Interesting HP mould

I recently picked up a mould that I thought might be of interest to you guys. It is a Yankee mould that is a copy of Ray Thompson's Ideal 429244 HP. The HP channel had been blocked by installing a fixed plug, cleverly held in place using the HP pin keeper screw (see photos).

I took a piece of 1/4" mild steel round stock and turned a HP pin to fit the channel (.158"), cut it off even with the top of the forward driving band and gave it a 7 degree taper (crossfeed angle, making it a 14 degree included angle).

I copied Lyman's snap-ring keeper idea to hold the pin in place, and made a knob for the HP from a piece of scrap walnut (see photo). Tonight I'm going to fire up the lead pot and see how this mould casts!

Nice looking mould, funny how the handles are part of the mould.

Glen:

Neat jobs - both the original mod and your new core pin. I presume the mould is the usual brass / bronze copy of the older Ideal fixed-block moulds. I suspect - but cannot as yet confirm - that Yankee had "back-door" access to the Ideal / Lyman stock of cherries, since they were a small operation, but advertised that they had 600 - 800 mould designs on tap. I'll pass this along to our Yankee expert.

floodgate

PS: Mick, that was the original Ideal mould design, before Lyman took over the line in 1925. They made a big splash the next year, advertising their new, interchangeable-block moulds - and Modern-Bond countered in a subsequent "Rifleman" ad that they had originated the idea several years previously. Belding & Mull also made loose-block moulds at that time, but the pivot pins were staked in place a'la the smaller Lees. Doug

You are always the font of knowledge Floodgate, thank you.

I rang Marden's on Friday, but couldn't get them. I will try again Monday, he should have had enough time to fix up that turret by now.

Looks great Glen. I have often wondered about the use of checks with HP bullts and if they are needed with a soft alloy. I think so, it's sort of a yin-yang thing with the check protecting the base as the bullet is soft enough to expand. The harder bullets not needing a check also resist expansion, there must be a medium point or am I patrolling left field again? What are your thoughts? Gianni.

floodgate -- you are indeed correct, it is a bronze copy of the old fixed handle Ideal moulds, but a very interesting one given the fact that the Thompson designs didn't come out until the mid-1950s, well after Lyman made the transition to interchangeable blocks. I share your suspicion about Yankee having access to the Lyman/Ideal designs -- they even used the same numbering scheme to identify their moulds (at least on some of them).

MT Gianni -- HP bullets cast soft enough to expand don't need a GC to prevent leading, but sometimes it can be a bit of a balancing act to get everything just right. What you say does have some truth to it and a GC certainly does make it easier to find a good working combination.

Follow up -- Sat down this evening and cast up a batch of these guys. I was using 2 parts range scrap to 1 part linotype (final hardness about BHN 13). They drop from the mould at about 238 grains and somewhat oversized (.432" to .434"). They size down to .431" just fine and weigh 245 grains, checked and lubed. This looks like it could be an excellent deer bullet. We'll see how it shoots....

Glen:

The handles don't show in your photos, but those I have seen shots of have rather plain cylindrical handles with "ferrules" of twisted wire.

Doug

floodgate -- you are exactly right, that's what this mould has (and is a "trademark" of Yankee moulds).

Glen:

I'd like to put you in touch with a fellow-collector who has a number of Yankee moulds, including examples similar - but not identical - to yours. PM me or e-mail me at "floodgate at pacific dot net" with your e-addy, and I will forward his letter and some photos for you to follow up on.

Doug

floodgate -- e-mail sent. Thanks!

Follow-up report: I finally got a chance to go shoot this bullet. I loaded it up in .44 Mag brass, over 23.5 grains of W296. From a 6" S&W 629 this load delivered 1381 fps and mediocre accuracy (about 2 1/4" for 5 shots at 25 yards).

In the Marlin 1894 lever-gun, this bullet didn't feed worth a hoot. Velocities ran about 1750 fps, and once again accuracy was only fair. I suspect that modifying this load somewhat might very well decrease group size.

I also intend to try this bullet in .44 Special....

I was intrigued by MtGianni's post. My choice at present is to use the gas check as it allows either softer lead to be used or higher velocities. I've been on a kick of advocating heavier, slower, more ballistically correct gas checked boolits made of softer lead that will expand (with hollow points). But it is also intriguing to experiment with more standard flat point gas checked boollits usuall cast hard and shot fast- by casting them softer, and hollow pointing them as in this case. Should be quite devastating to game.

Glen,
Boy, am I glad you posted this...
I have the same in 30cal., also with the HP pin cut off. I`ve had it for over 10 years and no one I showed it to could I.D. it for me. No markings at all...
As Floodgate surmised, the "ferrules" of twisted wire are present too.
It casts an oversize 30 caliber boolit @ .313, and at .950 in length, it mimicks the 311413 except for the body and ogive angle. There are also vent lines on both blocks, but they appear to be randomly applied as they don`t match when it`s closed...which takes a bit of effort, as it is a bit t-i-g-h-t...
Didn`t work much with it, but cast a bunch of Pb boolits to use for barrel slugging.
Thanks!