Hornady Bullet Feed Issue

pro2a · May 19, 2020, 05:12 PM

I've been reloading a long time on my trusty old Lyman single stage. I upgraded about a year ago to the Hornady LNL AP. After some tuning I have it running great. I have only one issue. I have the bullet feed die from Hornady with the collets and I have the BullyDog attachment so I can use 4 tubes and twist as they empty. As I run through the operation and get to the stage to drop a bullet and then next onto the seating die, the bullet shakes off or I have to guide it up by hand to seat. I have adjusted the feed die over and over to no avail. I tried playing with the RCBS expander die but still not solving it. If i adjust the expander too much the case mouth has too much bell to it. Is the issue just simply the Hornday feed die is a bad design or am I missing something?

LE-28 · May 19, 2020, 05:38 PM

You need to adjust your flaring die to flare a little more. If you set the flaring die up with untrimmed cases, like we all do for 9mm, and you set your flaring die up to flare correctly with a longer case, they it won't flare a short case enough to make a bullet stick in it.

It looks like it's the bullet feeder die that's doing it but it is really not enough flare on the mouth of the case to allow the bullet to stick in it.

pro2a · May 23, 2020, 07:37 AM

I set the flaring to 3.83 and that helped. I finally pulled the feeder die all the way out and set it down till just touching the case and then an extra half turn. Working perfectly now. Using the calipers to set the case flair helped a lot. Thanks.

May 19, 2020, 05:12 PM	#1
pro2a Junior Member Join Date: May 19, 2020 Posts: 5	Hornady Bullet Feed Issue I've been reloading a long time on my trusty old Lyman single stage. I upgraded about a year ago to the Hornady LNL AP. After some tuning I have it running great. I have only one issue. I have the bullet feed die from Hornady with the collets and I have the BullyDog attachment so I can use 4 tubes and twist as they empty. As I run through the operation and get to the stage to drop a bullet and then next onto the seating die, the bullet shakes off or I have to guide it up by hand to seat. I have adjusted the feed die over and over to no avail. I tried playing with the RCBS expander die but still not solving it. If i adjust the expander too much the case mouth has too much bell to it. Is the issue just simply the Hornday feed die is a bad design or am I missing something?

May 19, 2020, 05:38 PM	#2
LE-28 Senior Member Join Date: September 24, 2012 Location: North Carolina Posts: 759	You need to adjust your flaring die to flare a little more. If you set the flaring die up with untrimmed cases, like we all do for 9mm, and you set your flaring die up to flare correctly with a longer case, they it won't flare a short case enough to make a bullet stick in it. It looks like it's the bullet feeder die that's doing it but it is really not enough flare on the mouth of the case to allow the bullet to stick in it.

May 23, 2020, 07:37 AM	#3
pro2a Junior Member Join Date: May 19, 2020 Posts: 5	I set the flaring to 3.83 and that helped. I finally pulled the feeder die all the way out and set it down till just touching the case and then an extra half turn. Working perfectly now. Using the calipers to set the case flair helped a lot. Thanks.