Old .357 lyman mold 358480DW mold

[bigcountry]

I have bought a mold off fleabay, and the seller advertised as a 158gr SWC. Well its not, i cast up 200 of em, and all weigh 120gr on the nose. I have searched and searched and on here others bought this but old books says its 133gr.

I am using lyman #2 alloy.

[rintinglen]

It may be a mold that some one customised after-market, or it may have been custom made at the factory. Back when the Lyman Family still owned the company,they'd make custom weights of standard molds, you see a lot of entries in the mold list in the 2nd edition mold guide with 2, 3, or even more weights listed. In either case, It should be a dandy 9mm/light 38-357 boolit, perhaps even useable in some 380's.

[bigcountry]

Seems some used it back in the day for 38Super. Not sure what starting load to try. Figured from the data 5gr of Unique might be good because some 38special loads with heavier bullets are in that range.

[rintinglen]

I'd use load data for the 356-402 and just steer clear of the top end. Lymans 3rd Edition CBH has data for 7 or 8 powder s for that boolit, and your 5.0 grain load would be at the top end of standard pressure, or perhaps a smidge into plus P range. I'd start at 4.4 and go up 2 tenths at a time until accuracy was good or I hit 5.0 UniQue.