Looking for 36 cal mould

[jbrent]

Good day all. I'm looking for .350 or .355 2 or 4 cavity moulds. Most I find are single cavity. I'd like to hear from anyone who has moulds for sale or get names / webpage addresses of vendors who may have them. Thanks......jbrent

 

[paulvallandigham]

I believe Lee sells a two cavity. the 4 cavity molds are usually thought of as small production molds, and are expensive, and often custom made. IF Lyman doesn't make a 4 cavity, check with NEI.

 

[BrownBear]

I've got a Lee single cavity and an RCBS double. The RCBS is lots more expensive, but very well made/ The Lee seems kinda fragile by comparison, but I've never had trouble with it. The double takes a lot longer to heat up, being steel rather than aluminum or whatever, but once it gets going it sure speeds up the job simply because it's a double. If you can get the Lee in a double, I'd go that route to save a few $'s you could spend on something else.

 

[WV_Hillbilly]

Greetings!

Please excuse me if I'm over-stepping my boundary, but here's some information you might want...

If you are wanting an inexpensive yet good quality source of .350 diameter round ball for shooting in your .36 caliber rifle... you can use the #000 (Triple Ought) Buckshot made by Hornady. A FIVE pound bag/box is about $12-15 and you end up getting about 535 nice round balls that are pretty consistent and there are others beside myself that use them as their primary ammo for the .36 caliber.

They are not pure lead, but are still soft enough to obturate and perform as well as the Hornady or Speer swaged boxes of 100 pcs (which could cost from $6 to $10 or more per 100) Alternately, the "buckshot" ammunition costs less than $3 per 100

The performance is there, the quality is there, the high price is NOT there... of course if you have the urge to cast, have at it. There is great satisfaction in making your own, and I understand that completely. There are certain calibers that I have no choice but to cast--IF I want to make it shoot at all. Anyway, these buckshot make a great primary source or secondary ammo supply.

Regards, and best of luck on whatever you do,
WV_Hillbilly

 

[Jumpshot]

Rapine makes a .350 2 cavity mould.
(215) 679-5413

 

[mbw907]

Hillbilly, Thanks for the information. I had heard that before, but was wondering about the consistency of that much lead packed together. I want to get a .36 to shoot small game, and that fuels the fire even more. :grin:

 

[arquebus]

On the subject of using buckshot. I use the Hornady 00-SG shot (.330") in my Hege-Siber target pistol & it shoots great. A friend of mine, who is a world-class muzzleloading shooter uses the Hornady 000-SG (.350") in his custom barreled Remington .36 C&B revolver, so there's a couple of examples of them being used both with & without a patch with excellent results. Give them a try, if you don't like them you can always melt them down & cast new ones with your new mould!

 

[jbrent]

Hillbilly said: Please excuse me if I'm over-stepping my boundary.....

Not at all...Always appreciate good/alternative ideas. I have been shooting mostly Hornady 000 with this rifle 2 - 2.5 inch groups at 50 yds is as good as it gets. I also tired a box of "Buffalo Balls" that I got from Dixie with the rifle. They were a little better (1.5 - 2" groups). Diameter and roundness are very close BB=3.46-3.50 or 3.46-3.49, 000=3.47-3.51 or 3.47-3.52 but the Buffalo Balls are quite a bit softer, so I thought maybe casting with pure lead or 1% tin may be an improvement. My experience with casting .530 balls (RCBS mould) has been that I can keep them within .002 round - hoping for similar results on 36 cal. As much as I enjoy casting, I get a little impatient with single cavity moulds - the pile grows a lot faster with 4 cavities. Thanks for the ideas guys..........jbrent

 

[F.G. Ford]

Small cal. guns demand greater consistancy to give best results.
If your sights are ok( if you can't see sights and target well, you can't hit it well!), and your trigger release is light enough, you should be able to group, less than an inch at 50 yds.
Next time, try loading powder, then dry patch over powder, then lightly damp patch through barrel, on your ramrod, then seat your ball with your choice of patch & ball, with exact pressure.
This is long in words, but short in time!
000 buck shot should give one ragged hole at 50yds. It don't get better than that.
Best Regards
Old Ford

 

[tom hargrove]

that what i use in my .36 underhammer plus it gives me shot for my blunderbuss :v

 

[jbrent]

try loading powder, then dry patch over powder, then lightly damp patch through barrel, on your ramrod, then seat your ball with your choice of patch & ball, with exact pressure.

