hornady lnl ap quirks

[hornadylnl]

So far, I've loaded almost 1000 rounds of 223 on my ap press. I've found a few quirks on it. I'm thinking most of them are either shell plate or indexer gear related. The loaded case doesn't want to eject smoothly in the same 2 slots on the shell plate. Also, the case feeder doesn't want to push the case into the shell plate smoothly all the time. It seems to go in cycles of 5-10. 5-10 will feed fine and the next 5-10 won't. I have noticed that the case retainer spring sits up just a hair above flush on the sub plate causing the case to tilt up and then down once it goes over the retainer spring. I'm thinking this is most of the problems with my feeding into the shell plate. I've adjusted the case feeder rod and I've also tried adjusting the pawls a little. So far, it hasn't seemed to help much. I haven't tried any other calibers yet. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

I can't tell where, but it sounds like your press is just slightly out of adjustment. I'd work adjusting the feed pawls that advance the shellplate with nothing on the press until you get absollute lock up of the spring ball detents each half turn, if that makes sense. Doing this will smooth things out a bit. Adjust one until it locks the first half advance correctly, then adjust the other. Each time, the detent ball should lock solidly and with dies removed, you should be perfectly centered over the primer eject hole and then perfectly centered over the primer seat for the next half advance.

Next, loosen the screw that holds the ejector wire. Push the wire into the clamp mount as far as possible. You can also take some green scrubbie material and polish the wire itself, but the most improvement can be seen by adjusting the wire angle to the way the shell is coming out of the shellplate.

After adjusting the wire, you can polish the shellplate itself, removing any burrs or machining roughness that can hang a shell up as it's trying to exit the shellplate. BTW, this type of stuff works for any brand of press.

With the shellplate smoothed up and any burrs removed, then you need to check the retaining spring and shellplate mounting. If your retaining spring isn't falling away and allowing the shell to exit correctly, either you've got the shellplate too loose or the shellplate may be defective or warped or you've been shipped an older shellplate (quite possible if you bought from Midway). Hornady made some mods to the shellplate since they first came out but I've seen Midway be bad about shipping the pre-update shellplates. I'd call Hornady on this one and check yours to see. Another thing you can check is the subplate to make sure the spring isn't hanging up on the edges of the subplate as it comes on and off the shellplate. Use a green scrubbie pad or fine sandpaper or a gunsmthing hard stone to smooth or slightly round over the edges of the subplate.

It's not normal and it's not a good thing your spring isn't falling away and coming back up where it's supposed to. This certainly interferes with smooth operation and ruins the retaining wires. That would be the first issue I would address.

Finally, work on how you operate your press. Try slowing down just a tad as you're raisiing the handle up, just before you seat a primer. Rhythm can greatly affect how the loaded shell kicks out of the press. If you're trying to rush the machine, shells will kick out too hard and get hung a lot. Try slowing down and working on your rhythm. You should see things smooth out when you do this and production will jump. Always remember, smooth gets you there sooner than rushing does, just like in auto racing.

"I'm thinking most of them are either shell plate or indexer gear related."

I'm thinking you're right.

"The loaded case doesn't want to eject smoothly in the same 2 slots on the shell plate."

Inspect those two slots for issues, but this can also be caused by a slightly out of psynch indexing adjustment.

"Also, the case feeder doesn't want to push the case into the shell plate smoothly all the time."

This is timing related most likely. Resolve the indexing adjustment before you try to do any adjusting on the casefeeder.

"It seems to go in cycles of 5-10. 5-10 will feed fine and the next 5-10 won't."

Sounds like timing and a couple rough spots on the shellplate. See comments above.

"I have noticed that the case retainer spring sits up just a hair above flush on the sub plate causing the case to tilt up and then down once it goes over the retainer spring."

This is one problem you need to resolve. Sounds like you have an old style shellplate. Call Hornady and send it back. That spring oughta drop clear of the shellplate free and easy and be below flush where it doesn't interfere with feeding or ejection.

"I'm thinking this is most of the problems with my feeding into the shell plate."

I'm thinking you're right. Sounds like you got an old style shellplate from Midway or whoever sold it to you.

"I've adjusted the case feeder rod and I've also tried adjusting the pawls a little."

Forget the casefeeder rod for now and get back to it later. Adjust the pawls a tiny bit at a time, then try it. If you're still having trouble getting it timed. PM me and I'll can help you with the timing. BTW, once you get it timed, it tends to stay timed. It's simple to time, but knowing how to get the timing to smooth out is half the battle. First time I did it, I way over adjusted it.

