A recently acquired addition to my collection. An Ideal marked 8 cavity 308280 Plain Base Rifle mould in excellent condition. I received the mould last week from the seller and only managed to clean it today for the photo session. I will update this thread with as cast diameters and weights once I get a chance to cast with it.
Other Photos [Click the thumbnails for a larger photo]:
Last edited by Texasflyboy; 01-20-2015 at 11:50 AM.
I wish it could talk.....I'd love to sit down and listen to it tell its story !
Ben
Iffn' yer gonna cast with that, ya better eat yer spinach there, Popeye!
How funny. That's what I had for dinner. Canned Sardines, Spinach, and Smothered Cabbage.Originally Posted by excess650
I've got the pot plugged in now and the mould on a hotplate heating up. I had to lower the mould tray on my big pot to get that large double nut on the end to slide into the mould guide.
Thank God I made the rack out of all-thread. Took about 2 mins to lower it.
Click the Thumbnail for a large pic:
Quote: Originally Posted by excess650
Iffn' yer gonna cast with that, ya better eat yer spinach there, Popeye!
"How funny. That's what I had for dinner. Canned Sardines, Spinach, and Smothered Cabbage"
Good lord! I'm glad that I'm upwind of ya!
Where in Va?
NoVa. Around Falls Church.
And here we go....
Seems to work ok. A little dirty on the first cast...and a little finning, as I am running the mould very very hot (you can see the uniform frosting on some of the projectiles).
I am casting with it tonight to see its personality. The output may get recycled back into the pot. Looks like I have more crud to try and scrub out.
Photos - Click on the thumbnails for larger photos:
That is a lonnnngggg drop for the molten stream to the cavity!
And the output so far:
You get that finning under control and you should be good to go.
What do they mike ?
.304" on the nose....
.309" on the base....
Yeah, it's a keeper. Ought to work fine in my Krag. At 309" I can tumble lube, no need to size.
Tom:
Good catch. I have seen Armory Moulds for sale now and again. Don't see them very often. I suppose one could collect ONLY those moulds.
Any thoughts as to WHEN this mould was created? It is an Ideal mould so when did Lyman purchase them? It would certainly be before that.
All the armory moulds I have seen were pistol calibers. I think this is the first RIFLE bullet armory mould I have seen. Maybe for a 30/40 Krag originally? 30-'03, 30-06?
Nice catch and very interesting.
Donald
Talk about coincidence, I just came in from the garage shop where I came across my Ideal armory mold while looking for something else. Haven't looked at it for a couple years. It's a 7 cavity 38 cal double end wadcutter. I bought it years ago as a curio more than anything. Never have cast with it. The boolits that are in the cavities were there when I bought it. I'll see if I can download a couple pics.
Last edited by Denver; 02-19-2012 at 02:55 PM.
I would guess that to be at least 100 years old and for the 30-40 Krag. My only "armory mould" is a brass Frankfort Armory .31" RB mould. My most collectible might be an Ideal for the 38-55 in paper patch form, I think its marked Marlin and Ballard.
I asked Doug Elliott (aka "Floodgate") to date the mould and his email to me is below. The info on the 308333 was provided by Doug because that is the other Ideal Armory mould I have on the way in.
"Re: the History of the Armory moulds, Ideal Handbook No.2 (circa 1891) offers "Moulds to cast 2, 3 or 4 bullets made on order", Handbook No. 4 (1893) offers an earlier Armory mould for "six of the largest military and sporting bullets." This version lacked the two "stop hooks" on the sprue-plate; apparently the square-headed stop screw took a real beating when cutting the sprues off, and in Handbook No. 10 (1898) the hooks like those on yours were added. They still took a beating though, and the outer hook is broken off my #308333. The number of cavities varied with caliber starting about 1896, ranging from the six for the .45 - .50 caliber range through seven for the .38s, eight in .30 and .32, and nine for the .22 - .25 caliber range, all at $10. Marlin took over the Ideal line in 1910; their tong tools bear the script "Marlin" logo, but - apparently - the name and address on the moulds were not updated. Marlin shut down Ideal production at the end of 1915 when they were taken over by the Rockwell interests, and we have not found any tools or moulds traceable to Phineas Talcott - to whom Rockwell transferred the Ideal name - and who sold out to Lyman in October, 1925. As I said earlier, your present #308280 is first listed in the 1911 Handbook (though the other cherry numbers in this group show up in Handbook No. 17 (1906)); and, while #308333 is not listed at all by Marlin, it probably was issued about 1908.
Soooo... For #308280: 1906 - 1915, and #308333: 1908 - 1915 - would be my best guess (though Lyman clearly inherited quite a bit of unsold Marlin stock, and sold it off through the 1930's)."
Neat! I love that grease fitting on the hinge bolt. Bet that puppy smokes like crazy when you heat it up.
I have one of the seven cavity moulds, with grease fitting, for a 100 grain wad cutter. Never tried it out as I thought it was a "dipper" mould and does not fit under my RCBS pots.
How's that hope and change working for you?
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