Hornady LNL AP

[bogorman]

I'm seriously considering upgrading from my lee pro 1000 to a hornady lnl ap. Just looking for any comments and thoughts on the hornady press. Pros, cons, quirks, other thoughts? I also thought about a dillon, but would like to have auto indexing and the price difference between the hornady and dillon 650 is substantial. Have at it, and don't hold anything back. Thanks.

[bigjason6]

No complaints from me! I started out with the lnl ap for reloading pistol cases. If the timing for the shell plate goes out of whack, it's not too hard to get it back in line.

Also, the customer service is top notch as well. The part that the shell plate bolts down to must have been a bad casting. Called them up and they fired the part out the door the same day. When I received the part the tech support guy walked me through the procedure on replacing it on the press. Great people at Hornady and a great recorded message when you call them too!

[Waldog]

I have two LNL presses. Love em' both. Prefer LNL over Dillon and I have loaded on SDB, 550, 650, and 1050. I still own the SDB but, use it rarely.

[Lloyd Smale]

ill put it this way. It will be a giant upgrade from your lee press but if money wasnt a guestion id take a 650 hands down over a lnl and i own 3 of them.

[seagiant]

Hi,
Ok,I'll help out a little here. I've had the Hornady AP not the LNL but the older one. I ended up selling it and was happy when it sold for what I had in it. This was years ago and if I remember right it always had primer problems. I think this was improved on with the newer LNL! Hope so any way. While this was going on I obtained 3 STAR progressives a Dillon Square deal and a Dillon 550B. Was more impressed with the Square Deal than the 550! Ended up selling them all and now use 2 PW Met 2 loaders and I'm very happy.

Can't stay out of the game though and am now looking at the RCBS Pro 2000. All cast iron big press,the LNL is a aluminum body with iron swingarms. The RCBS also uses the APS strip system which is suppose to be better,but there is also a primer tube system available for it now. Just something to keep in mind!

[Colorado4wheel]

I have owned a LCT, Load Master, 550, LnL and 650.

I would never ever recommend the LnL to anyone who wants a casefeeder and loads a lot of 9mm. 550 is a great press if you don't want a casefeeder. LnL is Ok with out a casefeeder but I prefer the 550. LnL casefeeder was a HUGE PITA. MONTHS of fiddling didn't make it as good as the 650 with a casefeeder was in 2 hours. I found no advantage to the Hornady Powder Measure in Pistol. In fact the Hornady was not as good as every once in a while it would throw light. I think the shaking of the Dillon's return rod actually makes it more consistent. I am very glad to not have the LnL. For me, I don't want to file, polish stuff. I just want it to work. 650 cost more because it has caliber specific casefeeder parts for each caliber. LnL has universal parts. 650 is just better IMHO. I wanted to like the LnL but I had to fix nearly every piece of it in some way to make it work 99%. JUST a PITA. 99% IS NOT GOOD. That is one screw up every 100 pulls of the handle. Totally not acceptable.

[Floydster]

I'll go along with Colorado on the LNL, it is totally impossible to prime on this press without some kind of stoppage.
Believe me, I have exhausted all the avenues to no avail.
Floydster

[omgb]

I have two L-N-L s, one with a case feeder. I also have had the lee 1000 and a Dillon 650. I stuck with my LNL because it has more positive going for it than any of the others. My only dislike for the LNL is that it's primer system is a tad problematic. Mostly it's OK but when it gets finicky it gets pretty fickle. Cleanliness is next to godliness they say and I think Hornady LNLs are built to that ideal. Keep it clean and the primers feed great. Get it dirty or oily or...and you start having problems.

Lee 1000s are pretty shaky. Lots of fiddeling and constant adjusting. I hated mine. Dillon's weakest point is in the powder measure. They are so tiresome to adjust that lots of guys by multiple measures and change them out rather than readjust them. The dies are also an issue. Loading lead rifle rounds on one where you need 6 stations can be a real pain. Dillon is also more costly up front. Both Dillon and Hornady have stood by their products for me. So, that's my experience. BTW, the case feeder works great for me in 32-20, 375, 45 APC and 3006. I have no experience with 9mm.

[Colorado4wheel]

http://www.uniquetek.com/site/696296/product/T1231

Micrometer for the Dillon. Works great. Yes, the Dillon cost more. LnL also has a noisy casefeeder motor. Well I guess you could say the Dillon has a really quiet one and the LnL is a lot louder. You can barely hear the Dillon running. To me the Dillon is worth the money. The slower you load the less the LnL will bug you. I think that is why people have such a Love/Hate feeling about it. I simply could not get it to be reliable (ignoring the priming issue) going faster then about 7 mins per hundred with Pistol. It just would choke all the time. My 650 can load 5 min per hundred and not break or have issues.

[cgblues]

Never owned a Dillon but I know many of my fellow shooters are happy with Dillon. I do own the LNL with case feeder, loaded many many thousands of rounds of 9mm and 40 for IPSC and thousands of 38 sp. for cowboy. Absolutely No primer problems and no case feeder problems, A few self inflicted idiot problems show up from time to time. Todays LNL is much better than the old ones, especial how it kicks out the shells. I have nothing but praise for my LNL.

[Waldog]

I also have 2 LNL's and one case feeder. I have loaded over 12000 9mm rounds with my LNL and case feeder. Primeing has never been a problem EXCEPT when I encounter S&B or Amerc cases. The case feeder is noisy and works well IF IT IS ADJUSTED PROPERLY. I have never experienced the problems that some other posters has listed. Maybe I'm just lucky and maybe they got a bad product. I just set up a NEW LNL with my son; no case feeder. His priming system worked flawlessly out of the box. This press is the 5th LNL press I have loaded on and I have never had trouble with any of them, provided they are adjusted properly.

