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Hornady LNL AP - Powder Jump Fix


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1 hour ago, Charlestiller said:

 


I ordered some. For where I live (Southern Kentucky), it was $8.01 for shipping, $.90 for tax, for a total of $15.86 for a 10 pack delivered.


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Hey Charles, thats great, hope they work as good for you as they do for me. And just a heads up, i just now got off the phone with a buddy of mine that just bought a new LNL AP last week. He got some orings from me, put one in his new press, and the oring broke. So he put another one in, it didnt cycle around to many times, and broke another one. I went over to his house, pulled the shell plate, i found a very sharp burr on the sub plate that got missed at the factory somehow. A tiny burr can be missed at the factory with ANY brand press, its happens.

 

So i knocked the burr off, polished the sub plate groove just enough to clean it up, lubed up a new oring, and now his press is running smooth as glass. So, with saying that, make sure you check that groove in the sub plate just to make sure its ok. Yours is likely fine, but just be cautious and double check it anyway. As bad as my friends burr was on his new press, i highly doubt that even the metal retaining spring would have run for long before breaking it. 

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Hey Charles, thats great, hope they work as good for you as they do for me. And just a heads up, i just now got off the phone with a buddy of mine that just bought a new LNL AP last week. He got some orings from me, put one in his new press, and the oring broke. So he put another one in, it didnt cycle around to many times, and broke another one. I went over to his house, pulled the shell plate, i found a very sharp burr on the sub plate that got missed at the factory somehow. A tiny burr can be missed at the factory with ANY brand press, its happens.
 
So i knocked the burr off, polished the sub plate groove just enough to clean it up, lubed up a new oring, and now his press is running smooth as glass. So, with saying that, make sure you check that groove in the sub plate just to make sure its ok. Yours is likely fine, but just be cautious and double check it anyway. As bad as my friends burr was on his new press, i highly doubt that even the metal retaining spring would have run for long before breaking it. 


Thanks for the heads up! And I agree, all brands miss little things like burrs and such. I don’t mind doing the hand fitting on a press myself! Thanks again!


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4 minutes ago, Charlestiller said:

 


Thanks for the heads up! And I agree, all brands miss little things like burrs and such. I don’t mind doing the hand fitting on a press myself! Thanks again!


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Absolutely, your welcome!

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First let me apologize, i`ve been very busy and havent had any free time to get back in here. But....

 

A big thank you to ALL you guys that posted, and also tried this. I`ve not had a single complaint from anyone in my area that i have helped do this oring mod to their presses. 

It makes me very happy to know that some of you are having great success with it. I didnt know how it work for everybody, but i felt it was well worth sharing my experiences with it.

 

I do have some other things in the pipeline for the LNL AP presses, but i am still in testing phases with everything else right now. I will update when i can.

 

 

Thanks guys, for letting me share this with all of you. Be safe!

 

EDIT:

PS... i dont know if either of my threads are worthy enough to be a sticky or not.

         Maybe someone might be able to make it happen so both threads can help others. 

 

 

vince

Edited by vince
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On 3/25/2020 at 7:51 PM, jubi351 said:

Just wanted to say thanks. O-ring worked like a champ. Shell plate is smooth and no snap at all coming to rest. Great fix!

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Thats awesome!!! Thank you for sharing your response!!!

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Thanks to jubi251 I now have a couple o rings in hand to try on my LnL. Press is currently setup for .233 and haven’t loaded any ammo on it yet but can say the o ring seems to help a lot with powder shake. 
 

Will do a more thorough comment after I have loaded some rounds with it. 
 

Until then I have a couple questions for Vince and whomever has used an o ring for a while.  How often do you lube the o ring once it’s installed and how long do they usually last. Also, do you need to adjust the pawls when changing calibers?  I found the downward pawl needed more adjustment, hoping it doesn’t throw off my priming timing as my LnL has always primed perfectly. 

 


 

 

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Ok, so I’ve now had a chance to load ammo using the o ring and I can say for sure I don’t recommend using the o ring with rifle brass, or at least .223 rifle brass. It did completely eliminate powder fling with my current load but the problem comes from the o ring holding the brass too well. 

The o ring keeps the brass in the shell plate just slightly longer than the Hornady spring does and it jams the case feeder almost every time. I did adjust timing as was advised after installing the o ring but I found I can’t slow the advance of the shell plate enough to not interfere with the case feeding without screwing up the primer timing. Crushed 3 primers sideways trying to get it right, something I’ve never done on my LNL before. 
 

At this point I’m gonna live with the slight powder sling using the Hornady spring. I do plan to try the o ring again when I switch back to loading pistol ammo, hoping I get better results. 

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7 hours ago, dave33 said:

Ok, so I’ve now had a chance to load ammo using the o ring and I can say for sure I don’t recommend using the o ring with rifle brass, or at least .223 rifle brass. It did completely eliminate powder fling with my current load but the problem comes from the o ring holding the brass too well. 

The o ring keeps the brass in the shell plate just slightly longer than the Hornady spring does and it jams the case feeder almost every time. I did adjust timing as was advised after installing the o ring but I found I can’t slow the advance of the shell plate enough to not interfere with the case feeding without screwing up the primer timing. Crushed 3 primers sideways trying to get it right, something I’ve never done on my LNL before. 
 

At this point I’m gonna live with the slight powder sling using the Hornady spring. I do plan to try the o ring again when I switch back to loading pistol ammo, hoping I get better results. 

Dave, are you running the oring dry...?

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7 hours ago, vince said:

Dave, are you running the oring dry...?


I did put a light coat of lube on it, what exact lube do you use?

