Hornady press woes?

[bandit86]

Are all your lock and load ap presses work alright? I have a problem with the cases tilting out and hitting the flat part of the resizing die instead the beveled part, and I have to reach in push the cases in, then it will work. Hornady sent me some parts to fix, the problem almost went away on the 357 magnum but got way worse on the 450 marlin.

I replaced the drive hub and the sub plate, that fixed the slop of the shell plate, but the cases still flop back and forth a bit. I can't see too sets of shell plates being bad

 

[kingdarb]

I don't have a Hornady press. I have a Dillon 550, and had the same problem with it before, giving me crushed cases from time to time. When I tightened down the shellplate it kept the cases from rocking around. Might it be that the shellplate is loose on your press, thus letting the cases tilt a bit?

 

[blaser.306]

I found with mine , if the primers of the fired rounds was standing at all proud of the case head this happened. The other thing to watch for is how tight the case retainer spring forces the brass to the bottom of the plate groove!

 

[bandit86]

I found with mine , if the primers of the fired rounds was standing at all proud of the case head this happened. The other thing to watch for is how tight the case retainer spring forces the brass to the bottom of the plate groove!

I see this too, I lubed the spring and seems better, maybe a stretched spring would work better since its just there to keep the cases from falling out

He shell plate does not rock back and forth anymore it's solid the new sub plate thing fixed it

 

[ccain]

I had that issue at first until I stretched the retainer spring (make sure you don't stretch it too hard as it breaks very easily) and very slightly adjusted one of the pawls on the bottoms of the shaft.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

I had the same issue with my lee pro1000, then again I converted a 9mm she'll plate to 357mag by hand with a dremel and cut off disc's... Very annoying to say the least!

 

[TheJuggernaut]

I notice this with the biggest cases, the 50ae and 500sw, and the 357 you're loading is a long one too. One thing I notice helps is to be gentle with the ram on the way up. The casings are so long that they meet the dies shortly after the plate indexes so they can still be flopping around a bit if you're going too fast. Feather it into the dies and if it hits the sizer, back it off a smidge and try forward again, and repeat a few times quickly/carefully, usually makes it go for me. I also notice it's worst when I start - having no casings on the opposite side of the plate makes it tilt. Then once the plate is full, it doesn't do it with the 500.

Also, it's usually only off by a little bit so try to see which way you need to tilt the casing, it's usually consistent. Then see if you can cheat - if you tilt the case in, try to push it in deep into the plate and tilt it in a little before letting it go. Or if you need to pull it to the outside, put it into the plate loosely, just enough for the spring to grab it.

Stick with it, it's actually a pretty complicated synchronized dance happening so it's impossible for it to be flawless straight from the box. But Hornady are amazing with helping you get it figured out and once you do, you'll be all set.