Haven't even received it, just wondering if there any must haves for this press. TIA.

Make sure you keep the priming slide and the area where it slides clean. Ever since I started cleaning the primer slide, I  haven't had any problems. I spray a little hornady dry lube on a q-tip and clean the area every 150-200 rounds. You might need to a just the pawls to get it to index correctly but that isn't a big deal, follow the directions and you'll be good, its a one time deal.

As far as extras to buy, primer pick up tubes and LNL bushings are must have extras.

It comes quite well stocked. Order enough die bushings for all dies you will use. The powder measure, when the hopper is full, is very top heavy and can "walk" the busing loose. Be sure it is tight. If it gets loose, try a different bushing or cut a shim from an aluminum can.


 

5) Don't attach a case collator or bullet feeder until you know the press and can load it "manually."
 

6) If you have an issue you can't solve, call the manufacturer during their office hours while at the press


7) A real powder check die, like the RCBS Lock-Out Die, is great for station three.


8) All powder-through expanders I have used (Lee, Hornady, Dillon) have been excellent for me, so I don't need a separate expander die.


9) Before you get all bent out of shape over COL, measure the OAL of your bullets and the COL of a box of factory rounds.


10) When working up loads (usually 10 rounds per charge weight), I like to use the Lee PTE die, with the as-supplied powder funnel cap on it, and I weight up the charges and pour them through the die (with the case, of course, inside the die). This is a stop/pour/start procedure, but it still a LOT faster than trying to get a consistent charge weight after changing the metering setting on the powder measure.


11) Before tightening a lock ring on a die, be sure there is a case/round in the die at the time to align things.
 

Just curious: any one know how many posts before the 2000 word limit for a post is eliminated?

A lot of the below assumes you're new to reloading, not new to the LNL, if it's stuff you already know then maybe it'll help someone else.  This is all based on 3+ years of living with a LnL that's for the most part been a enjoyable journey.

And it rambles.  Do what you can with it. :)

Watch the videos on set up a few times.   Not to be a brandist but the Hornady dry lube has kept my dies and measure free of surface rust for 3 years now.   And don't do what I did the first time I set it up and put the decapping/resizing die in the wrong hole, it's a quick way to break a decapping pin while you're scratching your head trying to figure out why the primer isnt' coming out.  And of course they don't give you a spare.    LIke I said, watch the videos a few times.


Order now because you will need them eventually and you won't be able to reload until you get the replacement parts -

Extra decapping pins and the shell plate spring will eventually become a need.  You break one eventually on a crimped case and eventually you'll kink the spring.

Extra pawl's for the cam system, they're designed to break if you try to muscle through a stuck plate so you don't damage the press.

Stuck Case Remover - If you get a stuck case in the resizing die this is about the only way to get it out without destroying the decapping rod.



In general -

A reloading manual preferably 2 or 3.   Powder and bullet manufacture's also publish their own data and often will give you the combination they found most accurate.

Correct shell plate and Dies for your caliber.

A bullet puller. You will screw up at some point and if you have even the faintest thought you've overcharged then start pulling bullets.   Also you can seat too deep and a pop with a bullet puller will get it back where it needs to be.   A kinetic hammer type isn't much and beats messing up a bullet trying to get it out with your leatherman.

A decent accurate scale is a must have for safety reasons.   I prefer jeweler scales from http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/  
The Jennings Mack 20 is decent but you have to be VERY careful not spill powder on the tray and if you do be VERY VERY careful not to blow it down inside the mechanism or it'll mess with the scale.
If you have a few more bucks a much better option is the MyWeigh GemPro 250.  

You can also hit up Ebay for one of hte older Ohaus beam scales before they were made in Mexico or worse that are good.  

I don't recommend at all any of the small palm sized scales.  They float all over the place and vary so much that in small charge weights like 9mm where you might be using as little as 3.5 grains, a .2 deviation is pretty significant.  

Scale weights to confirm your scale.  If you have a buddy then you can take a few bullets over to him and get him to find a good one, i.e. a 55gr that actually weighs 55.0 grains or whatever.  Bullets can vary +/- up to .7 grains in my experience although the outliers are typicaly few, most run +/- .2 grains.   The bigger the bullet the bigger the spread.

Decent caliper, RCBS makes a good analog one.   Harbor Freight has a decent one for about $15 that's electonric and my sample is balls on with my rcbs.

Steal a couple of anti-static dryer sheets from the DW or pick up your own box and rub it over everything.  

If you're doing Rifle you'll also need a case trimmer and deburring tool.   I use a RCBS trimmer that I took the handle off and stuck a drill on.    The Worlds Best Trimmer is another good option but you have to buy one for each calibre.  

