Re: Your opinion? Hornady LNL AP vs RCBS Pro 2000 Auto
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: SJshooter</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So I got my Hornady LNL press set up this past weekend and loaded a couple of .223 rounds.
I must that although I am impressed by the individual parts and functions, I am not overly impressed by the system as a whole
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">Positive things:</span> </span>
1) The look of the press. It is shiny and new unlike the blued appearance of RCBS stuff which always seems to rust.
2) The almost complete lack of wiggle or motion in the center column.
3) The quick change bushings
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<span style="font-weight: bold">Negative aspects: </span></span>
1) I found the primer system to be very tough to operate. I actually only tried seating a few primers, then a grain of powder caused the shuttle to not continue all the way forward preventing the next primer to be aligned with pocket.
<span style="color: #FF0000">I haven't had mine act up, but I keep it cleaned with Hornadys Cleaner/Degreaser/Lube aerosol. I have noticed that certain brand names of primers (Remington, Federal, CCI) work better than others.</span>
2) Dis-figuration of neck of case from case activated powder measure. (HELP!!!)
<span style="color: #FF0000">Sounds like the powder measure is not setup correctly. Back out the measure until it's barely hanging into the bushing; now run a case up into the station until it's maxed out. Begin threading your powder measure down until the powder drum has rotated about 95% of the total travel (I like to leave a little play in case you have a longer case, and just to insure it doesn't max out). Does that make sense? Let me know if it doesn't. It should not deform the cases AT ALL. The only other thing I can think of is if the linkage is binding, but I can't imagine that is happening unless it is assembled wrong.</span>
3) Difficulty of setting up measure to ensure case fully cycles rotor.
<span style="color: #FF0000">This and the case deformation you're seeing are probably related. It's a pretty simple process (like I described above) so it shouldn't be difficult to set up. Let me know if you need clarification on anything. You should only have to move the powder measure up/down in the LNL bushing based on case length. I can get away with running 357 mag and 44 mag through my press without moving the powder measure, however if I want to load 10mm then I have to drop the measure accordingly so that the shorter cases will activate it.</span>
4) Quite a large bit of wiggle between measure and bushing, although I suspect this doesn't really affect functionality.
<span style="color: #FF0000">Wiggle between the bushing and the powder measure? Vertically or is it sloppy in the bushing? This doesn't sound right, can you describe the problem a little clearer?</span>
5) One of the pawls broke clean off after depriming several .308 cases. And the stroke was not overly hard either. I will call Hornady soon and hope they send me some replacement ones.
<span style="color: #FF0000">I'm confused, because the pawls shouldn't be affected by the depriming process. The only scenario I can imagine is if your resizing die did not 'eject' the primer all the way which can then bind the machine as it tries to rotate the case (with it's protruding primer) to the next station. If that was the case, then drop down your decapping rod so that it easily clears the primer. Dillon dies actually have a spring assembly that "pops" the primer out to prevent it from jamming the machine.</span>
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Sounds like you're having a lot of issues that I haven't seen before, but let me know if I can help at all. I have had great success with Hornady's CS; I had an issue loading some 44 mag. I ended up videotaping the problem I was having and hosted it on YouTube; after showing that to the Hornady Rep they sent out a call tag to take a look at the press. A week later I had my press back along with a couple new parts to take care of some tolerance issues and it has been running seamlessly ever since. Hornady's CS is great and I have no doubt they'll take care of you.
