Bought a Belding & Mull mould today.....

[Harry O]

I thought I could turn to Castpics and learn all about it, but I did not find anything there. I also did a search here and found very little. It looks like a very impressive mould. The sprue plate is about twice as thick as Lymans. The size of the block is about twice as big, too. It should hold heat very uniform.

It is stamped 311115. It is a GC boolit. I looked at it and thought it was for an M1 Carbine, as least from what I could see. The bullet area was totally filled with hardened grease and the rest of it was covered with a thinner layer of grease. After I got it home, I spent some time cleaning off the grease. It had been there a very long time and had gotten very hard, but it did keep the metal from rusting in any way, shape, or form. It is like new metal, now.

After it was all cleaned off, it looked like it might be for a high velocity 32-20 load instead. The nose is not flat, but it is not really round either. There is a crimp groove, which would not be needed for the .30 Carbine. I may also be able to use it for the .30 Carbine, but who knows. I know that I tried a Lyman 311316 in the .30 Carbine and it did not work well. The main problem with that one was that it came out of the mould about 0.314" - 0.315" and I had to get it down to at least 0.309" to fit the chamber. There was practically nothing left of the lube grooves after sizing.

I will be casting some up on Monday to try it out. I will let you know how it comes out.

[Bret4207]

Sounds like a 32-20 rifle design maybe.

[Harry O]

A small pamphlet came wrapped around the B&M mould. I finally got around to reading it. Here is some information from it. There is no date anywhere in the booklet.

The cost of a single cavity mould is $4.50. Multiple cavity moulds up to 5 cavities can be produced. Write for price. Surprisingly, there is no list, pictures, or drawings of what standard moulds they offer in the booklet.

The moulds "are cut by experts. This is a job that can be done well only after extended experience. We aim to work within a tolerance of half a thousandths of an inch in our bullet cavities." "Final test, every mould is checked and tested by actual casting before it is sent out." The booklet distinguishes between the .30-1905 and the .30-1906 Government cartridges. They suggest a Squibb-Miller plain base bullets for the .30-1905 for target shooting. Squibb-Gebhart gas check bullets for the .30-1906 and .270 Winchester for hunting. Cast bullets are best sized to "about three thousandths of an inch larger than the groove diameter of their barrels".

"B&M blocks are not intended to be interchanged on handles." Plain base bullets are best for "light loads with hot burning smokeless powders", usually below 1200 to 1400fps. "Gas check cup bullets are best for medium loads and can be driven at velocities up to 1700, 1800, or even 1900fps." Gas check cups are $1.75 per 1000 for small calibers (up to 6.5mm), $2.00 per 1000 for medium calibers (up to 32-20 caliber), and larger calibers (up to 35 caliber) are $2.50 per 1000.

Bullet metal is 25 cents per lb for No. 1 bullet metal: 5lbs of tin and 95lbs lead. No. 2 is 30 cents for 5lbs tin, 5lbs antimony, and 90lbs lead. No. 3 is 35 cents for 7-1/2 lbs tin, 7-1/2 lbs antimony, and 85lbs lead. "We recommend No. 1 metal for plain base bullets and No. 3 metal for gas check designs." "The one difficulty of rapid oxidation may be overcome by stirring the bullet metal with green twigs."