Hornady LNL AP problem with primer feed

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longdayjake

longdayjake

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Okay lets see if you guys can figure this out as I have spent the last three hours on it and it has resulted in some pretty shocking tantrum-like responses.

I have had my LNL ap for about 6 months. I have done a few thousand 9mm with it and about 500 rounds of 6.5 grendel with it. I had a bunch of crimped .223 brass that I picked up at a police range that I decided to run through the sizer and decapper and then swaged them all with a dillon super swager. I did about 1500 of them and got them all polished up.

Now, this is where the problem begins. I got all set up to put primers, powder, and bullets on them and now all the sudden the press has decided that it wants to try and flip the primers inside the feed tube instead of dropping them into the hole for feeding. Naturally this binds up the primer feeder and the only way for me to get to the problem is to unscrew the part with the male thread end. Then, as I'm sure you can imagine, primers spill all over the place. I have tried everything to get it to feed normally again, but it still keeps trying to flip the primers. What the heck has happened and how can I fix it?

Okay so here is a picture of what it looks like after I load one. It binds up, I take off the two tubes, and this is what has happened. It doesn't matter if I have 1 primer or 100 in there it still does this.

CIMG3852.jpg
 
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I had a similar problem with mine. First, clean the raceway that the primer slide rides in. Then tighten the black screw that holds the primer tube assembly to the base. What might have happened is that the screw worked loose and the tube got a little windage in there causing the primers to flip. This was my problem and although it didn't flip the primers they got hungup and never seated. My first indication was no seating pressure followed by powder all over the press coming out of the flash hole. If this doesn't do it, make sure the primer ram is screwed in all the way and check it for burs around the threads. If not I haven a clue as to what might be causing it other than extreme wear on the primer tube base.
 
Are you sure you're using the right feed tube? Two come with the LNL AP, one for small and the other for large primers.

There are also two slides, again, one for small primers and one for large.

Finally, there are two primer seating punches. You can probably figure out why by now :)
 
Yes I am using the right primer feed tube and I have literally cleaned the crap out of it. I even took steel wool to it to see if that would help with the hangups.
 
Jake, I wish I could help you but the problems I have had with the primer feed on my new LNL is beyond anything I can do for you and for me.
I cannot load 100 rounds without a stopage of some kind, calls to Hornady I am sick of, nothing helps, new primer slides, tweak this tweak that, what a bunch of crap.
Never again. Good luck.
Floyd
 
Floydster,
Were your problems from the onset or did they just show up after a few thousand rounds? I ask because I have already done a lot of reloading on this machine and it has just chosen now to stop working. I have done everything I can think of to fix it but I am lost as to what next. My primer slide is pretty well worn though. Do you think that may be making a difference?
 
My primer feed was never reliable until I started stacking a brass rod on top of the feed column ... I drop them in (slowly) with the rod on top of the pickup and have not had a flipped primer since - even down to the last two in every hundred. That's about 18,000 rounds in all w/o a problem...plus you can color the rod to alert for low primers.
/Bryan
 
I had the same problem - I just placed a weight on top of the white plastic meter stick (the one that comes with the press), which allows you to see how many primers you left.

I use an o-give comparator insert. Doesn't weigh much but it enough to put a small amount of force on the primers so that they don't flip over during the primer loading.

Works great. Never had a problem after that.
 
I had the same problem when I first got my LnL AP. The slide is not coming back far enough for the hole to properly align with the primer. Loosen the black screw and cap on the top of the press that holds the top of the primer cam rod. Slide it as far back as it will go (to make the slide go back farther). That took care of my problem, but for good measures I went ahead and added the brass rod as a weight on top of the primers.

For the brass rod, I bent it so that when I only had one primer left it would hit the top of the primer tube and let me know that I was out of primers.

Reloading001.jpg
 
In your picture it looks like the ram is down and the pick up is stuck back....if I'm seeing this correctly and this just occured I'd pull the primer assembly apart and clean as RSVP'suggested. The only problem I've had was debri in the raceway not letting the primer feed center over the punch. I had de-primed a bunch of brass and had walnut media jammed in there.
 
The weighted rod is a great idea--I use a piece of 1/8" dowel with a little flag on it, and it helps immensely.

I'd had a hangup a while back and went through the cleaning and such--and discovered that a jam had created a burr on the slide. I buffed it off, made sure there were no sharp edges or burrs anywhere, and that took care of the problem.
 
My primng problems started right from the get-go.
The slider for the large primers had a bad casting, ( was not filled out) and appeared to be warped and had rough edges.
Also the primer seating assembly, the threads on it stuck up past the primer pin so I took that apart and dremmeled it down smooth, so the pin face was even with the thread
body were it threads into the presss.
Doug sent me a new slider and after deburring and smoothing the tray and slider itself, putting a little grafite(sp) on the tray and slider ( I used a Q tip ) and tweaking everything to Doug's instructions and using the rod to put pressure on the primers I still have problems with tipped primers and the slider hanging up at least twice on a 100 round run.
The spring that holds the shell plate body to the correct height seems to be weak also, as I can see the primer pin is a hair higher then the sub plate, I don't think this should be.
Anyway, I'm still working on it.
Later,Floyd
 
Hey folks,

I look at the picture Longdayjake provided, and it is obvious that all Hornady LNL AP presses are not made equal - or at least the same. My LNL AP has a serial number less than 1500 and was purchased when they were first available back in 1997. Looking a Jake's primer feed mechanism, it is obviously different than mine even though it seems to use the same principles: sliding primer shuttle that moves on the cam rod as the handle moves up and down. I have said many times that my primer feed works just fine, but that does not mean it never has any problems. Once you know your press, however, the problems are easily recognized and quickly fixed.

