Old Moulds

Oh, to have all of the money in the world... or, well... not to be GREEDY... just maybe HALF of it. You guys can share the rest!

You see, if you've got money laying around and nothing better to do... bullet moulds are pretty much in the category of "durable goods", no many how many mis-placed words like "antique" or "Confederate" get stuck on them by enterprising marketers they usually aren't all that expensive, and by and large the ones old enough to really be "antique" or "Confederate" aren't necessarily very utilitarian anymore anyway... and I don't know about other folks... but I don't buy 'em just for the sake of lookin' at 'em! Aaaaaand I've got some, but if I had more money I'd have more old moulds.

I've got a little knock-off copy of a popular British design from the mid-19th century, probably made in Belgium, that I paid like $15 for, that makes just the cutest lil' lopsided-as-hell .36 cal. "round" balls for a Navy revolver. I cast up a few a year ago and intended to try them out to see what kind of accuracy or inaccuracy they produced. Surely a poor man back then might have had to use such poor tools... and it would be interesting to see what poor results he got, if I ever get around to it.

But I picked up a mould not quite so old a couple of weeks ago. It was marked .32-40 S.R., with no makers' mark. I believe that the "S.R". stood for Winchester 1892 "Saddle Ring" Carbine, which was made in .32-20 caliber, a Winchester caliber dating back to 1882 (and also called .32 WCF... Winchester Center Fire)... not .32-40 which started out as in 1884 as a design intended for Ballard single shot rifles. The .32-20 was also used by Marlin for rifles/carbines starting in 1886, and Colt also chambered pistols for it. Altogether I'm not particularly interested in any of the guns this caliber was chambered for "back when"... but the main difference between .32-20 and .32-40 was that one held 20 grains of gunpowder (black powder) and the other held 40 grains... which because black powder cases could have no air space, would mean a longer case for the .32-40. There were also some differences in the bullet weights typically used for the two calibers, but interestingly this mould is for a bullet far lighter than any I found reference to so far. I'm confused about what this mold was intended for and can only guess at who made it or when, but I kind of think it was Winchester... and a damn long time ago. It superficially looks like any one-gang mold made today but a closer look reveals that it isn't... because the "mold blocks" and steel parts of the handles are all made as one continuous piece of metal, which must have complicated manufacture considerably. This is not the only mould I have that was manufactured this way, and all of them appear to be very old. I would very roughly date them to maybe 1890-1920, but that's just a vague guess. In any event, whoever bought this mould new could have been my grandpa, or great grandpa, and I'm no spring chicken myself.

So, if I don't have any guns like that, what do I want this mould for? Well... first a word about calibers. "Caliber' means a lot, and next to nothing. It's not really as specific as it appears because it is a number, and numbers are specific. But exactly what was measured to get that number? Practices have always varied worldwide and all things considered it won't do at all to assume anything about a bullet's actual diameter based on it's "caliber" designation. For instance, a .38 or .357 cartridge revolver generally takes the about the same diameter of bullet previously used for .36 cap and ball handguns, most 9mm handguns take bullets maddeningly about 2/100" smaller, their respective sizes being actually .358" and .356"... BUT the 9mm Makarov takes a .365 bullet AND most .32 caliber guns take a .311/.312 diameter bullet... but these .32 Winchester/Ballad/Colt guns are made to shoot .32 bullets, which pretty much the same as what is usually called 8mm, or something like 8mm... such as 7.5mm. The oddball out here is the Martini Cadet, which was chamber for what was called .310 Greener... but it's actual diameter was about .32 and the case was a similar size, so many Martini Cadets that came to the U.S. as surplus have been rechambered to .32-20.

Now that you get the idea that "caliber" is a thoroughly wishy-washy concept that has to be paid considerable attention to because minor differences or even apparent samenesses aren't necessarily so... what I want it for is this... it's an unusual bullet design that appears very useful for making bullets for some of my pistols chambered in 7.5mm or after pushing them through a sizer or lubrisizer and resizing a bit smaller, also 7.62mm, which, since I'm talking about the Russian version of 7.62mm which is .311 instead of the U.S. version that is .308. Bullets from this mould also have a large grease groove which will be useful with antique (black powder) handguns. I cast a few in the cool morning and they came out in .325 diameter at 97 grains in soft lead... and I swear that although this mould was old and in somewhat rough shape... I had to soak in vinegar the better part of a day to get some rust off of the mating surfaces and there was some inside of the cavity, too... and there is a very small bit of light pitted roughness on one side of the "product"... that, after the vinegar soak and burning some matches to get soot back in the cavities... this mould is the ONLY mold I've EVER used from which I did not cast even one single "bad" bullet. I've had moulds that I threw out (recycled) the first hundred bullets and was still making crappy ones after that. I cast 61 bullets, and every single one of them was not if quite perfect, perfectly acceptable to me. Some actually were about as "perfect" as a cast bullet ever gets. They are all going downrange from SOMETHING. I'm thinking 1886 Nagant revolver for sure and maybe 1895 Nagant revolver, Martini Cadet... maybe even SKS. It's not a gas check design but it has a beveled base and the shank is so short I think maybe I can cram gas checks on... we will see.

