Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Lets talk about Herter's Inc of Waseca, MN

I still have some of their fishing lures and archery equipment. The things that I bought were actually pretty good quality and very value priced. The center back leather arrow quiver is still like new and the Farbenglass H arrows are also in great condition. I certainly miss their awesome catalogs.

More memories rushing out... I was probably 13 or 14 when I got a bow fishing reel and solid fiberglass fish arrow from Herters. For a while I was hell on carp in the bay near our house. One day I nailed a particularly big one and drug it home to show everyone. The way home was right through the lawn of the village “correspondent” to the regional paper. She saw me came running out with her camera and I ended up in the paper: “Youth Shoots Monster Carp With Bow.”

Between the two older brothers and I we had quite a bit of Herters gear. Brother had a Herters square end fiberglass canoe he affectionately named "Lennie" after George Leonard himself....decent but heavy as hell. We had a lot of their $10 stock blanks with the roll over combs, a 16 ga shotshell reloading press that was OK, a powder scale that was not OK, a powder measure that was marginal, fishing lures that I don't remember, bulk monofilament line that was junk, and probably a lot more stuff I can't remember. I wanted to get.270 J9 and .338 Win Magnum U9 barreled actions from them to make up two big game rifles back in '70....but they were not available. I ended up with a Sako Finnbear L61 .270 barreled action instead.

The brother's recurve bow was a very quick bow but the limb broke...and Bob Barrie was a heck of an archery pioneer and bowhunter. They had a photo in the archery section of the catalog of the supposed archery taken World Record Dall sheep....killed by Bob Hansen, an Alaskan that later was charged with flying women out into the bush in his Super Cub and murdering them (true story).

I still have an old Herters catalog and remember the quick 300 mile day trip visits to Waseca from our central WI farm....had to milk 'em morning and night you know.

I believe old Bob “The Butcher Baker” Hansen also admitted to shooting his archery rams with a rifle and jamming a Herters arrow in the hole for the pics.

Now we're over-lapping into the old-time muskie records discussed on another thread.

I remember going to the store in Waseca.

I have no idea where the FFL got conflated with reloading materials and their jungle cock issues... but they sold guns and details of the jc issues are a matter of public record and are available on line. They basically had no one in the family that wanted to continue the business.

I got in on some very neat deals at the Yelm, WA store closeout. I got hundreds of pounds of copper plated 7 1/2 shot in 5# cans. IIRC I paid less than $3.00 a "bag" for it. I have about 400# left, in the original cans.

Like many of y'all, I came of age in the shooting world via the Herter's catalogue. It was better than the Sear's Christmas catalogue, and when it arrived at the house schoolwork ceased and I would spend hours and days in a Model Perfect world.

I pestered the Old Man to invest some of the family treasure in a long shopping list of outdoor gear and reloading tools from Herter's but he resisted my best efforts for a couple years. Finally he relented. I suppose it was born of him trying to watch TV while I sat at the kitchen table loading .38 Specials and Krag ammo with a couple Lee Loaders - the old "Whack-a-Mole" jobbies that worked by mallet hammering.

Before long a big heavy box showed up via Railway Express and inside was all the stuff to set up our own ammo loading operation. That big old press is still going strong in the hands of one of my nephews. The dies were a joke as we discovered also that concentricity and straightness was an unknown quantity at wherever they were made. The scale was ok, as was the measure. All in all a fair value for the money and capable of making good ammo, once we re-invested in RCBS dies.

Funny, I stumbled onto that particular Herter's catalog out of which we ordered all that crap, shortly after this thread started. Tucked inside was a duplicate of the order form we filled out back in 1968. $75 worth - and you would've thought getting Pop to spring for it was worse than pulling teeth. Holding that catalog and reading that order form brought back so many memories I got a little misty-eyed. Thanks George L., wherever you are, for providing a father and son the start of a lifelong hobby.

I have a few Herters presses. Pops restored em.
Heavy duty LOL

Single ram, dual ram and even a turret IIRC.

Great thread.

Were all the catalog pages like that? Random stuff put together on pages?

No, I snapped a photo of the back cover.

Gotcha. That makes sense.

This thread sure brings back memories!

My Pop had all Herters reloading stuff, built like a tank but a lot of play in the press ram. The shotshell press was a joke but if you were desperate enough it would suffice. Dad would send 'em a letter months after each order complaining about the slow shipping. I got a U9 25/06, it still will put 3 shots in 3/4" and received another in 257R from the parents estate, along with a single action 44 mag. Unfortunately I didn't grab the old catalogs when going through Mom & Dads' stuff.

I was a Herter's fan. I bought a beautiful Herter's -9 Presentation grade in 243 that was superbly accurate. Their 220gr RN Banana Peel 30 cal bullets were my goto in a 16" barrelled 30-06 carbine I hade, killed a lot of deer with them. Their 50gr softpoint .224 bullets won me a couple of club benchrest matches and I still have a set of bullit swaging dies for my 45 Colt. As a trapper up in northern MN their down coats and wool underwear were heaven sent. I still have a couple dozen Herter's #4 coil spring trap, I think it is one of the best beaver traps I ever used, the springs are still strong after 40+ years and they were quite an improvement over #4 longsprings and jump traps. I did have one of the clearish fiberglass canoes, my X-FnL said the whole boat would glow when we would fish at night and I had a coleman lantern sitting in the bottom, I harvested a lot of fish, fur and wild rice with that canoe. I picked up a Herter's 1-4x20mm scope w/post and crosshair in their version of the Bargin Cave in Waseca again killed a lot of deer on that short barrel carbine(it got stolen down in AZ when a buddy used it to hunt there.

I was never impressed with their fishing stuff most of it felt cheap.

I missed them when they went out of business and their reincarnations under different ownerships neve quite lived up to the original.

I had a set of .357 dies that I felt should have been endorsed by the band "The Kinks".

I have a Herter's Perfect pistol powder measure that I bought recently NIB on a recommendation for a good pistol powder measure. Honest to God, it throws 296 like the scale is welded to the number. Crazy good.

My Dad would take us to the Herters store in Mitchell, S.D. before hunting season...what an experience that was. -Al

I have a Lachmiller pistol powder measure. Non adj drums, only have 2 drums. One is 22gr of 2400. Its smooooooooth

Pacific Supermag too

Got a couple Herters in pcs too.