[JeffHolt]

I bought the Hornady LnL two years ago and have loaded over 70,000 round s of various handgun calibers on it. It can produce some very fine ammo, but I am constantly tinkering with it.
There are too many parts of the press that loosen- and I mean the screws and bolts loosen on it- including the two small screws that hold the subplate on the Ram. I've had to polish the shellpates so rounds don't jamb when they are supposed to eject. Often the cases bouce off the shuttle and on the floor. It appears to have some keen engineering in certain aspects, but then they produced some of its parts with cheap pot metal. It has become a PITA to use, so I am Buying a Dillon 1050 Super.

It may be more money, but I'd bet it won't loosen like a LNL. I thought I was saving a little dough for a press with a 500-600 round load rate but I usually muster up about half that - partly because I have to stop and tighen stuff and partly because I weigh every 20th charge.

I wish that after having owned the LnL, I'd bought the Dillon 650.
Just my 2 cents.
Jeff

[Moonman]

Wow, Loaded 70,000 rounds in two years and it's a PITA, amazing.

[JeffHolt]

What's your point, Moonman?

[RGMJ]

I've owned the LNL for about 3 years loading mostly pistol cases - 9mm, 40SW, 45ACP, 357 mag, 44mag and 500 SW.

I've probably loaded over 15,000 rounds and had little if any problem. I like the flexibility of being able to move dies around in the LNL w/o readjusting them. Also the powder measure uses inserts which you can dedicate to your favorite powder and load.No need to adjust everytime.

I would recommend LNL over the Dillon 550 which I had before. 5 stations, auto index and better powder measure are the main reasons.

Just my opinion....

[KYCaster]

I like the two LNL's I have, one with case feeder, and have very few problems with them. The powder measures are the most consistent and easiest to adjust of any I've ever used. I did have issues with the primer feed till learned to deburr and polish the shuttle, now its trouble free with a little PM every few thousand rounds. (would you run your gun three thousand rounds without cleaning?)

I also have a Dillon SDB, which I like. Not very convenient to change calibers or primer size, but it's easy to use and runs with very few problems.

I've loaded a few times on a friend's Dillon 550 and for me, the manual index is a deal breaker.

At one time I had four Lee Pro 1000's and two Load Masters....don't miss them a bit. To paraphrase Eddie Murphy in "Changing Places"...."Once you've tried ANYTHING ELSE you'll never go back!!"

Very little experience with Dillon 1050....wasn't impressed.

No experience with Dillon 650 so can't comment.

Jerry

[byronw999]

I've been more or less happy with my LNL.. Does great on 9mm, 44-40 and 45 colt...Seems to give me a lot of trouble with 357 for some reason...Cases either dont feed right from the feeder or they tip just enough in the shellplate so it wont go into the resizing die. Primer feed has it's days when it wants to be finicky too.. If I wanted a press I had to monkey with I would have stayed with Lee

Having to pay for the new ez-eject and pay to get 10 shell plates reworked to work with it chapped my behind. Their original wire ejector was just piss poor engineering and we should not have had to pay for their mistakes..

Would I buy another one? 99% of my shooting buds run Big Blue and I never hear anything but praise, especially about the no quibble guarantee.. Prob will go with a 650 next time..YMMV

[shovel80]

Ilike my LnL...have had it for over two years...had a little trouble in the beginning...but, I got things adjusted..and it works fine for me..Customer service is excellent!
I''d buy another if needed!!...It's a very simple machine and easy to keep running!!
Terry

[Lloyd Smale]

Dont get my answer wrong. I like the LNLs there decent presses and if it werent for the case feeders i rate them right along side the 650. Bottom line is the case feeder on the 650 just works better. it was designed right from the git go to have a case feeder and the lnls is more of an add on and takes lots of fooling around to keep running reliably. If you want the flat out most reliable one grab yourself a 550. Theres just less to go wrong on them and they still can crank out lots of ammo but at a slightly slower rate.

[milprileb]

Owning a Dillon 650 and having agonized on the decision of LNL vs Dillon 650 for a progressive self indexing press (I own a 550 so I exclude that from discussion, its manual index), I chose 650 since my research indicated shell plate issues and priming issues were less likely with Dillon.
I own a ton of Hornady products so its hard to be biased against them ! I just thought the Dillon was a bit better engineered but its not perfect either. It might run a bit faster and be a bit better finished.

Both presses will serve normal shooters well.

That all said: Speed always becomes the main topic and you can read how these machines do well or not so well with the speed and manner owners RED LINE them. It obvious some folks just crank that handle and chunk out tons of ammo and they chance all manner of malfunctions in priming and powder charging. I am not slamming anyone here so don't take offense and think I am saying you speed demons make bad ammo.

I am saying speed on these machines equates to problematic performance and you got to ratchet down to the speed to which your machine runs well and you can maintain same continuous momentum and use of it for consistent ammo.

If you are going faster than your M1 Eyeballs can register all things going on: you can have problematic ammo results.

I expect things to run 100% out of the box. Dillon always has. I don't expect Hornady to less either but any of these machines can have issues and if so, I would send the entire rig to manufacturer and demand they sort it all out. Don't tolerate half stepping machines you got to tinker to make work.

I shoot 1000 rds on a slow week now, I don't much mind slowing my speed to 500 rds per hour on the Dillon vs racing for max production and getting done 30 min sooner. Thundering Coyotes ! I can even live with slowing down to 400 rds per hour easily and get done in 2 hrs and 30 minutes. I like reloading and good ammo a tad more time is okay with me.

For me: I waste more time correcting SNAFU when I race my Dillon than when I take my time and just make great ammo.

Beware of speed. If you MUST have it, then go the 1050 commercial route and get all the feeding machines and shovel the ammo out the door.