The shuttle should go back far enough so the hole for the primer to drop in is fully aligned with the primer tube. I also marked my plastic primer rod so I know when I'm down to 5 primers in the tube at which point I will refill the primer tube. If I only load 100 cases, I put 101 primers in the tube which also prevents any hangup on the last case to be primed.

 

I agree with you, the chip in the shuttle shouldn't prove the cause of your issue. BTW, I have one as well. We both should probably be a bit more gentle at key times lol. Anyhow . . .

Are you putting the plastic primer rod in? Since all but the last one feed, it would seem your setup needs a bit of weight to get that primer to drop in time. If the rod doesn't work, try adding a bit of weight to the rod. If that works, try to figure out where the binding occurs that requires more weight to feed the last primer than, eg, mine does. I have no problem feeding the last primer.

ETA: After looking at your photos again, I'd try adjusting the primer cam rod clamp (black plastic thing on the toolhead that supports the rod) so that the shuttle goes further back (ie, move the rod away from the press a bit further).

 

I always place a 45 cartridge on the rod for weight which works well for me.

 

Your primer slide is not lined up so its hole is centered under the primer tube. Your picture actually shows this. Just adjust the slide a bit back away from the shell plate so the hole is centered and you should be good to go.

The reason the other primers do not flip is a combination of the weight from the stacked primers and the larger diameter of the primers. In other words, if the follower had the same diameter as a large primer, that last primer probably would not flip. But even so, you need to make an adjustment with your slide.

I always put in 100 primers and every single one of them will feed 100% of the time (unless some crud has fallen in front of the slide). I do not add any additional primers until all 100 have fed and are seated (I always load in batches of 100). Also, I do not add any additional weight to the follower rod. If you need to add a weight then something needs to be adjusted.

One tip which will help primer feeding is to sand down your primer slides with 1500 or higher grit sandpaper. The LNL AP is an excellent press and can run practically flawless but to get it that way you have to dial it in. Hornady's support has always been excellent but do yourself a big favor and watch 76Highboy's videos. Link here.

 

I disassembled the primer system and found the tip of the shuttle is chipped on the bottom side (see pictures). While I don't like the looks of it, I don't think it is the cause of the tipped last primer.

That "chip" is normal, all of mine have that.

I looked at how far the shuttle goes back for alignment, and it does cross the half-way mark of the opening as suggested in other threads as being correct.

I'm not sure if this is correct. Center the slide's hole first then, move it just a smidge towards the shell plate. Watch Highboy's video linked in my previous post. There is a video specifically on positioning the slide.

Good luck, be patient, you'll get that press running smooth with a little fine tuning.

 

Correction Edit:

...Center the slide's hole first then, move it just a smidge towards the shell plate....

The comment from post #6 above is incorrect. I apologize if I mislead anyone. It been awhile since I setup my press and had it backwards. Instead of "towards" it should have read "away from."

 

First, thanks to all that took the time to provide input.

@rccr: I watched Bill Morgan's video (76Highboy) and at 9:20 video #43 he describes that the center of the shuttle's hole needs to be just aft (away from the shell plate) of the primer tube's center. I understand that this is the other direction than what you were advising.

I checked my shuttle's hole and found it to be further aft than he described. I adjusted my cam rod to match his picture, which you can see below:

I still had no joy using the fiberglass follower, with the last primer refusing to feed.

I then decided to take 3/16" welding rod, true the end and then add a chamfer to replicate the profile of a LPP. The thing works perfect! Feeds every primer first to last and locks the shuttle back after the last primer feeds!

But then I started to get a little nervous with the mass of the steel rod should the primers detonate -- I know my wife wouldn't like to see the exit hole through the oak flooring in the kitchen if it did. So I cut a 3/16" wooden dowel to length and chamfered the end.

The weight of the dowel is noticeably less than even the fiberglass follower. But it too works great, same as the welding rod.