If you're going precision rifle you may decide to hand weigh every charge and thus you'll need loading trays.

Nice to haves for pistol especially 9mm is a Bullet Feeder die.  They're not very much.  THen just get a piece of plastic tube and stick in the top and you can stack 25-30 bullets up on it.  It makes reloading faster.  

A thing I find handy is a Powder Thhrough Expander which you add to the powder measure to bell the mouth instead of having a separate station for it.

Lee Factory Crimp dies can be 'needed' for some loads.  If you're using plated rounds then roll crimping is frowned upon (although I've shot many many thousands of roll crimped Ranier 9mm without any issue).

I also factory crimp 556 rounds.   Some folks don't, some do.

Tips and Tricks -

Do NOT leave powder in the measure for long periods of time.  It'll eat up the acrylic and soften it.  A few days, not a big deal.  A few weeks?  Not a great idea.

Do NOT assume anything will clean the acryclic tube on the powder measure after you left powder too long in the tube.   Replacements are  not free when you jack it up by using something that eats acrylic.

Static is your enemy.  Use dryer sheets or ground yourself and your press if you have big problems with it.  

Weigh your charges using a case and actuate it by moving the case through and not hand dropping.  Make sure the case is dry and non-lubed so powder doesn't stick in it.

You may (read probably will) have to adjust the pawls on the cam system to get everything working perfectly.   Just keep adjusting the screws in or out and you'll find the sweet spot and never have to touch them again.

Don't forget to put the bent moon piece inside the powder measure, center fold at the top.  It makes for more accurate drops.  

Don't try to use the Rifle piston / rotator cuff to drop pistol sized weights, you'll vary drops by a dangerous amount.  

It's possible to put the piston in the measure incorrectly where it's not locked in but still seems to work.  But it'll gradually move out on you and that's when you smack yourself on the forhead for not weighing more often and now have to pull the bullets from 100 rounds.

When you screw the powder piston in or out to change a drop weight, put a cup under the mouth and hand cycle a few charges through it to normalize everything again.  Then weigh it using a case run through the plate.  

Establish a 'routine'.    If your 'flow' is interrupted for any reason while loading, remove everything from the plate and start over.   "Dad I need..."   "Honey dinner is..."   If you don't then you could run a shell thorugh without a primer.  No big deal, just messy.  Worse you could run a shell through with no powder.  The primer isn't 'quite' enough to push a bullet fully into the barrel (in my real world experience) so the next load will jam and you won't blow up the gun with a squib.   Or worst you get a real squib that's enough to put a bullet in the barrel but not out the far end.  At best this will likely lead to a bulged barrel.  At worst... this could be a very bad day at the range.

When you're loading have ONE powder and ONE bullet within reach.   Triple check that the powder you're using is the right one for the bullets.   Until you're comfortable that everything is working well, weight every 10th charge by pulling hte casing out of the plate.  Never get comfortable that everything is working well.  :)

You can remove some of the 'snap' of a shell plate which can cause powder spray in short cases that have high fill levels by taking a punch and carefully push the ball bearings on the under side up a tiny fraction. If you push too hard you'll pop them out the other side, just press them back in.   This made a HUGE difference in loading 300BO which uses the 556 plate.  

Get a grease gun and hit the zerks every thousand or two rounds.

Get a strip of LED's and mount inside the press, Hornady makes one although at $15 it's pricey for what you get.  This makes it easy to check powder levels.

Youll have to clean out the primer shoe slot if you have primer problems.  Also hititng the front edge on the bottom with a file to give it just a tiny bit of ramp makes it work better.

Powder cop die can give you a last sanity check on your throws.

LIstening to music or podcasts or audio in general is okay.  Watching old episodes of Brisco County Jr while you do something that is for all practical purposes making tiny hand grenades is not necessarily a bad idea although it can be a good case of Darwinism.

NEVER force ANYTHING.  There's a lot of leverage in the LnL AP, and you can do bad things quickly.  I had a case fall off the case feed stage and I totally crushed it just by lowering the ram.  NEVER force ANYTHING, EVER.

There's a lot of good advice so far, but most importantly, just read and understand the instructions. It's a user friendly press.


I've found their customer service to be pretty helpful as well, and eager to get replacement parts out to the customer.

The bullet feed die is probably the trickiest thing I've used. It just needs tweaking to get it set right.

Case Lube, even with straight walled pistol and coated dies case lube makes it more enjoyable.  For necked cases / rifle cases it's a must have or you'll need that stuck case removal tool sooner than later.

