I Own Guns

The Lyman 452488 mold

Written on October 17, 2013   By   in Bullet casting, Bullet Molds, Reloading

The Lyman 452488 is a semi wadcutter design, meaning that instead of just a round nose, it has a shoulder with a flat point ahead of that. The 452488 has a fairly rounded sweeping shoulder and a short nose. It is very similar to the Hensley and Gibbs #130 mold. According to the Lyman catalogs, the 452488 should weigh 185 grains when cast from Lyman #2 alloy. When cast with my alloy, they run about 192 grains from my mold.

452488

The 452488 bullet design works very well in virtually any revolver chambered for the .45 calibers (though a bit small for some of the older .45 colts with larger groove diameters) and will often run just fine in most of the auto’s as well.

The mold that I have is a 4 cavity version purchased used at a gunshow several years ago, along with a number of other molds. I didn’t use it right away, because I had other .45 molds. When I did start using the mold I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to cast with, and what excellent results I received from the mold.

After getting the Reising earlier this year, and doing some experimentation, I discovered that the bullet is both functionally excellent, and pin-point accurate in that gun. This is the point when I express how glad I am that I have a 4 cavity of the design, I can’t imagine sending the time it would take to run this as a double cavity, let alone a single. I wish of course that it was a 6+ cavity mold, but I’ll settle for 4 considering the results with the Reising.

After seeing how well the design did in the reising, I revisited the bullet in both my Para Ordnance and the S&W 625. I still need to run through some more testing with the other .45’s that I have, but I can say for certain that the bullet, with a reasonable load, is capable of excellent accuracy in all of the guns that I’ve done any extensive testing in.

All in all, I like the 452488 a lot, it saves me lead over casting a full 230 grain RN, feeds and functions well in all of my guns so far, provides excellent accuracy, and the design makes the mold a breeze to cast with. If you can get your hands on one, I recommend it.