Old Ideal molds

Boolit Mold Join DateMar 2013LocationHouston, TXPosts4

Here is another post showing some Ideal molds. Some of these are marked Middlefield USA and others are marked New Haven CT USA. I really don't know anything about these, especially the codes that are on them. All of these except #7 below are round nose molds - #7 is square. If you all could tell me anything about these I would appreciate it.

They are listed in the order shown below:

1 6
2 7
3 8
4 9
5 10
-- 11

1) 386177 Middlefield
2) 449189 New Haven
3) 429184 256 New Haven
4) 433184 256 New Haven
5) 358159 125 New Haven
6) 454190 Middlefield
7) 42-352 Middlefield
8) 533476 110 Newer blocks Middlefield
9) 454424 387 Newer blocks Middlefield
10) 450225 Middlefield
11) 36072 110 New Haven

some/most all of those are lyman numbers and the cavity's would correspond to the numbers still used today.
buffalo bore has a good lyman chart where you could look at the picture and your mold and see what's what.
at the bottom of this page is an icon marked castpics it airc has a lyman mold chart in it where you will find lots of your molds.

the 454424 is a 45 colt semi-wad cutter mold that pours near .454 diameter and is about 260 grs in weight.
the other three numbers [387] are marker numbers to keep the mold halves together throughout a run.
i could point out many others but they are all on the chart.

it's all an educated guess,,,, till the trigger is pulled.

the more i find out about shootin boolits, the more it contradicts everything i ever learned about shooting jaxketed.

First three digits are the "nominal" diameter. They normally cast a few thousandths larger
than nominal. The last two (if a five digit) or three (if a six digit - all modern molds are six
digit with a leading zero added to old molds after the third digit) are the design or cherry
number, arbitrary and means nothing except as an ID number.

If you haven't misread them, a number of those are oddball diameters -

386177 is for the .41 Colt. 429 diam is for .44 cal like .44 Mag and Spl. .454 are for .45
Colt, 454190 is a std rn fp and 454424 is Keith's design for this caliber, as SWC. .450 is an
odd one, don't know what that would be for. Same for .533 diam. Very odd collection there.

Bill

Last edited by MtGun44; Yesterday at 08:13 PM.

If it was easy, anybody could do it.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading
Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt"

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