429649av ?

[Morgan Astorbilt]

I was checking off the molds I own against the Lyman molds on the O'le Buffalo Lyman Ideal bullet list, and one of my molds, a 2 cavity#429649AV wasn't listed. It resembles the #429650, a 300gr. FNGC, but the bullet weight I've got written on the box is 325gr. I checked the bullets listed in the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook and couldn't find it there, either. Anybody familiar with this number? Does the AV suffix mean anything?
Morgan

[Glen]

Yeah, I've got that mould. It's a .44 Mag heavyweight. With my mould bullets drop from the blocks at about 335 grains when cast of WW alloy. It's an accurarte bullet, but as you might expect, it prints high relative to other bullet weights. I don't think it sold very well, so Lyman dropped it. The AV suffix is a code to keep track of which cherry was used to cut that mould, and who made it.

[floodgate]

Morgan:

Nos. 429649 and 429650 were introduced in Lyman's Annual Catalog for 1993.:

"#429649 - This 325 gr. [gas check] bullet [is] our largest and heaviest .44 cal. bullet ever. Designed for hunting big game."

"#429650 - This is a 300 gr. semi-wadcutter, gas check bullet designed for hunting and silhouette shooting."

#429649 was discontinued after 1998; #429650 was still listed in 2007; I don't have my 2008 Catalog yet.

The "AV" is for quality control; it tells us that it was cut with the first cherry (A, B, C,....) made for Lyman for bullet No. 429649 by an outside vendor "V". We don't know (I haven't asked Tom Griffin) who vendor "V" is, but they make a lot of the cherries for Lyman.

Ask and ye shall receive!

Fg

[Morgan Astorbilt]

Thanks Folks, Just find it strange that it isn't listed, the other discontinued styles seem to be.
Morgan

[xpshooter]

Why do the heavy bullets always seem to have gas checks on them? I would think due to the weight there would be less of a need for them because they are moving slower.
Please enlighten me!

Thanks
xpshooter

[felix]

XP, you need to consider the market for the boolit: rifle or pistol. ... felix

[leftiye]

Gas checks help manage gas cutting at high pressures, as well as scraping stuff out of the barrel ahead of them, and protecting the boolit base from melting and/or deformation from pressure. Heavier boolits recuire higher pressures to achieve anything like fast velocities. Faster velocities are often necessary to stabilize heavy boolits.