Gun Show Find 311041

[versifier]

I went down to the Concord Gun Show with my daughter last Saturday. Wicked crowded, very high prices. We looked at old rifles and Contender barrels, but nothing wanted to follow me home. I don't think I've ever seen so many .38 wadcutter moulds in one place, and a few others I have no need for. In the last row, I was walking by a table with some uninteresting long guns when my daughter pulled on my sleeve. "Aren't those moulds in that box by the man's elbow?" Helps to be 4' tall sometimes. They were. One of them was a Lyman 311041 in perfect condition. The seller was in the process of convincing someone that he just had to have a rifle, so I waved a very small amount of cash at him and pointed to the mould. He took it without even making eye contact, and kept working on selling the rifle. Way down at the end of the last row, there was an older man with several hundred different moulds, no guns. He wanted $70 for a rusted one. I mentioned that I could get a new one cheaper including shipping. "You'll never find one!" he says. I showed him what I had and told him how much I just paid for it. "No wonder I'm not selling any today," he says.

I got a chance to try it out today. Once I got to know its quirks, it worked really well. I had to just about touch the sprue plate to the nozzle of the bottom pour pot. If the stream had any gap the cavities didn't fill properly. This one might be a ladle-friendly mould. Anyway, they were dropping right around .312" out of WW's, so I cast a couple hundred for testing in various rifles.

This boolit seems to me to have "deer hunting" written all over it. Anybody taken anything tasty using it?

[fatnhappy]

Yup. I've whalloped a whole bushel full of tree rats with my 311041 over the Harris load. Mine casts .302 on the nose, .310 on the bearing band and tapers to .312 on the bottom band with WW. I may be in the minority but I believe it's as good a design as the 311291 in a 06.

Maybe this year I'll poke Bambi's father with it. I've been remiss.

[Doughty]

Versifier,

I used it in my .30-40 Krag. Took numerous deer and antelope with it. It is now used in my wife's .30-30. Good bullet. I liked it better than the RCBS 180 because it cast at .315 and the RCBS was only .310.

[RayinNH]

Versifier, I went to the show as well. The crowd was terrible, almost too small a place for the amount of people it draws. You get a couple a guys in the aisle talking and nothing moves. The old guy with all the moulds is Ed Beal. He lives about a mile and a half from me. He charges $40 for a two cavity mould. Are you sure you heard him correctly? I picked up a Lyman 287641 to try in the Mauser...Ray

[versifier]

Ray, there were two at the end opposite each other with a bunch of moulds on their tables, I must have stopped at the other one. The one I didn't check had about 10 people crowding it, the one I looked at was sitting all alone. But he was asking $70 for a rusty mould, and he had prices from $40 on up, mostly 2cav Lymans and Ideals, he had several 1cav Lees for $20 each. Doesn't sound like your friend. My daughter (#3, 9yrs) had had enough by that point, so I didn't check out the busy table, though I would have liked to. Sounds like I would have spent too much if I had. :-D She had walked the whole show patiently with me, though she was bored and couldn't see much for the crowd, so I took her out to lunch as a reward and figured the trip was worth it for me for the mould alone, not to mention sharing the day with her.
I lubed & gc'd a bunch of .311041's today - I'll be back at the range tomorrow to empty more .30-30 cases so I can load up and test them.

[FISH4BUGS]

The Concord NH Gun Show was PACKED! I was glad to see that, for at $7 a head to get in, the promoter did GREAT! That means we will have more shows. However, I have never seen a bigger collection of junk at higher prices than I have ever seen.
I stopped at Ed Beal's too...he must have had two hundred moulds. No Hensley & Gibbs moulds, though. Way too much stuff to just sit there and poke through, especially since everyone was packed in like sardines.
Hard to complain though........except for the post war Colt Officers Model Match Heavy Barrel 38 in mint condition........for $995 ! I want some of what HE was smoking!

[monadnock#5]

When we finally got through the line and saw all the people inside, my Wife said that it was the Noreaster predicted (and delivered) for Sunday that brought all the people out on Saturday. Generally I was disappointed with the items I looked at. I looked over a Garand on sale for $895. The muzzle was so bad there was no point in trying to look down the barrel. I had three guns on my list, but found not one, in any condition. So I went back to various vendors I had marked, and bought targets, primers, powder and a Lyman 452374 double cavity. Glutton for punishment that I am, I'll probably go back in September.

Ken

[versifier]

....Glutton for punishment that I am, I'll probably go back in September.

Ken


What else? This IS NH after all. You want we should go to Massachusetts and try to buy a GUN??!!! Even thinking about that could land a man on the Homeland Security Terrorist List. Geez. :-D

[FISH4BUGS]

What else? This IS NH after all. You want we should go to Massachusetts and try to buy a GUN??!!! Even thinking about that could land a man on the Homeland Security Terrorist List. Geez. :-D

I used to go into Massachusetts with my submachineguns to shoot at Bob's Tactical in Salisbury, MA (just across the line from Seabrook, NH). The ATF gave me blanket approval to shoot there and transport my full auto guns into MA. MA changed their laws so a non-resident cannot even enter their state with full auto guns, period. There is no provision for doing so, even with Federal approval on a 5320.
The People's Republic of Massachusetts......what a crock!

[monadnock#5]

My Dad told me 30... no, now that I think about it, it was more like 40 years ago, that Mass residents were fleeing their state to escape from the liberal gov't. But that every refugee in some way was trying to make NH just like the state they had fled. Dad was a little pessimistic in his takeover timetable, it didn't happen in his lifetime, but I might very well see his prophesy come true in mine.

Ken

[Duckiller]

Was in the Army in 67-69 at Hanover, CRREL,. When ever we saw cars with Mass plates we just got out of the way. Figured they lived in the most corrupt state in the union and they had nothing to live for. Hasn't changed much I see.