One of the silver linings in the extreme component shortage is being forced to try new things.

Two new components I tried and can recommend are Peterson brass and Starline brass.

Peterson's initial quality out of the box is at least on par with Lapua brass for consistency and I do not say that lightly.

Next, Starline has long been known for quality pistol brass. They now are making rifle brass.

Starline is lower cost than Lapua or Peterson.

The initial impression is very good quality, a bit behind Lapua or Peterson, but better than Hornady and vastly better than Winchester.

Neither have been through multiple loadings, so cannot evaluate long term durability of either.

Bottom line, Peterson and Starline provide some very good additional offerings of brass.

Both are made in the USA and it is good to support our domestic manufacturers for long term supply security.

I will gladly buy either of those brands.

They both will need some prep work prior to loading. But most brands do anyway.

Yep, I run all new brass including Lapua through a sizing die to true the necks which are banged around in shipping, and then cut the primer pocket with a Sinclair uniformer, and then chamfer. With good quality new brass, that usually is the end of my prep work for new brass on the first firing. Are you doing anything else before the first firing?

I don’t have a lot of experience with Peterson but Starline has really impressed me the last few years. I wish they would would come out with some .257 Roberts and 6.5x55

I bought a bag of Starline in 30-30. 100 as I recall. First time I had ever used it. I found 7 or 8 that were dented and a couple that were crushed.

I doubt that is typical but I won’t use it again.

I used to run through a FL die. Now I just run through a K&M neck mandrel and stop there for several brands. Some brands I need to debur the flash hole. Lapua and Nosler don't need to be deburred. As far as trimming, most brands are so short already, I'll just wait until they're fired once to worry about trimming. I've never uniformed primer pockets.

And as far as trimming, I've seen some pretty broad lengths of cases, that still made exceptional shooting ammo.

Running through the Giraud on new brass is mainly to chamfer before seating bullets, though it will catch a long one occasionally. It is so much faster and more consistent that it is pushing the quick and easy button for those tasks, easily one of the very best expenditures I ever made for loading.

Concur that trim length on brass is best assessed after firing.

Nosler, Lapua, and ADG is already chamfered, so I don't mess with it.

The cheaper stuff is not. But, I'm almost always loading a boat tail bullet, so it's still fine.

Agreed on the Giraud trimmer. Some of the best money I've spent. Only regret was not buying it sooner.

The Lapua brass I have is not chamfered.

Bought a bunch years ago, still chewing on it.

Glad to hear they are doing that now. Always wondered why they didn’t.

Never can find what I need in stock with ADG, though I’m still shooting ancient obsolete cartridges.

I have a few hundred Peterson brass, out of the box it’s nice no dinged cases nice consistency in weight and everything. Their case head is soft, I was getting an ejector mark with the lowest of low book loads. I emailed perterson and got a response that basically said yeah we are aware and don’t know why people end up with ejector marks however all of our brass is hard and meets spec. The case I was using was 6.5cm with small primer pockets.

I ordered up 100 Lapua and started loading them in a normal range of what I would shoot and the Lapua does not have any ejector marks. I weighed almost 50 cases and had the same consistency as the Peterson.

The Peterson brass is nice, it’s thicker and has less h2o capacity than even Lapua so you have to completely rework loads not just fine tune. When these 200 cases I have are shot out I’m done with Peterson and will stick with Lapua.

Star line looked nice out of the bag, had quite the weight variance for me and after 3 firings I could almost push primers in with my finger, even though the case head dimension was barely moving at a modest charge of 41.6 grains of h4350

Any brass is better than no brass, but if I have a choice I’m buying Lapua for rifles for all calibers I have that they make.. nosler is excellent as well and Norma has some excellent brass.

Adg makes some nice brass to, but I’ve never used it.

My comments are all based on real world experiences and definitely not intended to put anything done, I do believe I still have the Peterson reply in my email

TAB,

Concur, Lapua still is my first choice, when it is available. In .300 Win Mag, Lapua is not available at this time nor was anything else for that matter. Lapua said they would sell a run of .300 Win Mag this year, but so far have not seen any. Helped a friend out buying giving him what I had and tried this to plug the gap. Expectations were low, but a pleasant surprise thought worth sharing.

In .308, I have lots of .308 Lapua brass, but save it for paper punching. Starline is for hunting and higher volume shooting, much better than Winchester’s current offerings. Older Winchester brass used to be pretty good with some work, so they can produce quality when they choose to.

As for working up new loads, I have found it is best practice to do that even when using different lots of the same brand brass, powder, or primers, especially if lots are produced years apart. In Sierra, Berger, and Barnes TTSX’s, lot to lot seems consistent enough that reworking my loads has not been necessary to adjust a load if all other variables remained constant, but I probably should anyway. The lot to lot variances are one reason I tend to buy big volumes of when a component is working well, but is a whole other topic unto itself. The changes usually are fine tuning a powder charges by a few tenths, not major changes. Changes between brands of brass can vary by grains for sure.

Never herd of Peterson and most people like Starline although they have durability issues for sure as mentioned above. No one likes case head separation. Starline will give you that when you push their pistol brass.

Peterson brass definitely doesn't have the case capacity of Lapua brass in 6.5 CM. I bought a 100 pcs several years ago and loaded 50 cases. I couldn't get close to the powder charge that I run in my Lapua brass before I was getting high pressure signs, and my velocities were well below what I get with Lapua.

I also had the same results using Alpha Munitions brass in my 22 CM. I tried it because it has a 22CM head stamp, but quickly saw that it couldn't give me the same performance as the necked down 6mm CM Starline brass that I've always used for it.

I have used quite a bit of 22 Creedmoor Peterson brass and while case capacity is lower than some other brands once fired a couple times it’s very close. On 6.5 Peterson I have only used the SR primer stuff and I haven’t had any issues with soft brass as it seems to go and go. If you are bored here is video of Peterson 22 CM brass reloaded over and over 50 something times IIRC. No annealing just firing and reloading and firing.

Peterson Cartridge 22 Creedmoor Stress Test

0:56 / 2:45:17

https://youtu.be/KyrzAB0DThw

I've been losing at least 2 cases per loading session due to loose pockets in Lapua 708. They will likely be replaced with Peterson. I wish they made 65Grendel for my son's rifle.