Tough Brass — Peterson .308 Win Brass Strong After 32 Firings
Here are five Peterson .308 Win casings after 32 loading/firing cycles (31 at SAAMI max). The brass remained intact, with no cracks. The circles below the shoulders are markings from pressure testing.
This story comes from the Peterson Cartridge website.
Torture Testing Peterson .308 Win Brass — 32 Load Cycles
Recently Peterson’s ballistician had some extra time in his schedule, and asked what he should work on next. He was told, “Just for the heck of it, see how many times you can fire our .308s before you experience failure.” So that’s what he set out to do.
He took five casings out of inventory and loaded them at SAAMI max pressure, which is the pressure we use for all of our longevity testing. It is a hot load, and he did the firing out of Peterson’s Universal Receiver. This way he could measure pressures and velocities each shot. He shot all five, 20 times. (It takes a long time to do that. Load five casings. Shoot five times. Back into the lab to reload, back into the indoor range to shoot, back into the lab, and so forth.)
After 20 firings with no sign of case deterioration, Peterson’s tester asked if he should keep going. “Sure, let’s see how long these can go”, was the reply. So he shot them five more times. Same result. All casings still in good shape. We told him to keep going. He shot each of them six more times. At this point each of the five casings had been fired 31 times. After several days of this the casings were still in good shape but “ballistician fatigue” was setting in. Finally he said, “Let me take these cases to an outdoor range and see how they do for accuracy.” The Peterson team agreed.
Five Shots at 100 Yards after 32 Load Cycles:
For the 32nd firing, the cases were loaded with a somewhat lighter load, and then tested for accuracy. The test rifle was a Tikka T-3 bolt action, with a 20 inch, 1:11″-twist barrel. After 32 firings the primer pockets had opened about 0.002″ (two-thousandths) but were still tight enough for further use. There were no cracks or signs of head separation. The tester put five shots in three holes at 100 yards. The group was 1.5 inches for the five shots, on a somewhat windy day.
Story Tip by EdLongrange. We welcome reader submissions.Similar Posts:
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Tags: .308 Win Brass, IMR 4064, Long-Term Brass Test, Peterson Cartridge, Primer Pockets, SAAMI, Torture Test
That’s great and all that they make tough brass, it’s very nice to see but outside of the Cheytac it’s all in chamberings that we already have tough brass for from 2 other manufactures, Lapua and RWS. Yes RWS does not directly make some of these but they all can be formed from one of their offerings.
Would really like to see someone make WSM, SAUM and 404 Jeffery type cases (ultramag 26/28/30 Nosler).
I’m not trying to knock the company but for those cases there really isn’t much reason to try them unless you can’t find the brass you normally use. I have 308 Win Palma brass that has 20-25 firings on them depending on the case and they are fine. I’ve made 260 cases from the Lapua Palma before and sure I could make creedmore ones if that illness ever struck someone near me.
I’d like to give their brass a try but myself and a lot of others that I know are set on what brands we use for the chamberings they offer, now if they made cases that other premium companies didn’t offer, then that would be a reason to give them a try and it might work out to eventually try their 308 boltface offerings but with their current line up I don’t see that happening.
According to AmmoSeek:
Peterson’s price for .308 Win is the same as Lapua.
Peterson’s price for Palma is 14% less than Lapua.
Peterson’s price for .260 Rem is 24.7% lower than Lapua.
Peterson’s price for 6.5 Creedmoor is 36.5% lower than Lapua.
Peterson’s price for .338 LM is 20.4% lower than Lapua.
Those are the only direct comparisons available – where both Lapua and Peterson produce the same cartridge case.
Peterson obviously passed Econ 1, produce for the marketplace. And they’ve shown pity for the beleaguered CT shooter – a real blessing for CT shooters where brass has been a significant problem for years. And their 375 CT pricing is almost the same as HSM “malformed”.
Peterson has been offering brass for at most two years. Lapua for multiples of that. Peterson offers 7 cases, Lapua offers 26 (rifle) cases.
IMO, Petersen is doing a FANTASTIC job of producing an excellent product at a fair price.
Sounds like the new kid on the block is making a solid product , for the lines they currently offer . Don’t think there is any question that Lapua is the accepted “Gold” standard for Match cases , but I do think it’s nice to see a new American Co. become competitive in the market. Like Pres. Trump says ; Hire American ….Buy American .
After-all ; It took Lapua decades to get their “Rep” , and it looks like Petersen is putting out a quality product , but if we American shooters don’t support them , or at least sample their wares , then we have no complaint when Lapua is the only game in town .
Lapua is subject to import restrictions.
Petersen is not. We will be in great trouble when Lapua is the only source for brass.
I’ll take some 22 Dasher brass please. I will buy American !!
Not sure if I forgot to hit submit but.
I’ve bought Peterson 260 brass and was unimpressed.
While they had some of the tightest primer pockets I’ve seen, that is meaningless if the rest of it was junk.
And the batch I had was not good, when loaded the case neck (with bullet) diameter was over SAAMI spec.
Even after turning to .295″ (for my rifle spec) which on some brass removed .008″ of brass on some sides, some of the neck remained unturned.
Also after seeing something wrong with a shoulder (what appeared to be a pinhole) I cut it in half and saw a big burr on the inside of the flash hole.
It’s unfortunate, but for the price I’ll stick with Lapua or try Alpha, but no one tests these issues it seems.
Note to the 6.5 Guys. This is how to conduct a test of how tough the brass is.
How about a real test, send it through an M1A.
Thank You for Putting a precision match Grade product out. From what I have read, your cases exceed the Lapua cases. And that’s cool with me, I was born in Harrisburg PA. And I a ready to buy theses .308 Match cases for the rest of my life if that cool with Y’all (I live in SC now) Hahaha