Hornady Ammo-Plant as good as it gets

[DRAINSMITH]

Well at least as good as I can get it.
To start off, I want everyone to know when I decided to get into reloading, I read all the forms and had a chance to reload on a Rockchunker, a Lee Load master, two Hornady APs, and a Dillon 650 and 1050. and must admit I bought into the blue cool aid. In the middle of my order of a 650 and 1050, I was being treated as a king. But then I asked when Dillon was going to come out with a bullet feeder.
Now I promise I did not state that his wife had a big butt or even if I thought he was a Democrat. I went from being treated like a king to being treated like a leper. Now, this is where I decided to cancel my order and I bought a Hornady AP and a Hornady classic single stage.

Well, when most folks get the Hornady they state I want it to run as good as a Dillon. Well if I wanted a press to run as good as a Dillon, I would have bought a Dillon. I wanted my Hornady to run better than a Dillon, and I think I have.

When I got my presses on a Tuesday, I set up the single stage with full intentions to run it for six months before I moved on to the AP. Well, I was setting up my AP Saturday morning, and I haven't looked back.

Now fast forward 2 years and I have bought 3 more AP presses. And now they are all set up as Ammo-Plants. I have 2 set up for pistol, 1 large primer and 1 small primer.And 2 set up for rifle 1 for large primer and 1 for small primer.

Now the first thing I had to do is get the timing perfect. To do this I made a timing kit that I can get the primers to feed the first time and every time. The next thing it had ti set the primer smoothly and the last thing is all the dies had to be perfect.

here is a photo of my timing kit.

O.K. the first thing I did was to make sure I got primes in position every time. So what I did was load 100 primers into the press and with out a shell plate installed I put a dental pike in my left hand and the press handle in my right hand. I then cycled the press as fast as I comfortably could. All 4 presses I could cycle between 3:10 and 3:15. So now I know that if I can get the case feeder and the bullet feeder to load 100 of each in 3:15 That is how many I could load.

So the first thing I worked on was the case feeder. I made a few modifications.


Now I ran 10 100 cases to time the case feeder. The average of 10 runs was as followed.
9mm it filled100 cases in 1:55
45 filled 100 cases in 3:25
.223 filled 100 cases in 2:45
308 filled 100 cases in 5:00

Now the bullet feeder required no real modifications just careful adjustments to the wipers.
I did a 10 100 test on bullet feed times and the average came out as followed.
9mm 3:55
45 4:10
.223 2:50
308 3:10

Now for 9mm I should be able to do a 100 round in 3:55 actual fastest time 4:30.
For 45s I should be able to do a 100 round in 4:10 actual fastest time 4:40
For .223 I should be able to do a 100 round in 3:15 actual fastest time 3:55
And now for 308 I should be able to do a 100 round in 5:00 actual time 4:55 Thank God for cases in the tube.

Now do I feel comfortable to keep up that speed? Hell no! But I think I could keep a 5:00 pace.

 

[Hokie_PhD]

Interesting post.

As someone who doesn't shoot massive amounts of ammo, I don't understand the need to make it as fast as possible. Plus I find reloading relaxing. That said, I fully understand wanting reliability, and that some people do shoot large volumes and want to be able to do it quickly.

Sooooo...

It's cool that you now have a setup that does both.

With the overall reliability of single stage presses and most other gear, it always amazes me that progressives seem like they come 90% done. In other words, why can these companies put a little effort to doing what you did. I know cost cutting, good enough products, bearing what the market will accept etc are all factors, but you'd think they'd be watching forums and seeing the issues folks have.

So I hope you consider contacting Hornaday and offer to share what you've done. I'd love to hear how they respond and if they'd take your improvements and incorporate them for product upgrades.

If so, it seems they'd raise the bar on progressive presses. If not, I hope you can help others with stuff like this post. I know that down the road I want to compete and at some point my setup will need to include a progressive to meet the demand. So I'm just hoping it's not in the near cuter. That said, it's nice to know you got the AP running reliably and fast making it a nice option.

 

[jmorris]

Now for 9mm I should be able to do a 100 round in 3:55 actual fastest time 4:30.

That's about were I wind up, just under 2.5 seconds per cycle. Really doesn't matter the machine, 100 take just under 4 min. Just a rhythm the machine and I get into.





The things that will quickly take you from 4:00 to 4:30 are a couple of problems that take a few seconds each to rectify.

If your happy with the Hornady I am happy for you but neither of mine (pre and post EZ Ject) would run like a 1050 or 650 for that matter over time. Anything can be made to work though and the only person they need to satisfy is their owner.

 

[Kaldor]

Drainsmith - can you explain how the timing kit works? I just use a 308 case for the top end, and center the shell plate on the primer punch for the bottom. One thing people get easily confused on these presses is which pawl moves what when they are adjusting them and they adjust them too much.

This is one of those little areas where Hornady could make minor improvements to the press, using something that offers more positive engagement with the press itself, like a rod that forces the plate into alignment at the top and bottom of the stroke. Couple be done easily enough but would require modification to shell plates.

Im with jmorris though, buy what you want, if you like it and it works for you. Good deal. Im on the fence with buying into a 650 as it can do a couple things that my LnL cannot. I need to shoot more though before I pull the trigger on that.

 

[DRAINSMITH]

Kaldor, I just posted a post on What clever little things have you "invented or discovered" that you can share? to bring it to the top.

Go to that post on page 54 post #1334 I explained how the timing kit works.
Now read the rest of the post. After you implement some of the ideas you will wonder how you ever lived with out them.

 

[AR-Bossman]

One thing I never see covered is that when you are actually using your press and it's all shaking and moving.... that's when the collators have all the problems.

It's not when you are doing a dry run test. When you are actually loading is when the cases start flipping and doing weird things like jamming up and the bullets start down the drop tube in the wrong direction.

 

[DRAINSMITH]

My presses must be country. No shake, rattle, or roll here.

 

[jmorris]

One thing I never see covered is that when you are actually using your press and it's all shaking and moving

The two videos I posted in #3 are of the two different presses loading at least 100 rounds, being fed by both bullet and case collators.

The same as this but the camera is set on a tripod, so the video isn't as jerky.