Original Keith?

[StuBach]

TXGunNut, I have to agree with you on modern molds. I bought my first Miha mold and it drops absolutely astounding bullets. However, I would still prefer casting with the original H&G molds just cause they are so easy to drop great bullets.

Grandpa's stash included 8 molds in total (listed in Cherry number order):
-H&G #50 4-cavity
-H&G #130 6-cavity
-Ideal 429-244 GC HP single cavity
-Ideal 429-244 GC Double cavity
-Ideal 360-271S Single Cavity
-Ideal 429-422 HB Single Cavity (pictured above)
-Ideal 358-425 Single Cavity
-Ideal 311-413 Single Cavity (modified into a sinker weight mold by Grandpa, do have some of his casts with it from before mod)



All in All, a wonderful collection to inherit along with 150+ lbs of lead and his Saeco Casting Furnace. It has been an amazing trip through history cleaning, identifying, and using all this stuff. Sadly for my wife, this stuff is all family heirlooms now so it ain't going anywhere while I keep adding to it (another member just sold me a H&G #12 6-Cav to expand the classics). Next generation will have a gold mine.

Through all of this experience, this forum has been critical to my success. So, to all those who have helped me get this collection back into producing condition, thank you. Your posts to my questions or to others have been invaluable.

[StuBach]

As an extra note, as mentioned earlier, Grandpa stopped reloading handgun in 1955 and all of his Ideal molds are missing their vent grooves accept both 244s. Some have some deep vent grooves that almost look hand cut but given how clean and identical they are plus having original finish I'm guessing they came from factory that way.

[StuBach]

Was able to make some passable HB and PB pins for the mold. I'm pretty pleased with the results given that it was all done with a standard Rigid Cordless Hammer Drill and some patience. Now thanks to the 4' bar stock I had to buy to make these I have plenty of material to play with other options for pins.

Thanks everyone for your help. I think my next attempt will be at one of the pointier HB pins like was posted earlier. I have to imagine that has amazing obduration.

[Cord]

The 429422 has at least three variations:

I think the one on the left with the captured base plug is the oldest,
maybe the very late 20s or early early 30’s.

The hollow base plug is attached by a screw through the side of the
block at the bottom, just like a “Cramer” style, that’s why the handle
screw goes in from the top on that side of the mould.
It was made ventless, somebody scratched those lines in it.

The next oldest is in the center, a pre-war ventless mould of the
removable handle type, just like yours, without the homemade vent lines.

The newest one, on the right, is a factory vented removable handle type,
my understanding is that they introduced the vent lines around 1949.
The base plug you see in the picture belongs to the vented one.

I don’t know when 422 was discontinued.

I think the 358431 was made in the same styles, I have heard of an early
captured plug example, but have only seen the vented, wood handle type.

Just as an aside, my understanding is that the numbers at the bottom of
each half of the mould are block matching numbers so they could keep the
halves together throughout the manufacturing steps.

Here's an interesting reference for you by Glen Fryxell:
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Appendix_A_MouldAge.htm
"Originally, the single cavity detachable mould block made by Lyman/Ideal were smooth and unvented.
This practice was continued from their introduction up through the introduction of double cavity
mould blocks in 1949. Vented mould blocks were introduced shortly thereafter. "

[StuBach]

Thanks for the info Cord.

I'm now curious who was doing the "scratched in" vent lines on the ideals back in the day. Your vent lines look to be exact matches to the ones on my molds. In mine they are tapered grooves that always vent at the back of the driving band and taper down from there. In the case of yours, they appear to be the same tapered groove and look to be going to the same spot in the driving bands (front of band if loaded).

[Cord]

To my eye, the vent lines on your moulds look like they were cut with a triangular file.
They appear very deep at the edge of the block and taper to a point at the cavity.
I would venture a guess that it was your grandfather who made those cuts.

Mine, and most of the hand cut vents I've seen over the years, are very shallow scratches
done with a sharp hard point, and most are not very precise at all.
I have other moulds "scratch cut" that way, and none are so deep as yours.

Unvented smooth faced moulds have a tendency to trap air in the sharp corners
which causes voids in the boolits they produce.
To make a way for air to escape the mould as lead poured in, practical users
added these homemade vent lines radiating from the corners of driving bands
and other spots where fillout was troublesome, as I'm sure you understand.

Evidently it took quite a while for the manufacturers to see the wisdom in venting.

In the pictures, your 429422 looked to have never been used,
and that may be why your grandfather did not file on it.
.

[StuBach]

Again thanks for the help. It would be surprise me to find out Grandpa did the grooves himself seems interesting how many I have seen with similar patterns given the lack of Internet. It amazes me how info like that spread back then.

