HORNADY LOCK-N-LOAD AUTO CHARGE

[Christel]

Crossing my fingers for you re that one.

If no positive outcome initially then end your follow up correspondence with....

"The shooting forum that I am on which consists of some 220 members and I are awaiting your response....include link."

:P

[Dangermouse]

No, idea if anyone is interested in how this is progressing but my email over the weekend has caught the attention of someone at Hornady.
Here is their reply:

Hi Dave,
I apologize for the delay in someone contacting you. This is not the level of customer service that we have here at Hornady. We stand behind our products and do our best to make things right with our customers. Once we received your inquiry we sent it onto our distributor in the United Kingdom to help us take care of this product issue. My intent was to take care of this quicker if they could replace your product for us. I was unaware that no one had contacted you yet. I will contact them today to have them take care of this as soon as possible. We would like to get your unit back to them for inspection and replace it with a new one. If you could please let me know once you have been contacted by Edgar Brothers? That way I can make sure that your issue has been resolved.
Thank you for contacting us regarding this issue.

Also, this which I need to investigate:

David,
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize that this matter has not been resolved. I spoke to one of the people that handle foreign warranty orders today and they are going to contact a distributor to get a replacement sent out. I also spoke to the engineer behind development of our Auto Charge units and he showed me that there is no rubber in the unit. The unit uses nylon gears to rotate the dispensing tube, it does not have a drive belt of any type. The reason I’m letting you know is that we are worried about the possibility that your powder may be contaminated. Please check the powder that is still in its original container to verify one way or the other. Again, I am terribly sorry that this has not been taken care of. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you!

And Sinclair's were not quiet either:

Hello Dave,
We took the liberty of contacting the Hornady Technical staff direct for you. They did ask to have you contact a Matt Mack, who is one of their Electrical Engineers, who will be able to assist you with your issues with your Auto Load. Mr. Palmer, from the Hornady Technical Dept., felt that Matt would be the best person to help you with the problems that you are encountering. We feel that by dealing with the folks at Hornady direct, that you will get a very high level of customer support. You can use Matt's e-mail of mattmack@hornady.com to contact him with your issues. Also, since we do stand 100% behind all products that we sell, and if you feel that you would rather return the unit to us, with the use of the return form that we supplied in your order for such contingencies, we will still make sure that you are 100% satisfied.

No word form Edgar Brothers yet but we have just had a B/Holiday crazy two weeks so I will give them until Monday next week to get in contact.

DM

[dromia]

That is what I would expect from Hornady, from my experience some of the big name US manufactureres are poorly served by their UK Distributors.

We just don't have the purchasing power to grab their attention, handloading supplies is not where the money is at.

I hope that you get a staisfactory outcome.

[ovenpaa]

That sounds like the start of something positive DM, hopefully they will sort something out very quickly. I know we have had a few days of Bank Holidays so hopefully Edgar Brothers suitably refreshed will contact you very shortly.

Our first ChargeMaster fell over one day with some sort of electronic fault, Christel pinged Optics Warehouse who said send it back and we will ship a new one out, she asked if they would cover postage and they said good point, we will pick it up when we drop the new one off...

[Dangermouse]

Flurry of email yesterday,

Sinclair's gave me a name at Hornady to contact but did say that they had a 100% satisfaction guarantee and if not satisfied send it back.

In the mean time Hornady had emailed the above communications so I did not contact that person.

Edgar Bros contacted me by Phone and email.

Email said send it to them, phone message said as it was bought from Sinclair's they would not be validating any warranty and to contact Sinclair's.

I contacted the person who left the message this morning and made him aware that Hornady will be re reimbursing EB for their unit, as included in a long list of internal emails which I don't think should have been sent on to me but made interesting reading.
Suffice to say Hornady are not happy and want this sorted ASAP.
I also made him aware of the other contact at EB who emailed me and asked me to send in my unit for a replacement. He agreed to accept my unit.

My unit is now on its way to EB and will be there tomorrow am. I let EB know the tracking No and I am assured that it will be dealt with as a priority.

Again we will see, I am optimistic but also a little anxious to be without this critical but of kit at this time of year,

DM

[Dangermouse]

Final instalment I hope,

New unit arrived from EB today, tested it and it appears to be OK.
It has taken a few weeks to sort out but the right words to the people at Hornady did the trick in the end,

Unfortunately as far as this product is concerned my confidence has taken a knock, hopefully after my next batch of re loading it will be up again,

DM

[Lyons]

So you don't recommend this unit? :)

[phaedra1106]

Hi DM, glad you got it sorted

How's the new dispenser working for you?

I also have the Lock n Load Auto Disperser, as said it dispenses to .1g, Only problem I've had with mine is when using N140 which is a cut/tubular powder, even on slow it tends to throw a few over charges.

However, it doesn't just have 3 speeds!, there's an additional option to slow the final trickle,

"If the unit dispenses powder too fast on SLOW setting, press and hold the MODE
button to begin trickling 0.2 grains sooner (it will show .2 on the screen). Press and hold MODE again to
increase TRICKLE time in 0.2 grain increments. Press and hold CANCEL to
reset to default settings."

So pressing and holding the MODE button 5 times will start the final trickle 1g sooner than normal, I've found this to work very well with the N140.

For other types of powders it works very consistently, it's only the cut tubular powder (N140, TR140) where it has a slight problem. Given I paid under $170 for it it's an absolute bargain

[Lyons]

Anyone know the cheapest place to pick one up? I've found one on optical warehouse for £239.

[saddler]

Anyone know the cheapest place to pick one up? I've found one on optical warehouse for £239.

I'd avoid the Hornady unit

THE one to buy that gets all the best reviews is the RCBS ChargeMaster 1500