Notes on the Hornady 366 auto shotshell
reloading Press:

Part I:      Introduction, mounting set-up, powder/shot bushings discussion for 
               loading legal Int'l trap and skeet shells recommended spare parts.

Part II:    General problem solutions/tool adjustments for best results.

Part III:   Some reasons and solutions for poor quality crimp results. Includes 
               a special section on 410 bore skeet reloading.

Part IV:   On changing dies to a different gauge, setting up a new die head or just
               checking to insure the 366 is in proper adjustment. 

Part V:    The 366's annual maintenance.

Part VI:   Some thoughts on the buying of a used 366. Also includes the essential tool and                      recommended spare parts lists.

Index: 

Disclaimer:

On Annual Maintenance:

Station Maintenance by the numbers

Non-station specific items:

Powder/shot bushing labeling:

Disclaimer/Safety Cautions:

This article is mainly written for those who have owned 366's for while and are interested in possibly picking up some tips, or otherwise experienced loaders looking for information on the Hornady 366 auto shotshell reloading press. Use of the information is at your own risk. These notes come from nearly 40 years working with the Pacific/Hornady 366 reloading tool; others will have had different experiences. If you are not an experienced reloader, please, please, please buy the several excellent books that are on the market and become intimately familiar with the process and the very necessary safety procedures. Reading the MSDS statements available on the various manufacturer's websites provides valuable information as well as the powder recipe booklets forewords. These booklets are available either by download or by mail at no charge to the requester. Many of those sites offer how-to-reload information as well. Always follow exactly the loading recipes supplied by the propellant manufacturers. Reloading is not a place for short-cuts and sloppy guesswork. And obviously, you cannot safely reload with best quality when you are tired, in a hurry, or otherwise not able give your full and proper attention to the job.

Two current shotgun reloading information books come immediately to mind: Lyman 5^th edition Shotgun Reloading Manual is one. Another is the Reloading for Shotgunners,fourth edition by Kurt D. Fackler and M.L. McPherson. They are available from www.amazon.com, where you buy components or any good sporting goods store, online or not. MEC and RCBS ("The RCBS Handbook of Shotshell Reloading") also offer shotshell reloading instruction manuals at a reasonable price. Better yet, in addition to the books, find someone who is a well-experienced reloader to help you get through the learning stages explaining what the books may not make clear to you and who can answer the occasional question that comes up from time to time.

On Annual Maintenance

The best time to do the maintenance is in the null period between shooting years. This insures that you will take/have the time to do a careful, unrushed inspection for wear and tear, then determine and order any needed parts from Hornady.  This leaves plenty of time to install and adjust same and will insure the 366 is in tip-top condition, ready for the new shooting year. 

If you have the ambition, and love a clean machine, you could disassemble the 366, give it a hot soap and water bath, dry it carefully and lovingly reassemble; if the paint is chipped, you could even get carried away and repaint while it's disassembled and clean. 

Station maintenance by the numbers

It would be good to have both the minimum spare parts (List) and recommended tools handy (List) before starting. If needed, more detail on station adjustments is in section IV. All parts descriptions are from the Hornady manual. Misplaced your copy? Download one here.

1A – (resizing and depriming): Remove the deprime punch guide, then pull out the deprime punch and roll it on the edge of a table. Should roll perfectly. If not, you can try to straighten it, if you have the patience. New ones aren't that expensive. The collet will keep the punch aligned in the hull, but if the rod is significantly bent, it will not knock out the primer without taking a piece of the base wad with it—requiring additional effort on your part.

Replacement of the resizing ring is probably only necessary if you reload a lot of steel-based hulls. Test first to see if you experience any improvement in chambering. If you are using steel based hulls, it may be worth tapering the entrance to decrease the number of "brass" crushings you get.



Examples of steel rims crushing when resizing. Tapering the resizing ring opening a bit can help minimize this crushing.

1 – (depriming): No maintenance needed unless you have a flaring sleeve installed. Then checking the 3/32" allen head locking screw's tightness is worth while.

No station number – (primer drop): Pop off the plastic primer stop or remove the die head from the 366 and look at the stop's finger condition. Compare to a new one if in doubt. If there is any question, replace it and put the old one in the emergency spare parts pile.



Pulling the die head gets two birds with one stone by allowing inspection of both the plastic stop and the ribs internal to the crimp starter under good light.



To the left is a new plastic stop. Note the crisp sharp outline. Right one has been in use for a while as evidenced by the slightly ragged edges. Still good though.

