bhawkeye
03-11-2008, 05:06 AM
(original link no longer available)
I have to agee that the Hornady instructons leave a lot out and are really confusing.
What they don't tell you could fill a book about how to make mistakes. Here's a few of them, that they should have put in to the instructions.
The powder measure comes with the rifle rotor and measuring stem and is useless for loading most pistol rounds. You have to order the pistol measure and stem.
The machine comes with the large primer punch installed and the small primer punch is in a plastic bag.
Clean the primer slide and the primer punch constantly to avoid problems. When the punch or the slide gets dirty they cause the slide to hang up or worse peen the end of the slide.
Make sure the primer tube is centered and in firmly when you change them. Or else your going to end up frustrated and wondering where the primers are.
Run a little powdered graphite through the powder measure when it's installed or else the powder measure will hang up and give you problems.
When you use any other die than a Hornady in the 5th station just flip up the ejector wire and take them out by hand.
Every 50-60 rounds check the bolt in the center that holds the shell plate down, they become loose fast. When that happens it throws the shell plate off and causes the retaing clip in the bottom of the powder measure to break and the pistol measure falls out. When that happens you have a week wait for a new one.
Buy a lot of shell retaining springs the ones that go around the shell plate, you'll need them. Also get more bushings than you think your going to need I have 20 and need more already.
If you think you might need some thing in the future order it now their always out of every thing and put you on back order.
If you need some thing because it broke don't talk to any one but the tech guys they will send it to you for free, any one else will charge you.
Don't get me wrong it's a great press and I've reloaded 18,000 rounds so far this year. But it has it's little quirks just like any other press.
I had one more wrinkle that may be of help. I was having trouble with the primer feed "missing" about every tenth primer. I could feel that no primer was there on the seating stroke, and with the spring mechanism that holds the cases into the shell holder it was relatively simple to stop and fix things, but it sure was slowing the process down. I found that the little metal tube that the primer slide bears on when the press is actuated is adjustable via the set screw on the top of the press, and backing it out a smidge so the primer slide had a longer travel in each cycle solved the problem. Now my press is humming along like clockwork.
Adjusting the CAPD and PXD - I called the factory. My translation of what the gentleman in technical said is:
0. Remove the primer tube so you don't have to fight with it. It can easily be screwed into place after fitting up the CAPD/PXD.
1. Place a case in the shellplate and raise it under the CAPD/PXD.
2. Screw the CAPD lower assembly down into the LnL bushing until the expander contacts the case. At this point, the metering plunger will be more or less horizontal.
3. Experiment with screwing the CAPD into the LnL bushing until the point at which the metering plunger is at full "throw" (up against the body of the powder dispenser) when the press' handle is in the full down position.
4. This should expand the case properly and get you a full throw of powder.
5. Depending on the bullet profile and case length, you may also need to adjust the distance between the dispenser body and the ring that the CAPD linkage attaches to. [THIS IS THE STEP I AM PERSONALLY AT RIGHT NOW AND CANNOT VOUCH FOR NUANCES IN THIS ARENA.]
…
I have powder thru inserts for 9mm, 357, 40 and 45. and they all work perfectly. It's just that they are kind of hard to adjust.
Part of the problem is the crummy instructions that come with the press. You have to adjust the linkage to achieve FULL throw so that the measure "tops" out slightly "over center", in order to get the mouth of the case to bell. You have to adjust the linkage clamp on the powder die so that the powder measure will go deeper into the die. Then you have to adust the whole powder die depth in the press to achieve the proper belling. You have to go between the two adjustments until you get the bell you are looking for.
I works, it really does!!
...
This weekend having recieved all of my LNL parts, I attached the press to my bench and adjusted the LNL and started loading .45 acp.
Its working pretty well, I have set mine up with the powder measure in station two.
I am using the through powder belling insert so it bells the case mouth when the powder is dropped. There is one gottcha with this device, I found that the powder die had to be adjusted down till its almost touching the shell holder to get a reliable powder drop and fully bell the case mouth on a .45 acp case.
