New Life for an old Lyman #358156

I'm giving new life to an otherwise obsolete bullet mold. A single cavity bullet mold is a thing of the past, their not in great demand. I'm going to send this one to the machine shop to have the gas check portion milled out to a flat base configuration and have the nose hollow pointed. First off, I don't care for the expense of gas checks, not to mention the trouble of putting them on. Second I don't care for the wild bidding when a hollow point mold comes up on eBay. This is a very very popular bullet design and when I get it back, I think it will be the best mold ever. If this works out I have a few other ones that will be reworked. Time will tell and if any of you have any comments, I would love to hear them.

358156 was one of my favorite bullets when I loaded for the 357 Magnum. I am old enough that I used a recipe by Skeeter Skelton and found it to be just as he said, as accurate as wadcutters but a bit harder hitting.

Your idea of HP is a good one, match your alloy to the speed and it will work well for hunting.

Kevin

StrawHat, I was re-reading some of Skeeters' articles the other night. I remember him talking about reloading with the little 310 nutcracker. The only thing I didn't like was the part about the gas checks, so I thought for the price of a thousand new gas checks I could get this part of the mold milled out. It should work, I have high hopes.

I still have my 310 tool but use it for my rifles as I only shoot a few rifle cartridges each year. Handguns, well, I started with a 310, went to a single stage "C" press, and finally got a Dillon 450 to feed my PPC habit. Most of the time, I was loading between 4 and 5 thousand rounds a week and shooting about the same. But that was with a cast DEWC in the 38 Special. I did load some 357 rounds but not many before I moved up to a larger caliber.

Are you having the work done by Erik?

Kevin

358156 Lyman

This is the first mould I purchased, in 1975.....I have a acquired a bunch of moulds since then, but it is still in service and I used it this winter during several weeks of casting bullets. The 358156 is my "go to" bullet for the 357 magnum. I have shot well over 250,000 rds of 357 using this bullet, driving the SWC with 13.5gr of 2400. I too, read those Skeeter articles back in the 70's and was heavily influenced by his writings. I am going to take a walk around the woods tomorrow looking for mushrooms and my 40 year old M-28 loaded with "Skeeter's load" will accompany me.

Yes Sir, Erik will be the one doing the work. In looking around in my "junk box", I found a few other old single cavity molds. I will be sending those to him also for hollow-pointing. I have mostly two & four gang molds for my use. The older single cavity molds are duplicates and just sitting here not getting any use, so I think this will be a great way to get them back into action. I have read a few articles where multiple cavity molds have trouble keeping the pins hot enough to cast a good bullet. I don't know if this is true or njot, but I think the old single cavity will work out fine. Anyway I'm going to try it. This mite even cause a new interest in the ol' single cavity molds.

Yes Sir, Erik will be the one doing the work. In looking around in my "junk box", I found a few other old single cavity molds. I will be sending those to him also for hollow-pointing. I have mostly two & four gang molds for my use. The older single cavity molds are duplicates and just sitting here not getting any use, so I think this will be a great way to get them back into action. I have read a few articles where multiple cavity molds have trouble keeping the pins hot enough to cast a good bullet. I don't know if this is true or not, but I think the old single cavity will work out fine. Anyway I'm going to try it. This mite even cause a new interest in the ol' single cavity molds.

358156 & 358429 are my favorites!

I don't use the gas check on anything non magnum and so far no leading and good accuracy.

Might even try no checks on a magnum or two, see how that goes.

Multiple cavity HP molds

I use several four cavity HP molds for 357, 41,44 & 45 bullets. Cast HBWC's in all four calibers with four cavity molds. They will throw good bullets, the trick is to find that "sweet spot" where the mold blocks and molten lead is the right temp and then get busy.....it might take a few "throws" to get the pins and the cavities up to temp, but then you are in business. I run straight WW alloy for most of my bullets and only use GC's for softer HP's that I make....I have shot thousands of full throttle magnums for decades with plain base cast bullets and not had any problems.
Below are some pic's of my work, these all came out of 4 cavity brass blocks.

