Played around with the .58 Zouave on Sunday.



Did you notice the home made peep sight on this gun? (I know the old hands on this forum have seen some of this stuff before, but the new guys haven't.)

I made the sight by modifying a 1/2" hex nut for the main part of the sight, and used three 1/2" hex bolts to make the apertures.

Here's the sight and the three apertures. The aperture hole sizes are 1/8", 3/16" and 1/4".



Now I know placing that sight where the normal rear sight would be this isn't the proper position for a peep sight. But I put it there because I didn't want to modify the gun by drilling and taping a new sight location, and wanted to be able to put the original military sight back on it if I desired. So it is what it is, and works pretty well.

I found myself using the 3/16" aperture just about all of the time and got to thinking about that. It just seemed to be the most natural fit for my eyes. The smaller hole would seem to offer a "finer" sight picture, and the larger one lets in a lot more light and is quicker getting on target - but the general rule is "the smaller the aperture the more accurate the sight picture".

So I figured I would conduct a little experiment by shooting 3-shot 50 yard groups with each aperture, and also with no aperture in place - just the big 1/2" hole like a "ghost ring".

Here are the results. The first target with the 1/8" aperture.




That group is pretty typical for me/that load/this gun.

Here's the target with 3/16" aperture in place.



Pretty much the same, but looking through the 3/16" hole is quicker and more comfortable for me.

Here's the target with the 1/4" aperture.



Starting to get a little erratic. With the 1/4" hole, I see about two-thirds of the barrel through the rear sight with the top of the front sight centered in the hole.

Here's the target with no aperture in place - just the 1/2" ghost ring.




Wow! I didn't expect it to open up that much. You see the entire length of the barrel when looking through that 1/2" hole. That must influence the sight picture, causing the lower impact on the target.

This is what it looks like from the rear. (I didn't get the camera lined up with the front sight, but it will give you some idea of how it looks.)



Well, my little experiment was finished, but I had plenty of balls, powder and caps. So I put the 3/16" aperture back in, put a target out at 75 yards and took three shots.



It's not fine shooting, but will do for deer at that range. May as well shoot one at 100 yards too. Here's the pitiful results.




That's pretty much what I get every time I try this gun at 100. Might be the gun/load, but more likely my "75 yard Max" eyes.

Now you may have noticed that all of that shooting was with my standard load for this gun of 70 grains GOEX. The last time I posted targets Cayugad said "why don't you put some powder in that gun?", so I figured I would give that a try.

Loaded up 110 grains of powder and shot a target at 50 yards.





I was surprised at how pleasant shooting that load was - didn't really kick all that much. Also pleased with the group and noted that it raised the point of impact about three inches above the 70 grain load.

Heck, may as well try a target a 75 yards with the stiffer load.



Shucks, that's not bad. Would sure put a womphing on a deer.

Let's try it at 100 yards.




Oh well, you can't win them all.