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Hornady LocknLoad Case Prep Trio

Hornady LocknLoad Case Prep Trio

At the heart of any good reload is the cartridge case, which when you think about it, is the one reusable item, so it makes sense to pay it some attention and look after it in the reloading process. Other than sorting the cases by make and weight, which should be mandatory, correct prep of the case mouth, neck and inside surfaces of the neck/shoulder should not be overlooked. Procedures like neck chamfering inside and out, as well as cleaning the inside of the neck for smoother bullet seating are paramount to making an accurate reload.

Hornady has a rather nice tool to take the misery out of case prep and it’s called the Lock-N-Load Case Prep Trio. It is a mains-powered unit (2-pins only so a UK converter is needed) that sits on the bench on rubber feet.

The details

The unit shows a red anodised aluminium casing that is 5.5 x 3 x 3” (LxWxH). To the rear is a single on/off switch that powers the single-speed motor. It would have been nice to have a variable speed, but it’s slow enough to do the job cleanly.

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Along the sides of the motor, there are four captive stainless nuts and they can be used to screw in additional brushes and cutters etc, so you have all your kit ready to use.

At the front of the motor housing is the key event, with three evenly spaced stainless steel probes that show an 8/32 thread size to accept standard cleaning brushes or case prep tools. When the motor is switched on they all rotate at the same speed, so it’s up to you which probe you use for each case prep task.

The Trio comes with an inside and outside case neck chamfer tool that easily screws into place. The inside neck tool has six cutting flutes for clean brass removal. The outside case chamfer tool has four extended prongs and a centre spigot to centralise the case and again, it cuts very evenly without any chatter. The additional revolving probe can be fitted with whatever you want and I chose a case neck cleaning brush, which really does help remove any build-up of crud in the case mouth. When I hand prep, I usually count to three for each inside and outside tool in order to achieve a clean cut, but with this Trio, I count to two before taking a look and repeating if necessary. You can also fit special VLD cutters for a shallower angle but the overall process is designed to stop bullet deformation as the projectile is seated into the case. This Hornady tool does the job very well. It’s also very handy for truing up or cleaning primer pockets too.

Conclusions

I have to confess that this tool has not only sped up my reloading procedures but actually made better and more consistent cases to reload with. Nice!

Contact:

Edgar Brothers www.edgarbrothers.com

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