Changed from lee turret to Hornady LNL AP, and now have frequent failure to fire rounds

[TobyJ]

As the title says...I loaded up about 200 rounds on the LNL.  Load is the same, 5.6gr HS6 under a 135 frontier plated at 1.13 that I had been loading on the lee.  Primers from the same box of 1000, even used the Lee dies.  Took them to a match yesterday, and had regular failures to go bang...like 6 out of 30 on the first stage.  Thinking it might be my new (less than 200 rounds) wolf 4.5 striker spring, I changed it out for the factory striker spring.  Next stage was better, but still had a couple fail to go bang.

 

Moved on to the classifier, when I found a bag of rounds I had loaded on the Lee. Same batch of primers and powder, but these were 115gr frontiers over 6.8 gr HS6.  All 12 for the classifier went bang, as the did the 8 for the mini stage that was next.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any more of those, so I went back to the 135's for the last stage, with similar results.  I think I had 2 fail to go off, out of 28.

 

Came home last night, and looked for anything that might be amiss.  I found that the primer seater assembly was only finger tight, as was the shell plate.  Figured that might allow for high primers, so I tightened both up. Loaded up another 100 rounds this morning, and headed for the range.  Same issue, had several failures, so I shelved those.  This time, I also tried to restrike a couple, but they still didn't go boom.  I had also grabbed another bag of rounds from off the lee, this time they were 147gr frontiers over 3.3 of titegroup, so I tried those, and all 40 or so went bang.

 

Called up Hornady, and the guy thought I might be seating the primers too deep (??).  Figured yesterday they were not deep enough, due to the shell plate and the primer seater being loose, and that today, I tried to make up for it by man handling the setup, setting them too deep.  I've never heard of that being a problem, but did manage to find several posts on the old interweb where folks said that you could damage primers by seating them too deeply, or that maybe the striker couldn't reach them well enough to ignite.

 

So I loaded up 21 rounds, trying to seat them 'just right'...3 failed to ignite, and wouldn't on a restrike either.

 

Gun ran fine for 250 rounds (all from the lee) last week, and ran the lee loaded rounds today, so I think I've ruled the gun out as an issue.  All rounds from either press have passed a shockbottle case gauge, so I don't think its an out of battery issue, either.  

 

Other than 'buy a Dillon (which is an option), anyone have any other thoughts?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

TobyJ

[bandw1dth]

Do the rounds that fail to go bang have good solid hits from the striker? Is the problem rounds relegated to one or two different head stamps if your using mixed brass.

If the primer is getting a good solid strike and not going off then your primers must have gotten contaminated somehow.


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[TobyJ]

They seem to have solid hits, although they are not as pronounced as the ones that go bang...not sure how much of that has to do with the extra pressure the ones that go bang go through.

 

It's all mixed brass, out of the same batch I've been reloading for a while...same as the stuff that goes bang from the lee press.  And the ones that don't have varied headstamps...so it's not one brand.

 

Primers seems unlikely, as I don't see how a few from each box of 100 could get contaminated, leaving the rest ok.  And it also seems strange that none of the contaminated ones ended up in the Lee loaded ammo...they are all from the same carton of 1000 that has been sitting in my office since I bought them about 2 weeks ago.

 

Thanks for the thoughts, though...

 

TobyJ

[drewbeck]

Compare the two rounds made from each press. SOMETHING is different and you just need to figure out what. Just because they are the same dies doesn't mean you reset them the same in the new press.  Look at your loaded round primers from lnl vs Lee what's different?  Something has changed and you just need to adjust the new press to make the same consistent rounds.  A blue press isn't the answer, I had the same primer issues when I switched from a LNL to a 650, the tool that made the ammo isn't the problem, you have to identify what's different in the finished product and adjust the press to make that ammo consistently

[Shadowrider]

9 hours ago, TobyJ said:

Called up Hornady, and the guy thought I might be seating the primers too deep (??).  