Hope this helps,

Dave

 

[hornadylnl]

Dave,

Thanks for the input. I went back over the pawls and tweaked them just a hair. The shellplate was hitting the detents up and down but I tweaked it so it pops in a little smoother on the down stroke. I didn't notice it before but my v block was off just a little bit. I centered it with the shell plate. I need to dig my feeler gauges out and see how much clearance I have between the sub plate and the shell plate. It seems that there is too big of a gap between the shell plate and the sub plate. I'm guessing around 15 or 20 thousandths. There is enough that I can rock(that is probably too strong of a word) it up and down just a little bit. When I pull the shell plate, I can lift the threaded piece that the shell plate bolts to up and down a good bit. With it all the way up, it goes just above flush with the sub plate. I know there needs to be a small gap in the shell plate to sub plate, but not sure how much. I don't think I have my shellplate box any more. I got it from Wideners. I'll try putting on one of my other shell plates later today and see if that lowers the spring below the top of the subplate.

Dave, I want to thank you for all of your input. I've read many of your responses to my posts and others. They are always informative and based on experience, not opinion. It's aggrevating when someone asks a question about what to buy and all you get is the same old brand war rhetoric. Thanks again for your time.

 

[1911user]

Definitely inspect the 223 shellplate closely. I purchased one that turned out to be the older style, also from wideners, last summer and 1 out of the 5 case slots was not machined correctly. The 223 case rim would not fit all the way into the plate. Hornady sent a new plate with no problem and it was the new style.

I use the casefeeder for 223 and mine works fine. Hornady replaced a couple of the case feeder parts because one of the lower part that moves the case over was binding, but that seems to be resolved now.

 

[Walkalong]

Old style plates have one ball detent. The newer ones have two ball detents which are a bit bigger. The new ones work a great deal better. I still have a couple of old style for calibers I don't load a lot and have not replaced yet.

 

[Idano]

hornadylnl if the the advice that Dave or 1911 gave you doesn't resolve your problem; which 90 percent of the time it does you may want to take a good look at your shell plate on those two slots my guess is the brass is fitting tight in those two. I have the same problem with 9mm, but it is case related; certain military cases fit too tight. I bought a used shell plate on eBay for $14 I am going to try and see if there are machining difference or experiment with thinning out the plate where it grabs the rim. I run .223 and I have to say it is the least problematic caliber I load. Both the .40 S&W and 9mm are case sensitive 9mm more so then the .40 S&W. Usually it is a bur on the rim from the guns ejector that causes the problem on the .40 S&W and on the 9mm it is the angle of the web.

 

[Walkalong]

9 MM was the only one giving me trouble, but after smoothing and polishing it is fine. Don't remove metal, just smooth and polish.

 

[hornadylnl]

My shell plate has 2 detents on it. Something else that I noticed last night was that the bullets were seating at different depths last night. There were several thousandths difference on some of them. I'm using winchester 55 fmjbt's. The first time I loaded them, I didn't notice any difference. I'm using Hornady dies. I checked the seater cone to see if there was any debris on it and didn't see any. I can't think of anything else that would cause the different depth settings unless the bullets weren't consistantly formed. I'm shooting this out of a 16" barreled AR so I'm not looking for 1" groups at 1000 yards. I'm going to start loading another big batch of brass tomorrow. Have to finish trimming first. I can't wait to get the money saved up for a giraud. Thanks again.

 

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

Walkalong,

The single detent ball type is for the Hornady Projector press. There is also, in addition to that, two generations of shellplates for the LnL press. Both Hornady LnL generations look very much alike, but different in the angle of the support for the case retaining spring. The newest type has much less support, so it allows the spring to drop away properly, as it should.

hornadylnl,

"Thanks for the input."

You're welcome

"I went back over the pawls and tweaked them just a hair. The shellplate was hitting the detents up and down but I tweaked it so it pops in a little smoother on the down stroke."

Make sure to remove your dies/LnL bushings and look down through the holds to make sure everything is centered over the primer ejection hole and the primer seater. Do this while rotating the shellplate. It helps to take a black magic marker and make a mark telling you where you're at on the rotation. Doing this a few times while observing closely should help you resolve any timing issues. Also, listen to the press. As you get the adjustment right, the press will make a distinctive click/clack sound, telling you the timing is right as well. I would do this with the case feeder, primer feed and other gadjets off the press and out of the loop, because this is the basis for all the other operations.

"I didn't notice it before but my v block was off just a little bit. I centered it with the shell plate."

Observation of details is your friend, with any sort of progressive machine.

"I need to dig my feeler gauges out and see how much clearance I have between the sub plate and the shell plate. It seems that there is too big of a gap between the shell plate and the sub plate. I'm guessing around 15 or 20 thousandths. There is enough that I can rock(that is probably too strong of a word) it up and down just a little bit. When I pull the shell plate, I can lift the threaded piece that the shell plate bolts to up and down a good bit. With it all the way up, it goes just above flush with the sub plate. I know there needs to be a small gap in the shell plate to sub plate, but not sure how much."

