Petersons Brass: Anyone using it in an AR?

rg1911

Gunny Sergeant
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Minuteman
Oct 24, 2012
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Laramie, Wyoming
I didn't find any answered threads about the new Petersons brass. Is anyone using it in a gas gun? I have been using Lapua in my match 260 Rem AR-10, but would like to support a US company IF the brass quality is equal to Lapua.

Thank you,
Richard
 
Yeah, I bought 100 pcs of Lapua, but refuse to load it after seeing what this gun does to brass. I did get a good deal on it but I'll be working up my first loads tonight using the once fired brass Hornady I've got on hand.
 
I use Hornady 7mm-08 brass, which I run through my Hornady New Dimension 260 Remington F/L resizer. Affordable, and high enough quality to service the needs of the Semi-auto shooter. American made, and sold through Midway.

I use the 7mm-08 because the .260 has had problems with availability in the past. One pass through the .260 die with the elliptical sizer body, and it's genuine .260 brass. Because it's essentially always available, I don't have issues with needing to combine two different makes of brass into my stash.

One thing I do is to set the resizing die a couple of turns high, which leaves the aft end of the neck at 7mm. This reduces neck tension, which I have found to improve accuracy in my bolt guns, and mechanically centers the neck in the chamber, which may be a benefit when aligning the bullet to the rifling. There is no problem with getting the case to chamber, and the case seals much better; with the carbon line stopping dead at the point on the case neck where the diameter flairs to 7mm.

Only occasionally do I need to bump shoulders, which I accomplish by running the cases through a dedicated .308 F/L die with the decapping stem removed.

Greg
 
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Peterson is excellent brass. That said, I use Hornady in my SA's and trash it after 4-5 reloads. Primer pocket is usually getting pretty loose at that point and the case is looking a bit rough. BR 2's are all I use now for the SA's due to the slightly larger size. Lessens the chance of a dropped primer.
 
Well OP you might not like my answer but I do have real hands on experience.

I use Lapua brass in my GAP-10 G2 in 6.5 creedmoor. It works flawlessly. Also a loaded round measures out to .292 OD on the neck like most 6.5Creedmoor cartridges.

Well like others have said, that's getting expensive because I probably have to throw away 5-10% of the pieces due to the way they fly off my deflector. Sooo tried out Peterson SRP because it seemed like high quality at a lower price point. A loaded round came out to .003 thicker at the neck and caused problems.

I now have 95 pieces of once fired Peterson that I prob wont use again. Refuse to neck turn because I just don't have the time.

That said, I did just buy Peterson 300 NM brass..... Willing to give them another chance. Of the 250 pieces I bought, 6 are damaged and usable. I got exactly 250 in the bag so they do not give extra to compensate for potential probs. Normally I wouldn't care but at damn near $2/piece, I am going to see if they will mail me 6 more.

I'll keep ya posted.
 
I use Peterson 6.5 CM and .243 and the quality is really good. The .243 is the only brass I could find with small primer pockets. The 6.5 CM probably required a little more effort to make into match brass such as de-burring the flash holes where the Lapua is drilled the pederson appeared punched. Other then that the quality is top notch. PLUS pederson comes in its own 50 round high quality ammo carrier.
 
@Torchy a piece of adhesive backed hook and loop tape applied to the shell deflector will protect most of your brass from the worst of the abuse. Just put a bit where you see the shell marks on the upper...
 
As much as semis beat up brass I refuse to put lapua or similar in my 6.5cm semi.

I actually converted 500pcs of 1xLC 7.62 brass to 6.5cm that I run in my semi. Much tougher than Hornady.
I started with 20 pieces of 6.5 Lapua brass as guinea pigs...the brass looked like a Wookie chewing on some pork chop blubber...ya, not using Lapua brass in a 6.5 CM AR anymore...but man the ES and accuracy was awesome.
 
Update: after neck turning, no more issues. Doing OCW now as Peterson has smaller volume with respect to Hornady. I am working up from 39,5 H4350 ( my rifle usually likes 41-41,5 H4350 with light / medium weight pills in Hornady brass). I expect to end up around 40,5. Also, I expect to increase significantly the number of load cycles they can sustain before the pocket gets loose. It has been hard so far with Hornady to go beyond five or six, even with pretty mild loads I am using now with the short barrel. Staying the fact that I will soon upgrade my rig to longer barrels spun by Keystone, thus giving me the chance to throw some more powder into Peterson brass, I would be content enough if they would allow something like 8 reloads.