I picked up that raphine mold to do head to head testing in a snubnosed 38spl. I did the head to head testing with the;
Rahpine 150gr hb fn (.750" long) VS Lyman 358431 158gr hb swc (.725" long)
The lyman 358431 is on the left and the Raphine is on the right.
The raphine bullet is 25/1000th's longer than the lyman 358431. The lyman 358431 is the same bullet as the lyman 358429 with the difference being it's a hb bullet. They both have the same oal when seated in the 38spl cases.
I tested those bullets pictured above as cast along with putting hp's in them with a foster hp tool.
The molds in excellent condition and casts a .360" bullet that I sized to .359" for a tight fit in the cylinders of that snubnosed 38spl.
Still have the box and original paperwork.
Anyway I picked up the 35cal & 44cal raphine molds to do head to head testing against the lyman 358431 (35cal hb swc) and the lyman 429422 (44cal hb swc). The 35cal raphine mold was actually designed for the 38lc, I was simply testing it with p+ loads in a snubnosed 38spl.
I've been thinning the herd on molds lately and I'm going to put those 2 raphine molds up for sale on the cast bullets website.
I'm not trying to push the mold on you but I will say it's an good choice for the 38s&w. In a perfect world all your holes in the revolver's cylinders are the same. Along with your reloading dies will allow you reload a .361" bullet without swaging them down. A hb bullet is called the equalizer for a reason. A hb bullet doesn't care what size the cylinder holes are, if your dies swage the bullets down or not & the hb seals any imperfection in the bbl.
The 38s&w's are known for having their cylinders/bbl.'s all over the place. The only worse then the 38s&w is the 45lc with bbl.'s that range from .452" to .457". I've used these hb bullets in the 45cal's with excellent results. The bullet on the bottom left is extremely rare cast from a cramer hb mold that was specifically designed for the model 1917 revolvers/45acp's.
At 1 time I owned 40+ hb molds and I've slowly been selling them off. Just don't use them that much anymore. Or I have nib molds like this 1 laying around that I'll probably never use.
So there it is, the raphing bullet is .750" long and will have an OAL that's 15/1000th's shorter then the lyman 358311 rn bullet loaded in the 38s&w cases.
lyman 158gr rn 358311 has a OAL of 1.150" when loaded in the 38s&w cases
Raphine 150gr hb fn has a OAL of 1.135" when loaded in the 38s&w cases