Questions about Ideal 32-35-165

[xtimberman]

I have an Ideal mould with handles stamped 32-35-165 instead of the usual unique catalog ID number. The standard Ideal mould for this caliber is 311157 which casts a bullet of nominal 165gr.

Why would Ideal stamp a caliber and weight designation rather than a normal catalog number?
The interesting thing about this mold is that it doesn't cast a ~165gr. bullet - it casts one of ~151gr. with a 1:30 alloy. A normal 311157 has 5 grease grooves and my example has only 4 - which accounts for the weight difference. Why the discrepancy - just chalk it up to a BooBoo?

Sometimes you just get lucky! I have a later no-handle example of 311157, the proper mould for this cal. but it doesn't shoot nearly as well as this one does in my Maynard - wrong diameter. This mould casts a .315" bullet - the exact groove dia. for this rifle

Any thoughts or comments on this would be appreciated.

xtm

Here are a few photos:

[floodgate]

xtimberman:

That is, of course, an early Ideal mould for the .32-35 Maynard. The "modern" caliber+cherry number identifiers actually were not used before about 1897, by which time Ideal's John Barlow had accumulated some 200 cherries and needed a way to keep track of them; they first appear in a ca. 1896 flyer listing and showing 21 bullets for the "new" smokeless powder .25's and .30's, and the first "cherry numbers" were adopted from the illustration numbers 1 - 21 (see Kenneth L. WaLters' excellent article in Lyman/Ideal Handbook No. 46). The still current #3118 for the .32&20 is the last survivor of these. Ideal Handbook No. 9 (available at www.cornellpubs.com as a reprint) showed the first 150 bullet designs, and others were added in more or less chronological order, with some of the "abandoned" numbers re-used: an old short-range #3089 for the .30-30 reappeared as the late, lamented #3589 under Lyman's tenure, etc., etc. Round balls were also originally given full mould numbers, and many of those cherry numbers were also re-used by Lyman

Earlier Ideal moulds were marked with either the common cartridge designator (.44 WCF, etc.) when they produced the "standard" bullet for that cartridge, or with a composite number like your ".32-35-165", where a choice of weights and designs were available; and for the less popular types, this practice may have continued for a few years up to 1900 or so. The very first moulds - from the 1880's (Ideal was established in 1884) were marked on the top front of the sprue-plate; later the numbers were stamped on the right side of the mould like yours. You don't provide a shot of the handles. The very first handles had end-caps, and before about 1891, the handles did not have the brass ferrules, and were held with cross-pins through the wood. The REAL experts can date the early Ideal moulds by the length of the handles, and by the location of the pins, but I'm not in that league - YET!

There, aren't you glad you asked??? That IS a beautiful mould!

Doug

EDIT: PS: As to the light weight and 4 vs. 5 grease grooves, I suspect Barlow "short-cherried" the mould at customer request, but just used the stamp he already had made up. - Fg

[Bent Ramrod]

If my recollection is right, the early Ideal catalogs explained to the shooting brotherhood the extent to which moulds could be adapted to the ideas of the shooter and whether or not this would cost extra, i.e., a new cherry made at the customer's cost. Running a standard cherry in short a land or two was very commonly done, and some of the moulds in the catalogs were even offered in all lengths the groove design would support. I have a loading tool in .25-20 Single Shot with the mould the Ideal 25720 run in only to the 65 grain weight, and the catalog shows the grain weights alongside each land.

My .32-35 mould is full-length and is at the end of an Ideal .32-35 loading tool, so no designation is needed on the mould at all. It casts around 0.311"

[xtimberman]

Gee! I sure am glad I asked.

The handles don't have ferrules or end-caps and do have cross-pins holding them in place. Handles are just under 5" long, pins are ~3/4" back and on the inside.

But what about the discrepancy between the marked 165 grain weight and what it actually casts at ~151 gr.? This one has only 4 grooves, but the longer one with 5 grease grooves does cast a ~165 gr. bullet.

xtm

posts overlapped - you both answered my ??. Thanks.

