thoughts on hornady progressive press??

[mstake]

thoughts on the hornady lock and load progressive press.

[Davemuzz]

Why I bot the Hornady LNL:

Miscellaneous stuff:

Now, I know the Dillon is an good press and we all know the Dillon has the lifetime replacement warranty, and a bunch of people own them, ect, ect, ect.

This post is NOT intended to flame Dillon owners. I am NOT going to respond to any future post that is a “press war” post. If there is a legitimate question, I will attempt to answer it.

LNL warranty---Yeah, it has a lifetime warranty and yeah, I have screwed up stuff on the initial set up and broke stuff. I called Hornady and they sent replacement stuff for free.

Critical reasons:

1- Press construction: The LNL is a cast iron press and the center tube is a 2” rock solid cast iron tube. No additional mounting hardware is needed. Bolt this to your bench and it’s just not going to move. No additional this or that to buy.

2- Powder measure: The powder measure alone should sell you. You only need one powder measure (Yes the one that comes with it….no X-tra ones at $50 a pop). You can remove the measure in one (yes 1) second or less, pour out the powder, (I then blow out with an air hose) and replace with a different powder. You only need to buy the Quick Change Powder Die for $15 to quickly change setup’s for different calibers. If your really cheap, you don’t need to do that, you can just re-set the one you have---but that will take about 5 minutes. Also, the Hornady micrometer powder adjustment (optional $26) let’s you adjust powder drop amounts measured in thousands. AND you can write down the measurement so the next time you load that caliber, you know where to set the micrometer……no guessing!!!!

3- Lock ‘n Load feature (LNL). Nothing like pointing out the obvious, but set your dies in the LNL bushings (bushings package of 10 $35) (I believe all dies but LEE will work) and you can swap out a caliber change, including powder in less than 5 minutes. If powder is the same, it’s under a minute. If your changing primer size, it’s gonna take 10 minutes as you must change primer feeds (one wrench).

4- Auto indexing- This is a wonderful item. Pull the lever, advance the case….pull the lever, advance the case…pull the lever, advance the case….well, you get the idea.

5- Trays- Extra large trays and optional gizmos and stuff like that. Hornady offers one larger bullet catcher tray. I never bot it as the standard tray works fine. When I fill it up, I just stop and empty it into my flip top boxes.

6- Case retention springs. These springs hold the brass cases on the shell plate. They make it easy to remove and insert the brass casings. I think this is eaiser than the Dillon brass pin (don't drop 'em) method. However, buy and keep about 5 x-tra springs on your bench 'cause they will break.

7- Primer feed: You can actually buy the Dillion low primer feed gizmo and mount it on the LNL. However, I found that buying a $.40 wooden dowel rod at the hardware store worked just a well. This keeps enough pressure on the primers to keep a constant feed.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

[Luckyducker]

I can't add anything to what Davemuzz said, cause he laid it out pretty straight.  I bought the L-N-L to load pistol ammo with and have never looked back, and a co-worker/friend came over and looked at mine and liked it so well he bought himself one and loves it so much he loads everything he shoots with his -rifle and pistol.

[gary0529]

Will chime in with another positive for the L-N-L.
Bought mine after comparing and reading all of the posts on a number of different sites. I have no doubts that the Dillon is an exceedingly fine piece of equiptment but I bought on the basis of initial cost and Hornady's good name and the ease and much lesser costs to swap out for different calibers.
As previously stated, powder measure is the same one for everything, just swap out a powder thru expander die (around 9 bucks at Midway, etc) and less than five minutes to fine tune the adjustments you are ready to go.
Have used Lee dies without a problem.
The 5 stations give you plenty of openings for whatever you need to add- I put a powder cop die from Hornady when I load pistol loads that can be double charged, Makes me feel a bit better when I can see the rod indicate a properly charged case.
Have loaded well over 10,000 rounds so far, mostly pistol but perhaps 5 or 6 hundred rifle in .223 and could not be more pleased.
I too mucked a few small parts initially and one call to tech suport got me what I needed at n/c and it arrived in a couple of days.
At least take a look at the L-N-L-.  If you only will ever load ONE caliber, perhaps the Dillon makes the most sense but if you are multi-talented and plan to shoot a variety of calibers, costs go up pretty steeply with a Blue Press.
Again, no knocks against Dillon, they are the big dog in progressives but take a look and judge for yourself and your needs not the herd mentality.