I am using the pistol powder rotor on the powder measure. The rotor must move through its full range of motion in order to get a full powder charge and to drop it and reliably bell the case mouth. If the micrometer doesnt fully cycle to the top of the slot in the measure then the belling doesn't happen, if it doesnt hit the stop at the bottom then I get a partial powder charge. So I had to make a few adjustments to the height of the case activated powder drop so it would hit the bottom, and screw the die in till it almost touches the shell plate so it will cam a tiny bit at the top.
I suspect with a taller .45 case like the .45 colt the die could be backed out a good bit and still bell. If one is loading .45 gap using this belling insert it may not bell the case since .45 acp seems to be the shortest case it will work with. (note this may be fixable by adding a short drop tube above the belling tube).
I did have a problem with the primer slide sticking in the rearward position. A little polishing and some dry lube seems to have fixed this. I am also using the primer alarm rod from my 550 to keep downward pressure on the primers. It seems that you dont want to let the primer magazine fall below 5 primers or the primers will cant slightly and cause the primer slide to jam in the rearward position.
The indexing was spot on from the factory on my press which came from Graffs and has a serial number above 10500. My ejection works great.
…
Empyrean, I did not see the belling thing as an issue, its just the way it works, they designed it for all .45 cases rifle and pistol, some cases are just shorter than others.
On yours did you screw the powder die down till its almost touching the shell plate?, if you did and you are still not belling the case, then add the shortest rifle tube in the mix above the belling tube, and crank the powder die up a ways. Then you will bell and drop powder. Its really not thet different than the Dillon measure and drop belling tube, in that the measure has to cam a bit at the top to create the bell, with the dillon, the taper on the belling tube is more aggressive so you can make the case mouth look like a trumpet if you overdo it.
Once you set the powder die down far enough to bell the case, you may then have to adjust the part of the case activated drop thats around the measure threaded part down so the actuator arm that rotates the rotor cycles all the way to the bottom when the ram is lowered, but no so far that it prevents the rotor from camming a bit at the top.
…
tips on making the primer feed reliable:
If it's slightly out of adjustment. You may have a timing issue. When your primer slide/carrier is backed away from the shellplate during operation, the slide is not passing underneath the stack of primers at the right time.
How to fix? The adjustments are simple, but may or may not be obvious to some.
1. First, polish the primer slides and the track they run in with something that'll smooth out any potential machining rough spots that may or may not be there. This isn't a gotta do, but doesn't hurt anything and usually helps any machine, regardless of brand, smooth out a little. You'll need to remove the shellplate to do this.
2. Second, remove the primer mechanism from the press except for the primer slide. All that should be left is the primer cam rod, the primer slide and the spring that pulls it. Operate the press with one hand while holding the other hand over the primer slide and observe how the prime slide mechanism is controlled how far back it goes by the camming action of the came wire.
3. Take the primer tube base, nothing else but the base (This is the cast part at the bottom of the primer tube.) and reinstall it on the press while looking down into it. You'll find there's a slight bit of adjustment with the screw that holds it down. You can rotate it slightly in a clockwise/counterclockwise direction. You'll want to cause the primer slide to come underneath the base and then, using a good light, center the hole in the base much as possible over the primer slide.
Note: If you are able to exactly center the hole of the base over the hole in the primer slide, you are done. If not, proceed to step 4.
4. The cam wire is mounted on the top of the press by a plastic "bracket" affair which is held down by a screw. It has some, but not a lot of adjustment there and this is NOT where you want to try to adjust it. Note the adjustment is most likely correct when the plastic bracket is in it's "slot" and the top of the bracket is parallel to the top of the press. However, you can "rotate" the cam wire in the bracket for a slightly different angle, smoothing up the travel and keeping the roller on the primer slider in place better.
The cam wire is mounted on bottom with two small nuts, one of which is on top of the base of the press and one of which is in a recess underneath the press. This is the "correct" place to adjust the cam wire. You can lower the bottom nut (turning it counter clockwise) and then "raise" the cam wire by tightening (clockwise) the nut on top of the press.
5. You can adjust the cam wire by raising it up and down and by rotating it slightly. You may need to lower or raise the cam wire, depending. With the primer tube base installed, operate the press handle, observing the primer slide hole to prime tube base hole alignment to determine if you need to increase or decrease the amount of camming action. Once you've determined if it needs to go out farther or not as far, you can adjust the cam wire appropriately. The objective is to get the primer slide hole to be directly below the primer tube base at the top of the prime slide travel on the cam wire.
