Quality of Recently-Produced Lyman molds?

[PBSmith]

Having myself owned a couple of older lemons from this maker of iron molds, I am aware that quality was often lacking. The ones I own that are marked IDEAL have always been good, but that's going way back in company history.

My question: have Lyman molds of recent production shown decent quality? I'd like to buy a new one, but am reluctant to do so without knowledge of others' experience. What I'm most concerned about is uniformity and size. I don't want to cast undersized eggs.

And although I have successfully beagled molds, I'd rather not.

Look forward to your responses.

[Shopdog]

Last one here was a 266673(think that's it) 2 cav for use in a 260REM. A year ago maybe?

To say I was pleased is HUGE understatement. All the numbers are spot on... as cast body=check,nose=check,ability to cast round=check. I'd have to look at notes to give actual #'s. I custom make straight,and tapered nose dies... H&I dies almost blindfolded... custom reamed TP's even. So am no stranger to the tooling required to shoot bugholes..

Put it this way... I sent a note to Lyman's cust service with instructions to share the note with their shop crew about the homerun they hit with this mould. And that praise doesn't come lightly. "Normally" am more of a Saeco(Eagan copys) fan boi,although old Ideal/Lyman will always have a place.... but dang this 6.5 is a peach!

Does that carry over to their other stuff? Beats the snot outta me. Good luck with your project.

[Green Frog]

Your question made me stop and think... the last new Lyman mould I bought was their rerelease of the 45-70 collar button mould back in the mid-1990s. I ended up trading it off to RicinYakima for some older Ideal two cavity pistol bullet mould about five years ago without ever casting a single bullet out of it. I may have loaned it out to someone to try out but I don't remember getting any complaints from the borrower or Ric, so it must have worked OK.
Not much help, huh?
Froggie

[Drydock]

The 457125 I bought last year had a very oversize nose, unable to chamber in any of my Sharps or Trapdoors. The 457132 I bought a few months later was fully in spec. Both were on sale at the time. Lyman is a crapshoot. I prefer Accurate.

[justindad]

I bought a new two-cavity Lyman mold within the last two weeks. The cavities are eccentric by 0.006”, so it’s going back to Midway.
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About a year and a half ago I bought a 9mm devastator mold, but didn’t use it for 6 months. That mold had an eccentric clarity that was so bad the entire bullet would not size. I sent it in for repair - they did not center the cavity and they did cross-thread the screws that attach to the mold handle.
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I have a Keith style SWC HP mold that has poorly eccentric cavity, but not so bad that the entire bullet cannot be sized.
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I have a 4-cavity mold that is old enough to be of good quality. I prefer RCBS.

[stubshaft]

I gave up buying Lyman molds and most of their products about ten years ago. I know it is easy to poke holes in a manufacturers product line. But, at that point in time I had received nothing but SUB-standard products from them. Primarily molds that had to be returned for a variety of reasons, grips that didn't even match their sides (kinda like their molds).

My money is too dear to be wasting it on Lyman.

[porthos]

i think that if you get a good lyman mold, you are very lucky. don't think that they should be allowed to make them

[iron brigade]

I swore I would never buy another Lyman mould. But needed a mould for my 6.5 rifles.

So..I took a chance and ordered the 266469 and 266673 Last spring. Both drop at .267
I powder coat to .269
The 673 is really a great mould in 6.5 caliber. Maybe the quality is better or I got lucky.
I do have the 314299 that drops at .311