I can only wonder who, when, where, how many... what for? The previous users of this very same mould... I can almost see them hovering over me, inspecting my work to see that I did it right.

Just think; if you had cast them in silver you could have gone vampire hunting . . . . :(


. . or is it werewolves . . . :-\


Anyway . . . . I just love that history stuff. I've always enjoyed the irony in .38 not using .38 bullets. The 9mm not using 9mm bullets. The 30-30 and 30-06 not using .30 bullets. Heck even my beloved .45. As you know those dang bullets can be .451, .452, even .453 and you best not get them mixed up!

Some of that phenomenon wal all-about the bore diameters of certain U.S. guns staying the same diameter during conversion of cap and ball conversions to cartridge... though I imagine that at least initially it was ease of manufacture rather than the customer's pocketbook from the manufacturers' perspective, that drove matters towards retaining the established bore diameters. The bore diameters were the real constant. Chamber diameters increased to accomodate the brass case and provided the rationale for the newer, higher caliber designations of .38 vs. .36 and .45 vs. .44 but the REALITY of bullet sizes was that they no longer needed to shave lead while being crammed into the front of a cylinder, so the ACTUAL bullet diameters shrank a couple of 1/100 while the nominal caliber designation increased a nominal 2/100 and 1/100 respectively for the two redesignated calibers.

But that's just for those particular instances. Take 8mm. I'm not sure they were initially referred to that way. In Europe, it's my understanding that what we refer to as 8mm Mauser is referred to as 7.92mm, and its their caliber so their caliber designation is probably "more correct" but still not necessarily comprehendible and part of any kind of globally consistent system. Maybe the Germans used a different designation initially, but in any case the first German military rifle chambered in "8mm Mauser" was the Commission Rifle, which was neither a Mauser nor a Mannlicher... but rather a one-of-this and one-of-that design by a government commission that felt equally entitled to steal from both of them. Apparently the Mauser brothers being smart and living and working in Germany kept their mouths shut, bided their time, and won-out big time in the NEXT design iteration; but von Mannlicher being Austrian decided to sue, and won a settlement from the Kaiser's government for ripping off his... fairly lousy... enbloc clip design. The Commission Rifle also began with a .318 bore but after numerous "self-disassemblies" in German soldiers' faces some changes were made. Barrels were reamed out a bit and bullet diameter became .323 which is still is the standard bullet diameter for "8mm Mauser". Germany is so close to the Austria part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire geographically and culturally... yet the Austrian 8mm (8mm Mannlicher) has a bullet diameter of .329. A 6/100" difference is quite a bit but apparently 6/100" isn't too much to at least on an expedient basis convert Mannlichers to fire Mauser ammo. The main barrier to that conversion was that the 8mm Mauser round is rimless and 8mm Mannlicher is rimmed, so some significant alteration had to be made to the bolt and to the magazine. There were an earlier conversions of Commission Rifles that got rid of the enbloc clip by essentially welding one in place inside of the magazine well. The same was done with these Mannlicher conversions and the resulting contraptions only had two fairly significant problems: (1) a 6/100" undersized bullet rattling its way down the barrel was innaccurate, and (2) the converted rifles ate extractors like candy... and they are non-standard etractors vs a vis either rifle, Mauser or Mannlicher. The closest "donor" extractor from which a replacement can be fabricated as I understand it, if you are in a "do itself yourself" mood, is the British rip-off of a "borrowed" Mauser design further "borrowed" by us... called the Model of 1917 U.S. Enfield, which was just a restandardization/change of the .303 British Pattern 1914 rifle, all of which were made in the U.S. anyway, to U.S. .30'06... and yes, Mauser DID sue over THAT ripoff after the Great War concluded, and Mauser prevailed in court.

I have owned a copy and fired every firearm listed here except Lebels, and don't particularly like any of them... but they WILL put holes through things.

And, I'm chagrined and loath to admit it, but the first new long arms manufactured for the fledgling military services of the USA, the 1795 Springfield, was nothing but a faithful copy of the French standard Charleville which dated back to 1763 when the French were very much our enemies. We didn't really bail our own butts out of the British Empire entirely on our own. The French helped us, a lot. There were more armed French at Yorktown than armed American patriot forces.

[quote author=Rumbler link=topic=982.msg7085#msg7085 date=1366835517]
Just think; if you had cast them in silver you could have gone vampire hunting . . . . :(


. . or is it werewolves . . . :-\


Anyway . . . . I just love that history stuff. I've always enjoyed the irony in .38 not using .38 bullets. The 9mm not using 9mm bullets. The 30-30 and 30-06 not using .30 bullets. Heck even my beloved .45. As you know those dang bullets can be .451, .452, even .453 and you best not get them mixed up!
[/quote]