Lyman 31141/311041

[Denver]

Hi All;
Just read on another wire that someone claims there is no difference in the two bullets. Even though they look similar in the pics I've seen, the 31141 looks to be a bore riding nose design. I have the 311041 and it definitely is not a bore rider.

Ron

[felix]

Ron, forget pictures. If the boolit you have on hand has only one significant diameter, then it is not intended to be a bore or land rider, but a full groove rider. If the boolit you have on hand has two very distinct diameters, then, for all practical purposes, the design is one that will fit the definition of a bore or land rider. However, if your gun has a land diameter smaller than the smallest boolit diameter, then the boolit for all practical purposes to that gun is a groove rider design. ... felix

[Denver]

Ron, forget pictures. If the boolit you have on hand has only one significant diameter, then it is not intended to be a bore or land rider, but a full groove rider. If the boolit you have on hand has two very distinct diameters, then, for all practical purposes, the design is one that will fit the definition of a bore or land rider. However, if your gun has a land diameter smaller than the smallest boolit diameter, then the boolit for all practical purposes to that gun is a groove rider design. ... felix


Ya But, the question is, is there a difference in the two bullets, or did they just give the mold a different designation #?

Ron

[felix]

Ron, that's a question for a mold collector like Beagle. You can bet that a mold bought today will be different from one bought tomorrow or yesterday. We probably won't have consistency until CNC programs become commonplace and trade worthy. Then the program will have the number. Hopefully, nobody will change the program from the common library. ... felix

[crazy mark]

The 31141 and 311041 are supposed to be the same mould. They changed the numbering system a few years back so all the moulds were six digits. That said you could have 2 311041's and both be slightly different. I have several 308291's and about 4 311291's and none drop the same diameter or nose configuration. Some are more rounded than others. the first 3 numbers are the size the bullets are supposed to drop at +.002 and the last digits are the cherry number. Of course they did re-use the cherry numbers a few times. Mark

[bdoyle]

That's what I thought. So I bid on a 31141 on ebay and won it. There is no step on the nose of the bullet. Mine drops at .313 and the nose has a area that is .303 for .200. It then tapers down to a .170 flat. Nose is .520 long. My marlin just loves this bullet. There is a diameter change at the crimp groove, .313 on the base, .303 on the nose.

Brian

[floodgate]

The 31141 and 311041 are supposed to be the same mould. They changed the numbering system a few years back so all the moulds were six digits. That said you could have 2 311041's and both be slightly different. I have several 308291's and about 4 311291's and none drop the same diameter or nose configuration. Some are more rounded than others. the first 3 numbers are the size the bullets are supposed to drop at +.002 and the last digits are the cherry number. Of course they did re-use the cherry numbers a few times. Mark

Mark: (For the rest of you, the change to a uniform six-digit number was to keep the computers happy.) The original -41 was #30841, an adjustable-length cylindrical paper-patch flat-nose boolit dropped after 1906. The present #311(0)41 was introduced by Lyman in 1962. I've had running arguments with a couple of machinists lately, but it is clear each replacement for a worn-out Lyman cherry is made by eye and not to CNC standards.

As to cherry numbers, Lyman has departed from the (more or less) chronological sequence in only three cases I know of: the Thompson gas-check SWC's #358156, #429215 and #429244, where the "cherry numbers" are actually bullet weights a' la Lee et al. I can't recall (too late in the evening to look it up) where they stole the -156 from, but -244 was an abandoned RN bullet design for the .30 Luger, and -215 was the old 200-gr. "Anderton" RN gallery bullet for the .44 Russian, which they displaced and then re-issued some time in the 1950's as a "new" #429478 (I haven't worked through the catalogs and Handbooks for the years 1925 - 1958 yet).

floodgate

[beagle]

Supposedly, the 31141 and the 311041 are the same in dimensions.

I've owned 3 different moulds and all had a different nose profile.

I have a 311041 right now that is a bore rider with a full nose. I also have a DC factory HP 311041 that has a very slim nose and narrow meplat...almost like a 30-180-SP RCBS.

I think they're intended to be the same bullet by Lyman but due to its popularity, they change cherries so fast that we get different nose shapes and dimensions according to the stare of wear on the cerry when the mould was cut.

The 311291 is much the same and for the same reasons./beagle

[Leftoverdj]

Most of my 20 or so Lyman moulds were bought as old stock over 30 years ago. The rest were picked up used here and there. I would not bet on being able to buy an identical replacement for any of them. I was once dickering on a multi cavity 311410 as a replacement for my vintage SC when I found, to my horror, that the offered mould was a bevel base design.

I like to know what I am getting when I buy. I'll take a chance for $10-15 from a junk box or a flea market, but I ain't paying new prices on designs that change at whim.

[Bent Ramrod]

There must have been a template to which the cherry was supposedly ground for #308(311)291, but I would imagine that the artistic impulses of the toolmakers at Lyman transcended the repressing confinements of drawings and blueprints whenever the toolmakers thought it necessary. Let's face it--could anyone selling bullet molds back in the 1950's ever imagine that people would ever have multiple examples of the same mold and look at the differences? Let alone complain about them?

More serious was the vast difference between the shank diameters and the nose diameters of the cherries, especially those ground in the era when the Lyman family was trying to unload the business. The disparity between those two dimensions would make the nose shape differences a minor issue indeed. But I will be looking a long time before I find a 311291 that fits my Ideal softnose "tip" mold.