What grease for a Hornday LnL?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Rule3

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
10,381
Location
Florida
If it is in the manual, I can't find any recommendation.?

(for the actual grease fittings/zerks)

These days with all the use specific grades of grease out there one can not be too careful!:)
I have marine bearing grease, axle grease and some unknown in two grease guns.
 
Only the sixty dollar a tube Mobil One grease will work. If it cost less than that, just leave the change on the counter.
And make sure to squirt at least a quarter cup of grease out after you are sure that it has run out the other grease in the gun. No contaminants in the grease. I would just buy a new grease gun, too. I don't chance things.
Don't try to fool her, she'll know...


:)

I'm sure not wasting what grease you've got will be quite sufficient.:D Which one is easiest to clean up after maintenance?
 
I just used some marine grease that was in the gun already from lubing the boat, seems to be working fine on my 3 week old LNL.

Anybody tried any of the specialty damping grease on the subplate to take out some of the snap of the shell plate? I swear I read about someone using the stuff on a press. May not have been a LNL, but it was for the same reason, smoothing out the snap of the shell plate.

Before anyone suggests tapping the bearings up in the shell plate a little farther, I have tried that but to get all the snap out there’s not enough of the bearings in the detent holes and the shell plate is too loose.
 
Only the sixty dollar a tube Mobil One grease will work. If it cost less than that, just leave the change on the counter.
And make sure to squirt at least a quarter cup of grease out after you are sure that it has run out the other grease in the gun. No contaminants in the grease. I would just buy a new grease gun, too. I don't chance things.
Don't try to fool her, she'll know...


:)

I'm sure not wasting what grease you've got will be quite sufficient.:D Which one is easiest to clean up after maintenance?

I was hoping it would get into something like this!:rofl:

Perhaps Dillon makes a Blue Grease or is that not compatible with a Hornady?
 
Well I'm not going to tell you that I'm doing it right but I am using ALG Go-Juice "very thin grease" along with Hornady One Shot Gun Cleaner. I tried a standard machinery grease but it made the press run very stiff and it didn't have a pleasant smell to it either. I just wipe the Go-Juice on the parts I can get to and spray gun cleaner in the other spots that I want to lube. It seems to be working very well. YMMV
 
I grease mine after every hour of use, just to be safe,,,
IMHO, type of grease isn't nearly as critical as making sure you pump all the old grease out each time,,,
30-40 pumps per zerk AFTER you start to see clean grease usually does it,,,
 
After you see grease come out you're wasting grease if you keep pumping. Any tube grease is very adequate. It's not a high heat application.
 
Perhaps Dillon makes a Blue Grease

Oh dear Lord I hope I caught you in time! Do not, repeat, DO NOT use any blue grease in your precision Red Machine! You can load blue bullets on it. You can spray white lithium in it, the Valvoline Crimson is ok because crimson is very close to red, but NEVER use any blue grease in your Hornady press! Especially if it is Dillon's Grease.


It will explode.



I just hope I got to him in time...
The rest of you, help me spread the word!



The word is, Falafel...:)




Of couse, IF the blue stuff is sticky and very soft at the workroom's temperature it would probably work. Some of the "harder"(for lack of a better term, more cool butter-esque..) axle greases need to be warm to work well. I find these to cause a jerky movement, almost like wax.

But really, who would want to chance it?:what:

:D
 
I use the lightweight Blue lithium marine grease for the last 7 years.

Now for the "snap" in your press: Here is a novel idea... "Time your damn press".

The most important thing you can do for your LNL is to time it perfectly. If you do it will run perfectly. The last time I timed mine was May 23, 2015, and it is still perfect. The hardest thing for a new LNL owner is getting the timing perfect. You will hear I "tweaked" again. If you time it properly you won't have to tweak it. And it will clear up all the little problems.
 
Heard somewhere a LNL AP owner called Hornady asking 'how often' to grease it,,,
IIRC, the reply was something along the lines 'at least once in a normal humans lifetime',,,

Now for the "snap" in your press: Here is a novel idea... "Time your damn press".

No disrespect, but that's not a 'fix-all' cure for the snap,,,,,,
Of course, if your shell plate just drags along, stopping instantly where the pawls leave it,, sure, timing would be all it takes,,,
Not the case here,,, Every time my shellplate detents get close to the 'divots', the shell plate takes off on it's own,,, with or without the pawls help.
Perhaps I am using the wrong grease after all!!!!
 
Don't know what you should use but I use some auto axle grease.
Maybe a bit thick as the press is a bit stiff after lubing it, but it seems to loosen up in about 50 rounds.

Valvoline Crimson sounds like the right color;)
 
Any lithium based grease applied once a year will do. I have used white and blue marine lithium applied with a grease gun. And as was said above, once you get the pawls timed, you should be good to go on cases wobbling when cranking the handle. Before that I tried shims, and bearing adjustments which all helped but did not alleviate the problem. Just minute adjustments with pawls once you get close should do it.
 
I talked to a Hornady engineer decades ago when the press came out. Originally they were going to remove the zerk fittings, but the press went out for reviews and every one raved over the idea of zerk fittings to grease it, so they stayed. So they do not need much.

On the ram you need to run the ram all the way up before greasing. I clean the old grease out before I do this. Be careful removing the gun. These fittings are only pressed in and can be yanked out. So you may need to back off your retention.

Any grease that you have will work. Some grease requires 500+ strokes before the ram will fall down on it's own. Stiffens/tightens it up that much.
 
Mine isn't that old, but I haven't used any grease on it (nor have I on any MEC progressive or the Dillon 550 I used to have)
 
Perhaps there is a long term study on this, like there is for what is the best gun lube?:)
The amount of frictional resistance and wear of different grease, cross referenced with actual operation environment temperatures. Extreme condition and use vs low mileage usage.:)
 
You can use Krytox at about $2,000/16 oz
Or you can pick a general purpose like Lubriplate 105 or Mystik JT6 in the green 14 oz tube for about $4.00.

The Lubriplate 105 is the white grease often recommended for engine assembly.
 
Now for the "snap" in your press: Here is a novel idea... "Time your damn press".

I have timed it, and it appears to be perfect. I drove the detent balls all the way up to take them out of play and got everything as perfect as I can. Drilled out the primer pocket of a 9mm case so I could make sure the primer punch hits it perfect, and it does. Also, used a Lee undersize die to make sure the cases are dead on while going up, and they are, in all 5 stations. So please tell me what Im missing on the timing.

If the detent balls are not down a certain amount the shell plate is very loose on the subplate, I cant see that being a good thing so I have used my caliper to make sure they are even and as high up as possible while keeping the shell plate somewhat snug on the subplate. I don't get a lot of powder slinging but there is some on a very full case. For example, on two different loads I ran this weekend, one used 3.7gr of N320, don't thing a single granule of powder snapped out. Another load I did used 5.1gr of N330, and that one would toss a few granules of powder would pop out occasionally. Its not terrible, but if I can make it perfect I would like to.

Im coming from several years of Lee Loadmaster use so I am use to working out problems. My hope is I can get the LNL as close to perfect as possible and have it stay that way so Im not having to work on stuff as much.
 
I run some grease into the press once per year if that...whatever is in my grease gun at the time.

The bearings on the shell plate get a very small dab/smear of tetra grease when putting them on the press. I clean them - and the subplate/primer section with Hornady one-shot gun cleaner/lube as needed....usually when I change calibers.

Unless you have a lot of powder spillage, crud or brass shavings, you should be able to load several thousand rounds in-between a complete cleaning. I do use compressed air every couple of hundred rounds to clean off the press as I go.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top