WTF! Differing 577-58 calibre Minie ball moulds!

Brutus

Brutus

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I bought via TOW very recently, a Lyman 575213 (no suffix) mould. For a 510 grain Minie style hollow base bullet.
I mistakenly thought this was one in the same, to the 575213PH mould.(parker hale for new made Enfields)
There was another similar mould, that I was aware of, the 575213OS-meaning old style, and I avoided buying it.
Now I don't know which rifle I should aim to purchase? P&H Enfield models or the Antonio Zoli Remington Zouve??

Any ideas fellas?
 
I can't answer which gun to buy but there is a difference in original US and English mini ball skirts. The US one had a thin edge to the skirt and a cone shaped cavity. The british one had a much thicker skirt (about .1") and possibly a somewhat flat topped cone to the cavity

cheers mooncoon
 
I bought a Lee .58 cal mold for my .577 Enfield. Actual size is .575 for a 500gr minie. Fits the bore nicely and it's accurate. It cost $27, way less than Lyman and some of my Lee molds are 17 years old. The one's I make are original style, U.S. that is.
 
I picked up a lee mini mould for my 45 cal. pedersoli. Bullets fit like a round ball without a patch. To bad I cast 200 before I tried the fit.
 
Lyman makes three 575213 molds:
575213 a more modern design
575213OS a copy of the US M1855 rifle Musket CW bt
575213PH the Parker Hale

and no longer listed:
585213 like 575213 but bigger in diameter

It is unknown why they would list 4 different molds with the same number.
 
The first 3 numbers are the nominal diameter of the bullet being cast, the 213 is the design type and the suffix just points you to the exact type.

OS: Old Style
PH: Parker-Hale

The 585 mould casts a .585" slug, as opposed to the regular .575" bullet. Gunbarrel boring was more of an art than a science until Whitworth tightened things up at Enfield. The US and the rest of the world followed, but not soon enough. Upshot of the whole thing was that "issue" ammo often was too small, hence private production of moulds for tighter-fitting projectiles.

That's why.
 
Kernalvax said:
Zolis (a tleast mine) don't like thin skirt minis, thy seem to skip in the rifling and go unstable around 60 yard flying off in random directions
Click to expand...

I have found that the zoli will shoot a thin skirt mini very accurately with a powder charge of 50 to 60 grains out to 100 yards. More powder results in bigger groups.
A thicker skirt seems to need more powder to keep things accurate.
Round ball in this gun gets about a 6" group at 100 yards with the primitive sights and aging eyes - no matter what powder charge I use.
 
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