 

That was completely impossible to do on my LNL.  As a matter of fact with large primers it was basically impossible to seat them deep enough to fire and that's the reason I sold it and bought a 650.  I know that's not what you want to hear but on mine it wasn't going to work.  Nothing on the press was broken and the seating punch would extend way up into the primer pocket.  I tried the penny under the punch and all the tricks.  When seating, the press linkage and ram just wouldn't apply the force required to seat a primer properly.  The compound links, ram, handle, EVERYTHING would just deflect away from the primer and rotate around the axis of the ram.  I figured it was just too big and the handle was too far off center which was the root of the problem.  To Hornady's credit they did try to work with me on it, sent new primer punches, springs and parts but they couldn't figure it out.  When it became clear that they just didn't know what the problem could be I threw in the towel.  I was tired of messing with it and sold it.  It only had a few thousand rounds on it, maybe 8k.  Small primers would work but it still took several pushes to seat some of them.  A friend has one that's old and has no issues with it.  Maybe I had a lemon.

 

Try seating them with a hand priming tool and see if you get better results.  I'd bet you do.

 

Edit:  Mine was an early pre-EZJect model that I converted by installing the updated plate.  I know they've improved the case feeder a lot since then so maybe the priming system and machining tolerances have improved too.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Shadowrider

[TobyJ]

Thanks...I found a thread over at AR-15 dot com where someone measured the tolerances between the shellplate and the backing plate, finding quite a bit of slop.  His problem was jerky movement as the detent balls snapped into place (another problem I have), and fixed it with shims.  By shimming the backing plate up, it will move it closer to the shellplate, which will, in turn, allow the primer ram to run up that much further.

 

Now all that's assuming that it is a mechanical limit, and not a leverage issue, as you seemed to experience.  I've got a set of shims on order, and they will be here today...fingers crossed!

 

I looked at the penny / dime fix, and I don't see that as a solution. The primer ram stem bottoms out on the body, so unless your shim only contacts the ram (really small diameter), it won't change the protrusion.  Now on some older presses, it seems that the primer ram actually makes a dimple on the press, and I could see where the shim might help there, but mine hasn't done that yet.

 

TobyJ

Edited September 12, 2017 by TobyJ

[MemphisMechanic]

What brand of primer are you loading?

 

Use the tail that sticks out of the end of the measuring stick on your digital calipers to check how far below flush your primers are being seated on both presses. How far below flush are your primers?

 

Do the defective rounds pass the "plunk and spin" test when you drop them into your chamber? (Crimp or OAL could prevent it from fully chambering just slightly)

[Beef15]

Since you changed bullet and press definitely do as MM suggests.

 

LnL cannot seat a primer too deep unless they changed the stem in the last couple years. Shimming may help, have been tempted to try myself but I have none of the other issues.

 

On mine, which has worn a divot, putting a dime under the primer spud helped tremendously, otherwise just being very diligent about pushing solidly on the handle had all but eliminated my issues.

 

I am surprised Hornady hasn't revised the spud there's plenty of room to make it longer, I may order another weld it up and try that after last weekend, think I had a dozen "light strikes" on WSPs at the Carolina Classic. Could've been my 4.5 spring, had 2k or so WSPs and CCIs trouble free on it so I figured it was still GTG, is now about 1/4" shorter than new, not sure what kinda life they have...

[noylj]

1) I put some blue Lok-Tite on the bolt for the shell plate. After 5 years, the residual Lok-Tite on the bolt still keeps it tight. I also tighten the bolt until the shell plate doesn't move and then loosen it until the shell plate just turns smoothly.

2) I found that putting a dime/penny over the worn divot did nothing. I found that I simply had to ensure that I felt the primer seat fully. It was my understanding that Hornady had improved the primer seater punch. I preferred the old system with a swing-arm as you could see that the primer had been picked up and I always got fully seated primers.

3) If you seat the primer too deep, you can crack the priming compound and, when the firing pin hits, there is no compound between the anvil and cup to ignite.

[StevenR]

You haven't actually said if you thought the primers were seating appropriately deep.  I only do spp, but I have to muscle them in so I really doubt that you are getting them in too deep.  My guess would be, not deep enough.  Mine worked fine until the paint chipped out on the frame where the primer seater hits, then I added something to even it out.

[Hi-Power Jack]

On ‎9‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 12:40 PM, MemphisMechanic said:

 

Do the defective rounds pass the "plunk and spin" test when you drop them into your chamber? 

 

My guess is that it's Not the primer or the loading machine, but the "different bullet" - and

your Plunk Test is your friend when changing bullets.

