LYMAN 310 dies??

[marba]

I have 4 Lyman 310 dies that I don't have a clue what they are . the first one has the number 257 on it, the second has the number 143 on the die and on the stem it has 388 on it, the third one die has no number but the stem has the number 429 and finally the forth die has no number on it but it looks like a universal depriming die. Please give me some info.

 

[BEARMAN]

The only way you are going to find out what they work on, is to try different cases in the dies and hope what you have is a set for one caliber. I have 3 310 tools and 2 sets of dies, one for .38 special and one set for 9mm, plus one of the tong tools has a primer seater for .45 acp. I checked the dies to see if there was any marks, one of the dies inthe .38 special set said .38 special and one of the dies in the 9mm set said 9mm but the rest of the dies if they all got mixed together , would be unknown as there was only a couple of numbers on 2 of the 6 or 7 dies left. If you have a tong tool there are old and new and also new large and small. So you don't just buy a set of dies and you are in business. The old tongs are caliber specific, the one set I have is .38 special and the holes in the handle are set up for depriming and priming right in the handles, The new sets come in large and small and have a removable bushing in the depriming hole in the handle, if you buy a set of dies you need the bushing for you die size if you have the new handles. also priming is done with a die not a hole in the handle with a rod on the other handle to push the primer into place. A set of dies is usually 4 or 5 dies so you may have a set. Check the size of the dies against a .30-30 case and a .357 case and see if you are more likely to be rifle or pistol sizes, if they seem to be pistol sizes your lucky because there is probably only 10 or so pistol sizes, wereas there are maybe 100 or more rifle sizes that it could be.