Hi Adam,
Well I know that Fadala and a lot of other bookwriters subscribe to the "25 yard - 100 yard" Zero. That may work out for ball park 30-30 and such but I've found that for me with open sights anyway.. that zeroing at 15 yards first is senisble. Then move to 25 yards. I then move to 35-40 then on to 50 out to 125 yards for my guns that flat shoot enough to that distance (mostly my whites).
The rest I zero at 50 yards then just for spite move up to 3" high at 50. For some reason with most of my round ball and muskets, this keeps me about 3" both at 50 and 75 yards and about 0 at 100 yards.
This is with a 58 caliber. I have a 54 that I' ve yet to try out (flinter) at range as I'm still trying to keep ME on at 25 yards...
I've found that zeroing out to distance is more effective in "learning" your gun than just getting it in at 25 then moving to 100. In some guns, the midrange will totally surprise you. The higher the velocity the less the difficulty with mid-range to be sure, but I still find it nice to "KNOW" what the gun is doing all the way along my path.
Aloha..
