Abominator

Great Goals! Good to have stepped milestones. Good luck!!!

Just got mine too! Messed around with it. Pretty fun. I shoot an X5 in USPSA but wanted this to help with my double action pulls on my P229 &P226.

I dry tumble inside (basement). A few things I do: Make sure the lid is tight Use a dryer sheet cut in half. (Lots of dark dust will adhere to it) Be sure to "charge" your media with your preferred polish one and a while. I use Hornady one shot or NuFinish I run a small air purifier next to the vibratory tumbler when in use Wear nitrile gloves and a dust mask when separating the brass from the media. I've had lead testing a couple times and my levels were good.

I use Lee and Lyman M dies for expansion.

If it is indexing issues I would have to think there may still be some adjusting needed on the pawls. Do you know when it is getting hung up? is it the same each time? When I 1st got my press I think the 1st 1k rounds (several sessions) I would always have issues. I think I would chalk up my adjustments to good enough, not good.

You may have to adjust the pawls when going from oring to spring or the other way.

I just use the liquid lanolin as Vince suggested. I just lube the o-ring after every reloading session when I clean and re-lube the shell/sub plate. I did a run of 1000k 9mm and 800 40 S&W without having to stop during the runs and re-lube. I bet you could go longer but my arms were tired!!!

Thanks so much. I guess I wasn't understanding that. Much appreciated! I loaded up about 20 test rounds and took them to the range. Made a couple adjustments and shot 30 more, everything worked great at the range. I think I have it down now for this caliber. I am not sure why but I just seemed to have more trouble than I did with 9mm. Thanks to all for the help. Loaded 800 rounds up yesterday, stockpile is starting to look good. Lots of reloading to go!

I think this might be the case. I'm just being OCD and need to chill lol. I found this, seems like many people have this issue of lengthening the OAL using the FCD. John at LEE Precision explained how the FCD is supposed to crimp the round and how the resizing-ring of the FCD is designed to reduce the outside diameter of the cartridge to .002" below SAMMI's maximum specification so that, in effect, any round loaded using the FCD will fit any chamber. This being the case a change in OAL is considered normal and most likely due to varying thicknesses of the case walls as well as the OD of the cartridge being compressed; John likened it to "squeezing a tube of toothpaste". I guess the fix is to seat the bullet slightly deeper than desired and the OAL will shake out in the end.

Since I bought it? 3k of 9mm( no problems) , 100rds of .40 S&W. Its only about 1.5yrs old. I just started reloading last year.

Okay so I tried to get a run going today and things just get weirder for me. I think I have figured out what is happening but I don't know why. This issue happens whether or not I have all 5 stages with brass or just one at a time. It is definitely worse when the press if full. - I am seating the bullet to 1.175" +/- .002" -On the Factory crimp die, the OAL will come out to 1.179"-1.187" !!!!! Its like as it de-bells it pushes the bullet out. -If I run them through the last 2 stages again they size back down around 1.175" This is driving me nuts.

Awesome thank you. Yeah not scraping off the coating in the seating or crimping stage.

With regards to crimp or de-belling rather. I was reading the SAAMI specs and it says .423"-.424" for the case mouth. I ran several measurements with different brass and this is what I got ( bullets are .401" for ref) Mixed brass: .4175" after sizing--- .4225" after flare --- the bullet seats east with no scraping of the coating using the Lee Factory Crimp Die with stem fully out. The final case mouth size is .421" with no crimp. I cannot push the bullet in against the bench. All head stamps had same measurements I was concerned that being .002" tighter than SAAMI specs was bad but I measured some factory ammo 180 grain jacketed and it was .419"-.420" consistently You guys think these are okay? I mean, I literally can de-bell any less. My powder charge is 10% below max for Sport Pistol and I am loaded a bit long, min OAL is 1.16" and I am 1.18" for these bullets.

I took all of the dies out and cleaned them with alcohol and some patches. I set up all the dies again and. It seems to be working good. Definitely very small variations because of head stamp and running a full shell plate helps the consistency. I have some test loads to shoot before starting a run. Thanks for the advice on this guys.

Thank you, I will try that out and I will fine tune my crimp die. I have a dial caliper so I'll try to get it as close to .4215 and see. Oh and yes they fit the case gauge and pass the plunk test.