Ky Cowboy said:

Yes Sir, Erik will be the one doing the work. In looking around in my "junk box", I found a few other old single cavity molds. I will be sending those to him also for hollow-pointing. I have mostly two & four gang molds for my use. The older single cavity molds are duplicates and just sitting here not getting any use, so I think this will be a great way to get them back into action. I have read a few articles where multiple cavity molds have trouble keeping the pins hot enough to cast a good bullet. I don't know if this is true or njot, but I think the old single cavity will work out fine. Anyway I'm going to try it. This mite even cause a new interest in the ol' single cavity molds.

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I don' mind using gc's, simply make my own gc makers. I made gc makers for the 30cal's, 38/357's & 44cal's so far. I use al flashing to make gc's out of, works extremely well.

You might consider trying to hp your own molds, a simple drill press is all that is needed along with a vice. I've hp'd several molds over the years, it's actually cave man simple to do.

I have/use 10+ molds with multiple cavities that have the cramer style pins in them. I pre-heat every mold I use including them on a hotplate & heat the molds until they are actually a little too hot. It's allot easier to cool a mold down to the correct casting temp than it is to bring it up to temp. By pre-heating the molds, I get good bullets from the 1st pour to the last pour.

You might consider leaving the gc on that 358156 mold and have it hp'd. By removing the gc on that bullet design you will turn it into nothing more than a 358477 or a h&g #51.

The "thompson" bullet design is an excellent desgn that is known for their accuracy and the ability to handle high pressure/high velocities. I currently use/shoot 2 different thompson bullets in the 38/357's and 3 different thompson bullets in the 44spl/mags. I wouldn't change any of them to a keith bullet, there's already enough of them out there. Removing the gc on the thompson bullet will make a large bottom drive band that all the keith bullets are known to have.

Some classic 38spl/357 hp bullets.
Top left: 358156 150g hp thompson design
Top center: 358477 140g hp keith design
Top right: 358429 158g hp keith design
Bottom left: extremely rare 158g hp cramer 25a
Bottom right: an old h&g #51 mold (2-cavity/1 hp the other standard swc) that casts a 158g swc and a 150g hp keith design.



Why not use/collect the old classic designs and use them as intended?

Obsolete ......Not hardly. That's one of the best, hollow pointing would not hurt. Gas check, if you plan to use it in magnum mode I would leave the check. This was designed as a 357 magnum bullet and the designer put the gas check on it for a reason....magnum velocities with no leading. And if you are using a hollow point the alloy can't be too hard, the bullet will fragment on impact. Soft bullet needs a check for those magnum speeds. I've never put a gas check on a bullet and have less accuracy or more leading. If your not planning on magnum velocities then flat base will do nicely. Could be you need two moulds one with and one without check ? Can't have too many moulds!
This was my first mould (circa 1970) for a Ruger Blackhawk 357 and still using it...single cavity and all.
Gary

I have a double cavity Lyman #358156 that I picked up sometime ago but have never used. The single cavity that I'm having the gas check milled out and hollow-pointed is an older Ideal mould I picked up recently at a gun show. I am wanting to try something different. The statement that was made about turning it into another "Keith" mould got me to thinking. I also have a single cavity #358429 that I was going to send off to be hollow-pointed next. Then the #357446 was after the #358429. I also have #454424, #454190, #452374 and even and old #3118. I think most of these moulds even have the preferred square lube grooves. I mainly shoot .38 S&W ( this is what I was plan on using the #357446HP for), 38 Spl. was the modified #358156 for 4" Model 10's, .357 was the #358429 in Ruger Blackhawk. The #3118 is for a .32/20 load I have in mind.

I see hollow-pointed moulds come up for sale from time to time, but they get a little too active for me so I figured I'd take these old single moulds a have reworked and I would have something to experiment with till I found something I really liked.

