Anyone familiar with an Ideal 358311 Mould?

[JWFilips]

Looking for someone who is familiar with this style mould. I would like to know if the front driving band is a "bore riding band"
& is supposed to be slightly undersized from the other bands. (I believe I heard some talk here that the Ideal 357446 front band is also smaller in dia. then the rest of it's bands) Would this be correct?
Thanks

[462]

My 358311 drops with the rear at .3595" and the front at .3540".

[Ed_Shot]

I have a Lyman/Ideal 358311 and have some on hand. Mine measure .362 and the front band .356.

[Piedmont]

Great! So Lyman screwed up that classic, too. Eric Ohlen of Hollowpoint Mold Service will open your front bands should you desire. He did it for me on a couple of Lyman Keiths when Lyman decided they knew more than Elmer Keith what a good bullet was.

[JWFilips]

Well this old Ideal I just picked up is dropping at .360 rear and the front band is at .355
Sized in my .359 sizer die it is a consistant .359" except for that front band ( my Ideal 357446 sizes pretty much the same way also) alloy is 50/50 COWW & Pure with 2% tin

I was thinking about HP'ing the 311 RN & want to make sure it isn't a mistake.

What is the reason for this difference ....or is it just poor design?

[Lefty SRH]

I shoot the same mold for competition. I had Eric open ALL the bands to drop .360". I asked him why they made the front band smaller but unfortunately I can't remember. For competition reasons (speed reloads) I regret opening my front band. Then again after opening my front band it made the boolit more accurate.
I've often toyed with making my single cavity 358311 (its a spare) into a HP mold.

[Ben]

As to the front band being .358 - .359 " :

I once read that Lyman got complaints that loaded rounds ( with a full dia. front band ) wouldn't chamber in " fouled " chambers. They got so many complaints that their answer to the problem was to cut the front drive band small ( .354 - 355 " ).

Now is this true.....I don't know ?

Ben

[Piedmont]

I don't know just how many complaints they got but it was more important to them that it chamber in every single gun than it shoot well. Now we have custom makers and they have been getting all my mold money! We don't have to put up with this anymore.

[rintinglen]

Back in the 40's and 50's when revolvers ruled the firing line in Bullseye competition, Colt made a number of target revolvers that had tight bores. .358 boolits were actually over sized, and a .354 front band allowed the 358-311 to function well in either the Colt or Smith and Wesson revolvers. In fact, Lyman used to catalog a 354-433 that looks to be identical, but smaller than the 358-311.
Regardless, It has proven to be one of the two most accurate boolits in my tests, virtually tied with the H&G 50 wadcutter. (and my old 4 banger Lyman makes great boolits fast.)

[JWFilips]

Well the old ideal 357446 I just got from Catboat shoots super in my .38 Spec S&W Mod 15 ( it has the same smaller front band) & The old Ideal 358311 that I picked up (With the small front band) comes in a close second to accuracy. This is with a 3.2 & 3.5 gr (respectively) charge of bullseye I can't wait to push them in my .357 mag Pre-27 S&W

[Char-Gar]

A couple of thoughts on the issue at hand, and yes I have extensive experience with Lyman 358311 as well as the Hensley and Gibbs and Belding and Mull versions of the 160 grain (more or less) round nose, to wit:

1. The term "bore riding" does not apply to handgun bullets. That is a term that applies to the nose of rifle bullets that ride on top of the lands.

2. Every version of this bullet I know of this bullet, has the top band that sticks out of the case, when crimped in the proper case, smaller than the diameter of the body. They generally run about .355 plus or minus .001. The notion that somebody pressured Lyman (or anybody else) to reduce the size of the top band is nonsense.

3. This smaller top band is a total non-issue and nothing for anybody to get their knickers in a wad about. These bullet are probably the most accurate bullet you can push down a 38 Special barrel and the diameter of the front band makes no difference.

4. It was Elmer Keith that postulated that all bands of the sixgun bullet should be the same so the front band will enter the throat and center the bullet on it's trip into the barrel forcing cone. The fly in this ointment is that band didn't enter the throat, but came to rest behind it, in the tapered leade from the charge hole to the throat. So much for theory.

5. There is a huge amount of myths and distortions about all of these subjects that get passed around on these internet boards. They get repeated and repeated until then become fact, even though they are bogus from the start.