 

Cartridge may not always be seated fully in the chamber, and the firing pin is wasting energy

pushing the cartridge the last .0001" into the chamber, instead of making the primer go pop.

 

Easiest thing to check - just make sure those rounds are always, fully seated in the chamber.    

[MJinPA]

I had the same issue when I went from a Lee pro 1000 to the lnl. Took a while to figure out but the problem was fixed when I secured my bench to the wall. The bench was moving a bit when I seated the primer resulting in them not fully seating (but also not obviously high primers). I now own a 650 because the lnl case feeder sucks.


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[StuckinMS]

I doubt it is a problem with the  press.  Are you using CCI  primers?  Are you getting light strikes? Are your barrel checking your rounds?  I would start with these.  I have loaded well over 100,000 rounds on my hornady lnl and have not experienced that issue.

[TobyJ]

Sorry...haven't been back to this thread for a while.  To answer some of the questions, I use Winchester primers, and put every round I shoot through a shockbottle 100 hole case gauge, which is much pickier than my glock barrel and any plunk test I could do with it.

 

The primers were not going in deep enough.  Most were barely flush, and some seemed slightly proud (would wobble on the table)...and it appears to have been a tolerance issue with the press.

 

I found a thread over on ar15 dot com, where a machinist was looking into why his shell plate movement was so jerky.  He found that when it was all put together, there was .014 of clearance between the surface plate and the shell plate.  He shimmed that down to like .003, and the jerky-ness went away.  In that thread, it was also mentioned that this could be part of the problem some were having with high primers.  I also had the jerky-ness issue (some of my HS-6 loads would actually spit out small amounts of powder on indexing), so I figured I'd look there.

 

I didn't have the fancy measuring tools he had, so i tried just a .007 shim...that seemed to be too much, so I tried a .004...and that worked.  The indexing is much smoother, and the primers are seating to just below flush.  If you look at where the primer ram is mounted (to the surface plate), it becomes obvious how removing space between the surface plate and the shell plate effectively allows the ram to go higher.  Should be close to 1:1, so my primers can now be seated .004 deeper.  

 

In the same thread, others reported having much less clearance than what the op did, which makes sense, given the tolerance differences in the parts.  Combine that with the differences in firing pins, springs, etc., and it doesn't surprise me that some folks have no issues.  I also found lots of stuff on the net about folks who have just given up priming on the LNL for one reason or another.  My guess is that if they tried the shim thing, they might be able to get it to work.

 

Thanks for all the input,

 

TobyJ

[MemphisMechanic]

42 minutes ago, TobyJ said:

I put every round I shoot through a shockbottle 100 hole case gauge, which is much pickier than my glock barrel and any plunk test I could do with it.

 

 

I too load ammo on a progressive, and use a shockbottle case gauge exclusively for quality control purposes. After I have verified with the plunk test that I’ve chosen a good recipe.

 

You’re confusing the “punk and spin” test with “chamber checking” or using the barrel as your case gauge. The P&S does much more, and is a step you should never skip.

 

Take a look at this:

 

 

If you load too long for your chamber (you’d be amazed how many people actually do this and only rarely have problems) then you will forever have intermittent and randomly-found light strike issues or rounds not fully chambering.

 

What happens is that the slide has to drive the bullet into the lands of the barrel when there should be a few thousandths of space in there, and unless it does that perfectly, the mouth of the case won’t be braced against the front of the chamber. If there’s a tiny gap there, some of your hammer/striker force is going to be eaten up by driving the entire cartridge forward in the chamber before it dents the primer.

 

To test for this, Drop a loaded round into the back of your barrel each time you change to a new bullet or change OALs. Verify that they plop into the chamber, spin freely (a bullet caught in the rifling will drag), and that they fall out effortlessly when you flip the barrel over.

 

If your ammo passes that test, you always shockbottle it, and it has consistently seated primers? You’ll have flawlessly performing anmo.

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by MemphisMechanic

[R1_Demon]

On 9/22/2017 at 6:28 PM, MemphisMechanic said:

 

Take a look at this:

 

 

 

 

Memphis - Thanks a ton for posting this picture and all of the info.  This helps me a bunch.  Even though I'm not having the issue the OP is having, but it is easier for me to see something like this visually when everyone is talking about it on the site.  Now it makes much more sense to me.  So, thank you a ton.  I appreciate it.   (thumbs up)