Replacement Lyman mold looks bad

[zomby woof]

I had a Lyman 266469 mold that cast undersize. I sent it back. I received this mold as a replacement. How can they make a mold offset? is there any way to fix this? Cathy T inspected my first mold, she inspected this one. She needs new glasses.

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/DSCN08642.jpg

[phaessler]

I would send it back, Lyman gets away with this alot lately. Wonder why there are so many guys with smaller shops churning out high quality moulds, when a company know for it produces inferior stuff time after time...

Pete

[geargnasher]

I have a whole pile of those *** late-production Lyman moulds. They are indeed offset, like the blocks slid against each other. The outside edges will be perfectly flush and the pins will fit well, but the cavites won't line up. I fixed several by elongating the holes on one side very carefully with a chainsaw file and peening the other side slightly, then deburring and reshaping the holes to fit again. Major PITA, but it works if you're very careful.


I'm convinced that their boring vise is completly worn out, allowing the blocks to slide away from each other like traffic on a two-way street due to the torque of the cherry cutter.

Gear

[475BH]

I have a whole pile of those *** late-production Lyman moulds. They are indeed offset, like the blocks slid against each other. The outside edges will be perfectly flush and the pins will fit well, but the cavites won't line up. I fixed several by elongating the holes on one side very carefully with a chainsaw file and peening the other side slightly, then deburring and reshaping the holes to fit again. Major PITA, but it works if you're very careful.


I'm convinced that their boring vise is completly worn out, allowing the blocks to slide away from each other like traffic on a two-way street due to the torque of the cherry cutter.

Gear

I have thought about a fix for that also. My idea is to
-remove the alignment pins
-clamp both halves together with 2 gauge pins that fit in the cavities and allow the halves to fit together tight.
-drill the pin holes over size and ream for a press fit in one half and slip fit in the other

[Echo]

But - WHY, OH, WHY, should a consumer HAVE TO REMANUFACTURE a product before it would be fit for use??? HUH???
(This question is asked by a Certified Quality Engineer...)

This whole thread should be forwarded to Lyman - or the conglomerate that owns them.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I had a Lyman 266469 mold that cast undersize. I sent it back. I received this mold as a replacement. How can they make a mold offset? is there any way to fix this? Cathy T inspected my first mold, she inspected this one. She needs new glasses.

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/DSCN08642.jpg



I returned this same # 6.5 mold to Lyman last year as it cast oval shaped bullets. A little over a month later they just sent me another new mold, I haven`t cleaned it up to use it yet. I now have a 4 cavity BRP mold for the 6.5 so I may never try using the Lyman.Robert

[Naga]

I had a Lyman 266469 mold that cast undersize. I sent it back. I received this mold as a replacement. How can they make a mold offset? is there any way to fix this? Cathy T inspected my first mold, she inspected this one. She needs new glasses.



Welcome to the club!

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=113909

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=121834

Send it back along with a note asking for someone other than Cathy T to inspect it. That's what I'm doing. Let's hope it works. Good luck to you.

[Buckshot]

But - WHY, OH, WHY, should a consumer HAVE TO REMANUFACTURE a product before it would be fit for use??? HUH???
(This question is asked by a Certified Quality Engineer...)

This whole thread should be forwarded to Lyman - or the conglomerate that owns them.

..............It sure should be sent to Lyman. Not like we've never SEEN a mould before :roll:. What gets my jockys in a wad is paying return shipping a SECOND TIME for the same MODEL MOULD and what takes the cake, the SAME PROBLEM ?. If this mould has the SAME inspectors name in it as the last one, when I called Lyman I'd tell them about it, and suggest THEY pay the return shipping this time and Cathy T should pay for the first time.

As was mentioned, it's obvious the QC inspector wasn't doing their job, so why should they be paid for it?

................Buckshot

[zomby woof]

Back to Lyman it goes!!

We'll see what happens.

[dromia]

I just had to return one exactly the same for a customer a couple of weeks ago, I hope the replecement is better.

[mrbill2]

Cathy just had a birthday. She just turned 115

[casterofboolits]

I wonder if Lyman has ever heard of CNC machines?

They used to use a fixture on a milling machine that fed both halve of the mould into the cherry per some photos in the Lyman 3rd Edition Cast Bullet Handbook, page 55. They must have made an error in the locating pin location.

The old guys who had the skills either retired or died off and thier replacements were not trained well. Plus the machines may need to be rebuilt or replaced and they are not willing to invest the money.

I like Lyman four cavity moulds as they are large enough to easily maintain casting temp with. I usualy buy Lyman four cavity moulds in pairs and hope they are from the same run. Some I have had to mill or grind the blocks to match bullet weights within +/- one grain.

