Void Your Warranty the Correct Way

In case anyone else out there has a Hornady Lock-N-Load ammunition press that needs taking apart, I am posting this entry.

I felt there was too much friction between the driveshaft and the rest of the press, and that this screwed up the indexing, so I decided to take the driveshaft out, polish it to make it more slippery, and put it back in. Unfortunately, this is kind of a pain, and even if you have the exploded drawings, you may get confused.

1. Lift the ram and fix it so it can’t go back down. How you do this is your problem. This is going to give you access to a couple of hex screws on the ram’s sides.

2. Take out the hex screws. Hornady says to tap the wrench with a hammer if they won’t move. Be patient and don’t bust anything. It works.

3. You have liberated the subplate from the drive hub and shaft. They’re still attached at the bottom of the press, so you need to remove the yoke. It’s held on by snap rings. Remove one of them and it will slide out. How do you remove snap rings? Simple. Go to Sears and buy one tool for each of the 952,000 types of rings, and see if one fits. Or do what everyone else does and push it with two screwdrivers until it pops off and flies into the rafters. A magnetic pickup tool may be useful when you finally locate the ring. It will land in the deepest crack in your garage, wherever that may be. If, for some reason, you want to find the least accessible area of your garage, popping off a snap ring and observing its trajectory is a good method.

4. Slide the shaft and ram and whatever down out of the press.

5. Pop the snap ring off the index wheel and remove the wheel. It will lift straight off.

6. There is a pin sticking out of the shaft where the index wheel used to be. Pull it out with pliers. Don’t mangle it.

7. The shaft is now free of the ram. Push it upward and it will come out.

8. If you need to take the drive hub off, there’s another little pin in the shaft you have to pull. You’ll see it.

There may be mistakes in this entry. If so, sorry. I’m writing from memory.

I took my shaft and mounted it in a drill and spun it in 200-grit emery paper. Having no lathe, I had no better way to polish the shaft. I stuck it back in the ram, and sure enough, it turns easier. I think the shaft is machined a little bigger than it really needs to be. You don’t need great precision in this area. It would seem to me that ease of rotation is a lot more important.

When my new drive hub arrives, I’m going to polish it, too, if there is any resistance to rotation. I squirted lithium grease down inside the ram so it would would have some chance of seeping into the shaft channel or whatever it’s called and lubricating the shaft. The grease fittings on the LNL do nothing to help the shaft spin, and there is no way to lubricate it from outside. Trust me, spraying the ends of the shaft is a complete waste of time. The shaft turns in a tight channel (help me with the jargon, nerds) maybe 1 1/2″ long and you are not going to get in there with a spray can while the press is assembled.

I took my press apart and got it back together. I am the King. All hail me.