John Barsness Talks Handloaders

In an article on New Brass in Handloader magazine, author John Barsness explained; “many handloaders, obsessed with accuracy discovered one of the most important factors is brass with more consistent, concentric dimensions. For example, case necks of even thickness result in bullets entering the bore straighter. Some handloaders apparently think consistent weight is more important than consistent neck thickness. It is not. Yet quite a few handloaders sort every batch of brass by weight while never measuring neck thickness.”

Barsness has stated in print what we at Peterson Cartridge have been saying right along. Consistency in dimensions, especially internal volume and neck wall thickness, is more important than consistency in weight, if your goal is to put multiple bullets in the same hole at the target.

The weight consistency of regular Peterson casings is very good. But for those that care, we have a product line we call Peterson Select, which is sorted so every case in a 50-count box is within .001 OAL and within 1 grain of the same weight. Because of the extra work in sorting we charge a bit more for it. But we tell customers if what they care about is accuracy at the target, save the money and just buy our regular product because the dimensions are extremely consistent from case to case.