Hornady LNL Progressive Issues

[dkamps]

On 5/24/2018 at 10:10 PM, dannyd said:

I have loaded 55,340 rounds on both my LNL's.   With Very little problems.  Owned a SDB and 550 both took about the same amount of upkeep as the LNL's for same number of rounds loaded.     

 

On 5/24/2018 at 5:05 PM, StuckinMS said:

I have loaded well over 150,000 rounds on my LNL.  Adjusted the timing 2 times.  I clean and lube about every 20,000 rounds and that's it.  For less than 25% of the price of a 1050 I can justify adding the Mr. Bullet feeder and load at 1200 rounds per hour!  Easy to change over and the extra coin saved over the blue stuff will buy lots of components. Press is 4 years old and going just like it did on day 1.  

 

Get yours set and you will be fine. 

 

I like hearing this, gives me confidence that it’s either user error (most probably), needs a cleaning, or has a worn piece that needs replacing. I’m not giving up hope on it just yet! Match tomorrow, then Sunday/Monday is Reloading set up time for the long weekend.

 

Happy Memorial Day everyone, if you have the time, read some posthumous Medal of Honor citations and maybe find one that you haven’t heard before... and enjoy the time off/BBQs!

[Shadowrider]

I thought my LNL issue was user error too.  My main issue wasn't timing, it was seating primers.  Took 3 to 4 back strokes to get them home.  I had been fighting it for awhile and thought it was just me so I went ahead and decided to keep it and ordered the case feed for it.  Set it up and between there being nothing actually broken on the press and the case feed dropping as much brass on my head as in the feed tube I went over and loaded a few rounds on a friends 650.  It took all of 6 rounds to convince me to sell the whole setup and buy a Dillon.  Yes there's that much difference.

[Waldog]

I have a LNL.  

My son has a LNL.

Two of my best friends have LNL's.

I had to adjust my timing ONCE.

I helped my son and friends get their presses set up and adjusted.  Once the presses were cleaned, lubed and adjusted properly, they have been trouble free.

 I also, own a Dillon SDB. And, I have loaded on a Dillon 550, 650 and 1050.  I prefer the LNL.  HOWEVER, both RED Hornady and BLUE Dillon presses are excellent.  You can't go wrong with either one.   And, EACH has it's quirks.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Waldog

[dkamps]

22 hours ago, Waldog said:

I have a LNL.  

My son has a LNL.

Two of my best friends have LNL's.

I had to adjusted my timing ONCE.

I helped my son and friends get their presses set up and adjusted.  Once the presses were cleaned, lubed and adjusted properly, they have been trouble free.

 I also, own a Dillon SDB. And, I have loaded on a Dillon 550, 650 and 1050.  I prefer the LNL.  HOWEVER, both RED Hornady and BLUE Dillon presses are excellent.  You can't go wrong with either one.   And, EACH has it's quirks.

 

Good to hear. I got it mounted up to my new bench. Ill be playing with mine this week and see what I can do...

 

About how many rounds per hour do you think you put out on the LNL?

Do you have the case and bullet feeder?

[SlvrDragon50]

I have both the case and bullet feeder. Case feeder works fine, bullet feeder is LOUD. Get the MBF instead.

[Waldog]

14 hours ago, dkamps said:

 

Good to hear. I got it mounted up to my new bench. Ill be playing with mine this week and see what I can do...

 

About how many rounds per hour do you think you put out on the LNL?

Do you have the case and bullet feeder?

I do not have a bullet feeder.  I DO have a case feeder.  I can load 100 rounds in nine minutes.  The case feeder works well however, it is LOUDER than the Dillon case feeder.  I don't know about the bullet feeder.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Waldog

[Kraj]

28 minutes ago, Waldog said:

I do not have a bullet feeder.  I DO have a case feeder.  I can load 100 rounds in nine minutes.  The case feeder works well however, it is LOUDER than the Dillon case feeder.  I don't know about the bullet feeder.

 

The hornady bullet feeder never stops spinning, even when the tube is full. Much louder than the case feeder

[StuckinMS]

20 hours ago, dkamps said:

 

Good to hear. I got it mounted up to my new bench. Ill be playing with mine this week and see what I can do...

 

About how many rounds per hour do you think you put out on the LNL?

Do you have the case and bullet feeder?

I only have a Mr bullet feeder, but can load about 1200 per hour if I try.  I use a RCBS lockout die also.