Hmmm no I didn't even think of that. I re-run them though individually. I'll try that. Thank you.

SAAMI states that 40 S&W at the mouth should be .423". SNS bullets are .401". At the flare step I am only flaring to about .423"to.424". I am not scraping any of the coating off of the SNS 180grain bullet and it seats smoothly. Does this mean that I am flaring too little? In the last stage with the Factory Crimp Die, is there any de-belling needed? I can still push the bullet down in the case if I push hard enough against the table. If I crimp to .420" I can no longer do that. These is still some case mouth at this point, it is not crimped inward. Is that too much crimp? I searched some other posts about this but I didn't quite see my exact question. Sorry if this has been asked to death.

I am having a bit of trouble with what I believe is on the bullet seating step but I am not sure. Bullets are 180 grain RNFP SNS coated. I am loading to an OAL of 1.170-1.180 using range brass that had been run through my Lee bulge buster. LnL is set up as such using Lee carbide 4 die set : 1) deprime/size 2) expander 3) powder 4) seat 5) crimp. On about 50% of the rounds I am getting an OAL over 1.180". Here is the weird thing, when I run those long rounds through the seating die and the FCD again it drops the OAL to 1.17"-1.175". I don't think I need more flare because I am not scraping any of the coating off the bullets when seating. I triple checked and made sure all the dies were secure and lock nuts were tight. Is this just how reloading used 40 S&W brass goes? I have only reloaded with new brass up until now with this caliber. All rounds pass the plunk test and I am not worried about that, just wondering what the heck is going on with the seating. I would hate to have to run all long reloads through the last 2 steps again . I am sure I'm doing something stupid that I am not realizing. The only thing that seems weird to me is the on the 5th stage, the factory crimp die, there is much more resistance vs loading 9mm. I chalked that up to it being used 40 S&W brass but do you think it could be affecting the previous step somehow? Is the bullet shape causing uneven seating in the die?

Okay Vince here is the Final review: What other life changing advice do you have? LOL. This o-ring mod works excellent! I reloaded 300 rounds of 9mm and I don't think I had a single granule of powder on my shell plate. Not only that the press seemed to run smoother than it ever has before. I'm not sure what witchcraft is baked into that o-ring but it is good stuff. I will add that perhaps due to the increased drag of the o-ring I did have to adjust the right and left pawls, but not by much. So glad you shared this fix in my 2nd year of reloading, I would have felt so cheated had I been reloading for many years and just now learned this! This fix is a definite recommend for anyone with and LnL. Well done Vince.

*** Moved comment to Hornady LnL Progressive issues post.

Will do!

Here is one that stumped me for a while. Perhaps you guys have ran into this before. I was having some indexing problems, very slight like the detents were not quite reaching their seats. but only sometimes, on the up and down stroke. I knew (well pretty sure) it wasn't the pawls because they were fine before the problem reared its head. I messed with the detents....no help so I put them back as close as I could to where they were. I tried making the shell plate a little more loose.....no help actually worse. I tightened it more than before.....no help. I finally figured it out. I have the Inline Fabrication Ergo roller handle and it had worked its way ever so loose. Since the damn thing has a roller handle and is so smooth I didn't even notice. It was messing with the last bit of the stroke about 2 out of 5 times. I tightened that sucker up and used some Loctite on the nut. 300 rounds later there were zero issues!!! Vince- I ordered some O-rings, lanolin got here today, excited to try it out!!

Thanks for the pointers. You are certainly right about feeling out of control trying to speed up. It's a good thing I really enjoy the whole process!

Did you keep the sear, springs, and over travel tube? Just swapped the trigger from the GG kit with the AC?

Casually shot all my life, never competitively. I started USPSA last year, shot 4 matches ranked around the middle of the pack (about 30 is people) every match. Was pretty happy but diagnosing my scores I was actually extremely accurate but pretty darn slow. I saw how important speed is so I bought Ben Stoeger's Dryfire book and Skill and Drills. Great reads. I am using the accurate but slow schedule for training. Holy F$@k I am slow. I feel light years away from these PAR times. I know I just started but I didn't realize how hard it is to move fast and try to retain accuracy. Oh well I'm still having a great time and can't wait for matches to start up in my area again. Anyone have a similar experience?