While at the SHOT show this year, my friend Daniel and me spent a good amount of time in the Peterson Cartridge booth speaking to the owner, Rick Peterson. We were interested in what they had for a few reasons. More sources of brass is always a plus, but their cartridge selection looks like is was polled from hide members. They offer .308, .308 Palma, .260, 6.5 Creedmoor (in two neck thicknesses, coming soon),300 WM .338 lapua, and both Cheytacs. I believe they're working on 300 Norma as well, although it's not listed on the site yet. Their prices are very reasonable as well. What was most impressive about them though, was how eager they were to hear customer feedback, which is kinda strange for a brass manufacturer. If anybody is using their stuff currently, don't hesitate to forward your feedback to them. They want to compete with the best, and are willing to make production changes to get there. My friend Daniel obtained small quantities of a few different cartridges. I'll detail our experience with the 300 WM here. At this point, our testing is not finished, but posted here for the good of the community. For the record, I have no affiliation with Peterson and I'm a huge Lapua fanboy. I'll gladly pay Lapua money for my brass, but Peterson's prices are hard to ignore. The winmag brass we tested here, sells for $41 per 50 cases. That places it just above the standard domestic brass, and below Hornady/Nosler. One other cool thing they do, is they ship the brass in high quality MTM style see through cartridge boxes. These have really deep lids, so they actually fit the loaded cartridges with the heavy/ long bullets most of us here use. I hope they continue this practice!
Daniel did all the loading and shooting. The rifle is a R&D precision custom, which uses a 26" Bartlein 5R in 10 twist. I don't have specifics on the Chamber dimensions, but It's R&D's "match" reamer, and works very well with domestic 300WM. Mag length in a AICS mag puts you .006 off the lands in this chamber with a 208 ELD, and all test loads were loaded to that length. The Peterson brass functioned flawlessly through the gun throughout our tests.
The load used 208 ELD's at 3.638 OAL, Peterson brass, H1000, and 215M's. None of the components were sorted or trued in any way. Brass was simply FL sized, chamfered, and loaded.
We fired two OCW tests. The first one was fired in the desert at 535 yards. It unfortunately was inconclusive, as Daniel experienced some serious vertical dispersion issues. I believe this was due to a less than ideal shooting position. I was able to obtain before/after belt expansion numbers though, as well as the velocity data. We re-fired the exact same test just a few days ago at 205 yds, with much better results(see below). Historically, this rifle has always shot
The water capacity of the Peterson brass is approximately 2% less than that of Hornady or Winchester brass. If you plan to try this brass, I'd recommend you back your existing charge off approximately 2 grains and work up.
Water weights:
The weights below are from fired cases out of the test rifle.
Peterson 90.7 gr
Hornady 92.3 gr
Winchester 92.7 gr
I took before and after belt diameter measurements using a .0001 graduated blade mic. My mic is dead on, and I calibrate it regularly. These numbers should be viewed from a comparative standpoint though. They may not match yours, but what's important is the growth before and after of my measurements. Brass was allowed to return to ambient temps before they were measured a second time. If you aren't familiar with the method, Hodgdon details it here. http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/rel...-trick-monitoring-pressure-your-rifle-reloads. I believe their numbers are conservative. I've observed some cases grow far more than what they advise, without no ill effects. It's pretty straight forward though to correlate your results with the other signs of pressure you're seeing. I like this method as it just paints a more complete picture of pressure. Instead of re-writing these results, I'm posting them in pics below.
Daniel loaded 74.5-76.5 grain charges, in half grain increments, and reported no sticky bolt throughout the test. I saw no ejector marks during measuring. All velocities were obtained using a labradar. Daniel threw his charges from a Hornady auto charge, which I think is contributing to his extreme spreads. The node still showed itself, but future tests will have charges checked on a second scale. I'd also like to test seating depths, as I think that would further lower his spreads. One thing I can't report on yet is durability of the new brass. We've only just gone through the batch once. I'll be back to post those results when we have some.
Enjoy!
https://www.petersoncartridge.com/
http://rdprecision.net/
http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/rel...-trick-monitoring-pressure-your-rifle-reloads
Daniel did all the loading and shooting. The rifle is a R&D precision custom, which uses a 26" Bartlein 5R in 10 twist. I don't have specifics on the Chamber dimensions, but It's R&D's "match" reamer, and works very well with domestic 300WM. Mag length in a AICS mag puts you .006 off the lands in this chamber with a 208 ELD, and all test loads were loaded to that length. The Peterson brass functioned flawlessly through the gun throughout our tests.
The load used 208 ELD's at 3.638 OAL, Peterson brass, H1000, and 215M's. None of the components were sorted or trued in any way. Brass was simply FL sized, chamfered, and loaded.
We fired two OCW tests. The first one was fired in the desert at 535 yards. It unfortunately was inconclusive, as Daniel experienced some serious vertical dispersion issues. I believe this was due to a less than ideal shooting position. I was able to obtain before/after belt expansion numbers though, as well as the velocity data. We re-fired the exact same test just a few days ago at 205 yds, with much better results(see below). Historically, this rifle has always shot
The water capacity of the Peterson brass is approximately 2% less than that of Hornady or Winchester brass. If you plan to try this brass, I'd recommend you back your existing charge off approximately 2 grains and work up.
Water weights:
The weights below are from fired cases out of the test rifle.
Peterson 90.7 gr
Hornady 92.3 gr
Winchester 92.7 gr
I took before and after belt diameter measurements using a .0001 graduated blade mic. My mic is dead on, and I calibrate it regularly. These numbers should be viewed from a comparative standpoint though. They may not match yours, but what's important is the growth before and after of my measurements. Brass was allowed to return to ambient temps before they were measured a second time. If you aren't familiar with the method, Hodgdon details it here. http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/rel...-trick-monitoring-pressure-your-rifle-reloads. I believe their numbers are conservative. I've observed some cases grow far more than what they advise, without no ill effects. It's pretty straight forward though to correlate your results with the other signs of pressure you're seeing. I like this method as it just paints a more complete picture of pressure. Instead of re-writing these results, I'm posting them in pics below.
Daniel loaded 74.5-76.5 grain charges, in half grain increments, and reported no sticky bolt throughout the test. I saw no ejector marks during measuring. All velocities were obtained using a labradar. Daniel threw his charges from a Hornady auto charge, which I think is contributing to his extreme spreads. The node still showed itself, but future tests will have charges checked on a second scale. I'd also like to test seating depths, as I think that would further lower his spreads. One thing I can't report on yet is durability of the new brass. We've only just gone through the batch once. I'll be back to post those results when we have some.
Enjoy!
https://www.petersoncartridge.com/
http://rdprecision.net/
http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/rel...-trick-monitoring-pressure-your-rifle-reloads
