It's been my experience with Lapua brass, at least in .22-250 and 6.5-284 that it isn't worth the price differential. In both cartridges there was approximately a 2% out-of-the-box cull rate from split necks, folded neck/shoulder junctions, or deformed primer pockets. This reject rate is similar to Remington and Winchester brass and early lots of Hornady branded brass, but not what one would expect for the price and reputation. The unfired .22-250 brass was too hard and thick at the shoulder to consistently hydraulically form into the Ackley Improved version. A portion of these cases would take a "set" upon two or three firings with difficult chambering being the result, which could not be corrected by full length sizing. Subsequent annealing failed to correct the problem. The forming and sizing dies are chamber matched with no problems from Nosler, Privi or Winchester brass. In the case of the 6.5-284, a similar result occurred where the brass work hardened and required frequent annealing. Even reformed .284 Winchester brass performed normally, with good accuracy, and none of the problems associated with that lot of Lapua brass. I found that for premium brass Nosler's was trouble free in .204 Ruger, .223 Remington, .22-250 Remington, and 6.5-284, without a single cull or deformed case in a shipment. Indeed, Lapua brass is the only brand that I found malformed primer pockets that would not accept a pocket uniformer, where the pocket seemed to be curved jamming the reamer before it reached bottom. From this it would appear that Lapua, like every other manufacturer, has problems with quality control, or lavishes extra care in inspection on certain cartridges. For my use Winchester, Privi, Remington and Nosler are sufficient.
