Problems with hornady dies

[parrott1969]

If it were not for bad luck I would have no luck at all! Has anyone ever had the guts fall out of their hornady dies? The internals are held in by a little clip and it looks like mine does not work. I can pull the internals out by hand without exerting much force. I tried the replacement clip that hornady sends and it still does the same thing. Anyone know a fix for this?

[Catshooter]

It's tough without pics parrott. Are the internal parts assembled in the correct order? I don't even know if they can be assembled incorrectly, never tried, just guessing.

Call Hornaday? I've never had that problem with mine, used 'em for years.


Cat

[largom]

Either your "slideing sleeve" is too small in diameter or the bore in your die is too large. The large Dia. of the sleeve should measure .625 and the bore of the die body should measure .628. If your measurements are not close to these then there is your problem, close being +/- .002. If your measurements are right then the retaining clip or it's hole is wrong.
Larry

[parrott1969]

just checked the sleeve it measures .625, the die body is .6275. I replaced the clip with the spare that hornady sent. Man, it is so bad that I can hold the die by the knurl, give it a quick flick and the sleeve falls out. Guys I am haveing absoultley no luck with Hornady. The powder dump on my lock and load ez-ject will not function with 9mm ( works fine with .38 special) and now my 9mm dies are junk, Damn things are brand new! When I called their tech support the guy spent about 5 minutes with me, said their phones were going nuts and that he did not know what is causeing the problem. His solution was to send me a thru powder expander saying to try it and see if it works. That's great if it cures the problem, but what if some day i want to load .380? Then I am back to square one, the powder dump will not work. I thought I was buying a really good press, however now I wish I had bought a lee load master!

[runfiverun]

those clips have a bent end that goes in a hole in the die body to stop the sleeve from falling out.

[parrott1969]

Yes I know that the clip has a bent end and it acts as a stop. The clip in on and postioned correctly. I took my hornady .223 die and started shakeing the crap out of it to see what happened, nothing fell out. I think either I have 2 bad clips ( kind of strange, is'nt it?) or something is wrong with the die body. I expected more quality out of Hornady!

[parrott1969]

Hey runfiverun, do you not find it strange that I am haveing all these problems out of hornady products? When I pay $450 for a press, I expect for it to work, powder dump and all. Also when I pay forty two dollars for dies, I also expect them to work. Until recently I had never owned a hornady product. When I decided to move from a single stage to progressive press, I thought hornady was the way to go. Now I think the load master would have been less troublesome.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive got 3 lock and load aps and they all work fine. Only problem ive had with hornady dies is the cup in the seating die that floats is kind of a fragile set up and ive cracked a few but theyve allways replaced them. Mostly its caused by not insuring the bullet is started in the case straight when it a hurry.

[Bret4207]

My Hornady dies do the same thing and mine are at least 15-18 years old. The sleeve only falls out with cast. I think the lube sucks the sleeve out or something. Clean it up real good and it helps.

[largom]

Hornady probably buys the clips from a spring company, and it's possible they got a bad batch. Also the groove in your die, where the clip goes, could have been cut with a dull tool. If you give me your mailing address I will send you a clip I know is good.
Larry

[oldhickory]

My Hornady dies do the same thing and mine are at least 15-18 years old. The sleeve only falls out with cast. I think the lube sucks the sleeve out or something. Clean it up real good and it helps.

Mine does the same thing, works fine with j bullets though. My LNL AP set up works fine as frogs hair, and the LNL measure is the best I've used. It's possible you have a defective one, but if you didn't completely de-grease it it won't work worth a darn. Also go to their website and watch their help videos, there's one on the LNL measure that explains things very well.

http://www.hornady.com/inst_video_cs.php

[parrott1969]

