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

I think the 401's were made for Herter's by Sauer and Son. I thought I read somewhere they offered those guns in other chamberings. Does anyone know what all they were available in???

Summer vacation was a trip from the Mississippi coast to Valley Head Alabama to visit PaPaw and Nana. Lookout Mountain stood silent sentinel over their farm. Big Wills Creek carved its way through the fecund soils that fed their pasture and their vegetable garden. I can still hear the sound of the spring that kept their basement door closed, and that special basement smell was always a warm welcome back from a day afield with our BB guns and cane poles.

In the basement in a rough hewn gun rack resided a JC Higgins 22 semi-automatic, and two custom rifles built on Remington 722 actions. One was a 244 Remington with a mid-weight blued Douglas Premium barrel. The other was a 22-250 with a stainless Douglas Premium heavy barrel. It began life as a wildcat. PaPaw showed me how he necked down 250-3000 brass to make the hot rod 22-250. He could hit a groundhog from 400 yards away with the Weaver 6 power scope showing the way.

Below the gun rack was another rack with a few small cubbies. Those cubbies held Herter's bullets in several weights and calibers. Some of those bullets were Herter's Wasp Waist bullets. I opened the box and stared at them in wonderment several times each summer. On the bench beneath the bullets were assorted tins of IMR powder. On the edge of the bench was mounted a beast of a Herter's cast iron press.

Off to the right was a stack of Herter's catalogs. Those too were plied several times each summer. The few color printed pages offered laminated Herter's stocks in a gorgeous blond and dark walnut two tone color. I was fascinated with them. One day, I too would order things from the Herter's catalog, I dreamed.

Things were a little cheaper back then.

Press, powder measure, scale, dies, other items for a little under $60 shipped.

Herter's bullet box I have. Just an empty box.

I was given my first gun in 1960.....a Marlin 39-A and the following year I bought a Remington 760 in .270. For a kid of 15 the .270 was expensive to feed so I learned about Herter's and was taught a lot about reloading. Waseca was about 50 miles west of our farm and we had a neighbor that had a Cessna and he would give me a ride to Waseca when he was going himself. The airport in those days was just across the road from Herter's.....how convenient.

As it happened my association with Herter's continued until the early '70s as I worked for a machine shop that made many of Herter's products later in life.....OOOOO....what an education that was!!!! The "good old days" wasn't as good as we remember.....but let's hear your story about Herter's of Waseca!

I'm smiling and all ears on this one.

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.

Somebody gave me these awhile back. I don't even own a .222. If the right one comes along, these are my excuse to buy it.

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