With the primer tube base installed and aligned per step 3 above, loosen the nut on the bottom of the base slightly and then tighten (clockwise) or loosen (counterclockwise) the nut on top of the press base, depending on wether you need to lower or raise the camming action. Once you've gotten the primer slider hole aligned with the top night firmly against the top of the press base, tighten the bottom nut. You may want to apply a small drop of blue loctite to the threes by the bottom nut.
Yes, this is not an easy procedure necessarily. The good news is, you'll only have to do it ONCE. Once you do it, all the drama will go out of the primer feed. Very few presses seem to need this, but likely yours is gonna.
Hope this helps,
Dave
Dave In Statham, GA
Adjusting expander/decapper rod in sizing die for concentricity
Finding the decap/expander rod off center isn't unusual. Thy are simply screwed in and not aligned at the factory. They SHOULD be aligned when you set up the die.
Screw the die in to touch the raised shellholder, as per the instructions. Now, loosen the decap rod lock nut so the rod can "wiggle" a bit. Lube and size a case, leaving the case fully in the die. Turn the expander rod down until the expander touches the inside of the case, then back it off two to three turns. (This keeps the expander from bending if the expander hits the bottom of a case.)
Now, here's the alignment part: lower the ram until you can feel the expander ball firmly in the neck of the case. While holding a small amount of downward pressure on the ram, run down the expander rod locknut and snug it up.
Putting the loosened rod under tension automatically aligns the rod and the case neck while the case is held in the shellholder exactly as it will be for every subsequent sizing. It can't help but be straight.
Summary: Always snug up the die locknut under pressure, and the expander locknut under tension for concentric alignment.
Setting powder charge weight
When setting up your charge weight use a case to do it don't rotate the rotor without pushing the powder thru expanders up or the powder bushings up. If you don't, you will get more inconsistent drops because some of the powder will fall on the expander or bushing. Then the next load might knock some off. I found this out after pulling the powder dispenser off and had powder smashed on the bottom of the drop tube and on the top of the expander die. (added by bhawkeye) I took an empty case & seated a used primer upside down (to make it smooth inside & easy to identify) & use this as a powder calibration case.
I have to agee that the Hornady instructons leave a lot out and are really confusing.
What they don't tell you could fill a book about how to make mistakes. Here's a few of them, that they should have put in to the instructions.
The powder measure comes with the rifle rotor and measuring stem and is useless for loading most pistol rounds. You have to order the pistol measure and stem.
The machine comes with the large primer punch installed and the small primer punch is in a plastic bag.
Clean the primer slide and the primer punch constantly to avoid problems. When the punch or the slide gets dirty they cause the slide to hang up or worse peen the end of the slide.
Make sure the primer tube is centered and in firmly when you change them. Or else your going to end up frustrated and wondering where the primers are.
Run a little powdered graphite through the powder measure when it's installed or else the powder measure will hang up and give you problems.
When you use any other die than a Hornady in the 5th station just flip up the ejector wire and take them out by hand.
Every 50-60 rounds check the bolt in the center that holds the shell plate down, they become loose fast. When that happens it throws the shell plate off and causes the retaing clip in the bottom of the powder measure to break and the pistol measure falls out. When that happens you have a week wait for a new one.
Buy a lot of shell retaining springs the ones that go around the shell plate, you'll need them. Also get more bushings than you think your going to need I have 20 and need more already.
If you think you might need some thing in the future order it now their always out of every thing and put you on back order.
If you need some thing because it broke don't talk to any one but the tech guys they will send it to you for free, any one else will charge you.
Don't get me wrong it's a great press and I've reloaded 18,000 rounds so far this year. But it has it's little quirks just like any other press.
I had one more wrinkle that may be of help. I was having trouble with the primer feed "missing" about every tenth primer. I could feel that no primer was there on the seating stroke, and with the spring mechanism that holds the cases into the shell holder it was relatively simple to stop and fix things, but it sure was slowing the process down. I found that the little metal tube that the primer slide bears on when the press is actuated is adjustable via the set screw on the top of the press, and backing it out a smidge so the primer slide had a longer travel in each cycle solved the problem. Now my press is humming along like clockwork.