For one example, I could mention changing from one primer size to another. I could be using large primers to load any number of different calibers, and the primer system works perfectly for hundreds or even thousands or rounds. Then I have to change to small primers for a different caliber. It only takes a few minutes to change from one primer size to another, but changing parts may not be the only issue here. Once the parts are changed, I start to load rounds, and frequently I find the shuttle is not picking up a fresh primer. This problem has always been the result of the shuttle not sliding far enough, and it is fixed by making an adjustment to the shuttle cam rod as mentioned in Randy's post just above (by the way, Randy, my old primer tubes look nothing like the one in your photo). Once you are familiar with the press and know for what to look, the adjustment can be made in a minute, and then you can go on loading all kinds of calibers with that size primer.

As a second example, I can be loading a big bunch of round with no problems, and then I suddenly find the primer starts to hang up on seating and does not want to seat in the primer pocket of the case. OK, it is now time to stop the action. I finish those rounds that have been primed and remove the others. I then get a little flashlight, pull the shuttle back by hand, and sure enough, I see powder, dirt or whatever in the shuttle way, and I know it needs to be cleaned. Any debris in the shuttle way can stop the shuttle from traveling to its stop and foul up the works. At this point, I remove the shell plate and the whole primer assembly. I get a tooth brush and then clean the top of the press and the shuttle race track thoroughly. I put a dry lubricant in the race track and then also apply it to the shuttle itself. At this point, the shuttle should slide back and forth in the track like it was on ice. When I reassemble all the parts, everything is working fine. If the shuttle does not pick a fresh primer up, then I need to adjust the cam rod as described above.

A third problem I discovered early was that the last two or three primers might not want to go into the shuttle. This is pretty much the same as it used to be with the primer tubes on the RCBS Rockchuckers and Juniors. I solved this problem the same way as I did with the RCBS presses, I used a wood dowel to sit loosely atop the primers inside the tube. This added enough weight to insure all of the primers fed into the shuttle, and I also marked the wood dowels to show how many primers were left in the tube.

I have never had any primer turn upside down in my priming system, so I have no idea how that is happening. I do know the primer system on my old LNL AP works just fine as long as I keep it clean and adjust it properly.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
I had a similar problem.

I use a piece of dowel with a piece of .45 acp brass sitting on top of it to see my primer level, and help the last few primers into the primer sled. Also, when empty, the dowel falls into the primer sled hole and locks it back. You KNOW when you are out.


unfortunately when I set this up, I didn't think it through, and was just yanking the dowel out to refill the tube. This would let the sled snap back into place. It would do so against the primer ram, which is much harder than the metal of the sled. Over time this deformed the sled slightly and put a burr on the front of it. This would cause the occasional primer flip, and more annoyingly, the primer half-flip like that binds everything up and requires disassembly of the primer system.

Check your sled for damage.

Also, check that you ahve the right sized primer tube in there for the size primer that is going into the sled. A large tube with small primers can get you all sorts of headaches.
 
Fixed it!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so I fixed it. I tried adjusting the Cam Rod and that did not work. So, I got upset enough that I decided that I would try a bubba tactic. I took a drill and slightly widened the hole on the primer slide.. Then I took some steel wool and wrapped it around a drill bit and used it to polish the heck out of everything on the slide as well as the part where the feed tube connects. Now it works better than it ever did. I just loaded up about 350 rounds and not one primer flipped or stalled. Thanks for your help.
 
David Wile

I went to the hardware store and got a small (1/2") paint brush. I hold the slide back with my left hand and brush out the slide area with my right hand. 9 times out of 10 it will fix my problem without having to disassemble everything.

It sounds like your slide is not coming back far enough. Take the primer tube and outer housing off the primer base. When the ram is at the highest point, you want the hole in the slide to be just a little past center, to the back side. I adjusted mine like this and have had no problems since. The only problems I have with the primer system now is the occasional dirt in the primer slide.
 
Hey Randy,

I also use paint brushes for the same purpose. In fact, I cut some rather short to make the bristles more stiff to get at tough stuff. As far as I am concerned, I don't have a problem with my original primer system. I learned its likes and dislikes, and I do what it wants so it will do what I want. When the slide doesn't do something as it should I usually know exactly what is wrong right away. And I don't want to sound like the primer mechanism gets hung up frequently. It doesn't. I do know when I change primer sizes, I will usually have to make some adjustments to get the slide to align correctly, but then everything is fine and goes smoothly. I think Hornady hit a home run with the LNL AP, and I have been using the same one with all original parts since I first bought it in 1997.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
This post almost make me what to have another go at priming on the press. I gave up not because of flipped primers but that they were hard to seat or seat completely flush or below. After sizing, hand priming, then loading the rest, life was much easier. I know extra steps, but I'm in no rush. I just want to enjoy loading.
 
Glad you fixed it .
I had trouble with mine it ended up being the spring that on the primer slider.
Stretched it to much putting it on one time and was not taking the slider back far enough .
 
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