Interesting find today--my first reloading experience

[ABTOMAT]

I was volunteering at a recycling center this morning when a guy came in with trailerfull of the rustiest junk you can imagine. Found a nice Stanley No.6 jack plane and a really, really rusty (like solid lump of rust) Ideal-brand bullet mold/combo reloading tool for .38 S&W.

I thought I'd just look at it and throw it out when I got home, but I boiled the thing in an electrolysis bucket for a couple hours and scrubbed all the rust off. Ugly as sin but it's still usable. Cast my first bullets today with it and they came out pretty OK looking for a newbie.

Never tried reloading-related work before and I don't have anything that shoots .38 S&W but I can see how this can be fun. Wonder if there's any market for antique-tool-cast S&W bullets.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

One mans junk is another man's treasure, but I would have someone knowledgable with cast bullets check your bullets out before doing anything else with them.

Your mould may be oversized inside despite how nice they look, but if someone greased the inside of the mould before loosing intersest in it, it may be ok despite all the rust on the outside.

Have someone mike some of them.

If it's an original 38-200 mould, who knows, it may be worth something.

 

[jjjitters]

Does it have holes in the side for actually reloading a round,some of those old hand reloading tools are worth a bit of money

 

[ABTOMAT]

Yeah, I'll check them out. Just from looking at the bullets now I'm guessing the mold's no good, since there's a pronounced rough casting line around the tips. At least it's a fun toy.

It has the hole for priming the case (?) and another for pressing the bullet in. Looks like this but closer to scrap metal:

http://www.gunauction.com/search/displayitem.cfm?itemnum=9111572

 

[jjjitters]

Yep thats one of the versions I was thinking about. There is another that takes somewhat more normal dies that screw in the handle.They are quite neat and hard to find in good condition. But when your on horseback sitting around a fire up in the mountains, they were very useful.They could just gallup into town 200miles away to pick up a box of .32's. Well maybe they were in a model A.

 

[mtrmn]

Now you need to find a Victory model Smith & Wesson in 38 S&W caliber.....not to be confused with 38 special.

 

[ABTOMAT]

Even if it's just a conversation piece it's pretty nifty.

 

[jjjitters]

I bet those bullets shoot ok, maybe not great , but good enough. Gives you an excuse to find a .38 revolver of that same era to go along with it, right????

 

[4895]

That is an awesome find. Congratulations!