Ideal Armory Mould #308280 – Eight Cavity for the .30 Caliber US Rifles (30-40 Krag/03/M1917)
Almost 13 years ago I acquired a pair of IDEAL ARMORY moulds via eBay. Both are eight cavity moulds, one is a plain base (308280), one is a gas check. Same design. I don’t recall what I paid for them, but hazarding a guess I’d say I would have likely paid $200 each for them. I had never seen these types of moulds in person, but I had read about them. Doug Elliott, a heavenly residing member here, helped in ID’ing the moulds:
"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)."
I wanted these moulds for use with my WW2 Remington 03A3 and my Model of 1898 Krag Carbine, which was sold as a NRA Krag Carbine in 1924 via mail order. Both the 03A3 and Krag have performed well with bullets sized to .309”. At the time I acquired the two moulds, I posted here about them, and my first time using them:
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...y-Armory-Mould
After after casting about 500 bullets, I greased both moulds and they drifted to the back of my mould closet over time.
Well, no more. Last summer I shot the last of the cast bullets in my Krag carbine, the 03A3 having been sold. I had a bucket of brass and no bullets, so time to cast some more.
I had forgotten what a chore it is to use these moulds. I chose the plain base model, as before for my casting needs and scrubbed the mould clean with dawn dishwashing detergent and elbow grease.
Then I remembered I needed to adjust the adjustable mould tray height on my big casting machine. Normally, I leave the mould tray set for use with flat bottomed Hensley & Gibbs 2, 4, 6, or larger bullet moulds. But this big Ideal Armory mould has a strange hinge arrangement at its front with a double locking nut which makes the mould height very tall, so I need to lower the mould guide to accommodate it. Again, I haven’t made this adjustment in 13 years, so it was a chore to rediscover my earlier forgotten mistakes. Mistake #1 was turning the pot on to heat it up and then, 30 minutes later, realizing all the nuts were nearly as hot as the lead above them. So, I had to turn the pot off and wait a few hours for it to cool down so I could handle the loosening and lowering of the mould rack. But eventually I got the rack lowered and at the correct height for the big mould.
Larger Pic: https://www.hensleygibbs.com/TCD/MOL...ALARMORY/7.jpg
On to casting…
I preheated the gang mould on a hot plate to get it as hot as I could. I used a wet cotton rag soaked with tap water as a final cleanser. I clamped the hot mould in the wet towel and let the steam blast any residual oil out of the cavities before casting. I remember this mould is finicky. I remember struggling with finned bullets until I got the mould working correctly. But as you can see, the bullets began to fall like rain and pile up.
The weights as cast were fairly consistent at 200 to 201 grains after I hit the groove with the mould:
Here is a short movie filling the 8 cavities with my big casting pot:
https://www.hensleygibbs.com/TCD/MOL...RY/casting.MOV
I hope I don’t wait 13 years to cast with it again, but who knows. It was a fun trip down memory lane to cast with this beast and make a stockpile of Krag bullets for future use. My last problem is debating to shoot as cast and tumble lube these plain base bullets, or find my old SAECO bullet sizer which has my only .309” sizer die. I really wish I had purchased a .309” STAR sizer die before the supply dried up. edit: Well, I guess I forgot I ordered a STAR Die from Magma years ago in .309". Because I just found it:
Nevertheless, I will likely try tumble lubing as I am a huge convert to tumble lubing after getting schooled by Ed Harris years ago.
I’ll post some followup pics after I load these up.
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I found a new one from a member here
