Smoothbore Zouave

[Dlc43]

I have recently a acquired a smoothbore Zouave and am wondering if this would be legal in N-SSA smoothbore matches? I just bought an original 1847 Springfield smoothbore but it needs a little love before it is back in shooting condition and I am wondering if the smoothbore zouave would be acceptable until I get the 47 up and running.
Thank You in advance for any replies.

[John Bly]

No, it would not be legal. It must be a replica of an original smoothbore. Zouaves were rifled and were never made as a smoothbore.

[RaiderANV]

Who makes a smoothbore Zouave? Never seen an original bored out.

[Jim Brady Knap's Battery]

I have seen two original smooth Zouaves over the years. Both were part of a batch that I had read about that were bored out for the African/South American trade. Apparently this atrocity was performed in Liege and both had the ELG in an oval and other proofs typical to the Belgian shops. Sadly both were in beautiful condition and while looking them over I noticed the Belgian proofs on the barrel just left of the rear sight. This rang a bell and I wondered until I had that vague memory of seeing information about the boring out. When I checked the muzzles they were indeed both smooth bored. This was not done by Remington but by one of the Belgian shops post war when they were cheap surplus. The Belgians cranked out a lot of stuff made up of various surplus military arms and parts with smoothbores since there were laws or rules about providing the native populations with rifled arms plus as a bush hunting piece a smoothbore would be easier to feed shooting ball or shot also buying and boring out the surplus arms was cheaper than producing new made trade guns.

I just had a ripple in the lake of memories and went to my bookshelf and found where the Belgian info came from, my well worn and tattered copy of William B. Edwards' book Civil War Guns on page 196.

[Michael Bodner]

Given the thickness of a Zouave barrel, it should be an easy matter to reline it...

-Mike