Thanks to all for all of your good input, but I sorta feel like a putz for the RFI shout-out at this point, because...
Part of my motivation was that I had indirectly (friend's nephew's father in law who was a skeet shooting buddy) inherited one of the Hornady units that I couldn't get to work, and figured it was a dud that he had not discarded. I even went so far as to download and read the INSTRUCTIONS, for crying out loud, so it had to be dead. Well it turns out it is not dead:
It just had this little thing:
Shoved in the nozzle to keep debris out, and I thought it was part of the nozzle...
And now the only thing I cannot figure out is, how in the actual hell have I reloaded for 48 years without one of these things?!?!?!?!
As a trust development process I was dumping charges into the beam scale as a comparison, and there is pretty much parity. A few were off just a little, not much but I dumped them back in because I was enjoying watching the little machine do the tedious work I used to have to do myself.
I know this is an older antiquated unit and is not perceived to be the best of the best, but is there anything fundamentally wrong with them?