Griz44Mag
70 Cal.
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2017
- Messages
- 4,326
- Reaction score
- 4,382
- Location
- Republic of Texas, District of Krum
I ordered a new Lyman .735 mold to cast balls for the Bess.
It arrived yesterday. Upon removing it from the package I had the dickens of a time getting the mold halves apart. They were really tight. I got it cleaned up and went to mount it on a set of Lyman handles. One of the halves was so tight to the handle arm that I had to file down the handle arm a bit to get the screw in it. The halves would close, but were exceptionally tight and took some effort to open them. I figured that would loosen up as they were used. I fired up the pot and warmed the mold an after fighting my way through 4 or 5 balls, the mold refused to close all the way. The balls have a bad seam line. I shut down the casting session and let everything cool. The mold will not close, even out of the handles. The alignment pins are no aligned properly. The holes for mounting are not in the right place. The mold is a manufacturing POS. I have over the many years I have been casting bought molds from many places, antique and new, I have molds in aluminum, brass, steel machined, iron cast and in configurations from singles to 12 hole monsters. Probably close to a hundred molds. This Lyman mold is the poorest manufacture quality of all of them. It goes back to TOW today. And I always thought Lyman was supposed to be one of the best.
Disappointed. (And still ball-less)
It arrived yesterday. Upon removing it from the package I had the dickens of a time getting the mold halves apart. They were really tight. I got it cleaned up and went to mount it on a set of Lyman handles. One of the halves was so tight to the handle arm that I had to file down the handle arm a bit to get the screw in it. The halves would close, but were exceptionally tight and took some effort to open them. I figured that would loosen up as they were used. I fired up the pot and warmed the mold an after fighting my way through 4 or 5 balls, the mold refused to close all the way. The balls have a bad seam line. I shut down the casting session and let everything cool. The mold will not close, even out of the handles. The alignment pins are no aligned properly. The holes for mounting are not in the right place. The mold is a manufacturing POS. I have over the many years I have been casting bought molds from many places, antique and new, I have molds in aluminum, brass, steel machined, iron cast and in configurations from singles to 12 hole monsters. Probably close to a hundred molds. This Lyman mold is the poorest manufacture quality of all of them. It goes back to TOW today. And I always thought Lyman was supposed to be one of the best.
Disappointed. (And still ball-less)