My knowledge of Hornady's LNL AP is from
reading about it, as I have a Dillon progressive...
I believe Hornady intends the user to have a bushing for every die, so that you can swap "calibers" quickly. It would be possible to have only 5 bushings for the press, and swap dies into those bushings, but that really isn't how they intended the system to be used. The bushings aren't terribly expensive, as I recall.
I'd check to make sure the pistol dies are Ti-N (Nitride) or carbide, so you don't have to use lube. Reloading pistol is much cleaner and faster without lube.
Lube is required for bottleneck rifle cartridges. There are wide variations in "success" with different lube systems. Some swear by Imperial wax, others are happy with One-Shot, and yet others stick to RCBS lube on a pad.
Hornady has a fairly nice case trimmer, for rifle cartridges. You can get separate inside and outside chamfering cutters, in addition to the "straight" cutter. I just use a Wilson inside/outside hand chamfering tool and leave the case trimmer set up with the straight cutter. If you do thousands of rifle cartridges a month, you might want to look at a motorized trimmer like the Giraud, but these are around $450 and have a 2 month waiting list.
If you read up on case trimming and wonder why you have to do it, RCBS has something called an X-Die that can be used to
eliminate trimming (after an initial trim to their spec length.) These dies replace your normal resizing dies.
Calipers are useful in reloading, to be sure, but it's fairly near impossible to use them to measure cartridge headspace length. For this you will need a Wilson-type headspace gauge, one for each rifle cartridge you reload. They are only $35 or so each, and they are important for setting up your resizing die. Wilson gauges for pistol are useful for checking case length, and a rough check on cartridge overall length (COAL), but these checks can be done with calipers, just not as quickly.
Regarding scales, I had an electronic scale for many years. It had a 15 minute warmup time, and it was sensitive to fluorescent lights. It gave up a few weeks ago (load cell died?) and I replaced it with a manual scale, the RCBS 10-10 (made for them by Ohaus.) As I don't use this scale to sort brass, or do other repetitive measurements, but just use it to set up my powder measure, I find it is much less trouble than an electronic and just as accurate. (0.1gr) It is a really well-designed manual scale, which happens to store itself in a dust-free case that protects all the critical surfaces like the agate bearings and knife-edges. However, electronic scales are better if you are doing a lot of measurements. Warning: there are many low-cost electronic scales that are not suited to reloading. They generally aren't stable, and sometimes don't display in grains!
Regarding resizing bottleneck (rifle) cartridges, you might want to research some options on how this is done on a Hornady AP. For the Dillon 550B, I just don't index (as that progressive press has manual indexing) when resizing, and then index before pulling the handle when resuming progressive operation with resized/reprimed/prepped brass. For your AP, you might want to just install the resizing die only, and run the brass through 4 empty stations behind it. Then, when you resume with the trimmed and chamfered brass, install the other dies and omit the resizing die. (This is just guesswork on my part...I don't have a Hornady press.
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Suggestion regarding learning on a progressive press - even if the manual doesn't say to do this, I would recommend loading a few hundred rounds by indexing completely through the press for each round, rather than using the press as a true progressive. This lets you watch each step in the process separately, until you get comfortable with what the thing is attempting to do.
Reloading can be a lot of fun, in addition to creating ammo tailored to your needs, and possibly saving a little. Good luck!
