Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns IHMSA question

I am helping a person dispose of a large lot of ammo and loading supplies. The previous owner had been on the staff of Handloader digest. In the mix was a red and white Federal brand brass with no caliber stamping on the cases. These are new unfired factory brass. The box end states "INTERNATIONAL HAND GUN" The case have the following "IHMSA" and an odd symbol. The case look like 300 Savage brass. Having never heard of this brass before, does anyone care to educate the un-educated?

They were a bunch of handgun silhouette cartridges popular in the TCs back in the 70s and 80s. They are based off 300 Sav shortened a bit. 7mm was probably the most popular, but they made them in a whole gamut from 6mm up to 35 cal.

My old man had a Contender with a 7mm IHMSA barrel back in the day when he shot mhs in Colorado.

You can still get the brass from QualCart once in a while.

Elgin Gates got Federal to make numerous cartridges bearing the IHMSA headstamp in the early 80's for several of his various inventions, so long as Federal knew they would be sold, they tooled up and made them.

I have a 375 SuperMag (a Gates invention) which either uses trimmed 375 Winchester cases or the 300 new IHMSA cases I got with the properly marked cartridge headstamp(375 SM), along with a compass indention.
Very good handgun brass, which Federal was known for at the time.

About the same time Federal also made nickle plated 222 Match brass, also because it had a demand and Federal would sell XX sticks of it....

Thanks for information. Wish more companies did such work for their customers. I always wondered about a cartridge I have in my collection. It is a loaded wildcat round of ammo with the proper headstamp of 257 Condor. Maybe Federal did those cases as well.

Norma did a run of those Condor rounds back in the day. Occasionally a box pops up at a gun show or online. They're from the 50s or 60s, from the looks of the boxes.

It's the old 7mm S&H necked down, iirc.