Do you have another shellplate to try? Perhaps one you bought from a different vendor at a different time? Changing shellplates can tell you a lot.

"I don't think I have my shellplate box any more. I got it from Wideners. I'll try putting on one of my other shell plates later today and see if that lowers the spring below the top of the subplate."

That's a good idea. If you got it from Widener's, I'd suspect the shellplate is the older one. Call Hornady and talk to Bob and confirm which one you have.

"Dave, I want to thank you for all of your input. I've read many of your responses to my posts and others. They are always informative and based on experience, not opinion. It's aggrevating when someone asks a question about what to buy and all you get is the same old brand war rhetoric. Thanks again for your time."

You're welcome, I try, but I'm getting to be a crotchety old man approaching fifty. But generally speaking, I prefer facts to emotion, though with this allergy medication I just got off of, I'm not nearly as patient as normal.

I suspect 1911user has the answer to your problem related to your shellplate. The rest is just some adjustment issues. I have a brand new .223 I just bought from Midway and am not seeing anything like you describe. Sounds like you have an older, perhaps badly machined shellplate. I'd call Hornady and talk to Bob.

In the meantime, use a shellplate you have that's working well and get your timing straightened out and fine tuned. Then, when the new one comes in, you shouldn't have a timing issue.

Regards,

Dave

 

[hornadylnl]

Before I get ahold of Hornady, I will switch over to another caliber and see how that goes. I'm planning on switching to 30/06 next. I got that shell plate off of ebay. The seller was selling her press and accessories so I got two shell plates off of her. I don't know how old they are but I'm guessing they are at least a year old. I still have about 1200 rounds of 223 to go before I switch it over. If most of my problems go away when I start loading 30/06, I'll know it is the shell plate. This 223 shell plate is the only one I've had on the press so far.

I really want to get a giraud trimmer now but I know where I can get new primed pmc 30/06 brass for $130 a thousand. Seems a little steep but by the time you pay $80 or so for once fired and $20 for primers and save ooldles of time, it makes it worth it. I still have around 300 ap's and 900 tracers to get loaded up and I don't know how long the brass will stick around for that price.

I was surprised that one of the blue koolaid drinkers hasn't posted on here the usual "you should have bought the dillon" but I did see where someone started a new thread on it.

 

[hornadylnl]

I ran some more rounds last night. I moved the ejector spring all the way in and that helped a little but was still having some ejection problems. I compared my 223 plate to my number 1 and number 10(40s&w) plates. The 223 plate has a bevel where the retainer spring rides and the other 2 don't. With the number 1 plate on and not running any cases, the spring won't fall at all unless I push it down. It will stay down for a couple cranks and then comes back up. The spring does go below the subplate when it does go down. The number 10 plate pushes the spring down below the subplate and stays there. I tried running some empty 40 cases through on the number 10 and they won't eject at all. There is no radius radius at all for the case to roll out of the shellplate like on my 223 plate. I think the 223 plate must be the newer style and my other 2 are older.

Something else that I have noticed is that my subplate turns counter clockwise a few degrees once I go from the ram down rest position and push the handle up to seat the primer. This rotation appears to be coming from the play in the handle linkages and where the part that holds the handle meets the ram. I don't know if this is unusual or would cause a problem because the whole assembly moves together. The shell plate moves with the subplate so it isn't making the plate off center with the subplate.

I work in manufacturing and know about what we call tolerance stack up. You are allowed a few thousands or 1/16ths of tolerance on each part and once you put several parts together, the tolerances really add up causing the assembly to be way over or undersized. I'm thinking that may be part of my problem here.

I'm going to call Hornady this morning and tell them what is going on. I'm going to see if I can send my press, shell plates, and the escapement assembly in after I get done with this run of 223 to have them go through it.

 

[hornadylnl]

I called Bob this morning. He told me to bend the ejector spring so that the loop is just beyond parallel. He said if it were up to him, that all the springs would be opened up that way when they went out. He also told me to check for burs on the subplate. There were a few so I sanded them down. On your subplate where the retainer spring comes back up to case on station one, is the milled slot in the subplate vertical or is there a bevel? My slot turns a little. I was watching the spring as I indexed it and I'm wondering if I should try to sand a small bevel on that slot to allow the spring to ride down a little longer before it comes back up. He did say that I have a newer style shellplate. I'll try it again this afternoon and see if these improvements help.

If any of you guys get annoyed at automatic answering machines from companies, you should call hornady's customer service number. You'll get a kick out of their options menu.

