311041 and 31141?

[qajaq59]

Is there a difference between the Lyman 311041 and the Lyman 31141? I have an old 311041, but I saw the 31141 in a recent post and it looked the same as mine.
Thanks, Qajaq

[garandsrus]

Qajaq,

At some point in time Lyman changed the way they number their molds. The two molds are the same design. Lyman added a 0 before the design (the 41 part).

John

[Ben]

To my knowledge there is no difference. Lyman ( on more than 1 mold design ) would often times omit a digit.

You are more likely to see slight differences when a cherry is changed . I've seen 2 or 3 different 31141's. It seems that when changing the cutters there were some very slight differences in the shape of the bullet and meplat size.

[qajaq59]

Thanks guys.

[45nut]

90% correct, When Ideal was making the molds they used a 5 digit serial system, Lyman used 6 digits and plugged in the extra 0.

The cherries were not CNC, handmade cherries result in subtle differences as does the sharpening of a cherry to get as much use out of it as possible.

Amazing things have always been made, but with the CNC available today to machinists we should be blessed, but again, it is up to the programmer, a human to get it right.