The best case lube I've found is the DIY lube that's made by mixing 2 ounces of Liquid Lanolin into a bottle of ISO-HEET (99% isopropyl alcohol).   That much lasts for many thousands of cases and is vastly cheaper than the commercial case lubes and in my personal experience far better.   YMMV.   You need to spray the cases very lightly, on the sides and then hit the mouths on a majority then let them sit for awhile. I usually lube days in advance but it just needs to be long enough for the alcohol to evaporate leaving the lanolin in a thin film.

This is how you break things.   Trying to knock a primer that wasn't quite out of a shell by advancing the plate is how I found out the pawls are a sacrificial part.

Some light reading:

Tuning the LnL AP

For puffing crud off the shell plate, the Rocket air blower is great (about $13). A toothbrush is helpful, too.

I second (3rd?) a lockout die ($40 to $50+). I have both the RCBS and Hornady. I like the Hornady a bit better because the foot is brass, and I don't have to change it. An inertial bullet puller is also essential. I have broken 2 or 3 over the years.  I use it every time I set up seating, especially with plated bullets. Too much crimp is bad for accuracy in plated bullets.

Make sure the primer rams are the newer design, a solid cylinder, not the disk on a post (old design has a major problem with getting stuff under it, causing all sorts of headache).  Call Hornady for replacement (free for me a couple of weeks ago).

I used a separate bullet seater and crimp die for the longest time. Once you get the bullet feeder setup (cheap one is fine), you'll need to use the combo seating/crimp die if you use a powder cop/lockout die. 7 stations is really looking good to me!

You must have case gauges to begin with, IMHO.  Although Dillon's are stainless, I have no problem keeping my Midway and other steel ones spiffy with Envirorust rust remover.

Get some good lube, and a primer plate.

You'll need a tumbler setup, wet or dry, to clean your cases. I used dry for 20+ years. I still do sometimes, but now the cheap stainless setups are making it sit unused for the most part.

Don't be surprised if there are a few slight bulges in the cases after flaring, seating, etc. So long as the cartridge passes the gauge (or barrel chamber), you're OK.

I don't measure every cartridge with pistol. Rifle needs more attention. I have 3 or 4 calipers: Midway, HF, HF digital, and a Mitutoyo (I really like my Mitutoyo!)

Oh, and a Hornady pocket reamer set (about $11)  is great for those crimped pockets, and cheap. I use some 1" specialty rod screws from Lowes to make them longer for a drill.  Nothing wrong with swagers, but they take a lot more time, and having used them for years, I can't stand the operation.

Edited to add:

As you use the press ( think I have more than 20,000 rounds on my press), the primer ram digs a divot in the press aluminum.  This results in high primers.  I double side taped a dime to the area, but you might have to take some of the thickness away with a drill, otherwise the ram will drag on the slide and cause it's own issues.

Buy die bushings and shellplates, it comes with the rest. Unless you're new to reloading. More primer tubes can be handy.

The LNL is a good press, watch the priming assembly, mine rarely gets debris in it and has never failed due to it, however the cam rod got free somehow, and the plastic link snapped, the press comes with a spare, and yes I was forcing it, Hornady sent me another for the cost of a phone call. The second problem I had was the little stud on the shuttle that the spring attaches to came loose, I JB welded it, no problems since.

Consider a lock washer for the screw that holds the shellplate down, it will loosen.

You will almost certainly need to adjust the pawls.

Make sure you give the handle a good push when priming, high primers are my most common problem, it's easy to get lazy or complacent trying to load quicker.

Watch this guys videos. Really helped me with my LnL AP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qC1O5FzSCA

1) Keep the shell plate tight. It must not lift under press leverage. It may feel tight to the hand, but (eg) you may see it lift slightly as you withdar cases from their dies. If you're having a problem, check the shell plate first. A slightly loose shell plate can cause issues that do not intuitively point to the shell plate.

2) Keep the primer slide AND THE PRIMER PUNCH clean and lubed. Before using the press, remove the primer punch from under the subplate, flush it with cleaner/lube, cycle it by hand, and make certain it retracts fully into its housing every time.

3) Never force the press. If something is preventing smooth operation, forcing the press will not fix it. A slightly loose shell plate can make it seem like more effort is required to pull cases out of their dies. A stuck primer slide will stop the press . . . forcing it can break the plastic cam rod holder on the tool head. A primer not fully inserted into the case pocket will stop the press . . . forcing it runs from useless to dangerous :)

4) Having a problem you can't figure out? Call Hornady while sitting at your press.