[xtimberman]

Hey Bent Ramrod,
Does your .32-35 mould cast a 165 gr. bullet?

Here are some photos of my 1873 #16 Maynard .32-35 shooting outfit - closest thing I have to a safe queen. I've had it ~30 years and I shoot ~500 bullets a year through it. If the weather gets bad, I run back to the truck. :) The factory delivered it to the first owner with many special-order features. The front sight is a modern replacement that I put on there for easier windage adjustment.

...one more view of the mould showing the handles....

xtm

[floodgate]

xtimberman:

The alignment peg and socket in the mould faces (and a set-screw in the LH face of the mould, if present; I can't see in the three views you included) suggests manufacture after 1902 when these features were first advertised in Ideal Handbook No. 14. Unless this is a retrofit - which I think unlikely - this indicates that the older, non-catalog numbering system may have been continued even after 1900, though the #311157 DOES appear in HB #10, as early as 1898. Maybe Barlow was tardy in going to the expense of having a six-digit stamping die cut for a less-popular mould. The older-style stamping may have been done with individual die stamps. Can you look at them under magnification and see if that looks likely?

The PS added to my previous post addresses the light weight and the 4- vs. 5-groove bullet, and I concur with Bent Ramrod's suggestion that it was "short-cherried", probably at the purchaser's request, but stamped with the older "regular" ID stamp. I do not believe that the mould blocks were shortened, for reasons I won't go into here.

By the way, I was wrong in implying that the handle ferrules were added around 1891; it was actually quite a bit later, but I can't determine just when they did appear; possibly they were also added in 1902.

That's a really handsome Maynard and a nice "outfit"; the forend-less models have always looked sort of "naked" to me, though I had fun many years ago with a CW .50 percussion carbine.

Floodgate

[xtimberman]

32-35-165 does appear to have been stamped with individual numbers. Someone was very careful to maintain proper spacing and alignment.

"Short cherried"!! Why didn't I think of that?

Thanks again for the comments and information fellows!

xtm

[Bent Ramrod]

xtimberman,

Your Maynard is a very pretty specimen. I'm still kicking myself for my failure to get one of those back in the day. It had to have a breechblock, to my youthful aesthetic sense, as well as a lever, to pass muster. By the time I had come to mature terms with the Maynard styling and wanted to get one, every model had taken off for the ionosphere. Oh well.

My mould casts 165-grain boolits, to the best of my recollection. I had a bunch around but can't check the weights as I donated them to a friend to shoot in his 8.15 x 46 R, which is grossly undersized in barrel dimensions. My own .32-35 Stevens #107 has an oversize .319" barrel, so I shoot the 165-gr Winchester moulded .32-40 boolit in it and shoot the .311's in my .30 calibers. I generally take a dim view of alphabet-soup acronymed bureaucracies, but it's obvious that SAAMI was a badly-needed one.:mrgreen:

[xtimberman]

Thanks Bent Ramrod and Floodgate,

I'm still of the mindset that Maynards are the homeliest of all the common single shots out there. They aren't ugly, but Dr. Maynard certainly doesn't win any beauty awards for the design - particularly the absence of forend wood on some of the fancy mid and long-range models.

However, I believe that when matched with a proper size, temper, and weight bullet, a Maynard with a perfect bore can outshoot most any other contemporary brand. They were very expensive firearms - often costing more than Sharps, Remingtons, and Ballards - so there had to be a good reason why people spent that extra money for a far less aesthetic firearm.

Ditto on the SAAMI thought. I've never owned two Maynards (or Ballards for that matter) of the same caliber with the same bore diameter!! They would supply you with a mould perfectly matched to your perfectly cut and lapped bore each and every time - but over the years, these items usually become separated.

CW Carbines - I've had quite a few of these pass through my fingers over the years and at the time thought them too lowly and primitive to deserve a spot on my gunrack. Quite a few of them were "minty" examples - perfect inside and out - with armory cartouches and militia stampings. Foolish me! When I finally decided to scarf up the next really nice one, I couldn't afford it.

xtm