Our own Green_Frog, has been EXTREMELY helpful and has sent me his rare and precious mold to cast samples of this bullet. I thank you very much, Froggy

The mold casts undersize but, Ideal listed the enough info for the bands to draw it to spec's. I spent a couple of hours scaling it from 3 different Ideal line drawings before he offered the mold to me. I was .040 off on the OAL. .008 on the groove width and about .002 on the first 2 bands. I was off by .015 to the back of the first band. So, you can get pretty close by scaling. 

To scale it I just divided the width of the last band in the line drawing by the actual band dimention and measured the picture and used that factor to obtain the other dimentions. I did that on all three drawing and averaged them. I'm posting the above, just in case others would like to get a idea of what other molds measure.

I'll post all three drawings.

Regarding the diameter of the bands, Ideal Hand Book #30 says this:

"Bands are successively less in diameter from base towards the point, base band measuring about .323 and front band about .317 in diameter, so it is easily seated in barrel ahead of the case with a strong Ideal Schuetzen Bullet Seater."

Since it says "about" I took the liberty of making the front band .318 to bring it to a more modern standard. Also, since the original mold isn't close to the above spec (as well as many other Ideal molds), it should be quite allowable as being "original".

Now, about the group buy. If I can get 9 more people to commit to getting one, I will submit it to NOE for a group buy. The price would be $67.15 + shipping, for a aluminum 2 cav mold and $85.85 + shipping for a brass mold.

It should take more that 2 mo. to get it after a total of 10 people commit. I've done about 5 group buy's at NOE.

This is a chance to get a very rare and very accurate original Ideal mold for 16 twist (or faster) rifles.

Thelast picture is the actual bullet out of Froggy's mold.

Frank

Mike,
I don't know of anyone that has TO many molds, do you?

Frank

I'm sorry, Joe, but it's a Cherry cut mold and although it could be had .002 larger, it can't be made smaller.

Frank

I want to make as close to the orginal W. H. French bullet as I can. If you get on the "list", when I get 10 guys signed up, I'll see if I can get it made both + and - .002. That would give you close to what you want.

My three RL 32 cal molds are .318 first band and .322 - .323 base band.

Frank

I have a rifle for that.  Count me in.

westerner wrote on Feb 5^th, 2016 at 12:26pm:

Joe,
Is that in or out? The first sentance says out, the last says in?

Frank

Am having my 32-40 barrel lined with a TJ's liner. Would this be an appropriate bullet with the 14" twist and 28" length? If so, I'm in for a mold.

Also, what is the advantage of brass over aluminum? I've only cast with iron molds.

Hi Frank, I'd like to be added to the list as well.  Would like 1 of the aluminum molds.  Thanks for your efforts.

Regards, Joe