Old Ford: I had not heard of this method...interesting. Some questions for you. The dry patch you run in on top of the powder...Is it just stuffed down and left there or are you wiping the bore with a dry patch on the rod? If left behind, what are the dimensions of the patch? Would a card or wad do the same? "Slightly damp..on the ram rod"?? is this like a well chewed patch? Are you using a lube on the ball patch or a damp spit patch?.....jbrent

 

[mmahlock]

I have a .350 mould for my .36 but I've never used it. I got a box of 000 buckshot and use it. It works great. They are so small that casting them is just not economical. If you want a period mould, I'd recommend Rapine or Smiling Fox.

 

[Walks Alone]

My only double cav 36 mould is a RCBS 350 RB. Have a couple of TC 36 RB and a couple of TC 36 Maxi moulds too, but they are all single cavity. All work well. Have never tried the buckshot in either of my 36's though, or in either of my 32's. If I had tried it and they shot well, I probably wouldn't have bought all the moulds I did for either the 36's or 32's. Lots of cash tied up in all of them. On the plus side for running ball for small caliber's, once the moulds are up to temp it doesn't take long to run a bunch of ball for them from a pot of lead.


Used to be a gent on AA that regularly sold the RCBS double moulds, and offered 36 once in a while. The TC moulds come up for grabs sometimes too at the auction houses, etc, but are usually quite pricy.

 

[WV_Hillbilly]

try loading powder, then dry patch over powder, then lightly damp patch through barrel, on your ramrod, then seat your ball with your choice of patch & ball, with exact pressure.

Old Ford: I had not heard of this method...interesting. Some questions for you. The dry patch you run in on top of the powder...Is it just stuffed down and left there or are you wiping the bore with a dry patch on the rod? If left behind, what are the dimensions of the patch? Would a card or wad do the same? "Slightly damp..on the ram rod"?? is this like a well chewed patch? Are you using a lube on the ball patch or a damp spit patch?.....jbrent

I normally use loading technique or a variation of it in practically every muzzleloading gun that I've ever owned or used. The dry patch over the powder is sort of just folded up and tamped down over the powder for a buffer/firewall. I was told by an old timer that this will save the patch that's on the ball from burn-through, and of course burnt up patches generally mean less than best accuracy.

Sometimes then I will run another moist patch (10:1 "moose milk" lightly sprayed on the patch) just one pass and then discard the patch. Then just normally load the lubed patched ball.

Depending on the amount of fouling, sometimes I will omit that moist patch bore wipe, since I normally swab after ever shot anyway. The nice thing about that 2nd swabbing is that you can make it pretty wet (IF you want to),'cause you have that buffer patch over the powder. You just have to experiment to see what works best for you, and as always, no two guns are the same.

Regards,
WV_Hillbilly

 

[WV_Hillbilly]

Like Old Ford, I haven't as yet found a problem with using the 000 buckshot. They are very consistent in both roundness and weight. I wish they made the ".45" buckshot, which is around the suitable diameter for using in the cap-n-ball revolvers. I believe the old riot loads for the .45-70 used to have 3 of these buckshot loaded in them--instead of a single 400-500gr bullet. It still works out to about 435gr of lead total, so recoil probably wasn't much different... but I digress! Sorry about that...

Small diameter balls and bullets can be a pain to cast also... anytime I can get around that, I generally do. BTW, what kind of .36 rifle are you using?

"lobbing lead whenever I can"
WV_Hillbilly