Don't accidentally try deprime a live primer...  

If you absolutely have to then shoot some oil down inside first and let it sit for a while to kill the primer.  

A primer detonation in a small room is not fun.

(And yes I've probably made pretty much all the rookie/newb mistakes you can make reloading and still have all my body parts intact).

Ohhh...  Tagging and bagging can get really important.   As in 'how many firings do these have on them?"   "How long has it been since I annealed these?"   "How did these untrimmed cases get in this box?"

My collection of LnL tips...
1. Adjust the primer feed. Loosen the hex screw at top (holding the black plastic piece and rail), remove primer tube and blast tube. Adjust top of bracket so pickup hole is dead center or very slightly to the rear at full motion of ram, tighten.

2. De-burr primer shuttle with a flat stone or sandpaper.

3. Slightly bevel/undercut primer shuttle to remove some small amount of material towards the bottom of the shuttle while keeping the top as is (but smoothed). You want a slight downward bevel. You'll find many powders for pistol will throw the occasional flake out by press movement, and you want a bit of spare room to stop from jamming the primer shuttle from operating smoothly. A small can of compressed air is nice to keep on hand as well, just blast every few hundred rounds or so.

4. Make sure you set the timing right, lots of info out there on doing so, always adjust in small increments...should go easily into each detente on each step. If you need to 'nudge' the shell plate to fully go into position, adjust the timing once and be done with it.

5. The shell plate screw will loosen up. Add a split washer on top of the plate, below the screw head; problem solved.

6. New powder measures - do as much cleaning as you thought they needed, then double it. When new, de-grease with green brake cleaner or One shot cleaner, then soak in water + Dawn solution, shake around, let dry. Do this for 'the whole stack' including the inserts and powder drop. Repeat. Run 1# or so of powder through it manually, to dump back into the powder container. You can also use a bit of powdered graphite. If really motivated, you can remove the plastic powder tube (with some difficulty on some of them) and polish the inside surfaces of the 'funnel' to smooth it out. Once truly clean, and with some powder or graphite to 'lube' it, .1gr repeatable drops should be almost guaranteed with any ball powder, and some others.

7. Wrap a used dryer sheet around the tube, and rubber band it on to keep static down in the powder tube.

8. The powder baffle helps - use it!

9. Not enough can be said about ensuring a solid mount as well as a stable mounting surface/bench. Consistency of OAL as well as powder charges will thank you for ensuring a truly steady mount.

10. You can find an LED setup for $10 on eBay, pretty much the same as the $30 setup sold elsewhere, or I believe Hornady makes one for reasonable cash. Expect any 'tape adhesive' to not cut it and glue it on with some decent adhesive or epoxy.

11.  It is possible to load a squib if your powder drop rotor gets dirty or if the drop tube mechanism gets dirty with powder residue. Do not use any lube other than graphite(or gunpowder, which contains graphite). ALWAYS look inside the case before placing a projectile!!

12. You may find that even if the loads can be dispensed with reasonable accuracy, the first few charges may be 'off' (depending on powder, length of time before resuming after a pit stop) vs when the press is in full swing, due to settling and compaction over time, so always cycle the powder measure a few times, dump the powder back in, and then check load weight.  Recheck after a few rounds and after a hundred. Note that a powder baffle does help here, but this should be done regardless at the start of each loading session.  At the start of each session, or for any adjustment, I throw a few charges manually into a pan, and dump them back into the hopper, then throw 10 charges manually, weigh, and divide by 10.  Adjust if need be, throw a few back in hopper (any time you change charge weights), repeat 10x throws, weigh.  The micrometer inserts are also pretty nice.

13. The primer mechanism will make a "snap" sound as the shell plate gets loose, or start to hang up, so will the powder drop if it starts to get snagged by friction, so pay attention: your LNL is trying to tell you something!

Setting up the primer system:
Remove the primer shuttle + primer ram.
Blow the primer ram out with compressed air, spray with One Shot or other dry lube if you feel the need.
Remove any/all lube from the primer shuttle channel + shuttle.
Get a flat piece of glass and wrap some fine grit sandpaper around it, or an Arkansas stone or similar.  Rub the bottom portion of the primer shuttle against the paper or stone until it's smooth.
Deburr the leading rounded age if needed.

Now, look at the leading edge (the rounded portion) of the primer shuttle.  You're going to want to cut a small bevel on the bottom half height-wise of the leading edge - to form a small 'v' downwards on the leading edge.  This will open up an area to let minor crud accumulate w/out stopping your priming operations.
Take a VLD reamer or drill bit slightly larger than the primer hole in the shuttle.  Use it to put a minor chamfer on the top side of the primer shuttle primer hole.  Sand lightly if any burrs are remaining.

