Bought Another Mould and I Don't Even Know What it is For

[grullaguy]

So I got a great deal on an Ideal single cavity mould. It is for a round nose, flat point bullet with 8 lube grooves.

It has: 403 96
370 GR.

824

stamped on the side....

I thought it might fit the 43 Spanish. Any ideas?

Thanks, John

[Bent Ramrod]

0.403" was the nominal groove diameter for the Winchester .40 caliber rifles. You could get the 40396 in different lengths, with the 370 gr being the largest. Having a lot of evenly spaced lube grooves meant the choice of weights could be maximized by running the cherry in shallower.

I have one of those myself. The modern .40's are pretty much all 0.408-.410" groove diameter, so unless you order a liner or barrel to the old standard, or have an old rifle, the 40396 won't work very well.

You might get a copy of one of the old Lyman Cast Bullet Handbooks, or a reprint of one of the old Ideal Handbooks; they have short descriptions of what each number was made for.

[leadman]

I used to have a file on many of the old mold numbers but it seems to have disappeared. What diameter is the boolit that is cast from the mold?
It does not match the current Lyman mold number for the Spanish.

[grullaguy]

Thank you very much for the responses. They got me pointed in the right direction for some research.

It looks like the mould will be suitable for a number of old calibers such as 40-50 Sharps, 40-65 Marlin, 40-65 Sharps, 40-70 Ballard etc.

I will cast a few up and see if I can get any nibbles when I have a table at the next gun show.

[Walter Laich]

here is a link to a mold table that might be of some value:
.
http://www.three-peaks.net/bullet_molds.htm