 

i would love to make this work as it does smooth out the process and eliminates powder shake entirely. Then again I don’t load .223 that often, usually a couple large runs a year so maybe the o ring will be a good pistol case fix.  I don’t get much powder shake with pistols but there is some once in a while with certain powders. 

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5 hours ago, dave33 said:


I did put a light coat of lube on it, what exact lube do you use?

 

i would love to make this work as it does smooth out the process and eliminates powder shake entirely. Then again I don’t load .223 that often, usually a couple large runs a year so maybe the o ring will be a good pistol case fix.  I don’t get much powder shake with pistols but there is some once in a while with certain powders. 

 

 

Hi Dave,

actually i`ve been using straight lanolin right from the bottle to lube my orings on all my presses.

 

Yeah it works great for pistol cases. Like you, i dont load that many rifle cases on a progressive that often either. More of my rifle loading is geared more towards bench rest kind of loading, so i usually rely mainly on my single stage presses for those loads.

 

I`ve also noticed that the hornady shell plates are inconsistent... meaning their tolerances plate to plate are kinda crappy. This will mess with and dictate how much the case will move or not move within the shell plate. There again, the 223 cases are kind of small too. I dont have any problems with mine, yet, they seem to rotate ok for me. There again, your shell plate might be a tad tighter than mine is too. I tried some 22-250 and 308, those seem to rotate perfectly fine for me. 

 

Maybe you might try a little flitz polish on your shell plate where the cases slide in. I`ve done that with a dremel tool with great success to help the cases move easier. Dont polish it hard though. Just a light polish will help it alot. It has for me anyway. Also i would give the sub-plate a slight polish... it is effective. Carnuba wax it when done.

Edited by vince
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6 hours ago, vince said:

 

 

Hi Dave,

actually i`ve been using straight lanolin right from the bottle to lube my orings on all my presses.

 

Yeah it works great for pistol cases. Like you, i dont load that many rifle cases on a progressive that often either. More of my rifle loading is geared more towards bench rest kind of loading, so i usually rely mainly on my single stage presses for those loads.

 

I`ve also noticed that the hornady shell plates are inconsistent... meaning their tolerances plate to plate are kinda crappy. This will mess with and dictate how much the case will move or not move within the shell plate. There again, the 223 cases are kind of small too. I dont have any problems with mine, yet, they seem to rotate ok for me. There again, your shell plate might be a tad tighter than mine is too. I tried some 22-250 and 308, those seem to rotate perfectly fine for me. 

 

Maybe you might try a little flitz polish on your shell plate where the cases slide in. I`ve done that with a dremel tool with great success to help the cases move easier. Dont polish it hard though. Just a light polish will help it alot. It has for me anyway. Also i would give the sub-plate a slight polish... it is effective. Carnuba wax it when done.


Converted my press over to 9mm this afternoon and ran a quick 100 with the o ring. Worked smooth as butter, no priming, case feeding/ejection problems, and the priming was timed perfectly as usual. Didn’t shake a grain of powder either. 
 

At this point I’m glad I tried it and will continue to use it for pistol. Don’t know that I’m gonna put much more effort into the rifle cases but who knows. Maybe someone else can give it a try and report back. 

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1 hour ago, dave33 said:


Converted my press over to 9mm this afternoon and ran a quick 100 with the o ring. Worked smooth as butter, no priming, case feeding/ejection problems, and the priming was timed perfectly as usual. Didn’t shake a grain of powder either. 
 

At this point I’m glad I tried it and will continue to use it for pistol. Don’t know that I’m gonna put much more effort into the rifle cases but who knows. Maybe someone else can give it a try and report back. 

 

Excellent Dave! Soon as the gun shops start to reopen, i`m going to go pick up one of the latest 223 LNL AP shell plates and try it and see what happens compared to my worn one.

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2 hours ago, vince said:

 

Excellent Dave! Soon as the gun shops start to reopen, i`m going to go pick up one of the latest 223 LNL AP shell plates and try it and see what happens compared to my worn one.


I look forward to your results with the newer shell plate. Maybe you will discover something I’m not seeing. 

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I tried the O ring a few days back and it worked like crap, I lubed it with regular oil and the shellplate was hard to advance and cases would not eject.

Just tried it again but lubed with liquid lanoline and now it looks to work great, I have only tried a few cases so I have no idea about the longevity or how often to re-lube.

 

This was with a #16 (.223) shell plate btw. As long as you are not sizing you can use the 9mm shell plate for .223 just as well btw. 

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6 hours ago, xrayfk05 said:

I tried the O ring a few days back and it worked like crap, I lubed it with regular oil and the shellplate was hard to advance and cases would not eject.

Just tried it again but lubed with liquid lanoline and now it looks to work great, I have only tried a few cases so I have no idea about the longevity or how often to re-lube.

 

This was with a #16 (.223) shell plate btw. As long as you are not sizing you can use the 9mm shell plate for .223 just as well btw. 

 

This is why i`ve been speaking of using the lanolin to lube the oring, it just works better.

Be careful using a 9mm (#8 hornady lnl) shell plate for a 223. The 223 cases will be very sloppy fitting.

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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!!!

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On 4/14/2020 at 4:38 PM, Abominator said:

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!!!

Thats what i`m seeing here with all my LNL`s as well. No stoppages, no powder jumping during cycling. Presses have been running smooth as silk.

So far i`ve gone well over 2,500 rounds, havent broke an oring yet. Still running the first orings i bought/installed, too. 

I`m gonna keep running them until the oring`s break. I`ll keep tallying the round count as i go.

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