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Thread: Looky what I scored today

  1. #21
    The Beast is starting to come together....

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    This particular press was the floor display and it has some rust on the powder drum. I'll take some steel wool and then a little oil to clean it up. The action itself is a little choppy and I'm assuming the ram needs to be greased. Is that a fair assumption?

    Next up: dialing in the RCBS dies.

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by ffhounddog View Post
    I have one of these. Maybe I should set it up....now that my wife will not have anything to do with her family I don't have to try and solve problems when she asks "what do you think". It's stressful because I say the truth, how about you just stop living on welfare so you don't have to be sitting on your ass getting fat....
    Let's keep the tech threads focused on tech.
    #RESIST

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by ER_STL View Post
    The Beast is starting to come together....

    This particular press was the floor display and it has some rust on the powder drum. I'll take some steel wool and then a little oil to clean it up. The action itself is a little choppy and I'm assuming the ram needs to be greased. Is that a fair assumption?

    Next up: dialing in the RCBS dies.

    When I clean the surface rust off of the sides of the drum on mine I swear I can watch it it re-rust right before my eyes. It develops just a little surface rust, and then seems to stop right there and not get any worse. The steel outer housing (the threaded one) of the primer feed tube is also bad about it if you leave any finger oil on it. If you have any Hornady One-Shot Gun Cleaner and Lubricant, a light coat of it helps. Once the carrier evaporates, the dry film it leaves behind is completely non-tacky and won't run where it might contaminate powder or primers. I've really gotten to like that stuff.

    As far as the action being a little choppy, you should definitely grease the ram but that probably isn't the problem. You didn't say if this was with or without a shell plate in place, but overtightening the retaining cap screw on it can make the action very draggy (conversely, not tightening it enough will result in all sorts of timing/advance problems). Don't forget to put a little lube on the ball detents on the underside of the plate and work it into them a little. If you find that the shell plate doesn't smoothly advance and then smoothly come to a rest in the detents without "snapping" into place, you may need to adjust the timing on the press via the pawls at the bottom of the ram. Mine needed adjusting right out of the box, and I have seen several others state their LNL needed to be timed out of the box. There are Youtube videos out there, I eventually watched several and followed the instructions in the manual and then kicked myself in the butt for not doing it sooner. Another thing I've seen stated and have come to agree with - the LNL will not tolerate a flimsy bench mount. Especially if you eventually add the case feeder! The more solid the bench, the easier everything works.

    Speaking of Youtube videos, this guy did a lot of Hornady LNL tips and tricks and general reloading videos that really helped me. He has since switched to Dillon, but that doesn't detract from the usefulness of his LNL videos. I think these were early videos for him, and he got considerably smoother in his later videos. The info is solid, just not the polished production you might expect to see in videos today.

    Good luck and don't let the little bumps that come with going progressive (reloading that is) get to you, it'll be well worth it in the end.

  4. #24
    The Beast, fully assembled but not yet throwing charges:

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    And my first I'm-a-monkey-dumbass moment:

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    Yep, I put the decap and resize die in the wrong station and promptly bent the decap pin inside the die. Sweet. I'll call and see how I can get replacement parts but until then I dropped in the Lee die.

    I haven't made up my mind regarding whether or not I like seating and crimping in one die vs having the Lee Factory Crimp die, which I like quite a bit. I'm noticing that the brass is getting shaved a bit during the single operation within the RCBS die but admittedly I haven't run enough brass through the press to see how it will function.

    I'm using the awesome 124gr RN Bayou Bullets, which of course are much softer than traditional FMJ bullets. RCBS provides two seating "pins" with their seat/crimp die - one for 9mm TMJ and one for .38 LRN. I ended up using the .38 pin as the 9mm TMJ pin was flattening the nose of the bullets upon seating (and carving into the soft paint on the bullet as well). It seems to work well-enough.

    Next up: configuring the hopper and running the press!
    Last edited by ER_STL; 06-29-2017 at 09:23 AM.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Rick_ICT View Post
    When I clean the surface rust off of the sides of the drum on mine I swear I can watch it it re-rust right before my eyes. It develops just a little surface rust, and then seems to stop right there and not get any worse. The steel outer housing (the threaded one) of the primer feed tube is also bad about it if you leave any finger oil on it. If you have any Hornady One-Shot Gun Cleaner and Lubricant, a light coat of it helps. Once the carrier evaporates, the dry film it leaves behind is completely non-tacky and won't run where it might contaminate powder or primers. I've really gotten to like that stuff.

