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Posted: 1/8/2009 1:50:30 PM EDT
| I have my eye on buying a Hornady LnL AP for my first press. I was wondering if any of you other LnL owners out there could give me some insight as to what else I need to buy to make this thing load fully ready to load ammo (shellplates, dies, etc). Thanks in advance for your help. |
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I have the LNL AP and I'm crazy about it. Mine is the older, non self ejecting model. It's not worth it to me to pay the upgrade fee and buy a few new shell plates.
It depends if you plan to put out large volumes of ammo or precision rifle ammo. I wanted to make large quantities of pistol ammmo in a short amount of time since my "play time" is limited! Also, if you've never reloaded you'll need to buy a kit so you can get most of what you need to get started in one box or in one order. |
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I really like mine... Only probs I have on occasion is it will hang up ejecting the round.. They have now fixed that with a redesign...
Just got off the phone with them and they will begin offering a retrofit to your press for $100 and will also retrofit 2 of yer shell plates included in the price and $10 each extra for others.. Hornady said they will begin offering the retrofit in Feb.. They are training personnel and making space to do them now.. As far as what else you need.. The auto case feeder is real nice but at about $270 plus extra for the plates you could wait on that addition. I have it and love it tho.. Get extra LNL bushings so you can leave yer dies set for each caliber and not have to readjust.. Pretty reasonable in the 10 packs... Get whatever shellplates you need for what yer reloading.... The auto powder drop comes with a rifle meter so you'll need to get a pistol metering insert... Oh get extra case retainer springs.. They break on occasion and it sux not to have a spare.. They are like $2 at Midway... I keep 3-4 as I hate paying $10 minimum shipping when I needa $2 part.. I would say if yer buyin a new LNL AP be sure to ask if it has the new ejector setup in it.. No need in gettin old stock unless yer getting a hell of a deal on it.. Thats all I can think of that ya need.. Any dies will work.. I use Lee for most as they are usually a lot cheaper and work fine for pistol cartridges...I did get a setof Hornady for my 45/70 reloads tho.. |
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All you will need is dies, shellplates and extra die bushings, buy the 10 pack, for the calibers you plan on loading. That is besides the other typical loading items such as scale, trimmer and all the other trappings.
As a way to change calibers even faster buy a few extra metering stems. Set the for a particular powder charge and mark it. Then when you when you go to use that particular powder charge just pop out the current one and replace it with the one you want. You will still need to verify the setting on a scale but it will be verry close if it is off at all. Be sure when you order your press that it is the new Ez-Eject model and that the shellplates are the new ones in the plastic box instead of the cardboard box. Good Luck. ETA. Read some of the other posts. The retainer springs are a good idea to have. Depending on what caliber pistol you load you may or may not need the pistol rotor ant metering insert. I have thrown charges as low as 4 grs. w/o a problem with the standard inserts. I do recommend getting or making a baffle like the one RCBS has for the powder measure. It will make the thrown charges much more consistent. It takes the away the weight of the powder column. |
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