ABL growing pains
Posted: 05 Jun 2021 15:26
I've just concluded my second week with my new ABL. I will say it has been mostly successful but the learning curve has been steep. I've loaded on the LCT for several years and gained confidence. The ABL is my first progressive and brings new issues to the table.
The press cycles fine and except for 45 acp the case feeder functions well. I have the American Accurate collator and it has performed great with 223, 45 acp, and 9mm. The issue with 45 acp is that the pusher is to short for the standing case and the large diameter mouth hangs on the base of the case above it. This results in the base moving forward and the top of the case staying still. The case will fall parallel to the feed ramp. I think a taller pusher will fix this issue and I have one coming from ABLPkits.com.
My biggest woes have been chasing a consistent COAL. For the most part I bring cleaned, sized, and primed brass to the press. I am running the powder thru expander die and autodisk on station 1, nothing on 2, seating on 3, and FCD on 4. The only die that has a hard stop on the shell plate is the FCD. It seems that setting it first then adjusting the other two would be simple. However, I liken this to "chasing my tail". Any adjustment to anything on the press seems to affect something else. I did finally put another die (44 mag sizing w/o deprimer) on station 2. I set it to be snug with the shell plate and equal to the FCD that is opposite it on 4. This seemed to help some and mostly stopped the big swings in COAL when the press runs the final two cases. I ran several 10 round tests with and w/o the die in station 2 and with different brands of brass and in conclusion I am running about .004 variation with most rounds safely in the .003 range. I am very pleased with this. I dug out some loaded rounds that were made on the LCT lately and randomly checked them. They also ranged about .004 in COAL. This made me feel much better about the ABL.
In conclusion I am very happy with this press. I'm still not sure how to "step by step" set it up for a new caliber, but I have kept on tinkering with it until it finally comes into acceptable tolerances. Familiarity is your friend and I'm sure that the more time spent with it will prove to make some of these problems disappear. Thanks for a great forum and a database of beneficial information.
The press cycles fine and except for 45 acp the case feeder functions well. I have the American Accurate collator and it has performed great with 223, 45 acp, and 9mm. The issue with 45 acp is that the pusher is to short for the standing case and the large diameter mouth hangs on the base of the case above it. This results in the base moving forward and the top of the case staying still. The case will fall parallel to the feed ramp. I think a taller pusher will fix this issue and I have one coming from ABLPkits.com.
My biggest woes have been chasing a consistent COAL. For the most part I bring cleaned, sized, and primed brass to the press. I am running the powder thru expander die and autodisk on station 1, nothing on 2, seating on 3, and FCD on 4. The only die that has a hard stop on the shell plate is the FCD. It seems that setting it first then adjusting the other two would be simple. However, I liken this to "chasing my tail". Any adjustment to anything on the press seems to affect something else. I did finally put another die (44 mag sizing w/o deprimer) on station 2. I set it to be snug with the shell plate and equal to the FCD that is opposite it on 4. This seemed to help some and mostly stopped the big swings in COAL when the press runs the final two cases. I ran several 10 round tests with and w/o the die in station 2 and with different brands of brass and in conclusion I am running about .004 variation with most rounds safely in the .003 range. I am very pleased with this. I dug out some loaded rounds that were made on the LCT lately and randomly checked them. They also ranged about .004 in COAL. This made me feel much better about the ABL.
In conclusion I am very happy with this press. I'm still not sure how to "step by step" set it up for a new caliber, but I have kept on tinkering with it until it finally comes into acceptable tolerances. Familiarity is your friend and I'm sure that the more time spent with it will prove to make some of these problems disappear. Thanks for a great forum and a database of beneficial information.