2 – (Priming station): Use your 1 1/4" wrench and remove the primer seating assembly. Put a small pan under it just before you remove it to catch all the junk that will likely fall out. Disassemble and take the spring and lay it on a flat surface and inspect to see if the top is parallel to the bottom. If not, and you can't adjust it, replace it. If you are using the spring loaded primer seater, check the press-nut for perfect, all-fingers condition.



Press nuts. In time, fingers break and they lose hold. Left, spring loaded primer seater with press nut. To the right is the old—with a 10-32 nut—and further right, the new—press nut—version of the crimp starter rods.

3 – (Powder drop station): Only thing to check here is that the tube is free to travel and that the tube surface is clean of any crud.

4 – (wad seating): take out the wad guide fingers and confirm they are in decent shape and the finger tips are reasonably close together. Wad guide fingers open up with use and can become erratic in entering the case mouth leading to the occasional pookie as the wad's over-powder cup catches on the case mouth. New wad guides seem to measure 5/16" or 8 mm. Replace if there is any question.



Examples of old, broken and new wad guides. The old wad guide shown now measures 13/32" or 10 mm across the top. The missing finger example actually can still be used—with a bit of luck—if time is taken to align the missing finger section with the hull's outward fold each time (but pretty much destroying production rate). The red wad guides are from Ponsness-Warren, the white from Hornady.

If you have an older machine, remove the wad pressure assembly and inspect the spring and the wad pressure pad clip (the new manual does not show and the latest 366's do not have this wad pressure indicator). Spring should be flat and parallel.

Inspect the swing out WadGuide E-clip. If it looks like it's about to break, replace it.



Arrow points to the E-clip, located under the platen casting. The slight bend is typical in service. A significant V-shape is replacement time. Note that the newer 366's do not have the wad pressure measurement feature.

On the top side of the platen casting, loosen the wad guide set screw (holds the wad guide in position on the wad guide rod), and slide the wad guide up. Now you can move up the wad guide return spring and the block (return spring retainer). Clean the swing-out wad guide rod in the area where the return spring sits and put a dab of oil after you've cleaned it. Clean the area under it on the platen casting to insure retainer sits perfectly. This will insure the return spring retainer will stay on the platen casting and won't be popping up onto the shell plate ring (with the wad ram from hitting the top side of the wad guide) as seen in the following picture.



This is also a good time to verify that the wad guide assembly has proper clearance above the hulls that you use and that the swing-out is around 30 - 40 degrees for easy insertion of the wad. Hornady recommends 1/8" (3.5 mm) above the average hull height. This can be set to 1/16" (2 mm) if the hull height consistency is very good, as with AA's, Fiocchi's and Cheddite's. The tighter gap setting seems to minimize wad catching on the hull mouth problems.

5 – (shot drop) Like the powder drop station, you only need to check that the drop tube is free to travel—especially important in 410 and 28 reloading—and that the surfaces are clean.

6 – (Crimp start station) Just need to make sure the crimp starter spins VERY freely and that the internal ribs are intact. If the crimp starter fails the free-spin test, disassemble, clean and re-assemble with a dash of powdered graphite (a q-tip with solvent gets the inside of the crimp bushing cleaned very well). You can really do a rib inspection on the crimp starter only by removing and looking carefully under good light either by removing the die head or un-threading it. If you have the newer crimpers with a press-on nut on the crimp starter rod, check to see that the nut is in perfect, all-fingers present condition. If you have the older style with a 10-32 nut, check that the nut is tight. Picture of both styles above in the station 2 section.



Yep , they DO break. Note the broken ridges to the left and right. The six-fold crimp seems to be more susceptible.

7 – (final crimp): First count the threads of both the crimp die bushing and crimp plunger. Jot the thread count down. Then loosen the lock nut for the crimp die plunger and with the 1 1/4" wrench remove the final crimp assembly and finish disassembling. Use a chamber brush—and solvent if needed—to remove the crud that often builds up. If you like to reload Federal papers, there will be a layer of wax, as well. Reassemble and re-install using the thread count info you jotted down. Don't forget to tighten both the lock nuts!



Most 12 gauge final crimp die setups show 11 threads from the top of the crimp bushing lock nut (arrow). Putting the crimp plunger flush with the top of the 3/8-16 lock nut and adjusting just the crimp bushing for crimp depth simplifies things and seems to work quite well with maybe a small tweak of the crimp plunger depth.

8 – (crimp taper/Taper-Loc station): No maintenance required here—if you use it—as the paper crimp/Taper-Loc insert is ribless and spinning is optional. Again, if you have the newer crimper with a press-on nut, check to see that the nut is in perfect, all-fingers condition. If you have the older 10-32 nut style, check that the nut is tight (see previous picture in the station 2 section).

