Resurrecting a structure fire mold.

[bootsnthejeep]

Some of you may have seen my post in the Off Topic/ Our Town forum about the barn and garage fire at my Aunt and Uncle's. My Uncle passed away several years ago, but his complete firearms and reloading collection was upstairs in the barn and was lost in the fire.

After most of the mess had been cleaned up and what was left of the firearms collected, my dad and I were poking around and I stumbled onto a pocket of bullet molds. Only found three, one so badly damaged I threw it right back in the pile, but another one seemed to be in pretty good shape.

I was writing it off, just keeping it for a memento, something to remember my Uncle by, (that and a trigger guard off an old black powder rifle), but in the course of cleaning the mould up, it doesn't appear that badly damaged. The sprue plate is warped a bit, the handles are junk, but the actual mold blocks don't look that bad.

And I got to thinking about it. That much heat can't be GOOD for precisely fitted mold blocks, but can't really hurt anything either if the mold hasn't been rendered unusable. I'm removing and replacing all the bolts and the sprue plate, etc, but wondering if there's any reason it might not case decentish bullets.

Thoughts? It's an antique Ideal mold 360271S, the version with the short driving band, and I have a friend interested in loading 38 S&W, so its worth a try. The worst that can happen is **** bullets, right?

Anyone else resurrected any fire molds?

Boots

[376Steyr]

Press the blocks closed and hold them up to a light. If they are so badly warped that you see uneven amounts of daylight between them, and you can't fix it by tapping the guide pins back into the blocks, you should probably give up while you are ahead. If they still do lock up nicely, they should work as good as they ever did.

[bootsnthejeep]

Well, let's put it this way. Apparently this mould is from the era of Ideal moulds before the invented venting. So the inside of the blocks is nice and smooth, well, it WAS nice and smooth, until it looks like somebody added some vent lines with what appears to be a hacksaw. I'll post pictures if I ever get this other handle screw out and get the other half of the mould off.

[Papa smurf]

Hi bootsnthejeep ,Papa Smurf here. Back in year 2000 had my house go away in a fire. Just like you did , I poked in the ashes and came up with three hand guns some ammo and five Lee aluminum and two Lyman steel moulds. The handguns were in good leather, grips all gone but the springs were still strong. The rest of the gun springs were no spring at all and just junk. The molds were so so , some without handles. Well to shorten the story , I'm using all the molds and guns. Just cast a few boolets from each mould and you will know if they are ok or not.
Good luck and--- Good Shooting---------Papa Smurf

[mooman76]

Give it a go and see. What do you have to loose.