Ray Rapine from Rapine molds is a theif and a hack

[Greenmtnboy]

Three years ago I bought a .440 bag mold, a .530 two cavity mold and a .440 two cavity mold.

I sent my bag mold back because I could see light through it, at that time I got in to a lengthy discussion with Ray over tolerances. He felt that he didn't need to replace my bag mold because it was supposed to be a primitive mold and tight tolerances were not historically correct.

I said :bull: send me my money back or a new mold, he sent a new mold with tighter tolerances but still low quality.

My .440 two cavity mold threw OK balls but with fins because the mold block didn't line up, I kept it anyway because I didn't want to deal with Ray's :bull: , so I would cast balls and tumble them in my tumbler and it would get rid of the fins and sprue but the balls were horribly out of round.

I didn't use my .530 mold until this spring because I had a bunch of swaged ball and only used my 54 for hunting. bought my wife a new 54 last winter and wanted her to shoot it all summer and cast balls were the cheapest way.

I casted 100 balls,tumbled them and went to the range with my wife. She immediately had a hard time starting the cast balls. I threw my calipers on them and found out that my .530 mold cast .535 balls.

I sent the mold back and explained that I just started using the mold and it cast the wrong size balls.

Ray sent the mold back with cold cast wrinkled balls in the cavities and said I didn't know what the hell I was doing or talking about, he wrote this all over my Rapine box that held the mold.

he said I wasn't using pure lead,( :bull: I use pure Rotometal lead) and that I was casting my ball to hot also :bull: .At this point I was ****** enough that I didn't want his damn out of round over sized crappy molds.

I sent both molds back with several ball that I casted and tumbled and with pictures of the over size balls and asked for a refund sense both molds were faulty.

I didn't hear from him all summer even after I mailed him two letters of question and called several times leaving messages.

I finally got a letter today saying once again that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, that the .530 mold actually throws the right size ball :bull: and I needed to send him 20.00 for shipping if I ever wanted to see my molds again.

Not only is Ray Rapine a incompetent thief his product sucks and I can see why he his out of business.

I am out 140.00 which really hurts right now not to mention the pain in my ass I had to deal all summer. I had to buy a Lyman mold from track of the wolf with money I couldn't afford to throw away just so I could cast .440 balls to compete with this summer.

If any of you have experiences this I am making a formal complaint with the better business bureau as well as filing a sm claimes in court.

Ray stole my money and my molds.

He also said the brand new 54 mold that had only 100 ball through it was wore out and over used :youcrazy: :shake: :bull: .

 

[123.DieselBenz]

How did you pay for them?

Most CC companies will take care of problems like this . . . however there usually is a time limit, but if you did use a CC and you can show them your conversations with Ray, they may be able to help you!

Obviously if the balls are hard to load, and bought balls are not a problem, there bigger than they claim to be . . . or should be! I find that people measure things differently, or the measuring devise is not accurate or calibrated . . . I prefer a micrometer that measures .0001" With all that said if the store bought balls measure .5294, and the cast measure .5358 on the same measuring devise, even if it is not calibrated . . . it is too large!

Rotometal is a good company!

 

[rabjr]

:shake:

 

[Greenmtnboy]

My swaged hornady balls calabrate right at .530. Rays mold is a .530 that cast .535 balls.

 

[necchi]

Thanks for sharing.
That information from someone with your experiance and reputation is darn valuble stuff.
And Much Luck,,

 

[tg]

"Ray Rapine from Rapine molds is a theif and a hack"

I am a little slow, could you clarify your positon on this post a bit better? Seriously, sorry to see this went into the krapper for you I had thought this was one of the "good" vendors around.I know you are experienced enough to know that you are talking about, maybe we are experiencing a "vendor burnout"

 

[Rifleman1776]

My swaged hornady balls calabrate right at .530. Rays mold is a .530 that cast .535 balls.

Mismarked maybe?
I had a Lee .495 mould that cast at .498.

 

[Tony Logan]

I read your complaint and it sounds like Mr. Ray is being a jerk. I will add him to my list of people and products to run from,and I am sure others will as well. I was not impressed with the ransom demand of "send me the $20 or you will never see your mold again." Nothing worse than being stolen from.

 

[Joe Sullivan]

I can see how this has made the hair stand up on your back :cursing: :haha: . From what I can see from a google search, this guy is out of business. He's holding the good cards. You could send him the postage, get your mold back and stone the halves to get the .005 off the dia. You must have seen my thread "bag mold". Theres always the chance that he will pocket the postage money too. :shake:

 

[62tulle]

My .595 from him does not cast the best ball, it is probably out of round but I have not miked it.
I have hit some hard targets with my smoothbore using those balls but I also miss too. Is it me or the balls? I get better results with balls a friend (also named Ray) makes using a Lyman .600 that he ground the joining faces down some. Now that makes these balls not round either but boy they shoot great.
Unfortunately, the Rapine mold is now used mainly as a prop. Expensive prop.

