Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting lyman mold 358429

A lot of the leading or not issue has to do with dimensions and fit, maybe as much as bullet hardness and velocity.

The cylinder throats need to be as large or slightly larger than the groove dimension of the barrel. The part of the barrel where it threads into the frame of a revolver can't be choked. The bullets need to be a close fit in the cylinder throats.

my sticky keyboard. it is 358156. An old mold i acquired years ago and decided to play with it. Not particularly fond of the gas check part. So i bought a four hole 358429 mold. Wheelweight with lead free solder added. Mold states 170grain, i got to 169.5 with my mixed alloy which means i am running at lyman no 2alloy hardness.
I cast up a bunch of the 358429 and powdercoated them. loaded with 2400. i did shoot saturday a few of the 358156 bullets in a 357. they were cracking river rock at about ten yards or so.
we couldn't find any of the spent bullets, but a friend came back with a completely flattened gas check wondering what it was.
I did another one today. loaded some 60's vintage brass that had been primed and sized but never completed. Loaded with what i think were 158grain remington jsp's. The bullets were pulled at some point but looked usable. The primers all went boom saturday using the same primed brass.
i have a couple of .358diameter rifles. i think i am going to eventually put some of those 358429 bullets in a 350rem mag.
with the tin from the solder added, they make right purty bullets.

as far as a rifle is concerned i have fire lead bullets with normal lube in a 375 winchester up around 1750fps without any signs of leading. Lot of it depending if the diameters and alloy are right.

i just did some up today, but i used 12grains of 2400, which should be a little milder load. and i aint taking a picture of my reloading area, would be too embarrassing. as to that speer box, i have one similar to it from speer just a few years later, think it said "lawman" ammunition from memory.i also did some for 38special with 4grains of 231. I am using a rcbs powder drop, and for some reasons unique doesn't stay uniform on light loads per the electronic scale. few years ago, i bought probably 15molds at an estate liquidation. There must be four or five for 358 diameter. He had two molds for wadcutter, one in the 148gr range, and another 158grain range. Not sure why using the two different weights in wadcutters. I still have a ton of 158gr round nose i cast up years ago, but i think i like these keith bullets a lot better.

You guys talk like you load in caves, but I have seen some photo's around here of some mighty nice loading areas. I don't have enough room to do what I need to for a loading room, so I have to jam everything up together and use what little room I have available. Here are a couple photo's of it.











There is a lot of stuff sitting on the bench top that ought to be on the shelves and out of the way, but there is no room for it. I don't load like I used to and have given away a lot of stuff over the past couple of years as I have slowed down and sold off rifles, shotguns, and hand guns. It'll do to take me on out of this lifetime anyway. About all I shoot a lot of anymore is a few handguns. All those coffee cans under the bench are full of cast, sized and lubed bullets ready to load, or they are full of loaded ammo ready to go.

Back when I had two .375 H&H Magnums in the safe, I cast and loaded Lyman bullet number 375449, which was a gas check bullet that weighed about 265 grains with the check on it. I loaded it to 1750 FPS as fired across my little Chrony and used it to kill whitetail deer. It worked wonderfully well with one shot kills. I had previously tried to use the little 235 grain jacketed Speer bullet that I thought would expand on deer. WRONG!!! I killed two deer using it and had to shoot both of them twice. That Speer bullet was tough and abviosly made for the 375 H&H to be shot at normal velocity and at thick skined game.

again, pretty impressive, mine is on the wrong side of the tracks in comparison.
I'm not shooting as much as i use too. but the reloading stuff is fun for me and i keep learning new things.
I have many many projects to do, including some day relighting some 577snyders from the british army from the 1860's.

HAR!! Went down that road about 8 or 9 years ago. Bought a Sharps 45-70 and started shooting BPCR matches. Then I saw those Browning High Walls and of course, got one of those in 40-65 Winchester. Got tired of the blow tubes and cleaning every 10 rounds and started duplexing my loads. That is a whole other thing and a lot of people say it is dangerous, and it is if you are stupid. But I could shoot 50 rounds without cleaning and the rifle would still be almost as clean as when I started shooting. But they won't let you shoot duplex loads in sacntioned competition. You have to shoot the dirty stuff and blow tube and then clean every 5 or 10 rounds. It'sa PIA.