I don't know, maybe I'm waisting my time and energy. All these single cavity moulds are duplicates of two & four cavity I already have so I figure if I mess one up it won't be one of my bigger moulds.

I figured about one to two cents apiece for the cost of casting a plain base bullet vs. two and a half to three cents apiece to gas check a bullet. I plan on shooting in a bullet trap to recapture my lead and I can't recapture the gas check. I've shot a lot of factory loaded hollow point ammo over the years but never a reload of my own. It's just something I want to try.

Ky Cowboy said:

...I also have a single cavity #358429 that I was going to send off to be hollow-pointed next...

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Lyman actually gave the HP 358429 it's own number, 358439.

Ky Cowboy said:

...It's just something I want to try.

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That is all the justification you need.

I went through a hollow point phase and while the results were good, they were not significantly better than a properly alloyed solid. I still have some hollow point molds but they do not get as much use as previously. Mostly, I cast large caliber solids and let the alloy do the work I want.

Enjoy the experimentation, you might find different results than I did.

Kevin

I went through a hollow point phase and while the results were good, they were not significantly better than a properly alloyed solid. I still have some hollow point molds but they do not get as much use as previously. Mostly, I cast large caliber solids and let the alloy do the work I want.

Enjoy the experimentation, you might find different results than I did.

Kevin[/QUOTE]

That's funny because that's what my wife called it "A Hollowpoint phase"

I love the 358156 design, and got 2 Cramer style molds that can drop HP or solid versions of this bullet. Also, a 4 cavity without the gas check for when I'm wanting to load more mild 38 hollow points where there is no real need for a gas check. Below is what I posted at the "castboolits" web site. I've since worked up to a load that is just shy of 1400 fps out of a 5" barrel and 1950fps out of the 18" marlin

The bullets tested were with an alloy of wheel weights +2% tin air cooled and sized to .359 (as the same alloy sized to .358 tended to lead my revolvers' barrel). The bullets are 151 grains after they are sized, lubed and gas checked. The lubricant is bees wax, lard, Johnson's paste wax and enough Vaseline to make it sticky and flow nicely through the lube sizer.





There was no leading in my revolver, or my Marlin 1894. Everything below 1200 ft/sec only expanded to .40" with about 12-14" penetration, while the rounds between 1200-1300 ft/sec went between 14-16" and expanded to .50" diameter. The slower rounds could have benefited from a softer alloy or deeper hollow point, but would most certainly sacrifice on penetration. The bullet on the bottom of the picture below was traveling 1600 ft/sec from the 18" Marlin and penetrated 17", with a recovered diameter of .50" though it shed a lot of lead for a recovered weight of 114 grains.



Below are the results of this round with some jacketed bullets recovered from shredded rubber mulch. I KNOW… it's not ballistics gel; but it's cheap, reusable, and I find it to be a useful tool to compare bullet performance. Expansion in this media is not as consistent as it is with ballistics gel, as some bullets, such as the Barnes (top of picture at 1550 ft/sec), and the Federal HST (bullets in the middle of the picture) tend to get clogged with material… though I RARELY see the Barnes get clogged like the round pictured here. These 147 grain HST's were only hitting 930 ft/sec out of my M&P Shield, and perform much better than this when run through my full size CZ75B… which I did not have today. The 90 grain .380 FMJ on the middle far right and far left, fired out of my little Sig penetrated 16" lol

All in all, the cast boolits did pretty well compared to the jacketed.



Pretty versatile for such an "obsolete" boolit.

Use the 358156 in a 27 and 28 at Mag velocities with the GC. Great shooting bullet and punches great holes in paper. Use it in the 19 with slightly lighter loads also using the GC. Cylinder face stays nice and clean with no spatter and the barrel just needs a swab and a pass with a nylon brush, clean patch and good to go.

Even with the marginal extra expense and added step of the GC the clean up time savings is totally worth it.