Navy Arms Buffalo Hunter

[James Kelly]

Anyone have experience with these "sporterized Zuoaves"?
Navy essentially started with a Zoli Zuoave, .58 cal but barrel cut down from 33" to 26", 1 in 48" twist, half-stock w under rib?

Thinking about getting as used one, as in my Ancient Decrepitude I prefer a reasonably light rifle. Personally now kill only steel targets.
Italian guns seem to use a strong, clean low-sulfur steel in them.
American muzzle gun steel tends to split or shatter when something goes wrong.

Would expect to use a patched round ball, either .562 or .570", 60-ish grains of Swiss.

Thoughts?

[Winter Hawk]

If the price is right, I say snatch it up!  A friend in Fairbanks bought one back in the early 1970s and it was a great little rifle.  Last time I talked to him he still had it.  My Lyman Black Powder Handbook has an article by Val Forgett where he used one to take an elephant and other game.  He worked up a load of 180 gr. FFFg with a 610 gr. Minie, getting a 4 1/2" group at 100 yards.  "We found the recoil of such massive loads tolerable in the offhand position, though a bit punishing from a bench rest."  I would think so!

~WH~

[Bigsmoke]

Not a terribly popular rifle, so there were not a lot of them around.  And it has been a while since I have seen one, so my recollector machine might not be working just right, but - I think you are talking about two different guns here.
Mr. Kelly is talking about one that is rather light.
and WH is talking about one that had either a 1 1/8 or a 1 1/4" barrel, forget which..  Neither one would be rather light.
And something that burns about 180 grains of Fffg???  Ufda!!!
Now, there is nothing that says you need to burn that much powder in it, so it doesn't need to buck an snort and such, but you're gonna have to do it at least once, maybe more.
I had one geez, I don't know, maybe 35 or 40 years ago, and it didn't feel like any lightweight, I'll tell you.  And IIRC, it didn't kick like a feather, either.
IIRC again, I don't think that Forgett shot an elephant with it, but I think it was a hippo, which is still a lot of critter.  I forget exactly what the bullet was all about, but I think it was somewhere in the 650 or 700 grain range, which is going to add to the recoil somewhat as well.
It seems to me that Navy Arms did put out a sporterized Zouave, but the details have faded a lot in the intervening years.
John

[Winter Hawk]

You are probably right about the rifle used on the elephant.  The article shows him with the beast and the rifle, and he mentions working up the load with a Hawken type rifle (with Major George Nonte!).  However, the photo of the zebra he shot is captioned that he used the Buffalo Hunter to bag it, which led me to erroneously believe that he used it on the rest of the beasts also.  I'll have to reread it to get everything right!

He shot the hippo first to show the skeptical professional hunter that a muzzleloader was capable of killing big beasts.

Either way, I'm glad I wasn't at the butt end of that load when it went off! 

~WH~

[AxelP]

The full stocked military Zouave was the first muzzleloading rifle I owned back in the late 70s. I always admired the look of the Sporterized version and dreamed of converting mine. Alas, my Zouave rifle met its demise in a house fire. I still think the sporterized version is kind of cool--but have serious doubts as to its authenticity. If I had a chance to pick one up and it was in good condition, I'd be sorely tempted.

K

[windwalker_au]

Anyone have experience with these "sporterized Zuoaves"?
Navy essentially started with a Zoli Zuoave, .58 cal but barrel cut down from 33" to 26", 1 in 48" twist, half-stock w under rib?

Thinking about getting as used one, as in my Ancient Decrepitude I prefer a reasonably light rifle. Personally now kill only steel targets.
Italian guns seem to use a strong, clean low-sulfur steel in them.
American muzzle gun steel tends to split or shatter when something goes wrong.

Would expect to use a patched round ball, either .562 or .570", 60-ish grains of Swiss.

Thoughts?

james I had one back in the early 1980s but had it stolen, I took 3 water buffalo with mine in the north of australia the load was 125 grns off fff under a 625 grn minie bullet [ as used by fal fogart of navy arms in Africa] all 3 buffalo where one shot kills. it was very accurate with minie bullets. the only thing I did was replace the ramrod with a brass one as the wood one was 1/4 off an inch thick and off poor quality.
Bernie