Can anyone explain Hornady's priming to me?

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pcwirepro

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Hello All,

First post after learning a ton from lurking. I recently started reloading .45 ACP. After a 2-week calamity with the Lee Pro 1000 I switched to the Lee Loadmaster. It's a pretty good press for the money but the tolerances (or lack thereof) drive me crazy. I'm considering sending it back to Midway and getting the Hornady LnL. I wandered of anyone could explain the priming system on the Hornady presses. Is there a case sensor that prevents a primer from being loaded if a case isn't present? If it does try to load a primer if one is already present what happens? Overall the Lee does the job but I think I'd be happier with the precision of the LnL. Just trying to determine the lesser of two evils.

Thanks to all. I can't tell you how much I have learned from this forum.

TG
 
The primer is recessed and is waiting to be seated. When u bring the lever up, at the end of the stroke is when the primer is seated. If there is no case in which to be seated, then the primer goes back to its original recessed position. If the brass already has a primer, your going to know it when you try to seat the primer, it just won't go. I suppose if you pushed hard enough you could crush the primer, but you would have to do it intentionally. The lnl is a very nice unit, you will be very happy with it.
 
Bogus,

Thanks for the reply.
Does the pres send a primer on each pull even if there is no case present? If you forget to load a case on one pull or if you're finished with a reloading session and you have (4) cases left to process, does the press continue to send in primers? If so, do they get jammed up in the slider mechanism?
Sorry for the silly question. I just don't want to order yet another primer nightmare.

Thanks again,

TG
 
It does load the primer carrier with a new primer with each full down stroke. If you don't have a case in the shell plate it does no harm, the primer just sits there waiting until you push forward on the handle to seat it. If no case is present when you press the handle forward, nothing happens, the primer just sits there. If you pass a case, that already has a primer in it, over the primer station it's still no problem. The primer won't interfere unless you intentionally try to seat it by pushing forward on the handle. The only issue I have with the primer loader is that occasionally some powder will get in between the primer carrier and the shell plate. This prevents the carrier from moving all the way into position. You'll know instantly when this happens because the primer won't seat because it's not lined up. This happens mostly with large grained rifle powders, but it can also happen with pistol powders, just not as often.
The LNL is not perfect and has it's own idiosyncrasies, but I would buy it again over anything else out there right now.
best regards,
Unflappable
 
The LnL has a little shuttle that picks up a primer from the drop tube, and moves it into position to be seated into the case.

If there's no case and you push the handle forward as if you were going to seat a primer, the primer simply moves up to where it would insert into the case, and then it moves back down again when you bring the handle back.

As the press cycles, the shuttle will move back to collect another primer from the drop tube. If there already is a primer in the shuttle (as there would be if there were no case to have been primed in the previous stroke), a new one can't drop down into the shuttle, and the shuttle just moves forward again to be ready to prime a case.

It's pretty foolproof.

There are issues if you have powder spilled onto the shellplate and into the shuttle channel, but that's a different deal. If you're spilling powder then there's a different issue. I load a lot of handgun rounds and don't have any real problem with powder screwing things up. From time to time, I'll remove the shuttle and clean things out to be sure. (maybe every 500 to 1000 rounds).
 
As the press cycles, the shuttle will move back to collect another primer from the drop tube. If there already is a primer in the shuttle (as there would be if there were no case to have been primed in the previous stroke), a new one can't drop down into the shuttle, and the shuttle just moves forward again to be ready to prime a case.
Click to expand...
And there it is. Thank you, that's exactly what I was looking for. Local Cabelas has all of thier machines inoperable via zip-ties so you can't get a good feel for how they operate.
Thanks Mongoose & Unflappable.
 
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If you lived close I'd let you try mine out; I've done that for darn near total strangers before; most ended up impressed with the press.
 
I like my LnL a lot, but one thing I don't like is that it can be a pain to unload the primer tube after your'e done for the day. If there are only a few primers left I cycle the press arm and grab each one with a pair of tweezers when it comes out. If you have a lot left in the tube you have to carefully try to remove the tube and slip some paper, business cards work well, under the bottom of the tube before the all come spilling out. And then you still have to deal with the 4-5 still in the shuttle loading assembly. Not trying to scare you off, just letting you know ahead of time.
 
Jon_Snow said:
I like my LnL a lot, but one thing I don't like is that it can be a pain to unload the primer tube after your'e done for the day. If there are only a few primers left I cycle the press arm and grab each one with a pair of tweezers when it comes out. If you have a lot left in the tube you have to carefully try to remove the tube and slip some paper, business cards work well, under the bottom of the tube before the all come spilling out. And then you still have to deal with the 4-5 still in the shuttle loading assembly. Not trying to scare you off, just letting you know ahead of time.
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The way I approach this situation is to only load enough primers to prime the amount of brass I intend to load. Or, I decide I'm going to load 100, or 200, etc. and only fill that many primer tubes.
 
One thing that helps with the spilled powder is to keep a can of air handy just blow it away
 
jbrown13 said:
The way I approach this situation is to only load enough primers to prime the amount of brass I intend to load. Or, I decide I'm going to load 100, or 200, etc. and only fill that many primer tubes.
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The way I approach it is to just leave the friggin' primers in the tube for my next reloading session . . . they're not that far apart :)
 
If priming is the only trouble you have with the Loadmaster, you might consider hand priming. Not that much slower, unless you are in a big hurry.

I hand prime everything I load on my LNL. I loaded that way for forever on my Projector. Quite a few people hand prime before loading on a progressive, while most think it is a waste of time.

You will see threads here talking about poorly seated primers on progressives though. Hand priming is better IMHO.

A recent thread
 
I don't have any problems priming on the LnL. I think it is one of the best systems on a progressive. If you don't get a primer completely seated, the handle will be hard to pull. On rare occasions when I get powder junk in the priming system I use a small 1/2" paint brush to just wipe it out. No big deal.
 
jbrown13 said:
The way I approach this situation is to only load enough primers to prime the amount of brass I intend to load. Or, I decide I'm going to load 100, or 200, etc. and only fill that many primer tubes.
Click to expand...
J Brown,
I try to do that as well, but sometimes my reloading sessions get cut short.
 
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