Hornady Rifle Bullet Feeder Part I: Overview

With this post, I’m excited to kick-off a new blog series covering Hornady’s Lock-N-Load Rifle Bullet Feeder. With a totally new and unique bullet feed die system and many other innovative features, this bullet feeder provides unique capabilities that I’m looking forward to showing you. We’ll cover an overview of this new system (this post), loading both 22 caliber and 30 caliber rifle ammunition, and setups on multiple progressive reloading presses. It’s going to be a lot of fun!

Hornady-RBF-with-press-1200
The new Hornady Lock-N-Load Rifle Bullet Feeder setup with the Hornady Lock-N-Load AP 5-station progressive reloading press – Image copyright 2014 Ultimate Reloader

The Lock-N-Load Rifle Bullet Feed system is available in two packages:

  1. 22 caliber system (complete)
  2. 30 caliber conversion kit

Below you see both the 22 caliber complete kit as well as the 30 caliber conversion kit (30 caliber drop tube and switch assembly not shown):

Hornady Rifle Bullet Feed System with 30 Caliber Conversion Kit - Image Copyright 2014 Ultimate Reloader
Hornady Rifle Bullet Feed System with 30 Caliber Conversion Kit – Image Copyright 2014 Ultimate Reloader

Included in the 22 caliber complete kit is: (from left in above photo)

  1. Instruction manual
  2. Support brackets
  3. Parts bags
  4. Bullet feed die
  5. Drop tube assembly
  6. Feed bowl assembly (top)
  7. Power supply and cord (bottom)

Included in the 30 caliber conversion kit is:

  1. Bullet feeder base plate (metal, with depth adjustment and drop tube adapter)
  2. 30 caliber feed plate
  3. 30 caliber bullet feed die
  4. 30 caliber drop tube assembly with shutoff microswitch (not shown)

At the heart of this new rifle bullet feed system is the all-new case-activated rifle bullet feed die with integrated pivot block shown here:

Hornady Rifle Bullet Feed Dies - image Copyright 2014 Ultimate Reloader
Hornady Rifle Bullet Feed Dies, 22 caliber (left), and 30 caliber (right) – image Copyright 2014 Ultimate Reloader

The feed bowl assembly is very similar to the Hornady pistol bullet feed system (see video here showing that system loading 45 ACP). You can adjust feed wipers and the depth of the metal base plate to ensure optimal collation of bullets into the drop tube.

Hornady-RBF-case-feed-bowl-1200
Hornady Lock-N-Load Rifle Bullet Feed case feed bowl – Image Copyright 2014 Ultimate Reloader

In the following video, I’ll walk you through the various parts that make up this system:

Now that we’ve covered the high-level overview of this new rifle bullet feed system, we’re ready to get setup for 22 caliber progressive reloading! Stay tuned for the next video and post in this series.

Thanks,
Gavin

 

8 thoughts on “Hornady Rifle Bullet Feeder Part I: Overview”

    1. I found (buried) on the Hornady website the answer to your question. Search for their FAQs and it’s listed towards the bottom. They give a detailed answer, but the bottom line is, “Kind of.” Most of the similar parts are nuts, bolts, screws, etc… things of little material consequence. The major components are different and not interchangable.

      Hope this helps.

      Ben

  1. Can you reverse mount this set-up? [on the right side vs left] The thought of having to keep taking pistol feeder up down is exhausting

  2. Do you think Hornady will ever consider selling just the case feeder (lower parts) and rifle bullet feeder dies with out the collators? I mean the biggest limiting factor is the primer magazine (tube) limited to 100 primers. If gravity feed is good enough for primers, why not good enough for cases and bullets. OK, so you have to verify each case and bullet is loaded the correct way, you have to do that for the primers as well.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For Commerical Inquiries:
Ulitmate Reloader Commercial Services



Reloading Safety

Polls