 

[jtmattison]

Ray stole my money and my molds.

That's a shame. With today's economy how can anyone afford to treat customers like that? I guess that's why he's gone under. For all the money you spent you could have bought several good molds.

:shake:

HD

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I don't have any of his products. Back when Black Powder cartridge shooting was in it's rebirth, he was one of the only makers of obsolete cartridge molds. And he would make up a mold for an old bullet, etc. I did meet him once, at a muzzle loader match about 30 years ago.

I am sorry to hear of your problems and understand the frustration. I have a few brand new items almost 20 years old (NOS), that I purchased years ago.. To eventually find that it doesn't serve the purpose, is a kick in the teeth.

(I just opened a thirty year old CVA frontier rifle kit, to find it had a percussion lock and a flint barrel, All this time I thought it was a percussion kit.)

certainly your options are limited. Suing for breach of contract/warranty in PA must be done within 4 yrs. A complaint to the BBB has limited effect, they can't actually do anything to any business, much less a closed business. The PA attorney general's office of consumer affairs is sometimes effective at resolving complaints. (Pa has a very toothless consumer law.)

I am a firm believer in hitting somebody with all available barrels in such cases. I'd file complaints everywhere.

 

[50cal.cliff]

Folks I don't know Greenmtnboy personally, however I do know he do what he is talking about or at least he has been around here long enough to know what he is talking about. I don't post regular like a lot of folks but I do remember when I first seen one of his posts.
So I guess I am going to have an side with him on this issue.
I grew up in the age when the customer was always right even if he was wrong.

I had my own construction business for years and there has been a few customers I would have loved to tell them just what I thought of them, except for they were the customer.

I grew up in a small town and when I was just a lad I asked my Dad one time when there was a construction slump. How come you don't advertise?

His reply has stuck with me all of my life. He told me,"if I do a good job my name gets around fast enough, but if I do a bad job my name will beat me from job to job"!

It does well for some one who has any kind of goods to sale to do his best to satisfy his customers.
When a ball is suppose to be one size and it turns out another. You could chalk that up to a bad mold or an incorrectly marked mold.
However as in this case the man messed up three times and refused to make it right and then clearly attacks his customer. Well let's just say I think he has coming what he is getting!!!!!!!!

 

[Dphar]

Three years ago I bought a .440 bag mold, a .530 two cavity mold and a .440 two cavity mold.

I sent my bag mold back because I could see light through it, at that time I got in to a lengthy discussion with Ray over tolerances. He felt that he didn't need to replace my bag mold because it was supposed to be a primitive mold and tight tolerances were not historically correct.

I said :bull: send me my money back or a new mold, he sent a new mold with tighter tolerances but still low quality.

My .440 two cavity mold threw OK balls but with fins because the mold block didn't line up, I kept it anyway because I didn't want to deal with Ray's :bull: , so I would cast balls and tumble them in my tumbler and it would get rid of the fins and sprue but the balls were horribly out of round.

I didn't use my .530 mold until this spring because I had a bunch of swaged ball and only used my 54 for hunting. bought my wife a new 54 last winter and wanted her to shoot it all summer and cast balls were the cheapest way.

I casted 100 balls,tumbled them and went to the range with my wife. She immediately had a hard time starting the cast balls. I threw my calipers on them and found out that my .530 mold cast .535 balls.

I sent the mold back and explained that I just started using the mold and it cast the wrong size balls.

Ray sent the mold back with cold cast wrinkled balls in the cavities and said I didn't know what the hell I was doing or talking about, he wrote this all over my Rapine box that held the mold.

he said I wasn't using pure lead,( :bull: I use pure Rotometal lead) and that I was casting my ball to hot also :bull: .At this point I was ****** enough that I didn't want his damn out of round over sized crappy molds.

I sent both molds back with several ball that I casted and tumbled and with pictures of the over size balls and asked for a refund sense both molds were faulty.

I didn't hear from him all summer even after I mailed him two letters of question and called several times leaving messages.

I finally got a letter today saying once again that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, that the .530 mold actually throws the right size ball :bull: and I needed to send him 20.00 for shipping if I ever wanted to see my molds again.

Not only is Ray Rapine a incompetent thief his product sucks and I can see why he his out of business.

I am out 140.00 which really hurts right now not to mention the pain in my ass I had to deal all summer. I had to buy a Lyman mold from track of the wolf with money I couldn't afford to throw away just so I could cast .440 balls to compete with this summer.

If any of you have experiences this I am making a formal complaint with the better business bureau as well as filing a sm claimes in court.

Ray stole my money and my molds.

He also said the brand new 54 mold that had only 100 ball through it was wore out and over used :youcrazy: :shake: :bull: .

Sorry you had problems.
But I would never expect a "bag mould" to make a good ball and if I had one would not use it for serious casting considering it a "prop". I don't use aluminum moulds either.
This said he still should have made this right...

If you watch eBay you can often find Lyman/RCBS moulds at reduced prices. New or good used.

