**FIXED W/ Tape mod** 1. Clicks between strokes, powder falls out.  I can't go 100 rounds without powder being on the shell plate.**FIXED W/ Tape mod**

**Indexing Fixed**  2. Does not index, powder falls everywhere sometimes **Indexing Fixed**

**Fixed, bars of powder dropper were dirty**3. Case activated feeder does not drop powder. Squib loads increasing.. Thankfully, I am using 147gn .356 copper and the bullets never make it far. I have had 2 squibs. Today, I pulled 100 bullets out of fear of a double charge. I found 1 round with no powder. Then, I started checking each powder drop while loading today, I noticed one did not feed powder.

I am loading 147gn 9mm, 3.8gn 231.

Stations:

1. Hornady bell die
2. Case activated powder drop
3. Hornady Bullet feed die
4. Hornady bullet seat
5. Lee FCD

I am using a Hornady case feeder and Hornady bullet feeder.

It's hard to note the problem with which way it's indexing incorrectly, because of course, it only happens when I'm loading.

Lately, I've been slowly moving the shell plate into position with each stroke and checking by eye if there is powder or not. Not really much of a progressive press that has a case feeder and bullet feeder..

I'm holding off an making more ammo to work these bugs out.. Any help appreciated.

Thanks

Watch this video (guy is long winded but info is very helpful).

Let's make sure those pawls are perfect first.

Another guy posted that video for one of my recent threads. Was helpful to me.

Powder on the shellplate is relatively normal. I get it on my 1050 too. It just depends how much, where it may go and where it's coming from. It can bounce out of the cases or fall from hopper if the tube isn't completely smoothed and static free.

If bouncing up from case, there is a thread about shimming up the sub-plate... But that is a PITA. It does help though.

The red stuff above is a little bit of guesswork because you haven't clearly indicated when/where the problems occurred. If tightening the shellplate, adjusting the PM according to the instructions, and adjusting the shellplate ball bearings do not solve your problem, observe closely when/what is going wrong and let us know in detail.

Thanks, I will go over those tonight.

I fixed the indexing problem with this guide:

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=368171

Just really quick, what do you mean by "tap the ball bearings up in the shell plate"?

Thanks

ETA: This looks interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9nGMxoUhSg

AH! So the press WAS indexing, just not aligned well enough to ensure the ball bearings always wound up in the detents.

I too was ready to throw this press in the scrap bin.

Watch that video and pay close attention to how smooth the shell plate indexes. You need to make it index perfectly like the video. Once you have it smooth your spilled powder will be reduced. You will always have a little powder. This is normal with any progressive.

Before you even start adjusting. You need to remove the shell plate and clean the press of all powder and accumulated gunk. Then lube it.

When you have the shell late off for cleaning flip it over and feel the two little balls that are there to index the plate. You can tap them up or down to make them more or less pronounced for indexing.

Practice the indexing like in the video. You will find yours is off. I too thought mine was indexing fine but once I compared mine to the video I realized my indexing was close but not spot on. Like I said watch how smooth the video guy has his plate indexing.

Once you get it spot on. Screw it up and start over. Do this until you are comfortable with getting it right quickly and easily.

After you have it timed good then cycle through with empty cases. You may need to tweak the pawls a hair. Now that you have the indexing set you can adjust the case feeder timing.

Again, "sizing" die or "expander" die?  Because if you're belling the cases before the powder drop, you may be preventing the case activated powder drop from working correctly.

I sometimes run mine with the expander in 1st position with certain loads to keep powder from sticking all over the expander.  The hornady 9mms expander has to go about halfway into the case before it bells enough!!
I'm betting thats what he means

I found with pistol loads that are done with expanding separately is so much better especially with cast. Just dont use the rectangle thing with the screws in it that forces the bell in powder dispenser. No issues using it just like you do rifle loads.

My powder drop got sticky too, and I made a squib. The bullet got just past the chamber and didn't eject.

Good thing I didn't just eject and chamber another round.

I had the old design which is more prone to sticking in the up position so no powder drops.

The new powder drop design is better, but you have to clean it well every so often.

A powder lockout die helps.

I'm about ready to try a new press, the old LNL I have is more than 15 years along, and starting to get a bit sloppy.

OAL varies quite a bit depending on whether there's a case in the resize station or not, as would happen at the end of a run.

Josh, this video you posted along with the earlier one about adjusting the shell plates comprise the "golden" answer for smoothing out the operation of the shell plate on the LnL.

SO MANY issues are resolved when the pawls are adjusted correctly, and that first video explains it in a way that is very easy to understand.

I'll bet that if you go through those two vids and perform the adjustments, most if not all of your issues will go away.

What I'm getting at is that if you have already flared the case mouth, the case activated powder drop may not work, or at least not consistently, because the case mouth doesn't push the insert up enough to properly activate the powder measure.  I have no issue with pre-belling, but if you do that, you have to use a different insert in the case activated drop.  Using a regular expander die before trying to use the powder through expander is likely to cause problems, particularly the ones the OP mentions.

DJRyan, which "rectangle thing" are you talking about?  The powder through expander?  I've done fine with lead bullets in .45ACP using that expander...