Saeco on the other hand seems to turn out very consistant Moulds. Before I closed my boolit casting business, I purchased a second Saeco #115 09-122-RNBB as I was getting large orders for the RN boolit. The new mould perfectly matched the old mould I bought in the late 80's or early 90's. Both drop at 125 grains with my alloy, but so do my H&G six cavity 125 grain moulds. The alloy was tailered to the H&G moulds.

[MikeS]

I wonder how Lyman's quality is in their other products? I think the problem is that their mould making equipment is getting old, needs either major overhauling, or replacing, and the mould making part of their business is getting to be a much smaller part of their business, so they don't want to spend the money needed to upgrade/repair their mould making equipment. Considering that Lyman is now a part of a larger company that has many divisons, I would say that while moulds used to be 75% or more of their income, it's probably at or below 5% these days.

[ColColt]

You'll seldom if ever get a decent mold from Lyman anymore. The 358429 mold I had was sent back for undersizing. I got a new one about 3-4 weeks later and it too was still undersized. The base band was .358" but the other two were .356" with 50/50 lead-LT. I gave up on them. They had their last chance.

[geargnasher]

I was going through my mould inventory tonight so I wend through all the orange boxes, I discovered that all the moulds I have from 1999-2002 are inspected by one person, and have a little card with the date ink-stamped on it (dadgummit, I can't remember her name now, but six boxes all in that year range have the same lady's name on them), and after that every single one of them has the sticker in the lid with Cathy T's name on it. That's seventeen mould boxes. Am I the only one who thinks that it's just a scam? It was too much trouble to stamp the date on all those, so they just print labels out with approximate dates and have the packing monkey stick one in the lid of each box they pack. maybe the extent of the QC is making sure the box has the right mould in it. At least I've always gotten the right mould.

Gear

[Ben]

What a shame.

Look at where Lyman was with their bullet molds at one time with customer
loyalty and quality control ( in the 50's and 60's ) and look at where they are now.

Everyone's business at Lyman right now seems to have turned into no one's business.

In the 1950's if someone did get a bad bullet mold ( from any company ) , who were they going to tell ? Maybe a hunting or shooting friend ? ? 2 people maybe 3 ?

Now with the internet, you let 1 bad mold get out and see how many people know about it within 24 hours. Many hundreds of potential mold buyers will know about it before the sun comes up the next day.

Ben

[PacMan]

One reason i like doing business with MidWay. Had a Lyman mold for the .375 the very same way. Sent it back to MidWay and exchanged for a Saeco.They shipped the Saceo to me for the orginal shipping charge of the Lyman.
Well part two is that the Saeco cast two diffrent size bullets.One was .003 larger than the other.Returned it to Mid Way for other reloading supplies and the shipped it to me for the orginal Lyman shipping.
Dwight

[30calflash]

If you send the mold back to Lyman give them the link to this thread. Maybe someone there will sit up and take notice!

[Ben]

If you send the mold back to Lyman give them the link to this thread. Maybe someone there will sit up and take notice!

That is the real sad part of all this. Lyman is well aware of what we think, they are well aware of their own internal problems......problem is it is like the Pink Rabbit in the Dura-Cell commercial......It just keeps on going and keeps on going.

[Southron Sanders]

Obviously, the problem with Lyman is Management.

Why in the world are they still using the "Cherry" technique to make moulds? CNC machines could do a much better job and have the benefit of turning out moulds that were exactley the same.

A friend of mine that works at a local manufacturing plant runs a CNC mill that he says could be programmed to produce perfect bullet moulds. Cost of the machine? $40,000.00 on the used machine market!

Surely, Lyman could afford to spend $40,000.00 -$50,000.00 on good machinery to start turning out first class moulds again!

[happy7]

Erik at Hollowpoint mold can align misaligned molds. He did one for me. It came back PERFECT. Hey, who wants to pay additional money to have your new mold worked on, but it is a better solution than endlessly returning molds to lyman to only end up with one that you are still not quite happy with.

[x101airborne]

Well, this is the way not only Lyman, but Lee (un) Precision is doing business also. Not only do they very rarely make a defective product right, they expect you to accept that their failure is "in tolerance". If that is their tolerance, I have no tolerance for them.

[nanuk]

does anyone live near the Lyman plant?

if so, could they go and meet this Cathy T personally?

I do not believe she exists. Like Gear said, I think it is a scam.

with the price of new Lyman moulds up here running $80 without handles, I'm thinking I'll never buy a new one again

there are options available to us, made known through this site, that can make you what ever you want, for not much more money!

And it will be EXACTLY what you ask for