOTW mink oil
In my .50 Renegade. Still getting used to peep sight and Lyman globe plus a 15 mph crosswind but not bad with aging eyes. Best stress reliever on the planet.
 

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The squirrels have stayed out of range so far this season, so I went out today to get some offhand shooting practice. Aswell as tote around my new Hunting bag. One of these days I'm going to attend a woodswalk and I'd like to be somewhat competent.

It's taken me 10+ years of flintlock shooting to finally get a bag for myself, today was the first time I've actually loaded and shot one of my flint guns repetitively without a bench. I need some work offhand, but I was happy to get off 20+ shots without difficulty loading. First 7 shots were out of my loading block lubed with mink oil, the remainder with moosemilk strips cut at the muzzle. For what it's worth these 4" self-healing targets are fun, and small enough to put in a bag or pocket. A bit too much brush on the ground this time of year to use it as intended but hung from a branch works just fine

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If you really want to learn how to fit parts together and understand that little dance that goes on between several parts at once, buy a Traditions Kentucky pistol kit and learn how. For 230 bucks you can figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul and determine exactly how much you need to steal to get the job done.

When folks say Traditions kits are junk, they're half right. Out of the box they're complete garbage. Poor inletting. Poor metal to wood fitment. Etc. But all of the parts are solid and 100% serviceable.

You just have to be ready to break out the chisels and files and remove some wood and metal.


Had to push the tang inlet down more than .100 inches so the barrel would make contact with the barrel channel. This in turn dropped the drum more than .100 inches.

Now the fun begins.

Removing material from the lock plate/bolster is a nonstarter. It would chew into the area of the bolster that houses the top of the mainspring.

Just have to grab the files and remove material from the bottom of the drum. Just enough so the tang, barrel and drum make contact at the same time. In this case, had to remove a tad more than .100 inches from the drum.

The only drawback to this kind of set-up, is you must remove the barrel in order to remove the lock. But it's worth it to have all the parts fitting together well.
 

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If you really want to learn how to fit parts together and understand that little dance that goes on between several parts at once, buy a Traditions Kentucky pistol kit and learn how. For 230 bucks you can figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul and determine exactly how much you need to steal to get the job done.

When folks say Traditions kits are junk, they're half right. Out of the box they're complete garbage. Poor inletting. Poor metal to wood fitment. Etc. But all of the parts are solid and 100% serviceable.

You just have to be ready to break out the chisels and files and remove some wood and metal.


Had to push the tang inlet down more than .100 inches so the barrel would make contact with the barrel channel. This in turn dropped the drum more than .100 inches.

Now the fun begins.

Removing material from the lock plate/bolster is a nonstarter. It would chew into the area of the bolster that houses the top of the mainspring.

Just have to grab the files and remove material from the bottom of the drum. Just enough so the tang, barrel and drum make contact at the same time. In this case, had to remove a tad more than .100 inches from the drum.

The only drawback to this kind of set-up, is you must remove the barrel in order to remove the lock. But it's worth it to have all the parts fitting together well.
Exactly 100% correct!! I was given 3 St.Louis Hawken kits years ago and learned so much. Having two mentors and this forum helped my addiction. Thank you all.
 
Shot in an offhand match at my club today and did ok. Yesterday I received a new Army of Northern Virginia shirt that I ordered so I wore it to the shoot, well while I was swabbing my pistol's bore the rod got stuck and when I finally got it loose the front sight caught the shirt and ripped a hole in it 🤬. Also bought myself a fox pelt at the match but my daughter claimed it to display in her room! It was a fun day but I'm ready for a nap.
 

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