Hornady Is Out Of Their Tree

[tomfturner]

Problem:

Hornady Lock-n-Load AP press won't allow Lee FCD in last station.

Reason:

Hornady ejection wire/spring for loaded ammo covers part of shell plate when in 5th die position.

Solution:

Call Hornady; get answer as follows.

"You'll need to fold your ejection wire out of the way to use that."

Response:

"So there's no work around for this?"

Answer:

"No, just fold the wire out of the way".

Now I'll start my rant. What in the world is the purpose of a 5-station progressive press with a case feeder if you can't use 5-stations, or the case feeder. If I had bought this thing from Wal-Mart I'd be asking for my money back now, because it doesn't work as advertised.

Hornady has excellent customer service, so this is not a dig on them. But come on people get a freakin' clue, there has to be a way around this problem.

If you remove this "ejection spring", you have to "manually" remove the cases as the shell-plate advances (which is on the down stroke), or a case from the case feed will ram into a loaded round in station 1. Basically they just told me "to get your machine to work, you have to make it NOT work". I was so lit when I got off the phone I couldn't see straight.

I guess I should've bought a Dillon to start with.

GRRR!!!

[Sparky_NY]

Problem:

Hornady Lock-n-Load AP press won't allow Lee FCD in last station.

Reason:

Hornady ejection wire/spring for loaded ammo covers part of shell plate when in 5th die position.

Solution:

Call Hornady; get answer as follows.

"You'll need to fold your ejection wire out of the way to use that."

Response:

"So there's no work around for this?"

Answer:

"No, just fold the wire out of the way".

Now I'll start my rant. What in the world is the purpose of a 5-station progressive press with a case feeder if you can't use 5-stations, or the case feeder. If I had bought this thing from Wal-Mart I'd be asking for my money back now, because it doesn't work as advertised.

Hornady has excellent customer service, so this is not a dig on them. But come on people get a freakin' clue, there has to be a way around this problem.

If you remove this "ejection spring", you have to "manually" remove the cases as the shell-plate advances (which is on the down stroke), or a case from the case feed will ram into a loaded round in station 1. Basically they just told me "to get your machine to work, you have to make it NOT work". I was so lit when I got off the phone I couldn't see straight.

I guess I should've bought a Dillon to start with.

GRRR!!!

There are other threads here on this very subject. I use the Lee FCD in station 5. The trick is to grind a flat on the bottom of the FCD where the ejector wire resides. Don't grind all the way to the carbide ring though or that ring will crack, you have to leave a little steel but not much. The ejector spring still needs to be tweaked for clearance. I find that shortening the ejector wire, the flat area where the attachment screw hold it under the shell plate, until the vertical part is up close to the extended part of the casting where the casings feed in. You may also have to tweak the loop end at the center bolt a tad but don't bend the wire in the straight area where it crosses the shell plate, that just screws things up I found.

Doing this stuff, it can be made to work quite well.

I didn't see what it is you don't like about the case feeder, maybe you can give more details.

[chuckbradley]

I guess I should've bought a Dillon to start with.

GRRR!!!

You said it, not me.

[XD Niner]

That's one of the reasons I sold mine and bought an XL650 from Brian. You might want to consider the Ebay option for your LNL. I sold mine for a $75 loss and felt quite pleased with the exchange for my Dillon.

[SLM]

Redding also makes dedicated crimp dies. You may want to check into those instead of the Lee's. Personally, I like Redding dies way better than the Lee's anyway.

[CUTTER1]

BUY BLUE, SEND LNL TO E-BAY. ANY DILLON (550, 650, 1050) IS MUCH BETTER

THAN YOUR RED PAPER WEIGHT. I HAD ONE AND HAVE HAD ALL THREE DILLIONS

AND NOW HAVE TWO 1050's AND A 550. GIVE BRIAN A CALL AND ORDER ANY

ONE OF THE ABOVE DILLONS. IF YOU ONLY LOAD ONE CAL. GET A 1050 AND NEVER

LOOK BACK. YOU MAYBE LUCKY ENOUGH TO TRADE YOUR RED LNL FOR A RCBS

ROCKCHUCKER FOR LOAD DEVELOPEMENT OR MISC. LOADING.