Adjusting the CAPD and PXD - I called the factory. My translation of what the gentleman in technical said is:
0. Remove the primer tube so you don't have to fight with it. It can easily be screwed into place after fitting up the CAPD/PXD.
1. Place a case in the shellplate and raise it under the CAPD/PXD.
2. Screw the CAPD lower assembly down into the LnL bushing until the expander contacts the case. At this point, the metering plunger will be more or less horizontal.
3. Experiment with screwing the CAPD into the LnL bushing until the point at which the metering plunger is at full "throw" (up against the body of the powder dispenser) when the press' handle is in the full down position.
4. This should expand the case properly and get you a full throw of powder.
5. Depending on the bullet profile and case length, you may also need to adjust the distance between the dispenser body and the ring that the CAPD linkage attaches to. [THIS IS THE STEP I AM PERSONALLY AT RIGHT NOW AND CANNOT VOUCH FOR NUANCES IN THIS ARENA.]
…
I have powder thru inserts for 9mm, 357, 40 and 45. and they all work perfectly. It's just that they are kind of hard to adjust.
Part of the problem is the crummy instructions that come with the press. You have to adjust the linkage to achieve FULL throw so that the measure "tops" out slightly "over center", in order to get the mouth of the case to bell. You have to adjust the linkage clamp on the powder die so that the powder measure will go deeper into the die. Then you have to adust the whole powder die depth in the press to achieve the proper belling. You have to go between the two adjustments until you get the bell you are looking for.
I works, it really does!!
...
This weekend having recieved all of my LNL parts, I attached the press to my bench and adjusted the LNL and started loading .45 acp.
Its working pretty well, I have set mine up with the powder measure in station two.
I am using the through powder belling insert so it bells the case mouth when the powder is dropped. There is one gottcha with this device, I found that the powder die had to be adjusted down till its almost touching the shell holder to get a reliable powder drop and fully bell the case mouth on a .45 acp case.
I am using the pistol powder rotor on the powder measure. The rotor must move through its full range of motion in order to get a full powder charge and to drop it and reliably bell the case mouth. If the micrometer doesnt fully cycle to the top of the slot in the measure then the belling doesn't happen, if it doesnt hit the stop at the bottom then I get a partial powder charge. So I had to make a few adjustments to the height of the case activated powder drop so it would hit the bottom, and screw the die in till it almost touches the shell plate so it will cam a tiny bit at the top.
I suspect with a taller .45 case like the .45 colt the die could be backed out a good bit and still bell. If one is loading .45 gap using this belling insert it may not bell the case since .45 acp seems to be the shortest case it will work with. (note this may be fixable by adding a short drop tube above the belling tube).
I did have a problem with the primer slide sticking in the rearward position. A little polishing and some dry lube seems to have fixed this. I am also using the primer alarm rod from my 550 to keep downward pressure on the primers. It seems that you dont want to let the primer magazine fall below 5 primers or the primers will cant slightly and cause the primer slide to jam in the rearward position.
The indexing was spot on from the factory on my press which came from Graffs and has a serial number above 10500. My ejection works great.
…
Empyrean, I did not see the belling thing as an issue, its just the way it works, they designed it for all .45 cases rifle and pistol, some cases are just shorter than others.
On yours did you screw the powder die down till its almost touching the shell plate?, if you did and you are still not belling the case, then add the shortest rifle tube in the mix above the belling tube, and crank the powder die up a ways. Then you will bell and drop powder. Its really not thet different than the Dillon measure and drop belling tube, in that the measure has to cam a bit at the top to create the bell, with the dillon, the taper on the belling tube is more aggressive so you can make the case mouth look like a trumpet if you overdo it.
Once you set the powder die down far enough to bell the case, you may then have to adjust the part of the case activated drop thats around the measure threaded part down so the actuator arm that rotates the rotor cycles all the way to the bottom when the ram is lowered, but no so far that it prevents the rotor from camming a bit at the top.
…
tips on making the primer feed reliable:
If it's slightly out of adjustment. You may have a timing issue. When your primer slide/carrier is backed away from the shellplate during operation, the slide is not passing underneath the stack of primers at the right time.
How to fix? The adjustments are simple, but may or may not be obvious to some.
