Letter suffixes on Lyman molds

[Bohica793]

I have two Lyman 358477 2 cavity molds. One has "358477AM" and the other has "358477JS". They appear identical to the untrained eye and drop seemingly identical boolits. What do the additional letters stand for?

[glw]

I have a Lyman mold that has "LW" after the number. I think the L stands for "long", as it is a little longer in the nose than another of the same mold. I don't know what the "W" means, though, and perhaps I have the L wrong.

GLenn

[country gent]

My rough guess would be a manufacturing code as to machine or cutter used posibly batch of stock or all of the above. Like the VIN number on a vehicle

[Dschuttig]

IIRC, the first letter is the cherry and the second number is the vendor. For example, 311299AW would be cherry #1 obtained from whatever company "w" stands for. (vendors are known to them) When cherry "a" breaks, then you would see 311299BW, and so on. Some of the older designs have a "s" after the number which I believe is for short, or "lighter" version, done by not inserting the cherry as deep.

[Dusty Bannister]

The mold number is stamped on one of the two blocks. The 5 or 6 digits of the mold number refer to the first 3 being the nominal diameter, and the remaining 2 or 3 numbers refer to the cherry.
Some folks believe that the other letter or number combinations stamped on both blocks are random numbers assigned to that set of blocks to track through production. I find it handy to have those numbers since I have duplicates and triplicates of some of my favorite patterns and this will allow me to use the mold that drops close to the intended size or weight needed for that particular firearm.

[Larry Gibson]

A "U" in front of, or sometimes following, the mould number (U311466) indicates an undersize mould which will cast right at nominal diameter with only linotype and usually .001 +/- under nominal with #2 alloy.

Larry Gibson