358429 - Possible Problem ?

[Ben]

I have a Lyman double cav. 358429 mold. The rear base of the bullet measures .3585 " , the front drive band measures about .355 ". I've heard of this before with this mold. I once read where Elmer criticized Lyman for this ... he said that all the bands needed to be " full diameter " .

Is this fairly common ?

[CWME]

Front bands on mine are .355, rear bands are .355.

[Ben]

At least all of yours are the same dia. But.....those dia. numbers for my particular 38 / 357 revolvers would not be of much use . How do the bullets shoot for you ?

[CWME]

Poorly at best. I thought I got the hollow point off center or something. Then I loaded the solid from the other cav and got the same results, poor.

Brain is not remembering the load, 11 grains of 2400 I think. Had some 357443s loaded with the same charge and those shot exceptionally well. Ruger GP100 15 yards offhand. I can normally call my shots, the 358429s were all over the place.

[bhn22]

This is one of Lymans changes that infuriated Elmer. It was done because it is often difficult to chamber a bullet with a full diameter driving band when the chamber is even slightly fouled. There have been several attempts at "fixes", they tried shortening the front driving band, but it didn't prevent the chambering problems in all revolvers. I lost a bowling pin match last year because I didn't clean my revolver chambers between relays, and powder & lube residue built up, slowing my reloads dramatically, until I finally couldn't chamber a round in any chamber. Later experimentation with Lyman Keith bullets demonstrated to me why Lyman altered Elmers original design. FWIW, my mould is identical to yours.

[Piedmont]

Ben, I somehow wound up with two 358429 moulds and they both had a small front band. They could be made to shoot but I had to run them pretty hard. I have since turned both over to Mr. Ohlen who fixed the front band problem, and fixed that plus made a HP mould out of the other. Unfortunately I haven't done any tests since the alterations, but I feel a lot better about the matter.

I had a Lyman 429421 like that too. They want to keep us safe from accuracy!

[Ben]

BHN22

Do you think mine wlll shoot OK with the numbers I gave?

Ben

[captaint]

You guys made me go downstairs and check my NOE clone of the 358429... I'm all goood. enjoy Mike

[Bret4207]

Ben, you'll never know till you try it. My 429 runs closer to .360 but I'd prefer to see .361 myself. I can always size down. FWIW- I get lucky once in a while and find a load/boolit combo that shoots good even though it's not as "fat" as I'd like. My Lee Soup Can at .310 shoots fine in my K32 that has .312 chambers. You can always "Beagle your mould or go to an alloy with more Sb.

[Ben]

Bret4207 :

I have not shot mine much, I'm going to shoot it more in the next few days and find out just what it is capable of.

Many thanks to all of you for your input,

Ben

[fecmech]

I've had a Lyman 4 cav 358429 that with WW+ 2% tin has a front band dia. of .3555. It also has the dreaded "round" lube groove. Nobody ever told it that it couldn't shoot because of these issues so it does and very well. In the 40 years I've owned this mold it has shot very well in any .357 mag that I've tried it in and that's a bunch. Currently a GP 100 will average less than 2"@50 yds and lever rifles (at 1600+) average 3-4"@100 yds with that bullet. I load max loads of 296/820 which give 6" ballistics of about 1250 fps and in the rifles that goes a little over 1600. While 2400 does well with that bullet it has never done as well as 296/h110/820 for me. As Bett said you won't know till you try.

[Ben]

fecmech :

That sounds real good, maybe I'll be OK with this one.

Ben

[bhn22]

You should be fine. These moulds have been around for a long time. I hadn't considered having Eric open up the front driving bands on my old Ideal mould. I missed out on getting an NOE due to uh, budgetary restrictions.

[Ben]

bhn22 :

I never have budgetary restrictions, ( that sounds pretty serious ) but I am always broke, is that a " 2nd cousin " to your problem.

Ben

[longbow]

Ben:

Very coincidental you posting this. Dale53 has just asked me if I can model the 358429 for him to run a group buy. His intent is to make this faithful to Elmer's design.

He does not like the smaller diameter and narrow front driving band his mould casts.

I won't get into the argument of whether the original Keith designs or Lyman or H&G's interpretations of them are better (or whether it matters) but Dale does like the original Keith designs and wants a new mould.

If you are interested this one may get going shortly.

Longbow

[Ben]

Longbow

I'll be giving mine a " good work out " at the range soon. If it lives up to my expectations, I'll be alright with the one I have now. If it doesn't perform well, I"ll be looking for one.

After reading some of the comments above, I'm now concerned about the front drive band being a full .358" and possible chambering issues in certain revolvers ? ?

Makes me wonder when Lyman willfully changed the front band dia. and reduced it about .003" , did they have a functional valid reason for doing so ?

Ben

[txbirdman]

Ben,

My 2 cavity has a .358 front band with the other 2 measuring.3595 and I have no problems in my Marlin 94 or Model 19. Now I have a problem in the 27 but it's because the bullet is too long for the cylinder.

[TCFAN]

Ben
I have two molds of the 358429. One is a factory HP that measures .361 on the top band and .3615 on the middle band and .365 on the bottom band. It has the round lube groove and came in a cardboard black and white striped box. I have had it at least 30 years.

The second mold is a 2 cav. solid point that measures.3565 on the top band and .359 on the other two bands. It came in the orange plastic box and is about as old as the HP mold. It too has the round lube groove.

Don't know if this helps any but after seeing this post I just had to go out to the shop and dig up some of these boolits to see what they measure. Haven't shot any of them in years.

Good luck with your mold.......................Terry

[Ben]

Thanks Terry for your efforts !

Ben