Got the Hornady Lock & Load completely set up last night. There are a few parts I need to go pick up in order to load .40, but I had everything I needed to load 10mm so I grabbed all my gear and got busy.
Working on a progressive is a bit different than working on the Lee Turret. I don’t have the automatic case or bullet feeder, so each pull requires I grab one of each and place them in their appropriate spot. This takes a little bit of practice and needless to say I missed it a few times. You do not want to put the bullet on the wrong station as the crimp die does not double as a seating die, no matter how hard you pull on the lever.
Counting is also another tricky issue. With the turret, each round had to be removed by hand and thus I would just put it in a case. Because I knew how many primers I loaded, it made keeping track easy. That, and the turret required you push the primer onto the base each time. You would see if you were out. The L&L doesn’t work like that. You can’t see when the primers are out or stuck. Well, not until you realize there’s a boatload of powder spilling out everywhere.
Speaking of counting, usually I load 10 or 20 then check everything for consistency. Powder measure, OAL, etc. The progressive is much faster, even with the hiccups I had, and I had cranked out 40 before I realized it.
Guess who has to pull 40 rounds for being too $#(*&ing short?
My 10’s are loaded to 1.260” OAL. When I finally checked, I realized my seating die had shifted and was getting 1.210”, which is considerably shorter. There’s an extra tightening ring on the seating die I didn’t have cranked down enough and it walked back a little. I think the crimp is a bit tight as well. I pulled one round last night and I thought I was going to break the damned puller.
Overall, I’m thrilled with the press. It’s going to take some practice to get completely comfortable with it. It takes a bit different approach to focus on 5 rounds at a time. I like to visually check powder levels so I need to figure out a better way to orient myself on the press so I can see easier and I have to figure out another way of confirming primer availability but that will come with time.
Until then, time to get my money’s worth out of my kinetic puller.