 

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

HornadyLnL,

"I ran some more rounds last night. I moved the ejector spring all the way in and that helped a little but was still having some ejection problems."

You're going to continue to have ejection problems until the shellplate situation gets straightened out. Sounds like you have some old ones and a badly machined one.

"I compared my 223 plate to my number 1 and number 10(40s&w) plates. The 223 plate has a bevel where the retainer spring rides and the other 2 don't."

The two without a bevel are not the latest version. Pack them up and send them back to Hornady for replacement/upgrade. The .223 with the problems, I'd clean up any machining burrs and if that doesn't fix it, send it back as defective.

"With the number 1 plate on and not running any cases, the spring won't fall at all unless I push it down. It will stay down for a couple cranks and then comes back up."

That's an exact description of the problem with the old style shellplates for the LnL.. You need to send that shellplate back to Hornady for machining or replacement.



"The spring does go below the subplate when it does go down."

That's what it's supposed to do, but only in the slot cut for it in the subplate. It should drop down at that slot and stay there until the shellplate rotates that part of the spring past the slot in the subplate. Check to make sure there are no burrs or sharp edges along that slot in the subplate.

"The number 10 plate pushes the spring down below the subplate and stays there. I tried running some empty 40 cases through on the number 10 and they won't eject at all. There is no radius radius at all for the case to roll out of the shellplate like on my 223 plate. I think the 223 plate must be the newer style and my other 2 are older."

Yes, the older style shellplates do not have a radius either. Send that one back to Hornady for remachining/replacement. What serial number is your press? If it's below 7000, Widener's sold you an older model. If so, I'd send it back and demand a newer model.

"Something else that I have noticed is that my subplate turns counter clockwise a few degrees once I go from the ram down rest position and push the handle up to seat the primer. This rotation appears to be coming from the play in the handle linkages and where the part that holds the handle meets the ram. I don't know if this is unusual or would cause a problem because the whole assembly moves together. The shell plate moves with the subplate so it isn't making the plate off center with the subplate."

That should NOT be happening. You subplate should move straight up and down vertically with the Ram and not shift clockwise or counter clockwise. Check the two set screws to the right and left underneat the subplate and on the top sides of the Ram. If these are loose, put some blue loctite on them and tighten them. If they're not loose, you have a defective press or one that's been messed with and you need to send it back for repair/replacement. This is a problem you should not have.

"I work in manufacturing and know about what we call tolerance stack up. You are allowed a few thousands or 1/16ths of tolerance on each part and once you put several parts together, the tolerances really add up causing the assembly to be way over or undersized. I'm thinking that may be part of my problem here."

Enough tolerance stacking can add up to a defective component.

"I'm going to call Hornady this morning and tell them what is going on. I'm going to see if I can send my press, shell plates, and the escapement assembly in after I get done with this run of 223 to have them go through it."

If the above suggestions don't fix the subplate problem, it certainly needs to go in.

"I called Bob this morning. He told me to bend the ejector spring so that the loop is just beyond parallel. He said if it were up to him, that all the springs would be opened up that way when they went out."

I would fix the shellplate/subplate issues before messing with that spring. It may be after you do that, the ejection issue will clear up. In my experience, it usually does, assuming the press is right.

"He also told me to check for burs on the subplate. There were a few so I sanded them down."

The only one I'd do this with is the .223, which sounds like a new plate, just roughly machined.

"On your subplate where the retainer spring comes back up to case on station one, is the milled slot in the subplate vertical or is there a bevel?"

Mine has a sharp edge there, but it shouldn't hurt to break the edge a bit. I wouldn't run it out too far though, if that makes sense. You'll get it where it's raising up too late.

"My slot turns a little. I was watching the spring as I indexed it and I'm wondering if I should try to sand a small bevel on that slot to allow the spring to ride down a little longer before it comes back up. He did say that I have a newer style shellplate."

A very small bevel shouldn't hurt. It sounds like your .223 is a newer style, but not those others without the spring bevel or ejection openings.

"I'll try it again this afternoon and see if these improvements help."

Try the above suggestions as well and see how things go.

"If any of you guys get annoyed at automatic answering machines from companies, you should call hornady's customer service number. You'll get a kick out of their options menu."


I always get a kick out of their answering machine.

Dave

 

[hornadylnl]

I sanded down the subplate a little and the shellplate. I'm still having a little of the problems but it has definitely improved. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it is working now. It's a 1000% better than my Lee pro 1000. I just ordered 2000 pieces of 30/06 primed pmc brass. I'll give that a try before I try to send the press back to Hornady. If it runs really smooth on that, I'll pretty well know that it is the 223 shellplate.

Does Hornady trade old shellplates for the newer style under warranty? Thanks for all of your advice and help everybody.