Hornady LNL AP Help

[xMAC1x]

Came to the door last week set it up. Primer feed not working as advertised.

1. Cleaned & dry graphite
2. adjusted primer travel
3. lossened everything

Thanks John

[freonr22]

Hornady is open until 2pm pst

[checkenbach]

Please elaborate on "not working" as advertised. I had to put a .45 case with a 1/4 oz wheel weight on top of the fiberglass rod to get mine to feed better. Sometimes the indexing needs to be adjusted as well.

[Synergy]

Do you have the right primer tube installed for the correct primers?

[fairfaxjim]

Read the manual and set it up EXACTLY as it says. Otherwise it will no line up and you can even damage the little primer slide!

Ask me how I know this.

[ejor]

what caliber, primer size?, are you using a rod on top of the primers? what is it not doing?

[sd_shooter]

I'm in the same boat. I got small pistol primers working reliably with no tricks. Large pistol primers will not feed at all and I've tried all the usual tricks (adjust cam rod, loosen parts, file away rough edges, add weight to primer rod.)

It turns out that my primer 'base' was machined a little crooked, ie. the primer shield tube is canted about 0.25" to the side. This is enough to cause the primers to bind against the primer slide. If I loosen the tube after a jam the primer correctly enters the slide. However if I leave it loose it still doesn't work.

Called Hornady and they are sending me a new base. (However the bases are back ordered so I haven't had a chance to try it yet.) I've loaded hundreds of .40 and 38 specials without problems so I'm optimistic.

In this pic the inner primer tube is vertical. The shield tube is screwed into the base at an angle and will not move or flex. The black primer support is not shown but it will force the primer tube back to the center but will also cause strong tension. Releasing that tension will let the primer fall into the primer slide:

[freonr22]

xmac1x what happened?

[xMAC1x]

Loading 45ACP. Everything is set up correct. I have adjusted the indexing. It is not picking up the next primer. I will try the weight trick. Thanks guys.

[ejor]

One thing to check, when the press is at the top of the stroke pull a little further on the primer shuttle to see if the primer drops in. If so, the rod that the wheel rides on needs adjustment. I had to loosen the screw and bend mine out a little. I stuck a dowel between the press and rod to help bend it slightly, I heard the rod can get bent in shipping.

[checkenbach]

Also, be very anal about cleaning the primer ram witha Q-tip after every few boxes. I load with Titegroup powder which has a very fine flake shape, when charging cases, some powder inevitably spills, and it can cause the primer ram to stick up a bit, and not seat if not cleaned every few boxes or so. Sometimes the shell plate indexing is just a bit off causing the shell casing to be timed incorrectly, and the primer will not seat correctly, also make sure the allen screw holding the shell plate is tight, as this will cause issues as well. I leave my primer tube foot allen screw finger tight, if tight, it will cause feeding issues. One more thing, 45 ACP users should be using the "#45" shell plate, not the #1 plate(even though it IS usable, for .45ACP, .308 and 30-06 also), Hornady developed the #45 plate due to different rim tolerances.