Hornady Case Feeder Must Do Mod

[Mr.Revolverguy]

Originally when I got my Hornady LnL years ago I was absolutely in love with it. Having reloaded on Lee, Dillon, RCBS and Redding I knew this was the best bang for the buck progressive. For many years I enjoyed quick and cheap caliber change over without die adjustment. I put about 15K rounds on this press before I decided to finally purchase a case feeder. This is when the love hate relationship started. The Hornady case feeder out of the box was not worth the investment to me I had many problems that I won't began to list here out of frustration of living through those memories again. This even caused me to price out a Dillon 650 and case feeder just last night.

I came across this thread looking for fixes to all of my problems and I thought things were hopeless until seeing this one post by Kaldor. Kaldor's spoke alot about the pivot flexing and no matter what I did I could not get mine to stop flexing which I believe was the root cause of all my issues. Though I was afraid to death to drill my press but after speaking with Kaldor he reassured me this was a simple endeavor and it was.

I am posting my results here with everything needed to make this happen to hopefully make it easy for the next person. I will say this now that I have this fix me and my press have put aside all of our differences and may be growing the family with another Hornady LnL Ap and Case feeder We were really close to divorce.

Hornady really should do something about this.

Thanks so much Kaldor

First I completely disassembled my feed tube and pivot body. I clamped my pivot body in my bench vice and drilled it after making sure it was the correct place to line up with where it needs to attach on the press. This is important -- take your time verify multiple times.

I drilled pilot holes using drill bits 5/64, 5/32 and ending up with 11/64 since it is aluminum or pot metal I did not want to just drill it with 11/64.


I drilled the press in the same manor


I then broke out the bolts and washers needed which I got from home depot for just about 8 bucks. Pictures are clear enough so I won't list each item.


With the hardest part of drilling behind me I proceeded in putting everything back together.





While I was at it, I completed some other mods that I purchased. And they work beautifully, I loaded 300 rounds of 200gr 10MM today without one hiccup. The press was so smooth now.



You can see one other fix I have made to this press -- around the primer functionality.
http://www.dayattherange.com/?p=3884

 

[Kaldor]

Looks good man.
Told ya, piece of cake. And I doubt if Hornady would fight any warranty issues on the press because of a single hole.

How do you like the Black Cat inserts? Ive kicked around the idea a little bit about buying a couple, mostly for 300 BO as that cartridge can have issues hanging the drop tube from time to time if the drop tube height isnt perfect. I also talked to the owner of Black Cat about making pivot blocks from the same material as the inserts, but never heard back from him.

Next thing you know youll be dumping that crappy pivot block or modding the aluminum one so that it runs on a stud.

And I agree with you, the LnL is a good press, in fact the only real downfall of the press is the case feeder. Mine runs at about 95% reliability with the changes Ive make with any case with a small base like 223 and 9mm, and 99% with anything big like 45 or 308. If I ran slower, it would probably be more reliable, but I didnt buy a progressive to go slow. Its good enough now that I dont feel like smashing it on a regular basis.

I will still probably buy a 650 at some point, but only for a single reason. Case prep. I want to be able to decrimp, decap, size and trim in a single pass. But I need to start shooting 10k+ a year to make that a need instead of a want.

 

[Mr.Revolverguy]

10MM was the bastard cartridge causing most of my issues and not one hiccup today. All the other pistol calibers I had no issue with. Luckily which is strange I have not had any issues with the pivot block itself, knock on wood.

I believe the inserts are well worth it. The small inserts that Hornady produces from aluminum did not fit right in mine they were a little loose, actually thought that was the issue until I discovered the pivot frame twisting so much.

 

[Kaldor]

Strange that 10mm would cause issues. Im assuming some loads for that shiny new Ruger?

Good to hear on your pivot block. Mine has has alot of use, 50k cycles at least between case prep and loading, so it just wore out. I believe you can reuse the old pivot block, but just run it on a stud with a thin brass or maybe plastic washer under it, and use an external return spring. I may have to make one, just to see if it will work or not.

Im actually in the process of making another pivot block from Delrin based on the drawings I put up in the other really big LnL case feeder thread. My original has a couple issues I need to get ironed out, nothing serious, but everytime I look at it I know I messed this or that up.