I've been shooting various .45-70 rifles with cast boolits for about 10 years now, but I didn't start casting my own until 7 years ago. I currently have a Pedersoli Sharps with a 32" barrel and have been using the Lee .459 500gr Pointed Round Nose mold. My bore slugs at .458" and I size to .459", and pan lube with my own variation of the old beeswax, crisco, canola oil mix. I've been using 28.0 grains of IMR4198 and this load shoots as well as I can shoot it at 100 yards which is all I have available.
Now knowing that one can never have too many molds I am currently the high bidder on a Lyman/Ideal 457125 mold. I've been looking for one of these molds for a couple of months now and I might be able to get this one for less than what a new one sells for. My question is has anyone here used both molds and should I expect any real difference? I realize a lot of this could just depend on the individual rifle. I like the idea that the Lyman mold is closer to the 1882 500gr military bullet but I understand that it's not an exact copy? I haven't seen a direct comparison and I have no intention of pulling the bullets from the 1880's dated .45-70 cartridges in my collection to compare. Another thing that came to mind while I was typing this is I use 20:1 or as close as I can get for my .45-70 cast loads, but does anyone know what lube was used for the original military .45-70 cartridges? I'm sure it was mentioned in the excellent books on the Trapdoor Springfield by Al Frasca, but considering I sold my set I can't just go look it up. Something makes me think it was some extract of some odd plant that only grows in New England?
Someday I'd like to be able to duplicate that exact load even if I can't squeeze a full 70 grains of BP into modern cases if I can get the velocity that's good enough, but it doesn't seem that anyone makes an exact duplicate mold for the 500gr military bullet.
I supposed this could just be a simple case me trying to justify the purchase of another mold.