Lyman small handles are not all created equal??

[Walks]

The Thompson Center Italian made handles will fit Lyman small block single cavity molds too. These are usually brass plated. And the wood grips are about 3/4" longer. I prefer them to old Lyman single cavity handles.
I can only tell the difference between Lyman 1cav or 2cav by comparing them side by side.

[zarrinvz24]

I think a big part of this confusion roots from when Lyman discontinued the small single cavity blocks. At some point in the mid-late 1980's, Lyman began cutting both single and dual cavity molds in the larger blocks that most consider "dual cavity" size. This in turn prompted the advertising department to shot one part number for lyman 2x/1x cavity handles (called small), and Lyman 4x handles (now called large).

[Bent Ramrod]

Generally, there is no easily visible difference between the old-style Lyman single- and double-cavity handles. Once in a blue moon, I see, or maybe imagine I see, a tiny “S” or “L” on one of the flats, but generally, when the box is lost, the only way to distinguish between them is trying each block type on a given handle set and looking for daylight between the halves.

I would follow Rick’s advice and not do any modifications on that first handle set. When the inevitable two-cavity mould comes along, you’ll be glad you didn’t. Two-cavity handles are much less common than two-cavity Lyman/Ideal blocks, at least in my 50 years of gun-show scrounging.

Recently, I stopped into our town’s one black powder gun store and found a double-cavity Ideal mould on the remainder table for $20. On the same table was a set of handles for $10. I scooped these up with delight, got them home, put them together, and saw the blocks fit the handles like those in your picture. The handles were for a single-cavity mould.

Curses, foiled again! But I can always use SC handles and I keep a set of DC handles in the original box for just such exigencies.

[Green Frog]

BR, for a long time during my Scheutzen phase, my belief was that I would get my best results using only single cavity moulds and keeping my bullets in order of casting until they could be fired that way. It seems back then (25 years ago +/-) the hard handles for me to find were those I needed for the SC moulds. Now I’ve got plenty of those, so now you say the DC handles will be the hard ones to find. ARRRGH! Why can’t I be looking for something when it’s common?

Froggie

[Bent Ramrod]

Not to worry, GF; those oversized, overlength, overweight, overly-expensive new handles that Lyman offers now appear to fit all the old double-cavity blocks I’ve tried on them. They also fit the oversized, overweight single-cavity blocks that Lyman has now standardized on.