1. First, polish the primer slides and the track they run in with something that'll smooth out any potential machining rough spots that may or may not be there. This isn't a gotta do, but doesn't hurt anything and usually helps any machine, regardless of brand, smooth out a little. You'll need to remove the shellplate to do this.
2. Second, remove the primer mechanism from the press except for the primer slide. All that should be left is the primer cam rod, the primer slide and the spring that pulls it. Operate the press with one hand while holding the other hand over the primer slide and observe how the prime slide mechanism is controlled how far back it goes by the camming action of the came wire.
3. Take the primer tube base, nothing else but the base (This is the cast part at the bottom of the primer tube.) and reinstall it on the press while looking down into it. You'll find there's a slight bit of adjustment with the screw that holds it down. You can rotate it slightly in a clockwise/counterclockwise direction. You'll want to cause the primer slide to come underneath the base and then, using a good light, center the hole in the base much as possible over the primer slide.
Note: If you are able to exactly center the hole of the base over the hole in the primer slide, you are done. If not, proceed to step 4.
4. The cam wire is mounted on the top of the press by a plastic "bracket" affair which is held down by a screw. It has some, but not a lot of adjustment there and this is NOT where you want to try to adjust it. Note the adjustment is most likely correct when the plastic bracket is in it's "slot" and the top of the bracket is parallel to the top of the press. However, you can "rotate" the cam wire in the bracket for a slightly different angle, smoothing up the travel and keeping the roller on the primer slider in place better.
The cam wire is mounted on bottom with two small nuts, one of which is on top of the base of the press and one of which is in a recess underneath the press. This is the "correct" place to adjust the cam wire. You can lower the bottom nut (turning it counter clockwise) and then "raise" the cam wire by tightening (clockwise) the nut on top of the press.
5. You can adjust the cam wire by raising it up and down and by rotating it slightly. You may need to lower or raise the cam wire, depending. With the primer tube base installed, operate the press handle, observing the primer slide hole to prime tube base hole alignment to determine if you need to increase or decrease the amount of camming action. Once you've determined if it needs to go out farther or not as far, you can adjust the cam wire appropriately. The objective is to get the primer slide hole to be directly below the primer tube base at the top of the prime slide travel on the cam wire.
With the primer tube base installed and aligned per step 3 above, loosen the nut on the bottom of the base slightly and then tighten (clockwise) or loosen (counterclockwise) the nut on top of the press base, depending on wether you need to lower or raise the camming action. Once you've gotten the primer slider hole aligned with the top night firmly against the top of the press base, tighten the bottom nut. You may want to apply a small drop of blue loctite to the threes by the bottom nut.
Yes, this is not an easy procedure necessarily. The good news is, you'll only have to do it ONCE. Once you do it, all the drama will go out of the primer feed. Very few presses seem to need this, but likely yours is gonna.
Hope this helps,
Dave
Dave In Statham, GA
Adjusting expander/decapper rod in sizing die for concentricity
Finding the decap/expander rod off center isn't unusual. Thy are simply screwed in and not aligned at the factory. They SHOULD be aligned when you set up the die.
Screw the die in to touch the raised shellholder, as per the instructions. Now, loosen the decap rod lock nut so the rod can "wiggle" a bit. Lube and size a case, leaving the case fully in the die. Turn the expander rod down until the expander touches the inside of the case, then back it off two to three turns. (This keeps the expander from bending if the expander hits the bottom of a case.)
Now, here's the alignment part: lower the ram until you can feel the expander ball firmly in the neck of the case. While holding a small amount of downward pressure on the ram, run down the expander rod locknut and snug it up.
Putting the loosened rod under tension automatically aligns the rod and the case neck while the case is held in the shellholder exactly as it will be for every subsequent sizing. It can't help but be straight.
Summary: Always snug up the die locknut under pressure, and the expander locknut under tension for concentric alignment.
Setting powder charge weight
When setting up your charge weight use a case to do it don't rotate the rotor without pushing the powder thru expanders up or the powder bushings up. If you don't, you will get more inconsistent drops because some of the powder will fall on the expander or bushing. Then the next load might knock some off. I found this out after pulling the powder dispenser off and had powder smashed on the bottom of the drop tube and on the top of the expander die. (added by bhawkeye) I took an empty case & seated a used primer upside down (to make it smooth inside & easy to identify) & use this as a powder calibration case.