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View Full Version : Hornady LNL case feeder review



usmcpaul
01-14-2012, 09:13 PM
Well guys, Santa was very good to me this year. His elves made me a Hornady LNL Case feeder.

Packaging and instructions were fine.

I would estimate it will easily hold 400 .45 ACP cases (maybe more). It was fairly easy to set up and installed easily. However, that is all that went well originally. After I set it up and began cranking out rounds, the short comings of my new toy were very apparent.

I could not get through 20 rounds without the funnel jamming up and raining .45 brass on my head.:banghead: If it wasn't that, then the cases would jam up between the hopper and the case feeder shell plate. Very frustrating and disappointing to say the least.

I tried adjusting the drop window a million different ways and nothing helped. Long story short I hit the net hell bent on finding a solution. I finally came upon a thread on the Brian Enos forum that shed some light on the problems.

It seem that on some units the drop window is not aligned properly with the drop funnel. If you have a unit like this, the drop window allows the cases to drop and hit the top of the clear funnel, which in turn kicks the brass sideways and causes a log jam. On the picture below you can see the funnel is (now) to the right of the drop window, originally it was to the left leaving a ledge the brass would hit, thus causing one of the aforementioned problems.

Using a suggestion from that thread, I removed the hopper and elongated 3 of the 4 holes, allowing me to rotate the hopper until the window was completely over the funnel. This solved that problem, hurray...no more raining brass. It took about 20 minutes to do the modification.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb164/troll123_photo/Picture002-2.jpg

The next problem, although less frequent, was the cases jamming between the shell plate and the hopper. It took me about an hour to figure out that if I completely removed the steel "drop window adjuster" and installed a "sweeper" the jamming of the cases is a thing of the past. The sweeper is simply a piece of .020 welding rod that knocks off any brass that is not sitting vertically like they are supposed to. See pics below.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb164/troll123_photo/Picture003-1.jpg
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb164/troll123_photo/Picture006-1.jpg

Occasionally, when the brass drops on the press it bounces and does not align well with the insertion V-block. It seems the drop tube is slightly too big for .45 brass and the other one that is supplied is too small. One guy said that Hornady will send you a new .500 inch tube that solves this problem. If not, I will make my own. I guess we will see.

It has taken me far longer to type this, than it did to make these modifications.

I love this unit now. I have since cranked out a few hundred rounds without one problem. It makes the process way faster.

I think it is a little too tall also, but that no big deal.

I am very torn about how many "Bullets" to give it. Originally I wanted to give it a 0 bullet rating because it was a real POS, but now that it works great, I want to give it a 5 bullet rating (out of a 5 bullet scale), but that would be disingenuous. I suppose a 3.0 bullet rating is a good compromise.

If I was a mere mortal, I would have packed it up and returned it, but after summoning all my super powers, and fixing it, I simply love it.

Hope this helps someone.

jimbojr
01-15-2012, 06:25 AM
I also have your setup but added the bullet feeder and it also has it's quarks.
Two things I did that seemd to help with the case feeding into the shell plate was to retime the indexer paws and greased the grease fittings.
Seems that the grease was key. To me it smoothed out the whole process.
Give it a shot or 2 of grease can't hurt any.

Oh and another thing that I did that helped was to place a dime or penny under the primer seater. That little bit of extra really helps, do to the dimple in the press that it puts there that kept it from seating the primer deep enough.

usmcpaul
01-15-2012, 09:48 AM
I also have your setup but added the bullet feeder and it also has it's quarks.
Two things I did that seemd to help with the case feeding into the shell plate was to retime the indexer paws and greased the grease fittings.
Seems that the grease was key. To me it smoothed out the whole process.
Give it a shot or 2 of grease can't hurt any.

Oh and another thing that I did that helped was to place a dime or penny under the primer seater. That little bit of extra really helps, do to the dimple in the press that it puts there that kept it from seating the primer deep enough.

Yea Jim, I did the dime trick and you are correct, it does help.

The "shell plate" I am referring to is the big plastic shell plate for the case feeder hopper, not the shell plate for the press. Although I did have to re-time the press like you described when I originally got it.

jimbojr
01-15-2012, 09:56 AM
1 other thing is if you plan on doing 10mm/40 you will need the modified feed tube holder. I needed it. Bulged brass does not drop thru the medium tube and they have a holder that alows use of the large tube.

Get your self one of these I did and it is all I use.

http://powderfunnels.com/

I have a complete set of the hornady expanders if you know of someone that needs them.