Louverin questions

[PBSmith]

1. If the Loverin 30 caliber moulds were so successful, why did Lyman drop them?

2. Does any other maker produce 30 caliber moulds for such bullets today? Specifically, I am interested in the style of Lyman 311407 with the fat stern.

3. Western Bullet Co. in Montana offers the style of bullet I'd like to try. Does anyone know of other commercial casters selling this bullet?

edit: OK, this might belong in Mould Design. Moderator, can you move it there? Thanks.

[square butte]

NOE has a version of the 311-407

[frkelly74]

excellent questions. It seems to me that the Louverin design is good in a larger range of bore sizes than a so called bore rider which wants to match bore diameter more closely. It solves lot of problems to have a tapered boolit that matches the bore diameter somewhere along the length of it. There exists the RCBS and Lyman silhouette boolits and those have a taper . I have the 311644,( I think that is the number) the one that has a lube groove at the point end and a smooth tapered section before the regular lube grooves. That boolit might still be available new.

[Char-Gar]

There is nothing magic about the Loverin designed bullets. They are a refinement of the old Pope multi-band Schutezen molds. These designs work well in a variety of rifling styles.

NOE offers 311407 Mod. which is like the lyman version, but one band shorter. It is a very good bullet, but nothing magic.

[quack1]

I always thought Loverin molds were dropped because with today's better lubes all those grooves weren't needed. I have a couple of Loverins and usually only lube 2 grooves.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I recently bought a Louverin style mold in 6.5 from NOE.

[MT Gianni]

1. If the Loverin 30 caliber moulds were so successful, why did Lyman drop them? Success in a product may or may not equate to success in a bottom line business. Target shooting may not mean much to mold sales in other words.


2. Does any other maker produce 30 caliber moulds for such bullets today? Specifically, I am interested in the style of Lyman 311407 with the fat stern.
NOE as stated in other posts or accurate will let you design your own.

[rintinglen]

I suspect that the decline in interest in rifle boolit casting in the 70's and 80's coupled with the greater difficulty in making cherries for the Louverin designs had a lot to do with their passing.
They are among my favorite molds, especially the 311-465. It is the best light weight Thirty I have found. I have that design in a single cavity, a double cavity (both Lyman) and a 4 cavity NOE. I also have the 311-467 and the 311-466 as well. I have had very good luck with the 323-470 8 MM design in my 32-40 Marlin. I have a 316-475 which is what you want for those large bore Moisin-Nagants or Lee-Enfields. The Nagant that I had needed a boolit of at leat .315 to shoot well and not lead.
All shoot pretty well, though, as said, none of them are magical. I have a 4 cavity 311-407 from NOE as well but it is the most troublesome mould I own. The boolits shoot well but the mould clings to its boolits like a mother to her first born babe, making casting problematic.

[Char-Gar]

I suspect that the decline in interest in rifle boolit casting in the 70's and 80's coupled with the greater difficulty in making cherries for the Louverin designs had a lot to do with their passing.
They are among my favorite molds, especially the 311-465. It is the best light weight Thirty I have found. I have that design in a single cavity, a double cavity (both Lyman) and a 4 cavity NOE. I also have the 311-467 and the 311-466 as well. I have had very good luck with the 323-470 8 MM design in my 32-40 Marlin. I have a 316-475 which is what you want for those large bore Moisin-Nagants or Lee-Enfields. The Nagant that I had needed a boolit of at leat .315 to shoot well and not lead.
All shoot pretty well, though, as said, none of them are magical. I have a 4 cavity 311-407 from NOE as well but it is the most troublesome mould I own. The boolits shoot well but the mould clings to its boolits like a mother to her first born babe, making casting problematic.

do a search om Leementing a bullet mold. We did this allot back when we did our custom buys from Lee and will solve your sticking bullet issues.

[MT Chambers]

311467 has not worked out well for me in any of my .30s, prolly my least accurate .30 cal. mold.

[Char-Gar]

311467 has not worked out well for me in any of my .30s, prolly my least accurate .30 cal. mold.

I bought my first 311467 in the mid-60s. I was not to happy with it because it required deep seating in the 30-06 case. The top two bands were to big for rifles that did not have severely erodes throats.

I haul the mold back out some 15 years ago and had Buckshot make me a nose sizing die and sized the first three band .302 to engrave on the lands. This also took the base out of the fire. Accuracy proved to be outstanding.

So, when I designed 311407 Mod, I had the first two bands speced at .301 - .302. The bullet was one band shorter than Lyman 311467 so two engraving bands were plenty. The bullet proved to be quite accuracy and has been a good seller for NOE.

311407 is just 311467 with a flat on the nose which costs about 5 grains in bullet weight. Loverin did this at the request of folks with tubular magazines.

Anyway, my first experience with 311467 was not a happy one, until I learned to reduce the diameter of the top three bands.