    As far as the action being a little choppy, you should definitely grease the ram but that probably isn't the problem. You didn't say if this was with or without a shell plate in place, but overtightening the retaining cap screw on it can make the action very draggy (conversely, not tightening it enough will result in all sorts of timing/advance problems). Don't forget to put a little lube on the ball detents on the underside of the plate and work it into them a little. If you find that the shell plate doesn't smoothly advance and then smoothly come to a rest in the detents without "snapping" into place, you may need to adjust the timing on the press via the pawls at the bottom of the ram. Mine needed adjusting right out of the box, and I have seen several others state their LNL needed to be timed out of the box. There are Youtube videos out there, I eventually watched several and followed the instructions in the manual and then kicked myself in the butt for not doing it sooner. Another thing I've seen stated and have come to agree with - the LNL will not tolerate a flimsy bench mount. Especially if you eventually add the case feeder! The more solid the bench, the easier everything works.

    Speaking of Youtube videos, this guy did a lot of Hornady LNL tips and tricks and general reloading videos that really helped me. He has since switched to Dillon, but that doesn't detract from the usefulness of his LNL videos. I think these were early videos for him, and he got considerably smoother in his later videos. The info is solid, just not the polished production you might expect to see in videos today.

    Good luck and don't let the little bumps that come with going progressive (reloading that is) get to you, it'll be well worth it in the end.
    Awesome post and great advice.

    The timing on the press appears to be correct as it's indexing properly from station to station. I did grease the bottom of the shell plate as instructed in the manual but for good measure I added a little more. But you're right - the shell plate does add a level of drag to the press that is absent when I remove it (in which case the action is much smoother). I think after looking at it more, there was a combination of the shell plate needing a little more grease and the ram needing additional lubrication. I talked to Hornady yesterday and they recommended white lithium as the proper lubricant.

    Regarding the rust, Hornady recommended Loctite Naval Jelly, which isn't something I would have believed existed until I looked it up. Like you, I've seen my Lee dies rust quickly on the outside so I think I'll just rub the affected areas lightly with some steel wool and then wipe on some CLP.

    I'll surf those videos later today. Thanks again...

  6. #26
    Have you watched the 76Highboy videos yet? <whoops, already posted, but here's the first one>

    Last edited by LittleLebowski; 06-29-2017 at 10:51 AM.
    #RESIST

  7. #27
    Rick, LL - thanks for the link to 76Highboy's channel. He's got a ton of great info on it so I'm gonna hold moving forward with the press until I've had the chance to review most of his Tips and Tricks setup videos.

    As a side note, RCBS as a class-act is sending me replacement parts for my decap and resize die free of charge. Awesome service from them despite the fact that I admitted fault.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by ER_STL View Post
    Rick, LL - thanks for the link to 76Highboy's channel. He's got a ton of great info on it so I'm gonna hold moving forward with the press until I've had the chance to review most of his Tips and Tricks setup videos.

    As a side note, RCBS as a class-act is sending me replacement parts for my decap and resize die free of charge. Awesome service from them despite the fact that I admitted fault.
    I think you're doing the right thing. Keep us updated. Damn, what a steal!
    #RESIST

  9. #29
    Well the learning continues. As I've only loaded on the LCT I've only used Lee dies. I never bothered to understand whether or not softer bullets such as the ones I'm using (Bayou) will work in a single seat and crimp die. Turns out that they don't do that well as the single die likes to shave the sides of the softer bullets a bit because it's both seating and crimping to some degree together, which is what I'm seeing as I've been dialing in the press. Yee-ha.

    So at this point the RCBS dies - as much I think I'm going to like them - may not be the ideal fit for me since I need a separate die for crimping. I suppose I could buy another seat/crimp die and set the first one up to not crimp but that seems silly given that I already have perfectly functioning Lee dies. I could keep them and Franken-die my press with a mix of both dies (Lee for crimp, RCBS for everything else). We'll see what happens...

    76Highboy's channel seems like it should be required viewing prior to running an LnL. He's doing a great job of capturing all the little things that might go wrong before you learn those lessons the hard way.

  10. #30
    Nothing wrong with mixing dies.
    #RESIST

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