6. It is my opinion that if accuracy is of utmost importance, attention should be paid to how the cases fit the charge holes. If the rounds rattle around in the cylinder and lay in the bottom in the charge holes at an angle to the throat, then you are pretty much gut shot when it comes to accuracy anyway. If your cases are a good easy slip fit into the charge holes, then you can start to pay attention to other issues that contribute to accuracy.

For plinking and defense shooting you want round that are easy to insert into the cylinder and don't give ejection issues if the cylinder is dirty. Rattle is fine for those uses and fine accuracy is not the goal or need.

[Char-Gar]

Back in the 40's and 50's when revolvers ruled the firing line in Bullseye competition, Colt made a number of target revolvers that had tight bores. .358 boolits were actually over sized, and a .354 front band allowed the 358-311 to function well in either the Colt or Smith and Wesson revolvers. In fact, Lyman used to catalog a 354-433 that looks to be identical, but smaller than the 358-311.
Regardless, It has proven to be one of the two most accurate boolits in my tests, virtually tied with the H&G 50 wadcutter. (and my old 4 banger Lyman makes great boolits fast.)

Colt Target 38 Special revolvers used after WWII started with the "Officers Model" and went through several mutations over the next 30 years. They had barrels that ran .354 to .355 in the grooves and a pretty uniform .359 in the cylinder throats. They had no difficulty in accepting any round the Smith and Wesson would. Smith and Wesson target 38 Special revolvers of that period had .357 barrel grooves and cylinder throats of .357 - .358.

The Colt used wider rifling grooves with narrower land compared to the Smith. The Colt had barrel rifling twist and cylinder rotation the opposite direction from the Smith.

The Colt vs. Smith and Wesson argument was fierce among the competitors of the time with each side having their chosen champions and advocates. When it was all over, there was no clear winner. Either handgun would take home the gold, if the shooter did his part. I tended to favor the Colt, for no particular reason I can articulate.

Nobody ever shot 358311 or any other round nose bullet in competition as they tore ragged holes in the targets. You needed a clean hole with sharp edges because if the bullet just barely cut the line, the shooter got the higher point.

Hence the use of the wadcutter bullet. It was no more accurate than other designs, but it cut clean holes in the paper and that was very important and very well could mean the difference between winning and losing.

[Char-Gar]

Well the old ideal 357446 I just got from Catboat shoots super in my .38 Spec S&W Mod 15 ( it has the same smaller front band) & The old Ideal 358311 that I picked up (With the small front band) comes in a close second to accuracy. This is with a 3.2 & 3.5 gr (respectively) charge of bullseye I can't wait to push them in my .357 mag Pre-27 S&W

Whatever accuracy differences between those two bullets your are experiencing IS NOT, due to difference in top driving bands. Look elsewhere for the answer.

[Piedmont]

4. It was Elmer Keith that postulated that all bands of the sixgun bullet should be the same so the front band will enter the throat and center the bullet on it's trip into the barrel forcing cone. The fly in this ointment is that band didn't enter the throat, but came to rest behind it, in the tapered leade from the charge hole to the throat. So much for theory.




Well if the band didn't tie up in the cylinder throat and cause chambering problems why did Lyman, in their great wisdom, cut down on both the length of the front band and it's diameter? Elmer borrowed features like a full front band that Lyman was using on other bullets (like the Heath .44). If the full front band never caused chambering problems, Lyman never would have messed with it. They modified Elmer's bullets like this. It would not be a stretch to think the 358311 started out with a full band and until we see some of the first of those from its first decade, all this talk is just hot air.

I love how you come on here and say you have used every version of all these bullets made by every manufacturer known to man, yet many were around long before even you were born, much less started casting bullets. It gets a bit old.

Ideal/Lyman continually modified cherries through the years to where we have bullets with the same number that look completely different, as has been illustrated with photographs many times on this board. Are we to believe changes to a design make no difference when it comes to shooting? Of course not.

My Ruger .41 will barely chamber a full diameter front band that is .08" long. It most certainly will not chamber one with a .10" front band, like Elmer would have wanted. But I guess that must be nonsense because Char-gar has never seen such a thing and he has been around since Moses was a pup.

Many of the ogival (Cowboy, LBT) bullets will cause trouble in this regard. Veral Smith of LBT writes of it in his book and tells why mold manufacturers have modified the front bands on these bullets as Char-gar denies. Veral takes a different approach and tries to fit the firearm exactly and get better accuracy/performance (speed and such), rather than modify the design so it will fit in every chamber.