Thanks for the replies. I am going to replace the clip with one from another die that will be here today. IMHO it should not matter what type of bullet you are loading, the seating die should work. But should I be able to shake the guts out of it? I have a hard time believing that this is the case. As for the powder dump, It is junk! I have tried adjusting the bracket, man what a PITA. With the powder dump bottomed out on the shell plate, raise the bracket so the rotor is all the way up and lower press handle, the rotor travels only 90 degrees and it is bottomed out. At this postion it can not fill with powder. Lower the bracket so that it travels all the way down and fills with powder, raise the handle and the rotor travels up ward 90 degrees. OH, I did clean the rotor as instructed. Hornady tech support was less that helpful, the guy went over and looked at a press, said I just don't understand why it is doing that ( said this several times). Then said " Hey the phones are going nuts, so I am giong to send you a thru powder expander, maybe that will fix the problem." I was fine with that until I started thinking about it. In my way of thinking, I paid for press that was supposed to work with all calibers from "32acp to the BEEFY 45-70", What a joke!

[TAWILDCATT]

my my is that why I buy Lee.I have hornady and they work fine,30/06 and 308.

[oldhickory]

Well, all I can say is, my LNL powder measure works as it should. I agree with you on the die though, it's a chincy set-up on the seater die, little matter for me though, as I use an RCBS match seater die for 90% of my rifle reloading and only bought the Hornady set for the sizer anyhow.

[.357]

i had a set of dies that did this, i never could get it work right. I didn't have alot of money in them as i got them used so i traded them to a friend who knew about the problem and wanted spare parts. I hope you get your fixed.

[leadman]

I went to the Hornady website and there is a message that they are changing telephone providers so this might the issue with that service person.
There is also a link to contact them from the customer service tab on the left side of the screen. It is hard to get the window to stay open when you move the mouse off the customer service tab, but if you go over and down at the same time it should stay open. You can fill out the form and hopefully someone will pay attention to it.
I have quite a few Hornady dies and really like them. Hornady needs to understand their products need to work properly for us, the consumer, or we will go elsewhere for our purchases.

[parrott1969]

I found that tab yesterday and sent them an email. They responded by mid morning saying that i needed to speak with techinican and gave me a number to call. I was not able to speak with them today, my Toy Poodle became very ill late last nite and I had to take him to the vet.

[parrott1969]

Well I spoke with Hornady and got my press up and running. I had the damn powder drop sleeve in backward. I read the instructions ten different ways from sunday and it says the bushing goes in with the long taper faceing up. Hell's bell's it goes in with the long taper faceing down. I asked Bob why the other fellow did not tell me that on monday. He said that monday's are crazy and sometime they are bounceing off the walls trying to help everyone and that they occassionially get overwhelmed. As for the die, I just got a couple of bad clips, no big deal. I guess I will have to send a letter of apolligy to Hornady, because I have been haveing really bad thoughts about them! SORRY HORNADY, I AM A DUMB ASS! Thank you fellow for all of your in put.
Anthony Parrott

[StarMetal]

I've not only had the guts fall out, I've had that sliding bullet seating sleeve crack...seating cast!!! I'll tell you another thing I don't like about the Hornady dies. This concerns the pistol dies only and that is the expander plug die. On my 45 AR, ACP, and Colt die the expander plug can not be taken apart even for cleaning. Apparently Hornady presses that expander plug into a dead end die. You also can not polish the expand plug down if you're wanting a tighter bullet fit to the case.

One more thing to complain about. I have their rifle dies in 7.65x54 and the sizer die doesn't size the case necks down far enough.

I like the finish and workmanship on their dies. They just need to work some of the minor bugs out of them. This won't prevent me from buying them. I never say I won't buy from a manufacturer because I got a lemon or two because I thank God we have all the reloading equipment manufacturers that we do.

Joe

[BABore]

Have any of you rocket scientists bothered to measure the ID of the sliding sleeve when you get the die. They are designed for JACKETED BULLETS thus the ID diameter is just slightly over that. Your cast boolits are 0.001+ larger than what the die can handle and any lube also causes drag. It works on the flimsy spring wire clip end too much. The first thing I do is open the ID to 0.001 to 0.002" over my cast boolit ID and then straighten out the clip end that protrudes through the die body. Problem solved. Even for jacket only use I measure first and adjust if needed.