I had the (new to me) 43 year old Zoli Zouave out for its first range session Friday.

A couple of months agoI bought two pounds of Jim Shockey's GoldFFG loose powderbecause it was on sale real cheap. I opened a can when I got it home and it didlook like aquarium gravel as has been reported on some forums. It's been sitting in my closet ever since because I didn't have much hope for it.

Anyway, I figured I'd give it a try in the Zouave. So I loaded a bunch of powder tubes with 70 grains from a volume measure. I shot it under the 278 grain Hornady .570 ball with Wal-Mart pillow ticking patches and CCI Musket caps.

I didn't shoot over the chronograph (a little worried about the chrono), but that load had very little recoil.

Got a one and a half inchfive-shot group @ 25 yards. Center of group wassix and one-half inches above point of aim and one inchleft.

Got a six and a half inchfive-shot group @ 50 yards. Center of group was 12" above point of aim and 1" left. Group was a vertical string one and a half inches wide.

Got a four inchthree-shot group @ 100 yards. Group was an equilateral triangle. Aim point was an 8" round black "Shoot-N-C" target. The center of the group was about 4" above the horizontal center line of the target and about 8" to the left of target center.

This thing could really shoot if it had better sights, or I had better eyes. My bi-focal eyes just do not work with those military iron sights.

The JSGmade a lot of smoke, but was absolutely the cleanest burning powder I have ever used. Shot #1 was with a clean, dry barrel and I wiped with one dry patch between shots. Number 2 through 5 loaded just as easily as load #1. I will definitely be trying it again with stiffer charges to see if the accuracy holds up at higher velocities.

Here's the 25 yard target.