Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Herter's Bullets Info Needed

DS,

Thanks for this good topic; it brings back some wonderful memories! The best of these is the good mule deer I killed in 1957 south of Chinook, Montana, at the ripe old age of 17! Probably the best buck I have ever taken. It was killed with the following load used in short-barreled (18") .308 Win. that my father built for me on a Mod. '93 military Mauser:

150 grain Herter's bullet (BEST IN THE WORLD, of course!)
44 grains IMR3031 (pushing the top with that action!)
Arsenal case (reformed 30'06)
Not sure of primer - the above case could very well have
have started out unfired and the
original arsenal primer used.

The stock for this rifle started out as a Herter's semi-finished blank. My father used a lot of Herter's products in those days even though he was quick to belittle their "best in the world" status. I well remember his grousing about Herter's "best in the world" glue that was supposed to glue anything to anything. He claimed he had never found any two things it would glue together for any length of time! However, if you pinned him down, he would admit Herter's had some really good products -- he thought their stock blanks were as good as any and, when price was considered, the best of all -- but you had to be careful what you bought.

Thanks again for a good post,
M. Bell

My first shot-shell reloader was from Herter`s, not the best investment I`ve ever made, but like some of the folks have already said,one could purchase most anything there. Fact, my Dad bought his first sno-mobile from them...it was made in Canada, and was quite happy with it.
I still have a few stocks we fit to various rifles in the basement..replace in turn by Bishop.
There stuff was reasonable for the time, and most of good quility. And right on bout the fish hooks!!

You have stirred a lot of memories. I still have a Herters Super Model 3 reloading press on my bench. Also have dozen sets or so of Herter reloading Dies. Those were the days. riceone

I once saw a box of .30 caliber Herter's " Banana Peel" bullets that said they were made in Sweden. About 45 years ago in a "Gun Digest" I think, an article was published in Herter's "Wasp Waist Sonic Bullet"that wasn't too favorable.
John

The actual name of the waisted bullet was Wasp Waist Sonic Missle Tail and it came in 270 and 30 cal.

Doesn't that sound like George Leonard Herter?

Ted

I too loved reading the Herter catalog, in spite of the "puffery" I still have a gunstock of Circasion walnut I got close to 40 years ago. Their gunstock wood was in fact better than many for the price. I always loved the "Model Perfect" moniker on most everything,, hell,, I wish they sold Model Perfect wives.

That, and "Guide Model" was another one.

Ted

The only Herter's catalogue I have left is the 1970 edition. I can photograph a page or two if you have one of those nostalgic old memories you want refreshed. Let me know.

Wayne

The cover illustration for "Cartridges of The World", Second Edition shows a belted cartridge with a really odd two-step shoulder. It is the .270 Herter with "double venturi case". Oddly, I have never seen it mentioned in any of the catalogs that I have examined. Typical of GLH, re. the shoulder: if one venturi is good, then two are better!

When I was a kid, I remember the Herter Wasp Waist Bullet.
I think that is to what Bandukwallah is referring.

peepsight
When Herter's closed its doors I happened in on the Yelm store during the shelf-clearing. I bought thousands of hooks for next to nothing and am only now seeing the end of most of them.

They also had copper-plated 7 1/2 shot in 5# cans for dirt cheap. And lots of other shot sizes. My little Datsun P/U had navigational issues going back over the mountain, front tires barely scraping pavement!
art

Art, thanks for reminding me of that closeout. For me, it was hooks, sinkers, spinner blades a couple sets of dies and the rest I forget. One of my dad's friends bought several of their Herter's branded BSA and Mauser barrelled actions and spent the last ten years of his life making some gorgeous stocks for them. I was jealous since I simply didn't have the coin to get even one of the actions then. Ward

Nope, not the bullet; I am referring to the cartridge case. It looks like a .270 Weatherby with a short shoulder, then another shoulder. Most odd, indeed!

Here's a pretty poor scan of a bit of the cover of COTW 2nd edition. It shows the cartridge to which Bandukwallah is referring.

It's just one shoulder-step away from the Triple-Neck Terror written up in an early Handloader by Douglas M. Graves (Dean Grennell, with his tongue firmly in cheek).

Bandukwallah, thanks for dredging up this magnificent obscurity!

--Bob

The first rifle I put together for my wife was a 7 x 57 stocked with a sort of middle grade Herter's stock back in 1970. People have been raving about that stock for the last 38 years, and as I recall, the semi-inletted blank was $34.

Wayne

Thanks,
I should have done that the first time. I can easily imagine the catalog copy - might go something like this:

The "double venturi" shoulder was designed by the famous Belgian firearms designer Jacques Herder and surpasses all other designs because it has the highest velocity and no dangerous pressure spikes which can blow a gun sky high and hoist a gunner with his own petard so to speak all the while using less powder than other obsolete designs such as the dangerous single venturi shoulder which are used by other so-called experts which are not really experts at all but would-be ballisticians with no real expertise.

Herters had some nice stocks.
They came with enough thickness and comb that you could reshape them into almost any style you wanted.

I once loaded some Herters bullets in a 7mm Rem. Mag. for a friend. And yes, before I go on, the box said 7mm on it.
Anyway, upon firing the loaded rounds, we had to use a nearby board to drive the bolt open. We did that twice, if you can believe that. Pretty stupid. Anyway, I went home and miked the bullets and got .294. Since then I was always careful of Herter's stuff. I also had some Herters 338 Win Mag. brass that wouldn't fit in a RCBS shell holder and finally found a shell holder that would fit after a personal visit to Herters in Mitchell S.D. along with the cases so I could find a Herters shell holder that would work.

When I was a kid in Texas, I would read the Herter's catalogues and dream about hunting in the Rockies, Canada and Alaska. I always pictured Herter's in Waseca, MN, in a coniferous forest on the shore of a lake with loons swimming and calling.

Fast forward to the 1970s. When I was on the faculty at Kansas State, a colleague of mine had a permit to collect channel catfish from the St.Louis River in far northern Minnesota. I went along to help. On the way, we swung by Waseca to stop at Herter's. It was a large metal barn-like building surrounded by corn fields! Talk about a let down...

I did get to go through their stock blanks and picked up a couple of reasonably figured walnut blanks for not much money.