Yep, remember that thread, it was interesting on many levels. Whatever was going on in 2018, this batch from 2021 looks better. So maybe he did them a favor and now three years later they are paying more attention to what is going out the door?
As far as my criteria for “good,” almost any brass can be turned into good quality and produce good quality results. The difference in quality is how many have to be culled and how much work and time are required to produce a fairly uniform batch of well prepped brass on what remains before good results appear on paper and critters?
Lapua brass takes a minimal amount of work due to good consistency and never had to cull even one before the first firing.
For comparison at the other end of the scale, I have worked with Winchester bag brass when it was the only option for 7 WSM and produced excellent results at 1,000, after lots of hours of work and culling about 1/3 after a few firings. That was older Winchester brass, which is better than their recent efforts.
Anyway, I needed some .300 Win Mag brass this year after giving a friend what I had left, which he needed for a hunt. Peterson was the only available brass I could find, so gave it a try. It arrived and looked nothing like Stick’s photo. So worked a box, it took minimal work, just ran it through a sizer as I do all new brass including Lapua, trimmed and chamfered on the Giraud, and hit the primer pocket with a Sinclair primer pocket uniformer which I do on all new brass including Lapua. I debur flash holes when needed, which is not needed on Lapua and was not needed on this batch. See photos below. None needed to be tossed after visual inspection. So it was prepped exactly as I do Lapua and felt just like prepping Lapua brass. Results on paper were good, 1” five shot groups at 200 yards with 165 TTSX, which was the same as my last batch of heavily prepped Winchester brass. That is good enough for my hunting needs as far as I’ll hunt that rifle and load.
fwiw - here are a couple quick phone photos from a new box I just opened right now to take some photos for you. The primer holes are clean, deburred, and uniform. So, what they are turning out in 2021 is what I am using and commenting on.
It is a sample size of one, but certainly more than good enough to cause me to keep using them, until they give me a reason not to. I have zero connection to them, just sharing info on what appears to be a viable option if a person needs brass and cannot find what they need or want. Lapua is supposed to sell a batch of .300 Win Mag brass this year, which they have not offered in many years, doubtless it will be good.
Mathman, no did not measure necks on either brand and cannot dig out the right tool to measure accurately right now to check. I quit chasing that neck turning rabbit years ago. Never found the dividend worth the time for my purposes, though I do not shoot benchrest either.