At the Auction

Last night at the auction, I was browsing the tool table and noticed a familiar outline.

A bullet mold, but what does it throw?  A quick inspection reveled it to be a Lyman block, with handles, and it had a pistol bullet,cavity  about .45 caliber.  The blocks were dirty and I couldn't see the mold number, but I figured it was worth a chance.  I told the auctioneer, who was standing nearby, that when the blocks got to his hands, I'd open at $25.00.

Then, I was in a quandary.  My eyes aren't calibrated to the thousandth, but I knew that the cavity was either a .44 or .45 caliber block and that the mold would throw a semi-wadcutter bullet with two lube grooves.  I've got a .44, and I've got a couple of .45 ACP, but if the mold threw a bullet for the .45 Long Colt, I'd have a mold block with no pistol to match it.  Still, at $25.00, I figured it would be a good deal, and I could use it for trading material.

Later, when the auctioneer cane to the tool table, he picked up the mold and announced, "I've got a twenty-five dollar opening bid on this bullet mold."  Nobody said a word.  "Going once, going twice, third and final offer....  Sold for twenty five dollars."  He handed me the blocks.

I found a rag and started looking for the mold number under a decade of bench dust.  452460.  I quick Google on my phone revealed tbe mold to be a semiwadcutter for the .45ACP, a 200 grain bullet.

Well, heck.  That looks like a nice bullet, and I've got a couple of 1911s that might shoot very well with that bullet.  Some of the usual forums tell me that with 4.0 grains of Bullseye, that bullet cuts a nice round hole, and often throws them in a single, ragged hole.  We'll have to see about that.

MidwayUSA sells that same block for $71.99 and the handles for $36.99,  At an opening bid of $25.00, I probably did okay.