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

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.

I really enjoyed reading their catalogs. Bought some reloading gear from them. I asked once if their 458 Win Mag rifles were readily available--they said "No". So much for buying one from them
I've missed that business.

They actually offered a Teddy Bear and, of course, it too was the Worlds Finest!

I loved their catalogs and remember their 401 Power MAG

Was it a "model perfect"?...LOL

This reminds me of the time they was selling large bear traps "found" in the northern climes....I laughed as the company I worked for was busy as hell making them and hanging them outside in the rain to get rusty. We even sprayed a bit of acid on them to hasten their rusty appearance.....

Yes.....I remember that too.....It was rumored that they got in a peck of trouble selling a .44 magnum revolver with a .357 magnum barrel on it.....I wondered how it got "test fired"!

My father was a high school teacher in Sidney, NE in the 1970s and I used to deliver the Sidney Telegraph to Dick and Mary Cabela's store before they became big. They used to give me my choice of fishing pole or pocket knife for Christmas. It was when they only had 1 shop.

and how is this related to Herter's?

Back to George Leonard
[u][How to Live with a Bitch/u]

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.

I mail-ordered a lot of stuff from Herter's during the 1970s--and still have a 1974 catalog just to read.

One of my hunting/fishing mentors, Norm Strung, turned me on to Herter'., His take was that about half of Herter's stuff was priced about right for the quality, a quarter was a really good deal, and a quarter sucked. But it was worth the gamble.

My first press and loading dies were Herter's. The press was simple C, and I wore it out after a few years, and couldn't get parts by then so bought an RCBS. The dies totally sucked, and I demanded a refund. They refunded me the $6.87 (or whatever weird Herter;s price they cost).

Was far more pleased with their fishing stuff. Most of my early fly rods were Herter's kits, and still have a Herter's fly-tying vise and some feathers from back then.

In 19'70 I ended up in southeastern South Dakota for a couple years, when Herter's moved their retail store to Mitchell. It was about 80 miles from where I lived, and I bought quite a bit of stuff I still use, including a backpacking tent.

This thread got me reminiscing about Herter's catalogs. I just ordered one off ebay.

Paul,

The catalogs from that era are a hoot!

Evidently George Herter was also a hoot. He invited Norm Strung to visit him sometime in the 70s, when Norm was in Minnesota anyway for some other reason. The big thing Norm remembers is a lineup of old washing machines on George's porch--which was on of those old Midwestern farmhouses with the big screened porch for summer sleeping. Norm said there were around 6-8 worn-out washing machines you had to worm your way through to get to the front door.

I can't wait to get it in. The Herter's catalogs were inextricably a part of my fascination with PaPaw's place. He also always had a copy of Shotgun News and some Tractor magazine that I can't recall. I am sure the reason I reload and have a tractor today is those pubs. If I could remember the name of that Tractor pub and find one, I'd buy it.

A note about Herter's dies.....up until 1970 they was made by a company in western Minnesota but then the boss man discovered some evidence of corruption between the Herter's buyer and the company in western MN.....so the die mfg was sent to the company I worked for.....there were no drawings with tolerances or any other specs.....and I was the only reloader in the Minneapolis company that made the dies until at least 1973.....so I drew blue prints of dies as the orders cam through and I must say the dies at that time were pretty good.....

Designing wasn't the case.....it was a matter of reverse engineering.....we never had drawings of anything we made for Herter's.

One day as I was making blue prints for all the parts to make Texan shotshell reloading equipment I was asked to stop as Herter's was in deep doo doo with the company we know as MEC.....apparently Herter's was selling an identical machine as the MEC.....patents and all!!!!!

Their move to Mitchell SD was an attempt to escape Minnesota taxes but it didn't help much as they continued to get hammered with the fruits of their own business practices.

Anyone remember the jungle cock feathers used for fly tying?

I came late to their stuff but got to read some of their catalogs.

In my shop i have a few of their die sets as well as an in-line bullet seater.

Made a few more of the caliber specific inserts for it and it does a dandy job of getting them straight.

Nobody can top that Herter's story!

You know what, that is just too funny. John running down Herter's dies then Herter's die maker rings in. Talk about small world. That's part of the reason I love these forums.

Hell.....you haven't heard the half of it yet!!!

As I recall at that time one needed an FFL license to sell reloading items such as powder, bullets, primers etc.....
Herter's was charged with importing feathers from an endangered species.....the jungle cock from India. It cost them their FFL and they then lost the sales of reloading items.

As it turned out this loss of business was the straw that broke their back.....they might have survived had it not been for a long line of blatant lies about the products they sold and other grievous errors they committed.

vapodog,

Oh, yeah, I remember the jungle cock feathers!

Am not surprised by the "reverse engineering."

At one point I heard Herter's loading dies were "RCBS seconds." I doubt that. Got some suck RCBS dies in the late 1970s, but they were still better than the Herter's dies.