[MJinPA]

I had the same LNL issues as the OP (among other case feeder issues) and learned a lot from a guy on YouTube (highboy something). Then one day he posted a video about which press he would choose if buying new. Blue or Red. He basically went on to say that he had tons of Hornady videos on YouTube and very few Dillon videos because there’s nothing to fix. They (Dillon) just work. Him choosing blue put it all into perspective for me and I drank the kool aide sold after watching that video.


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[Trinimon]

My LNL AP has been pretty solid the last 3yrs and I bought it used at a steal of a price too from a guy who said it had issues indexing every so often. I got it, read the manual and Youtube vids about adjusting the pawls. A couple minutes later, no more indexing issues. Once in a while I'll pop the primer guide rod off but mostly due to loose powder causing a slight jam.

[Tokarev]

19 hours ago, Trinimon said:

read the manual.

[hiker88]

6 minutes ago, Tokarev said:

It came with a manual???  

 

I went straight to Youtube.

[dannyd]

My SDB cost 189.99 and 550 273.00 new, sold them and now have two LNL's.   Everyone one is different

[Frank705]

I have had my LNL for a very long time. One of the very early units with a low SN. I have upgraded to the new shell ejector and added the case feeder. I have had a very few issues but when I have Hornady has been very helpful and quick on the replacement part. I felt that if I had any timing issues it was an easy adjustment to correct. The only drawback I see now is the case feeder will sometimes jam up but not as much as it first did before I added a plastic stick like separator on the inside bowl to help prevent it. In the past I have had a Dillon SD and had no issues with that as well. With the cost of reloading equipment its hard to think about buying another press. Hope you are able to correct your issues with your LNL

[dkamps]

Thanks for all the replies!

 

I will be giving the LNL one last hurrah this week. Its been cleaned and inspected and set up on a more sturdy bench than before. I went through and watched/read every video/manual/FAQ on pawls adjustments and made them accordingly.

 

If it can load ~2k rounds by this weekend... Ill keep it.

If I still have to adjust it every 100-200 rounds, I'm calling hornady, then putting it on the chopping block.

[ninjaboot]

I had a LnL for about 3 years. When it works it works great. My biggest complaint was that after about 400-800 rounds I have to mess with the shell plate timing. I had the lock washer on the plate bolt, a rock solid bench (made a big improvement overall operation,) proper grease, etc. I just couldn't get it to not start going out of time. A lot of times just pulling the shell plate and cleaning and greasing the plate would help but it required pawl adjustment mostly. Maybe I had a crappy press? There were other things that I hated about it and had other issues with it but I will say when it worked it worked great. I was tired of constant adjusting and having issues with long reloading sessions so I sold it and bought a 650. Honestly I should have bought a 650 from the beginning. It just works. Ive loaded over 1500 rounds on it and have not had 1 issue so far. Im sure at some point I might  but for me and how much ammo I load it was the best decision I made in while. Lol. 

[rmi63]

I have the LnL for probaby 3 years or so. I have adjusted the pawls once and it has run fine ever since. I have had no issues with the priming system. My biggest problem I have had was with the case feeder. After a couple of mods, mostly to the pivot body, it runs fine now. I do get the occasional upside down brass but I can deal with that. The one thing that I like about this press is that caliber conversion is pretty quick. Maybe in the future once I can shoot more, I'll make the jump to a Mark 7 but as of now, this press works fine for me.

[Kema]

I have loaded probly well over 40k with LNL AP and adjusted it only once when I was a total newbie. Now I am using it for all other calibers than 9mm for which I have Dillon 1050. I think they both have their flaws and getting them operating smoothly is the constant maintenance and keeping things clean from powder and other crap.

 

Only thing that has broken from LNL was the lever. It's cast iron and snapped just above threads. 

[alsipd]

I load pistol and rifle cartridges on my Hornady LNL AP. The only issue I have had was I broke an index pawl when a primer got stuck in the case and I tried to force the issue. I contacted Hornady to purchase a replacement (my fault, mind you) they sent me one free of charge and I had it in three days. Great customer service from Hornady. I have had no issues other than that. I timed the unit at setup and I clean and check timing after every 1000 rounds or when I change calibers. Other than that, I use canned air after every 100 rounds (primer tube refill) and this keeps the priming mechanism clean and functioning properly. Dies get cleaned after every 1000 rounds when I clean the press.

 

So, I am very happy with my Hornady.

