9mm Case Ejection on Hornady LNL-AP

[1911user]

Any tricks (from people who have actually seen it work) on how to make 9mm case ejection work well with the LNL-AP? I've tried bending and opening the ejector wire which helped some. However, a frustrating amount of 9mm cases still jam against the side of the shellplate instead of ejecting. It breaks the flow of reloading when the press comes to a jolting stop every minute or 2. The shellplate is the new design with no obvious flaws. I'm using a Hornady 9mm taper crimp die. There is no die/ejector wire interferance at station #5.

If anyone has found a successful shape for a 9mm ejector wire, please post pics. I've talked to Hornady about the ejection issue twice. The only advice was "open the loop a little bit" and they sent 2 new ejector wires to experiment with. Is removing loaded rounds by hand the only way to smoothly reload 9mm?

 

[ReloaderFred]

The 9mm is one of the hardest rounds to run through a progressive press, due to the varying thickness of the rims and extraction grooves. What I've found works best is to bend the wire so it's just dragging lightly on the shellplate. This puts the pressure to eject the case down low, and improves the angle and makes the direction the case is pushed more direct. You just have to make sure the end of the wire doesn't catch on a shellholder and stop everything.

Another thing to do is to polish the insides of the shellholders on the shellplate. By making them smooth, there is less friction. You can polish all the places the shell contacts. You can also relieve the openings of the shellholders slightly. Look at each one and you can see the portion that actually holds the case during the loading cycle. The rest of the opening can be relieved without affecting how the case is held and will release the case sooner during the cycle.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[Luggernut]

Like reloader said. I've never had to polish or modify my shellplate but did work on the ejector wire. Open it up, keep it close as possible to the station 5 die and keep the wire close to the shell plate. Mine did hang up a bunch but has gotten much better.

FWIW I also don't slam the press down (upstroke of handle) but do it smoothly.

.45ACP works like butter compared to the 9mms!