Well I worked with the newly made HB and PB pins some today and came to a good understanding of why those vents were added as I ended up with lots of air pockets. In the end I found that this mold likes to be force fed which is no problem for the much smaller PB pin/handle I made. Need to cut the handle of the HB pin though so it will fit better under the spout. Once I started force feeding the mold produced nice clean bullets with few rejects. Been a fun experiment.

Got 25 of each type sized and lubed, going to PC the remaining and send up to Dad so he can reload and test them with his new LabRadar Chronograph.

One more ore question for the gallery, with these external pin with handle style molds, will they fit up under a ProMelt? Figure I'll have to drop the guide all the way down out of the way but was curious as that's my next item to order, hopefully this week.

[Lead Fred]

I had a pin made for mine, was a good $40 spent

[Cord]

Casting HB or HP boolits can be tricky because you need to keep
the pin as hot or even hotter than the mould for good fillout.

The lead needs to stay molten as it spreads around the pin
to form the nose or the base of the boolit.
If your homemade pins are larger than the minimum needed
they will rapidly conduct heat away from the tip.

Erik Ohlen of Hollowpoint Mold service makes replacement pins for vintage moulds,
and would probably make a hollow base pin for you that would look and function
just like the original base plug, for $40.00.
He does excellent work:


Replacement pins for factory hollow-point or hollow base molds


Original HP pin bore can be corrected for a worn, tapered, or out of round pin bore.
Original style replacement pin assemblies are one piece and do not have interchangeable pin tips.
Factory hollow pointed mold must be provided for the fitting of replacement pin.

Alignment of an off-center mold hollow point pin bore is not included in listed prices
(correction is available).


http://www.hollowpointmold.com/
.

[Forrest r]

The 429422 has at least three variations:

I think the one on the left with the captured base plug is the oldest,
maybe the very late 20s or early early 30’s.That's how 1 of my molds are, an internal base plug for a flat based bullet. But it uses a hb pin also, hense the 2 different assembly #'s stamped in the mold.

I think the 358431 was made in the same styles, I have heard of an early
captured plug example, but have only seen the vented, wood handle type.
"

I also have a 358431 mold, it's new in the box. One of these days I may get around to casting with it.

[IMG][/IMG]

The 2 429422's, the one on the right is an oddball. It has the vent lines in it. But it also has the internal pin (#9 assembly mark) that is held in by 1 screw. But it still uses a standard lyman hb pin to make the hb, the #77 assembly mark.

[IMG][/IMG]

For reference, the 429422 mold on the left has a #5 assembly mark and the 358431 mold pictured above has the #1 assembly mark. And they both use the standard hb pins.

To the op, good job on your pins!!!
Take your time and try a couple of different designs to see what is the most accurate for you. Or do other things with them like copy the winchester hb hp fbi bullets they used to use in the 38spl p+ loads.

[IMG][/IMG]

It's on the bucket list of things to do. Make hb hp swc's for the 38spl & 44spl snub nosed revolvers and do some testing with 6.3gr of power pistol (38spl p+) and 8.0gr of power pistol (44spl).

[IMG][/IMG]

Enjoy your molds, your grandpa had some excellent molds.

[Cord]

Forrest, your 358431 is beautiful, very rare in any condition at all,
and probably extremely rare in "as new" condition with the box.
If it was mine, I would keep it pristine. But that's just me.

I believe that what you are calling an "assembly mark" is what I have heard
called the "pin number". It was used to match the pin with the set of blocks
it was fitted to, and I have only seen them in the upper left corner.

In a similar fashion, the "516" on one of your 422s is a block matching number
used to keep both halves of a particular set of blocks together as they went through
the several steps of machining before they were cherry cut.
The block numbers will be the same number on the bottom of both blocks.

I can't see the face of your 422 on the right of that picture, but it looks to have been
modified some time after manufacturing by someone else.

The lower left corner of the block has been milled off at an angle, and what you
refer to as the "#9 assembly mark" appears (to me) to be what is left of the original
"429" stamped on the block by the factory, not an "assembly mark".

The nominal diameter "429" and the cherry number"422" were not always
stamped close together like your 422 on the left, and were often pretty far apart.
Look at your own 358431 and others, you will see the gap on some, and know what I mean.

But I don't mean to hijack the OP's thread....

Best Regards...
.

[StuBach]

Thread was started to help myself and others with info on old molds. My hope was to start these kinds of discussions so by all means, everyone, please use this to discuss old molds like these. I'm enjoying the history lessons.

[Cord]

OK....so just FYI,

Take another look at Forrest's 358431.

Hard to see, but that looks like a "U" stamped before the nominal diameter.
I see the "u" in script on the box too, meaning they match.

Lyman used steel cherries to cut these, and they sharpened them as they got dull,
meaning that before the cherry was totally worn out it was cutting a smaller cavity
than it did when it was new.

Knowing this, Lyman stamped those blocks cut with an undersized cherry
with a "U" to indicate "Undersized" and sold them anyway!

