Strange Minie Ball mould ID request

[LeadHead72]

Yesterday I picked up this 4-cavity mould along with some others at a sale. It is a design that I have not seen before and there does not seem to be a name on it anywhere. The only numbers I can find are a "B", "2406" and "577A". It's apparently a brass .577" Minie Ball mould block made of 3 sections, and the hollow-base pins are attached to a bracket that is attached to the bottom of the mould. When the mould is closed, there is a lever on each side that locks the blocks together. After filling the moulds, you pivot both levers up, pull both wooden handles apart from each other and the blocks slide open and allowing the bullets to drop out.
Can anyone tell me anything about it such as brand, reliability and value? I have not been able to find any information about it online.

[Bent Ramrod]

Shiloh Products Of Farmingdale, NY used to make a lot of accessories for Civil War re-enactors, including boolit moulds. Some of those were branded “Shiloh IV” because they cast four at a time. I have a Shiloh IV 0.454” round ball mould, which has two sprue plates and two cavities, top and bottom. It’s really a clever idea, as the blocks aren’t much larger than a standard two-cavity mould, it fits Lyman “Large” handles, and doesn’t have the weight and manipulation characteristics of an in-line four-banger, like needing a mould guide.

A Shiloh IV mould of two up/two down configuration for hollow-base Minie balls would necessarily have to be more elaborate, and I believe that is what you have there. All the manufacturer markings might have been lost with the box; iirc, I have a single-cavity aluminum mould that would have been of “unknown” manufacture except it was still in the Shiloh Products box when I got it.

Against this speculation is that I didn’t know they made any moulds out of brass, just iron and aluminum. But they could have, for all I know.

Shiloh Products was ultimately persuaded to make replicas of the 1859 and 1863 percussion Sharps rifles and carbines, branched out from there to the 1874, and recently the 1877 cartridge models, and became so swamped with orders for the guns that they dropped the accessory line.

[LeadHead72]

Thank you, Bent. I will do some research based on the information you provided.