Lyman Mould Numbers

[ed35w]

Hi.
I buy most of my moulds at gun show. Most often they are Lyman. To avoid carring lots of referance material, can anybody tell me if the first three number indicate ( eg. 311) that the bullet will cast out at .311" with #2 alloy? Also, do the remaining numbers only refur to bullet design? I also find moulds with other markings, but I can't find very good mould info on Lyman moulds. I know there are hunders of Lyman mould designs out there from the turn of the century to today. Is there a website or book, someplace where all there moulds from days gone by are listed.
Any help would be great. Thanks. Ed.

[mooman76]

Yes you are correct. 311 bullet diameter( sometimes it can be a thousands or 2 off) ang last 3 are jut the bullet design!

[OBXPilgrim]

A search will find volumes that some of the more knowledgeable have given the rest of us, but one of the easy to find references is:

http://www.three-peaks.net/bullet_molds.htm

[IcerUSA]

Or you can go here and look at some of the old Ideal/Lyman book pages : http://www.castpics.net/index2.htm

Keith

[floodgate]

ed35w:

There's also a "sticky" somewhere here that has answers to a lot of your questions; and an article is to be posted on CASTPICS covering the early Ideal mould history. If you have specific questions, after checking these out, PM me or post your inquiry here and I'll try to answer it. You can get reprints of most of the Ideal Handbooks with the original bullet info from No. 1 (1891) on, reasonably priced, from <www.cornellpubs.com>.

floodgate