Tomorrow I will try moving the shuttle forward to the position that you recommended, but it all else fails, I've got a solution.

I will talk with Hornady support to see what they say.

My best guess is that there are stacking tolerances in play here and I just got the short straw (pun intended). We'll see.

Thanks to all for your input.

 

First, thanks to all that took the time to provide input.

@rccr: I watched Bill Morgan's video (76Highboy) and at 9:20 video #43 he describes that the center of the shuttle's hole needs to be just aft (away from the shell plate) of the primer tube's center. I understand that this is the other direction than what you were advising.

My bad, my mistake. The last thing i want to do is put out incorrect info on the web. Some how I got my wires crossed when I was replying. Important thing is you found Highboy's video and got the correct information.

Good luck getting your press dialed in. I'm very happy with mine.

 

Sitting here thinking about it, the shuttle's hole might be slightly too large where it has the beveled edge on top, allowing the primer to tilt too soon.

I'll ask hornady about it.

 

Spoke with Hornady support and they confirmed that some people have this issue and it has to do with the fiberglass follower not being perfectly centered on the anvil of the last primer. This causes the primer to tip sideways. It also can vary with primer brand and he couldn't recommend one over the other. He also confirmed that a wider follower (e.g. 3/16" dowel) will provide the surface area to have the balance necessary to feed the primer without tipping. There is, however, no adjustment to the press that will cure this.

However, he could not recommend using the wooden dowel because there was a possibility of it splintering on detonation. Apparently they did research into this and came away with using the fibreglass rod as it doesn't have a lot of mass and stays together through detonation. The issue with tipping is just something some people see.

When I asked what he would recommend, his first reply was to load extra primers and stop before you get to the last few. His second recommendation was to build up the end of the follower with hard nail polish or tape to the required diameter.

I asked if he saw any problems with epoxying a used primer cup to the end of the fiberglass rod for the diameter, and he felt there would be no problems with that approach. I will give that a try and see if it works. I suppose the other approach would be to get 3/16" rod of suitable material (e.g. nylon) to keep mass down.

 

. . . I asked if he saw any problems with epoxying a used primer cup to the end of the fiberglass rod for the diameter, and he felt there would be no problems with that approach.. . .

Clever solution, though I'm guessing you'll have to put the modified rod in first and slide the primer tube end cap down the rod to seat it. (I'm not at home with the press to check myself.)

Thanks very much for telling us the issue is simply the width of the rod. Wonder why more folks haven't reported this issue on the forums.

 

Thanks for the update. That is interesting. If that's the case, Hornady needs to design a new follower. I like your idea of epoxying a spent primer on the follower.

 

Hmmmm. I don't load with a Hornady, but do load on two 650s. I never let the primers run completely out of the tube...that's what the primer warning buzzer is about. Good luck. I'm sure Hornady will be of help.

 

I use a wooden dowel that’s the same size as the primers. I’ve adjusted my primer shuttle to only go back about 1/16” after dropping the primer.

Never had an issue on the last primer flipping. Typically I don’t let the primers run out until the last 100.

 

Yeah, the wooden dowel I'm playing with works great and solves the feeding issue completely. I would be happy with it were it not for Hornady Support's caution about the dowel splintering. Just makes me stop and think.

 

I load in batches of 100 on my Lee turret and plan to continue to do so on the Hornady (I have my reasons). During the press break-in and learning curve, I was using only 10 primers to get the hang of things. I was expecting the rod would move down after last primer and I would see the flag on the rod at the bottom.

The problem is that the fiberglass rod doesn't move down and it appears primers are still feeding and inserted into the case, but they aren't! The upshot is that at least one case without a primer will be charged with powder, leaving a mess on the press. Then I have to disassemble the primer feed system to get the flipped primer out no matter what.

 

Had the same problem. Problem solved by cleaning inside of primer holder\tube then lubing\coating with hBN. Graphite or lock-ease should work as well.

 

I wouldn't worry about the dowel, just sand it smooth. Hornady can't suggest or recommend it for liability reasons.

