Howdy
I have two Hornady Lock and Load AP presses. I keep one set up for Large Pistol primers and the other one for Small Pistol primers. I do most of my loading these days on the Large primers machine. I also do most of my loading with Black Powder, can't remember the last time I loaded Smokeless.
I use Federal Large Pistol and Federal Small Pistol primers pretty exclusively, and most of my brass, 45 Colt, 45 Schofield, 44-40, 44 Russian, and 38-40 all comes from Starline, so there is a good deal of consistency there.
I suspect with all progressive presses, one has to get used to the feel of the machine. I do not have any experience on any other brands of progressive presses, but I am quite used to the feel of my Hornady machines. I can tell by the feedback from the handle when a primer is going to seat smooth as poop through a goose or when one is going to hang up a little bit. I have not noticed any taper to the profile of Federal primers, I will have to look the next time I fire up the machine.
BP loading tends to be a little bit messy, powder dust and the occasional spilled grains tend to accumulate around the press during a loading session. So I dust everything off before each loading session.
Before every loading session I make sure the Primer Pusher Thingy is screwed securely into the machine. It tends to loosen over time. I also take it apart every once in a while and clean out any dust or other foreign material that has accumulated inside over time. Too much dreck inside this assembly can keep the Pusher part from retracting properly after each cycle, which can prevent the next primer from sliding into position.
I also make sure the Primer Slider Thingy is clean. I pop the Slider itself off and blow out the slot it travels in with canned air. The arrow on the left is pointing to the Primer Pusher Thingy popped up into position correctly. Yeah, there are a few stray grains of powder in this photo.
When the lever pulls the ram all the way down, the bottom of the Primer Pusher Thingy contacts the base of the press, pushing the Pusher Thingy up to push a primer into a primer pocket. I noticed years ago that the bottom of the Pusher was digging a divot into the aluminum frame of the press. This was affecting how deep primers were seating. So I glued a steel washer to the base of the press for the Pusher to push against. No more divots in the aluminum and primers all get seated consistently.
Years ago I discovered that sometimes gravity alone is not enough to keep the primers flowing down the primer tube. Sometimes they would hang up. So I added a Gravity Assist Device. It is a piece of brass rod about .198 in diameter. I place it on top of the column of primers in the primer tube to keep them flowing. I have a Sharpie mark around the tube to indicate when the amount of primers left in the tube is approaching zero. I have a smaller diameter rod for the Small Pistol Primers press. In this photo I do not have the standard Hornady powder measure mounted on the press, that is a Lyman Black Powder measure that gets used most of the time on this press. I think Dillon provides a similar Gravity Assist Device?
The other thing is, I don't know about other presses, but there is enough slop in the Hornady shell plates that the shells can shift ever so slightly in position. This is usually not a problem, the spring retainer keeps the shells pretty consistent in position. Sometimes however a shell will shift just enough that it bumps into the bottom of the sizing/decap die on the way up. I can always feel when this happens so I stop the stroke before any damage is done to the case mouth. 44-40 and 38-40 brass is very thin at the case mouth and bumping into the bottom of the die can potentially crumple a neck, ruining the case. That slight shift in position in the shell plate may be responsible for a primer not feeding into the primer pocket smooth as poop through a goose, I don't really know.
Anyway, those are the tricks I use with my Hornday presses to keep from grinding my teeth when seating primers.
Editorial Note: Regarding depriming off the press and cleaning out primer pockets separately: I have been loading Black Powder cartridges on this press for probably over 15 years now. I NEVER deprime off the machine. It defeats the purpose of the machine. Trust me, Black Powder leaves more residue behind in a primer pocket than Unique, my favorite Smokeless powder. I have never experienced enough dreck building up in the bottom of a primer pocket in all these years that I felt the necessity to deprime and clean out primer pockets separately. I just run everything through the press in the standard manner the way it was designed to be used.
P.S. I have never experienced a tilted or upside down primer on my Hornady machines. The Gravity Assist Device probably helps with this. If a primer was fed into the primer tube upside down it is because I used the Primer Picker Upper Tube to pick it up upside down. I am pretty careful that all my primers are oriented properly before I pick them up. I use a standard old RCBS primer tray with the concentric circles to orient all the primers correctly. I am not old enough yet to not notice that a primer is upside down when I pick it up. As I say, the primer feed system on my Hornady presses has never flipped a primer upside down.
However I did once encounter a commercially loaded 12 gauge shotgun shell with the primer pressed in horizontally. Do not remember what brand it was.
