Curious about Loverign design bullets

[coalgeo]

Seems that Lyman has discontinued many of their Lovereign-designed bullets. Your guys thoughts on why?
Greg

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Over the years...quite a few of them in fact, Lyman has scraped a large number of perfectly great designs. Its a royal PITA. The discontinuance of Loverin designs is yet another example of Lyman not really knowing what it is doing. If you look at what they are up to; its just more corner cutting...probably it is to shave labor costs as bullet designs with a larger number of rings take more machining time to cut/create the cherries that cut the molds. it also drives the prices up on the discontinued molds and those molds become the subject of looney-tunes bidding contests on E-slay. Its a no-win situation as getting on the phone or writing a letter is tantamount to spitting in the ocean.....there's just nobody home. LLS

[Bent Ramrod]

It also may be that people tend to think there's something wrong when they see a lot of exposed lube on a boolit. Jacketed bullets and "inside lubricated" designs look less messy to the average shooter.

Among the cognoscenti, there is the position that with today's modern scientifically-designed lubricants, it is possible to "over-lubricate" the boolit. Somebody who hears that best results are obtained when only three of the six or seven grooves on a Loverin boolit are filled with lube might go with a two- or three-groove bore-rider right off the bat to save himself the trouble.

[Buckshot]

...............It could be a combination of what Le Loup Solitaire & Bent Ramrod said. A difficulty in creating the cherry and maintaining it, and slow sales. So far as I'm concerned the Loverin is the easiest to get shooting well. No bore rider nose to fit to the bore, and for longer throats they're generally eaier to engrave. If you're into speed they have been the historic champeen for that.

.................Buckshot

[Pat I.]

I'm sure that if people were buying them Lyman would be making them.

[JeffinNZ]

Now that I am onto CBE Lyman can do whatever they want. Jim's moulds are no less than twice as good. At least he caters to what the shooting public WANT.

[Bass Ackward]

Ah Mr. Loverin. The origionator of the tumble lube bullet.

[Bret4207]

I'm sure that if people were buying them Lyman would be making them.

I don't think so. Tell me why there are 2 molds in the current line up for the 43 Spanish and 43 Egyptian? Just how many old Rolling Blocks are out there compared to 30 and 35 cal shooters? Someone, somewhere, put a bug in Lymans ear and convinced them BP is the market is the place for them to put their money. Meanwhile the 311440, 358009, and a whole bunch of other designs go for 3 and 4 times the price of a new mould on Ebay. Thats to say nothing of the 4 bangers and HP's they used to offer.

As I understand it Lyman has no interest in having to hire machinists with the capability of making the cherries, of determining the right specs, and then marketinig the moulds. I'm pretty dog gone sure if Lyman brought out a limited run of 358009, for instance, at their regular -$60.00 price they'd sell a mess of them. If they went back to making what shooters want they'd sell. If they'd support the casters with good Gas Checks in 6mm, 270, 338, etc they'd sell. I imagine they just don't see the market as being worth their time and money when they can sell sunglasses and cleaning rods with so much less hassle.

As for the Loverins- GREAT designs. Easy to get shooting good, easy to shoot fast. Those with a FN work as well as any other for hunting.

[pdawg_shooter]

IMHO, the Loverin design is the best - bar none! I have been casting since 1968 and cant count the number of different moulds I have tried. No comparison as far as I am concerned.

[floodgate]

Bret:

If you recall from some of my earlier posts, Lyman does not make their cherries in-house, and has not for many years. The two-letter codes ("AX", etc.) immediately following the mould number on LYMAN-stamped moulds indicated the supplier (the "X","Y". etc.) and the sequence number ("A", "B", etc.) of the cherry made by "X" for that bullet. So, they'd have even more trouble - and expense - reviving an older design than if they did it in-house. Some of the older designs like the .43s referred to above have probably been cut from old cherries they still had on hand; it's when they have to have a new cherry cut to replace a worn-out one for a popular bullet (like the Loverins) that the question "Is it worth it? arises.

Above info on cherry "codes" is from Tom Griffin, manager of their Ballistics Dep't and Editor of the last few Handbooks (Customer Service is his wife, Karen). A nice letter to Tom - he's a "good guy" and has put up with endless questions from me over the years, as has Karen - might get you somewhere; but, I repeat, keep it nice and specific!

Doug Elliott/floodgate

[Larry Gibson]

...............It could be a combination of what Le Loup Solitaire & Bent Ramrod said. A difficulty in creating the cherry and maintaining it, and slow sales. So far as I'm concerned the Loverin is the easiest to get shooting well. No bore rider nose to fit to the bore, and for longer throats they're generally eaier to engrave. If you're into speed they have been the historic champeen for that.

.................Buckshot

Concur with Buckshot, Le Loup Solitaire & Bent Ramrod. Another reason was because with the heavier and thus longer Loverns when used in most all factory rifles (older military excluded) you either had to have the throat reamed or had to seat the bullet well below the case mouth. The bore riders aleviate this for the most part.

To those of us who use Loverns it is sad that they are hard to come by and expensive.

Larry Gibson

[Pat I.]