Then I got a cataract in my right eye that is my dominant eye. So I had it removed and a lens implanted. That didn't go well and the result was that now I see spider webs in my vernier sight. So I got the biggest of the Browning sight disk in the gun and still couldn't see. I tried to sell that rifle and the molds and all the stuff you have to have to shoot black powder, but no one wanted to give me anything for it and the thing was in the box it came in and not a scratch on it and with an outstanding figured stock.

So I took it down to Roger Ferrell and told him to get a Shilen 22 caliber, air gaged, hand lapped barrel with a 1 in 8 twist and build me a neat .222 Remington with an octagon barrel on that action. It turned out real nice and I sold the 40-65 Badger barrel for 300 bucks and the vernier sights for 200 bucks and gave away the Swiss 1.5 powder and the molds and other stuff you need to shoot black powder.

The .222 shoots Swift 75 grain Scirocco II and Barnes solid copper 70 grain TSX bullets into neat little 1/2 to 5/8 inch groups at 100 yards. I think I am going to use it to kill white tails next fall. I 'll take only head shots of course, but I've had plenty of people tell me they use those bullets in .223's for their sons and they kill with any reasonable hit.

So I gave the 45-70 Sharps to an ole boy who wanted it real bad but couldn't afford it because he has 4 children and a sick wife and burns rods for a living. (Welder) Also gave him a Bonanza co-ax press, loading dies, bullet moulds, sizing dies, powder, cases, scales, powder measure, sizer luber and set him up to load for it.

So I have come full circle from the big bore black powder rifles to a neat little Browning High Wall .222 Remington. This shooting business can sure take a fella down some strange roads can't it?

I have 358156 and have used it for many years, good mold. I also have a brand new 358429 which I have yet to even heat up...and I've been wondering if I can use the crimping groove for .357 Mag and still chamber ammo in my Black hawk. I am assuming the answer is yes, reading between the lines of your post, but is that correct?

That is correct RR. That bullet seated to and crimped in the crimp grove will also fit Smith models 27, 28, 19, 66, 586, 686 ect. It was never intended to fit small frame guns like the models 36 or 60. That bullet was designed for MAGNUM guns and it is an excellent performer in them. When backed by enough powder, it kills deer and hogs with no problems usually giving pass through shots even through the shoulder bones. Let us know how it works for you. Oh, and we like photo's so get out your camera.

All the best.

I think there is a problem with the Smith 27 & 28. They have short cylinders.

If I recall correctly Elmer Keith came up with the 358429 for the so called 38/44 loads which he developed before the 357 Magnum arrived.

When crimped in the crimp groove & loaded in 357 mag brass the loaded round won't work in the 27/28 cylinder, too long. It is very close in the smaller frame OM Blackhawk but works great in the NM large frame Blackhawk. And if memory serves I used it in my Model 60 [38 Special] crimped in the crimp groove.

As luck would have it, my BH is the old model. Guess I'll just have to cast a few and see how it goes.

Creeker, did you get out of the bullet business? I bought a couple thousand SWCs for my .45 from you over ten years ago. Still haven't used em, though.

I sold the bullet business to a man in a town near here. I also closed the firewood business & retired from clearing trees. Body bucked on me.

Dang Creeker, no wonder your body said STOP!!! I feed two wood burning stoves and a fire place every winter and cut and split all my own fire wood, but my splitters are the old fashioned "armstrong" type along with steel wedges. It gives me something to do over the summer when hunting season is closed, but I only do it about four hours early in the morning when its cool. Anybody doing it on the scale that you did has a right to get tired of it and that goes for commercial bullet casting as well. After about four hours, I have enjoyed doing either of those all I want for one day.

The wood business was good to me simply because of the set up I had. All the logs were free & many times I was in the truck, on the clock getting paid when I dumped them. Guess I'm in pretty good shape but running a saw 8 hours on the job & then fooling with firewood in the evenings & Saturday was a little much for someone in their 60's.

