Lyman... er..., Ideal 457125

[Finn45]

Okay, this is the Ideal 457125 mold I got from ebay few weeks ago; I paid $9.99. It looked old but also nearly unused. It was abused slightly from the front alignment pin area; mating hole was hammered so that mold couldn't close completely. I filed the alignment hole straight and put some chamfer on it and turned the opposing pin also 45 degrees. After normal pin tuning it was in perfect alignment. Well, I'm made the way that I know better, so I also opened the sprue hole slightly, it just looked so tiny, just similar as in my .22 and .30 cal. Lyman molds.

http://pyssymiehet.com/casting/457125.jpg

Result is that this is casting better than any of my molds. I used old Lyman dipper (orange box) and the method where nozzle is placed against the sprue hole and turned straight up together. I let the whole dipper full of lead run past the loosely held nozzle to sprue hole joint and I've never resulted so beautiful boolits... Nice and shiny, it was very easy to recognize when mold was getting too hot, crystallization on the side of the nose and simple water rag took care of that fast and more good and shiny boolits were dropping. This mold cast nearly perfect boolits from the first pour from cold; only minor flaws in the bands. Dear Father Grand Caster let all molds behave this way...

Oh yes, the alloy was this years hunting alloy of mine, 2 part lead, 8 parts WW (local ww, BHN 8...9, closer to 8) and 4% 50/50 solder added to that. Estimating that there's only 3% of antimony and .25% of tin in this WW I resulted almost 2.2% tin, little over 2.3% antimony and rest is lead. BHN seems to be about 9, very malleable alloy, impossible to break with hammer.

But... this mold is dropping around OK in the bands; .458...9", but the friggin' nose is only .44"! Watsamada? Oh right, old geezers knew better and there is some secrets to be found in the BlackPowder arena probably. I'm doing separate thread of my shooting in BPC forum, if I stay awake... 31 minutes past midnight.

[floodgate]

Finn:

That mould was one of the earliest designed by Ideal's John H. Barlow when he started Ideal in 1884; it was an exact copy of the 1881 Government design. I understand that the undersized nose was to insure that it could be loaded into a heavily fouled leed and bore. In spite of this, it has a good reputation for accuracy, and should serve you well. The "Postell" #457132 565-grainer may be a better bullet for target shooting, but the -125 will do anything you require of it for hunting, though the #457193 405-grain bullet designed for the Marlin tubular-magazine rifles has a good meplat and might work a bit better for that purpose.

Our daughter is going to Finland with a friend from Turkuu (sp.?) next month; we look forward to her report and photos.

floodgate

[John Boy]

Finn: reference your alloy mix ...

Pb - 28.5%
WW - 57.2%
SN - 14.3%

The calculated Bhn (using WW's @ 9) is 11.7 Bhn

Nice looking bullets your dropping from that rehabed mold... :-D

Now I HAVE to ask ... how do you take your pictures that are EXCELLENT?

[threett1]

I'm jealous. They look great, Finn. Looking for a 500 grainer myself for my fake officers model trapdoor.

[13Echo]

Threett1

If your "fake Trapdoor" has the 1:22 rifling twist then the current Lyman version of the 1881 bullet probably will not stabilize. The current production is much longer and heavier than the original bullet casting about 520gr out of 30:1 alloy. It tumbles by 50 yds out of my 1884 Springfield. On the other hand the SAECO version of the bullet is true to the original and is very accurate in the same rifle.

Jerry Liles

[13Echo]

Finn 45,
Those mould handles sure don't look like my Lyman or RCBS or SAECO or LEE. In fact they look better. What are they?

Jerry Liles

[Finn45]

Thanks floodgate. I've been looking also 457132, but haven't got one yet, it seems to be presently available. Well, I have couple of others so plenty to do here. 457125 has some appeal that catches my eye, maybe it's not the best shooter by reputation, but just character or something. I have couple of 400+ grainers for hunting, so that is covered and this single shot thing just screams for slow and heavy boolit. If I got deeper for this thing I might give it a whack to flatten the nose or even swage a hollow point on it. Well, from pure lead it probably does all that's needed and even more...

I wish your daughter nice journey. Turku is the oldest city in Finland, founded in the late 13th century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turku

Johnboy, eh... some misunderstanding here? I have 20% of pure lead + 80% or WW (WW supposedly having 3% Sb and 0.25% Sn); after mixing those I added 4% of 50Pb/50Sn solder to already mixed alloy. About the pics, well, I point the boolits with my camera (few years old Canon digital pocket model 4 megapixels) and push the button. I try to take care of focusing to the right objects, since camera easily focuses to wrong ones leaving actual object out of focus. Later I adjust gamma to make it better if there's too much light or they are too dark.

Here's two examples of these castings, Right one is from very narrow area close to frosty nose side, it has some whiskers. Left one is from the most useful area, no whiskers, no brain damage (wrinkles in the rear bands like few had), no frost, but it has very slightly rounded band edges in the middle section of the block halves (uhh... out of the block joint area...). Whiskered one 510.0 grains, other one 509.8 grains:
http://pyssymiehet.com/casting/457125duo.jpg

No flash in this one, so it's gamma corrected pretty much making it look quite odd.

13Echo, handles are from Canadian guy bought via Ebay; bargain price and I get also couple of Lyman sprue plate replacements made by him. Some folks are doing group buy on these handles right now, or was it already done by now... Very, very finely made handles they are, precise and with very fine wood. Only minor thing that I can see is the front of the tangs; they are formed so that it's possible to cant this kind of Lyman mold out of alignment like in the picture below and it's possible to bind alignment pin against opposing block:

http://pyssymiehet.com/casting/canada.jpg

Well, not really a problem and my single cavity NEI's are able to do the same thing with RCBS handles.

[montana_charlie]

Finn 45,
Those mould handles sure don't look like my Lyman or RCBS or SAECO or LEE. In fact they look better. What are they?

Jerry Liles
Jerry,
If you want some, Red River Rick (the maker) is a member here. Shoot him a PM.
CM

[floodgate]

Finn:

Some whiskering at the higher temperatures is common, and no real problem; they tend to brush right off, though if some get imbedded in the lube on one side, they could cause some imbalance.

I had real problems with what looked more like "fish bones" with a couple of mouds years ago, when casting at fairly high temperatures with the very fluid linotype alloy; that WAS a nuisance.

BTW, when I said #457125 was an "exact copy" of the Government 1881 bullet, it no doubt was originally, and when cast with the Government mix of 1:25 tin/lead, but with "cherry drift" over the years it HAS gotten a bit heavier, as 13 echo mentioned.

Thanks for the info on Turku (and the correct spelling).

Doug

[kywoodwrkr]

13Echo,
Do you know what the Saeco number is for the 5oo Gr mold?
Is it one of these?
65645
65881
74563E
Thanks.
DaveP kywoodwrkr