Been going through boxes of odds and ends have never been 100% sure what they all were. All of the pieces pictured were in three boxes all orange cardboard branded Ideal/Lyman of which the three were separated into a box together marked as .277 dies and parts. Also in same lot box was a two cavity mold marked .277 that pours somewhat pointed round nose bullets closer to 0.257" rather than 0.277".
The first die has a funnel shaped entrance and slowly tapers to mid point where it finishes at 0.277" at top top where water is pushed through exits. The punch is possibly for forming a copper jacket that the cores from the mold would drop in and has a diameter of 0.280 with a shoulder 0.455" from top and rod is 0.274" from shoulder to end. The pointed plugs screw in a die that starts funnel shaped at bottom and quickly becomes a 0.277" with reverse spire point that looks like it would swage a 0.277" flat based spire point and the plugs give user option to have a slightly flattened point or more rounded point based on which plug and how deep it's adjusted. Only other possible use I could see for the plugs is flaring a case mouth but who flares case mouths on rifle cases?
Definately not any kind of reloading dies I have seen though the shell holder has a primer seating punch. Did Ideal and/or Lyman ever make bullet swaging dies, could these be blanks someone machined themselves but interior has same black finish as outside of die bodies. If for loading the only thing could conceive is the one that appears to be the final swage die could possibly be a bullet seating die but the hollow die can't be any kind of loading die. Has to be a jacket or core squirting die.
Somebody sell me a clue and if these have any value for swaging as my most expensive bullet at moment are 85 to 120 grain 0.277" bullets for use in 6.8 spc II. Only reasonable priced 0.277" bullets I can find consistently are Speer 90 grain TNT's which are very good shooting bullets but if decide to run a couple of the suppressed, binary SBR's practicing double taps, bursts and mag dumps it's easy to send 200 to 300 rounds downrange just in a quick rapid fire drill. If able to mash a 85 to 95 grain spire point and make it happen with something from a box I consider "free booty" would be huge. My usual "luck" is they have no use at all except for some procedure that is not done in current swaging or loading processes.