To a collector this probably does not make a difference,
but to shooters, especially rifle shooters, it could be a big problem.

So as a general rule, I personally will not buy a "U" marked mold on eBay
unless it is a collector item I want to have for the fun of it.
.

[Forrest r]

Yup, planned on letting the nib u358431 sit around for awhile. I do have a used 358431 that I do cast with. It also has the home made vent lines in it.

[IMG][/IMG]

I thought the same thing, that someone milled the corner off of the mold and the "9" was left from the 429422 mold #. It's hard to see, the pins old and the bottom shows allot of use/wear. But it has a #9 stamped in it also.

[IMG][/IMG]

I've herd/read the same thing about the "u" on the lyman molds. I've owned several over the decades and out of all of them I only had 1 mold that cast an undersized bullet. And that was a u311291, the nose of the bullet was smaller than it should of been. The body of the bullet cast right at .3115 but the nose was only .3005. That was with range scrap for lead. Never tried any harder alloys or anything. I ended up with that mold and a bunch of others I didn't really want or need when I bought 60+ molds off of a guy that quit shooting/casting years before.

Anyway, good info, thank you for sharing.

[StuBach]

Finally got Dad into Grandpas remaining stuff and he quickly found the original handles. Very happy camper. Glad grandpa was so organized and my family tends to horde .




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FN in MT]

Very cool. what a treasure trove!

[beagle]

The one I have has a pimple on the plug that is .225" in diameter and .225" in height. This thrusts up from a flat on the plug and gives a flat to the bullet base. #2 son has one that's a Ideal factory job that has a reversible plug held captive through the side with what looks like a #6 flat head screw. It casts HB bullets pretty well with easy release after you get use to it. The screw must be somewhat loose to allow the plug to separate a bit from the mould half in order that the bullet will release. Reverse the plug and you have a 429421 bullet. This one is numbered with the matching block numbers.

I believe Keith used these when he was hopping up the .44 Special prior to development of the .44 Magnum.

From my shooting experiences with them in the .44 Special and Magnum, they work better at moderate velocities and recovered bullets show a very uniform hollow base cavity.

Of course, discard any with wrinkles in the HB cavity or base and they tend to blow out when fired. Not dangerous from my experiences but it does play hob with accuracy./beagle

[StuBach]

The one I have has a pimple on the plug that is .225" in diameter and .225" in height. This thrusts up from a flat on the plug and gives a flat to the bullet base. #2 son has one that's a Ideal factory job that has a reversible plug held captive through the side with what looks like a #6 flat head screw. It casts HB bullets pretty well with easy release after you get use to it. The screw must be somewhat loose to allow the plug to separate a bit from the mould half in order that the bullet will release. Reverse the plug and you have a 429421 bullet. This one is numbered with the matching block numbers.

I believe Keith used these when he was hopping up the .44 Special prior to development of the .44 Magnum.

From my shooting experiences with them in the .44 Special and Magnum, they work better at moderate velocities and recovered bullets show a very uniform hollow base cavity.

Of course, discard any with wrinkles in the HB cavity or base and they tend to blow out when fired. Not dangerous from my experiences but it does play hob with accuracy./beagle

Great info to have. Thanks a ton, would love to see a photo of the reversible pin block as I've never seen a factory version like that. I'm glad I started this thread cause it has given me a lot of info on these old molds and hopefully it is helping others with these nuggets of experience as well

[Bent Ramrod]

What is the diameter of that grooveless mould to the left in Post #22? Does the mould have a number on it? Doesn't look like a pistol mould; more like a paper patch rifle mould. But very modern; generally, "pointy" paper patch boolits didn't exist way back then.

The venting jobs are definitely aftermarket, done with a triangular file as mentioned by a pretty skilled mechanic. A lot of the old Ideal moulds with no venting grooves cast perfect boolits easily, but occasionally one would be balky and need venting. Depending on the customer's ability with tools, this operation would go from a major casting improvement to an unrepairable disaster. I've seen some rather unskilled attempts at venting moulds that allowed the lead to come out the vent. One .38 OL mould I have has a "vent" in the form of a hacksaw cut across the top, under the sprue plate. Those boolits come out with trunnions on them.

[StuBach]

What is the diameter of that grooveless mould to the left in Post #22? Does the mould have a number on it? Doesn't look like a pistol mould; more like a paper patch rifle mould. But very modern; generally, "pointy" paper patch boolits didn't exist way back then.
.

That is a 311 413 Ideal which was reamed out to cast fishing sinkers by my grandpa. Have some pre-ruin casts from it but as yet have no ability to load rifle at this time but I hear it's a hard bullet to load accurately. My guess is Grandpa didn't like it so he found a new use for it. Also found a supply of Nosler jacketed 30 cals so I think he ended up just buying bullets for rifle loads.