Non-station specific items:

Platen casting top/Indexing ball:

Remove the shell plate (set the shell plate bolt nut back on so that the shoulder bolt doesn't drop out) and clean off the platen casting of any accumulated debris. Inspect the ball bearing index stop for debris to insure a positive stop of the shell plate. A positive stop each time will insure perfect positioning so that primers press right in, wads insert with out catching on the case mouth and so on. You definitely want a positive index stop with minimal tightening of the shell head bolt nut for least-effort rotation.

While out of the tool, place the shell plate on a flat surface. It has to be absolutely flat, else, for one example, the shells may go off vertical, tipping so that the wads don't go in without catching the OP cup on the case mouth leading to bloopers. More critical in the 20 - 28 gauge.

Auto-advance pawl:

If your 366 has auto-advance feature, inspect the auto advance pawl to insure that it's in proper shape. (I don't currently use the auto-advance and should not comment further.)

Measure Assembly:

Remove the measure assembly from the 366; invert so that the tubes are down. Disassemble the measure assembly and make sure the powder shot slide is absolutely flat and straight. Confirm the shot rotor slide is flat and the 1/8" (3.5 mm) rivet hasn't loosened up (Hornady sells this as an assembly). Examine the measure seals. Check that the cam bearing rolls freely. Is so, add a drop of oil and work in.

After re-assembly, the charge bar must move very freely. If it binds, re-check the powder slide (shut off plate) for alignment. May also be a too-thick measure seal. The screws holding the sub measure plate must be reasonably tight to insure the powder slide spring stays put and the shot rotor slide spring can catch the indent stops in the shot rotor slide.

After re-mounting on the 366, the measure attaching bolt must thread in easily into the die head without binding. If it does not after rechecking seating, you may need to do a bit of fitting work on the measure casting assembly or use another one. Before and after mounting, insure that the shot rotor slide spring is free to engage the shot rotor slide indents and that the indent itself is positive. If not, check first that the spring's "U" is exactly engaged around the mounting screw. Sometimes the notch in the powder slide is a bit small especially if you've installed a new one. A slight enlargement with a small round file fixes the problem, allowing the spring to engage deeper. see picture below. If the powder/shot tubes have become heavily darkened, it may be time for new ones or cleaning with soap and water so that you can easily see the shot and powder levels as you fill them. If buying new tubes, consider purchasing the better-sealing, larger capacity after-market ones.

Powder slide spring perfectly engaged into the power slide's notch.

A final check is confirming the charge bar is close to the measure casting when the handle is fully bottomed. The one in the picture below (at arrow point) stops just about 1/16" (2 mm) from the casting with with the handle fully bottomed. If it's out significantly further, check to see if the charge bar cam slot still has the same width throughout and that the drive link holes have no wear. If there is significant wear, each station may have to be re-adjusted after link replacement. The acid test is that the charge bar has to go in far enough so that the powder drops consistently. Otherwise, you risk the occasional short powder drop making for a blooper. 

Charge bar projection at handle's bottom. Tubes are from www.basicdesignmachine.

Clevis and Cam bolt:

Hornady supplies this bolt in hardened steel. It will last a lot longer than the soft steel bolts available from Home Depot and the like. The one in the picture is just about ready to be replaced. It's quick to remove and check.



The Clevis and Cam bolt is a standard 1/4 x 20 x 1". The locking nut supplied by Hornady has a tighter thread than you get from the Home Depot folks. If you load a lot of steel hulls, check the clevis link and the drive links for excessive wear.

After completing the above maintenance steps, it's also good practice to check all nuts, etc for tightness. Finally, wipe a very thin, light, coating of non-gumming oil on the lower portion of the guide posts. Put a drop or two in the (366 Auto) base casting oil holes. If you are using the wad rod spring, dab a touch of grease on it where it contacts the wad guide rod. The grease makes it a lot less handle effort on the upstroke.

Powder/shot bushings:

If you have a fair number of powder/shot bushings and ink the number on the top of the bushing with a Sharpie to make it easy to find a given bushing, this is also a good time to clean off the faded numbers and freshly re-ink the bushing numbers for quicker finding during the loading year.

End part V, 40 years with the Hornady 366.

Link to Part I: Introduction

Link to Part II: General problem solutions

Link to Part III: On poor crimps; 410 reloading

Link to Part IV:  Changing gauges

Link to Part V: Annual maintenance

Link to Part VI: On buying a used 366

Link to the home page

Thanx to Chuck Dietl for reviewing and sharing his comments to make this series better.

Appreciation is extended to Ryan Vijil for the inspiration to write this series.

As always in America in these times, use of the information above is at your own risk.

A final note of appreciation and a big thanks to Hornady for keeping the 366 reloader in production and parts easily available!