Being the devils advocate the .535 might have shot better than a .530?

Dan

 

[rich pierce]

+1 on bag molds being what they are. One pretty much has to accept the whole "authenticity" thing and not embrace the dial calipers with a bag mold. I have a Larry Callahan bag mold in .570 that casts a .575. Shoots the devil out of the bullseye, but for period work I'd prefer it be looser, a .570. It is what it is, something fun to play with around the campfire, and for the guy who wants a .575, it's money! I never thought to mention it to Larry. Most molds I have used run +/- 0.002 of being as advertised and round. I suppose one could send a ball mold maker a couple additional $20s to cast some balls and mike them.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

Rapine sold his business to a large mechanical company over a decade ago. Prior to the sell out he put out a quality product. Bag moulds are good for Primitive competitions like making ball around a campfire. Bag moulds are not precision moulds.

 

[KHickam]

Three years ago I bought a .440 bag mold, a .530 two cavity mold and a .440 two cavity mold.

I sent my bag mold back because I could see light through it, at that time I got in to a lengthy discussion with Ray over tolerances. He felt that he didn't need to replace my bag mold because it was supposed to be a primitive mold and tight tolerances were not historically correct.

I said :bull: send me my money back or a new mold, he sent a new mold with tighter tolerances but still low quality.

My .440 two cavity mold threw OK balls but with fins because the mold block didn't line up, I kept it anyway because I didn't want to deal with Ray's :bull: , so I would cast balls and tumble them in my tumbler and it would get rid of the fins and sprue but the balls were horribly out of round.

I didn't use my .530 mold until this spring because I had a bunch of swaged ball and only used my 54 for hunting. bought my wife a new 54 last winter and wanted her to shoot it all summer and cast balls were the cheapest way.

I casted 100 balls,tumbled them and went to the range with my wife. She immediately had a hard time starting the cast balls. I threw my calipers on them and found out that my .530 mold cast .535 balls.

I sent the mold back and explained that I just started using the mold and it cast the wrong size balls.

Ray sent the mold back with cold cast wrinkled balls in the cavities and said I didn't know what the hell I was doing or talking about, he wrote this all over my Rapine box that held the mold.

he said I wasn't using pure lead,( :bull: I use pure Rotometal lead) and that I was casting my ball to hot also :bull: .At this point I was ****** enough that I didn't want his damn out of round over sized crappy molds.

I sent both molds back with several ball that I casted and tumbled and with pictures of the over size balls and asked for a refund sense both molds were faulty.

I didn't hear from him all summer even after I mailed him two letters of question and called several times leaving messages.

I finally got a letter today saying once again that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, that the .530 mold actually throws the right size ball :bull: and I needed to send him 20.00 for shipping if I ever wanted to see my molds again.

Not only is Ray Rapine a incompetent thief his product sucks and I can see why he his out of business.

I am out 140.00 which really hurts right now not to mention the pain in my ass I had to deal all summer. I had to buy a Lyman mold from track of the wolf with money I couldn't afford to throw away just so I could cast .440 balls to compete with this summer.

If any of you have experiences this I am making a formal complaint with the better business bureau as well as filing a sm claimes in court.

Ray stole my money and my molds.

He also said the brand new 54 mold that had only 100 ball through it was wore out and over used :youcrazy: :shake: :bull: .

Sorry you had problems.
But I would never expect a "bag mould" to make a good ball and if I had one would not use it for serious casting considering it a "prop". I don't use aluminum moulds either.
This said he still should have made this right...

If you watch eBay you can often find Lyman/RCBS moulds at reduced prices. New or good used.

Being the devils advocate the .535 might have shot better than a .530?

Dan

So, back in the day - they were just "props" funny I would guess that they were used a bit in the period and nobody complained

 

[Zonie]

"Back in the day" the average shooter had no way to accurately measure their cast balls.

IMO, back then, if the patched ball would load, that was good enough.

 

[hanshi]

This is good information to know. I've never owned a Rapine mold but have always thought of them as being a high quality product. I think you were treated in an underhanded fashion and have been victimized.

I would not necessarily expect a bag mold to hold to the nominal dimension but .005" is a fairly large variation, in my book. High quality block molds are not immune. I have a Lyman .445" mold that throws ball no larger than .442-.443. I really thought I was shooting honest .445" ball.

 

[MSW]

sorry to hear of your troubles. that kind of arrogance isn't always for the "Fortune 500" or so it would seem.

Contrast this with an experience i had with Lyman. I had allowed a mold to rust

:redface: :redface: :redface:

and i wrote to them asking the best way to fix it. They didn't answer. Instead, i got a brand new mold by return mail. Now I have two 170 grain .308 molds, and a very loyal spot in my heart for Lyman, which will probably earn them a boatload more than the cost of a mold over the course of my lifetime as a consumer of things-which-go-bang.

why is it so hard for manufacturers to figure this sort of thing out? especially in a community as tightly knit as ours?

just the ruminations of the crabby old man...