Meanwhile the 311440, 358009, and a whole bunch of other designs go for 3 and 4 times the price of a new mould on Ebay. Thats to say nothing of the 4 bangers and HP's they used to offer

Brett, I never found anything magic about Loverin designs and like was said to be useful in a lot of modern arms requires the barrel to be throated unless you want the base hanging down in the boiler room. As you know people go nuts on Ebay and over pay because they think they're getting some big collectors item. I remember when Veral Smith had his problems and people were crazy about buying his moulds. I wonder how many of these same guys actually went ahead and bought one after he got back to business? A person could probably have a Loverin design custom mould lathe bored for less than the price of an obsolete Lyman if they're actually paying 3 or 4 times the price of a new mould and have a better product.

I realize the casting end of Lyman isn't keeping the company afloat but would find it hard to believe that if the Loverin designs were a big seller they wouldn't have kept at least a few in the line up.

[Bret4207]

Pat, I meant no insult, I just don't think Lyman looks at the mould business from a sales stand point anymore. I think it's a "pain in the butt vs. money" decision. IOW- "Well, we have to keep making some moulds, and they still sell, but jeeze it's a pain! I really don't want to be bothered thinking about it." Thats just my opinion based on what I see, no insider info or anything. If it was money alone they'd still be doing the special orders and charging a big premium. I also think there are some folks who have their ear. That is the only explaination for some of the moulds they continue to carry.

As for there "magic", there is no magic involved. It's just a matter of long bearing length and the ability to fit the boolit to the gun. The base hanging down past the shoulder has never been a big issue for me. Some guys get hincky about it, but some guys get hincky about exposed lube grooves too. To each their own. All I know is they work well for me.

Doug- I was unaware they farm it all out now. That just convinces me it's the "painin the butt" issue more than ever. With the modern CNC machinery and computer design programs avaialble now there's no reason they couldn't get the designs back up for every mould they ever made and in a variety of sizes at that. Feed the numbers into a computer and the lathe cuts the cherries. The days of some old guy in a green eye shade, sleeve garters and a set of trifocals are gone. I'm convinced they just don't want to be bothered. Same for the 4 bangers and HP/HB. You know as well as I they used to be very responsive to shooter wishes. I think they do themselves a disservice by ignoring us.

[NHlever]

With today's CNC machines, and carbide tooling, I doubt that making a Cherry is much of a problem. Actually, lathe boring a mold shouldn't be a problem either as I'm sure that's how Mountain Molds makes theirs. With today's CNC tool grinding machinery putting the cutting clearances on a cherry is a matter of a program. Today, one would design the shape in a solid modeling program, and then use that solid model to create the program for cutting either the cavity, or the cherry to cut it. Actually, neither is finish contouring a chamber for any cartridge. One does need to know something about getting a good finish to do either however.

[scb]

With today's CNC machines, and carbide tooling, I doubt that making a Cherry is much of a problem. Actually, lathe boring a mold shouldn't be a problem either as I'm sure that's how Mountain Molds makes theirs. With today's CNC tool grinding machinery putting the cutting clearances on a cherry is a matter of a program. Today, one would design the shape in a solid modeling program, and then use that solid model to create the program for cutting either the cavity, or the cherry to cut it. Actually, neither is finish contouring a chamber for any cartridge. One does need to know something about getting a good finish to do either however.

My thoughts exactly. I expect the problem is an unwillingness to up grade equipment. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they weren't working with 1950's equipment.

[Bent Ramrod]

Unfortunately, the downside of CNC machines and programmers is that they are only really applicable to very large production runs. Given the return on investment people are accustomed to, the tool shop would have to sell a lot more cherries to break even and the mould maker a lot more moulds. Which comes back to the most popular cavity designs driving out the less popular ones.

[Buckshot]

............Lathe bored:

Mountain Moulds
Lee
Hoch
And I'm sure others I'm not aware of.

Cherried:

Lyman
NEI
RCBS
Saeco

I thought it was funny several years back when Lyman announced they'd "Found" the cherry for the old 45-70 Collar button design and said they were going to make a limited run of them. Like where did they find it? Did someone pull open some old drawer in an old desk in the attic and shazam! there it was? Sitting on a window sill someplace? In a dusty corner? Under a machine?

................Buckshot

[Bret4207]

More likely they found a 42" stack of letters BEGGING them to bring back the mould, with CHECKS in each envelope!

[Cap'n Morgan]

Unfortunately, the downside of CNC machines and programmers is that they are only really applicable to very large production runs.

Modern CNC grinding machines are extremely versatile when it comes to small production runs. The machines are already out there re-grinding cutting tools - It's only a matter of having the right software. From finished design to finished tool this carbide cherry took a little over an hour to make. This was an experiment using helical flutes, but a "normal" straight flute cutter with four to six flutes should be able to cut several thousand cavities in aluminum before regrinding

http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/2224/mold003hd8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The cherry was ground about .025 under size, and the mold was milled using interpolation. The bullet is a 320 grainer for my Heym .375 H&H. I couldn't make up my mind whether to make it GC or PB so I made one of each :-D