 

I've got two AP presses and neither has had this problem. I empty it every time then stop and refill with a vibra prime. I have however broke a few of the plastic rod holders. Quickly replaced by hornady. I do keep a few of them around as well as a lot of other press parts. Good luck.

 

I'm tardy on my respond since I saw this thread only today. The reason Hornady uses a thin rod is so that it will drop into the primer hole in the shuttle and the shuttle will lock back when the supply tube is empty. I actually sharpened the end of the rod somewhat so insure it would always drop into the hole and not hang up on the edge of opening.

I had the same last primer problem with my LnL when I first began using it. I realized that you can wiggle the rod a little bit you can actually feel it dropping slightly into the center of the primer, where it's supposed to be.

I agree that honing the bottom of the shuttle is wise, so I did this to mine. I also lubricated the tracks on both sides of the base with graphite, although the shuttle spring is fairly strong.

I marked my rod in two places- one for large and one for small primers- to indicate when I was getting close to running out. I roll a small rubber o-ring to the mark since its easier to see than the mark itself. And I always load more primers than I'll be using.

 

If they provided rods that fit the primers then they would have to provide one for large primers and one for small. Remember you have two different sizes of primer tubes.
Also, the easy solution would still be to put in a few extra primers.

 

Under different circumstances that might be the easy solution. But I can't leave extra primers in the press unattended, which means I would have to disassemble the priming system after each use to remove them. Since I almost always load 100 rounds in a session, this becomes a PITA.

With that said, the wooden dowel works 100%. I haven't got around to modifying the fiberglass rod yet.

 

For all of you who have to leave extra primers in the feed tube, something is wrong with your priming system. I ALWAYS run my primers out at the end of each batch. The only two things I've done from out of the box are polish the primer slides with 1500 or 1600 grit sand paper, and adjust the slide open position just slightly off center away from the shell holder. I've never had a primer feed fail unless a piece of crud has fallen into the channel.

 

I never have had a problem either. But I always keep two primer flipper trays (one small pistol, one large pistol) on my bench top. I put extras in them or take any shortages out of them. I don't consider it a problem if I am long or short, but always figure out why I am not spot on.

 

My lol/ap is 12 yrs. old when I bought it everything in the primer shuttle & primer setting pin all had to be polished. Also the mouth of the shell plate had to have a little more lead put on it with a Dremel tool. It took a lot of fine tuning to get it running.

 

Hi All,
I understand this thread is old but I finally found an easy solution for “last primer not feeding / seating sideways upside down”. Though I would share a fix anyone can do in just a few minutes with electrical tape and scissors.

I have had this issue since day one with Large & Small primers. Tried every possible idea one can find on Youtube, this forum and others which never fixes this “last primer” issue.
I would think a 3/16 rode may work but I did not have one on hand at the time so had to think outside the box.

The solution is actually simple:
At the end of the Hornady primer rode, add a small piece of electrical tape to cover the tip of the rode. I used 3/4” strip, width of the electrical tape roll. The electrical tape should not be larger than the rode. A little larger will still work as long as the rode still slides freely inside the primer tube with the electrical tape.

From there use another piece of electrical tape around the rode and over the initial piece of tape to lock everything in place. The electrical tape makes it just large enough to address the “last primer not feeding properly”!!!

On a side note I added a 45ACP brass at the upper extremity of the Hornady primer rode. It adds a little bit of weight, not sure this actually helps but it cannot hurt.

I also do use Braggin Rights Precision’s Slide Alignment Tools, which have not solved the “last prime issue” but his tools are inexpensive, easy to use and allow everything on AP press to ligne-up properly in 30 seconds without having to use a flashlight and trying to look down the hole, which is not easy when dies and powder hopper are installed.
I tested with 100 primers, 20, 10, 5, 3 and only 1 many times without any hiccups.

This solution is KISS easy… Photo attached.
Enjoy !