 

Should anyone wish to "dispose" of their Hornady LNL AP, I will gladly take it and "Dispose" of it properly. I will even pay shipping to me

 

[Livin_cincy]

On 5/31/2018 at 11:09 PM, MJinPA said:

I had the same LNL issues as the OP (among other case feeder issues) and learned a lot from a guy on YouTube (highboy something). Then one day he posted a video about which press he would choose if buying new. Blue or Red. He basically went on to say that he had tons of Hornady videos on YouTube and very few Dillon videos because there’s nothing to fix. They (Dillon) just work. Him choosing blue put it all into perspective for me and I drank the kool aide sold after watching that video.


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I know who you are talking about.  

I like the LNL over the 550 for sure.  I never could figure out how some had all the problems that he showed how to fix and others have had none of them.  

The comparison to the 650 is not as clear.   The 650 with the after market parts and additions is a hard to beat.   I think this places it above the LNL.

He could no longer get his LNL to seat primers below flush.  He called them and they said they only warrant them to flush.  He explained that his published load data called for below flush.  So he stopped using it.   I am not sure that is an issue for everyone as flush is fine.

RCBS with their Pro Chucker 5 & 7 seem to be rare.  Not many reports on them.  The primer system was an issue that got resolved by Gavin.  



    

[mchapman]

On 7/28/2018 at 7:10 PM, Livin_cincy said:

I know who you are talking about.  

I like the LNL over the 550 for sure.  I never could figure out how some had all the problems that he showed how to fix and others have had none of them.  

The comparison to the 650 is not as clear.   The 650 with the after market parts and additions is a hard to beat.   I think this places it above the LNL.

He could no longer get his LNL to seat primers below flush.  He called them and they said they only warrant them to flush.  He explained that his published load data called for below flush.  So he stopped using it.   I am not sure that is an issue for everyone as flush is fine.

RCBS with their Pro Chucker 5 & 7 seem to be rare.  Not many reports on them.  The primer system was an issue that got resolved by Gavin.  



    

Most competition shooters with light triggers want or need to have the primers set below flush to prevent light primer strikes. 

[Tunachaser]

I have never had a problem getting my LNL to seat below flush.  I read that the primer seating punch can wear a "divot" in the frame so I added a SS washer  where it showed wear before it became a problem.  Prevention is better that problem solving.

[dkamps]

Update!

 

I got a S1050 and I have to say, its incredible. ZERO FRUSTRATION. Took an hour or so of adjustments to get everything where I wanted it, cranked out ~1k rounds in a go to finish up the titegroup I had on hand before switching to sport pistol. The difference in quality is astounding.

 

I don't think I'm going to get rid of my LnL however, I will keep playing with it and use it for 223 brass prep most likely, or try and set it up for 9mm. I will be giving hornady a call, there has to be something wrong with the pawls as a solid clean, regrease, readjustment helped, but it still went out of time a few hundred strokes in.

[SlvrDragon50]

2 hours ago, dkamps said:

Update!

 

I got a S1050 and I have to say, its incredible. ZERO FRUSTRATION. Took an hour or so of adjustments to get everything where I wanted it, cranked out ~1k rounds in a go to finish up the titegroup I had on hand before switching to sport pistol. The difference in quality is astounding.

 

I don't think I'm going to get rid of my LnL however, I will keep playing with it and use it for 223 brass prep most likely, or try and set it up for 9mm. I will be giving hornady a call, there has to be something wrong with the pawls as a solid clean, regrease, readjustment helped, but it still went out of time a few hundred strokes in.

Awesome! I am planning to make the same upgrade whenever I get a real job (and hopefully I still have time to shoot). Similar plans with 223 on one and 9mm on the other.

[dannyd]

3 hours ago, dkamps said:

Update!

 

I got a S1050 and I have to say, its incredible. ZERO FRUSTRATION. Took an hour or so of adjustments to get everything where I wanted it, cranked out ~1k rounds in a go to finish up the titegroup I had on hand before switching to sport pistol. The difference in quality is astounding.

 

I don't think I'm going to get rid of my LnL however, I will keep playing with it and use it for 223 brass prep most likely, or try and set it up for 9mm. I will be giving hornady a call, there has to be something wrong with the pawls as a solid clean, regrease, readjustment helped, but it still went out of time a few hundred strokes in.

The price is also different.   Like comparing F-14 (1050) to F-18 (LNL)  you being in Va. Beach