That timberwolf splitter is something, I looked at buying one about 10 years ago, they have some nice models.
Ronnie

Mine is a TW-6. I purchased it used, drove to Atlanta & hauled it back to WV. They are great & that one has split many tons of wood. The trouble I had was keeping the splits out of the way. A local guy sold me the conveyor & that was some of the best money I spent.

lyman no 49 cast bullet reloading page 359 shows 358429 seated to 1.553oal.
page 356 under general information it shows the length of the 357magnum at 1.590.
interesting enough it shows a number of jacketed rounds seated to 1.590 including the 155gr 258156 seated to 1.590 oal.
you shouldn't have any troubles with the 358429.
It's the 358156 designed by thompsen that has two crimp grooves to allow the bullet to be seated out further in 38special cases for 38/44. Problem was yes they had 357magnum guns but not a lot of brass. This was an attempt to solve the problem.

this is a solution in 27/28 revolvers as copy/pasted from another forum: "I can tell you for sure that it will fit Smith 586/686, Smith M-19, Ruger Security Six and will not fit Smith M-27/28 if crimped in the crimp groove.

My solution for the M-27/28 was to seat deeper and crimp into (not over) the front driving band, shortening the overall cartridge length to where the bullet was just below flush with the front of the cylinder. I never measured this length, so I can't post it, but the setting is fairly easy. Set your bullet seating die to seat but not crimp. Seat the bullet to the crimp groove and insert the cartridge into the cylinder. Observe how much of the bullet protrudes from the front face of the cylinder. Screw the bullet seating stem down aproximately equal to the amount of bullet nose protrusion you observed and seat the bullet deeper. Check the round in the cylinder again. Repeat this cycle until you have the bullet nose just below flush.

Now, unscrew the bullet seating stem as far as possible so you don't seat the bullet deeper when you adjust the crimping function of the die. Adjust the crimp to your requirements, then, with the cartridge all the way in the die (press handle down), screw the seating stem down until it makes firm contact with the bullet. Then lock the seating stem with its lock nut.

From this point, you can seat and crimp in a single operation."

translated, if its too long for your particular gun, seat to where you crimp over the top driving band.

That is a perfect description of how I do it Ron and I thought everyone did it that way. I do rifles the same way setting the bullet to just bump the lands in rifles that like to shoot that way and off of the lands in rifles that like to shoot that way. I never read the recommended seating depth because reloading allows you to custom fit every bullet to every firearm. That is the beauty of it. I don't reload to save money although I am happy about that. I do it to make ammo that fits the gun so that it will shoot more accurately.

But I guess everyone works out their own method after awhile and then you can cast a bullet, scratch your thumb nail across it, and know instantly if it is hard enough, too soft, or too hard. You can tell about how brite or shiny it is and about how much tin is in it or not in it. A lot of people tell me they only reload in order to be able to shoot. That's okay, but they are missing out on a dang interesting part of shooting and the part that can help them shoot better if they would get into it more.

I have never understood guys who don't want to adjust things. Reloading tools are made adjustable for a reason. Not every firearm chambered for a specific cartridge is made the same way or to the same dimensions and because you can adjust your tools, you can make a bullet to fit each and every different firearm.

But that takes time and patience and knowledge and understanding and experience and some people just are not willing to give it that much time or study it that much. Those people can get pretty close using the loading manual data and setting their tools to those dimensions, but some of us old grumpy types go further than that and to tell you the truth, I never saw a master class pistol shooter that wasn't that way. You don't become a master shooter shooting average ammo, set to standard information from a loading manual, and fired in average handguns. You can get close, but you ain't gonna be shooting in the master class doing it.

Of course, most people could care less about shooting in the master class and they just want to go shoot and have fun. The loading data and standard dimensions in any good loading manual and out-of-the-box guns will do fine for those people. But if you want to excel, you have to get grumpy and start paying attention to the little things because it is the little things that makes the difference in a bullet going into the 10 ring and the one that goes into the X ring. But I know that you already know all of that because you are a grumpy shooter too. Smile Ron. I know you are.