I believe I had some issues with belling the casemouth before the powder drop.  If you have any resistance the casemouth funnel will begin to squeeze out the bell.

I finally ended up using the ptx insert which eliminated that.  

I also use the ptx powder measure stop (rectangle thing ?).  I've found, with cast bullets especially, getting the ptx and stop set right is a little time consuming. Once right though it is very consistent.

If the PTX powder measure stop is DJRyan's "rectangle thing," then using a separate expander before the case activated powder drop should work great as long as the PTX stop isn't used.  The stop allows the case activated drop to apply enough pressure to bell the case after the powder measure has been operated.

Thanks for the help, guys. I am not using the PTX part.

I will watch over the whole first video again.

Also, I don't think I can use any other configuration.

I have:

1. Hornady Case head expander
1.5 Primer Seat
2. Powder Drop
3. Bullet drop
4. Bullet Seat
5. crimp

If I move powder drop before belling the case, I'm going to have powder fall through the primer flash hole. I guess I could do it if I did the crimp and bullet seat on the same die, but that sucks sometime. Especially with 147gn .356 bullets and thicker casings.

When are you resizing?  

My straight well pistol setup is:

1. Resize / deprime
1.5 prime
2. Powder drop with ptx
3. powder cop or empty
4. seat
5. taper crimp

I give dirty cases a water and soap wash, then I de-prime and re-size lubed cases (I can do this very quicky). I then wet tumble them and leave them to dry. Next I run them for loading.

ETA:



This helps me A LOT to stop the powder spillage. This shouldn't be an issue with anything, correct? I have since removed the original tape from the picture shown above and moved them closer to the center to make sure the tape does not touch the casings.

ETA: Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52XVdXx-JNQ

It's a lot nicer now that there is no powder spillage and it indexes. I can finally load ammo with just one hand on my AP press! Lol.

Probably not, but it will increase the friction the shellplate encounters.

IMO it's safer to accomplish the very same thing by tapping the ball bearings higher up into the shellplate.

Both methods stop the ball bearings from snapping hard into the detents, jerking the shellplate forward, and popping powder.

ETA: The tape should raise the shellplate a tad. If so, its possible that could change the depth of primer seating and make automatic case feeding a bit less successful. But you would already have seen a case feeding issue, so it must be OK. Dunno about the priming though. Worth checking.

Highboy's videos are excellent. He has a ton of them about reloading. The Hornady press ones are great. Once you see how his press is smooth as silk and you get yours there all sorts of other issues, as mentioned above, go away.

I also found that you need to develop a smooth almost fluid like motion to the press. I found I was more jerking the press like one does on a single stage. Once I developed a rhythm I go go fast and make great ammo with no issues.

When I had trouble the guys here told me my issues were timing. I did not believe them at first because I thought mine was good. Once I watched that video and really dialed it in my issues disappeared and I had to admit I was wrong.

Thanks for the help, guys. I have seems to fix all of the issues with your help.

Just to go over:

1. Click/powder spill fixed with electrical tape mod. Video posted above.
2. Indexing fixed with tutorial from forum posted above.
3. Powder sometimes not dropping - I just found out today that the powder throw was not going down on the down stroke and was getting stuck on the top. I dis-assembled, and cleaned all of the bars and levers then lightly coated it with grease. I am still keeping an eye on it, but I should get g2g.

Thanks!

What powder throw are you using, and where did you put the grease?  Unless it's very special grease, grease doesn't play well with powder...  My powder handling components are all waxed using something like Johnson's Paste Wax.  No issues with powder, and it slides nicely.

I put it no where near where the powder flows. It's on the outside lever mechanism where the levers and springs move. That's where it was causing the whole thing to seize up.

The tape is somewhat of a kludge. See here how to successfully tune the shellplate on an AP.

Tuning the AP

Be careful with the shim thing too. I tried it and ended up removing the shim. Once I dialed in everything it was not needed.

Instead of the electrical tape take the shell plate off and flip it over. Tap the detent balls up. if you go to far tap them down. Remove it from the press when you do this. I have mine smooth as silk, like in the video. All these other "fixes" are just wasting time.

It's also possible that some of your presses that are years old with thousands of rounds through them are just broken in. I had and older hornady and my new one definitely needs some mileage to break in even with it properly tuned.

If you would take the time to read the tuning thread you will find that the shim adjustment is not for every press. Only the presses that have excessive clearances. You will also find many users who report improved indexing, priming, etc. with the clearances properly set. The "ball whacking" does not always improve the indexing, as was reported in the original post in the thread.

Complete agree. One of my LNL presses improved greatly. I could finally use a factory crimp die on heavy 300BO rounds in 5th station when I used the shim...

My second LNL did not improve much with shims. I don't have the tools to measure the thickness needed so I go by trial and error.

You can get a pretty good idea just using a feeler gauge under the shell plate.  Lift up on the shell plate and stuff a feeler gauge under the shell plate.  More than .008 ish or so it might be worth looking at shimming.  Iirc mine was in the range of .008, the shims ended up not really working, but much more and they might have.   Tuning the ball detent seems to have worked ok though.   I used a caliper to set the balls all the same and a couple of trial and error runs to dial them in.