Throw a bit of powdered graphite or One Shot dry lube in the channel, and put it back together, but remove the 'blast tube' and inner tube from the primer tube assembly, so you have only the bare bracket over the shuttle.  
Shine a light down inside the bracket so you can see down into the assembly as the shuttle cycles back and forth.
Pull your press handle all the way down so the ram is all the way up, and loosen the bracket at the top of the 'z bar.'  
Adjust so the primer shuttle primer hole is just a hair rearwards past dead center as it goes rear-ward in it's cycle to pick up a primer.  Tighten it down.

Pick up a camera 'rocket blower' like this one for $12, and use it to blow off the shell plate and primer area when you load primers or finish a loading session.

I did most of the stuff mentioned here plus a few more.  While researching which press to purchase,  I read that the clear plastic powder reservoir has a tendency to fall off and that a wise man would drill and tap the casting for a couple of set screws to gently hold it in place (you don't want to crack the plastic).  I did this simple job with a drill and tap I had on hand.

This didn't make much sense to me when I first got my press but it does now and I think about it every time I empty the powder dispenser back into the powder jug.  I think what a HUGE mess it would make if the powder reservoir fell off just as I tipped it up to return the powder to the storage jug.  

Since I made this fix before I ever used the powder dispenser, I don't really know how likely it is to fall apart, but I'm glad I made the mod.  While I was at it, I secured the primer feed tube (not the steel blast tube) to the lower holder with one set screw.

After a few thousand rounds the shell plate fell a few degrees short of indexing properly, from time to time.  The .223 case would then lift the case activated powder device before it was fully aligned with the powder drop tube; dumping half a load into the case and dumping the other half of the powder all over the place.  The fix was to lubricate the lower indexing pawls, turn the right hand pawl adjustment screw VERY slightly (to the left as I recall), clean some crud out of the indexing indents on the main plate (under the shell plate), and to lubricate the indexing balls on the underside of the shell plate.

I have 2 Hornady powder measures, one I bought for my bench and the one that shipped with my lnl.  After purchasing, I disassembled to remove the shipping grease, including the powder hopper.  I had the same concerns as you about the plastic hopper becoming loose.  2 wraps of Teflon tape has held it firmly in the base.  It has not shifted at all.

Side note- my usual degreasing routine is spray any metal part with non chlorinated brake cleaner.  
Don't.  
The red finish will become soft and smear.  On my powder measure, it re-hardened, but I did not soak it.  I then took some automotive polishing compound and buffed the inside of the hopper to smooth it.  Dab of car wax, buffed in, and I was happy.  Spray up with Hornady dry lube and we're off!
These are nice powder measures.

Before I even thought about cleaning up and polishing my LnL powder measure, I got Hornady's Powder Measure Drain Insert; it takes the place of the metering insert, and lets you drain the powder measure with it in place on the press.  Great little gadget, and inexpensive too.

Later, after I did polish my powder measure, I saw what kind of issues the reservoir has with retention, and when I do my next cleaning on it, I WILL install retention screws.  I'm planning to dimple the reservoir and use 2 screws threaded through the base to retain it.

Now if someone would only invent a Hornady LnL powder measure reservoir in conductive plastic, I could just ground the bugger and have all my static issues handled too!

I use the dryer sheets, I keep the hopper empty unless I'm actively using it, and it still builds up static.

I'm looking at more of a static drain line a la electronic static drains, so static can't build up.  If I could find a way to make the hopper conductive, the whole job is just a matter of grounding the body of the measure and connecting the hopper to the body electrically.  I'm actively researching this, since static sensitive electronics are shipped in mylar bags that are made conductive for static protection.  I just haven't found the right way quite yet.

One irritating thing I found with my old LNL is the powder drop sometimes hangs so it won't drop part or all of the charge on one case, and the next charge will be double.  

I had a squib a few months ago. That prompted the lockout die purchase.

I didn't realize a double could happen right after the squib till tonight. I have added a spring to assist bringing the rotor down during the down stroke of the ram and it helps. I cleaned the whole thing yesterday and again today. It's still sticky with Bullseye.

Maybe it's because this powder drop is 15 years old. It has the newer spring system, but it's still mostly old.

So keep an eye and ear open for the powder drop.

Look at the powder before putting a bullet on, get a lockout die. Even us old timers with lots of experience make bad ammo from time to time.

I've alluded to my growing disatisfaction with the LNL.  

I think it's time to get a new press.