[Arms]

Sounds to me your so frustrated that you can't think straight.No where is it advertised that the lock-n-load works with lee crimp die in 5th station.Lee crimp die will work with slight modification as stated in earlier post,there is also another option.Hornady also offers powder through case expander for powder drop allowing the ability to move sizer die to 4th station.Hornady and Dillon overall press design for LNL and 650 are somewhat similar so whats the big deal? Just buying a Dillon might not solve all your problems. Seems kinda of useless to have a non-Dillon section when all the posts are "buy Dillon". Why did you buy LNL in the first place when you know just about everyone here says don't think just "buy dillon".I don't mean to harsh your gig but it seems like you can see this coming a mile away.I have a LNL and it works great,450 to 500 rounds per hour with no case feeder and thats not rushing it. If I had a Dillon I would be just as satisfied,they both take some type of learning curve to use.

[styx]

I have to agree with Arms. I've loaded 20K+ on my hornady. Almost every malfunction I've had was a result of brain fade on my part. Their new powder through expander works like a charm and does free up a die station as previously stated. Yes, Dillon makes a fine product, but they're not perfect either.

[Tokarev]

I have to agree with Arms. I've loaded 20K+ on my hornady. Almost every malfunction I've had was a result of brain fade on my part. Their new powder through expander works like a charm and does free up a die station as previously stated. Yes, Dillon makes a fine product, but they're not perfect either.

I just got done loading 3,000 rounds of .45 ACP on my Lock-N-Load this morning. I love the press and have it and an older Pro-Jector that I would put against any press out there. Yes, I have used Dillon and I stand by my endorsement of the Hornady!

The simple solutions are to either buy the new Hornady powder/expander die or swap out the Hornady powder measure for the Lee Auto Disk. I use the Auto Disk on the L-N-L and it works fine. I do have to screw the die all the way in and even then it just barely gives me enough flare but it does work. This frees up station four for crimp.

[clem]

I would suggest that the LNL has some minor problems, so I got rid of mine and bought two Dillons. I must say, the problems with Dillons are minimal and I don't regret the change. I also like the fact that you can use any dies without modification, but that's not the only problem I had with the LNL. All in all, to me, the Dillons have been fine, so I'll stay with them. I know competing in todays market is tough, but you just can't sell something that has a design flaw, and not have it come back to bite you.

The long and short of it is, believe it or not, I had less problems with a Lee Load Master than the LNL, and even less problems with the Dillons. To me Hornady does have good customer service, but I want something that doesn't need much customer service at all.

[styx]

I've got to admit that the case ejector on the LNL is a MAJOR design problem. I've studied and thought about it a lot and have yet to come up with a good solution. It doesn't hang up on cartridges like I've heard other people say, but it will prevent you from using "just any old crimp die". I use Hornady's taper crimp die in 45ACP and Lyman's in 44 Mag without a problem. Lyman crimpers in 357 and 40 S&W were a different story. For me, it was simple to take them to work with me and chuck em up in the lathe. Took about 20 minutes total (you have to use a grinder, them bad boys are HARD!). But back to subject, I'm following this subject in anothe thread with great interest to see if someone comes up with a viable alternative to that hokey wire doodad. Aside from that, I think that the powder and primer systems on this press are as good as anybody's. I also like the rigidity of the frame.

[6-shot]

Came across this thread and had the same problem with my Hornaday AP. My solution was to grind a little off the backside of the opening the case fits in , call it the trailing edge of the shellplate. Seemed to cure the problem,don't take off too much though, or cases will not stay in the plate.

Scott

[gino_aki]

I've gone through about 5 of the wire case ejectors trying to cut and rebend them so they'd work with the Lee dies...short answer: nothin' doin'. When I called Hornady they said to use THEIR crimp dies because they were designed to be used in the LNL. Uh huh. I ended up just taking it off and removing the finished cartridges by hand as the collector bin is right under where I place the bin that I'm grabbing cases out of anyway so it's not like I'm making all that much extra movement. What I really like about the LNL and the Projector I had before is the big opening in the frame so you can really SEE what you're doing. Also makes correcting mistakes a bit easier. If I were to buy a Dillon later on it'd have to be a 1050...if I wanna go faster I'm going to want to go a LOT faster.