1st experience with a Lyman 4 Cav.

[Ben]

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a very old Ideal 4 cav. 358432 , 148 gr. Wadcutter bullet mold.

I have about 40 - 50 single and double cav. molds, but this is my 1st 4 cav. Lyman.

The mold is heavy and a little cumbersome, but you can crank out the bullets with this puppy.

I've PM'd Beagle with photos of this one. He says because it is an IDEAL with the grain weight stamped on the side of the mold that it was made in the 30's or 40's.

The mold spits out beautifully filled out bullets with sharp square bases each time it is opened. The bullets mike .360 + or - .0002". This one was made by craftsman who are " dead and gone " now. I count myself fortunate to find this one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...n/PICT0012.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...n/PICT0011.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...n/PICT0007.jpg

I cast these in less than 1 hour:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...n/IMG_0073.jpg

[Yance]

Nice mould there Ben.

It's great to find neat old moulds in such good condition, especially when they're multi cavity.

I have 4 of the old Lyman 4 cavities in .30, .357/8, and .452. Like you said, a "bit" heavy and cumbersom, but not even a good warmup for THIS puppy!

http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j4.../Hall%20Mould/

It's a Hall from back in the 30's for a 148 gr button nose WC. Cavities are cut into brass inserts and it drops like a champ. You can empty a lead pot in short order. 1000/hr is a reasonable casting rate after this monster finally gets up to temperature. 7 1/2 lb of iron takes a while to heat up.

[Ben]

Yance:

Just looked at your photos, that is some more mold. I may not be enough man to work that one. 1K bullets per hour is some impressive production.

Ben

[Yance]

Ben;

The "tricks" to running that one are;

#1 Build up a "base" to rest the mould on when filling. Since it's two parallel rows of holes a regular mould guide won't work.

#2 When dumping the freshly cast bullets I rest it on a 1"X1" strip of wood laid across and old dish drainer lined with old towels.

The most "exhausting" part of the entire operation is using a dead blow hammer on that big boss to shear 10 sprues at once. Takes 3 or 4 GOOD whacks to get 'em cut

[Ben]

How old do you figure that mold is ?

Ben

[Yance]

The Hall moulds are from back in the 30's according to Ken Walters who has done more research and documentation of "gang moulds" than anyone I know of. That would make this one something like 70 years old.

The old H&G gang moulds were of the same pattern, but cavities were cut directly into the iron/steel blocks rather than the brass inserts like the Hall.

Ken said this is only the third or fourth one of these he's seen. Pretty scarce.

[osage]

Ben,
I've have a 4c 358432 which I believe is the 160g version. I used it for the first time last month while also using a Lee 6c 40cal mold. Sure made my arm sore holding the Lyman, but the boolits were nice. It's the only mould that I have trouble cutting the spurs by hand. Now I'll need to follow up on Yance's idea for a mold guide for the drip-o-matic.

[Dross]

Wow! That Hall is a lotta' mold!

[TCLouis]

square lube grove mold and it can tire one out before the 25 lbs of lead flow through the pot.

I tried it with a set of modified Lee mold handles and though it worked in theory, it did NOT work in practice. I ended up buying a set of Lyman 4 cavity handles. This mold will pour many a boolit in a session and once it warms up they all look BEAUTIFUL.
I only hope yours does as well!

[Ben]

That's also one of the things I noted on my 1st use of the 4 cav. Lyman 38 W/ Cutter mold. Once it got hot, the bullets were amazingly consistent, w/ respect to fill out. I don't regret buying this one.

Ben

[Adam10mm]

I have a 452-200-SWC 4 cav on backorder at Graf's. I'm familiar with the Lee 6 cavs but that will be my first 4cav. Pretty excited.

[kirb]

I have a 39BB H&G 6 holer cast a 161gr round nose boolit with ww, did'nt have the right handles but one of the 6 hole lee handles are on there now added 5 inches of new wood to get a little more leverage. The H&G is heavy but when you get it warmed up it will get you a pile of boolits in a hurry love to cast with it just have to eat my Weaties.

Kirb

[cuzinbruce]

Nice mold Ben! I have a similar one. An old 358432 - 4 hole. Don't remember right now if it is Lyman or Ideal but the same design. 358432 is a nice boolit. With the crimp groove set back from the nose, you get some more powder capacity compared to most wadcutters. Probably about like a SWC. I use them all the time in 38 Spl and 357 Mag.
Bruce

[Char-Gar]

I have eight or ten 4 hole Lyman/Ideal molds and they all do good work for me. I like to shove the mold on the support all the way under the spout and pour the nearest hole first and pull the mold toward me filling as I go. I have tried it several ways and for some reason this works best for me.

[Cloudpeak]

I've cast thousands of bullets with various Lee 6 cavity molds and they've worked pretty darned good. I recently bought a Lyman 452630 4 cavity (200 gr SWC) and, man, this thing drops great bullets. All cavities drop the same diameter and drop very pretty bullets. It was a bit hard getting used to the weight of the Lyman but I'm very glad I bought this mold. With Lee molds, I always sized because there seemed to be such a variance in bullet diameters. I'm pretty sure I can load the Lyman bullets, as cast, but still find myself pushing them through the Lee push through sizer just in case there's a few bullets that come out over-sized.

I have a 429421 (250 gr 44 Keith design) that I bought 35 years ago, or so. I haven't cast with it for awhile and forgot how great the Lyman molds can be. I do like the old handles that pivot in front of the mold as opposed to the current design. I guess I'll be switching out the handles.

I found, after the mold got up to temp, that it was very easy to open the sprue cutter with a gloved hand. Lots faster than tapping on the sprue cutter with a wood mallet.

Cloudpeak

[klw]

The Hall moulds are from back in the 30's according to Ken Walters who has done more research and documentation of "gang moulds" than anyone I know of. That would make this one something like 70 years old.

The old H&G gang moulds were of the same pattern, but cavities were cut directly into the iron/steel blocks rather than the brass inserts like the Hall.

Ken said this is only the third or fourth one of these he's seen. Pretty scarce.

Actually I've only seen one. Paid a small fortune for it to a guy in Alaska. He didn't know how to package a mould and it arrived all broken up. You'd think that breaking one of those things would be hard but it is not.

I think that Hall used brass inserts in the cavities. The block was machined and then the actually cavities were inserted via the brass inserts.

Charles Hamilton said once that in the same era if a cavity got damaged that gang mould makers, any gang mould maker, would drill the cavity out and then put in a brass insert to actually form the bullet.

I'm still looking for a Hall. Doubt that I'll ever be lucky enough to find one, however.