Found a Lyman 358395 a while back......

[Harry O]

Single cavity wadcutter with a hollow-base. It was reasonably priced so I bought it. I had been using Hornady swaged .358 HBWC for years for target loads until Hornady stopped making them because of the Obama shortages. I bought a couple of different solid-base wadcutters and tried them. They were OK, but never quite matched the accuracy of the Hornady's.

When I found the 358395, I decided to try it even though I knew it would be a slow casting mould. It is. However, when I tried them with 2.8gr of Bullseye, they were even more accurate than the Hornady's. This is from a two different S&W K-38 Masterpieces. I have heard people say that the only time a hollow-base bullet improves accuracy is when the dimensions of the gun are wrong. The K-38's have accurate (matching) dimensions. Still, the 358395 is the most accurate bullet I have fired from them.

Best I can get from the 358395 is about 1-1/2 bullets a minute though. Its time well spent.

[Mk42gunner]

Sounds like it would have been a perfect mold for a bullseye shooter who did not have a TV, and did most of his practicing with his K22.

Robert

[Iowa Fox]

My wife found one of those molds at a tag sale she was at years ago. She paid 10 bucks for it but I haven't gotten around to ever casting with it. I always figured it would be a sweet shooter.

[tazman]

I have a 4 cavity hollow based wadcutter mold built by NOE that is extremely accurate. The production rate is significantly higher than with a single cavity mold and the end results are pretty much the same as yours.

[Harry O]

Mk42gunner: Since I retired earlier this summer, I have had more time to do this kind of thing. However, everyone (especially the wife) seem to want to fill my time instead of letting me fill my time.

Iowa Fox: Sounds like you have a keeper. The wife AND the mould.

tazman: Now that I know casting hollow-base .38 Special bullets is worth it, I might look into that. Thanks for the information.

[.22-10-45]

That hollow based wad cutter mould was designed by Ed McGivern in 1915 & he commisioned the Ideal company to manufacture moulds for it. I have this mould and have always wondered about the early revolver shooters, and how did they ever cast enough bullets for their leagues with such a slow casting mould? I guess not having such distractions as TV and the Internet helped.

[Frank V]

My wife found one of those molds at a tag sale she was at years ago. She paid 10 bucks for it but I haven't gotten around to ever casting with it. I always figured it would be a sweet shooter.

I'd sure try it, might just be a great shooting bullet.

[Dale53]

My comments are NOT to "rain on O.P's parade" but I shoot LOTS of the H&G #50 BB solid based wadcutter. It is a four cavity iron mould that drops bullets just slightly over .358". Perfect fit for my .358 sizing die but little swaged on the bullet. I get well under an inch at 25 yards from a rest.

I did find, however, as others have, that it takes slightly more powder behind the solid base wadcutters to shoot accurately. My load runs at 3.2 grs. of Bullseye or equivalent. Using a Ransom rest I get 10 shot groups of 3/4" at 25 yards. I had a few boxes of the old Remington Match hollow base wadcutter ammunition and I could not quite match them (5/8" at 25 yards with the Ransom Rest) but close enough for me.

It requires perfect bullets and a slightly higher powder charge but I am happy. My production rate runs about 1.0-1.5 hours of actual casting time for 20.0 lbs. of finished bullets (900+ bullets).

Just a thought...

Dale53

[DuaneH]

I have had an Ideal marked 358395 for some 20 years now. Have never cast a single boolit from it.
It might shoot very well.
I don't want to know.

[45-70 Chevroner]

I made a trade with someone on this web site for a Lee six cavity .358 150 gr. double ended wadcutter mold. I shoot them out of a Smith Highway Patrol that my father bought back in the 1940's. I load them in 38 cases over 3.2 gr. Bullseye and am getting 1 1/2" groups at 25 yds. I really like this mold and it makes piles of boolits in short order.

[dubber123]

I tested wadcutters from H&G, several different Lymans, a couple RCBS's, a Saeco, along with a LEE 6 cavity in the regular lube groove version. I was surprised, (in a good way) that the LEE shot as well as the others at 50 yds. I could never get much better than 2.5" averages, and found other designs would beat wadcutters pretty easily once you get to 50 yards plus. Still the wadcutter makes an excellent 25 yard boolit, and helps keep powder charges low. I have one of the old Ideal/Lyman HBWC molds, but never had great success with it.

[Frank V]

Harry O
When you get a bunch of those cast up I'd try a few upside down. Hollow base up just to see what happens.
Skeeter Skelton did that years ago & said it really opened up on big cactus leaves?

[Harry O]

Harry O
When you get a bunch of those cast up I'd try a few upside down. Hollow base up just to see what happens.
Skeeter Skelton did that years ago & said it really opened up on big cactus leaves?

I know that this is being discussed in another thread. There was a lot of loud breast-beating going on over there, so I stayed out of the discussion. I remember that Skeeter Skelton like reversed hollow-base wadcutters. Specifically, he said that they would expand passing through a prickly pear leaf. That is a pretty vivid description.

When my wife was learning how to shoot (many years ago), she started out with a .22LR, then a .32 Long, then a .38 Special target wadcutter. She stalled out there because of the recoil. After several unsuccessful tries to work up to standard .38 Special loads I decided to try Skeeter Skelton's idea using commercially available swaged HBWC's. Remember, that all the fancy hollow-point bullets we have now did not exist back then. Since I would be giving it to my wife, I decided to thoroughly test it first.

I first worked up from 2.8gr to 3.5gr. Much over that, it leaded. I found that my wife could handle the 3.5gr so that is what I used from there out. Then I got out several .38 Special revolvers (most testing was done with a K-38) and tried them at 7, 15, 25, and 50 yards. At 7 yards, there was no difference between standard target loads and the reversed loads. At 15 yards, the reversed loads were slightly less accurate, but not enough to worry about. At 25 yards, the reversed bullet grouped about twice as large and I could see that they were starting to yaw. At 50 yards, it was hard to keep them on the target and a lot of them went through the paper sideways. I shot it into various things (primarily wet phone books) and they mushroomed great. I ended up shooting about 500 rounds in tests.

I thought about it a while and realized that I don't have a room in the house much over 7 yards and decided it was good enough for what I wanted. A load my recoil-shy wife could use for self defense in the house. BTW, I loaded the cylinder alternately with the wadcutters loaded normally and reversed. I did not want to take a chance that they would all blow up on the surface. I gave her the gun and told her if she ever needed it, to keep shooting until it was empty. I still have some of those loads laying around.